Technological disruptions in the energy sector
Authors
Ko, Yu-li
ORCID
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Other Contributors
Simons, Kenneth L.
Kantor, Shawn Everett
Sanderson, Susan Walsh
Yatsynovich, Yury
Kantor, Shawn Everett
Sanderson, Susan Walsh
Yatsynovich, Yury
Issue Date
2016-05
Keywords
Ecological economics
Degree
PhD
Terms of Use
This electronic version is a licensed copy owned by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. Copyright of original work retained by author.
Full Citation
Abstract
Today’s climate change problems urgently call for technological disruptions in the energy sector. Three important issues in the energy sector are empirically studied in this thesis: innovators’ long-term incentives, the cross-border impact of demand-pull policies, and the energy paradox. The first paper describes the whole 60-year history of the photovoltaic industry to probe innovators’ long-term incentive problems for technological disruption. Since technological change and climate change are both long-term phenomena, it is important to understand innovators’ long-term incentives to achieve a technological disruption that helps mitigate climate change. The second paper is a detailed firm-level econometric study of a national industry reacting to foreign countries’ demand-pull policies. A quasi-experimental method is applied to a unique and confidential panel dataset, acquired from a Korean government research institute. The theme of the second paper is continuous from the first paper, but narrower geographically and temporally, and more detailed and quantitative. The third paper focuses on a classical topic of energy economics: the “energy paradox.” To investigate imperfect information on the consumer side, 103,003 web-scraped consumer review comments were analyzed. The three papers improve understanding of obstacles that deter fast transition to emerging technologies, and of how policy support can effectively aid technological disruptions.
Description
May 2016
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Department
Ecological Economics, Values, and Policy Program
Publisher
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Relationships
Rensselaer Theses and Dissertations Online Collection
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