Lucas W. Davis

About

Lucas W. Davis is the Jeffrey A. Jacobs Distinguished Professor at Berkeley Haas. His research focuses on energy and environmental markets, with particular emphasis on electricity and natural gas regulation, pricing in both competitive and non-competitive markets, and the economic and business impacts of environmental policy. He serves as co-editor of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy and is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to joining UC Berkeley in 2009, he was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. His expertise and research interests include energy and environmental economics, applied microeconomics, and public finance.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Economics
• Geography
• Engineering
• Operations research
• Economic growth
• Econometrics
• Electrical engineering
• Business
• Environmental health

Selected publications

• Air conditioning and global inequality

  Global Environmental Change · 2021 · 159 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  As global temperatures go up and incomes rise, air conditioner sales are poised to increase dramatically. Recent studies explore the potential economic and environmental impacts of this growth, but relatively little attention has been paid to the implications for inequality. In this paper we use household-level microdata from 16 countries to characterize empirically the relationship between climate, income, and residential air conditioning. We show that both current and future air conditioner us…

  DOI

• Do Energy Efficiency Investments Deliver at the Right Time?

  American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 2020 · 46 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Most analyses of energy efficiency investments ignore that the value of electricity varies widely across hours. We show how much timing matters. Using novel hourly consumption data from an air conditioner rebate program in California, we find that energy savings are concentrated in high-value hours. This significantly increases the value of these investments, especially after we account for the large capacity payments that electricity generators receive to guarantee supply in peak hours. We then…

  DOI

• Transmission Impossible? Prospects for Decarbonizing the US Grid

  The Journal of Economic Perspectives · 2023-11-01 · 38 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Encouraged by the declining cost of grid-scale renewables, recent analyses conclude that the United States could reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 at relatively low cost using currently available technologies. While the cost of renewable generation has declined dramatically, integrating these renewables would require a large expansion in transmission to deliver that power. Already there is growing evidence that the United States has insufficient transmission capacity, and current l…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An empirical test of hypercongestion in highway bottlenecks

  Journal of Public Economics · 2020 · 23 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Transmission Impossible? Prospects for Decarbonizing the US Grid

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2023-06-01 · 19 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Encouraged by the declining cost of grid-scale renewables, recent analyses conclude that the United States could reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 at relatively low cost using currently available technologies. While the cost of renewable generation has declined dramatically, integrating these renewables would require a large expansion in transmission to deliver that power. Already there is growing evidence that the United States has insufficient transmission capacity, and current l…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Judson Boomhower

  45 shared

• Catherine Hausman

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  31 shared

• Lutz Kilian

  25 shared

• Paul Gertler

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  16 shared

• Stephen W. Salant

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  14 shared

• Janet Currie

  Princeton University

  14 shared

• Michael Anderson

  University of California, Berkeley

  14 shared

• James H. Stock

  Harvard University

  13 shared

Education

• PhD, Economics

  Univ of Wisconsin

  2005

Awards & honors

• Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, Full-Time MBA Progra…
• Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, Executive MBA Progra…

Similar researchers at University of California, Berkeley

• Severin Borensteinh-62
• Matthew Backush-14
• Ned Augenblickh-13