Severin Borenstein

About

Severin Borenstein is the E.T. Grether Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy at the Haas School of Business and serves as the faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas. He is also Director emeritus of the University of California Energy Institute, a position he held from 1994 to 2014. Borenstein received his AB from UC Berkeley and his PhD in Economics from MIT. His research focuses on business competition, strategy, and regulation, with extensive publications on the airline industry, oil and gasoline industries, and electricity markets. His current research projects include the economics of renewable energy, economic policies for reducing greenhouse gases, and alternative models of retail electricity pricing. Borenstein has served on numerous advisory committees related to energy and transportation policy, including the California Energy Commission’s Petroleum Market Advisory Committee and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Future of Aviation Advisory Committee. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and has held academic positions at UC Davis and the University of Michigan.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Economics
• Computer Science
• Natural resource economics
• Engineering
• Business
• Econometrics
• Environmental economics
• Electrical engineering
• Waste management

Selected publications

• Expecting the Unexpected: Emissions Uncertainty and Environmental Market Design

  American Economic Review · 2019-10-29 · 193 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We study potential equilibria in California’s cap-and-trade market for greenhouse gases (GHGs) based on information available before the market started. We find large ex ante uncertainty in business-as-usual emissions and in the abatement that might result from non-market policies, much larger than the reduction that could plausibly occur in response to an allowance price within a politically acceptable range. This implies that the market price is very likely to be determined by an administrativ…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Do Two Electricity Pricing Wrongs Make a Right? Cost Recovery, Externalities, and Efficiency

  American Economic Journal Economic Policy · 2022 · 87 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Economists favor pricing pollution in part so that consumers face the full social marginal cost (SMC) of goods and services. But even absent externalities, retail electricity prices typically exceed private marginal cost, due to a utility’s need to cover average costs. Furthermore, the SMC of electricity can fluctuate widely hour-to-hour, while retail prices do not. We show that residential electricity rates exceed average SMC in most of the US, but there is large geographic and temporal variati…

  PublisherDOI

• Headwinds and Tailwinds: Implications of Inefficient Retail Energy Pricing for Energy Substitution

  Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy · 2022-01-01 · 26 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Electrification of transportation and buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions requires massive switching from natural gas and refined petroleum products. All three end-use energy sources are mispriced due in part to the unpriced pollution they emit. Natural gas and electricity utilities also face the classic natural monopoly challenge of recovering fixed costs while maintaining efficient pricing. We study the magnitude of these distortions for electricity, natural gas, and gasoline purchase…

  PublisherDOI

• It’s time for rooftop solar to compete with other renewables

  Nature Energy · 2022 · 21 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Carbon Pricing, Clean Electricity Standards, and Clean Electricity Subsidies on the Path to Zero Emissions

  Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy · 2023-01-01 · 19 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We categorize the primary incentive-based mechanisms under consideration for addressing greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation—pricing carbon, setting intensity standards, and subsidizing clean electricity—and compare their market outcomes under similar expansions of clean electricity generation. Although pricing emissions gives strong incentives to first eliminate generation with the highest social cost, a clean electricity standard incentivizes earliest phaseout of the generation…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• James Bushnell

  49 shared

• Ryan Kellogg

  20 shared

• Nancy L. Rose

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  19 shared

• Frank A. Wolak

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  15 shared

• Janet S. Netz

  11 shared

• Stephen P. Holland

  Yale University

  10 shared

• Meghan R. Busse

  9 shared

• Jeffrey K. MacKie–Mason

  8 shared

Education

• B.A.

  UC Berkeley

• Ph.D.

  University of California, Berkeley

Awards & honors

• International Association for Energy Economics, Outstanding…
• Distinguished Fellow of the Industrial Organization Society…
• Distinguished Faculty Mentoring Award (for graduate student…
• Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, Full-Time MB…
• Michigan Economic Society Undergraduate Teaching Award (1997…

Similar researchers at University of California, Berkeley

• Lucas W. Davish-42
• Matthew Backush-14
• Ned Augenblickh-13