Policy reports
See all my publications as of May 2021 on the CER website.
Selected publications as lead author
Selected publications as contributor
Selected publications as lead author
- Europe needs both fiscal and energy solidarity, with John Springford, CER policy brief, March 2023
- The EU’s energy plan for a difficult winter: what are the options?, CER insight, September 2022
- The EU emissions trading system after the energy price spike, CER policy brief, May 2022
- The ‘Fit for 55’ climate proposals explained, CER insight, July 2021
- The potential of behavioural interventions for optimising energy use at home, IEA, April 2021
- OECD (2021), Preventing single-use plastic waste. Implications of different policy approaches.
- IEA and Users TCP (2020), Behavioural insights and demand-side energy policy: an environment scan
- Watch my presentation of the report’s key insights: October 2020 webinar of the Users TCP Academy.
- IEA (2020), Promoting vehicle efficiency and electrification through stimulus packages
- OECD (2017), Tackling environmental problems with the help of behavioural insights.
- Watch my presentation of the report here: OECD Environment Green Talk
Selected publications as contributor
- Why the EU's Recovery Fund should be permanent, with John Springford, CER policy brief, November 2021
- OECD (2021), Policies to Reduce Microplastics Pollution in Water. Focus on Textiles and Tyres.
- IEA (2020), Sustainable Recovery - World Energy Outlook Special Report.
- IEA (2020), Energy efficiency and economic stimulus. IEA strategic considerations for policy makers.
- OECD (2019), Using digital technologies to improve the design and enforcement of public policies. OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 274.
- OECD (2016), Policy Guidance on Resource Efficiency.
Refereed publications
The impact of urban road pricing on the use of bike sharing
Joint with Alexandros Dimitropoulos and Walid Oueslati, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol. 120, 2023
We empirically analyse the effect of road pricing on the use of bike sharing. We exploit two sudden policy changes in Milan’s congestion pricing scheme resulting in a shift from priced to unpriced road use: a temporary suspension of the scheme in 2012, and a durable reduction in its application schedule. We find that the sudden removal of road pricing decreases bike-sharing use by about 5%. The policy impact mainly occurs through the increase of road traffic congestion, which makes cycling less safe and pleasant. The reduction in the schedule leads to an 8% decline in bike-sharing use in the affected time window. Our findings indicate that policies inducing drivers to internalise the external costs of car use also promote the uptake of non-polluting transport modes. This widens the spectrum of benefits that need to be considered in the design and implementation of road pricing policies.
Previous version published as OECD Environment Working Papers, No. 143, February 2019, OECD Publishing, Paris.
Joint with Alexandros Dimitropoulos and Walid Oueslati, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol. 120, 2023
We empirically analyse the effect of road pricing on the use of bike sharing. We exploit two sudden policy changes in Milan’s congestion pricing scheme resulting in a shift from priced to unpriced road use: a temporary suspension of the scheme in 2012, and a durable reduction in its application schedule. We find that the sudden removal of road pricing decreases bike-sharing use by about 5%. The policy impact mainly occurs through the increase of road traffic congestion, which makes cycling less safe and pleasant. The reduction in the schedule leads to an 8% decline in bike-sharing use in the affected time window. Our findings indicate that policies inducing drivers to internalise the external costs of car use also promote the uptake of non-polluting transport modes. This widens the spectrum of benefits that need to be considered in the design and implementation of road pricing policies.
Previous version published as OECD Environment Working Papers, No. 143, February 2019, OECD Publishing, Paris.
Incentives to (not) Disclose Energy Performance Information in the Housing Market, Joint with Luisa Dressler, Resource and Energy Economics, Vol. 61, August 2020.
Disclosure of energy performance certificates (EPCs) is often incomplete, which hampers their effectiveness in relieving information asymmetries between landlords and tenants in the housing market. Even when a certificate is available, landlords do not always disclose it. This contradicts the unraveling result, according to which all landlords should disclose quality information unless it is costly to do so. We leverage a cross-sectional dataset of residential rental advertisements from the Belgian region of Brussels to empirically evaluate incentives to disclose an EPC. We find that two fundamental assumptions for the unraveling result are not confirmed in our setting: tenants do not necessarily value energy performance of rental property and do not appear to rationally adjust their expectations when faced with dwellings that withhold their EPC. The paper formulates specific policy advice for reforming EPC mechanisms to increase disclosure rates.
Previously circulated as ECARES Working Paper 2018-34.
Essays on Environmental Policy: Design and Evaluation, Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, 2019/4 (Tome LVII)
Summary of my PhD thesis.
Disclosure of energy performance certificates (EPCs) is often incomplete, which hampers their effectiveness in relieving information asymmetries between landlords and tenants in the housing market. Even when a certificate is available, landlords do not always disclose it. This contradicts the unraveling result, according to which all landlords should disclose quality information unless it is costly to do so. We leverage a cross-sectional dataset of residential rental advertisements from the Belgian region of Brussels to empirically evaluate incentives to disclose an EPC. We find that two fundamental assumptions for the unraveling result are not confirmed in our setting: tenants do not necessarily value energy performance of rental property and do not appear to rationally adjust their expectations when faced with dwellings that withhold their EPC. The paper formulates specific policy advice for reforming EPC mechanisms to increase disclosure rates.
Previously circulated as ECARES Working Paper 2018-34.
Essays on Environmental Policy: Design and Evaluation, Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, 2019/4 (Tome LVII)
Summary of my PhD thesis.