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The German response to the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident was possibly the most significant change of policy towards nuclear power outside Japan, leading to a sudden and very significant shift in the underlying power generation structure in Germany. This provides a very useful natural experiment on the impact of increasing proportions of renewable compared to conventional fuel inputs into power production, helping us to see how changed proportions in future as a result of policy moves in favour of renewables are likely to impact. We find through quasi-experimental exploration of a modified demand-supply framework that despite the swift, unpredicted change, the main impact was a significant increase in prices, partly caused by more frequent situations with unilateral market power. The price impact was also most significant in off-peak hours, leading to changed investment incentives. There were no appreciable quantity effects on the market, such as power outages, contrary to some views that the impacts would be significant. Furthermore, we find the sudden and unilateral phase-out decision by the German government has significantly affected electricity prices and thus competitiveness in neighbouring countries.

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the demand for money by firms and the existence of economies of scale in the Italian manufacturing industry. We estimate a model for cash elaborated by Fujiki and Mulligan using a different estimation procedure from the previous literature. We then introduce an iterative procedure based on backward exclusion of firms from model estimation which points out the high heterogeneity of Italian companies in money demand. Our estimates show that the Italian manufacturing industry, considered as a whole, does not enjoy scale economies in money demand. However, our iterative procedure points out that the cause of this result has to be ascribed to small firms which are characterized by thin cash money holdings and a consequent very modest opportunity cost.