|
A little bit about me:I have a long-standing interest in Energy and Resource Economics. Some of the
topics I have conducted research on include issues regarding exploration for and extraction of non-renewable
resources, and issues regarding common-property resources, particularly those that are renewable. I have also conducted
a number of analyses that apply experimental economics techniques to theoretical issues in Industrial Organization.
Here is a recent copy of my CV. |
Recent publications:
Olmstead, Sheila M., Benjamin D. Leibowicz, Charles F. Mason, Andrew Waxman, Emily Grubert, H-R Huber-Rodriguez and Joseph Stemmler, "Ambiguous climate policy: A tax credit is increasing deployment of carbon capture and storage, but will it reduce emissions?", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2025, July 16, 2025.
Wood, Aaron, Charles F. Mason and David Finnoff, “The Development of OPEC: An Evolutionary Game Theory and Agent-Based Modeling Approach,” Springer Nature Business & Economics, 2025, Vol. 5, article 79.
Mason, Charles F., “Public Policy Towards Offshore Oil Projects: Confronting Potential Deepwater Oil Spills,” Journal of Environmental Management 2024, Vol. 372, 123315.
Leach, Andrew and Charles F. Mason, “Nonrenewable Resources, Reserves and Carbon Pricing,” Annals of Economics and Statistics, 2024, Issue 156, 141-156.
Mason, Charles F. and Neil Wilmot, “On Climate Fat Tails and Politics,” Resources Policy 2024, v. 92, article 105006.
Mason, Charles F., “Do Small Players Undermine Cooperation in Asymmetric Games?,” Dynamic Games and Applications 2024, v14, 133-156.
Olmstead, Sheila M., Benjamin D. Leibowicz, Charles F. Mason, Andrew Waxman, Emily Grubert, H-R Huber-Rodriguez and Joseph Stemmler, "Ambiguous climate policy: A tax credit is increasing deployment of carbon capture and storage, but will it reduce emissions?", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2025, July 16, 2025.
Wood, Aaron, Charles F. Mason and David Finnoff, “The Development of OPEC: An Evolutionary Game Theory and Agent-Based Modeling Approach,” Springer Nature Business & Economics, 2025, Vol. 5, article 79.
Mason, Charles F., “Public Policy Towards Offshore Oil Projects: Confronting Potential Deepwater Oil Spills,” Journal of Environmental Management 2024, Vol. 372, 123315.
Leach, Andrew and Charles F. Mason, “Nonrenewable Resources, Reserves and Carbon Pricing,” Annals of Economics and Statistics, 2024, Issue 156, 141-156.
Mason, Charles F. and Neil Wilmot, “On Climate Fat Tails and Politics,” Resources Policy 2024, v. 92, article 105006.
Mason, Charles F., “Do Small Players Undermine Cooperation in Asymmetric Games?,” Dynamic Games and Applications 2024, v14, 133-156.
Recent working papers:
strong>Whose Frac is It, Anyway? Using Sources of Productivity Gains to Explain Industrial Organization in Oilfield Services pdf file
We analyze the the relative roles played by sellers and buyers of frac jobs on experimentation, innovation, and diffusion of knowledge about hydraulic fracturing. An historically-concentrated sector has experienced substantial entry and erosion due to vertical integration by buyers. This changing industrial organization affects and is affected by the changing relative technical proficiency of service companies and their operator clients. We document how a proxy for the technical prowess of the oilfield service sector has changed substantially over time, consistent with weakening. It is not clear from the evidence brought to bear what the direction of causation is.
Why do Firms Hold Oil Stockpiles? pdf file
Persistent and significant privately-held stockpiles of crude oil have long been an important empirical regularity in the United States. Such stockpiles would not rationally be held in a traditional Hotelling-style model. How then can the existence of these inventories be explained? In the presence of sufficiently stochastic prices, oil extracting firms have an incentive to hold inventories to smooth production over time. An alternative explanation is related to a speculative motive - firms hold stockpiles intending to cash in on periods of particularly high prices. I argue that empirical evidence supports the former but not the latter explanation.
Jumping Beans: Implications of Fat Tails in International Soybean Markets pdf file
Several recent policies have been promulgated to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in the the United States (US) transportation sector. To achieve these ambitious goals, it seems highly likely that refineries will have to accommodate significant inflows of soybeans imported from Brazil; important large- scale (irreversible) investments will also be required. These investments are subject to substantial uncertainty, underscoring the importance of characterizing the stochastic nature of soybean prices. In this paper we investigate the potential presence of jumps in two key prices: the spot price for soybeans, in Brazil, and ethanol produced from soybeans, also in Brazil. We find compelling empirical evidence for the importance of jumps in both markets. The presence of jumps in these markets has important implications for large scale infrastructure investments, as would be necessary to produce ethanol-based motor vehicle fuels, as well as ecological implications associated with deforestation that is likely to accompany any increases in Brazilian soybean production.
On the Interaction of Eco-Labeling and Trade pdf file
While environmental certification can provide useful information to consumers, there is concern that it indirectly erects trade barriers. I construct a two- country model where some firms use an environmentally-unfriendly (brown) production technology in each country, while other firms use environmentally-friendly (green) techniques. There are two green techniques, one in each country. Obtaining the eco-label entails certification costs; green firms in the exporting country must bear an additional cost to obtain the eco-label. I discuss the impact of eco-labeling on the quantities of green goods produced in each country and resultant welfare impacts, and the impact of changes in labeling costs.
Volatility in Solar Renewable Energy Certificates: Jumps and Fat Tails pdf file
Economies are increasingly adopting renewable energy certificates as a policy mechanism to support the transition away from reliance on fossil fuels. We investigate the price of solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) in New Jersey, allowing for the potential presence of jumps and time-varying volatility. We find that both features play an important role in the stochastic process describing SREC price returns. We also simulate the implied probability that at least one jump would occur in any given month. These implied probabilities indicate that jumps played a consistently important role in both SRECs and electricity prices. Jumps in SRECs appear to have been particularly noteworthy between late 2011 and early 2013, a period when electricity prices in New Jersey were relatively high. This result hints at the potentially important role of market structure in driving fat tails in price returns.
The Transition to Renewable Energy pdf file
The existing economics literature neglects the important role of capacity in the production of renewable energy. To fill this gap, we construct a model in which renewable energy production is tied to renewable energy capacity, which then becomes a form of capital. This capacity capital can be increased through investment, which therefore comes at the cost of reduced consumption. We describe how society could optimally elect to split production between immediate consumption and investment in the two forms of capital. Our model delivers an empirically satisfactory explanation for simultaneous use of non-renewable and renewable energy. While transitioning to renewable energy can often ensure perennially increasing utility, there are combinations of initial levels of the non-renewable resource and renewable capacity that can generate Malthusian-like effects, with utility declining at some point in time.
Analyzing the Risk of Transporting Crude Oil by Rail pdf file
In this paper, I combine data on incidents associated with rail transportation of crude oil and detailed data on rail shipments to appraise the relation between increased use of rail to transport crude oil and the risk of safety incidents associated with those shipments. I find a positive link between the accumulation of minor incidents and the frequency of serious incidents, and a positive relation between increased rail shipments of crude oil and the occurrence of minor incidents. I also find that increased shipments are associated with a rightward shift in the distribution of economic damages associated with these shipments; the implied marginal impact of an additional 1,000 rail cars carrying oil between two states in a given month is $1,925. In addition, I find larger average effects associated with states that represent the greatest source of tight oil production.
Optimal Contracts for Discouraging Deforestation with Risk Averse Agents pdf file
As we enter the second decade of the 21st century there is an emerging consensus that carbon emissions must be limited. An attractive approach to promoting carbon reductions, which offers a variety of co-benefits, is to encourage reductions in deforestation. Despite this potential, any strategy geared towards encouraging such reductions must confront a basic problem, stemming from symmetric information: agents that might be induced to reduce their actions which would reduce forests have private information about their opportunity costs. This concern seems particularly likely to apply in situations where there are significant related risks, as agents seem highly likely to differ in their tolerance for risk. In this paper, I investigate a contracting scheme designed to mitigate the asymmetric information problem where agents are heterogeneous in their tolerance for risk.
strong>Whose Frac is It, Anyway? Using Sources of Productivity Gains to Explain Industrial Organization in Oilfield Services pdf file
We analyze the the relative roles played by sellers and buyers of frac jobs on experimentation, innovation, and diffusion of knowledge about hydraulic fracturing. An historically-concentrated sector has experienced substantial entry and erosion due to vertical integration by buyers. This changing industrial organization affects and is affected by the changing relative technical proficiency of service companies and their operator clients. We document how a proxy for the technical prowess of the oilfield service sector has changed substantially over time, consistent with weakening. It is not clear from the evidence brought to bear what the direction of causation is.
Why do Firms Hold Oil Stockpiles? pdf file
Persistent and significant privately-held stockpiles of crude oil have long been an important empirical regularity in the United States. Such stockpiles would not rationally be held in a traditional Hotelling-style model. How then can the existence of these inventories be explained? In the presence of sufficiently stochastic prices, oil extracting firms have an incentive to hold inventories to smooth production over time. An alternative explanation is related to a speculative motive - firms hold stockpiles intending to cash in on periods of particularly high prices. I argue that empirical evidence supports the former but not the latter explanation.
Jumping Beans: Implications of Fat Tails in International Soybean Markets pdf file
Several recent policies have been promulgated to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in the the United States (US) transportation sector. To achieve these ambitious goals, it seems highly likely that refineries will have to accommodate significant inflows of soybeans imported from Brazil; important large- scale (irreversible) investments will also be required. These investments are subject to substantial uncertainty, underscoring the importance of characterizing the stochastic nature of soybean prices. In this paper we investigate the potential presence of jumps in two key prices: the spot price for soybeans, in Brazil, and ethanol produced from soybeans, also in Brazil. We find compelling empirical evidence for the importance of jumps in both markets. The presence of jumps in these markets has important implications for large scale infrastructure investments, as would be necessary to produce ethanol-based motor vehicle fuels, as well as ecological implications associated with deforestation that is likely to accompany any increases in Brazilian soybean production.
On the Interaction of Eco-Labeling and Trade pdf file
While environmental certification can provide useful information to consumers, there is concern that it indirectly erects trade barriers. I construct a two- country model where some firms use an environmentally-unfriendly (brown) production technology in each country, while other firms use environmentally-friendly (green) techniques. There are two green techniques, one in each country. Obtaining the eco-label entails certification costs; green firms in the exporting country must bear an additional cost to obtain the eco-label. I discuss the impact of eco-labeling on the quantities of green goods produced in each country and resultant welfare impacts, and the impact of changes in labeling costs.
Volatility in Solar Renewable Energy Certificates: Jumps and Fat Tails pdf file
Economies are increasingly adopting renewable energy certificates as a policy mechanism to support the transition away from reliance on fossil fuels. We investigate the price of solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) in New Jersey, allowing for the potential presence of jumps and time-varying volatility. We find that both features play an important role in the stochastic process describing SREC price returns. We also simulate the implied probability that at least one jump would occur in any given month. These implied probabilities indicate that jumps played a consistently important role in both SRECs and electricity prices. Jumps in SRECs appear to have been particularly noteworthy between late 2011 and early 2013, a period when electricity prices in New Jersey were relatively high. This result hints at the potentially important role of market structure in driving fat tails in price returns.
The Transition to Renewable Energy pdf file
The existing economics literature neglects the important role of capacity in the production of renewable energy. To fill this gap, we construct a model in which renewable energy production is tied to renewable energy capacity, which then becomes a form of capital. This capacity capital can be increased through investment, which therefore comes at the cost of reduced consumption. We describe how society could optimally elect to split production between immediate consumption and investment in the two forms of capital. Our model delivers an empirically satisfactory explanation for simultaneous use of non-renewable and renewable energy. While transitioning to renewable energy can often ensure perennially increasing utility, there are combinations of initial levels of the non-renewable resource and renewable capacity that can generate Malthusian-like effects, with utility declining at some point in time.
Analyzing the Risk of Transporting Crude Oil by Rail pdf file
In this paper, I combine data on incidents associated with rail transportation of crude oil and detailed data on rail shipments to appraise the relation between increased use of rail to transport crude oil and the risk of safety incidents associated with those shipments. I find a positive link between the accumulation of minor incidents and the frequency of serious incidents, and a positive relation between increased rail shipments of crude oil and the occurrence of minor incidents. I also find that increased shipments are associated with a rightward shift in the distribution of economic damages associated with these shipments; the implied marginal impact of an additional 1,000 rail cars carrying oil between two states in a given month is $1,925. In addition, I find larger average effects associated with states that represent the greatest source of tight oil production.
Optimal Contracts for Discouraging Deforestation with Risk Averse Agents pdf file
As we enter the second decade of the 21st century there is an emerging consensus that carbon emissions must be limited. An attractive approach to promoting carbon reductions, which offers a variety of co-benefits, is to encourage reductions in deforestation. Despite this potential, any strategy geared towards encouraging such reductions must confront a basic problem, stemming from symmetric information: agents that might be induced to reduce their actions which would reduce forests have private information about their opportunity costs. This concern seems particularly likely to apply in situations where there are significant related risks, as agents seem highly likely to differ in their tolerance for risk. In this paper, I investigate a contracting scheme designed to mitigate the asymmetric information problem where agents are heterogeneous in their tolerance for risk.
Professional Activities
I was the Managing Editor of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from 2006 to 2011,
and a Co-Editor for the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists from 2014 to 2016.
I am currently Editor-in-Chief for Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy and Joint Editor-in-Chief for
Strategic Behavior and the Environment. I am also a University Fellow with
Resources for the Future. In September 2023 I had the great pleasure to be named a
member of honor in the French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
From May 2014 to January 2015 I was involved in the U.S. Department of Justice's case related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which culminated in my testimony.
From May 2014 to January 2015 I was involved in the U.S. Department of Justice's case related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which culminated in my testimony.
My Professional Travels
From January to June of 1998 I was in New Zealand, at the University of Waikato;
I also spent five weeks at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (which apparently has since been folded into the Fenner School of Environment and Society,
at the Australia National University. In the Fall of 2003, I was a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, in Clare Hall;
I am now a life member of Clare Hall. I spent the Spring of 2004 at the University of California in Davis, where I taught in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
During the Fall of 2008 I spent two months at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, as a Visiting Research Fellow. I enjoyed the experience so much I went back during the summers of 2009 through 2011. During Fall 2012 I was a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, part of the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford), where I am External Research Associate. I was a visiting scholar as part of the E3 program (Environmental and Energy Economics), as part of the University of California (Santa Barbara), in January and February of 2013; from March to May of 2013 I was a visiting scholar at the prestigious Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, in Venice; and I spent June at the Toulouse School of Economics. In December 2013 I was a visiting researcher at the CESifo group in Munich Germany. During 2014 and 2015 I was a Visiting Professor at the Grantham Institute (part of the London School of Economics) and with the Environmental Economics group at the University of Southern Denmark. In June 2016 I was a visiting scholar in the Department of Economics at the University of Bath.
During the Fall of 2008 I spent two months at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, as a Visiting Research Fellow. I enjoyed the experience so much I went back during the summers of 2009 through 2011. During Fall 2012 I was a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, part of the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford), where I am External Research Associate. I was a visiting scholar as part of the E3 program (Environmental and Energy Economics), as part of the University of California (Santa Barbara), in January and February of 2013; from March to May of 2013 I was a visiting scholar at the prestigious Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, in Venice; and I spent June at the Toulouse School of Economics. In December 2013 I was a visiting researcher at the CESifo group in Munich Germany. During 2014 and 2015 I was a Visiting Professor at the Grantham Institute (part of the London School of Economics) and with the Environmental Economics group at the University of Southern Denmark. In June 2016 I was a visiting scholar in the Department of Economics at the University of Bath.