• Focus Area -
  • Type Methodology paper
  • Date 31 May 2017
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Abstract

The traditional economic approach to policy analysis is to utilize tools and methods developed within the field of economics and study the economic impact of one or more policies solely from an economic perspective. As a consequence, the “policies” are usually formulated and evaluated only by an assessment of the pure economic optimality of expected outcomes. Moreover, economic models typically treat policy choices as exogenously specified. Once policies are selected according to some exogenous process, then scenario analysis can be performed to simulate the economic impact of those policies.

Authors

Andrew Howe

Andrew Howe

Research Fellow Andrew Howe is a research fellow in KAPSARC’s Policy and Decision Science program. He is a seasoned quantitative modeler with… Andrew Howe is a research fellow in KAPSARC's Policy and Decision Science program. He is a seasoned quantitative modeler with expertise in the application of mathematics, statistics, and computer science to diverse practical problems in a variety of industries. Andrew’s experience in the energy sector spans both electric utilities and upstream oil and gas, and he is a certified energy risk professional. His current research interests at KAPSARC center around quantitative modeling of collective decision-making processes and big data machine learning for the utilities sector. In addition, Andrew is an active researcher in machine learning, having developed novel algorithms for topics including clustering, classification, simulation, and optimization.

Brian Efird

Brian Efird

Director of Strategic Partnerships Brian Efird is the Director for Strategic Partnerships at KAPSARC. His responsibilities include planning and oversight of KAPSARC’s global outreach… Brian Efird is the Director for Strategic Partnerships at KAPSARC. His responsibilities include planning and oversight of KAPSARC’s global outreach and engagement, as well as forging multiparty collaborations that conceptualize and facilitate high impact, applied research projects in the areas of energy economics, policy, and sustainability. He previously served as the Program Director for Policy and Decision Science, managing a team of researchers that covered a global program of work focused on the nexus between geopolitics, domestic and local politics, energy, and climate change. This included multi-disciplinary analysis of the geopolitics of energy and the environment, quantitative models of collective decision-making processes (CDMPs), geospatial information system (GIS) applications to energy economics and energy policy, and the impact of political phenomena on global energy markets. Dr. Efird was previously a Senior Research Fellow at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.; a consultant on defense and international security matters in Washington; and a consultant applying quantitative models to support corporate, investment banking, and legal negotiations in New York. He received a Ph.D. in Political Science and M.A. in International Studies from Claremont Graduate University.

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