College of Business and Security Management (CBSM)
http://hdl.handle.net/11122/1162
2024-03-21T14:12:11ZEnergy and Health Care Parallels: Maximizing Electric Utility Social Welfare.
http://hdl.handle.net/11122/11617
Energy and Health Care Parallels: Maximizing Electric Utility Social Welfare.
Reynolds, Douglas
This pod cast, based on a paper from the 4th IAEE Eurasian Conference in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, is about electric power markets. It considers consumer sovereignty in U.S. health care markets and then looks at the parallels between those health care markets and electric power markets. It then shows how one particular U.S. health care market mechanism called the Advantage Medicare System works best. It then explains how an Electric Power CEO bonus system, based on the Advantage System, can create better, more socially maximizing outcomes for electric power markets than the current consumer sovereignty based systems the world is using now.
Consumer sovereignty is often considered one of the most powerful forces in all of economics, by such authors as Hayek. However in free markets, such as health care, the U.S. shows higher than average costs with lower than average results, except for the U.S. Medicare Advantage program which is based on an incentivized system. Indeed, all of the top world corporations use CEO incentivized bonuses to create shareholder value, so why not employ such a scheme with electric utilities? Such a CEO bonus scheme would reward the utility CEO not for raising prices, but for lowering them. And crucially there would be a bonus for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
2020-12-14T00:00:00ZRestructuring Alaska: An Alaska Oil, Gas and Industry Economic Treatise
http://hdl.handle.net/11122/11197
Restructuring Alaska: An Alaska Oil, Gas and Industry Economic Treatise
Reynolds, Douglas
This paper in the form of a treatise is about how to improve Alaska’s overall socio-economic welfare. It explains economic issues in Alaska starting with the Trans-Alaska (oil) Pipeline System (TAPS) and how TAPS interacts with Alaska’s oil industry and induces risk averse reactions by the state. It also explains how an alternative oil pipeline can replace TAPS in order to reduce Alaska’s expensive oil tax credits. The treatise also explains some of the issues surrounding how the oil tax credits work or don’t work including such interactions as how oil exploration is carried out, why shale-oil will not easily be developed in Alaska and how the credits subsidize Anchorage’s area energy costs to the detriment of the state as a whole. Ideas for economic development of the state are given including building natural gas infrastructure and how to set up electric utilities to maximize their value to the state. An alternative for Anchorage energy needs is a simple natural gas pipeline to Fairbanks with rail connection to Anchorage and eventually the use of TAPS for natural gas. An incentivized management system for monopoly electric power utilities is explained which can provide better cheaper electric power and an incentivized management system for a state owned oil company is explained which can help Alaska negotiate with OPEC to Alaska’s advantage. Aspects of the university and education funding are explained.
Given the length, depth and breadth of this treatise, some readers may need to pick and choose what they read at any given time, such as the idea of cognitive dissonance when choosing oil tax credits that can inadvertently end up giving corporate subsidies to the oil industry in Section 4b. Another important topic is the summary, in Section 8a, of how to make monopoly electric utilities more efficient by using a CEO bonus mechanism. Also, a parallel history of the U.S. and Alaska will be interesting to many in Section 9. Certainly some will be interested in the idea of a state owned oil company summarized in section 10 with greater detail provided in Sections 6, 6a and 6b, especially since it’s incentivized setup is counterfactual to Socialism. The issue of how the state should deal with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is summarized in the Part IV Analysis introduction and explained in more detail in Section 2. While the explanation of tax credits in Section 3, 3a and 3b (the Gross Value Reduction Credits) and Section 4, 4a and 4b (General Tax Credits) are detailed, a quick analysis can be had in Section 1. Indeed, assorted readers will quite like the substitutes versus compliments in production analysis of shale resources explained in Sections 3a and 3b. Anyone interested in Alaska’s public education will want to look at Section 5. Plus, Section 7, 7a and 7b explain important aspects of the state’s economic development.
2020-07-31T00:00:00ZPod Cast US Shale-Oil Production Peak
http://hdl.handle.net/11122/11182
Pod Cast US Shale-Oil Production Peak
Reynolds, Douglas
This paper, in the form of a Pod Cast, estimates a U.S. shale-oil production trend forecast and explores potential consequences of that trend on U.S. and World macroeconomic conditions and growth prospects. It explains the economics of the Hubbert curve including a literature review both pro and con. It explains the relationship of shale-oil and shale-gas. It falsifies various U.S. shale-oil trend hypotheses using logic and econometrics. It then presents oil price expectations based on an analyses of entropy-economic relationships, physical energy characteristics, new-institutional economic theories of OPEC, and OPEC+ game-theoretic plays. Covid-19, OPEC+ and macro-economic principles are analyzed for their potential market changing effects using Schwartzian futurology methodology. A comparison of the current global civilization to past civilizations is also carried out.
This podcast, and the working paper series treatise that goes with it, is essentially an addendum to the book, “Energy Civilization,” that I wrote in 2011.
2020-07-08T00:00:00ZReynolds Curriculum Vita 2020
http://hdl.handle.net/11122/11180
Reynolds Curriculum Vita 2020
Reynolds, Douglas
2020-07-07T00:00:00Z