The purpose of this note is to estimate the likelihood, the timing and the nature of the peak oil scenario on the US oil market. Brief history of peak oil Oil market (=oil consumption, =oil production) has been growing since the first oil well was drilled in the XIX century. In the mid XX century, … Continue reading Peak oil
Economics of Knowledge Economy
Macro meets Tech The past 10 years have seen the maturation and eventual bursting of the market bubble, followed by a financial crisis, which led to an economic recession widely perceived to be still ongoing. The unprecedented amount of economic stimulus on both the monetary and fiscal sides, produced what many see as a less … Continue reading Economics of Knowledge Economy
Is Tesla a new Uber?
Uber’s prospects may not be as bright as its current 60bn$ valuation implies. Travis Kalanick, the company’s CEO, has once said that if Tesla cars are autonomous by 2020, he wants to buy all 500,000 that are expected to be produced. The problem though may not be with availability of the autonomous vehicles, but that … Continue reading Is Tesla a new Uber?
Monetary policy in the XXI century
The original note was published in Russian as “Зачем капитал экономике знаний” in Vedomosti on 26 April 2016. *** On March 10th the European central bank announced a new round of monetary policy easing. The regulator lowered the interest rate - the traditional instrument to manage the money supply, and also increased the size of the … Continue reading Monetary policy in the XXI century
Too much of a good thing – alternative explanation
In a recent article The Economist explores the reasons for extraordinarily high profitability in the corporate America and concludes that it is due to rising monopolisation of America Inc. This note provides an alternative explanation. Post-industrial capitalism of the XXI century is featuring a shift from capital, as the key production factor, to knowledge. Establishment of … Continue reading Too much of a good thing – alternative explanation
Heat map
Is there economic rationale to move to renewable heat solutions from traditional fossil-fuel based heat? Heat market is a peculiar one. It is large. Average household in the UK, for example, consumes 4x more gas (to generate heat) than electricity (measured in comparable units). Heat is local (cannot be transported far from the origin). Heat is often … Continue reading Heat map
Negative externalities
There is a widespread opinion that renewable energy is only alive because of the subsidies. As if to confirm the point a few days ago US president Barack Obama proposed a new 10$ per barrel tax to be levied on the american producers and importers of oil “to upgrade the nation’s transportation system, improve resilience and … Continue reading Negative externalities
Deflation miscalculation
Is official GDP growth statistics an adequate measure of the impact the technology has had on the economy? The effect of the technological progress of the late XX - early XXI centuries on our lives has been tremendous. At the same time, the official measures of the economic performance such as GDP growth statistics hardly … Continue reading Deflation miscalculation
Telecoms
The event of 2015 One of the most important developments of 2015, in my view, was a successful attempt to land the first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on 21 December 2015. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCBE8ocOkAQ The full video here. The importance of this is the potential to significantly reduce the costs of delivering stuff into space. … Continue reading Telecoms
BioFuels
Many things in the renewable energy space have been alive solely because of the government policies and subsidies. Some, like solar power for example, have fully fledged over time, crossed an important “grid parity” threshold on the cost side, and now compete with the traditional energy producers. Others, like traditional biofuels, have stayed uncompetitive on … Continue reading BioFuels
Energy, Tech, Macro 