About

Severin Borenstein is the E.T. Grether Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy at the Haas School of Business and serves as the faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas. He is also Director emeritus of the University of California Energy Institute, a position he held from 1994 to 2014. Borenstein received his AB from UC Berkeley and his PhD in Economics from MIT. His research focuses on business competition, strategy, and regulation, with extensive publications on the airline industry, oil and gasoline industries, and electricity markets. His current research projects include the economics of renewable energy, economic policies for reducing greenhouse gases, and alternative models of retail electricity pricing. Borenstein has served on numerous advisory committees related to energy and transportation policy, including the California Energy Commission’s Petroleum Market Advisory Committee and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Future of Aviation Advisory Committee. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and has held academic positions at UC Davis and the University of Michigan.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Economics
• Computer Science
• Natural resource economics
• Engineering
• Business
• Econometrics
• Environmental economics
• Electrical engineering
• Waste management
• Market economy
• Microeconomics

Selected publications

• An Economic Perspective on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan — Cross-State Coordination Key to Cost-Effective CO₂ Reductions

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-05-01

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Energy Hogs and Energy Angels: What Does Residential Electricity Use Really Tell Us about Profligate Consumption?

  AEA Papers and Proceedings · 2025-05-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  High residential volumetric electricity prices are partially justified as placing more of the cost burden on less prudent households, so-called “energy hogs.” I show that the difference in means between above-median and below-median household consumption declines by 60-90 percent after adjusting for three factors: number of household occupants, local climate variation, and adoption of rooftop solar. Failure to make these adjustments disproportionately hurts low-income households. Focusing on residential electricity is especially problematic because nationally it accounts for less than 15 percent of energy and less than 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, while such penalty pricing is virtually nonexistent elsewhere in the economy.

  PublisherDOI

• The Distributional Effects of US Tax Credits for Heat Pumps, Solar Panels, and Electric Vehicles

  National Tax Journal · 2025-01-24 · 10 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  US households have received more than $47 billion in tax credits since 2006 for heat pumps, solar panels, electric vehicles, and other “clean energy” technologies. Using information from tax returns, we show that these tax credits have gone predominantly to higher-income filers. The bottom three income quintiles have received about 10 percent of all credits, while the top quintile has received about 60 percent. The most extreme is the tax credit for electric vehicles, for which the top quintile has received more than 80 percent. These patterns have changed little over time. We then present evidence on cost-effectiveness and discuss broader economic considerations.

  PublisherDOI

• Data and Code: AEAPP-2025-1111 Energy Hogs

  ICPSR Data Holdings · 2025-02-08

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Energy Hogs and Energy Angels: What Does Residential Electricity Usage Really Tell Us About Profligate Consumption? Manuscript ID: PandP-2025-1111 Abstract: High residential volumetric electricity prices are partially justified as placing more of the cost burden on less prudent households, so-called "energy hogs". I show the difference in means between above-median and below-median household consumption declines by 60%-90% after adjusting for three factors: number of household occupants, local climate variation, and adoption of rooftop solar. Failure to make these adjustments disproportionately hurts low-income households. Focusing on residential electricity is especially problematic, because nationally it accounts for less than 15% of energy and less than 10% of GHG emissions, while such penalty pricing is virtually nonexistent elsewhere in the economy.

  PublisherDOI

• The Distributional Effects of U.S. Tax Credits for Heat Pumps, Solar Panels, and Electric Vehicles

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Energy Hogs and Energy Angels: What Does Residential Electricity Usage Really Tell Us About Profligate Consumption?

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Since the 1970s, high volumetric (per kilowatt-hour) electricity prices have been justified in many policy discussions as encouraging more efficient use of electricity and placing more of the cost burden on those who are less prudent in their use.The argument has been used in support of increasing-block electricity pricing, under which the price per kilowatt-hour rises as a household consumes more electricity per month.More recently, in California, opponents of a proposal to lower volumetric prices and replace the revenue through fixed monthly charges have suggested that the change would just benefit "energy hogs".In this paper, I first investigate characteristics of households who are high electricity consumers and ask how effectively such pricing targets profligate residential electricity consumption.I then look more broadly at the energy usage individuals are responsible for in the economy, how other energy usage is priced, and the role that residential electricity use plays in the overall picture.Finally, I connect the discussion of profligate direct and indirect energy consumption with the negative externalities produced, which are typically the justification for such penalty pricing.

  PublisherDOI

• Energy Hogs and Energy Angels: What Does Residential Electricity Usage Really Tell Us About Profligate Consumption?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Distributional Effects of U.S. Tax Credits for Heat Pumps, Solar Panels, and Electric Vehicles

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-07-01 · 9 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Over the last two decades, U.S. households have received $47 billion in tax credits for buying heat pumps, solar panels, electric vehicles, and other "clean energy" technologies.Using information from tax returns, we show that these tax credits have gone predominantly to higherincome households.The bottom three income quintiles have received about 10% of all credits, while the top quintile has received about 60%.The most extreme is the tax credit for electric vehicles, for which the top quintile has received more than 80% of all credits.The concentration of tax credits among high-income filers is relatively constant over time, though we do find a slight broadening for the electric vehicle credit since 2018.The paper then turns to the related question of cost effectiveness, examining how clean energy technology adoption has changed over time and discussing some of the broader economic considerations for this type of tax credit.

  PublisherDOI

• When We Change the Clock, Does the Clock Change Us?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• When we change the clock, does the clock change us?

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2023-03-01 · 2 citations

  reportOpen access

  The practice of standardizing the designation of time is a central device for coordinating activities and economic behaviors across individuals. However, there is nearly always conflict between an individual's goals of coordinating activities with others and engaging in those activities at their own preferred time. When time is standardized across large geographic areas, that tension is enhanced, because norms about the "clock times" of activities conflict with adapting to local environmental conditions created by natural or "solar" time. This tension is at the heart of current state and national debates about adopting daylight saving time or switching time zones. We study this conflict by examining how geographic and temporal variation in solar time within time zones affects the timing of a range of common behaviors in the United States. Specifically, we estimate the degree to which people shift their online behavior (through Twitter), their commute (using data from the Census), and their visits to businesses and other establishments (using foot traffic data). We find that, on average, a one-hour shift in the differential between solar time and clock time --approximately the width of a time zone --leads to shifting the clock time of behavior by between 9 and 26 minutes. This result shows that while adapting to local environmental factors significantly offsets the differential between solar time and clock time, the behavioral nudge and coordination value of clock time has the larger influence on activity. We also study how the trade-off differs across different activities and population demographics.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• James Bushnell

  49 shared

• Ryan Kellogg

  20 shared

• Nancy L. Rose

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  19 shared

• Frank A. Wolak

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  15 shared

• Janet S. Netz

  11 shared

• Stephen P. Holland

  Yale University

  10 shared

• Meghan R. Busse

  9 shared

• Jeffrey K. MacKie–Mason

  8 shared

Education

• B.A.

  UC Berkeley

• Ph.D.

  University of California, Berkeley

Awards & honors

• International Association for Energy Economics, Outstanding…
• Distinguished Fellow of the Industrial Organization Society…
• Distinguished Faculty Mentoring Award (for graduate student…
• Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, Full-Time MB…
• Michigan Economic Society Undergraduate Teaching Award (1997…