Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental and Energy Policy (PhD)
Administrative Home Department
Department of Social Sciences
Advisor 1
Mark Rouleau
Committee Member 1
Adam Wellstead
Committee Member 2
Don Lafreniere
Committee Member 3
Shan Zhou
Abstract
Public policies have been adopted and implemented at various government levels in the United States, aiming to facilitate the clean energy transition process. This dissertation examines three distinct but related dimensions of clean energy policies: policy effectiveness, policy coherence, and distributional policy impact. First, I evaluate the impact of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) on clean energy adoption at the utility level using a quasi-experimental design: the Difference-in-Difference estimation. Secondly, I use the state of California as a case study to investigate the role of policy coherence in public policy success. Thirdly, I investigate whether communities with different demographic and socio-economic characteristics have equal access to modern energy services (e.g., dynamic pricing). The preliminary findings from the third paper suggest that certain populations, particularly low-income and minority groups, are disproportionately disadvantaged in accessing modern energy services. This dissertation will contribute to the scholarly debates on energy justice, clean energy policy evaluation, and policy coherence by employing a mixed methods approach of geographical information systems (GIS), statistics, and document review.
Recommended Citation
Amponsem, Josephine, "EFFECTIVENESS, COHERENCE, AND JUSTICE IMPLICATIONS OF CLEAN ENERGY POLICIES IN THE UNITED STATES", Open Access Dissertation, Michigan Technological University, 2025.