Do Market Forces or Politics Drive Electric Utilities to Go Green?
The main theme of Eun-Hee’s dissertation is how firms respond to pressure from regulators, investors, and customers over issues of sustainability. Her dissertation consists of three essays. She is currently working on her third essay, which is a study of what motivates investor-owned electric utility companies in the U.S. to produce renewable energy. At the state level, recent studies have shown that various state policies, especially renewable portfolio standards, encouraged renewable energy development. A recent firm-level study, however, finds that retail restructuring of the electric utility industry presented some firms with an opportunity to differentiate, i.e., to produce renewable energy. Eun-Hee’s third paper revisits the question by studying the drivers and performance implications of renewable energy generation at the firm level.
