Contact Information
Department of Economics
Northwestern University
2211 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208
Phone:872-235-5286
GuillaumeGex2023@u.northwestern.edu
Education
Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University, 2025 (expected)
MA, Economics, Northwestern University, 2020
MA, Economics, Toulouse School of Economics, 2018
BA, Economics, University of Saint-Etienne, 2016.
Primary Fields of Specialization
Energy Economics
Secondary Fields of Specialization
Theory, Environmental Economics
Curriculum Vitae
Job Market Paper [Download.pdf]
“Strategic Interactions Along the Energy Transition” (with Roma Poberejsky)
The deployment of wind and solar power, called renewables (RE) hereafter, is expected to go along with more power trade between states or countries. Some might exploit this environment to generate trade revenues, possibly favoring controllable capacity like nuclear or fossil fuels to profit from RE’s production variability. We build a 2-country model where power trading is part of the system cost countries minimize. Each chooses a level of gas and low-carbon (RE or nuclear) capacity to use. We assess how policy interventions (e.g., carbon tax) affect system choices, costs, and CO2 emissions. Our model suggests interventions should be carefully considered. A carbon tax can increase emissions when a country’s low-carbon capacity cannot compete with gas. RE subsidies indirectly crowd out nuclear, but nuclear subsidies can indirectly incentivize RE, which can see nuclear as a strategic complement. A nuclear construction subsidy financed by a tax on its production also benefits RE by increasing its value. Unrelated to trade and contrary to current observations, the share of the market price received by RE production can increase with its capacity.
Other Research Papers
“Financing the Energy Transition Using Discount Factor Discrepancies”
Budget constraints can force governments to involve other agents, like households, in financing long-term projects (LTP), which are paramount to the energy transition. Households discount the future more than the government and will need subsidies to participate in LTP. Subsidies incentivize several LTPs for the price of one but resort to public spending. We argue that a better approach exists, turning this subsidy spending into a high-return investment. The government can leverage the difference in discount rates by buying the project’s last years. This ‘patient` equity financing costs slightly more than the subsidy but generates returns that can be larger than what the LTP yields while still incentivizing several LTPs. This approach leads to trade-offs between incentivized projects and returns and between project and time-related risks.
“The effect of Three Mile Island on the electric grid” (with Roma Poberejsky) [Download.pdf]
With the goal of 1000 nuclear power plants by the year 2000, the US was on the path to energy independence. However, the 1979 Three Mile Island accident turned public opinion against nuclear energy and spelled decades of stagnation for the industry. We show that the accident both halted the growth of the US reactor fleet, and stifled innovation in nuclear physics. We propose a mechanism by which accumulated scientific knowledge determines the capacity of nuclear reactors, and find that some 55 billion tons of CO2 emissions, 2.3 million premature deaths, and 14 trillion USD in health costs could have been avoided, had we displaced fossil fuels with nuclear power.
Teaching
Intermediate Microeconomics, Natural Resources Economics, Environmental Economics, Introduction to Applied Econometrics, Ethics and Leadership (MBA).
References
Prof. Bruno Strulovici (Committee Co-Chair)
Prof. Mar Reguant (Committee Co-Chair)
Prof. Diego Känzig
Prof. Alvaro Sandroni