E.T. Grether Chair in Business Administration and Public Policy | Faculty Director, Energy Institute at Haas | Professor
Economic Analysis and Policy
Expert on the economics of renewable energy, economic policies for reducing greenhouse gases, and electricity pricing
About
Severin Borenstein is E.T. Grether Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy at the Haas School of Business and faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas. He is also Director emeritus of the University of California Energy Institute (1994-2014). He received his AB from UC Berkeley and PhD in Economics from MIT. His research focuses on business competition, strategy, and regulation. He has published extensively on the airline industry, the 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 is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. He served on the Board of Governors of the California Power Exchange from 1997 to 2003. During 1999-2000, he was a member of the California Attorney General’s Gasoline Price Task Force. In 2010-11, Borenstein was a member of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s Future of Aviation Advisory Committee. In 2012-13, he served on the Emissions Market Assessment Committee, which advised the California Air Resources Board on the operation of California’s Cap and Trade market for greenhouse gases. In 2014, he was appointed to the California Energy Commission’s Petroleum Market Advisory Committee, which he chaired from 2015 until the Committee was dissolved in 2017. Since 2015, he has served on the Advisory Council of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. In 2019, he was appointed to the Governing Board of the California Independent System Operator.
Expertise and Research Interests
- Energy Policy and Climate Change
- Electricity Deregulation, Market Formation and Competition
- US and International Airline Competition
- Oil and Gasoline Market Pricing and Competition
- Severin Borenstein, James Bushnell, Frank A. Wolak, and Matthew Zaragoza-Watkins. Expecting the Unexpected: Emissions Uncertainty and Environmental Market Design. Energy Institute at Haas Working Paper #274.
2018 - Severin Borenstein and James Bushnell. The U.S. Electricity Industry After 20 Years of Restructuring. Annual Review of Economic.
2015 - Severin Borenstein. The Trouble with Electricity Markets: Understanding California’s Restructuring Disaster. Journal of Economic Perspectives.
2002 - Severin Borenstein, James Bushnell, and Frank Wolak. Measuring Market Inefficiencies in California’s Restructured Wholesale Electricity Market. American Economic Review.
2002 - Severin Borenstein and Nancy Rose. Competition and Price Dispersion in the U.S. Airline Industry. Journal of Political Economy.
1994 - Severin Borenstein. Hubs and High Fares: Dominance and Market Power in the U.S. Airline Industry. Rand Journal of Economics.
1989
At Haas since 1996
2009 – present, E.T. Grether Chair in Business Administration and Public Policy
1996 – present, Professor, Haas School of Business
2009 – 2014, Director, Energy Institute at Haas
1994 – 2014, Director, University of California Energy Institute
1994 – 1996, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, UC Davis
1990 – 1994, Associate Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, UC Davis
1983 – 1990, Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Department of Economics and Institute of Public Policy Studies, University of Michigan
1978 – 1979, Staff Economist, Office of Economic Analysis, US Civil Aeronautics Board
- 2019 – present, Member, California ISO Board of Governors
- 2015 – 2017, Chair, Petroleum Market Advisory Committee, California Energy Commission
- 2015 – present, Member, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Advisory Council
- 2012 – 2013, Member, Emissions Market Assessment Committee, California Air Resources Board
- 2010 – 2011, Member, U.S. Department of Transportation, Future of Aviation Advisory Committee
- 1997 – 2003, Member, Governing Board of California Power Exchange Corporation
- 1995 – 2000, Editor, Journal of Industrial Economics
- Past co-editor or editorial board member: Editorial Board Member, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Journal of Economic Literature, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Review of Economics & Statistics, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Industrial Economics
- 1992 – present, Research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research
International Association for Energy Economics, Outstanding Contributions to the Profession Award
2015
Distinguished Fellow of the Industrial Organization Society
2015
Distinguished Faculty Mentoring Award (for graduate student mentoring), UC Berkeley
2005
Distinguished Service Award, Public Utility Research Center, University of Florida
2005
Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, Full-Time MBA Program
2016, 1997
Michigan Economic Society Undergraduate Teaching Award
Fall 1987
National Science Foundation Research Grant #SES-8711576 “Efficiency in the Allocation of Operating Licenses”
1987 – 1990
- Gov. Gavin Newsom names three to California wildfires panel, San Francisco Chronicle, 01/23/2019
- As Fires Choke Utility, the Question of Who Pays for Warming Emerges, Scientific American, 01/21/2019
- Energy whiz Severin Borenstein on keeping the lights on and the fires out after PG&E’s bankruptcy, Los Angeles Times, 01/16/2019
- The future of a bankrupt PG&E may be a breakup, Bloomberg, 01/16/2019
- PG&E customers, employees brace for fallout from bankruptcy announcement, KQED Forum, 01/15/2019
- PG&E restructuring highlights arcane California legal rule, Reuters, 01/15/2019
- California wildfire costs push PG&E to bankruptcy, Financial Times, 01/14/2019
- Forget limiting Uber and Lyft vehicles to reduce congestion, San Francisco Chronicle, 12/20/2018
- Experts Aren’t Taking a Shine to California’s Rooftop Solar Rule, Scientific American, 12/13/2018
- Is California going the way of Germany when it comes to energy?, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/11/2018
- California playbook, Politico, 10/12/2018
- Opinion: Forget the gas tax. Let’s get to the bottom of California’s 22-cents-a-gallon mystery surcharge, Los Angeles Times, 10/11/2018
- Prop. 7: California considers end of changing clocks for daylight-saving time, San Francisco Chronicle, 10/05/2018
- Opinion: What does daylight saving time really save?, Mercury News, 09/27/2018
- A day late and a summit short: Can California save the world?, California Magazine, 09/26/2018
- Jerry Brown Is the face of America’s climate-change resistance, Bloomberg, 09/11/2018
- Disappointment shadows Jerry Brown’s climate legacy in California, Climate Liability News, 09/05/2018
- California advances an ambitious climate policy that should be a model for the world, Sacramento Bee, 08/28/2018
- An all-renewable energy grid ‘definitely feasible’ for California. But at what cost?, Sacramento Bee, 08/19/2018
- Keep California oil in the ground? The goal is good, but the policy doesn’t pencil out, Los Angeles Times, 08/16/2018
- California begins to consider solar on commercial buildings, Engineering News Record, 07/11/2018
- Electrifying transportation in San Francisco, advocates push for new generation of buses, KTVU Fox 2 TV, 06/14/2018
- Why are Bay Area gas prices on the rise?, KQED Forum, 05/22/2018
- The missing billions spent on gasoline in California each year, San Diego Tribune, 04/08/2018
- All those fancy electric cars? You helped pay for them., The Washington Post, 03/26/2018
- No longer termed a ‘failure,’ California’s cap-and-trade program faces a new critique: Is it too successful?, Los Angeles Times, 01/12/2018
- Energy and Environmental Markets, MBA212-1