Renewable energy investments - a panel data study of public policy influence in developing and emerging countries

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to examine how public policy measures can induce investment in renewable electricity-generating capacity in developing and emerging markets. Using a novel combination of datasets for the time frame 2000-2014 and adopting a panel corrected standard error estimator, it tests the impact of economic and regulatory instruments, as well as policy support, on newly installed generation capacity. It is one of the first empirical studies to focus specifically on the investor perspective in evaluating public policies in emerging and developing renewable energy markets. The unique policy dataset has been self-constructed and encodes policy information on 50 sample countries. The results indicate that technology-specific policies are recommendable and that not all policies promote investments. The study thus provides a basis for the design of policies to close the renewable energy financing gap in developing and emerging countries.