Should We Give Up after Solyndra? Optimal Technology R&D Portfolios under Uncertainty
研究了在气候变化背景下，如何将有限的研发资源分配给多种不确定的新能源技术，发现对成本较高的技术进行早期研发投资是合理的，且该投资随研发回报的方差和偏度增加而增加。
Climate change and other environmental challenges require the development of new energy technologies with lower emissions. In the near term, R&D investments, either by the government or the private sector, can reduce the costs of these lower-emitting technologies. However, the returns to R&D are uncertain, and there are many potential technologies that may emerge to play an important role in the future energy mix. In this paper, we address the problem of allocating scarce R&D resources across technologies when uncertainties exist. We develop a multistage stochastic dynamic programming version of an integrated assessment model of the climate and economy that represents endogenous technological change through R&D decisions for two substitutable noncarbon backstop technologies. We demonstrate that near-term R&D investment in the higher cost technology is justified and that the optimal R&D investment in the higher cost technology increases with both higher variance and higher skewness in the distribution of returns to R&D.