Rose Baker & David Passmore, Penn State
Tables & Briefing Paper Available   Slides from Presentation to Society

The Penn State Workforce Education & Development Initiative released a preliminary tables and a briefing paper by Rose Baker and David Passmore at http://RateCapPrelim.notlong.com. This research continues to arrive at a variety of estimates of rate cap elimination for Pennsylvania.

In a nutshell, electricity rate caps imposed under deregulation of the Pennsylvania electricity industry will be removed completely for residential, commercial, and industrial electricity customers by 2010. Prices per kilowatt–hour consumed for residences and businesses are anticipated to rise remarkably (40% to 70% increases are possible). We benchmarked the impact of a 10% electricity price increase on many Pennsylvania economic indicators, including private nonfarm employment, total economic output, gross state product, real disposable income, and population. These benchmarks were created using the Pennsylvania REMI Policy Insight model, a 70–sector structural economic and demographic forecasting and policy analysis model. Our simulations using Policy Insight are built on the notion that an increase in the price of electricity will alter household spending and add to industry production costs, resulting in loss of Pennsylvania jobs, income, economic output, and population.

Contacts
Rose M. Baker, Program Manager, Workforce Assessment Center, 814.865.9919, rmb194@psu.edu.
David L. Passmore, Director, Institute for Research in Training & Development, 814.863.2583, dlp@psu.edu.

Penn State Workforce Education & Development Initiative
Mission
The Penn State Workforce Education & Development (WED) Initiative is the result of a memorandum of agreement between Penn State's College of Education and Penn State Outreach. The Initiative is in the midst of its second three–year agreement, an alliance that is renewable in July 2009. The mission of the WED Initiative is to support the development of the workforce in Pennsylvania primarily through the application of Penn State resources to conduct economic and workforce analyses for employers, industry partnerships, nonprofit organizations, and government entities. For a guide to information on the web about the WED Initiative, see http://PSU–WEDI-Guide.notlong.com.
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The Penn State WED Initiative often conducts research analysis about topics and issues that, at times, are the focus of vigorous debate and public attention and that frequently are associated with diverse stakeholders who represent divergent opinions. The Initiative adds value to this debate, attention, and discussion by conducting and reporting research and analysis decisions affecting economic and workforce development using the most objective approaches possible. The research and analysis of the WED Initiative are pursued independent of the commercial or political interests of any actual or potential sponsor of WED Initiative work. All research meeting the Initiative’s standards of quality for conduct and reporting is available to the public via links through "publications" and "presentations" keywords at the web site of the Institute for Research in Training and Development.