Frank Wolak portrait 2024

Frank Wolak, MS, PhD

  • Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • Holbrook Working Professor of Commodity Price Studies in Economics
  • Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
  • Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development

Stanford University
Economics Department
579 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6072

(650) 724-1712 (voice)
(650) 724-1717 (fax)

Biography

Frank A. Wolak is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Stanford University. His fields of specialization are Industrial Organization and Econometric Theory. His recent work studies methods for introducing competition into infrastructure industries -- telecommunications, electricity, water delivery and postal delivery services -- and on assessing the impacts of these competition policies on consumer and producer welfare. He is the Chairman of the Market Surveillance Committee of the California Independent System Operator for electricity supply industry in California. He is a visiting scholar at University of California Energy Institute and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Professor Wolak received his Ph.D. and M.S. from Harvard University and his B.A. from Rice University.

publications

Journal Articles
August 2022

Game-based investigation of standardized forward contracting for long-term resource adequacy

Author(s)
cover link Game-based investigation of standardized forward contracting for long-term resource adequacy
Working Papers
April 2022

Game-based investigation of standardized forward contracting for long-term resource adequacy

Author(s)
cover link Game-based investigation of standardized forward contracting for long-term resource adequacy
Working Papers
November 2021

Financing the Energy Transition in a Low-Cost Intermittent Renewables Environment

Author(s)
cover link Financing the Energy Transition in a Low-Cost Intermittent Renewables Environment

In The News

Workshop group with CPUC seal
News

PESD Policy Engagement: Protecting Ratepayers in a High-Renewables Future

Frank Wolak and Mark Thurber conduct game-based workshop with the California Public Utilities Commission Public Advocates Office
cover link PESD Policy Engagement: Protecting Ratepayers in a High-Renewables Future
Frank Wolak points to a graph on a screen in front of an audience seated around tables
News

Texas regulators explore market designs for a high-renewables electricity system

cover link Texas regulators explore market designs for a high-renewables electricity system
CPUC meeting
News

PESD/CPUC Impact Lab tackles resource adequacy in a high-renewables California

cover link PESD/CPUC Impact Lab tackles resource adequacy in a high-renewables California