Regulatory Easing: Potential Impact on Energy Sector

Jun 1, 2017

Using market returns as a starting point, we focus on the U.S. energy sector to better understand how the possibility of regulatory easing could affect sector, company and investor performance.

For the energy sector, we suggest that regulatory changes alone may be unlikely to upend global supply and demand dynamics for fossil fuels, with renewable energy adoption driven by global market-led factors extending beyond regulations in a single market.

Falling demand for fossil fuels due to global factors – such as falling prices of clean technologies, aspiration for clean air and increased efforts of major energy importing nations to secure greater energy independence - paired with ‘sticky’ energy supply, may dampen the long-term impact of regulatory easing limited to single market.