fuel demand elasticities for energy and environmental policies indian sample survey evidence india has been running large scale interventions in the energy sector over the last decades still there is a dearth of reliable and readily available price and income elasticities of demand to base these on especially for domestic use of traditional fuels this study uses the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids using micro data of more than 100 000 households sampled across india the la aids model is expanded by specifying the intercept as a linear function of household characteristics marshallian and hicksian price and expenditure elasticities of demand for four main fuels are estimated for both urban and rural areas by different income groups these can be used to evaluate recent and current energy policies the results can also be used for energy projections and carbon dioxide simulations given different growth rates for different segments of the indian population

optimization of india s power sector strategies using weight restricted stochastic data envelopment analysis abstract india s power sector has a significant impact on the country s development and climate change mitigation efforts optimization of energy planning is therefore key to achieving the overall planning goals the hierarchical multi objective policy optimization is a policy centric multi level bottom up iterative approach designed from a developing country perspective utilizing the optimality principle of dynamic programming it is applied to the indian power sector by grouping the strategies into three portfolios namely power generation mix demand side efficiency group and supply side efficiency group each portfolio is optimized taking into account the objectives of cost minimization and comprehensive risk and barrier reduction the portfolios are further combined and optimized at a higher level with respect to higher level objectives namely economic growth energy equity energy security and climate sustainability this paper focuses on the second level optimization utilizing data envelopment analysis dea both the deterministic and stochastic variations have been analysed and the results compared in respect of unrestricted as well as restricted weight models the analysis shows that weight restricted stochastic dea model is most appropriate for efficiency optimization of power sector strategies the methodology can be effectively used for energy planning in developing countries

the effect of urbanization on energy use in india and china in the ipets model abstract urbanization is one of the major demographic and economic trends occurring in developing countries with important consequences for development energy use and well being yet it is only beginning to be explicitly incorporated in long term scenario analyses of energy and emissions we assess the implications of a plausible range of urbanization pathways for energy use and carbon emissions in india and china using the integrated population economy technology science ipets model a computable general equilibrium cge model of the global economy that captures heterogeneity in household types within world regions and into which we have introduced income effects on household consumption preferences we find that changes in urbanization have a somewhat less than proportional effect on aggregate emissions and energy use a decomposition analysis demonstrates that this effect is due primarily to an economic growth effect driven by the increased labor supply associated with faster urbanization the influence of income on household consumption is strong and indicates a potentially rapid transition away from traditional fuel use and toward modern fuels such as electricity and natural gas results also indicate important directions for future work including the implications of alternative types and driving forces of urbanization over time a better understanding of possible changes in consumption preferences associated with income growth and the urbanization process and modeling strategies that can produce disaggregated household consumption outcomes within a cge framework

an interest group model of direct income redistribution an interest group model of the determinants of policies which directly re distribute income to low income persons is developed and tested the model assum es that altruistic taxpayers nonaltruistic taxpayers and needy beneficiaries f orm separate interest groups from which politicians seek support benefit levels depend on variables such as taxpayer income and the price of benefits but unlike median voter models the model also implies a role for interest group strengt h and competition between political parties the author uses latent variable met hods and data on the aid to families with dependent children program to demonstr ate empirical support forthe model copyright 1986 by mit press

do first time house buyers receive financial transfers from their parents using danish longitudinal data with information about wealth for a sample of first time house buyers and their parents we test whether there are direct financial transfers from parents to children in connection with the house purchase or in connection with unemployment spells occurring just after the purchase when children typically hold few liquid assets first we document that child and parent financial resources are correlated then we introduce conditioning variables and exploit the panel aspect of the data to also condition on fixed unobserved factors which arguably govern preferences and or productivity we find no evidence of direct financial transfers

private transfers borrowing constraints and the timing of homeownership the 1991 italian survey of household income and wealth contains retrospective information on intergenerational transfers this information is used to estimate the impact of transfers on the saving time required to purchase a house it is found that transfers have a small impact on saving time and that after receiving a transfer households purchase considerably larger homes the results have implications for the debate about the source of the relation between aggregate saving and growth

modeling household cooking fuel choice a panel multinomial logit approach we use three rounds of a rich panel data set to investigate the determinants of household cooking fuel choice and energy transition in urban ethiopia we observe that the expected energy transition did not occur following economic growth in ethiopia during the decade 20002009 regression results from a random eects multinomial logit model suggest that households economic status price of alternative energy sources and education are important determinants of fuel choice in urban ethiopia the results also suggest the use of multiple fuels or fuel stacking behavior by households we argue that policy makers could target these policy levers to encourage transition to cleaner energy sources

intergenerational transfers borrowing constraints and saving behavior evidence from the housing market abstract we examine the effects of intergenerational transfers on saving behavior by analyzing transfers targeted to first time home purchases transfer recipients have a shorter time to save for a down payment of 9 20 for each dollar of transfer received total savings falls by 29 40 cents and the down payment rises by 61 71 cents transfer recipients increase the value of the home purchased but by an amount that is much lower than possible if the transfer were fully leveraged in addition transfers appear to help households achieve certain down payment thresholds that give favorable mortgage terms

state responses to fiscal crises the effects of budgetary institutions and politics this paper explores the dynamics of state taxes and spending during the late 1980s when regional economic downturns and increased expenditure demands led to substantial state budget deficits more restrictive state fiscal institutions such as no deficit carryover rules and tax and expenditure limitations are correlated with more rapid fiscal adjustment to unexpected deficits political factors are also important when a single party controls the state house and the governorship deficit adjustment is much faster than when party control is divided in gubernatorial election years tax increases and spending cuts are both significantly smaller than at other times

the tax revolt and electoral competition this paper explores the effect of electoral competition onstate and local expenditures in the us during the politicalenvironment following the tax revolt of the late 1970s itutilizes a theoretical model in which both electoralcompetition and tax and expenditure limits impact spending empirical results indicate the tax revolt s primary impact wastransmitted through political candidate competition notthrough the adoption of tax or expenditure limitations as iscommonly believed however tax and expenditure limits doaffect public education expenditures

when does unreliable grid supply become unacceptable policy costs of power supply and outages in rural india abstract despite frequent blackouts and brownouts extension of the central grid remains the indian government s preferred strategy for the country s rural electrification policy this study reports an assessment that compares grid extension with distributed generation dg alternatives based on the subsidies they will necessitate and costs of service interruptions that are appropriate in the rural indian context using cross sectional household expenditure data and region fixed effects models average household demand is estimated the price elasticity of demand is found to be in the range of 0 3 to 0 4 interruption costs are estimated based on the loss of consumer surplus due to reduced consumption of electric lighting energy that results from intermittent power supply different grid reliability scenarios are simulated despite the inclusion of interruption costs standalone dg does not appear to be competitive with grid extension at distances of less than 17 km however backing up unreliable grid service with local dg plants is attractive when reliability is very poor even in previously electrified villages introduction of energy efficient lighting changes these economics and the threshold for acceptable grid unreliability significantly reduces a variety of polices to promote accelerated deployment and the wider adoption of improved end use efficiency warrant serious consideration

political agency government responsiveness and the role of the media abstract the role of mass media in making governments responsive to the needs of citizens is a relatively neglected area in economics we sketch a theoretical example with a role for media in enhancing government responsiveness based on asymmetric information between citizens and government we then use data for the period 1958 1992 on the extent to which indian state governments responded to food shortages via the public distribution of food correlating these with proxies of media political and economic development we find that states that are more responsive tend to also be those with high levels of newspaper circulation electoral turnout and literacy in contrast richer states do not tend to be more responsive than poorer states

from linear fuel switching to multiple cooking strategies a critique and alternative to the energy ladder model abstract promoting sustainable development requires evaluating the technical and policy options that will facilitate the adoption and use of energy efficient and less polluting cooking stoves and practices the transition from traditional to modern fuels and devices has been explained by the energy ladder model that suggests that with increasing affluence a progression is expected from traditional biomass fuels to more advanced and less polluting fuels in this paper we evaluate the energy ladder model utilizing data from a four year 1992 96 case study of a village in mexico and from a large scale survey from four states of mexico we show that an alternate multiple fuel model of stove and fuel management based on the observed pattern of household accumulation of energy options rather than the simple progression depicted in the traditional energy ladder scenario more accurately depicts cooking fuel use patterns in rural households the multiple fuel model integrates four factors demonstrated to be essential in household decision making under conditions of resource scarcity or uncertainty a economics of fuel and stove type and access conditions to fuels b technical characteristics of cookstoves and cooking practices c cultural preferences and d health impacts this model also allows better estimates of the expected fuelwood demand and indoor air pollution in rural households

on measuring energy poverty in indian households summary the relationship between energy and poverty is obvious and goes both ways recognizing this this paper provides a short overview of different approaches to measuring energy poverty it then presents a novel two dimensional measure of energy poverty and energy distribution that combines the elements of access to different energy types and quantity of energy consumed an assessment of the extent of energy poverty and changes in energy distribution pattern are analyzed by applying this measure to indian household survey data for 1983 2000 the analysis shows a significant reduction in the level of energy poverty and a rapidly developing subcontinent the new measure is a good complement to conventional monetary measures and is general enough to be applied to other developing countries

methods for including income distribution in global cge models for long term climate change research abstract the consequences of climate policy and the impacts of climate change vary among different types of households depending on their income level expenditure pattern and other socioeconomic characteristics global economy environment models that are used to assess climate change issues traditionally do not distinguish households by income or other attributes to facilitate progress in this area we review and assess literature on methods to include household heterogeneity in global long term computable general equilibrium cge models we distinguish among three categories of approaches 1 the explicit modeling of multiple household types within the cge framework 2 micro simulation modeling and 3 direct modeling of income distribution for each of these approaches we describe the method key assumptions limitations and several prominent examples from the literature moreover we discuss data needs including the contents of household survey data their availability and processing we conclude with an overview of what each method could provide for global long term climate related research

did the tax revolt reduce school performance abstract this paper uses detailed school level data from 49 states to analyze the effects of tax revolt era property tax limitations on school services i find that limitations are associated with larger student teacher ratios and lower cost of living adjusted starting teacher salaries all else equal these results are robust to modelling the results as endogenous and using a variety of measures for whether the limitation binds at particular schools however i find no such evidence that schools subject to limitations have reduced their administrative costs furthermore i find that limitations are associated with lower student performance on mathematics science social studies and reading examinations all else equal

the role of decentralized distributed generation in achieving universal rural electrification in south asia by 2030 this study is motivated by the goal of achieving universal energy access by 2030 and looks at electricity access for rural households in the south asian region the message access model is employed to assess the cost effectiveness of centralized and decentralized distributed generation ddg technologies delivery mechanisms are modelled to include mini grid and stand alone systems and the analysis includes an estimation of rural household electricity demand from lighting and appliances we assume two future demand scenarios with a minimum threshold and a higher threshold of electricity consumption of 65 and 420 kw h per household per year respectively we find that the cost of delivering electricity by centralized generation and grid distribution is up to four times the cost of stand alone and mini grid ddg options in the case of minimum threshold demand scenario these results are robust to alternate assumptions regarding costs of technologies we also estimate that public subsidy bill for kerosene can be substantially reduced if all households switch to electricity as their primary source of lighting thus promoting ddg options can reduce capital investments needed to meet access goals significantly and have an important role to play in meeting the goal of universal electrification by 2030

estimating the effect of unearned income on labor supply earnings savings and consumption evidence from a survey of lottery players this paper provides empirical evidence about the effect of unearned income on earnings consumption and savings using an original survey of people playing the lottery in massachusetts in the mid 1980 s the effects of the magnitude of lottery prizes on economic behavior are analyzed the critical assumption is that among lottery winners the magnitude of the prize is randomly assigned it is found that unearned income reduces labor earnings with a marginal propensity to consume leisure of approximately 11 percent with larger effects for individuals between 55 and 65 years old after receiving about half their prize individuals saved about 16 percent

the demand for coal among china s rural households estimates of price and income elasticities abstract china s residential sector has experienced rapid electrification and gasification among rural households however coal still accounts for a large share of energy use especially in the north use of coal for cooking and heating brings large health and pollution risks from a theoretical viewpoint economic tools such as taxes and subsidies have the potential to play a crucial role in addressing this issue in this paper a provincial level dataset is used to estimate the price and income elasticities of aggregate coal demand by rural households we find that coal is a non giffen inferior good for the rural household sector this means that future income growth may help to induce switching from coal demand is becoming more price elastic as rural incomes grow we also find that rural residential coal demand is more price and income responsive in the south than the north perhaps because of fewer substitution options in the north our results provide benchmarks and parameters for policy simulation research

when black meets green a review of the four pillars of india s energy policy abstract india is one of the most important global players in the energy sector in terms of production and consumption the way in which the country shapes its energy policy not only affects india itself but also the global climate action on the one hand india led by pm narendra modi declares the commitment to pro climate actions including the enhancement of the energy efficiency and renewable capacity on the other hand the development of india s conventional energy sector coal was indicated as one of the reasons for the us exit from the paris agreement this dilemma lead to a discussion on the shape of india s energy policy seen from the climate s standpoint in this context the article discusses the pillars of india s energy policy presented by modi in 2016 the main energy pillars access efficiency sustainability and security are juxtaposed with the previous indian strategic documents concerning the energy sector including electricity national electricity policy of 2005 draft national energy policy of 2017 a climate energy policy analysis is extended by legal comments on indian energy law as a result the article draws a picture of india s energy policy and climate agenda in black conventional energy and green renewable capacity colours

reducing subsidies on household fuels in india how will it affect the poor kerosene and lpg are widely used in households in india for lighting and cooking these fuels have historically been subsidized as part of the restructuring of the energy sector the government is committed to limiting these subsidies this paper examines the impact of reducing energy subsidies on the welfare of the poor the paper uses data from nationally representative surveys of over 100 000 households the paper concludes that the case for reducing lpg subsidies is strong although the kerosene subsidy is an inefficient means of subsidizing fuel use by the poor reduction in it will need to be supported by other policies that would limit the adverse impacts

an integrated supply demand model for the optimization of energy flow in the urban system this research aims to develop a bottom up integrated supply demand model to assess the optimal performance of urban energy systems to this end an optimization model founded on the principles of microeconomics was developed and deployed using mathematical programming in this model the urban energy system is treated as an economic actor in the market seeking to establish an effective energy system to improve its overall resource efficiency with minimum total cost of the system the model leads the system to achieve supply and demand energy commitments which include alternative energy and energy efficiency targets in this paper we apply the model to address the electricity deficiency in delhi india as a case study the results suggest that the saving at the end user level could reach about 220 gwh per annum in the near future through improving energy end use efficiency in the domestic sector besides this the installation of about 40 mw from waste to electricity plants and generating approximately 210 gwh electricity from the rooftop solar pv by 2030 could enable a sufficient surplus for the power supply sector to meet the city s electricity demand in the near future even though the system has some inherent limitations stemming from the assumptions of microeconomics and challenges related to data needs the model can help the local actors from governments to property owners to find the best solutions for their energy needs such a modeling framework could address an organization s sustainable performance at the urban level through the resource use optimization minimization of waste cleaner technologies and pollution limits which are used in achieving co benefits and a broad range of eco industrial development eid goals

analysis of the energy access improvement and its socio economic impacts in rural areas of developing countries abstract access to modern energy is one of the most basic requirements for development in rural areas of developing countries there are a large number of people who do not have access to lpg and depend on traditional biomass such as wood crop and dung for cooking in addition energy has numerous and complex links with poverty reduction therefore it is important to estimate the impacts of energy access improvement on socio economic situation in the rural areas of developing countries quantitatively this study focuses on socio economic impacts of cooking demand through changes in stoves adopted by the rural households we have developed an energy economic model of rural areas in india to analyze the links between energy income and health hazard applying both opportunity cost for using fuelwood and exposure to resipirable suspended particulate matter rspm as a result of the analysis there is a positive relation between the opportunity cost and the average rspm exposure of women in the rural areas following to increase in the opportunity cost that is income the cost of an improved wood stove becomes relatively lower first than that of a traditional wood stove and then a gas stove attains price competitiveness it is achieved that the average rspm exposure is below the who and japanese criteria for suspended particulate matter spm 190 and 100 g m3 at the opportunity cost of us 9 and 15 gj respectively

participation constraints in the stock market evidence from unexpected inheritance due to sudden death we use a natural experiment to investigate the impact of participation constraints on individuals decisions to invest in the stock market unexpected inheritance due to sudden deaths results in exogenous variation in financial wealth and allows us to examine whether fixed entry and ongoing participation costs cause non participation we have three key findings first windfall wealth has a positive effect on participation second the majority of households do not react to sizeable windfalls by entering the stock market but hold on to substantial safe assets even over longer horizons third the majority of households inheriting stock holdings actively sell the entire portfolio overall these findings suggest that participation by many individuals is unlikely to be constrained by financial participation costs

tax limits and the qualifications of new teachers abstract this paper examines the impact of local tax limits on new teacher quality using data from the national center for education statistics we find that tax limits systematically reduce the average quality of education majors as well as new public school teachers in states that have passed these limits the average relative test scores of education majors in tax limit states declined by ten percent as compared to the relative test scores of education majors in states that did not pass limits this relationship is strengthened if we control for school finance equalization reforms or examine tax limits passed in two different periods

urban and rural energy use and carbon dioxide emissions in asia the process of urbanization has been shown to be important for economic development environmental impacts and human wellbeing particularly in developing countries in this paper we compare structure data sources and scenario results of four integrated assessment models that are capable of analyzing different aspects of urbanization the comparison focuses on residential sector energy use and related co2 emissions based on a set of urbanization scenarios for china and india important insights from this model comparison include that i total fossil fuel and industrial co2 emissions at the regional level are not very sensitive to alternative rates of urbanization and are largely dependent on the linkage between urbanization and economic growth via differentiated labor productivity in urban and rural areas ii alternative urbanization pathways may yield different results for the share of solid fuels in residential energy use thereby affecting the number of people relying on these fuels and the associated adverse health impacts and iii alternative economic growth scenarios can only be assessed for their welfare implications if urban and rural household are distinguished even though that distinction does not always strongly affect aggregate outcomes which is often due to two effects that compensate each other in total it can be concluded that urbanization and heterogeneity of households and consumers are clearly relevant for distributional effects and associated health and social impacts

determinants of household energy consumption in india improving access to affordable modern energy is critical to improving living standards in the developing world rural households in india in particular are almost entirely reliant on traditional biomass for their basic cooking energy needs this has adverse effects on their health and productivity and also causes environmental degradation this study presents a new generic modelling approach with a focus on cooking fuel choices and explores response strategies for energy poverty eradication in india the modelling approach analyzes the determinants of fuel consumption choices for heterogeneous household groups incorporating the effect of income distributions and traditionally more intangible factors such as preferences and private discount rates the methodology is used to develop alternate future scenarios that explore how different policy mechanisms such as fuel subsidies and micro financing can enhance the diffusion of modern more efficient energy sources in india

domestic technology consumption economies of scale and poverty evidence from sri lanka while it is well known that new technologies enhance consumer welfare the manner in which these technologies impact the ability to realize economies of scale in consumption is not well understood we use sri lankan household data to examine how the adoption of new technologies by households positively impacts their ability to achieve household economies of scale this suggests that new technologies not only deliver a greater variety of consumption goods to consumers but they may also play an important role in enabling large households to escape poverty by lowering the per capita costs of maintaining a given standard of living given the importance of consumption economies of scale in the measurement of poverty this study provides some insights on the extent to which the number of poor households changes when food consumption scale economies due to technology adoption in the domestic sphere are incorporated

neighbourhood effects and housing demand in this paper we estimate a model of housing demand with neighborhood eects we exploit special features of the national sample of the american housing survey and properties of housing markets that allow us to create natural instruments and therefore identify the impact of social interactions we find evidence of both endogenous and contextual neighborhood eects we report two alternative sets of estimates for neighborhood eects that dier in terms of the instruments we use for estimating the model when the endogenous neighborhood eect is large the respective contextual eects are weak and vice versa the elasticity of housing demand with respect to the mean of the neighbors housing demands the endogenous eect ranges from 0 19 to 0 66 and is generally very significant the contextual eects are also very significant a key such eect the elasticity with respect to the mean of neighbors permanent incomes ranges from 0 17 to 0 54

interest groups campaign contributions and probabilistic voting this essay develops a simple model to analyze the impact of campaign contributions on electoral policy decisions of candidates for office interest groups here are firms that select contributions under the assumption that candidates policies and opposing groups donations remain unaltered candidates however recognize that their policy choices affect contributions campaign contributions are used by candidates to affect policy oriented voters perceptions of candidates positions in this framework the introduction of campaign contributions may affect candidates electoral policies and if they do then they benefit surely exactly one of the two interest groups

forced sales and house prices the market for housing differs in several important ways from the textbook model of a liquid asset market with exogenous fundamentals this implies that the price at which a house is sold can be influenced not only by general supply and demand conditions but also by idiosyncratic factors including the urgency of the sale and the effects of the ownership transfer on the physical quality of the house first houses are productive only when people are living in them owning an empty house is equivalent to throwing away the dividend on a financial asset second houses are fragile assets that need maintenance and are vulnerable to van dalism unoccupied houses are particularly vulnerable and expensive to protect third short term rental contracts involve high transactions costs resulting from the moving costs of renters and the need of homeowners to protect their property against damage fourth houses are expensive indivisible and heterogeneous assets each house has certain unique characteristics which are likely to appeal to certain poten tial buyers and not to others so selling a house requires matching it with an appro priate buyer because of the high costs of intermediation in housing this task is normally undertaken by a real estate broker rather than a dealer fifth most home owners must finance their purchases using mortgages collateralized debt contracts that transfer home ownership to the mortgage lender through a foreclosure process if the homeowner defaults the expansion of mortgage credit in the early 2000s and the recent decline in house prices have led to an unprecedented increase in foreclosures since 2006 foreclosures transfer houses to financial institutions which must maintain and pro tect them until they can be sold foreclosed houses are likely to sell at low prices both because they may have been physically damaged during the foreclosure pro cess and because financial institutions have an incentive to sell them quickly in a liquid market an asset can be sold rapidly with a minimal impact on its price but

electoral competition in the american states electoral competition is a concept that has played a central role in much of the state politics literature one commonly used indicator of competition in the states is the ranney index we offer an alternative indicator of competition one based on district level outcomes of state legislative elections after evaluating both indicators in terms of validity and reliability the analysis suggests that the district level indicator is both empirically and intuitively superior as a measure of electoral competition the implications of this finding are discussed

financial market imperfections and home ownership a comparative study abstract we explore the determinants of the distribution of owner occupancy rates across age groups using a collection of microeconomic data on 14 oecd countries in most the survey is repeated over time this allows us to construct an international dataset merging data on 39 national household surveys with aggregate data on down payment ratios we find strong evidence that the availability of mortgage finance as measured by down payment ratios affects the distribution of owner occupancy rates across age groups especially at the young end the results are consistent with previous theoretical models and have important implications for the debate on the relation between saving and growth

borrowing constraints home ownership and housing choice evidence from intra family wealth transfers we study the impact of borrowing constraints on home ownership and housing demand by comparing the tenure choice and housing quality of consumers who receive intra family wealth transfers to those that do not our analysis is based on household level panel data providing information on the receipt of wealth transfers changes in tenure status as well as changes in the size and quality of housing on average we find that the receipt of a wealth transfer increases the propensity of consumers to transition from renters to home owners by 6 8 percentage points 35 of the sample mean additional analyses suggest that this effect is unlikely to be driven by wealth effects and can thus be attributed to the relaxation of borrowing constraints by contrast wealth transfers do not increase the likelihood that existing homeowners trade up to larger homes in better locations

electoral competition and special interest politics have fixed positions on some issues but vary their positions on others in order to attract votes and campaign contributions in this context we examine whether special interest groups are governed by an electoral motive or an influence in their campaign giving and how their contributions affect the equilibrium platforms we show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups the party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests

understanding the tax revolt eight explanations numerous explanations of the tax revolt have been offered since california s adoption of proposition 13 in 1978 unfortunately many of these explanations remain untested or have been tested inappropriately and the explanations are often jumbled together in a fashion that precludes theoretical clarity we extract eight explanations from the literature each of which assumes that the tax revolt is a systematic national phenomenon that is a function of individual level social economic and political factors having tested these explanations by means of a discriminant analysis of data from the 1978 american national election study we find little empirical corroboration for any of them this leads us to consider two alternative research programs one of which interprets the tax revolt within a symbolic politics framework

future energy system challenges for africa insights from integrated assessment models although africa s share in the global energy system is only small today ongoing population growth and economic development imply that this can change significantly here we discuss long term energy system developments in africa using results of a recent model inter comparison study on global climate policy we focus on africa s role in the wider global energy system and in global climate mitigation the results show a considerable spread in model outcomes emphasizing the large uncertainty regarding africa s energy future without climate policy africa s share in global energy related co2 emissions is projected to increase to 3 23 by 2100 emissions become significant on a global scale only after 2050 in none of the model projections the international ambition to provide universal modern energy access by 2030 is achieved furthermore although the continent is currently a large net exporter of oil and natural gas towards 2050 the model projections emphasize that africa needs most of its resources for its rapidly growing domestic demand however the projected rapid expansion of their energy system also implies that africa gains importance in global mitigation action an important challenge is to align the increasing investments in the energy system with climate policy and potential revenues from international carbon trading

to buy or not to buy consumer constraints in the housing market abstract we use a strategic household survey to study the sensitivity of intended homeownership decisions to financing constraints we find that the average stated likelihood of buying a home is strongly sensitive to the size of the required down payment which we vary exogenously across three scenarios this sensitivity is particularly high for respondents that appear more liquidity constrained based on observable characteristics including current renters or owners with low savings or low home equity for renters expectations of future rent inflation and of improvements to their personal financial situation also predict intention to buy

homeownership and the american dream for decades it was taken as a given that an increased homeownership rate was a desirable goal but after the financial crises and great recession in which roughly eight million homes were foreclosed on and about 7 trillion in home equity was erased economists and policymakers are re evaluating the role of homeownership in the american dream many question whether the american dream should really include homeownership or instead focus more on other aspects of upward mobility and most acknowledge that homeownership is not for everyone we take a detailed look at us homeownership from three different perspectives 1 an international perspective comparing us homeownership rates with those of other nations 2 a demographic perspective examining the correlation between changes in the us homeownership rate between 1985 and 2015 and factors like age race ethnicity education family status and income 3 and a financial benefits perspective using national data since 2002 to calculate the internal rate of return to homeownership compared to alternative investments our overall conclusion homeownership is a valuable institution while two decades of policies in the 1990s and early 2000s may have put too much faith in the benefits of homeownership the pendulum seems to have swung too far the other way and many now may have too little faith in homeownership as part of the american dream

has leviathan been bound a theory of imperfectly constrained government with evidence from the states this paper develops a formal theory that combines power maximizing leviathan political parties with well defined imperfections in the political process the model implies that both parties tend to make government larger as their likelihood of electoral victory increases empirical tests on state level data confirm this prediction racing the leviathan hypothesis against alternative theories of party motivation indicates that both the leviathan and the contrasting ideologies views have some degree of validity the leviathan motive of politicians to maximize their power is a central assumption of the public choice approach to political economy this approach has been strongly attacked for underestimating the importance of competitive checks on politicians wittman 1989 1995 in particular broadly argues that electoral competition is an effective solution to whatever principalagent problem might exist between politicians and voters yet recent research in political economy dixit and londregan 1995 1996 1998 grossman and helpman 1996 casts renewed doubt on the efficiency of political markets formal models incorporating imperfections in the electoral process show that politicians have the latitude to deviate somewhat from citizen interests although politicians face constraints they retain some measure of monopoly power a conclusion consistent with the public choice literature the main difference between recent political economy and the public choice tradition arises from their assumptions about politicians objective functions the public choice approach tends to view all political parties as power maximizers whereas others see parties as either vote

electoral competition with informed and uninformed voters i present a model of electoral competition in which candidates raise campaign contributions by choosing policies that benefit interest groups and then expend those contributions to influence voters who are uninformed about the policies informed voters however vote based on those policies so candidates face a trade off between choosing a policy to generate funds to attract the uninformed vote and choosing a policy to attract the informed vote electoral equilibria are characterized for two categories of policies particularistic and collective in the case of particularistic policies the equilibrium policies of the candidates are separated if the proportion of uninformed voters is sufficiently high and the degree of separation is an increasing function of that proportion the model is extended to include the public financing of elections and incumbency advantages for the case of collective policies the candidates locate at the median of the ideal points of the informed voters and contributions are zero

public policies pressure groups and dead weight costs abstract this paper presents a model of competition among special interest groups for political influence each active group exerts pressure to affect its taxes and subsidies where activities of different groups are related by the equality between total tax collections and total tax subsidies the dead weight costs and benefits of taxes and subsidies play a major role in our model an increase in the dead weight cost of taxation encourages pressure by taxpayers while an increase in the dead weight costs of subsidies discourages pressure by recipients various applications of the analysis are discussed