greenhouse warming comparative analysis of nuclear and efficiency abatement strategies abstract we analyse two popular strategies for reducing fossil fuel carbon dioxide co2 emissions revitalizing nuclear power and improving energy efficiency under highly favourable assumptions for nuclear power in scenarios of moderate to high energy growth we find that even if large nuclear plants 1 000 mw could be built every one to three days from now until 2025 which is impossible in the third world global co2 emissions would still continue to grow thus nuclear power cannot contribute significantly to abating greenhouse warming except possibly in scenarios of low energy growth for which the problem is already largely ameliorated by efficiency improvement in the usa the world s largest producer of co2 each dollar invested in electric efficiency displaces nearly seven times as much co2 as a dollar invested in nuclear power even if the most optimistic aspirations for the future economics of nuclear power were realized today efficiency would still displace between 2 5 and 10 times more co2 per unit investment we conclude that revitalizing nuclear power would be a relatively expensive and ineffective response to greenhouse warming and that the key to reducing future co2 emissions is to improve the energy efficiency of the global economy

china s regional rebound effect based on modelling multi regional cge improving energy efficiency has been regarded as an important measure to reduce energy consumption yet the rebound effect has greatly shrunken the energy saving consequences of this measure to in

energy conservation more effective with rebound policy this article sketches the problem of indirect energy use effects also known as rebound of energy conservation there is widespread support for energy conservation especially when it is voluntary as this seems a cheap way to realize environmental and energy climate goals however this overlooks the phenomenon of rebound the topic of energy rebound has mainly attracted attention from energy analysts but has been surprisingly neglected in environmental economics even though economists generally are concerned with indirect or economy wide impacts of technical change and policies this paper presents definitions and interpretations of energy and environmental rebound as well as four fundamental reasons for the existence of the rebound phenomenon it further offers the most complete list of rebound pathways or mechanisms available in the literature in addition it discusses empirical estimates of rebound and addresses the implications of uncertainties and difficulties in assessing rebound suggestions are offered for strategies and public policies to contain rebound it is advised that rebound evaluation is an essential part of environmental policy and project assessments as opposed to earlier studies this paper stresses the relevance of the distinction between energy conservation resulting from autonomous demand changes and from efficiency improvements in technology equipment in addition it argues that rebound is especially relevant for developing countries

investigating meso economic rebound effects production side effects and feedback loops between the micro and macro level abstract research on the rebound effect has so far mainly considered micro economic rebound effects at the level of consumers and households as well as macro economic rebound effects in the sense of energy efficiency induced economic growth effects this article focuses on an area of rebound research that has not yet received sufficient attention namely on meso economic rebound effects as production side and sector level rebounds the article summarizes and systematizes reasons why companies generate rebounds distinguishes market and sector level rebounds from macro economic growth effects identifies a number of feedback loops by which production side and sector level rebounds multiply or nullify consumer side rebound effects and finally discusses some conclusions on the potential quantitative dimension of production side rebound effects

to cool a sweltering earth does energy efficiency improvement offset the climate impacts of lifestyle abstract as technical efficiency improvement in energy use remains a touchstone measure to curb greenhouse gas ghg emissions there is substantial concern about whether this approach can offset the large and expanding impacts of human actions critics contend that without adjustments to the prevailing consumptive lifestyle energy efficiency improvement will generate only token reductions in ghg emissions i address this concern by examining the extent to which technical efficiency improvement in energy use offsets the impacts of housing related lifestyle on ghg emissions i build from two perspectives the physical technical economic models that consider energy efficiency improvement as a potent strategy to curb residential energy consumption and the lifestyle and social behavioral approach which questions this view the analyses reveal consistent positive relationship between lifestyle and energy consumption the results also indicate that energy efficiency improvement has mixed effects on energy consumption in fact model based figures show that technical efficiency improvement in energy use leads to slightly higher energy consumption if it is not accompanied by adjustments to lifestyle

energy rebound effect in china s industry an aggregate and disaggregate analysis abstract considering the crucial role of industrial sectors in energy conservation this paper investigates the impact of output growth on energy consumption in china s industrial sectors with an index decomposition model and the energy rebound effect in the industrial sectors with a panel data model using the annual data during 1994 2012 the empirical results indicate that first industrial output growth is proved to be the major factor in promoting industrial energy consumption while energy intensity reduction and structure shifts across industrial sub sectors play the dominant roles in slowing down industrial energy consumption second there does exist energy rebound effect in china s aggregate industry which ranges from 20 to 76 during 1995 2012 or 39 on average in particular the energy rebound effect in manufacturing is relatively smaller during the sample period i e 28 on average finally the energy rebound effect in both china s aggregate industry and manufacturing exhibit an overall decreasing trend over time

increasing energy supply not inevitable abstract suggestions that energy efficiency improvements cannot reduce energy demand are wrong first such suggestions are not even justified by available historical evidence second the general argument that increasing living standards can only be based on increasing energy demand is based solely on the assumption that what has generally happened in the past must always apply to the future in the past governments have not seen the need to accelerate the rate of energy efficiency improvements by intervening in the market and by changing attitudes however with mounting concerns about the environmental impact of energy sources there is now the motivation to reverse this general trend the means to do this are available what we need to do is to make a political choice to embark on a non nuclear response to global warming

the rebound effect on road freight transport empirical evidence from portugal abstract because a large proportion of total operating costs for transportation companies goes towards energy a reduction in energy operating costs brought about by an increase in fleet fuel efficiency or an increase in operational efficiency results in a change in the relative cost of road freight transportation this fact could result in an increase in the demand for such services if this is true the result would be an increase in total fuel consumption consequently that part of the energy savings obtained through the increased energy efficiency would be lost the existence of a rebound effect is especially important in the road freight transportation sector and is crucial for the definition of a national energy policy in this study data from the road freight transportation sector in portugal for the years of 1987 through 2006 was analyzed it was determined that an increase in energy efficiency did not cause a backfire but did cause a total direct rebound effect of 24 1 in addition fleet operators were more inclined to adopt operational efficiencies than technological fuel efficiencies as a means of increasing the total operational efficiency

estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for u s households with input output analysis part 1 theoretical framework abstract this is the first part of a two part paper providing an analytical model of the indirect rebound effect given a direct rebound estimate that integrates consumer demand theory with the embodied energy of household spending from environmentally extended input output analysis the second part applies the model developed in part one to simulate the direct and indirect rebound for the average u s household in terms of primary energy co2e nox and so2 emissions and for energy efficiency investments in electricity natural gas or gasoline services part one provides a critical review of the largely independent economic and industrial ecology literatures on the indirect rebound by studying the two goods case and the n goods case we demonstrate that the indirect rebound is bounded by the consumer budget constraint and inversely related to the direct rebound we also compare the common proportional spending and income elasticity spending assumptions with our model of cross price elasticities including both substitution and income effects for the indirect rebound by assuming zero incremental capital costs and the same embodied energy as conventional technologies for efficient appliances we model an upper bound of the indirect rebound future work should also consider the increase in consumer welfare possible through the rebound effect

energy efficiency and rebound effects an econometric analysis of energy demand in the commercial building sector it is widely recognized that the adoption of energy saving innovations can induce an increase in the usage of the corresponding technologies and thus can possibly increase energy consumption among other concerns is that uncertainties regarding the magnitude of this rebound effect can deter policy makers from promoting energy efficiency this paper analyzes the rebound effects of the adoption of energy efficient technologies in commercial buildings based upon a structural model of technology adoption and subsequent energy demand at the building level the empirical results are that energy efficiency can reduce electricity use by about 35 and natural gas consumption by about 50

how technological innovations affect urban eco efficiency in china a prefecture level panel data analysis abstract this paper utilizes sbm undesirable model and malmquist index to examine the urban eco efficiency in china and analyzes the regional heterogeneity through the panel data of 273 prefecture level cities during 2007 2017 in china the spatial durbin model is used to examine the influencing factors of urban eco efficiency associated with technological innovations the results show that the average values of urban eco efficiency of the east central and west regions are 0 93 0 88 and 0 90 respectively the moran s i of eco efficiency is around 0 8 which shows a strong spatial heterogeneity it is found that higher innovative ability can increase urban eco efficiency education investment and innovation talents have a u shape relationship with urban eco efficiency while capital investment and innovation performance have an inverted u shape relationship with it this research outlines the relationship between technological innovations and urban eco efficiency offering policy implications for china s eco construction and sustainable urban development

exploring the rebound effect from the perspective of household an analysis of china s provincial level abstract the existence of the energy rebound effect may partially even totally offset the expected energy savings in order to explore the status of the household rebound effect in china we manually compiled the provincial energy input output table of china then combining econometric methods input output analysis and the re spending model we conduct a detailed analysis of both the direct and indirect energy rebound effect from the household perspective in china under a unified research framework the results show there are significant differences in risk vulnerability regarding energy rebound effect among different regions qinghai is the most vulnerable province as 69 23 of its economic sectors could lead to a backfire effect two economic sectors have the potential to cause a backfire effect in thirteen provinces in addition the chinese government and its provincial government should take full account of the regional differences when formulating energy policies to alleviate the pressure on energy conservation and carbon emission reduction

the effects of factor market distortion and technical innovation on china s electricity consumption abstract this study integrates neoclassical economics and institutional theory to examine the relationship between market factor distortion technical innovation and china s electricity consumption using business data from china 2008 2014 first we provide evidence that factor market distortion promotes electricity consumption of industrial enterprises in china secondly we divide technical innovation into traditional technical innovation and green innovation finding that the level of technical innovation has an inverted u shaped effect on the electricity consumption of industrial enterprises further we also provide evidence that factor market distortion amplifies the inverted u shaped effect of the technical innovation plot the results show that accelerating the reform of the market and promoting green innovation should be regarded as important strategies for national energy saving and emission reduction

technological progress and rebound effect in china s nonferrous metals industry an empirical study as one of china s mainstay and six major energy intensive industries the nonferrous metals industry faces the intense contradiction between economic growth and energy environment constraints technological progress does not only realize the energy savings but also causes rebound effect by promoting output growth although the rebound effect is an important topic there is still very little empirical research that focuses on the nonferrous metals industry in china using the lmdi method and the total factor productivity model to calculate parameters we estimate the size of the rebound effect in china s nonferrous metals industry over the period 1985 2014 according to the results the average rebound effect is approximately 83 02 with a downward trend which indicates that most of the expected energy savings are mitigated the rebounds with a strong fluctuation are comparatively discussed in various periods suggesting that china cannot count only on technological progress to save energy and reduce emission furthermore the government should apply economic instruments such as energy pricing mechanism reform resource tax and carbon tax as supplements to realize the targets of energy conservation and emission reduction additionally optimizing sub sector structure and promoting substitution also play a significant role in the mitigation of the rebound effect

environmental rebounds backfires macroeconomic implications for the promotion of environmentally friendly products abstract this paper develops a dynamic two good clean and dirty goods two sector model to explore the implications of the macroeconomic environmental rebound backfire effect for environmentally friendly product promotions on not only the demand side a subsidy on the clean good consumption but also the supply side a technology promotion in the clean good production the macroeconomic environmental rebound backfire is decomposed into three effects the substitution wealth and sectoral reallocation effects we show that the steady state pollution stock exhibits a u shaped relationship with either demand side or supply side green promotions our calibrated result indicates that in terms of pollution the macroeconomic rebound effectfor the economy as a whole appears to be substantial more pronounced rebound effects are present when the elasticity of substitution between the clean and dirty good consumption is lower the labor supply is more elastic the environmental efficiency of clean goods is lower and the technology level in the clean good production is higher we also show that a pollution rebound can result in a social welfare improvement implying that the rebound effect somewhat improves economic efficiency and so policies aimed at mitigating the rebound effect may be counterproductive from a welfare perspective

communication energy efficiency and economic fallacies abstract the sharpening energy efficiency debate has revived claims that the apparent savings from using more efficient technologies would be largely offset by the macroeconomic response the tendency to use more energy services because they are made cheaper when energy price or availability constrains demand this is correct in more normal circumstances it may be true for efficiency changes which occur as part of general economic trends but not for policy driven measures aimed at bringing more efficient technologies into imperfect markets in such cases there will usually be real net energy savings only slightly smaller than those suggested by a simple engineering analysis and clear economic benefits

electricity restructuring greenhouse gas emissions efficiency and employment reallocation abstract this paper focuses on demonstrating the feedback relationships between greenhouse gas emissions efficiency in the electricity sector and employment reallocation with a consideration of the effects of electricity restructuring and socio demographic factors we postulate the construction information manufacturing utilities and mining sectors as a group of emissions efficiency related industries and identify the mutual relationships the emissions efficiency positively influences the job shares of these industries except mining whereas increased employment in these industries has a negative effect on the emissions efficiency electricity restructuring has a positive effect on overall employment however it does not have a statistically significant effect on the emissions efficiency additionally population aging and educational attainment have positive effects on the emissions efficiency and a higher proportion of rental households has a negative influence on it increases in renewable energy and nuclear energy generation have elastic effects on enhancing emissions efficiency

international spillover and rebound effects from increased energy efficiency in germany the pollution energy leakage literature raises the concern that policies implemented in one country such as a carbon tax or tight energy restrictions might simply result in the reallocation of energy use to other countries this paper addresses these concerns in the context of policies to increase energy efficiency rather than direct action to reduce energy use using a global cge simulation model we extend the analyses of economy wide rebound from the national focus of previous studies to incorporate international spill over effects from trade in goods and services our focus is to investigate whether these effects have the potential to increase or reduce the overall global rebound of local energy efficiency improvements in the case we consider increased energy efficiency in german production generates changes in comparative advantage that produce negative leakage effects thereby actually rendering global rebound less than national rebound

the rebound effect microeconomic definitions limitations and extensions abstract the rebound effect results in part from an increased consumption of energy services following an improvement in the technical efficiency of delivering those services this increased consumption offsets the energy savings that may otherwise be achieved if the rebound effect is sufficiently large it may undermine the rationale for policy measures to encourage energy efficiency the nature and magnitude of the rebound effect is the focus of long running dispute with energy economics this paper brings together previous theoretical work to provide a rigorous definition of the rebound effect to clarify key conceptual issues and to highlight the potential consequences of various assumptions for empirical estimates of the effect the focus is on the direct rebound effect for a single energy service indirect and economy wide rebound effects are not discussed beginning with khazzoom s original definition of the rebound effect we expose the limitations of three simplifying assumptions on which this definition is based first we argue that capital costs form an important part of the total cost of providing energy services and that empirical studies that estimate rebound effects from variations in energy prices are prone to bias second we argue that energy efficiency should be treated as an endogenous variable and that empirical estimates of the rebound effect may need to apply a simultaneous equation model to capture the joint determination of key variables third we explore the implications of the opportunity costs of time in the production of energy services and highlight the consequences for energy use of improved time efficiency the influence of time costs on the rebound effect and the existence of a parallel rebound effect with respect to time each of these considerations serves to highlight the difficulties in obtaining reliable estimates of the rebound effect and the different factors that need to be controlled for we discuss the implications of these findings for econometric studies and argue that several existing studies may overestimate the magnitude of the effect

impacts of regional productivity growth decoupling and pollution leakage abstractimpacts of regional productivity growth decoupling and pollution leakage regional studies this paper examines the issues of decoupling regional economic growth and pollution and the extent to which pollution effects spillover regional national borders specifically a uk regionally disaggregated computable general equilibrium cge model is used to investigate the relationship between economic growth and the level of co2 emissions posited by the environmental kuznets curve ekc conjecture using production accounting principle pap and consumption accounting principle cap environmental accounting methods the simulation results suggest that at the regional level the existence of an ekc relationship depends on the source of regional growth and the how this relationship is specified

land reform as commenced business the evidence against stopping abstract in the new paradigm institutions are long term endogenous thus the aims of land reform must be compatible with replace or substitute for initial incentives and power structures many reforms e g compulsory collectives are not redefinition of land reform is therefore needed yet the case for private land redistribution with ceilings remains the inverse relationship rests firmly on lower cost labor transactions in small farms though large but competitive transport or processing firms which enjoy lower cost capital transactions may be needed crucial is the impact of the postreform structure on livelihoods especially for the growing rural majority near landless workers new style market based reforms have potential probably best combined with old style ceilings substantial compensation with urban taxpayers sharing costs alternative off farm prospects and progressive taxes on large landholdings or bequests

the ict electronics question structural change and the rebound effect abstract ict and related electronic appliances consumed 4 of global electrical energy in 2007 growing to 4 7 in 2012 with projections of continued increase in coming decades this is despite an average annual increase in energy efficiency of about 30 in ict electronics throughout the last 5 decades mainstream studies of energy related rebound effects have yet to produce a conceptual framework that adequately encapsulates a unique feature of ict electronics its tendency to induce changes in social practice and socio technical structures this study attempts to fill this gap surveying rebound effect literature it builds on studies which explore transformational change caused by energy efficiency increases it identifies structural changes in business education the military and households caused by energy efficiency increases in ict electronics which lead to a proliferation of ict electronic devices and consequently increased energy consumption it shows the cause and effect logic between energy efficiency and energy consumption in ict electronics and tentatively estimates rebound effects ranging between 115 and 161 in eight diverse empirical examples the history of ict electronics shows that energy efficiency increases inevitably lead to increases in energy consumption hence firm controls on co 2 e emission allowances may offer the best hope of curbing energy consumption and co 2 e emissions in this sector

rebound effect of improved energy efficiency for different energy types a general equilibrium analysis for china abstract this paper explores the rebound effect of different energy types in china based on a static computable general equilibrium model a one off 5 energy efficiency improvement is imposed on five different types of energy respectively in all the 135 production sectors in china the rebound effect is measured both on the production level and on the economy wide level for each type of energy the results show that improving energy efficiency of using electricity has the largest positive impact on gdp among the five energy types inter fuel substitutability does not affect the macroeconomic results significantly but long run impact is usually greater than the short run impact for the exports oriented sectors those that are capital intensive get big negative shock in the short run while those that are labour intensive get hurt in the long run there is no backfire effect however improving efficiency of using electricity can cause negative rebound which implies that improving the energy efficiency of using electricity might be a good policy choice under china s current energy structure in general macro level rebound is larger than production level rebound primary energy goods show larger rebound effect than secondary energy goods in addition the paper points out that the policy makers in china should look at the rebound effect in the long term rather than in the short term the energy efficiency policy would be a good and effective policy choice for energy conservation in china when it still has small inter fuel substitution

energy and economic growth grounding our understanding in physical reality this article attempts to summarise the complex wide ranging and unresolved debate within the economics literature on the possibility of decoupling economic growth from energy use it explores the difference between neo classical and ecological economic worldviews and highlights how the ecological economic approach attempts to ground its analysis within the physical limits implied by the laws of thermodynamics once these laws are accounted for the possibility of decoupling economic growth from energy use seems more limited than neo classical economics implies analysis of empirical evidence also demonstrates that observed improvements in gdp energy use ratios in the usa are better explained by shifts towards higher quality fuels than by improvements in the energy efficiency of technologies this implies a need to focus on decarbonising energy supply furthermore where energy efficiency improvements are attempted they must be considered within the context of a possible rebound effect which implies that net economy wide energy savings from energy efficiency improvements may not be as large as the energy saved directly from the efficiency improvement itself both decarbonising energy supply and improving energy efficiency require the rapid development and deployment of new and existing low carbon technologies this review therefore concludes by briefly outlining areas of economic thought that have emerged as a result of engagement between economists and experts from other disciplines they include ecological evolutionary and institutional economics all of which can make policy relevant contributions to achieving a transition to a low carbon economy

the economy wide impact of controlling energy consumption in indonesia an analysis using a social accounting matrix framework escalating oil prices and the need to control carbon emissions sound the alarm for indonesia to reduce or be more efficient in its energy use instead of eliminating the fuel oil subsidy to promote better and more efficient use of energy the indonesian government seems to be more in favour of restricting energy use by for example requiring all hotels restaurants night clubs and other business activities to close down by 1 am societies need to understand the full consequences of adopting restricting energy use and more efficient energy use strategies toward their incomes this paper aims to analyse the impact on the economy of energy policies aiming to reduce and to improve the efficiency of energy use particularly on the income of various household groups this paper will first construct a social accounting matrix for indonesia with detailed energy sectors and second utilise various multiplier analyses to observe and understand the impact of these energy policies

do increases in energy efficiency improve environmental quality and sustainability governments world wide increasingly see energy efficiency as an important aspect of sustainability however there is a debate in the literature as to whether the impact of improved energy efficiency on reducing energy use might be partially or more than wholly offset through rebound and backfire effects this paper clarifies the theoretical conditions under which such effects would occur and explores their likely significance using a computable general equilibrium cge model of the scottish economy we find that for scotland a general improvement in energy efficiency in the production sectors of the economy initially produces rebound effects that eventually grow into backfire energy use ultimately increases in response to an efficiency gain and the ratio of gdp to co2 emissions falls the economic factors underpinning rebound effects are straightforward energy efficiency improvements result in an effective cut in energy prices which produces output substitution competitiveness and income effects that stimulate energy demands however the presence of strong rebound or even backfire does not mean that efficiency enhancing policies are irrelevant rather it suggests that such policies operating alone are insufficient to generate environmental improvements the implication is that a co ordinated portfolio of energy policies is required

energy efficiency and household behavior the rebound effect in the residential sector over the years various efficiency policies have been designed and implemented to reduce residential energy consumption however it is very common that the policy expectations that are based upon engineering calculations do not come true the widely accepted explanation for the gap between expectation and the realization is the change of household behavior as the energy efficiency gains change the perceived cost of energy services and thereby generate shifts in consumption patterns the rebound effect the real controversy about the rebound effect lies in the identification of its magnitude in this paper we estimate the rebound effect in residential energy consumption by comparing the actual gas consumption levels with the ex ante predictions within a sample of well over 600 000 dutch dwellings and households we find a significant deviation between the engineering predictions and the households actual energy consumption a difference which varies by ownership wealth income and the actual gas use intensity our results show a rebound effect of 26 7 percent among home owners and 41 3 percent among tenants moreover we find that these effects are greatest among the lower income wealth groups and among households that tend to use more gas than average

a marginal measure of energy efficiency the shadow value abstract economists are well aware of the importance of marginal versus average measures of energy efficiency yet in the energy literature there is no consensus on the appropriate method for defining and measuring energy efficiency this paper sets out the shadow value of energy as a proper and meaningful marginal energy efficiency index a restricted profit function is used to model the shadow value we explore four scenarios to characterize and evaluate the shadow value of energy a within country comparison of different production processes with different energy requirements a comparison of different countries with different resource endowment a government policy to impose a tax to alter the shadow value to address environmental issues and a within country comparison of externalities arising from two sources of energy a comparative static analysis is carried out to sign the functional arguments defined for the shadow value

reform of refined oil product pricing mechanism and energy rebound effect for passenger transportation in china new huadu business school research fund china sustainable energy program of the energy foundation g 1203 15828 national social science foundation of china 12zd059 ministry of education 10gbj013

improving the economics of building energy code change a review of the inputs and assumptions of economic models abstract building energy code change in australia and many other developed nations is subject to standardised economic tests with a net present value calculation at the heart of the economic analysis although many nations have introduced minimum energy efficiency standards for residential and commercial buildings increases in stringency have been hindered by limitations to the range of private and societal impacts typically incorporated in regulatory impact assessments given the policy move towards net zero energy homes a more comprehensive set of inputs and robust assumptions are needed to support further regulatory change yet the literature provides substantial evidence of many private and societal costs and benefits not commonly incorporated into the economic assessments that underpin regulatory change drawing on a case study of australian and uk residential regulatory change assessments this paper highlights limitations to the range of inputs and assumptions currently incorporated within the economic arguments applied during residential energy code change processes and presents a more comprehensive economic argument that could support further stringency improvements

empirical analysis on energy rebound effect from the perspective of technological progress a case study of china s transport sector abstract energy rebound effect is a major issue in energy economics global energy and environmental problems have compelled the need for simultaneous attainment of economic development and energy conservation technological progress increases energy efficiency and saves energy but it also causes energy rebound effect which discounts the expected energy conservation china s transport sector is energy intensive therefore investigating rebound effect in china s transport sector has a very important significance for energy conservation and the formulation of related policies taking china s transport sector as a case study we used translog production function to measure the contribution rate of technological progress to output growth and estimated the rebound effect the results show that the average rebound effect was about 68 3 during 1981 2015 finally we provided relevant policy recommendations on the rebound effect based on the characteristics of energy use in china s transport sector

the economy wide rebound effect from improved energy efficiency in swedish industries a general equilibrium analysis the objective of this paper is to analyse the rebound effect from increased efficiency in industrial energy use in sweden energy efficiency improvements can have significant micro and macroeconom

rebound and disinvestment effects in refined oil consumption and supply resulting from an increase in energy efficiency in the scottish commercial transport sector in this paper we use an energy economy environment computable general equilibrium cge model of the scottish economy to examine the impacts of an exogenous increase in energy augmenting technological progress in the domestic commercial transport sector on the supply and use of energy we focus our analysis on scottish refined oil as the main type of energy input used in commercial transport activity we find that a 5 increase in energy efficiency in the commercial transport sector leads to rebound effects in the use of oil based energy commodities in all time periods in the target sector and at the economy wide level however our results also suggest that such an efficiency improvement may cause a contraction in capacity in the scottish refined oil supply sector this disinvestment effect acts as a constraint on the size of rebound effects however the magnitude of rebound effects and presence of the disinvestment effect in the simulations conducted here are sensitive to the specification of key elasticities of substitution in the nested production function for the target sector particularly the substitutability of energy for non energy intermediate inputs to production

the greenhouse effect the fallacies in the energy efficiency solution abstract the view that widespread improvements in energy efficiency can by themselves do anything to halt the build up of greenhouse gases around the globe is fundamentally unsound it is based on the same fallacies that underlie the claim that energy savings from improving efficiency can substitute for new energy supply the paper by keepin and kats1 claiming that per tonne of coal not burned improvements in energy efficiency are more cost effective than substituting nuclear for coal fired power is therefore an irrelevancy as far as this debate is concerned reductions is energy intensity of output that are not damaging to the economy are associated with increases not decreases in energy demand at the macroeconomic level even within the boundaries of their own flawed approach their attempt2 to refute the critique of their thesis made by jones3 was little more than misdirected grape shot with no discernable connected thread of argument

research on optimal benchmark price of tradable green certificate based on system dynamics a china perspective abstract renewable portfolio standard rps is a compulsory institutional change to achieve low carbon energy transformation in china its success depends on the scientific system quasi parameter design the most important system quasi parameter is the benchmark price of the tradable green certificate tgc setting the benchmark price of tgc scientifically and reasonably in line with china s national conditions is conducive to the effective implementation of rps in china based on the system dynamics sd to construct china s green certificate trading market model this paper analyzes the interaction between the tgc market and the electricity market under the rps and uses vensim simulation to simulate the optimal tgc benchmark price based on the maximization of social welfare the results show that the tgc market and the electricity market are mutually influential as the benchmark price of tgc increases the total power generation increases and the on grid price decreases consumer surplus producer surplus and social welfare all reach the maximum when the tgc benchmark price is 0 4yuan kwh so determines 0 4yuan kwh as the optimal benchmark price of tgc

a reexamination of the market timing and security selection performance of mutual funds an extended and correctly specified version of the treynor mazuy tm model is used to examine the market timing and stock selection abilities of domestic equity mutual funds this extended model controls for the inclusion of non s p 500 assets in mutual fund portfolios we document positive and significant market timing abilities for 633 mutual funds during the 1984 94 period this finding is in sharp contrast to the negative market timing abilities found when using the original tm model which does not control for non s p 500 assets security selection abilities are significantly positive and cross sectional correlations between market timing and selectivity are significantly negative the monotonic correlation between turnover and market timing is positive and that between turnover and selectivity is negative neither of these findings is evident with the original tm model or with traditional linear parametric measures of correlation

the sufficiency strategy would rich world frugality lower environmental impact abstract one alleged weapon against unsustainable environmental impact is for the wealthy to consume less this sufficiency strategy is to complement the efficiency strategy of lowering ratios of resource inputs to economic outputs the former would reduce the affluence factor in i pat the latter the technology factor that the latter strategy suffers from a consumption rebound is widely recognized this paper identifies a similar rebound when the affluence factor is autonomously lowered the lower initial demand lowers prices which in turn stimulates new demand by others the strategy moreover addresses only the rich raising questions of its theoretical maximum efficacy its proponents usually conflate frugality with the north south dichotomy and intra generational with inter generational equity moreover there are difficulties with the supporting arguments that frugality is good for one s own sake as well as for the environment and that the rich should lead the way to living more lightly personal behaviour change is furthermore not a substitute for international political efforts finally since all changes in right side factors of the i pat equation change other right side factors such indirect attacks on impact should be abandoned in favor of supply and emissions quotas