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

group lending repayment incentives and social collateral abstract in this paper we investigate the impact on repayment rates of lending to groups which are made jointly liable for repayment this type of scheme especially in the guise of the grameen bank in bangladesh has received increasing attention we set up and analyze the repayment game which group lending gives rise to our analysis suggests that such schemes have both positive and negative effects on repayment rates the positive effect is that successful group members may have an incentive to repay the loans of group members whose projects have yielded insufficient return to make repayment worthwhile the negative effect arises when the whole group defaults even when some members would have repaid under individual lending we also show how group lending may harness social collateral which serves to mitigate its negative effect

impacts of renewables obligation with recycling of the buy out fund tradable green certificate tgc or renewables obligation ro programs typically include a buy out option but only in the uk the buy out fund is redistributed back to the suppliers who have submitted the certificates we show that when the buy out fund is redistributed the supply of renewable energy responds positively to the market conditions and renewables target without it the buy out rate is equivalent to a maximum price however redistribution of the buy out fund may induce strategic behavior from producers who have market power we analyze the impacts of market power and integration on the supply of conventional and renewable energy under the ro program with the buy out fund recycled and devise some empirical tests to predict these impacts policy implications of this study are discussed with special reference to the new fit cfd system

planning under incomplete information and the ratchet effect abstract central planning of production is usually performed under asymmetric information the firm in general has more information about its productive possibilities than the central planner from now on for short cp this justifies the use of incentives schemes in which the cp does not directly fix activity levels casual observation of such existing schemes suggests that the time dimensions is crucial for their working typically the cp revises the incentive scheme over time to take into account the information provided by the firm s performance managers of centrally planned economies as well as economists have long recognized that this revision induces firms to underproduce in order to avoid demanding schemes in the future this is the ratchet effect it is purpose of the present paper to study the ratchet effect under the non commitment assumption which we believe to be more realistic the inadequacy of conceptual tools made if difficult in the past to consider such an assumption now basic research on dynamic games with incomplete information recently resulted in new ideas which look particularly relevant for a theoretical analysis of the problem

interactions between institutional and informal credit agencies in rural india in an attempt to expand rural credit and displace the village moneylender india created a system of rural cooperatives in the 1950s and expanded branch banking into rural areas in the 1970s this article examines how these measures affected the rural market it begins with the question of how large the expansion of institutional credit has been and the extent to which it has dislodged the village and nonresident moneylenders a detailed comparison of three major surveys of the indian rural credit market suggests that in various guises the moneylender is still a major source of loans the article also examines the weak evidence on intermediation between the formal and informal sectors a formal model of the interaction between the informal moneylender and institutional lender is constructed under a variety of assumptions about the exclusivity of loan contracts and the competitive structure of the informal sector the conclusions are drawn together in the form of five proposals for public policy

the impact of land use planning and tax subsidies on the supply and price of housing in britain this article presents new empirical estimates of the impact of two types of policy intervention tax subsidies and land use planning on the housing market in britain the estimates are derived from a set of models representing the demand and supply sides of the market for the new private housebuilding which include an explicit land supply element the models are fitted to cross sectional data at the inter urban local authority level and then employed in medium period simulations of alternative policies modelling at this level enables estimates to be made of the extent of variation between local markets in the elasticity of supply and also in the impacts of policy measures including the capitalisation of tax subsidies

household energy prices and inequality evidence from german microdata based on the easi demand system abstract this paper studies the distributional effects of rising energy costs for households in contrast to most of the previous literature our specification differentiates between electricity and heating demand and still models other consumption goods in realistic detail we use a yet unexplored data set on household expenditures in germany and extend the recently developed easi demand system for the analysis of inequality and welfare at the individual and social level the easi system reveals non linearity of engel curves which when neglected can lead to biased estimates of distributional effects we find that increases in heating prices are more regressive than those in electricity furthermore current proposals for social tariffs are found to be less effective than targeted compensation schemes

ten propositions in uk housing macroeconomics an overview of the 1980s and early 1990s during the last ten years macroeconomists have increasingly come to realise that there are important interactions between housing and the wider economy in some cases this realisation has come too late to avoid the severe oscillations in the economy that have characterised the period since the mid 1980s this paper uses a macroeconometric model specifically designed to capture the interactions in order to reflect on the experience of the 1980s and early 1990s and to draw theoretical empirical and policy conclusions in terms of ten propositions

is grameen lending efficient repayment incentives and insurance in village economies many believe that a key innovation by the grameen bank is to encourage borrowers to help each other in hard times to analyse this we study a mechanism design problem where borrowers share information about each other but their limited side contracting ability prevents them from writing complete insurance contracts we derive a lending mechanism which efficiently induces mutual insurance it is necessary for borrowers to submit reports about each other to achieve efficiency such cross reporting increases the bargaining power of unsuccessful borrowers and is robust to collusion against the bank copyright 2004 wiley blackwell

modelling household energy expenditures using micro data this paper is concerned with the empirical modeling of domestic demand for energy in the united kingdom at the level of the individual household a two stage budgeting model of household demand for energy conditional on durable ownership is developed at the first stage income is allocated between energy and nonenergy consumption while at the second stage energy expenditure is disaggregated the second stage allocation is assumed to be between gas electricity and a composite good other fuels estimation takes place using a sample of some 50 000 households drawn from the annual u k family expenditure survey for the years 1972 83 a source that has not been fully exploited in the analysis of energy demand to date copyright 1989 by royal economic society

household and industrial electricity demand in europe abstract this paper examines the electricity demand and its determinants in 29 european countries during the liberalization of the electricity market based on panel data for these countries for the years 1995 2015 and using a dynamic partial adjustment model price elasticities are estimated for both residential and industrial electricity demand these elasticities and effects of other variables on electricity consumption are estimated using both gmm generalized method of moments and ml maximum likelihood approaches it is found that the price elasticities are very small especially in the short run while the income elasticities are relatively large especially for households and in the long run

coalition proof equilibrium in an adverse selection insurance economy abstract we extend the notion of coalition proof nash equilibrium to a class of matching games with private information this solution concept is applied to an adverse selection insurance economy and is shown to yield a unique allocation the optimal allocation without cross subsidy this contrasts sharply with the outcome in alternative institutional settings for negotiations among players as modeled for instance by the incentive compatible core journal of economic literature classification numbers c71 c72 d82

the energy rebound effect in china s light industry a translog cost function approach abstract china is in its industrialization and urbanization development stage which requires strong energy support with the largest population in the world the energy endowment of china is relatively small therefore energy conservation is one of the key tools for china s sustainable development and energy security when making policies for conservation the chinese government needs to deal with rebound effect carefully in 2012 china s light industry consumed 316 million tons of coal equivalents accounting for 9 percent of the country s total energy consumption which is about the total amount of energy consumed by south korea based on the translog cost function the magnitude of rebound effect in china s light industry is estimated for the first time using the dynamic ordinary least squares and seemingly unrelated regression methods considering the asymmetric effects of energy prices on energy consumption the rebound effect is approximately 37 7 and all the inputs are substitutes except for labor and energy the different magnitude of rebound effect between light and heavy industry is discussed and some policy implications are provided for more effective energy conservation allowing for the rebound effect

green hypocrisy environmental attitudes and residential space heating expenditure popular media make claims of a green hypocrisy groups which have the strongest attitude towards the environment also have the highest emissions this study examines whether environmental behaviours beliefs and attitudes are associated with space heating energy use in the uk in order to test for evidence of a green hypocrisy in the uk the largest proportion of household energy use is for space heating we find that environmental behaviours are negatively correlated with heating expenditures while environmentally friendly attitudes and perceptions are not associated with lower heating expenditure further the effect of these attitudes and behaviours does not change as income increase there seems to be little evidence of a green hypocrisy amongst the uk public with respect to space heating

consumer choice and competition policy a study of uk energy markets consumer choice is increasingly recognised as a crucial factor in competition policy to illustrate the implications of such choice we present an investment model of the switching choice in the uk residential natural gas market and examine responses to a specially commissioned survey of nearly seven hundred consumers identifying search and switching costs through an assessment of the savings which consumers say they require to switch supplier together with an evaluation of consumer switching behaviour we deduce that the incumbent retained considerable market power suggesting that some continued regulation may be necessary

residential energy expenditures and the relevance of changes in household circumstances this paper analyses the impact that dwelling characteristics and characteristics and behaviours of household members have on per capita energy expenditures it also analyses whether changes in household socio economic circumstances translate in changes in energy expenditures socio economic characteristics have a moderate impact while dwelling characteristics and especially household size have much larger impacts the largest changes in energy expenditures are due to changes in household size the recent socio demographic trends will make it harder to design policies to effectively reduce the carbon footprint of a country while policies influencing cohabitation and family size may have positive indirect effects

what if consumers decided to all go green environmental rebound effects from consumption decisions shifting consumer preferences towards green consumption is promoted by many governments and environmental groups rebound effects which reduce the effectiveness of such actions are estimated for cost saving green consumption choices using australian data cases examined are reduced vehicle use reduced electricity use changing to smaller passenger vehicles and utilising fluorescent lighting it is found that if rebound effects are ignored when evaluating green consumption environmental benefits will be overstated by around 20 for reduced vehicle use and 7 for reduced electricity use rebound effects are higher and environmental benefits lower when more efficient vehicles or lighting are utilised rather than simple conservation actions of forgoing use in addition lower income households have higher rebound effects suggesting that environmental policy directed at changing consumer behaviour is most effective when targeted at high income households an inherent trade off between economic and environmental benefits of green consumption choices is demonstrated the size of the rebound effect and the observed variation with household income is attributed to life cycle analysis lca methodologies associated with the calculation of embodied ghg emissions of consumption goods these results should be therefore be interpreted as the minimum rebound effect to include in policy evaluation

examining behavioral patterns in household fuel consumption using two stage budgeting framework for energy and environmental policies evidence based on micro data from pakistan abstract prime objective of this study is to analyze fuel consumption patterns at national as well as at provincial level for pakistan dynamic patterns in household fuel choices have been examined under two stage budgeting framework through quadratic approximation of almost ideal demand system quaids using hies data for year 2015 16 to obtain reliable estimates of price and budget elasticities quadratic engel estimates reflect households energy expenditures allocation decisions while the probit estimates explore how alternate fuels are chosen by households for consumption the engel estimates highlight that the share of fuel expenditures in total household expenditures is higher in rural areas than in urban areas the computed compensated price elasticities suggest that firewood and kerosene are relatively more price inelastic in rural areas as compared to the urban areas furthermore our estimates also indicate that cleaner fuels are more price inelastic in urban areas than in rural areas with inter provincial variations in computed elasticities these estimates can be used as an effective policy making tool for transition towards cleaner fuels energy policy simulations to evaluate taxation and subsidy frameworks and energy system forecasting to prevent environmental degradation

achieving low carbon urban passenger transport in china insights from the heterogeneous rebound effect abstract the rapid increase in energy consumption and carbon emissions in china s passenger transportation sector threatens both the environment and the nation s energy security energy efficiency improvements leading to lower fuel consumption are therefore of considerable interest to policymakers trying to achieve low carbon travel however it is well established that higher miles per gallon efficiencies can by reducing the costs of travel lead to some level of increased personal travel the so called rebound effect this paper describes an empirical study to measure the size and also the variability in this effect at the provincial level and what this variability implies for a carbon tax policy this rebound effect is quantified using a two stage almost ideal demand system aids model a backfire effect i e the rebound is 100 is observed in urban passenger transport with disparities in the size of the rebound effect ranging from 114 to 153 among china s provinces the differences in economic development as well as related differences in consumers behavior especially in the behavior of marginal consumers have contributed to this heterogeneity with a larger carbon tax more than 110yuan tonne needed in richer provinces such as jiangsu zhejiang guangdong and fujian in order to bring about similar levels of carbon reductions nationwide

determinants of residential space heating expenditures in germany abstract we first examine the determinants of household expenditures on space heating and hot water supply in germany a number of socio economic characteristics of households are included along with building characteristics our analysis covers information on more than 12 000 households in germany for the years 1998 and 2003 the analysis continues by investigating whether different kinds of households are affected differently by increases in energy prices households in owner occupied properties are less affected compared to those in rented accommodation this could be because owners are more likely to have installed energy efficient heating and hot water supply systems and landlords have less of an incentive to improve the conditions of their rented accommodations an energy policy targeting especially the latter group might benefit not only households in rented accommodation but might also increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well

price sensitivity of residential energy consumption in norway abstract the main aim of this paper is to test the stability of the results of a model which focus on the relationship between the choice of heating equipment and the residential energy consumption the results for the income and energy price variables are of special interest stability in the time dimension is tested by applying the model on micro data for each of the years 1993 1995 the parameter estimates are stable within a 95 confidence interval however the estimated impact of the energy price variable on energy consumption was considerably weaker in 1994 than in 1993 and 1995 the results for two different income groups in the pooled data set are also subject to stability testing the energy price sensitivity in residential energy consumption is found to be higher for high income households than for low income households

joint liability versus individual liability in credit contracts abstract i offer an explanation for the coexistence of joint liability and individual liability microcredit contracts i show that both contracts maximize welfare when credit is rationed due to limited liability but for different borrowers borrowers monitor each other when liability is joint while the lender monitors individual loans joint liability offers poorer borrowers larger loans with less monitoring effort than would have to be exerted by the lender individual liability offers the wealthier among credit constrained borrowers larger loans even without monitoring the theory explains why individual loans serve the wealthier among poor borrowers and are larger and why businesses funded with individual loans grow more

agglomeration and competitiveness from marshall to chinitz chinitz like marshall is better known as a seminal theorist of the urban supply side than for his useful insights on continental economic regeneration this paper draws on both themes in chinitz s work assuming that the us trade deficit is a fiscal outcome the question remains as to why some us industries flourish while others fail the literature since 1988 emphasises the role of urban industrial clusters in nurturing globally competitive industries but route 128 s fall suggests limits to this view the alternative theme is that continentality 1 provides a menu of economic cultures and 2 generates feedback to demature declining older regions enter europe s 1992 more generally world development in the 1990s is seen as being led by three continental systems including east asia and operating via the dance of continents and regions now the primal economic constructs

a life cycle consistent empirical model of family labour supply using cross section data this paper estimates a utility maximising model of the joint determination of male and female labour supplies using a sample of married couples from the u k family expenditure survey the emphasis is on the estimation of within period preferences that are consistent with intertemporal two stage budgeting under uncertainty however the approach we adopt provides an alternative method of estimating certain aspects of life cycle behaviour to the fixed effects constant approach of heckman and macurdy 1980 macurdy 1981 and browning deaton and irish 1985 moreover it relaxes some of the underlying restrictions that are implicit in these constant models under uncertainty

rabbit hutches on postage stamps planning development and political economy the supply of land for housing has been restricted by planning controls the prices of land and of houses have risen in consequence as a result land has been used with increasing intensity with infill town cramming and smaller houses on less land rabbit hutches on postage stamps a destruction of the urban environment of the many to preserve a rural environment for a few why is the supply of land restricted firstly it is suggested because the british misapprehend the degree of urbanisation in their own country secondly because rural and farming interests ensure that the planning system operates in their favour and thirdly and most importantly because the planning process is tilted in favour of the existing residents of an area who seek to preserve their environment by resisting intruders a number of suggestions are made to resolve the situation by increasing the supply of land or reducing the demand for land

housing wealth and residential energy consumption abstract the housing wealth effect often manifests as a positive relationship between consumption and perceived housing wealth e g the perceived value of houses when the perceived value of a property rises homeowners may feel more comfortable and secure about their wealth causing them to spend more this study adopts a behavioural approach to verify if this relationship holds true for residential energy consumption in the uk while controlling for property characteristics and a large number of demographic socioeconomic and energy use behaviour variables we identified a significant relationship between housing wealth and energy consumption our models also considered psychological biases in energy consumption behaviours such as the framing effect our findings shed light on the behavioural aspects of housing wealth effect on residential energy consumption and demonstrate the potential to nudge households towards energy conservation most importantly we provide empirical evidence on the intriguing relationship among housing wealth residential energy consumption and fuel poverty the findings of this study are particularly helpful in designing and implementing energy consumption policies that can strike a balance between social justice and economic efficiency

organizations in economic analysis three economic environments are reviewed and in each organizations play an essential role for an adverse selection insurance economy we find that when mutual insurance arrangements are permitted an equilibrium necessarily exists and is optimal this example and the two others illustrate the problems that may result from imposing organizational structure on an environment rather than permitting the structure to be determined endogenously les organisations dans l analyse economique les auteurs examinent trois sortes d environnement economique dans chacun des cas les organisations jouent un role fondamental dans le cas d une economie avec assurance et selection adverse les auteurs suggerent que quand des arrangements d assurance mutuelle sont permis un equilibre existe necessairement et est optimal cet environnement ainsi que les deux autres etudies par les auteurs illustre les problemes qui peuvent resulter quand on impose une structure organisationnelle sur un environnement plutot que de permettre a la structure organisationnelle d emerger de fakon endogene

a two stage rural household demand analysis microdata evidence from jiangsu province china in this paper we evaluate economic and demographic effects on china s rural household demand for nine food commodities vegetables pork beef and lamb poultry eggs fish sugar fruit and grain and five nonfood commodity groups clothing fuel stimulants housing and durables a two stage budgeting allocation procedure is used to obtain an empirically tractable amalgamative demand system for food commodities which combine an upper level aids model and a lower level gles as a modeling framework the results indicate that the slow growth of food consumption in china during the latter half of the 1980s is a result of income stagnation rather than consumption saturation growth in the demand for better food and shelter by chinese rural households will continue to be a major concern

a micro econometric analysis of determinants of unsustainable consumption in the netherlands recently much attention has been given to the notion of sustainable consumption whereas environmental economics traditionally has focused environmental policy analysis on producers this new notion broadens the perspective to include environmental policies aimed at directly influencing consumer decisions regarding buying using and recycling products this could suggest policies that link not only to price incentives but also and especially to persuasive instruments such as education and information provision these policies might take into account certain characteristics of households such as lifestyle and family size this article presents a first econometric analysis of consumption in the context of environmental sustainability relationships between different types of household expenditures and a range of household characteristics are assessed based on a large micro data set of households for the netherlands use is made of various demand models and econometric techniques to adequately address theoretical and technical issues involved the article ends with a discussion of the implications of the results for environmental policy directed at stimulating sustainable consumption

domestic fuel expenditure an analysis of three national surveys abstract this paper analyses the fuel expenditure data in three surveys looking particularly at the importance of household income multivariate data analysis techniques show that household size the size and type of accomodation and the presence of central heating are more direct influences on fuel expenditure than income changes in income have little independent effect on fuel expenditure once the size of the house size of household and heating system are determined

household energy demand in kenya an application of the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids abstract this paper estimates price and fuel expenditure elasticities of demand by applying the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids to 3665 households sampled across kenya in 2009 the results indicate that motor spirit premium msp automotive gas oil ago and lubricants are price elastic while fuel wood kerosene charcoal liquefied petroleum gas lpg and electricity are price inelastic kerosene is income elastic while fuel wood charcoal lpg electricity msp and ago are income inelastic the results also reveal fuel stack behaviour that is multiple fuel use among the households main policy implications of the results include increasing the penetration of alternative fuels as well as provision of more fiscal incentives to increase usage of cleaner fuels this not withstanding however the household income should be increased beyond a certain point for the household to completely shift and use a new fuel

reducing fuel subsidies and the implication on fiscal balance and poverty in indonesia a simulation analysis abstract there is an urgent need for phasing out fuel subsidies in indonesia due to a severe budget deficit and a worsening of income distribution fuel subsidies of which almost 72 are enjoyed by the 30 of the richest income groups have consumed on average 63 8 of the total subsidies between 1998 and 2013 this paper aims at evaluating the relationship between existing fuel subsidies and fiscal balance and at analysing the poverty impact of phasing out fuel subsidies applying a cge microsimulation this study found that removing 25 of fuel subsidies increases the incidence of poverty by 0 259 percentage points if this money were fully allocated to government spending the poverty incidence would decrease by 0 27 percentage points moreover the 100 removal of fuel subsidies and the reallocation of 50 of them to government spending transfers and other subsidies could decrease the incidence of poverty by 0 277 percentage points however these reallocation policies might not be effective in compensating for the adverse impacts of the 100 removal of fuel subsidies if economic agents try to seek profit through mark up pricing over the increase of production costs

microcredit and mechanism design individual microcredit loans are not necessarily simple fixed debt obligations but rather may have contingencies and procedures suggested by the theory of mechanism design further group or joint liability lending may not be the single miracle cure practitioners claim nor operate the way the logic of a single theory might suggest there are multiple theories these theories can be distinguished in data on repayment rates and the best fit theory may vary with the environment finally the debate about whether to lend to individuals or lend to groups may be misplaced under simple theories of selection the pareto superior regime which is predicted to emerge varies with exogenous environmental characteristics jel d5 d82 g2 o17

rural residential energy transition and energy consumption intensity in china abstract this paper examines the impact of residential energy transition on residential energy consumption per capita recpc and identifies the underlying drivers in rural china based on province level panel data for years 1991 2014 in rural china it is shown that energy transition from traditional biomass energy tbe to traditional commercial energy tce significantly decreases recpc while energy transition from tbe or tce to advanced commercial energy ace significantly increases recpc as is revealed by the energy stacking model per capita income has a significantly negative impact on recpc and the impact of lagged recpc is opposite due to the regulation of energy price there exists price distortion in china s rural energy market and the price mechanism functions poorly besides factors including juvenile dependency ratio and education level significantly reduce recpc therefore it is vital to integrate rural energy into national energy strategic system facilitate energy transition process and introduce the market system reform of rural energy and continue to improve the education level of rural residents in rural china

determinants of households space heating type a discrete choice analysis for german households abstract considering the increasing attention on efficient use of energy it becomes vitally important to understand the energy related behavior of households this article presents empirical evidence on the determinants of the space heating technology applied by a household three sets of variables are examined as potential influences building socio economic and regional characteristics to highlight both the differences and similarities the results are obtained from a sample of house owners and from a sample including all households the influence of socio economic factors is similar across these groups income is found to exert only a minor impact on the system choice dwelling features are significant in determining the heating type particularly in the sample including all households regional effects are important clear differences prevail between east and west germany

who emits most associations between socio economic factors and uk households home energy transport indirect and total co2 emissions abstract does the association between household characteristics and household co2 emissions differ for areas such as home energy transport and indirect emissions this question is policy relevant because distributional implications of mitigation policies may vary depending on the area of emissions that is targeted if specific types of households are likely to have higher emissions in some areas than in others so far this issue has not been examined in depth in the literature on household co2 emissions using a representative uk expenditure survey this paper compares how household characteristics like income household size education gender worklessness and rural or urban location differ in their association with all three areas as well as total emissions we find that these associations vary considerably across emission domains in particular whilst all types of emissions rise with income low income workless and elderly households are more likely to have high emissions from home energy than from other domains suggesting that they may be less affected by carbon taxes on transport or total emissions this demonstrates that fairness implications related to mitigation policies need to be examined for separate emission domains

understanding the spectrum of residential energy saving behaviours french evidence using disaggregated data analysing household energy saving behaviours is crucial to improve energy consumption predictions and energy policy making how should we quantitatively measure them what are their determinants this study explores the main factors influencing residential energy saving behaviours based on a bottom up multivariate statistical approach using data from the recent french phebus survey firstly we assess energy saving behaviours on a one dimension scale using irt secondly we use linear regression with an innovative variable selection method via adaptive lasso to tease out the effects of both macro and micro factors on the behavioural score the results highlight the impact of five main attributes incentivizing energy saving behaviours based on cross variable analyses energy price household income education level age of head of household and dwelling energy performance in addition our results suggest that the analysis of the inverted u shape impact of age enables the expansion of the energy consumption life cycle theory to energy saving behaviours abstract analysing household energy saving behaviours is crucial to improve energy consumption predictions and energy policy making how should we quantitatively measure them what are their determi nants this study explores the main factors influencing residential energy saving behaviours based on a bottom up multivariate statistical approach using data from the recent french phebus survey firstly we assess energy saving behaviours on a one dimension scale using irt secondly we use linear regression with an innovative variable selection method via adaptive lasso to tease out the effects of both macro and micro factors on the behavioural score the results highlight the impact of five main attributes incentivizing energy saving behaviours based on cross variable analyses energy price household income education level age of head of household and dwelling energy performance in addition our results suggest that the analysis of the inverted u shape impact of age enables the expansion of the energy consumption life cycle theory to energy saving behaviours

on the design of a credit agreement with peer monitoring this paper analyses the optimal design of collective credit agreements with joint responsibility first we demonstrate that these agreements can potentially induce peer monitoring reduce the incidence of strategic default and enhance the lender s ability to elicit debt repayments the resulting benefits in terms of extended credit should however be weighted against the higher monitoring effort that such agreements impose upon participant borrowers second we show that the relative benefits from peer monitoring are maximized when risks are positively correlated across borrowers and also when the size of the group is neither too small due to a joint responsibility cost sharing and commitment effects nor too large due to a free riding effect third we compare among different monitoring structures

engel curves household characteristics and low user tariff schemes in natural gas abstract we explore the relative importance of income and household characteristics such as family size in explaining differences in household consumption of natural gas and lpg in a simple model of vertically willingness to pay ordered households we posit that the relative importance of the income elasticity of demand vs the family size elasticity depends positively on the price faced by households thus very low prices tend to depress the across households income elasticity of demand relative to the characteristic elasticity and the opposite holds for under high prices we test this hypothesis using for the first time in argentina data from the household expenditure survey on natural gas and lpg and compare the cross consumption equations for both fuels which have quite different price regimes finally we explore welfare implications for low user tariff scheme reforms in natural gas

the ex post impact of an energy tax on household energy demand this paper presents an econometric study dealing with household demand for energy in the netherlands the main objective of the paper is to present an estimation of the actual impact of an already implemented energy tax introduced in the netherlands in 1996 the approach differs from the existing literature in that 1 it uses panel data for the same period in which the tax was introduced and 2 it estimates a demand function that controls for a large set of variables such as outside temperature type of house and of house insulation household cooking behavior and an extensive number of durable goods and electrical appliances the study concludes that in the short term the energy tax had a small but significant impact on energy consumption in the netherlands concretely the yearly average demand reduction was of 8 for electricity and 4 4 for gas additionally the influence of variables other than price and income on household energy demand is discussed using this information the impact that the energy tax had on household energy use can be compared with the energy reduction that could have been achieved when using other policy instruments

determinants of residential space heating expenditures in great britain in great britain several policy measures have been implemented in order to increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in the domestic sector this could for example be achieved by improving space heating efficiency and thus decreasing heating expenditure however in order to efficiently design and implement such policy measures a better understanding of the determinants affecting heating expenditure is needed in this paper we examine the following determinants socio economic factors building characteristics heating technologies and weather conditions in contrast to most other studies we use panel data to investigate household demand for heating in great britain our data sample is the result of an annual set of interviews with more than 5000 households starting in 1991 and ending in 2005 the sample represents a total of 64 000 observations over the fifteen year period our aim is to derive price and income elasticities both for britain as a whole and for different types of household our results suggest that differences exist between owner occupied and renter households these households react differently to changes in income and prices our results also imply that a number of socio economic criteria have a significant influence on heating expenditure independently of the fuel used for heating understanding the impacts of different factors on heating expenditure and impact differences between types of household is helpful in designing target oriented policy measures

poverty as a constraint to citizen participation in urban redevelopment in developing countries a case study urban redevelopment and infrastructural rehabilitation have been suggested as the solutions to the rapidly declining urban centres in developing countries in order to qualify for external loans and aid for such redevelopment efforts and to ensure the replicability of such projects the principles of cost recovery and cost effectiveness have been advocated many world bank assissted urban development projects have been implemented based on these principles unfortunately these principles have become difficult or perhaps impossible to achieve in most of the past urban development ventures our hypothesis is that the abject poverty of the people and a wrong assessment of what the beneficiaries can afford may be the most important factors which make the principles unrealisable the case study from ibadan nigeria reported in this article confirms this hypothesis the paper explores the capacity and the willingness of people to pay for urban improvement programmes the study reveals that poverty is a majo

too much investment a problem of asymmetric information this paper shows that under plausible assumptions the inability of lenders to discover all of the relevant characteristics of borrowers results in investment in excess of the socially efficient level raising the rate of interest above the free market level will restore optimality this conflicts with generally held views and is contrasted with the stiglitz weiss model it is shown that the assumptions which yield overinvestment support debt as the equilibrium method of finance however under the stiglitz weiss assumptions used to derive an underinvestment result equity is shown to be the equilibrium method of finance

thy neighbor s keeper the design of a credit cooperative with theory and a test economists now appreciate that resource allocation in less economically developed economies is profoundly influenced by non firm economic institutions however our theories of non firm institutions often suggest different answers to many questions including those of policy this paper illustrates a method for discriminating between alternative theories using data from german credit cooperatives from the nineteenth and early twentieth century germany we build a model of credit cooperatives designed to provide monitoring incentives and test this using nineteenth century data authors

imperfect information screening and the costs of informal lending a study of a rural credit market in pakistan many governments have perceived the rural moneylender as usurious this article takes a first step toward directly testing the validity of this view in a study of services costs and charges of fourteen informal market moneylenders and their clients in chambar pakistan the article examines whether the high implicit interest rates charged reflect the actual costs of operating in that market estimates of the resource costs incurred by informal lenders for screening pursuing delinquent loans overhead and cost of capital including unrecoverable loans suggest that lenders charges are equal to their average cost of lending but exceed their marginal cost this finding is consistent with the view that the informal credit market is characterized by excess capacity and monopolistic competition in the presence of imperfect information

demand for space heating in apartment blocks measuring effects of policy measures aiming at reducing energy consumption abstract panel data covering the period 1984 1995 on energy consumption and technical characteristics of apartment blocks from denmark are analysed in order to measure effects of policy measures aimed at reducing the consumption of energy for space heating results indicate that building regulations have been important in reducing energy consumption in new buildings furthermore conditional price responses are estimated to be relatively small or non existent indicating small short run effects of fuel taxes on energy consumption in apartment blocks finally a consultancy scheme implemented with the purpose of improving knowledge about the potential for energy savings is found to have had moderate effects

the effects of the energy price reform on households consumption in iran abstract the substantial subsidizing of energy prices over the years has led to high energy consumption inefficiencies fiscal pressures and environmental problems in iran to address the increasing socio economic problems associated with the energy subsidies the government embarked on an aggressive energy price reform through which energy subsidies were removed and cash handouts were given to all households in 2010 in this paper i analyze the effectiveness of the energy price reform in iran by estimating energy demand elasticities for households in different income groups i apply a two stage consumer optimization model and estimate the system of energy expenditures shares using the household budget survey data for the period 2001 2008 the results show that the overall price elasticities of demand are small but income elasticities are close to one the results also indicate heterogeneous responses to energy price and income changes in different income groups specifically the urban households show stronger response to price changes but rural households particularly mid income households to income changes these findings suggest that the current policy of price increases would not solely be able to reduce energy consumption and therefore it should be geared towards increasing energy efficiency through a series of price and non price measures

interactions in swiss households energy demand a holistic approach abstract this article analyzes the interactions and possible trade offs between direct energy consumption and embodied energy requirement of households in switzerland in order to assess the net impacts of standard energy policies focusing exclusively on direct energy use direct and embodied energy demand of swiss households are estimated by combining consumption data of a national expenditure survey with data on energy intensity from life cycle analysis using a system of equations and an instrumental variable approach we find that both domains are driven by same determinants but that there is no evidence for significant substitution between them we also find an increasing effect of income on both domains with particularly important effects on embodied energy from a policy perspective our findings highlight a concern that economic growth could bring about an increasing global energy demand through energy requirement for non energy commodities however the wide spread policies targeting direct energy are unlikely to cause a substantial shift in household consumption to embodied energy

optimal collective contract without peer information or peer monitoring if entrepreneurs have private information about factors influencing the outcome of an investment individual lending is inefficient the literature typically offers solutions based on the assumption of full peer information to solve adverse selection problems and peer monitoring to solve moral hazard problems in contrast i show that it is possible to construct a simple budget balanced mechanism that implements the efficient outcome even if each borrower knows only own type and effort and has neither privileged knowledge about others nor monitoring ability the mechanism satisfies participation incentives for all types and is immune to the rothschild stiglitz cream skimming problem despite using transfers from better types to worse types the presence of some local information implies that the mechanism cannot be successfully used by formal lenders thus a local credit institution can emerge as an optimal response to the informational environment even without peer information or monitoring finally i investigate the role of monitoring in this setting and show how costly monitoring can increase the scope of the mechanism

environmental regulation of households an empirical review of economic and psychological factors abstract the literature on sustainable consumption and environmental regulation of household behavior is dominated by conceptual and normative approaches as a result many suggestions lack a firm empirical basis to overcome this deficiency econometric studies in three areas of environmentally relevant activities of households are reviewed residential use of energy generation of solid waste and recycling and residential use of water next to price and income elasticities attention is devoted to individual socio economic features and psychological factors such as attitudes knowledge perceptions and values potential psychological determinants and related insights are further examined by discussing a range of representative and illustrative statistical psychological studies of environmental behavior one important general finding is that there are very few empirical studies that systematically combine socio economic and psychological determinants a range of insights for environmental policy is derived and research recommendations are offered

peer monitoring and credit markets a major problem for institutional lenders is ensuring that borrowers exercise prudence in the use of the funds so that the likelihood of repayment is enhanced one partial solution is peer monitoring having neighbors who are in a good position to monitor the borrower be required to pay a penalty if the borrower goes bankrupt peer monitoring is largely responsible for the successful financial performance of the grameen bank of bangladesh and of similar group lending programs elsewhere but peer monitoring has a cost it transfers risk from the bank which is in a better position to bear risk to the cosigner in a simple model of peer monitoring in a competitive credit market this article demonstrates that the transfer of risk leads to an improvement in borrowers welfare

income and energy use in bangladesh a household level analysis abstract we examine how energy use at the household level moves with income in bangladesh using the 2010 wave of bangladesh household income and expenditure survey data our analyses indicate a u shaped relationship of both electricity use and other types of energy use combined with household expenditure the findings imply that as income grows households increase their energy expenditure less than proportionally up to a threshold level of income beyond the threshold income energy use increases as a proportion of income particularly for electricity use we identify the threshold turning point for both electricity and other types of energy use based on the current level of expenditure and its growth reaching the turning point would require 17years for the former category but only 7years for the latter group

the added value from a general equilibrium analysis of increased efficiency in household energy use this paper investigates the economic impact of a 5 improvement in the uk household energy efficiency focussing specifically on total energy rebound effects the impact is measured through simulations using models that have increasing degrees of endogeneity but are calibrated on a common data set moving from a basic partial equilibrium approach to a fully specified general equilibrium treatment the size of the rebound effect is shown to depend on changes in household income aggregate economic activity and relative prices that can only be captured through a general equilibrium model

group lending under asymmetric information abstract this paper examines joint liability loan contracts as part of a screening mechanism adopted by lenders using group lending schemes a model and one period game are introduced in order to analyze the type of optimal loan contracts that emerge when lenders have less information than borrowers it is shown that under imperfect information lenders may be able to utilize joint liability contracts as a means of screening agent types by inducing endogenous group formation and self selection among the borrowers

british planning policy and access to housing some empirical estimates there is evidence that the implementation of the planning system creates scarcity rents for land in different uses by acting as a constraint on land supply this paper provides for 1984 estimat

estimation of elasticity price of electricity with incomplete information abstract the sharp increase in energy prices and growing concern for environmental issues among other things are behind the renewed interest in energy demand estimation however there is scarce academic literature that takes real situation of energy suppliers into account high quality but incomplete data in this paper we propose a useful and rather simple instrument for estimating electricity demand with the incomplete and or imperfect data currently available to suppliers in particular using real expenditure and consumption data on electricity we employ a model of random effects for panel data to estimate residential and industrial electricity demand in spain

an integrated economic and distributional analysis of energy policies most public policies particularly those in the energy sphere have not only efficiency but also distributional effects however there is a trade off between modelling approaches suitable for calculating those impacts on the economy for the former most of the studies have been conducted with general equilibrium models whereas partial equilibrium models represent the main approach for distributional analysis this paper proposes a methodology to simultaneously carry out an analysis of the distributional and efficiency consequences of changes in energy taxation in order to do so we have integrated a microeconomic household demand model and a computable general equilibrium model for the spanish economy we illustrate the advantages of this approach by simulating a revenue neutral reform in spanish indirect taxation with a large increase of energy taxes that serve an environmental purpose the results show that the reforms bring about significant efficiency and distributional effects in some cases counterintuitive and demonstrate the academic and social utility of this approximation

planning policy and retail property investment in the uk empirical evidence suggests that planning policies significantly impact on investment property market performance in the uk it is less clear however how information about the planning policy environment feeds into investment decision making this paper seeks to explore this issue it reports on interviews with the property investment community and focuses on the decision to invest in the retail sector the paper uses a six stage model of the investment decision making process as a framework for analysing the way in which concerns about policy impact on behaviour the results suggest that an understanding of the policy environment and the development of a relationship with local planning authorities are most important in the post acquisition asset management stage of the investment process the research also reveals variations in access to policy intelligence and that approaches to analysis of the likely effects of planning regimes vary with fund type and strategy

a three dimensional model of residential energy consumer archetypes for local energy policy design in the uk this paper reviews major studies in three traditional lines of research in residential energy consumption in the uk i e economic infrastructure behaviour and load profiling based on the review the paper proposes a three dimensional model for archetyping residential energy consumers in the uk by considering property energy efficiency levels the greenness of household behaviour of using energy and the duration of property daytime occupancy with the proposed model eight archetypes of residential energy consumers in the uk have been identified they are pioneer greens follower greens concerned greens home stayers unconscientious wasters regular wasters daytime wasters and disengaged wasters using a case study these archetypes of residential energy consumers demonstrate the robustness of the 3 d model in aiding local energy policy intervention design in the uk

group lending local information and peer selection this paper analyzes how group lending programs use joint liability to utilize local information that borrowers have about each other s projects through self selection of group members in the group formation stage these schemes are shown to lead to positive assortative matching in group formation faced with the same contract this makes the effective cost of borrowing lower to safer borrowers because they have safer partners conditional on success their expected dues to the lender are lower than that of riskier borrowers the resulting improvement in the pool of borrowers is shown to increase repayment rates and welfare q 1999 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

the impact of planning on local business rents despite the pervasiveness of planning intervention in the land and property market the economic effects of the planning system have been little researched while there is a growing body of work addressing this issue in the housing sector similar work considering the business sector is marked only by its absence the paper describes the first substantive attempt to explore this subject area through an analysis of the impact of planning on business rents a full structural model of a local property market was developed it incorporates the planning regime as a key element of the system and it allows for the interaction between property market use sectors the model formed the basis for the creation of a simplified five equation system that could be operationalised within extant data constraints upon application a local effect of planning was identified that was consistent with theory as planning regimes become tighter the local supply of space decreases this has a negative effect on local economic ac

the qualitative economics of development control abstract this paper examines space supply restrictions and containment policies in the context of a monocentric urban model with several classes results are obtained concerning the qualitative effects of such policies on space i e land values and locations of the various groups

price and income elasticities of demand for passenger transport fuels in spain implications for public policies abstract the significant increase in passenger transport activity cars experienced by spain and its associated increase in energy consumption have several associated negative aspects including a greater dependence on foreign energy sources and higher ghg emissions therefore reducing the level of transport activity would bring important socioeconomic and environmental benefits the aim of this paper which focuses on energy consumption in the passenger transport is fourfold 1 to provide a diagnostic of energy consumption in the spanish passenger transport system and the related problems 2 to develop a model to calculate price and income elasticities of demand for transport fuel 3 to apply this model to the spanish passenger transport sector 4 to infer policy recommendations derived from the results of the diagnostic and the model it is claimed that in view of those low price elasticities and high income elasticities and if a reduction in the scale of transport activity is deemed socially desirable a combination of instruments is necessary fuel taxes play an important role within this combination apart from their long term effects the low price elasticity of demand for transport fuel would allow the collection of a significant amount of revenues which could eventually be earmarked to encourage reductions in private transport demand and modal shifts with other instruments

consumer demand and the role of labour supply and durables in this article i test empirically whether intratemporal preferences between 1 nondurables and labour supply and 2 nondurables and housing are separable in doing so careful attention is paid to the potential endogeneity of the total budget labour supply and housing for housing i offer two separate solutions to the problem of correlation between house size proxied by number of rooms and unobserved heterogeneity first instrument with a children s sex composition dummy and second select on households residing in public housing the results strongly reject separability between nondurables and labour supply for nondurables and housing the results are more mixed

an analysis of monthly household energy consumption among single family residences in texas 2010 demographic socioeconomic and housing characteristics influence variation in household energy consumption by combining household level utility public and proprietary data we examine predictors of household energy consumption in a texas urban area using quantile regression this analysis assesses the relationship between energy consumption and predictors at the middle and both ends of the distribution 10th and 90th percentiles results indicate potential opportunities to lower consumption among the highest energy consuming households including those with pools with non central cooling with people working from home those built on pier post foundation and those that are renter occupied these findings suggest significant opportunities to reduce consumption and demand as in the study area almost 10 of housing units are renter occupied 18 percent are without central cooling and 7 have pools capturing a significant portion of these homes for retrofit conservation efforts through marketing has potential to produce substantial results producing a better understanding of determinants of household energy consumption using the methods presented has potential to assist development and implementation of strategies to reduce consumption and increase efficiency

the distribution of material footprints in germany this study investigates the within country heterogeneity of material footprints implied by households consumption in germany material footprints are defined as the amount of biomass minerals and fossil fuels extracted to produce the goods that households consume combining input output data with households consumption expenditures from the german sample survey of income and expenditure evs we present the first comprehensive study on the distribution of material footprints among households highlighting hot spots of unsustainable consumption patterns by household groups households in the quartile with the highest consumption expenditures have material footprints three times as large as those in the quartile with the lowest expenditures results of a microeconomic model of household s consumption behaviour estimated on the evs data suggest that price based instruments can reduce material footprints of luxury consumption such as leisure and private transport without imposing large burdens on low affluence households the material footprints caused by energy consumption do not react sensitively to price changes suggesting that non price policies are more effective to reduce them

price and income elasticities of residential energy demand in germany we apply a quadratic expenditure system to estimate price and expenditure elasticities of residential energy demand electricity and heating in germany using official expenditure data from 1993 to 2008 we estimate an expenditure elasticity for electricity of 0 3988 and of 0 4055 for space heating the own price elasticity for electricity is 0 4310 and 0 5008 in the case of space heating disaggregation of households by expenditure and demographic composition reveals that the behavioural response to energy price changes is weaker stronger for low income top income households there are considerable economies of scale in residential energy use but scale effects are not well approximated by the new oedc equivalence scale real increases in energy prices show a regressive pattern of incidence implying that the welfare consequences of direct energy taxation are larger for low income households the application of zero elasticities in assessments of welfare consequences of energy taxation strongly underestimates potential welfare effects the increase in inequality is 22 smaller when compared to the application of rich and disaggregated behavioural response patterns as estimated in this paper