energy consumption and economic growth nexus in tanzania an ardl bounds testing approach abstract in this paper we examine the intertemporal causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in tanzania during the period of 1971 2006 unlike the majority of the previous studies we employ the newly developed autoregressive distributed lag ardl bounds testing approach by pesaran et al 2001 bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships journal of applied econometrics 16 289 326 to examine this linkage we also use two proxies of energy consumption namely total energy consumption per capita and electricity consumption per capita the results of the bounds test show that there is a stable long run relationship between each of the proxies of energy consumption and economic growth the results of the causality test on the other hand show that there is a unidirectional causal flow from total energy consumption to economic growth and a prima facie causal flow from electricity consumption to economic growth overall the study finds that energy consumption spurs economic growth in tanzania

energy consumption and economic development in sub sahara africa sub saharan african countries economic development is dependent on energy consumption this paper assesses total energy demand which is composed of traditional energy wood fuel and commercial energy electricity and petroleum in the central east south and west regions of sub saharan africa cross sectional time series data for 20 countries in 25 years are analyzed and the results of the study show that wood fuel accounts for 70 of energy consumption followed by petroleum with most industrial activities utilizing some form of wood fuel regression results suggest that energy demand is inversely related to the price of petroleum and industrial development but positively related to gdp population growth rate and agricultural expansion and that price elasticity is less than one the model results also show that there are regional differences in energy demand in addition the interaction of population growth rates by regions generates mixed results and there are regional differences in the use of commercial energy consumption and gdp growth the findings of this study suggest that countries must diversify their energy sources and introduce energy efficient devices and equipment at all levels of the economy to improve gdp growth rate and gdp per capita

motivations for aid to developing countries abstract this paper attempts to identify the underlying principles of aid allocation and particularly the balance of motivations as between the needs of recipient countries and the interests of donor countries two alternative models are fitted by cross country regressions to bilateral and multilateral aid flows to some 80 developing countries in 1969 1970 and 1978 1980 the first recipient need model assumes that all aid is given to compensate for shortfalls in domestic resources this model provides a reasonable explanation for the distribution of multilateral aid but it is clearly not applicable for bilateral aid flows the second donor interest model assumes that all aid serves only donor interests defined to cover political security investment and trade interests this model gives generally good explanations of bilateral aid but is a poor fit for multilateral aid the relative importance of the various donor interests differs sharply among donors the paper ends with an analysis of the shift in the balance of aid over the 1970s towards the recipient need element and with a reference to the sharp change in policy in the 1980s towards increasing emphasis on donor interest aid

the informational content of implied volatility implied volatility is widely believed to be informationally superior to historical volatility because it is the markets forecast of future volatility but for s p 100 index options the most actively traded contract in the united states we find implied volatility in aggregate and across subsamples separated by maturity and strike price implied volatility has virtually no correlation with future volatility and it does not incorporate the information contained in recent observed volatility article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

stock price clustering and discreteness stock prices cluster on round fractions clustering increases with price level and volatility and decreases with capitalization and transaction frequency clustering is pervasive price clustering will occur if traders use discrete price sets to simplify their negotiations exchange regulations require that most stocks be traded on eighths clustering on larger fractions will occur if traders choose to use discrete price sets based on quarters halves or whole numbers an econometric model of clustering is derived and estimated projections from the results suggest that traders would frequently use odd sixteenths when trading low price stocks if exchange regulations permitted trading on sixteenths article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

equilibrium pricing and portfolio composition in the presence of uncertain parameters abstract we analyze the effect of parameter uncertainty on equilibrium asset prices for the symmetric case when the amount of estimation risk is the same for all securities the existing literature argues that parameter uncertainty is largely irrelevant for equilibrium our results differ we find that symmetric estimation risk affects equilibrium values of relative asset prices expected returns market weights and betas

on measuring the risk of common stocks implied by options prices a note this paper examines the implied standard deviation isd estimated from transactons data on options using the black scholes pricing model it was found that the distribution of the isd is symmetric though not normal also the isd based on the last daily observation deviates significantly from the daily average isd it is suggested that the daily average is a more reliable estimate of the standard deviation

an explanation for the compass rose pattern abstract the compass rose pattern cannot be observed in daily returns in the spot foreign exchange forex market but is observable when intraday forex returns are used monte carlo simulations show that the pattern is visible only when the tick volatility ratio is above some threshold level a condition that is readily met with intraday returns

biofuels and food security micro evidence from ethiopia abstract there is considerable controversy about the impact of biofuels on food security in developing countries a major concern is that biofuels reduce food security by increasing food prices in this paper we use survey evidence to assess the impact of castor production on poor and food insecure rural households in ethiopia about 1 3 of poor farmers have allocated on average 15 of their land to the production of castor beans under contract in biofuel supply chains castor production significantly improves their food security they have fewer months without food and the amount of food they consume increases castor cultivation is beneficial for participating households food security in several ways by generating cash income from castor contracts they can store food for the lean season castor beans preserve well on the field which allows sales when farmers are in need of cash or food spillover effects of castor contracts increases the productivity of food crops increased food crop productivity offsets the amount of land used for castor so that the total local food supply is not affected

risk premia and the ex dividend stock price behavior abstract it has been suggested that the positive abnormal return on ex dividend days may be due in part to the existence of a risk premium the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that on ex dividend days trading in low dividend yield stocks is dominated by ordinary investors who demand a tax premium for their higher tax liability on ordinary dividends relative to capital gains trading in high dividend yield stocks appears to be dominated by short term traders who obtain a positive unsystematic risk premium finally the structural relationship between rates of return on the one side and dividend yield and risk premia on the other is quite different on ex dividend and other days as well as through time

the costs of indonesian sugar policy a policy analysis matrix approach indonesian sugar policy is a complex web of contradictory policies including mandatory production price supports and fertilizer and credit subsidies the policy analysis matrix pam was developed by monke and pearson to provide a more complete perspective on social profitability and the divergence between private and social costs than other commonly used social cost benefit measures the pam is used to analyze the effects of indonesian sugar policy on sugar production in irrigated and dryland areas on java the main sugar producing region in indonesia and to identify the distribution of resource transfers

transaction costs institutional rigidities and the size of the clean development mechanism transaction costs and institutional rigidities will reduce the attractiveness of the kyoto protocol flexibility mechanisms compared to domestic greenhouse gas abatement options the clean development mechanism cdm in particular is likely to entail considerable costs of baseline development project registration verification and certification the activities implemented jointly pilot phase and the prototype carbon fund programme give indications about these costs there is evidence that projects with high implementation costs have high transaction costs as well moreover cdm projects have to be approved by host country institutions and so far only a small share of host countries has been able to set up these institutions several of the larger host countries intend to only approve projects if the market price is above a certain threshold some governments will also levy fees to finance costs of approval bodies we assess these issues using a quantitative model of the kyoto protocol permit market we conclude that while changes in demand from annex b countries remain the crucial factor the size of the cdm will depend to a significant degree on transaction costs and institutional barriers in host countries

flexible exchange rates a closer look abstract the stochastic properties of flexible exchange rates are investigated by looking at a sample of intradaily sfr quotes for 231 trading days in 1983 estimated moments of the distribution of returns over five minute intervals often exhibit large changes which are mostly unpredictable even from one day to the next autocorrelation in returns is generally absent even inside a given day specific days of the week do not exhibit any special characteristics during a single day both relative changes in exchange rates as well as their volatility show some distinct patterns

foreign aid and domestic savings a spurious correlation in the harrod domar atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s foreign aid was expected to have a positive effect on saving the thinking at the time was that aid inflows would cause investment to increase this would generate subsequent increases in income which in turn would raise domestic savings k griffin and j enos pointed out however that the empirical correlation between foreign aid and savings across countries is negative not positive 1 to explain this they advanced the revisionist hypothesis that foreign aid actually discourages domestic savings aid receiving countries were seen as engaging in aidswitching increasing their government consumption expenditures reducing their efforts to collect taxes and so on contributions by a rahman t weisskopf and h chenery and p eckstein appeared to lend support to this point of view 2 the scenario was not universally accepted however several critics of the revisionist position advanced the hypothesis that negative association between savings and aid is the spurious result of omitted variables a plausible candidate is per capita income pci f stewart pointed out that high pci countries tend to have higher savings ratios and smaller current account deficits implying smaller aid inflows than low pci countries if aid were distributed according to need and per capita income were used by donors as an index of need aid and savings would have a spurious negative correlation because low pci countries simultaneously experience low savings rates and large aid inflows based on need 3 other possibly important omitted variables were cited by g papanek wars political disturbances sudden terms of trade changes natural disasters any of these variables could lower domestic savings and raise foreign aid receipts at the same time and they might or might not be correlated with per capita income 4 other studies

robust structure without predictability the compass rose pattern of the stock market plotting daily stock returns against themselves with one day s lag reveals a striking pattern evenly spaced lines radiate from the origin the thickest lines point in the major directions of the compass this compass rose pattern appears in every stock it is caused by discreteness however counter examples demonstrate that the existence of exchange imposed tick sizes e g eighths is neither necessary nor sufficient for the compass rose the compass rose cannot be used to make abnormal profits it is structure without predictability among other consequences the compass rose may bias estimation of arch models and tests for chaos technical analysts attempt to identify recurring patterns in stock prices e g edwards and magee 1992 similarly chaos researchers embed time series of stock returns into multi dimensional spaces and attempt to identify lowdimensional attractors e g barnett and chen 1988 figure 1 the hope is that with structure comes predictability and abnormal profits in fact neither of these literatures has yet discovered indisputable structure we follow a procedure similar to a chaos researcher s we look at a simple scatter diagram of daily stock returns plotted against themselves with one day s lag we document a structural relationship the compass rose that is strikingly geometrical in contrast to the products of technical analysis and chaos theory the structure we find is indisputably present in every stock unfortunately the compass rose cannot be used for predictive purposes by market participants it is an artifact of market microstructure it follows that even a successful search for significant structure in stock market data need not enhance predictability nor lead to abnormal profits an equally important lesson is that microstructure effects can be spectacular in daily and even weekly data several areas for future research are given these include potential biases caused by the compass rose in the estimation of autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity arch models and in a standard test for chaos

the emergence of the biodiesel industry in brazil current figures and future prospects abstract the aim of the present paper is to characterize and analyze the emergence of the biodiesel industry in brazil and provide an assessment of the extent to which the goals established by the national biodiesel production and usage program have been reached in relation to the goal of including biodiesel within the brazilian energy matrix the program can be seen to be responding dynamically and ahead of schedule in 2010 the b5 blend was already part of the diesel consumed in brazil with 81 of the biodiesel coming from soybean oil and 14 from beef tallow by contrast the plans to diversify the feedstocks used to produce biodiesel and improve production in the poorest regions of brazil have failed to prosper regarding the goal of fostering social inclusion by encouraging the participation of family based farming this has been partially achieved finally the goal of cost efficiently producing biodiesel is far from being achieved the economic feasibility of the production and use of biodiesel in brazil can be questioned since it is still strongly supported by tax incentives and production and marketing subsidies

tick size and the compass rose further insights abstract this paper investigates two differing perspectives on the compass rose those of crack and ledoit 1996 the journal of finance 51 2 751 762 and szpiro 1998 journal of banking and finance 22 1559 1569 neither perspective has explicitly considered the effect of time and we consider the implications of this with illustrations using market micro data

minimum price variations discrete bid ask spreads and quotation sizes exchange minimum price variation regulations create discrete bid ask spreads if the minimum quotable spread exceeds the spread that otherwise would be quoted spreads will be wide and the number of shares offered at the bid and ask may be large a cross sectional discrete spread model is estimated by using intraday stock quotation spread frequencies the results are used to project 1 16 spread usage frequencies given a 1 16 tick projected changes in quotation sizes and in trade volumes are obtained from regression models for stocks priced under 10 the models predict spreads would decrease 38 percent quotation sizes would decrease 16 percent and daily volume would increase 34 percent article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

this time it s different an inevitable decline in world petroleum production will keep oil product prices high causing military conflicts and shifting wealth and power from democracies to authoritarian regimes abstract there is virtual agreement among geologists that world production of conventional oil will peak at some point in the future oil after all is a finite resource while demand will only grow over time geologists disagree however exactly when the peak will occur using data from the international energy agency the us department of energy the association for the study of peak oil and gas and petroleum industry sources we argue that conventional oil production will reach a worldwide maximum within the next 5 10 years earlier than generally estimated thus leaving a very short time frame within which to plan for conversion to alternative sources of energy unless planning is initiated immediately the united states and other western democracies will see their positions in the global economy undercut as military conflicts over limited energy resources increase and wealth and power are shifted to authoritarian regimes in russia venezuela africa and the middle east

interdependent international relations and the expansion of ethanol production and consumption the brazilian perspective abstract the global production and consumption of ethanol are expected to increase the growing interdependence of markets and nations producers and consumers of biofuels has led actors to seek and devise mechanisms intended to develop the sector this paper aims to analyze the interdependent international relations between brazil and other ethanol biofuel producer and consumer countries to do so the paper explores the theory of complex interdependence and the game theory a quali quantitative study was conducted involving the application of two questionnaires to experts on biofuels and documentary analysis aided by qda miner software the results show that brazil shares highly interdependent relations with the united states an intermediate degree of interdependence with europe and a low degree of interdependence with china the dimensions of those interdependent relations can be ranked according to importance in the following order first the political then the economic technical and finally the social environmental dimensions a number of actions can be envisaged that could lead ethanol to achieve an increasingly strategic position in the diversification of the energy matrix in different countries technological efforts to improve production efficiency the creation of globally integrated policies designed to provide security and develop the production and consumption infrastructure the reduction of international tariffs on the product and the transformation of ethanol into a global commodity with a large number of countries buying and selling the product this paper faced the challenge of integrating approaches and concepts from two complex theoretical areas complex interdependence theory and game theory the research methodology and the insights gained from the ethanol case contribute to the literature on the applicability of these two theoretical approaches

impact of policies and subsidies in agribusiness the case of oil palm and biofuels in colombia abstract we analyze the economic impacts of policies supporting biodiesel production in colombia such as subsidies and mandates for compulsory fuel mixtures in the major biodiesel source being palm oil we seek to establish the impact of these policies on oil palm producer incomes prices and production levels of crude palm oil cpo and biodiesel as well as the impacts on demand for land for oil palm plantation expansion we also calculate the so called deadweight costs to account for the social costs derived from the inefficiencies of government interventions in the biodiesel markets the analysis is done using a partial equilibrium models for the two interrelated sectors the production of palm oil and biodiesel and the demand for new land needed to cope with the additional palm oil needed the model was calibrated for 2009 to simulate for the 2010 2020 period the results of the simulations reveal that the subsidies alone are themselves not effective tools to achieve the government objectives defined in the biofuels program in colombia subsidies need to be complemented by increased blending mandates to ensure that palm cultivation and production of biodiesel investments are profitable enough that producers would bet on such business additionally we find that producers of palm oil benefit most from subsidies in the short term however in the long term it is the biodiesel entrepreneurs who will appropriate the larger share of growth revenue of the entire production chain the social costs of the biofuels program are small in the short term and represent only between 0 2 and 0 7 of the tax expenditure however in the long term they would become significant and would account for around 4 1 to 6 1 of the tax payers expense

more heat and light abstract one hundred years before the advent of modern power systems william blake in the marriage of heaven and hell argued with the devil asserting that energy is eternal delight that delight however remains beyond the reach of the two to three billion of people disadvantaged by a lack of modern energy services a number that has remained relatively unchanged over recent decades this is arguably the most disturbing of insights from an examination of global energy use trends and a simple clear justification for a political prioritisation of the issue it is widely accepted that a lack of access to energy services is a fundamental hindrance to human social and economic development addressing it comprehensively would have enormous multiple benefits however current efforts are woefully insufficient in scale scope and design and attempting to address the issue solely as part of wider poverty reduction policies is likely to be sub optimal we discuss energy policy with a focus on energy security as an effective vehicle for large scale action in providing modern clean energy services to this end we outline specific and limited examples of where international cooperation could play a role supporting national actions and ensuring universal access

chaos and the compass rose abstract we show that the recently discovered compass pattern in stock returns that results from discrete jumps of stocks seriously distorts the null distribution of the brock dechert scheinkmann bds chaos test under the null hypothesis of i i d returns the true rejection probability exceeds the nominal size by wide margins which suggests that much of the evidence for chaos that has so far been found in stock returns might well be due to the fact that prices change only in discrete ticks

portfolio rebalancing and the effective taxation of dividends and capital gains following the tax reform act of 1986 abstract the tax reform act tra of 1986 among other things equalized the nominal taxation of dividend and capital gains income the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that ordinary investors rebalanced their portfolio holdings in response to the new taxes such rebalancing appears to have concentrated on liquid stocks indicating that transaction costs are an important consideration for ordinary investors involved in restructuring their portfolio holdings the tax clientele relationships that existed prior to the new act were distorted temporarily but have reappeared by 1988 interestingly investors post reform effective tax rates still give a preference to capital gains as they did prior to the tax reform

a further analysis of the lead lag relationship between the cash market and stock index futures market the intraday lead lag relation between returns of the major market cash index and returns of the major market index futures and s p 500 futures is investigated empirical results show strong evidence that the futures leads the cash index and weak evidence that the cash index leads the futures the asymmetric lead lag relation holds between the futures and all component stocks including those that trade in almost every five minute interval evidence indicates that when more stocks move together market wide information the futures leads the cash index to a greater degree this suggests that the futures market is the main source of market wide information article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

how does germany s green energy policy affect electricity market volatility an application of conditional autoregressive range models abstract based on a dynamic model for the high low range of electricity prices this article analyses the effects of germany s green energy policy on the volatility of the electricity market using european energy exchange data from 2000 to 2015 we find rather high volatility in the years 2000 2009 but also that the weekly price range has significantly declined in the period following the year 2009 this period is characterised by active regulation under the energy industry law enwg the eu emissions trading directive etd and the renewable energy law eeg in contrast to the preceding period price jumps are smaller and less frequent especially for day time hours implying that current policy measures are effective in promoting renewable energies while simultaneously upholding electricity market stability this is because the regulations strive towards a more and more flexible and market oriented structure which allows better integration of renewable energies and supports an efficient alignment of renewable electricity supply with demand

evaluating the economics of biodiesel in africa abstract road transport in sub saharan africa is expected to rise in the coming years paradoxically this expansion is occurring at a time when oil prices have reached new heights unstable oil prices do indeed increase the vulnerability of importers however it also presents them with a unique opportunity to explore promising technical options to help reduce their over reliance on imported petroleum fuels this paper takes a closer look at the potential for biodiesel with an emphasis on fuels produced from oil palm castor oil and jatropha in ghana kenya and tanzania respectively the paper provides an economic appraisal of biodiesels from these feedstocks and sets the context for further discussions on biofuels in africa

visibility of the compass rose in financial asset returns a quantitative study abstract the compass rose phenomenon is studied based on the random walk model of stock prices it is found that the structure is inherently present in any financial data having a finite precision but becomes visible only under some conditions a quantitative description of the pattern visibility condition is given providing a method for the interpretation of pattern appearance and a more comprehensive understanding of the compass rose phenomenon this is achieved by defining a measure of pattern quality the arguments and the proposed method are supported by numerical examples one such example is the presentation of patterns in portfolios with some specific weights

the macroeconomic impact of development aid a critical survey the early literature explained aid s macroeconomic impact in the context of the dual gap model showing a clear link between aid and growth many now believe that the empirical evidence shows there to be no such relationship this paper critically reviews the different theoretical perspectives the dual gap model the savings debate recipient fiscal response and aid as dutch disease and the empirical debates on aid savings and growth the basis for denying a relationship between aid and growth is shown to be weak though more recent areas of research offer promising directions for future work

clustering in crude oil prices and the target pricing zone hypothesis abstract this paper studies the target pricing zone tpz hypothesis for crude oil by examining price clustering in the dollar digit it is hypothesized that price clustering occurs within an established tpz if opec is able to defend the upper and lower bounds through output changes the results show that prices strongly cluster around the dollar digit value of 9 within the tpz sub periods but not outside the sub periods furthermore the degree of clustering declines when production capacity utilization is high and when production significantly exceeds quotas consistent with opec s inability to defend the zone nine centered clustering also results in lower contemporaneous and next day volatility these results support the target pricing zone hypothesis of crude oil

bio diesel a global scenario abstract recent days underground carbon resources are dwindling at a faster rate this triggered primary interest in development of bio fuel as substitute to petroleum based fuel for alleviating world energy and economic crisis this review explores the environmental impacts of bio fuels on the road transportation and a large scale impact of bio fuel crops on food based agricultural lands which are now more gainfully used for churning out vehicle fuel a global bio diesel production is depicted with an appropriate data from 1991 to 2012 also this article explains in detail the bio diesel status which includes crop type climatic conditions yield oil concentration land use availability and policy impacts of 27 different countries across the world in addition this article extends to classify the potential bio fuel feedstocks obtainable in each country

estimation bias induced by discrete security prices commonly equilibrium security prices are modeled by continuous state stochastic processes while observed prices are rounded into discrete units this paper models the rounding mechanism and examines the probabilistic structure of the resultant rounded process we provide accurate and simple estimates of the inflation in estimated variance and kurtosis induced by ignoring rounding in particular the maximum likelihood estimate of security price volatility using rounded prices is developed and a simulation analysis is performed to examine the small sample properties of this estimator for many practical applications a simple correction for rounding becomes available

globalization and the connection of remote communities a review of household effects and their biodiversity implications abstract the remote regions of the world provide refuge to a disproportionate amount of the earth s biodiversity as globalization continues isolated human communities in these regions are increasingly connected to global market migration and technology networks we review the diffuse literature on the household effects of changing market access migration and technology adoption in remote regions and implications for native biodiversity market access affects biodiversity in remote communities through changes in household economics and social networks migration either to or from remote settlements affects biodiversity through changes in population remittances human capital and social networks finally we consider effects due to production public infrastructure and information and communication technologies there is much ambiguity surrounding these causal pathways and thus we also examine the roles of various ecological household community and institutional mediating factors in determining the impacts of global connection finally we explore the limitations of our current knowledge and research practices and propose directions for future work to address key uncertainties in theory and evidence as well as weaknesses in methodological approaches we recommend a broad and interdisciplinary mode of inquiry as the best means toward clarifying globalization s impacts on human settlements and the biodiversity harbored in the earth s remaining remote regions

biodiesel value chain and access to energy in ethiopia policies and business prospects abstract similar to many net oil importing sub sahara african countries ethiopia s economy is rural and as it stands today it is far from being a fossil fuel based economy instead the economy is largely powered by traditional burning of solid biomass despite its small share in the overall energy supply 7 imported fuel absorbs half of ethiopia s foreign currency earnings the common justifications behind the development of biofuels such as energy source diversification foreign currency saving rural poverty alleviation through employment and technology transfers were all appealing for ethiopian policy advisers in 2007 mostly influenced by the global discourse ethiopia launched a biofuel expansion strategy and a massive ad hoc investment promotion of two biodiesel crops castor and jatropha in this paper we synthesize the various biodiesel development initiatives and modes of production and point out at the gaps in policy formulation and project implementation evaluating the prospect and constraints for biodiesel production in ethiopia we conclude that most of the prerequisites for a viable biodiesel industry still need to be met we identify key areas and priorities to further strengthen the development of the biodiesel sector

uncovering nonlinear structure in real time stock market indexes the s p 500 the dax the nikkei 225 and the ftse 100 this article tests for nonlinear dependence and chaos in real time returns on the world s four most important stock market indexes both the brock dechert scheinkman and the lee white and granger neural network based tests indicate persistent nonlinear structure in the series estimates of the lyapunov exponents using the nychka ellner gallant and mccaffrey neural net method and the zeng pielke and eyckholt nearest neighbor algorithm confirm the presence of nonlinear dependence in the returns on all indexes but provide no evidence of low dimensional chaotic processes given the sensitivity of the results to the estimation parameters we conclude that the data are dominated by a stochastic component

dividend stripping risk exposure and the effect of the 1984 tax reform act on the ex dividend day behavior this article investigates the importance of risk exposure and the effects of the 1984 tax reform act on the ex dividend day behavior the tax reform appears to have inhibited short term trading activities by increasing the risk exposure of incorporated traders moreover stocks for which existing listed options permitted the reduction of risk through hedged dividend stripping strategies were affected much less from the new tax code than their nonoptionable counterparts this implies that risk affects investors dividend yield choice and that the ex dividend day behavior may be caused in part by the existence of risk premia copyright 1989 by the university of chicago

assessment of a green credit policy aimed at energy intensive industries in china based on a financial cge model abstract a financial computable general equilibrium model is established to quantitatively calculate the systematic effects of a green credit policy the punitive high interest rate is applied to the energy intensive industries as the green credit policy this study is focused on the following industries paper chemical cement and iron and steel short medium and long term scenarios are used to conduct experiments representing the green credit policy then a scenario is simulated wherein a green security policy and the green credit policy are carried out simultaneously finally effects of the green credit policy a differential electricity price policy and a raised production tax policy towards the energy intensive industries are compared the results show that the green credit policy is effective in suppressing the investments in energy intensive industries and it is comparatively less effective in adjusting the industrial production structure the green security policy helps the green credit policy to reduce the total financing of the target industries but it brings more negative impacts on the economy although the policies of differential electricity prices and raising production taxes support the output structural adjustments their negative effects are much larger than those of the green credit policy

brazilian biofuels and social exclusion established and concentrated ethanol versus emerging and dispersed biodiesel increasing interest in biofuels trade between developed and developing countries has spurred worldwide discussions on issues such as subsidies and the food for fuel crisis one issue missing in recent discourse is the pressure exerted on developing countries to adopt large scale mechanized farming practices to increase economic efficiencies such approaches often exclude small scale farmers from participating in the emerging biofuels market thus exacerbating poverty and social exclusion drawing on both qualitative and technical data we discuss such pressures using brazilian ethanol and biodiesel production pressure from international markets to become more economically efficient may contribute towards the erosion of recent schemes to encourage social benefits for small farmers in biodiesel production we conclude with trade and policy implications

tick size the compass rose and market nanostructure abstract economists have begun using methods borrowed from the physical sciences to search for non linearities in economic and financial data the so called phase portrait from chaos theory in which the values of a time series are plotted against their delayed values is one of the techniques employed for this purpose it has recently been shown however that when returns on traded assets are plotted in this manner in two or three dimensional space surprising patterns arise which seriously distort the conclusions that can be drawn about the underlying data these patterns which resemble a compass rose reflect the microstructure of the market or more specifically the finite size of the ticks by which prices can change in a market the present paper clarifies the reason for this phenomenon it is shown that within the microstructure there exists nanostructure that becomes visible only when the computations are performed without approximation high frequency data from a foreign exchange market are used to illustrate this phenomenon

a note on the wang and wang measure of the quality of the compass rose abstract h wang and c wang visibility of the compass rose in financial asset returns a quantitative study j bank financ 26 2002 1099 1111 derive a measure of the visibility of the radial patterns that appear in a plot of current and past returns which are more commonly known as the compass rose in theory this measure should be positively related to the tick volatility ratio in practice however we find that this relationship does not hold for higher tick volatility ratios that are common to stock market data thus the use of this measure is limited in real world applications we propose a correction factor that improves the behaviour of the quality measure over higher tick volatility ratios however further research is required to fully identify and correct the problem

foreign aid and domestic savings in less developed countries some tests for causality abstract the negative correlation between foreign aid and domestic savings rates in less developed countries is an accepted fact in the existing literature the direction of causality however remains a subject of dispute in this paper we use time series data to investigate causal relationships we conclude that causal relationships are not universal and it is suggested that in those countries where they do hold the direction of causality may depend upon the proportions of aid from bilateral and multilateral sources

can public private partnerships leverage private investment in agricultural value chains in africa a preliminary review summary public private partnerships ppps may be one way of increasing the level of private sector investment into poorly performing agricultural value chains this paper considers a range of ppp mechanisms that respond to different market failures affecting such chains and draws on principal agent theory to illustrate the challenges it reviews emerging experience with a number of these mechanisms along with experience from other sectors that may shed light on generic problems of implementing ppps in africa while finding some positive impacts on investment it notes that state failures can also undermine ppp effectiveness as the evidence base is still limited it calls on organizations promoting innovative ppps to disclose available information for critical examination

sector based political analysis of energy transition green shift in the forest policy regime in france abstract this article examines energy transition political process from a sector based approach through the analysis of recent shift in the french forest policy regime we demonstrate that since 2007 energy transition policies have led to a harvesting turn within the french forest policy framework meaning that priority is given to wood mobilisation mainly for biomass uses in addition our findings suggest that the political authority wielded by the state over forest policy has shifted from forest administrative services to energy agencies and local authorities finally we show that although implementation of the harvesting turn is a cause of sectoral and inter sectoral tensions energy transition challenge also contributes to a process of re institutionalisation of mediation relationships among forestry stakeholders and wood based industries representatives the article concludes by arguing that sectors should retain relevant institutional frameworks for actors when choosing political arrangements required for implementing energy transition policy

the effectiveness of aid on savings and investment in sub saharan africa do volatility and institutional quality matter abstractthe effectiveness of aid is somewhat subject to its volatility this study investigates the impact of aid volatility especially on savings and investment with a particular focus on the role of institutional quality in 45 sub saharan african ssa countries over the period from 1990 to 2013 we used the generalized method of moments gmm technique combined with a measure of volatility namely an averaged data method involving six 4 year sub periods our results suggest that while aid is positively associated with savings and investment its volatility is harmful to savings and investment however when higher quality institutions exist the volatility of aid has a less negative impact on savings and investment the policy implications are diverse first donors and ssa aid dependent countries need to take into account the diversity of shocks to which aid can respond in mitigating its unpredictability secondly ssa countries should be encouraged to establish the conditions for better quality inst

feedstock diversification for biodiesel production in brazil using the policy analysis matrix pam to evaluate the impact of the pnpb and the economic competitiveness of alternative oilseeds abstract while biodiesel feedstock diversification is a main objective of the brazilian national program for the production and use of biodiesel pnpb in portuguese its achievement has remained elusive and biodiesel is predominantly produced from soybean 75 this research uses the policy analysis matrix pam approach to evaluate the pnpb effects and compare the economic efficiency and the competitiveness of biodiesel from three oilseeds soybean rapeseed and sunflower in contrast to papers that present results of experimental biodiesel production initiatives this paper explores the case of representative production chains best available technology and management practices the findings indicate that biodiesel production is competitive from the three oilseeds but the profitability of biodiesel from the soybean is notably higher the tax breaks and subsidies provided by the pnpb have a positive impact on the profitability of biodiesel production chains 7 43 for soybean 3 88 for rapeseed 5 53 for sunflower these results are encouraging and suggest two actions i to review the incentive policies tax reduction and payments to farmers of the different crops pay for oil content instead of crop yield and ii to invest in organizational and managerial approaches in the alternative oilseed agricultural systems to improve their technical and economic efficiency

implementing a biofuel economy in the eu lessons from the sustoil project and future perspectives for next generation biofuels abstract the aim of this article is to illustrate main economic and environmental ghg emission reductions effects of implementing a biofuel economy and to discuss the potential of establishing advanced biofuels in the european union the study is based on the recently completed eu fp7 sustoil research project the main question addressed is the eu policy objective of achieving 20 ghg emission reductions using 20 of renewables by the year 2020 to contribute to the achievement of this policy we run and execute through a computable general equilibrium model a simulation experiment of implementing a bio based economy using biorefineries in the production process main results suggest that a biorefineries working from oil seeds and their by products will lead to a large increase in the amount of this crop grown particularly in eastern europe b this increase will be accompanied by a decrease in sectoral gdp in several other areas c oil and electricity prices will generally fall in across the eu with a particularly notable trend in eastern europe and d a reduction in carbon emissions is achieved but this will be insufficient to meet the eu 20 target this latter result would suggest to speed the technological process towards the use of next generation biofuels in the eu furthermore these results advocate for a leading role expected to play by eastern eu countries over the next years the expected increase in the cultivation of energy crops could conflict with the availability of land for food crops the potential for establishing next generation biofuels in the eu with adequate support policies would be essential for guaranteeing energy and food security in the long run

volatility increases subsequent to nyse and amex stock splits the post split increase in daily returns volatility is less for amex stocks than for nyse stocks the exchange trading location is a significant factor in explaining the volatility shift even after stock price and firm size are considered furthermore when measured on a weekly basis there is no increase in amex stocks returns volatility these results suggest that measurement errors created by bid ask spreads and the 1 8 effect and also one or more of the elements that make the nyse different from the amex explain why the estimated volatility of daily stock returns increases after the ex split date ohlson and penman 1985 provide evidence that nyse stock returns variances increase subsequent to ex stock distribution days for splits of 100 or greater the increase in volatility is independent of the size of the split alnd the post split price seven potential problems that might affect their results are analyzed and rejected 1 ohlson and penman 1985 suggest that the greater post split volatility may be due to the activity of relatively ignorant noisy traders who prefer trading low priced stocks this clientele factor is attributed to black 1986 pg 534 and institutional factors a rather broad category that incorporates measurement problems created by the 1 8 effect and bid ask spreads as possible hypotheses for the post split volatility increase this paper extends ohlson and penman s 1985 analysis to amex stocks exchange listing can serve as a proxy for several real factors that may cause the increase in post split variance many of which are related to the clientele factor and institutional factors cited above if the increase in volatility differs between nyse and amex stocks it will suggest that one or more of the following contributes to the phenomenon

garch estimation and discrete stock prices an application to low priced australian stocks the garch model is misspecified if applied to returns calculated from discrete prices we propose a modification of the above model for handling such cases we find large differences between the standard and the extended model estimates although the results sometimes are obscured by large standard errors

extreme price clustering in the london equity index futures and options markets price clustering and optimal tick sizes have recently been topics of substantial public policy interest and this paper presents evidence which is relevant to both debates around 98 of quoted and traded prices for liffe stock index derivatives are found to occur at even ticks we report that clustering increases with volatility and transaction frequency and decreases with trade size and find that the proportion of odd ticks is significantly lower near the market open and higher near the close further an inverse relationship is reported between bid ask spreads and the number of odd ticks and spreads cluster at even tick values this evidence of extreme price clustering is the first to be presented for financial derivatives the results support both the price resolution and the negotiation hypotheses of price clustering

economic growth export and external debt causality the case of african countries empirical investigation of the export driven economic growth hypothesis has provided mixed results in a bivariate causality framework the problem with such bivariate causality analysis is that there can be an omitted variable which could adversely affect the results this paper looks at the trivariate causality analysis of african countries by introducing external deby servicing as a third variable in the export economic growth analysis the results indicate that there is a feedback or bidirectional causality between external debt servicing economic growth and exports evidence of the 1983 90 subperiod is consistent with the argument that the structural adjustment programmes which were designed to remove economic distortions promote exports and encourage external debt management increased growth in the countries involved

insights into biofuel development in burkina faso potential and strategies for sustainable energy policies abstract in many african countries the upswing in oil prices is one factor that favours the adoption and implementation of a national biofuel policy this trend has a major impact on state budgets and domestic trade balances while also limiting the access of rural inhabitants to modern energy services contribution of biofuels in stabilizing the energy sector influences ongoing negotiations on the global dynamics of climate change the reduction in greenhouse gas ghg emissions and sustainable development the question of biofuels as an alternative energy thus depends on international national and local considerations biofuels represent opportunities e g energy independence and security new national income and employment sources as well as potential food security problems african policy makers therefore need to make the right choices to guide the development of biofuel production and use this article aims to support the development of a biofuel policy by reviewing the latest technical economic environmental and social knowledge so as to be able to evaluate the potential and limits of biofuels in burkina faso

a new approach to the allocation of aid among developing countries is the usa different from the rest summary this paper attempts to explain the factors that determine the geographical allocation of foreign aid its novelty is that it develops a rigorous theoretical model and conducts the corresponding empirical investigations based on a large panel dataset we run regressions for different major donors united states canada france italy japan united kingdom and multilateral organizations with the explicit objective of establishing whether the united states in light of its geopolitical hegemony behaves differently from others we find that all the donors respond to recipient need in their allocation of aid but that the united states puts less emphasis on this than the other donors with the exception of japan we also find that the united states puts more emphasis on donor recipient linkages than do the other donors suggesting that the united states attaches greater importance to issues of donor interest for example geopolitical commercial and other links with specific recipients

are biofuels an efficient technology for generating sustainable development in oil dependent african nations a macroeconomic assessment of the opportunities and impacts in burkina faso this paper discusses the opportunity for substituting fossil fuels with biofuels in a sahelian country burkina faso bearing in mind the strong link between energy and development and given the country s heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels our study showed that the overall economy private and public companies and basic social services and the state budget could be seriously affected if no viable and local alternative is integrated into the national energy strategy in view of local potential it is recommended that adequate energy resources be sought in order to ensure sustainable socio economic development biofuel opportunities are discussed taking into account technical agronomic and land potentials in this country diversification of energy resources with biofuels would substantially reduce fuel imports in the short term improve overall public finances provide a chance to develop agriculture and provide benefits for the locals however if they are to generate development biofuel projects need to be mindful of food security and economic incentives and should be part of national agricultural strategies

governing biofuels in brazil a comparison of ethanol and biodiesel policies over the last decade brazil has implemented a new and ambitious biofuel program the national program of production and use of biodiesel pnpb when launching this program in 2004 the government stated that it wanted to avoid the same kind of geographical concentration single crop focus dominance of agribusiness and exclusion of family farmers that have occurred with bioethanol production through the proalcool policy since 1975 this paper compares the life histories of the bioethanol and the biodiesel policies of brazil by analyzing their substantive policy content the power and politics of actors that struggle for the design and implementation of the policies and the polity in terms the organization and institutionalization of the policies the paper concludes that both policies have become submerged by and dependent on the polity and politics of primarily the energy and agricultural sectors that operate as the two semi autonomous governance fields this submerging has shaped the substantive contents of biofuels policies and explains why the 2004 biodiesel policy pnpb in spite of its objectives for social inclusion and rural development faces similar problems in implementation as its predecessor the 1975 bioethanol policy proalcool

estimating the volatility of discrete stock prices this paper introduces an estimator of stock price volatility that eliminates at least asymptotically the biases that are caused by the discreteness of observed stock prices assuming that the observed stock prices are continuously monitored an estimator is constructed using the notion of how quickly the price changes rather than how much the price changes it is shown that this estimator has desirable asymptotic properties including consistency and asymptotic normality also through a simulation study the authors show that it outperforms natural estimators for the low and middle priced stocks furthermore the simulation study demonstrates that the proposed estimator is robust to certain misspecifications in measuring the time between price changes

savings rates and income distribution further evidence from ldcs a cross country test for the existence of kaldor effects in less developed countries is developed earlier attempts have been inconclusive and have led to a perception that the effect is unimportant it is argued that previous tests may have ben misspecified within a standard life cycle framework a savings rate function that also incorporates two distribution variables one involving measures of income inequalities across income classes and the other a broad measure of inequalities among sectors was specified and estimated the results indicate that regardless of the inequality measure employed some sort of kaldor effect may be at work this suggests that the traditional conflect between growth and equity warrants continued investigation

measuring energy poverty focusing on what matters abstract the provision of modern energy services is recognised as a critical foundation for sustainable development and is central to the everyday lives of people effective policies to dramatically expand modern energy access need to be grounded in a robust information base metrics that can be used for comparative purposes and to track progress towards targets therefore represent an essential support tool this paper reviews the relevant literature and discusses the adequacy and applicability of existing instruments to measure energy poverty drawing on those insights it proposes a new composite index to measure energy poverty both the associated methodology and initial results for several african countries are discussed whereas most existing indicators and composite indices focus on assessing the access to energy or the degree of development related to energy our new index the multidimensional energy poverty index mepi focuses on the deprivation of access to modern energy services it captures both the incidence and intensity of energy poverty and provides a new tool to support policy making

assessing the potential demand for biofuel by combining economics and psychology a focus on proximity applied to jatropha oil in africa abstract bio energy demand is known to be influenced by geographical origin and social equity this paper aims to highlight the influence of the proximity between biomass production and energy consumption on the demand for alternative bio fuels in the context of burkina faso we explore potential demand for jatropha oil jatropha curcas as a diesel substitute among engine owners survey data are based on a between groups design one group of respondents experiencing a local supply chain while the other a global one results show that proximity has a significant effect on potential demand itself and on the formation and strength of beliefs regarding jatropha oil in a local supply chain context the demand is superior and seems to be guided more by a certain economic and technical rationality conversely the prospect of a jatropha oil produced outside the village restrains demand and this latter is more determined by contextual factors and social interaction our analysis confirms that demand does not only depend on technical and economic factors such as price but also on the integration of the biomass production and processing in the socioeconomic life of local rural populations understanding demand construction and assessing underlying beliefs are key success factors for bio energy projects

household level spillover effects from biofuels evidence from castor in ethiopia the indirect effects of biofuels are mostly considered negative in this paper we argue that there may be a positive indirect effect of biofuels on food security and poverty using micro level evidence and a matched plot pair design through which we control for plot and farmer characteristics we show that the introduction of castor production for biofuel in a poor country as ethiopia can significantly improve food productivity of rural households who produce raw material for biofuel production this spillover seems particularly linked to enhanced access to inputs and technical assistance which were provided as part of biofuel feedstock production contracts our results thus document another mechanism through which biofuels may influence smallholders food security a mechanism that did not receive attention so far

partial vertical integration risk shifting and product rejection in the high value export supply chain the ghana pineapple sector summary high value export supply chains hold potential to improve smallholders welfare but their relative production inefficiency and moral hazard problems can cause exporters to prefer vertically integrated plantation production however pineapple exporters in ghana produce both for their own account and purchase from smallholders we hypothesize that vertical integration is only partial because exporters face large market risks that smallholders surprisingly are better able to absorb we show empirically that exporters average rejection rate of export quality fruit is high and varies in response to unanticipated fluctuations in european demand these results support the hypothesis and are consistent with theories of partial vertical integration but not the standard principal agent paradigm

biofuels and sustainable energy development in brazil summary through the assessment of three decades of the alcohol program in brazil the paper shows that adequate public policies regarding biomass production can deliver direct benefits like energy security improvement foreign exchange savings and local employment generation reduced urban air pollution and avoided co2 emissions moreover the paper shows that brazilian produced ethanol has faced economies of scale technical progress and productivity gains and is no longer dependent on subsidies to be competitive the paper also examines the potential in brazil for fostering other biofuels namely biodiesel obtained from vegetable oils as well as their implications on sustainable energy development

social and techno economical analysis of biodiesel production in peru peru has introduced a law to promote the use of biofuels with the objective to increase employment strengthening agriculture development providing an economic alternative to illegal drug production in this work the costs of biodiesel production from oil palm and jatropha were analyzed under different scenarios they include the participation of associations of smallholders and commercial producers as raw material provides in biodiesel business in peru the scenarios considered have a strong social dimension in which they explicitly consider how productions 39 costs change when smallholders supply a proportion of the feedstock to the industry production cost profiles were generated using the chemical process simulation and economical evaluation software packages provided by aspen technology total production cost found for oil palm biodiesel production ranged between 0 23 and 0 31 usd l and jatropha biodiesel production costs were between 0 84 and 0 87 usd l these production costs were analyzed and compared to biodiesel ex factory prices and diesel fuel production cost factors the results suggest that including smallholders in the supply chain can be under some conditions competitive with liquid biofuel production systems that are purely large scale c 2012 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

limit moves as censored observations of equilibrium futures price in garch processes we develop an algorithm for estimating generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity models for time series containing some censored observations motivation for the algorithm comes from those futures markets and some equity markets that have limits constraining the maximum allowable movement in price in a day when a limit is reached trading stops and the equilibrium price is not observed we maximize the likelihood function by replacing the unobservable squared error terms with their expected values we evaluate the algorithm performance by extensive simulation and apply it to treasury bill futures data from a period of high volatility and frequent limit moves

understanding the role of energy consumption in human development through the use of saturation phenomena a correlation is presented between the un human development index and per capita energy consumption for 120 nations a strong relationship between index values and energy consumption is observed for the majority of the world additionally a distinct secondary trend emerges from the dataset representing heavy energy exporters such as the organization of the petroleum exporting countries and some former soviet union nations among others the preliminary observation is made that these two trends closely resemble saturation curves exhibited by a variety of natural phenomena for the primary trend three regions are isolated a steep rise in human development relative to energy consumption for energy poor nations a moderate rise for transitioning nations and essentially no rise in human development for energy advantaged nations consuming large amounts of modern energy these correlations suggest that tremendous gains in human development are possible for the world s poorest with small incremental access to energy

nonlinear dynamics and stock returns simple deterministic systems are capable of generating chaotic output that mimics the output of stochastic systems for this reason algorithms have been developed to distinguish between these two alternatives these algorithms and related statistical tests are also useful in detecting the presence of nonlinear dependence in time series in this article the authors apply these procedures to stock returns and find evidence that indicates the presence of nonlinear dependence on weekly returns from the center for research in security prices value weighted index copyright 1989 by the university of chicago

the short run dynamics of the price adjustment to new information we examine how prices in interest rate and foreign exchange futures markets adjust to the new information contained in scheduled macroeconomic news releases in the very short run using 10 second returns and tick by tick data we find that prices adjust in a series of numerous small but rapid price changes that begin within 10 seconds of the news release and are basically completed within 40 seconds of the release there is some evidence that prices overreact in the first 40 seconds but that this is corrected in the second or third minute after the release while volatility tends to be higher than normal just before the news release there is no evidence of information leakage in our analysis we correct for the biases created by bid ask spreads and tick by tick data

measurement effects and the variance of returns after stock splits and stock dividends this article examines the relation between two factors affecting stock returns the bid ask spread and price discreteness and the increase in return variance after ex dates of stock splits and stock dividends controlling for these effects the variance of daily returns still increases significantly the variance of weekly returns also increases significantly and the variance of returns for a control sample of nonsplitting firms shows no significant increase variance ratio tests show that bid ask errors are small for these stocks and therefore cannot explain the large increase in variance spreads and price discreteness do not explain increased variance after stock distributions article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

efficient funds for meager asset spaces abstract for finite state space models of securities markets there exists a portfolio of traded securities on which conventional call or put options suffice to complete securities markets 28 moreover these efficient funds are generic 2 18 the objective of this paper is to present a class of larger models of securities markets for which existence and genericity of efficient funds obtains conditions abstracted from the finite state space case serve to define a meager asset space it is shown that for meager asset spaces satisfying a separability condition efficient funds exist and are generic in a category theoretic sense

bid ask spreads and volatility estimates the implications for option pricing abstract this paper re examines the variance related mispricing exhibited by the black scholes model by accounting for the effects of bid ask spreads on the estimation of the variance of returns on a security it is shown that volatility estimates based on observed sequences of transaction prices overestimate the true volatility of returns on a security with the magnitude of the overestimation being an increasing function of the level of the volatility the paper then provides empirical tests of the proposition that the variance related bias exhibited by the black scholes model is due to this misestimation of volatility the results indicate that although the misestimation is systematically related to the variance it is not of sufficient magnitude to explain the volatility bias exhibited by black scholes model

econometric models of limit order executions we develop and estimate an econometric model of limit order execution times using survival analysis and actual limit order data we estimate versions for time to first fill and time to completion for both buy and sell limit orders and incorporate the effects of explanatory variables such as the limit price limit size bid offer spread and market volatility execution times are very sensitive to the limit price but are not sensitive to limit size hypothetical limit order executions constructed either theoretically from first passage times or empirically from transactions data are very poor proxies for actual limit order executions r 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classification g23

green industrial policy green growth requires green technologies production techniques that economize on exhaustible resources and emit fewer greenhouse gases the availability of green technologies both lowers social costs in the transition to a green growth path and helps achieve a satisfactory rate of material progress under that path the theoretical case in favour of using industrial policy to facilitate green growth is quite strong economists traditional scepticism on industrial policy is grounded instead on pragmatic considerations having to do with the difficulty of achieving well targeted and effective interventions in practice while these objections deserve serious attention i argue that they are not insurmountable a key objective of this paper is to show how the practice of industrial policy can be improved by designing institutional frameworks that counter both informational and political risks

energy services in sub saharan africa how conducive is the environment the bulk of rural populations in sub saharan africa have no access to electricity and are under served by any other form of modern infrastructure the cost of infrastructure to mainly scattered communities has been perennially cited as largely to blame this is an undeniable truth but only part of it there are in addition myriads of social economic and political obstacles that play an unquantified and frequently unrecognized negative role at the route of the problem lies a subdued role of the would be recipients who in fact unlike anybody else are conversant with their problems consequently a number of products may come as impositions or misplaced priorities consumer participation for sustainable development has been articulated at international forums and in publications as being advantageous in practice however the concept appears to be generally shunned and even when occasionally tried the needs of the consumers are presumed and their roles prescribed this paper discusses a range of social economic and political issues that constitute major obstacles to the realisation of sustainable rural development

interest groups power relations and the configuration of value chains the case of biodiesel in india abstract production of biodiesel is technologically simple and the process of value addition from the cultivation of oilseeds to oil extraction and transesterification is straightforward there is however great variation in the socioeconomic configuration of this value chain in some regions of india the cultivation of tree borne oilseeds is organised in a social forestry mode in which poor landless people are paid to perform reforestation tasks and receive usufruct rights to collect oilseeds in other regions peasant cooperatives subcontracting arrangements between farmers and transnational corporations or large scale plantations are promoted there are also many different end uses and ways of processing biodiesel from village level projects for rural off grid electrification to large scale processing this article explains how five indian states have developed biodiesel policies that reflect different political goals and favour different constituencies reflecting the states specific socioeconomic structures power relations norms

implications of the discreteness of observed stock prices stock prices on the organized exchanges are restricted to be divisible by 1 8 therefore the true price usually differs from the observed price this paper examines the biases resulting from the discreteness of observed stock prices it is shown that the natural estimators of the variance and all of the higher order moments of the rate of returns are biased an approximate set of correction factors is derived and a procedure is outlined to show how the correction can be made the natural estimators of the beta and of the variance of the market portfolio on the other hand are nearly unbiased the behavior of stock prices has been an issue of interest to the financial economist for many years this interest resulted in a growing number of empirical studies which attempt to estimate this behavior e g blattberg and gonedes 2 fama 6 fama and roll 7 8 barnea and downes 1 to date stock price behavior is estimated under the assumption that the observed trading price is the true equilibrium price however observed stock prices and stock price changes on the organized exchanges are restricted to multiples of 1 8 of a dollar 1 therefore if the true distribution of stock prices is continuous an observed trading price can be different from the true price this paper examines the biases in estimating the moments of stock price changes caused by the discreteness of observed stock prices the major focus of the paper is in noting this problem providing a model which explains the source of these biases and quantifying their size section i demonstrates that due to the discrete nature of observed stock prices the natural estimators for the variance and for the higher order moments of the rate of returns are biased upward this bias is larger for stocks with lower prices and smaller standard deviation for instance assuming that the standard deviation a is 0 001 the stock price is one dollar the true probability distribution of stock prices is lognormal and the observed prices are as close as possible to the true prices then the natural estimator of r has expectation 0 01400 hence it is biased upward by 1300 significant biases have important implications in option pricing we derive an approximate set of correction factors which can be applied to the

energy policy in the caribbean green economy context and the institutional analysis and design iad framework as a proposed tool for its development abstract market integration efforts of caribbean small island developing states have become transposed on the growing paradigm shift towards green economy pathways central to this is the challenge of implementing caribbean energy policy in a manner that is aligned with green economy ideals and face the realities of regional indebtedness and environmental impacts here we analyze the current state of the caribbean energy policy development arena and propose that the currently weak policy and institutional design regime might potentially benefit from the application of the institutional analysis and design iad model especially within the operational context of the green economy it allows us to identify current policy dilemmas bottlenecks and discrepancies and to disentangle some of them while offering up a way forward with others we do not so much offer distinct recommendations but focus more on delineating how to clear the pathway for sound policy intervention and outcomes by doing so we set forth a challenging agenda for future policy analysis research that will advance caribbean energy policy in more robust ways

forest based bioenergy in china status opportunities and challenges forest based bioenergy is gaining global popularity due to its multiple benefits and increased global energy needs in this study the current status of forest based bioenergy in china was reviewed and the opportunities and challenges were analyzed the latest national development plan for forest based bioenergy was also discussed it can be concluded from the study that forest based bioenergy is still in the beginning stage in china but will grow rapidly in the next decade due to abundant resources and strong government support however there are major constraints that need to be addressed including unstable feedstock supply low market interest and investments inadequate r d and competition from other forest products the national development plan sets up a mid term goal for developing forest based bioenergy but more supporting policies are required to guarantee its successful implementation

development of biofuels in south africa challenges and opportunities abstract biofuels have a potential to extend and diversify south africa s energy supply thus reducing dependence on imported fuels and pollution levels despite several biofuel policies and mandates biofuel development in south africa has stalled in the legislative process and no large scale commercial biofuel project has materialized yet developing biofuels especially using food grains is a big challenge to the government of south africa due to issues related to food security commodity prices economic and social concerns and impacts of land use changes on the environment the production cost of feedstock and employment creation opportunities from agricultural production play a vital role in selecting suitable feedstock for the region since considerable investment and infrastructure will be required for continued supply of feedstock and efficient biomass conversion technologies rigorous research and comprehensive studies are required to identify feedstock and technologies best suited for the successful establishment of biofuel industry in south africa

the effect of biodiesel policies on world biodiesel and oilseed prices a theoretical and empirical model is developed to analyze the effect of a biodiesel mandate a tax exemption tax credit and an exogenous diesel price shock on world soybean and canola markets the jointness in crushing oil and meal from the oilseed reduces the size of the link between biodiesel and oilseed prices a diesel price shock with a mandate results in a smaller change in oilseed prices compared with a tax exemption higher diesel prices increase biodiesel prices under a tax exemption but lower them with a blend mandate when both canola and soybeans are used to produce biodiesel an increase in the diesel price leads to higher canola prices but the effect on soybean prices is ambiguous and depends on relative elasticities of meal demand and canola supply because canola produces more oil than soybeans

the jatropha biofuels sector in tanzania 2005 9 evolution towards sustainability abstract biofuel production has recently attracted much attention some anticipate substantial social and environmental benefits while at the same time expecting sound profitability for investors others are doubtful envisaging large trade offs between the pursuit of social environmental and economic objectives particularly in poor countries in the tropics the paper explores these issues in tanzania which has been an african forerunner in the cultivation of a bio oil shrub called jatropha curcas l we trace how isolated jatropha biofuel experiments developed since early 2005 towards a sectoral production and innovation system and we investigate to what extent that system has been capable of developing and maintaining sustainable practices and producing sustainable outcomes the application of evolutionary innovation theory allows us to view the developments in the sector as a result of evolutionary variation and selection on the one hand and revolutionary contestation between different coalitions of stakeholders on the other both these processes constitute significant engines of change while variation and selection are driven predominantly by localised technical and agronomic learning the conflict driven dynamics are highly globalised and occur primarily as a result of reflexive learning about problematic sustainability impacts the sector is found to have moved some way towards a full sectoral innovation and production system but it is impossible to predict whether a viable sector with a strong triple bottom line orientation will ultimate emerge since many issues surrounding the social environmental and financial sustainability still remain unresolved especially relating to local and global governance