using real option analysis for highly uncertain technology investments the case of wind energy technology this study examines the feasibility of using a theoretical model and empirical analysis methods to value renewable energy re investment from perspective of real option analysis roa based on use of a roa approach the re value is evaluated with respect to its ability to conform to the main sensitivity analysis of re investment as well as an empirical method devised to value re investment by using actual data the economic intuitiveness underlying the decision making process for re investment is elucidated while empirical analysis is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the options value embedded in current development planning in taiwan for wind energy in addition to revealing the advantages of re development when considering real option analytical results indicate that roa is a highly effective means of quantifying how investment planning uncertainty including managerial flexibility influences re development besides evaluating the value of current re investment this study demonstrates that results of the theoretical model empirical analysis and sensitivity analysis correlate well with each other restated the value of developing re increases when increasing the underlying price time to maturity risk free rate and volatility conversely the value of developing re decreases when increasing the exercise price

modelling short and long term risks in power markets empirical evidence from nord pool in this paper we propose a three factor spike model that accounts for different speeds of mean reversion between normal and spiky shocks in the scandinavian power market in this model both short and long run factors are unobservable and are hence estimated as latent variables using the kalman filter the proposed model has several advantages first it seems to capture in a parsimonious way the most important risks that practitioners face in the market such as spike risk short term risk and long term risk second it explains the seasonal risk premium observed in the market and improves the fit between theoretical and observed forward prices particularly for long dated forward contracts finally closed form solutions for forward contracts derived from the model are consistent with the fact that the correlation between contracts of different maturities is imperfect the resulting model is very promising providing a very useful policy analysis and financial engineering tool to market participants for risk management and derivative pricing particularly for long dated contracts

assessing the relative efficiency and productivity growth of vehicle inspection services an application of dea and malmquist indices abstract the purpose of this paper is to analyze efficiency and productivity growth of the norwegian motor vehicle inspection agencies for the period 1989 91 efficiency measures are calculated by a non parametric approach known as data envelopment analysis dea which has particular applicability in the service sector productivity is measured by the malmquist index and defined as the ratio between efficiency as calculated by the dea for the same production unit in two different time periods total productivity growth has been found but there is a variation among individual units the observed total productivity can be accredited to decreasing input volumes and increased capacity the main contributor to the observed total productivity growth is the frontier technical change effect which is found to be remarkably positive the calculated efficiency measures show that there is on the average an input saving potential of 21 29 for the sector as a whole the individual units are found to be rather unstable with respect to efficiency scores across the years of observation the efficiency scores are not affected by the size of the units

the effects of taxation price control and government contracts in oligopoly and monopolistic competition abstract many government contracts with or policies towards oligopolistic sectors essentially involve private firms selling a given proportion or quantity of output to the government at a fixed price p r with the remainder being sold on the open market often this is combined with consumer rationing examples include cement and sugar in india and health housing and defence in many countries the paper investigates the effects of these schemes including sales and excise taxation on prices output and household welfare under oligopoly and monopolistic competition less government control reduced may raise prices and tax shifting can be above or below 100 percent

a note on the malmquist productivity index in recent years the malmquist index has gained in popularity as a measure of productivity change we demonstrate that in the presence of non constant returns to scale the malmquist productivity index does not accurately measure productivity change the bias is systematic and depends on the magnitude of scale economies

cigarette taxes and the master settlement agreement i introduction in 1998 46 states and the four major tobacco companies entered into the master settlement agreement msa which settled litigation brought on behalf of the states to recover medical expenses paid by government insurance agencies for illness brought on by consumption of tobacco products national association of attorneys general 2003 the four remaining states florida minnesota mississippi and texas settled separately with the companies the msa stipulated that the tobacco companies pay the states an estimated 206 billion over the next several years the payments are made annually and are adjusted for the number of cigarettes sold in each state in each year in this sense the msa payment structure resembles an excise tax the strategy of using litigation as an instrument for discouraging consumption of a commodity deemed to be harmful to consumers is becoming more common parmet and daynard 2000 the impact that such litigation has on other tobacco control policies such as excise taxes depends on the extent to which litigation and such policies are substitutable the msa payments could substitute for excise taxes at the state level this may be so to the extent that state legislatures have succeeded in levying socially optimal excise tax rates 1 if so states would be expected to have reduced excise taxes on cigarettes after the settlements were reached similarly one would expect that various tobacco control policies such as workplace smoking bans would be substitutes albeit imperfect ones for state cigarette excise taxes and for penalties resulting from litigation that function as excise taxes alternatively litigation and the resulting settlement may have changed the balance of power between tobacco control advocates and the tobacco manufacturers with the consequence that the settlements and state excise taxes are complements the tobacco industry s influence on federal and state legislatures historically has been an impediment to enacting tobacco control legislation at either federal or state levels kelder and daynard 1997 parmet and daynard 2000 rather than crowd out state excise taxes the msa could have led to crowding in a cursory glance at the data supports the view that litigation changes the balance of power since the msa and four individual state settlements were reached the former in november 1998 and the individual settlements somewhat earlier state legislatures have increasingly looked to state excise taxes on cigarettes as a source of revenue relative to both excise taxes imposed on alcohol and state taxes more generally figure 1 in particular the largest jumps in the mean real state excise tax on cigarettes occurred in 1997 and 2002 in fiscal year 2003 for example state excise tax increases were larger than any other single type of tax including major sources of revenue such as income taxes national governors association and national association of state budget officers 2002 these increases did not coincide with increases in the mean real state excise tax on beer the only year in which real state excise taxes on beer rose was 1998 figure 1 omitted such trends could have been due to factors other than the settlement the goal of our empirical analysis is to assess whether the changes in cigarette excise taxes can be attributed to the settlement when other factors are held constant using pre post as well as state excise taxes on beer as controls in a panel data difference in difference approach the evidence on balance provides support for the view that litigation and cigarette excise taxes are complements which is consistent with changes in the political equilibrium ii data and empirical specification overview we use a panel data difference in difference d d regression design to test whether the litigation substituted for crowd out or complemented crowd in state excise taxes

real options analysis of investment in solar vs wind energy diversification strategies under uncertain prices and costs in this paper we study a community or firm considering to diversify its investment in two distinct renewable energy technologies namely wind and solar pv electricity we assume technological learning curves as a function of cumulative capital investment a real options approach is applied as it takes into account uncertainty about prices and learning as well as irreversibility associated with investment decisions we investigate three different cases dealing with uncertainty about future electricity prices and uncertainty about the speed with which learning drives the costs of wind and solar electricity down we assess the minimum threshold for the stochastic price and the maximum electricity production cost that makes it optimal for the firm to invest in the two technologies the results show that the learning rate affects the option to invest in but reducing critical threshold for exercising it the greater the amount of capital invested the more learning stimulates earlier exercising of the option to invest the firm will then anticipate the option to invest and exercise it for lower critical threshold values if all capital is invested in one technology if capital investment is diversified the option should be exercised at a higher critical threshold more uncertainty in energy prices or technology costs postpones the option to invest although investing in both solar and wind may be profitable under particular conditions of price and cost uncertainty the theoretically optimal strategy is generally investing in only one technology that is solar or wind depending on their relative initial costs and learning rates this suggests that the practice in most countries of diversifying renewable energy may reflect a mistaken strategy

state alcohol policies teen drinking and traffic fatalities this empirical study evaluates the policy responsiveness of teen drinking in models that can condition on the unobserved state specific attributes that may have biased conventional evaluations the results demonstrate that cross state heterogeneity can be important and that beer taxes have relatively small and statistically insignificant effects on teen drinking models of youth traffic fatalities also indicate that the conventional beer tax elasticities are not robust to additional controls for omitted variables the importance of these omitted variables is illustrated by a counterfactual which compares models of nighttime fatalities to those that occur in the daytime when the rate of alcohol involvement is substantially lower

the distributional incidence of the gasoline tax in chile abstract this paper analyzes the distributional incidence of the excise tax on gasoline in chile using household budget surveys the incidence is calculated with respect to both income and expenditure distributions in order to consider the potential differences between transitory and permanent income the suits index is estimated as a measure of the degree of progressivity of the tax and confidence intervals are calculated using a bootstrap methodology to statistically compare changes in the incidence given changes in the tax the results show that the tax contrary to the evidence for several developed countries is slightly or moderately progressive with a lower degree of progressivity observed in the calculations based on income than those based on expenditure the simulation of the 25 reduction in the tax rate implemented in 2008 shows that in terms of incidence its effect is to reduce the progressivity of the gasoline tax which is the opposite of what was sought by the government with this policy

alcohol prices consumption and traffic fatalities we examine the relationships among alcohol prices consumption and traffic fatalities using data across u s states from 1982 to 2000 some previous studies have found large negative associations between alcohol taxes and fatalities however commonly used price data suggest little or no connection between alcohol prices and fatalities these apparently conflicting findings may result from measurement error and or endogeneity in the price data which biases ordinary least squares estimators toward a finding of no price effects using alcohol taxes as instrumental variables fatali ties are found to be negatively related to prices in addition alcohol consumption is strongly posi tively related to fatalities however biases may still remain because taxes are not entirely suitable as instruments

estimation and decomposition of technical efficiency for sugarbeet farms this study computes technical efficiency for idaho sugarbeet farms and decomposes it into pure technical efficiency scale efficiency and congestion efficiency using nonparametric procedures the results indicate that the average efficiency is 0 88 with 45 of the farms in the sample exhibiting full efficiency improper scale operation and input overutilization are the major sources of inefficiency for remaining farms technical efficiency is independent of farm size a tobit model was used to examine the impacts of variables such as farm size specialization tenancy position hired labour location and managerial ability on efficiency inefficiency in sugarbeet production results in a shortfall of potential revenues not only for producers but also for landlords and processors

some models for estimating technical and scale inefficiencies in data envelopment analysis in management contexts mathematical programming is usually used to evaluate a collection of possible alternative courses of action en route to selecting one which is best in this capacity mathematical programming serves as a planning aid to management data envelopment analysis reverses this role and employs mathematical programming to obtain ex post facto evaluations of the relative efficiency of management accomplishments however they may have been planned or executed mathematical programming is thereby extended for use as a tool for control and evaluation of past accomplishments as well as a tool to aid in planning future activities the ccr ratio form introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes as part of their data envelopment analysis approach comprehends both technical and scale inefficiencies via the optimal value of the ratio form as obtained directly from the data without requiring a priori specification of weights and or explicit delineation of assumed functional forms of relations between inputs and outputs a separation into technical and scale efficiencies is accomplished by the methods developed in this paper without altering the latter conditions for use of dea directly on observational data technical inefficiencies are identified with failures to achieve best possible output levels and or usage of excessive amounts of inputs methods for identifying and correcting the magnitudes of these inefficiencies as supplied in prior work are illustrated in the present paper a new separate variable is introduced which makes it possible to determine whether operations were conducted in regions of increasing constant or decreasing returns to scale in multiple input and multiple output situations the results are discussed and related not only to classical single output economics but also to more modern versions of economics which are identified with contestable market theories

minimum wages and alcohol related traffic fatalities among teens abstract using cross state variation in minimum wages we observe a positive relationship between the minimum wage and the number of alcohol related accidents involving teen drivers a similar effect is not observed when examining accidents among adults the results are consistent with a positive income elasticity for alcoholic beverages and driving activities among young people in particular for consumption out of discretionary income accorded by higher minimum wages evidence of a sizable impact of beer taxes on alcohol related accidents among youths suggests that beer taxes are one avenue for policymakers to consider in counteracting this unintended consequence of minimum wages

renewable energy policy evaluation using real option model the case of taiwan abstract this study presents a policy benefit evaluation model that integrates cost efficiency curve information on renewable power generation technologies into real options analysis roa methods the proposed model evaluates quantitatively the policy value provided by developing renewable energy re in the face of uncertain fossil fuel prices and re policy related factors the economic intuition underlying the policy making process is elucidated while empirical analysis illustrates the option value embedded in the current development policy in taiwan for wind power in addition to revealing the benefits that re development provides when considering real options analytical results indicate that roa is a highly effective means of quantifying how policy planning uncertainty including managerial flexibility influences re development in addition to assessing the policy value of current re development policy this study also compares policy values in terms of internalized external costs and varying feed in tariff fit simulation results demonstrate that the re development policy with internalized co2 emission costs is appropriate policy planning from sustainability point of view furthermore relationship between varying fit and policy values can be shown quantitatively and appropriate fit level could be determined accordingly

reducing binge drinking the effect of a ban on late night off premise alcohol sales on alcohol related hospital stays in germany abstract excessive alcohol consumption among young people is a major public health concern on march 1 2010 the german state of baden wurttemberg banned the sale of alcoholic beverages between 10 pm and 5 am at off premise outlets e g gas stations kiosks supermarkets we use rich monthly administrative data from a 70 random sample of all hospitalizations during the years 2007 2011 in germany in order to evaluate the short term impact of this policy on alcohol related hospitalizations applying difference in differences methods we find that the policy change reduces alcohol related hospitalizations among adolescents and young adults by about 7 there is also evidence of a decrease in the number of hospitalizations due to violent assault as a result of the ban

time to build option value and investment decisions a comment abstract we correct the analysis of the model of time to build in majd and pindyck 1987 journal of financial economics 18 7 27 for the omission of an essential optimality condition our analysis reveals an additional insight long times to build reduce the effects of increased project value volatility i e higher investment thresholds in comparison to standard real option models of investment under uncertainty where investment is instantaneous thus a naive npv rule can sometimes be an appropriate initial guide to investment

motor fuel taxes and household welfare an applied general equilibrium analysis the shifts in expenditure patterns of motor fuel tax receipts that have occurred over the last decade typically are not included in the incidence estimates of these taxes we explicitly incorporate these changing expenditure patterns into our analysis of distributional impacts of motor fuel tax increases using an applied general equilibrium framework our results indicate that the greater the proportion of motor fuel tax revenue devoted to general uses the greater is the absolute and relative burden of the lowest income household and the more regressive is the policy with respect to the overall distributional structure

traffic accidents deaths and alcohol consumption the main goal of this article is to analyse the relationship existing among prices of alcoholic beverages alcohol consumption and traffic fatalities for the spanish autonomous communities during the time interval 1998 to 2002 among the main results we highlight a positive correlation between alcohol consumption and traffic mortality rate basically governments implement two kinds of policies to reduce the traffic mortality rate one is oriented to control the supply of alcohol by increasing alcohol taxes the other is oriented to preserve traffic security increasing the number of sanctions for traffic rule infraction we find evidence that both policies exert a positive influence in the reduction of traffic fatalities there is no empirical evidence to indicate that being a novice driver increases the tendency to be involved in a mortal traffic accident

compound real options valuation of renewable energy projects the case of a wind farm in serbia abstract renewable energy sources have become a very important issue due to environmental and sustainability concerns in addition most renewable energy electricity generation res e projects are characterized by considerable uncertainty and sequential decision making these projects net present value npv is very often close to zero which renders them a good candidate for the application of real options valuation methodology of investment project appraisal this paper examines the real options valuation of a potential onshore wind farm project in serbia the binomial tree model spans a 15 year period consisting of a 2 year investment period and a 13 year operating period the first 12 years of which are protected by feed in tariffs according to local renewable energy regulations the authors examine a multi phased compound nested path dependent real option consisting of mutually exclusive options a sequential option to invest as well as expand repower contract and abandon options volatility which is calculated by means of a monte carlo simulation according to the logarithmic present value returns approach shows predominant sensitivity to the capacity factor simulated with the rescaled weibull s probability distribution the final binomial tree results show that the proposed sequence of options increases project value by transforming higher risk and lower return in the initial discounted cash flow model to lower risk and higher return in the ro model this paper contributes to the existing literature in at least two ways it presents in depth analysis of the real option application to the res e project and provides decision makers with sophisticated tool for improving strategic thinking capital budgeting and decision making processes

farm household efficiency in bangladesh a comparison of stochastic frontier and dea methods this study compares estimates of technical efficiency obtained from the stochastic frontier approach and the data envelopment analysis dea approach using farm level survey data for rice farmers in bangladesh technical inefficiency effects are modelled as a function of farm specific socioeconomic factors environmental factors and irrigation infrastructure the results from both the approaches indicate that efficiency is significantly influenced by the factors measuring environmental degradation and irrigation infrastructure

why the npv criterion does not maximize npv this article presents a theory of capital allocation that shows how the use of net present value npv as an investment criterion leads to inefficient capital budgeting outcomes and how this criterion may be dominated by other capital budgeting criteria like the internal rate of return and the profitability index the essence of our theory is rooted in the mainstream paradigm of corporate finance while firms use npv to measure the addition to firm value from prospective projects classical informational and agency considerations prevent it from implementing the optimal capital budgeting outcome our theory also identifies conditions when alternative criteria should be used finally we characterize when direct monitoring through capital budgeting dominates compensation contracts in alleviating the agency problem copyright 2004 oxford university press

a real option model for renewable energy policy evaluation with application to solar pv power generation in china abstract this study proposes a policy evaluation model from the perspective of government and investors the proposed model which integrates american option method and two factor learning curve method can be used to evaluate the unit decision value and save path rate for renewable energy development and examine the existence of balance point of interest several uncertain factors including non renewable energy cost carbon price renewable energy cost and price subsidy are all considered in this model the model has been applied to evaluate the solar photovoltaic pv power generation in china our empirical results show that real option analysis roa is more effective than net present value analysis npv when handling uncertainty under current level of subsidy the government would suffer loss and the investors could benefit so that it is difficult to achieve the balance of interest during the planning period with the reduction of subsidy rate they can achieve the balance of interest

implicit taxes collected by state liquor monopolies state monopolization or taxation aresupposedly justified because of negativeexternalities from alcohol consumption butrecent research questions the efficacy ofsuch policies suggesting that their actualgoals may be revenue generation consideration of this hypothesis isfacilitated by estimates of the implicittaxes charged in monopoly states whichgenerally are substantially higher thantaxes in non monopoly states evidencethat monopolization and high taxes do notaffect the level of externalities is alsoexplained by adjustments that rationalindividuals make to avoid the consequencesof such policies thus providing furthersupport for the revenue maximizationhypothesis

application of the modified tobin s q to an uncertain energy saving project with the real options concept abstract this paper is to develop a modified tobin s q evaluation method which successfully combines the evaluation criteria of the traditional tobin s q and the real options this study provides flexible thinking for decision making criteria that is it clearly provides decision makers with a reference in choosing enter or exit strategies such as quantitative indicators references the proposed model introduces two variables stochastic process in continuous time and explores the impact of the occurrence of unexpected events on the project value so that it can more authentically response to the project value the studied issue deals with the firms that have not established energy saving equipment yet it attempts to figure out the optimal timing to adopt an energy saving investment project when it is beneficial and the optimal timing to terminate it when the continuous operation of that business is unprofitable the future discounted benefit cost ratio q follows the geometric brownian motion with the poisson jump process and the replacement of investment equipment except for the evaluation of energy saving equipment investment project the proposed model can be applied to other related project evaluation issues such as energy saving co 2 emission reduction or general investment projects

a real options model for renewable energy investment with application to solar photovoltaic power generation in china this paper proposes a real options model for evaluating renewable energy investment by considering uncertain factors such as co2 price non renewable energy cost investment cost and market price of electricity a phase out mechanism is built into the model to reflect the long term changes of subsidy policy we apply the proposed model to empirically evaluate the investment value and optimal timing for solar photovoltaic power generation in china our empirical results show that the current investment environment in china may not be able to attract immediate investment while the development of carbon market helps advance the optimal investment time a sensitivity analysis is conducted to investigate the dynamics of investment value and optimal timing under the changes of unit generating capacity subsidy level market price of electricity co2 price and investment cost it is found that the high investment cost and the volatility of electricity and co2 prices are not conducive to attract immediate investment instead increasing the level of subsidy promoting technological progress and maintaining the stability of market are useful to stimulate investment

the comparison between ad valorem and specific taxation under imperfect competition abstract this paper compares ad valorem and specific taxation in two models of oligopoly with and without free entry predominantly ad valorem taxation implies a relatively low consumer price high tax revenue and when entry is precluded low profits ad valorem taxation dominates specific taxation from the welfare perspective the set of circumstances under which with free entry specific taxation raises welfare is a strict subset of that in which ad valorem taxation is welfare improving and in both models the maximisation of consumer welfare subject to a binding revenue constraint requires maximum reliance on ad valorem taxation

can beer taxes affect teen pregnancy evidence based on teen abortion rates and birth rates economists have investigated the effects of increased alcohol taxes on various alcohol related phenomena like traffic fatalities but to my knowledge this study is the first to investigate the effects of beer taxes on teen pregnancy outcomes namely abortion and birth rates the study employs statelevel data for 15 19 year old women for the years 1985 1988 1992 and 1996 the smallness of the panel imposes some constraints on the statistical methods used results indicate that higher beer taxes have statistically significant negative effects on teen abortion rates though the magnitudes of the effects are quite small effects on birthrates are statistically insignificant this suggests that increased beer taxes may help prevent some unwanted pregnancies that would typically be terminated via abortions rather than culminating in live births however the small magnitudes of the effects strongly caution against relying on increased beer taxes to noticeably reduce teen pregnancy rates

psychiatric disorders and labor market outcomes evidence from the national comorbidity survey replication this paper uses the national comorbidity survey replication to estimate effects of recent psychiatric disorder on employment hours worked and earnings we employ methods proposed in altonji et al 2005a which use selection on observable traits to provide information regarding selection along unobservable factors among males disorder is associated with reductions in labor force participation and employment when selection on observed characteristics is set equal to selection on unobserved characteristics the magnitudes of these effects for males are 9 and 14 percentage point reductions for participation and employment respectively among females we find negative associations between disorder and labor force participation and employment but these estimates are more sensitive to assumptions about selection there are no effects of disorder on earnings or hours worked among employed individuals

enhancing renewable and sustainable energy development based on an options based policy evaluation framework case study of wind energy technology in taiwan global warming and climate change have shifted the focus of industrial development towards low carbon renewable energy re as evidence by global efforts to develop re based sustainable energy policies however the generally cost ineffective nature of re investments explains continued governmental subsidies and draft assistance measures to encourage related industrial development reduce research and development r d costs and increase innovativeness besides measures to accelerate supply and reduced demand for energy sustainable energy policies must enact thoroughly planned legal and regulatory mechanisms notable examples of establishing a legal basis for a low carbon society in taiwan include the energy management act renewable energy development bill greenhouse gas reduction act draft and energy tax act draft however such legislative efforts occasionally conflict or compete with each other warranting further integration additionally re technologies are characterized by high r d costs long term planning and high investment risks therefore based on global trends in wind power development and related policy planning this study analyzes the feasibility of implementing management strategies in the development process and the correlations between such strategies additionally the achievements polices functions mechanisms promotion measures and future plans for related renewable and sustainable energy laws in taiwan is thoroughly reviewed an options based policy evaluation framework is also constructed based on governmental administrative considerations moreover the characteristics of options that lead to unforeseen circumstances during the planning of re development policies are discussed allowing us to derive real time response measures with a decision making value results of this study provide a valuable reference for governmental efforts to evaluate the merits and limitations of related policies concisely ultimately facilitating the formulation of re development policies

an entry and exit model on the energy saving investment strategy with real options this paper presents an improved decision model based on the real options approach presented by ansar and sparks 2009 for the firms that have not yet established energy saving equipment under the entry and exit strategies furthermore the proposed model takes account of the inevitable equipment renewal and the occurrence of unexpected events under the poisson jump process the timing for terminating an investment when continuous operations of that business are unprofitable is also explored to realize the optimal timing of implementing the energy saving strategy the future discounted benefit b follows the geometric brownian motion with the poisson jump process and the replacement of investment equipment a numerical analysis is followed by a sensitivity study of various parameters to better realize their impacts on the entry and exit thresholds the results show that for the jump case the higher probability of occurrence of unfavorable events will result in a higher entry threshold and lower exit threshold investors are forced to request higher benefit thresholds to cover the higher probability of losses brought by unfavorable events

2 00 gas studying the effects of a gas tax moratorium there are surprisingly few estimates of the effects of sales taxes on retail prices especially at the firm level we consider the temporary suspension and subsequent reinstatement of the gasoline sales tax in illinois and indiana following a price spike in 2000 earlier laws set the timing of the reinstatements providing plausibly exogenous changes in the tax rates using a unique dataset of daily prices at the gas station level 70 of the tax suspension is passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices while 80 100 of the tax reinstatements are passed on to consumers some evidence suggests that these short run pass through estimates are smaller near the state borders with the tax reinstatements associated with relatively higher prices up to an hour s drive into neighboring states

a real option analysis of investments in hydropower the case of norway abstract this paper presents a valuation study of hydropower investment opportunities in the norwegian context according to nve norwegian water resources and energy directorate the regulator there is a potential of 39 twh not yet developed generation in a normal year is approximately 120 twh by using the conceptual real option framework of dixit and pindyck 1994 investment under uncertainty princeton university press princeton nj one can estimate the value of investment opportunities to nok 11 million gwh eur 1 4 million gwh furthermore the optimal trigger price for initiating an investment based on electricity forward prices is calculated to nok 0 32 kwh eur 0 04 kwh the analysis shows consistency between real option theory and aggregate investment behaviour in norwegian hydropower

are minimum wages a silent killer new evidence on drunk driving fatalities abstract in volume 94 of this review adams blackburn and cotti abc using fatal accident reporting system data from 1998 to 2006 find that a 10 increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 7 to 11 increase in alcohol related fatal traffic accidents involving teen drivers we find this result does not hold when the analysis period is expanded to include 1991 through 2013 in addition auxiliary analyses provide no support for income driven increases in alcohol consumption the primary mechanism posited by abc together our results suggest that minimum wage increases are not a silent killer

applying real options analysis to assess cleaner energy development strategies abstract the energy industry accounts for the largest portion of co 2 emissions is facing the issue of compliance with the national clean energy policy the methodology for evaluating the energy mix policy is crucial because of the characteristics of lead time embedded with the power generation facilities investment and the uncertainty of future electricity demand in this paper a modified binomial model based on sequential compound options which may account for the lead time and uncertainty as a whole is established and a numerical example on evaluating the optional strategies and the strategic value of the cleaner energy policy is also presented it is found that the optimal decision at some nodes in the binomial tree is path dependent which is different from the standard sequential compound option model with lead time or time lag concept the proposed modified binomial sequential compound real options model can be generalized and extensively applied to solve the general decision problems that deal with the long lead time of many government policies as well as capital intensive investments

do higher gasoline taxes save lives abstract this study presents panel based evidence on the overall traffic fatality consequences of recent changes in state gasoline taxes our results suggest that plausibly exogenous increases in state gasoline taxes are associated with fewer traffic fatalities

the luenberger indicator and productivity growth a note on the european savings banks sector we employ the luenberger productivity indicator to estimate productivity growth and its decomposition into technical change and efficiency change components for savings banks sectors in 10 eu countries between 1996 and 2003 the luenberger indicator requires less restrictive assumptions than standard nonparametric productivity indexes and it allows the assumption of profit maximization to be made for sample firms we estimate average productivity growth in the savings banks sector to be 2 78 per annum and driven almost entirely by technical change whilst the general results confirm earlier findings this study is one of the earliest to identify cross border differences in productivity growth in the savings banks sector

alcohol taxes and labor market outcomes abstract we present reduced form estimates of the effect of alcohol taxes on employment weekly work hours and wages the reduced form estimates are meaningful in two ways first they provide estimates of the effect of an important public policy tool alcohol taxes and second they can be used to evaluate hypotheses about the structural effects of alcohol use on labor market outcomes estimates indicate that there is a weak and indeterminate relationship between alcohol taxes and labor market outcomes this implies that alcohol use does not adversely affect labor market outcomes and is inconsistent with findings from previous studies

gas prices beer taxes and gdl programmes effects on auto fatalities among young adults in the us efforts to reduce teenage driving fatalities can be categorized as enhancing driving skills constraining driving behaviour and limiting the exposure of young drivers to the road this article uses state year specific fatality analysis reporting system fars data on the motor vehicle fatalities of young adults aged 15 24 to estimate the effects of gasoline prices beer taxes and the enactment of graduated drivers license gdl programmes over the 1985 2006 period results indicate that a 10 increase in gasoline prices reduce fatalities by 3 2 6 2 the largest percentage reductions occurred among 15 to 17 year old drivers 10 higher beer taxes were estimated to reduce motor vehicle fatalities among young drivers by approximately 1 3 in this case there was virtually no effect on 15 to 17 year old drivers finally the introduction of more restrictive gdl programmes those with a 6 month learner s permit phase and subsequent limits on early nighttime driving or on the number of passengers reduced

drunk driving after the passage of smoking bans in bars abstract using geographic variation in local and state smoke free bar laws in the us we observe an increase in fatal accidents involving alcohol following bans on smoking in bars that is not observed in places without bans although an increased accident risk might seem surprising at first two strands of literature on consumer behavior suggest potential explanations smokers driving longer distances to a bordering jurisdiction that allows smoking in bars and smokers driving longer distances within their jurisdiction to bars that still allow smoking perhaps through non compliance or outdoor seating we find evidence consistent with both explanations the increased miles driven by drivers wishing to smoke and drink offsets any reduction in driving from smokers choosing to stay home following a ban resulting in increased alcohol related accidents this result proves durable as we subject it to an extensive battery of robustness checks

a comparative study on the production efficiencies of china s oil companies a true fixed effect model considering the unobserved heterogeneity abstract with the promotion of one belt one road obor initiative china s oil companies have speeded up the pace of going global strategy to expand their business internationally the efficiency problems of china national petroleum corporation cnpc and sinopec group which determine the international competitiveness have drawn ever increasing attention from both the general public and from decision makers the wide variation in cultural economic and institutional characteristics of different international oil companies may result in a large amount of unobserved heterogeneity distinguishing the time invariant unobserved heterogeneity from time variant inefficiency could avoid heterogeneity bias and thus ensure consistent efficiency estimates considering that the production efficiencies of the sample oil companies are influenced by various heterogeneous factors this paper evaluates the production efficiencies of the world s 10 biggest oil companies during 2003 2013 based on the stochastic frontier analysis sfa method and the true fixed effect tfe model results suggest that 1 estimation techniques that do not account for unobserved heterogeneity would produce biased efficiency estimates 2 compared with other oil companies the production efficiencies of cnpc and sinopec group were relatively improved after the global financial crisis 3 china s state owned oil companies should be further enhanced with the ability of internationalization management

switching outputs in a bioenergy cogeneration project a real options approach abstract environmental concerns have stimulated the search for economically feasible renewable energy projects one such alternative is the use of biomass for energy generation which has increasingly been the focus of interest traditional valuation methods on the other hand fail to capture the value of the embedded options that exist in many of these projects which may lead to non optimal investment decisions in this article we analyze the feasibility of installing a cogeneration unit in an industrial plant in brazil in order to extract value from biomass residue currently discarded which can be used for thermal and electric energy generation the cogeneration unit also allows the firm the flexibility to optimally choose between an increase in production or the generation of surplus energy for sale in the short term market once additional investment in interconnection to the grid is made we model the uncertainty over future energy prices as a mean reverting process with jumps and seasonality and the embedded flexibility as a bundle of european options under the real options approach the results indicate that the investment in the cogeneration plant is warranted and that the option to switch outputs adds significant value to the project which suggests that biomass residue may be a sustainable energy alternative in this case

productivity technical and efficiency change in singapore s services sector 2005 to 2008 the current study was motivated by statements made by the economic strategies committee that singapore s recent productivity levels in services were well below countries such as the us japan and hong kong massive employment of foreign workers was cited as the reason for poor productivity levels to shed more light on singapore s falling productivity a nonparametric malmquist productivity index was employed which provides measures of productivity change technical change and efficiency change the findings reveal that growth in total factor productivity tfp was attributed to technical change with no improvement in efficiency change such results suggest that gains from tfp were input driven rather than from a best practice approach such as improvements in operations or better resource allocation

incidence of federal and state gasoline taxes the federal specific gasoline tax falls equally on consumers and wholesalers whereas state specific taxes fall almost entirely on consumers the consumer incidence of state taxes is greater in states that use relatively little gasoline

motor fuel taxation energy conservation and economic development a regional approach abstract combustion of motor fuels has a variety of environmental impacts on local regional and global scales taxing motor fuels more heavily would mitigate those environmental impacts however many governments are reluctant to increase motor fuel taxes because they fear that the tax incidence will be regressive and that economic development will be impeded using data for the new england region of the united states this paper argues that an oil importing region can conserve energy avoid regressive impacts and encourage economic development by taxing motor fuels more heavily and rebating the incremental revenues to owners of motor vehicles

real options analysis for renewable energy investment decisions in developing countries abstract renewable energy projects in developing countries should provide clean energy supply as well as support sustainable economic development to this end risks arising from uncertainties such as rapidly changing technologies and host government conditions should be carefully addressed however traditional methods for economic assessment are not adequate to support decision making regarding investments in renewable energy this paper proposes a real options analysis framework as a tool to assess renewable energy investment in developing countries a case study involving a hydropower project in indonesia was conducted to validate and verify the proposed framework this framework is expected to help host countries and investors assess renewable energy projects with high volatility and risk

wind power reliability valuation in a hydro dominated power market the colombian case abstract the design of market mechanisms that remunerates the reliability provided by a generator in a power market is a task that aims to ensure the normal operation of the system for the case of a hydro dominated system when wind power is introduced and operated under the merit order effect it is possible to assess the effect of the displacement of hydro generation due to wind generation over the system s reliability in terms of firm energy taking this into account a model that valuates the firm energy provided by wind power in a hydro dominated system is proposed this model considers the effect of wind power over the system s reservoirs and the market price of electricity and valuates the firm energy as the net savings of the system related to the increase in the firm energy of the system when wind power is introduced the results show that wind power under merit order effect increases the firm energy of the system and decreases the market price of electricity being the net savings in comparison to the corresponding hydro only system the reliability income that should be perceived by the wind power generator

the effects of alcohol use on economic decision making in a controlled laboratory experiment we study the causal effect of alcohol on economic decision making a treatment group was given a dose of alcohol designed to target a blood alcohol concentration bac of 0 08 while the bac of those in the control group remained 0 00 we investigate the behavior of control and treatment groups in the following types of tasks math uncertainty overconfidence strategic games food choice anchoring and altruism our results indicate that alcohol consumption has little systematic effect on economic behavior at least for the bac level considered further there is little evidence that alcohol differentially impacts the choices of male and female subjects

productivity in multiple output public service a quadratic frontier function and malmquist index approach abstract the purpose of this study is to analyse the development of productivity and structural efficiency for an extended period of time 1974 to 1987 in the production of public social insurance services in sweden the analysis is based on the estimation of a deterministic flexible single input multiple output frontier production function the findings indicate a productivity decrease for the entire period from 1974 to 1987 of 18 percent in the period 1974 to 1982 productivity decreased by approximately 30 percent but at the end of the period 1984 to 1987 there was a productivity recovery of about 11 percent

carpooling and driver responses to fuel price changes evidence from traffic flows in los angeles abstract we examine carpooling and driver responses to fuel price changes using a simple theoretical model we show that traffic flows in mainline lanes unambiguously decrease when fuel prices increase and this effect is stronger when the presence of a carpool lane provides a substitute to driving alone in contrast in carpool hov lanes flow can either increase or decrease these predictions are tested using 8 years of traffic flow data for 1700 locations in los angeles in our preferred specification the mean elasticity of flow with respect to fuel price is 0 136 for hov lanes for a 10 increase in fuel price this implies 10 additional carpools per hour 8 8 million per year in additional congestion costs for carpoolers and 11 3 million lower costs for mainline drivers for mainline lanes flow elasticities are 0 083 and 0 050 for highways with and without an hov lane these estimates imply that the mean highway with an hov lane experiences a 30 larger decrease in hourly flow compared to the mean highway without an hov lane flows in hov lanes show an immediate decrease following a price increase but respond positively to price increases over time which suggests time is an important input to carpool formation

valuing investment decisions of renewable energy projects considering changing volatility abstract volatility is an important parameter when evaluating investments using the real options method for renewable energy investments the volatility of cash flow continuously changes because as new information and knowledge are gathered there is less foreseen variation this paper proposes an extended recombining trinomial tree model where the changing volatility is used to generate transition probabilities the changing volatility is generated using a consolidation process where multiple random variables including the market price of electricity carbon price and lending rate are integrated into a low dimension stochastic process a two factor learning curve is used to model the changes of investment cost we apply the proposed model to analyze solar photovoltaic pv power generation investment in china the results show volatility with changing feature compared with constant volatility changing volatility may advance investment decisions and change the project value complete grid parity policy in the solar pv industry is infeasible because the opportunity cost brought by the option of delaying cannot be offset the changing volatility may produce a lower and equally effective subsidy level compared with constant volatility a carbon emission trading scheme is helpful in advancing investments in renewable energy which is reflected in improvements in project value advancements in investment decisions and reductions in the required subsidy level

using mandated speed limits to measure the value of a statistical life in 1987 the federal government permitted states to raise the speed limit on their rural interstate roads but not on their urban interstate roads from 55 mph to 65 mph since the states that adopted the higher speed limit must have valued the travel hours they saved more than the fatalities incurred this institutional change provides an opportunity to estimate an upper bound on the public s willingness to trade off wealth for a change in the probability of death our estimates indicate that the adoption of the 65 mph limit increased speeds by approximately 4 percent or 2 5 mph and fatality rates by roughly 35 percent together the estimates suggest that about 125 000 hours were saved per lost life when the time saved is valued at the average hourly wage the estimates imply that adopting states were willing to accept risks that resulted in a savings of 1 54 million 1997 dollars per fatality with a sampling error roughly one third this value we set out a simple model of states decisions to adop

market in efficiency in valuing electric utilities the case of norwegian generating companies after deregulation of the energy market in norway a number of mergers and acquisitions of hydropower generating companies have taken place however valuation of these companies has proved controversial from an ex post perspective there is support for the criticism that generation assets have been sold too cheaply this article presents a simple valuation model providing evidence of how value has evolved on the basis of these results we discuss the valuation from an ex ante perspective and in the light of the market efficiency hypothesis of fama 1970 1991

observed and unobserved heterogeneity in stochastic frontier models an application to the electricity distribution industry in this study we combine different possibilities to model firm level heterogeneity in stochastic frontier analysis we show that both observed and unobserved heterogeneities cause serious biases in inefficiency results modelling observed and unobserved heterogeneities treat individual firms in different ways and even though the expected mean inefficiency scores in both cases diminish the firm level efficiency rank orders turn out to be very different the best fit with the data is obtained by modelling unobserved heterogeneity through randomizing frontier parameters and at the same time explicitly modelling the observed heterogeneity into the inefficiency distribution these results are obtained by using data from finnish electricity distribution utilities and the results are relevant in relation to electricity distribution pricing and regulation

the simple economics of motor vehicle pollution a case for fuel tax the volume of pollution produced by an automobile is determined by driver s behavior along three margins i vehicle selection ii kilometers driven and iii on road fuel economy the first two margins have been studied extensively however the third has received scant attention how significant is this intensive margin what would be the optimal policies when it is taken into account the paper develops and analyzes a simple model of the technical and behavioral mechanisms that determine the volume emissions produced by a car the results show that an optimal fuel tax would provide drivers with appropriate incentives along all three margins and that only public information is needed for a fuel tax to be set optimally in contrast an optimal distance tax would require private information lastly relative to the optimal fuel tax a simple uniform fuel tax is shown to be progressive thus being already deployed worldwide a uniform fuel tax is an attractive second best policy these findings should be accounted for when designing new mechanisms to alleviate motor vehicle pollution

beer taxation and alcohol related traffic fatalities the majority of studies of alcohol related traffic fatalities find beer taxes to be an important policy variable this is surprising since beer taxes only have a small impact on consumption and heavy drinkers are the least responsive to prices this study shows that the tax relationship is not robust across data periods and that it reflects missing variable biases while lack of control for law enforcement efforts does not appear to bias tax coefficients failure to include determinants of alcohol consumption other than taxes and drinking age and or factors that simultaneously determine drinking behavior and political support for alcohol taxes apparently do

technical efficiency and ict investment in italian manufacturing firms the importance of information and communication technologies icts is a much debated question with extensive literature aimed at understanding the role of icts in increasing economic growth firm productivity and firm efficiency different methods to estimate firm efficiency are used in this study in particular both the translog and the cobb douglas production functions are used in order to estimate the impact of ict on technical efficiency te in italian manufacturing firms over the period 1995 to 2003 results show that ict investments positively and significantly affected firms te moreover group size and geographical position have a positive influence on te finally the results show that older firms are on average more efficient than newer ones

pumped storage project a short to long term investment analysis including climate change abstract new renewable energy needs flexibility which can be provided by storage hydropower climate change affects the potential of this technology in both a negative and a positive way on one hand by altering runoff and on the other hand by creating new investment opportunity this paper provides an economic and financial analysis of a future project in a pumped storage facility that may be initiated in the swiss alps following the glacier retreat the area released may be considered for building a new reservoir a complete and integrated model is developed based on the tools of analysis provided by econometrics finance and operational research the results show that under the present market conditions such an investment is not profitable unexpectedly the sensitivity analysis shows that most of the time higher price volatility reduces annual revenue furthermore the project s lifetime only has a marginal impact on the net present value the value of the concession which is the right to use water is also assessed on the basis of a real option analysis including a long term horizon its present value is substantial even if the project is currently unprofitable in the discussion we go beyond the swiss case study and highlight the implications for energy policy and market design

pass through of motor gasoline taxes efficiency and efficacy of environmental taxes abstract to investigate the efficacy and efficiency of environmental taxes i analyze the rate at which taxes on motor gasoline are passed to consumers by estimating two cointegrating vector autoregression models for each of six states for state models that specify the retail price of motor gasoline without taxes exclusion tests suggest that taxes on motor gasoline are not passed to consumers on a one for one basis for state models that specify the retail price of motor gasoline including taxes results indicate that taxes are passed to wholesale prices in florida and massachusetts on a one for one basis and are passed to retail prices with a mark up in florida massachusetts new york and ohio and are not fully passed through in washington state specific rates of pass through differ from results suggested by theory and fixed effects estimators which may be biased by the presence of nonstationary data and the assumption that the rate of pass through is the same across states rates of pass through greater than one transfer 12 2 billion from consumers to retailers in fl 2 3 billion in ma and 19 2 billion in ny during the sample period which represent 10 7 6 0 and 23 9 of total expenditures on regular motor gasoline

real option valuation in renewable energy literature research focus trends and design abstract in light of intensive development of the renewable energy re sector a growing number of academic papers address the complexity of re investment planning and valuation to take account of the high risk profile and irreversibility of re investments researchers have resorted to sophisticated real options ro approaches that enable flexibility to be incorporated into project design in the face of an uncertain environment the variety of different frameworks and models adopted as well as a lack of aggregated analysis of the field suggest a need for a critical review of ro methodology and design in re assessment this study describes the research focus trends and design found in contemporary academic literature devoted to re valuation with a ro approach particular attention is given to ro in project and policy design the results give a comprehensive picture of existing research on the topic thus providing researchers with a solid foundation for further study and indications of directions for future development furthermore the findings provide policymakers and project planners with valuable insights into key aspects of re project and policy design

prices taxes and automotive fuel cross border shopping abstract the aim of the present paper is to determine whether differences in automotive fuel prices among neighboring autonomous communities i e spanish political administrative regions affect the decisions taken by individuals regarding the region in which to purchase fuel in particular the intention is to discover if price increases in certain autonomous communities as a result of the application of the regional tranche of the hydrocarbon retail sales tax hrst has affected fuel purchases in neighboring communities in order to achieve the above mentioned objectives the monthly purchases of automotive diesel in aragon between january 2001 and march 2007 is estimated from the fuel price in aragon the relation between prices in each of the bordering communities and aragon weighted by density of traffic the number of vehicles registered in that community and three dummy variables representative of the implementation of the regional tranche of the hrst in madrid catalonia and valencia the paper finds empirical evidence to demonstrate a positive effect of the relative prices in the neighboring communities and vehicle registrations and also a negative effect of prices in aragon upon the acquisition of diesel in this region in the case of catalonia some evidence suggests that the price effect may have been strengthened following the introduction of the regional tranche of the hrst in august 2004

human development and alcohol abuse in adolescence the aim of this article is to analyse the development of human capital in adolescents as represented by their state of health and educational attainment when this capital is affected by the abusive consumption of alcohol measured by grams of ethanol to that end we adopt a theoretical framework derived from the model of rational addiction the model of health demand and the model of schooling demand which is then estimated by using data drawn from the spanish national survey on drug use in the school population 1996 1998 2000 results confirm that higher alcohol consumption leads to worse health states and lower academic efficiency among adolescents which suggests the need to implement effective policies aimed at reducing alcohol abuse among this population group

investing in finite life carbon emissions reduction program under risk and idiosyncratic uncertainty this paper aims at emphasizing the ability of new frameworks of real option model to highlight key characteristics of industrial carbon emissions reduction program investment decision we develop both theoretical arguments and numerical simulations with structural parameters calibrated on real life data we find that both radical uncertainty and risk lead to speed up green investments compared to the predictions of real option models that are normally used in green investment literature the conventional wait and see attitude questioned in recent developments of the real option theory is not validated in conclusion our results should foster companies to implement green investments and help governments to define appropriate incentives to encourage green investments of particular note the paper highlights that finance theory is not necessarily an obstacle to green investment decisions

oligopoly structure and the incidence of cigarette excise taxes abstract a model of oligopoly price behavior and tax incidence for the u s cigarette industry for the period 1955 1990 is presented a cost function is estimated and shows manufacture to be subject to increasing returns to scale the mean price elasticity of demand is 0 71 the model indicates that competition among manufacturers has been decreasing since 1980 a simulation shows that an increase in the federal excise tax causes a greater increase in price and a greater decrease in consumption than does the same increase in the average of state and local tax rates

accounting for technological differences in modelling the performance of airports a bayesian approach this article uses the innovative bayesian random coefficient frontier model to account for technological differences in the efficiency measurement of uk airports in separating cost efficiency from technological differences the model provides more accurate efficiency measures for airports policy makers the input output data used in testing the model reflect on recent figures from the uk airport industry and as a result link the efficiency measures with the current industry trends such as the increase in oil price airport capital investments and market expansion results from the model estimation showed that the model fits the data well with all coefficients correctly signed and in line with the theoretical requirements the average cost efficiency for 2007 was around 73 73 indicating that uk airports are not operating close to a full efficiency level this article attributed the sources of inefficiencies to the current industry trends and discussed the importance of heterogeneity in future policy f

measuring technical efficiency and productivity growth a comparison of sfa and dea on norwegian grain production data this article compares data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis to assess efficiency and productivity growth of norwegian grain producers previous studies have dealt with either one of them and less of both for the assessment of productivity growth or regress malmquist productivity indices are derived from both approaches the data cover a 10 year period we find consistency between the approaches to the extent that 1 there are potentials for efficiency improvements but the magnitudes depends on the model applied and by segmentation of the data set 2 there has been a productivity improvement in the sector on average in the interval 30 38 in the period studied and 3 technical change has had the greatest impact on productivity indicating that producers have a tendency to catch up with the front runners in general policy makers are warned not to be indifferent with respect to the approach used for efficiency and productivity measurement as these may give different results

valuing chinese feed in tariffs program for solar power generation a real options analysis newhuadu business school research fund china sustainable energy program g 1305 18257 national social science foundation of china 12zd059 ministry of education 10gbj013

the use of real options approach in energy sector investments abstract energy shortage global warming and climate change led to an increase in the use of alternative sources of energy with renewable energy sources res playing a fundamental role in this new energetic paradigm however the investment costs often constitute a major barrier to their spread use moreover the overall benefits of renewable energy technologies are often not well understood and consequently they are often evaluated to be not as cost effective as traditional technologies from the moment that the energy sector started a deregulation process with a high level of competitiveness and associated increased market uncertainty traditional project evaluation techniques alone became insufficient to properly deal with these additional risk and uncertainty factors the diffusion of the renewable energy technologies is also affected by this feature the way investors evaluate their investments call now for the use of more sophisticated evaluation techniques real options approach can deal with these issues and as so began to be considered and applied for the energy sector decision aid this approach it is now extensively widespread in evaluating investment projects in the energy sector a large set of applications in almost all fields of energy decision making from electricity generation technologies appraisal to policy evaluation is available in the literature however the use of this technique in the field of res is still limited and worth to be analysed this paper addresses this issue a review of the current state of the art in the application of real options approach to investments in non renewable energy sources and res is presented giving perspectives for further research in this field

did liberalising bar hours decrease traffic accidents legal bar closing times in england and wales have historically been early and uniform recent legislation liberalised closing times with the object of reducing social problems thought associated with drinking to beat the clock indeed using both difference in difference and synthetic control approaches we show that one consequence of this liberalisation was a decrease in traffic accidents this decrease is heavily concentrated among younger drivers moreover we provide evidence that the effect was most pronounced in the hours of the week directly affected by the liberalisation late nights and early mornings on weekends this evidence survives a series of robustness checks and suggests at least one socially positive consequence of extending bar hours

economic and socio economic assessment methods for ocean renewable energy public and private perspectives this paper provides a comprehensive review of the current state of the art of the economics and socio economics of ocean renewable energy ore the many ways in which the viability and impacts of an ore project are assessed and an analysis of the current weaknesses issues or inappropriateness of the metrics and methodologies used in their definition and presentation the outcomes of this paper are anticipated to benefit the ore and wider renewable sector as a whole the review revealed that for the most part the current study of economics and socio economics of ore remain separate and discrete areas of research the economic methods utilised appear to be comprehensive but are limited to project or private investor level the methods identified for socioeconomic assessment fall between traditional and now routine environmental assessment approaches and more novel holistic approaches such as ecosystem services and life cycle assessment the novel section of the paper explored the connectivity between the economics and socio economics of ore in relation to project developments and policy planning a visualisation method was created of concentric rings intersected by related axis of economic socio economic and environment and enabled the examination of the benefits arising from the connectivity between the two spheres the concept of sustainable development process and the integration of environmental assessment for ore was also explored and how it responds to differing stakeholder aspirations and interpretations the analysis revealed that there was a divergence between public and private economic and socioeconomic assessments for ore environmental assessment is primarily a public responsibility but with significant inputs from the private developer involved while economic assessments are conducted primarily by the developer and or investor at their own behest however the two spheres of economic and socio economic for ore are highly connected and synergistic and must be examined in a holistic manner

determinants of technical efficiency of crop and livestock farms in poland la pologne est l un des pays d europe de l est candidats a une accession a l union europeenne qui rencontre de graves problemes de restructuration agricole l article etudie l efficacite technique en 2000 d exploitations agricoles individuelles polonaises specialisees en elevage et en grandes cultures l efficacite est estimee par la methode de frontiere stochastique et sa variabilite statistique evaluee par la construction d intervalles de confiance l article examine egalement les determinants de l efficacite les resultats obtenus pas la methode de frontiere stochastique sont compares avec ceux obtenus par la methode de data envelopment analysis dea en moyenne l efficacite technique des exploitations d elevage est superieure a celle des exploitations de grandes cultures pour les deux specialisations la relation entre l efficacite et la taille des exploitations est positive les grandes exploitations sont les plus efficaces les resultats obtenus par la methode de frontiere stochastique sont generalement confirmes par la methode dea la qualite de la terre et le degre d integration dans les marches d aval sont d importants determinants de l efficacite la faible education est un obstacle majeur a l efficacite en particulier pour les exploitations de grandes cultures de plus celles ci utilisent beaucoup les marches de facteurs terre et travail alors que les exploitations d elevage utilisent plutot leurs propres terres et le travail familial