the inequalities of public utility products in china from the perspective of the atkinson index abstract the chinese households make up approximately a quarter of the world s total compared with its size of population china s reserves of natural resources are relatively limited with the actual concerns about sustainable development in china we should pay more attention to the unequal distribution of energy which may result low efficiency and wasting of energy therefore how to best allocate the scarce public utility products pups for the household usage should be closely addressed in terms of equity and efficiency based on the micro household level data from crecs which investigated in 2013 in different scales city all over the country we measure the distribution of pups consumption quantitatively and evaluate the inequality of household income expenditures on electricity gas and water in the china s residential sector by using the atkinson index the results show that the atkinson index of households total pups consumption in medium scale city is equal to 0 0261 which is 83 0 higher than that of large scale city and 35 6 higher than that of small scale city it indicates that the inequalities of pups and income are greater in medium scale cities than in large scale and small scale cities considering the sustainability of pups we suggest further reform in china s public utility sectors the government should take more consideration on equality and efficiency of distribution and ensure that people have equal living standards especially for the low income households who serve as the main anchor for the sustainable development of china

the impact of renewable energy consumption to economic growth a panel data application internationally the importance of renewable energy in the energy mix has been increasingly appreciated the advantages of the renewable energy usage for the world s energy security and the environment are indisputable and much discussed in the literature however its effects on the economic welfare of the countries are yet to be examined fully and described quantitatively the purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of the renewable energy consumption to economic welfare by employing panel data techniques the results show that the influence of renewable energy consumption or its share to the total energy mix to economic growth is positive and statistically significant from a policy point of view promoting renewable energies bears benefits not only for the environment but also for the economic conditions of the countries

qualitative and quantitative evidence on the true local welfare costs of forest conservation in madagascar are discrete choice experiments a valid ex ante tool summary protected areas may impose local welfare costs through the enforcement of use restrictions predicting their welfare impacts before their establishment could help with the design of compensation schemes discrete choice experiments dces are increasingly used for ex ante evaluations but their validity is largely untested in low income settings using a case study of a new redd reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation project in eastern madagascar we explore the validity of dces in two ways i whether the estimates of welfare costs derived from dce are affected by respondents prior experience of conservation ii whether dce results have high theoretical and content validity we surveyed households who have varying degrees of experience of restrictions to swidden agriculture we also qualitatively debriefed a sub sample of respondents to better understand their thought processes latent class analysis shows that dce outcomes vary with conservation experience households more experienced with forest protection are less willing to trade off rights to clear forest for swidden agriculture with any compensatory interventions whereas less experienced households highly favor support for alternative agricultural techniques and a secure right to clear one hectare of forest although the results show apparent non attendance to some attributes e g cash payments qualitative debriefings suggest that respondents infact do expect relatively low or no utility from the given attributes and hence have theoretically valid preferences similarly the dce has generally high content validity although dce can elicit current preferences in this context using ex ante dce to estimate the welfare costs of such a long term intervention requires caution we conclude that it is difficult to robustly estimate compensation in advance of an intervention there is therefore a need to rethink conservation approaches and the feasibility of achieving fair compensations for conservation imposed restrictions

inequality and the impact of growth on poverty comparative evidence for sub saharan africa abstract this study explores the extent to which inequality affects the impact of income growth on the rates of poverty changes in sub saharan africa ssa compared to non ssa based on an unbalanced panel of 86 countries over 1977 2004 for all three measures of poverty headcount gap and squared gap the impact of gdp growth on poverty reduction is a decreasing function of initial inequality the impacts are similar in direction for ssa and non ssa so that within both regions there are considerable disparities in the responsiveness of poverty to income growth depending on inequality nevertheless the income growth elasticity is substantially less for ssa implying relatively small poverty reduction response to growth

the brazilian experience of rural electrification in the amazon with decentralized generation the need to change the paradigm from electrification to development abstract there are at least 607 thousand households in the brazilian amazon that need to be attended with some form of regular electricity service these households are not attended by the electricity sector through its electricity distribution companies and most of them have some form of precarious decentralized electricity generation that is not registered or regulated in the institutional framework diverse initiatives were taken by brazilian government to attend these household through alternatives that relied on locally available renewable energy this paper accesses this initiatives of rural electrification in the brazilian amazon first an overview of the problems of rural electricity are discussed and its specificities in the brazilian amazon then the brazilian institutional framework that organizes the decentralized electricity generation is described with its various limitations the diverse initiatives undertaken to attend the rural communities in the amazon since the 1990s are described as well as how these initiatives are linked to the policies for rural electrification the results shows that it can be inferred that sole market mechanisms are not sufficient to guarantee economic sustainability of these projects this can be one of the reasons why traditional electricity distribution companies showed the lack of interest in promoting rural electrification with other means than grid extension the most successful projects had financed efforts to integrate the generation of electricity into local development initiatives in order to guarantee sustainability and used substantial part of funding for local mobilization and organization it needs a paradigm chance by treating these initiatives as local development initiatives and promoting alternative ways for its implementation through partnership between local new actors in the electricity sector and government and implementing policy on a local municipal level

estimating households vulnerability to idiosyncratic and covariate shocks a novel method applied in madagascar households in developing countries are frequently hit by severe idiosyncratic and covariate shocks leading to high consumption volatility a household s currently observed poverty status might therefore not be a good indicator of the household s general vulnerability to poverty in the recent years there has been an emerging literature on the concept and empirical analysis of vulnerability but because of strong data requirements for vulnerability analysis and limited availability of panel and shock data for developing countries static poverty analysis still dominates empirical vulnerability studies in this paper we propose a simple method to empirically assess the impact of idiosyncratic and covariate shocks on households vulnerability which can be applied in a wide context as it relies on more commonly available cross sectional or short panel data we empirically illustrate our approach for madagascar we show that covariate shocks have a relatively higher impact on rural households whereas idiosyncratic shocks have a relatively higher impact on urban households vulnerability

what price drug use the contribution of economics to an evidence based drugs policy abstract this paper presents a review of the recent economics literature in the area of illicit drug use particular attention is paid to the economics of addiction and the rational addiction model the welfare economics framework for analysing the social costs of drug use and the attempts that have been made by economists to evaluate recent or proposed policy interventions a dominant theme in this review is the problem of poor data availability this is particularly true when it comes to implementing the rational addiction model but it is also apparent in the literature on estimating the costs of illicit drug use to society as a whole one of the main conclusions of this review is that until recently public policy has not been particularly influenced by research carried out by economists it is not clear whether this is because economists have had to grapple with inadequate data and hence their conclusions are couched in uncertainty or whether it is because drugs researchers have assumed a very limited role for economists in their analysis

chronic poverty in the united states this paper proposes a method of measuring chronic and transitory poverty using an axiomatically sound additively decomposable index of aggregate poverty our approach is contrasted with alternative methods of measuring poverty persistence we use our method to measure chronic and transitory poverty in the united states during the 1980s and late 1970s and find that chronic poverty is a more serious problem than previously thought between the late 1970s and mid 1980s poverty not only increased it became more chronic and less transitory in nature this is true for the population as a whole and for some but not all of the subpopulations we considered the latter were defined according to race type of social unit and educational qualifications of the head of the social unit all empirical analyses are based on data from the panel study of income dynamics

agricultural household models extensions applications and policy this book presents the basic model of an agricultural household that underlies most of the case studies undertaken so far the model assumes that households are price takers and is therefore recursive the decisions modeled include those affecting production and the demand for inputs and those affecting consumption and the supply of labor comparative results on selected elasticities are presented for a number of economies the empirical significance of the approach is demonstrated in a comparison of models that treat production and consumption decisions separately and those in which the decisionmaking process is recursive the book summarizes the implications of agricultural pricing policy for the welfare of farm households marketed surplus the demand for nonagricultural goods and services the rural labor market budget revenues and foreign exchange earnings in addition it is shown that the basic model can be extended in order to explore the effects of government policy on crop composition nutritional status health saving and investment and to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the effects on budget revenues and foreign exchange earnings methodological topics primarily the data requirements of the basic model and its extensions along with aggregation market interaction uncertainty and market imperfections are discussed the most important methodological issues the question of the recursive property of these models is also discussed

changing the economics of environmental degradation in madagascar lessons from the national environmental action plan process abstract this paper examines the economic logic and implicit assumptions used to develop and support the national environmental action plan neap process in madagascar the study focuses on three key issues how were the costs of the main environmental problems identified and estimated what underlying factors were identified as causing these problems and how is the neap implementation strategy designed to change these underlying factors the most difficult tasks for neaps will continue to be identifying the key specific underlying factors causing the problem and determining which of these factors are actually feasible for a neap process to change the analysis of the madagascar makes clear that key environmental problems are driven by land use decisions of large numbers of geographically dispersed rural and urban inhabitants these problems are not easy or even feasible targets for specific environmental policy changes if this is the case as it seems to be in madagascar then it is perhaps unrealistic to hope that neaps as constituted can provide a framework for both understanding and alleviating a country s key environmental problems

drugs policy what should we do about cannabis public policy has failed to prevent large scale consumption of cannabis in most developed countries so what if anything should we do to change the policy environment cannabis consumption is unambiguously harmful in several ways but this does not automatically justify the prohibitionist policy dictated by the international drugs conventions this paper sets out the arguments for policy intervention in the cannabis market and reviews the directions of policy change that have been called for we argue that existing theoretical insights and empirical evidence give little compelling reason to prefer prohibition to the alternative of legalization of cannabis with harms controlled by regulation and taxation given this conclusion and the much wider prevalence of cannabis than of harder drugs a reasonable way forward is to remove cannabis production and consumption but not trade from the current prohibitionist un drug control treaties to allow countries to adopt their own policies thus generating new evidence on the potential impacts of a wider range of policy stephen pudney

china s uneven progress against poverty while the incidence of extreme poverty in china fell dramatically over 1980 2001 progress was uneven over time and across provinces rural areas accounted for the bulk of the gains to the poor though migration to urban areas helped the pattern of growth mattered rural economic growth was far more important to national poverty reduction than urban economic growth agriculture played a far more important role than the secondary or tertiary sources of gross domestic product gdp rising inequality within the rural sector greatly slowed poverty reduction provinces starting with relatively high inequality saw slower progress against poverty due both to lower growth and a lower growth elasticity of poverty reduction taxation of farmers and inflation hurt the poor external trade had little short term impact

microfinance and poverty a macro perspective we test the hypothesis that microfinance reduces poverty at the macro level using cross country and panel data which are constructed by the microfinance information exchange data on microfinance institutions mfis and the world bank data taking account of the endogeneity associated with mfis loans we show that a country with higher mfis gross loan portfolio per capita tends to have lower levels of poverty indices contrary to recent micro evidence our results suggest that microfinance significantly reduces poverty at macro level and thus reinforce the case for channeling funds from development finance institutions and governments of developing countries into mfis

how well do static indicators identify the chronically poor abstract we investigate how well the most widely used static welfare indicators perform in identifying the chronically poor we propose a normative measure of performance the cost of a given impact on chronic poverty when transfers are contingent upon a purely static indicator using longitudinal household data from rural india we find that current consumption is not always a better indicator of chronic poverty than current income both however perform much better than other common indicators such as food share and access to land

the prospects of renewable energy technologies for rural electrification a review from nepal abstract utilization of renewable energy technologies remains one of the major energy policies throughout the world these technologies are proven to be successful for electrifying rural communities especially in developing countries realizing the benefits of renewable energy sources the government of nepal has initiated the production and distribution of renewable energy technologies in recent years mainly to electrify rural communities although these technologies are suitable for providing electricity in isolated and remote rural areas their implementation programs have not been successful as expected this review provides broad spectrum view about the energy situation in nepal and highlights the current policies and subsidies for the optimal utilization of renewable energy resources in isolated and poor rural communities in addition major promotional barriers for their implementation in nepal have been discussed

the welfare cost of means testing pensioner participation in income support we estimate parametric and semi parametric binary choice models of benefit take up by british pensioners and use a revealed preference argument to infer the cash equivalent value of disutility arising from stigma or complexity of the claims process these implicit costs turn out to be relatively small averaging about 3 4 per week across income support recipients using the foster greer thorbecke measure of poverty among pensioners we find that allowing for implicit claim costs incurred by benefit recipients raises the measured degree of poverty by not more than 13 copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

why have urban poverty and income inequality increased so much argentina 1991 2001 abstract this article analyzes the trends in income inequality and poverty among argentine households during the nineties we assess the effect of changes in labor force participation unemployment educational levels and returns to individual characteristics on income inequality and poverty by using a microsimulation approach we found that unemployment accounts for a large part of the increase in income inequality and poverty experienced in the past decade changes in labor force participation had an equalizing effect over the whole period while changes in the returns to workers sociodemographic characteristics could be associated with a small increase in income inequality with respect to poverty unemployment affected negatively the proportion of households below the poverty line amplified the poverty gap and increased the severity of poverty in contrast changes in labor force participation are associated with a reduction in the poverty rate

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

revisiting the concept of payments for environmental services this article revisits the payments for environmental services pes concept and reviews existing pes definitions based on weberian philosophy of science it is argued that an ideal pes type strongly embedded in pes theory is needed to understand their logic many broader empiricist definitions fail to distinguish pes from the larger generic family of positive environmental incentives thus eroding their meaning by excessive vagueness arguably pes definitions should focus on describing a functional tool rather than normatively integrating desirable pes outcomes a modified narrow pes definition is proposed outlining conditionality as the single defining feature avoiding the buyer seller terms and linking pes to offsite externalities extensive explanatory guidelines address many valid conceptual concerns raised in the recent pes literature

from constraint to sufficiency the decoupling of energy and carbon from human needs 1975 2005 abstract we investigate the relationship between human needs energy consumption and carbon emissions for several indicators of human development life expectancy literacy income and the human development index we find that high human development can be achieved at moderate energy and carbon levels increasing energy and carbon past this level does not necessarily contribute to higher living standards by conducting a novel longitudinal analysis from 1975 to 2005 we observe a previously undetected decoupling of the per capita energy and carbon required for human needs if resources were equally distributed current energy and carbon levels would be more than sufficient to satisfy global human needs at high levels of human development by projecting current trends to 2030 we demonstrate that the global energy consumption and carbon emissions required to satisfy human needs will decrease with time despite growth in population

energy poverty in china an index based comprehensive evaluation abstract energy poverty has got increasing attention during the latest three decades measuring energy poverty is the premise of policy making to alleviate energy poverty there is no unified energy poverty measurement that has been widely accepted this paper reviews the commonly used energy poverty measurements through classifying them into three categories energy service availability energy service quality and satisfaction of energy demand for human s survival and development this paper also analyzes the suitability of the commonly used energy poverty measurement for china from the prospective of data availability and index applicability furthermore we construct a new energy poverty comprehensive evaluation index in this study and the index is illustrated to evaluate regional energy poverty in china the evaluation results indicate that china s energy poverty showed an alleviating trend from 2000 to 2011 and during this period china s energy service availability improved slightly energy consumption cleanliness showed no significant change energy management completeness decreased with fluctuations and household energy affordability and energy efficiency improved continually in addition china s regions show different characteristics of energy poverty for example middle reaches of yangtze river region showed the worst energy availability and eastern coastal region showed the worst energy management completeness several policy implications for energy poverty alleviation are also proposed in this study including for instance increasing investment on energy infrastructure and spreading energy management organization in rural area decreasing relative cost on household commercial energy consumption and encourage the utilization of modern clean and efficient household energy consumption equipment

profiting from negawatts reducing absolute consumption and emissions through a performance based energy economy abstract current energy and ghg emissions policies either focus directly on emissions or promote renewable production and the implementation of specific efficiency measures meanwhile the fundamental structure of the energy market based on profits through energy throughput remains largely unchallenged this policy oversight prevents the transition to an energy economy in which profits are based on energy services delivered at the lowest energy cost a performance based energy economy pbee the pbee applies the combined concepts of the performance economy and energy services to the energy sector energy service companies escos are discussed as an example of pbee practices the implications for energy suppliers and consumers as well as the conditions for pbee diffusion and consequences for technological change are also explored the expected environmental social and economic benefits are described however absolute consumption and emissions reductions may prove elusive due to the rebound effect in order to forestall rebound led increases complementary policy measures likely to lead to absolute reductions are required

a meta analysis of contingent valuation forest studies abstract forest ecosystems provide a variety of valuable goods and services this paper presents a meta analysis of forest studies using the contingent valuation cv method to value the provision of forest values around the world in this meta analysis we estimate the marginal value of different management programs that provide a variety of forest goods and services our results show that willingness to pay wtp estimates for forest management programs are sensitive to the program s objectives particularly when linked to the provision of recreational services other variables such as the type of forest location survey mode or the type of respondent were also found to significantly affect the wtp estimates

the effects of a large discrete maize price increase on the distribution of household welfare and poverty in rural kenya1 this study estimates the effects of a large discrete maize price increase on the welfare of a sample of rural kenyan households the usual first order welfare approximation formula is extended to a second order formula that allows for supply and demand responses to the price change results show that many rural households are not affected greatly by the price change and there are about as many gainers as losers however these full sample results mask important differences across regions welfare gains generally take place in major production areas while losses are in areas where most households are net buyers of maize semiparametric methods are used to investigate the relationship between income and the size of the welfare effect and poverty dominance techniques are applied to study the impacts of the maize price increase on rural poverty

an assessment of electricity and income distributional trends following rural electrification in poor northeast brazil highlights c comprehensive analysis of brazil s recent rural electrification efforts c new methodology to analyze energy and income equity trends ex post electrification c analysis indicates immediate social benefits for electrified households c we cannot establish a direct link between electricity use and income in the short run c electrification thus should be integrated in long term rural development strategies abstract rural electrification is considered to be a key strategy for poverty alleviation and sustainable development it should therefore include 1 expanding electricity access and 2 enable new consumers to increase their electricity consumption in this paper we ask how brazil s recent rural electrification efforts have managed to reach these objectives a new method to measure energy and income equity is presented which uses estimations of non parametric density curves for the analysis of energy and income distributional trends following electrification by applying our method to a panel data set from two brazilian states situated in the country s poor northeast region we find that 1 rural consumers take up electricity consumption after electrification and that 2 low consumption levels give way to higher electricity consumption levels after only a few years this indicates immediate social benefits for households through consumption of electricity services however our analysis cannot verify a direct link between electricity use and rural income generation in the short term the results emphasize the need for government and other actors to integrate rural electrification into broader rural development strategies in order to enable long term welfare increases through electricity use

primary energy and greenhouse gases embodied in australian final consumption an input output analysis input output modeling of primary energy and greenhouse gas embodiments in goods and services is a useful technique for designing greenhouse gas abatement policies the present paper describes direct and indirect primary energy and greenhouse gas requirements for a given set of australian final consumption it considers sectoral disparities in energy prices capital formation and international trade flows and it accounts for embodiments in the gross national expenditure as well as the gross domestic product primary energy and greenhouse gas intensities in terms of mj and kg co2 e are reported as well as national balances of primary energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions

the effect of illicit drug use on the wages of young adults this article examines the effects of cocaine and marijuana use on the wages of young adults the endogeneity of drug use in a wage equation is considered and a two stage least squares procedure is implemented the results suggest that increased use of marijuana or cocaine is associated with higher wages the positive relationship between drug use and the wage does not diminish with age i also investigate whether systematic differences in the return to measures of human capital investments can explain the positive relationship between drug use and wages

optimal non linear income taxation for the alleviation of income poverty there has been much discussion recently of structuring tax and transfer programs to ensure that resources go to the poor with minimal leaks to the nonpoor the poor have no incentive to earn income with 100 percent marginal tax rates but how high or low the marginal rate of taxation should be and how they should vary with income is a complex issue and opinions vary social security schemes that withdraw benefits represent an extremely high effective marginal tax rate other schemes call for relatively low marginal tax rates at the bottom of the income distribution which tax transfer schedule does most to reduce poverty the issue is one of optimal nonlinear income taxation the authors show that one of the key theoretical results of the welfarist literature is overturned if it is desirable for everybody to work the optimal marginal tax rate on the very poorest individuals is strictly negative they argue that the nonwelfarist perspective points toward lower marginal tax rates in the lower part of the income distribution than does the welfarist perspective but numerical simulations suggest that the effect is of limited quantitative significance using conventional functional forms and parameter values optimal marginal tax rates on the poor are in the 60 70 percent range

giving respondents time to think in contingent valuation studies a developing country application abstract this paper evaluates whether the time given people to think about their responses to cvm valuation questions influences their answers our study was conducted in nigeria as part of an evaluation of rural households willingness to pay for public taps and private connections to improved drinking water systems respondents who were allowed time to evaluate the proposed water system bid significantly less than those who did not have that time moreover this conclusion was upheld regardless of whether the water system was a public tap or a private connection

universal health insurance in the clinton plan coverage as a tax financed public good the financing arrangements embodied in the clinton health reform plan involve some important differences in the way in which public goods are usually financed the subsidies to small low wage firms mandated to provide benefits distort markets in both labor and products and offer incentives for the creation of small firms in addition the financing scheme implicitly envisions a head tax on families at modest income levels but offers a possible rationale for it nevertheless the main reason for many of the financing features appears to be an attempt to hold down the apparent budgetary cost of universal coverage

what is the global potential for renewable energy abstract world energy demand is projected to rise to 1000 ej ej 1018 j or more by 2050 if economic growth continues its course of recent decades both reserve depletion and greenhouse gas emissions will necessitate a major shift from fossil fuels as the dominant energy source since nuclear power is now unlikely to increase its present modest share renewable energy re will have to provide for most energy in the future this paper addresses the questions of what energy levels re can eventually provide and in what time frame we find that when the energy costs of energy are considered it is unlikely that re can provide anywhere near a 1000 ej by 2050 we further show that the overall technical potential for re will fall if climate change continues we conclude that the global shift to re will have to be accompanied by large reductions in overall energy use for environmental sustainability

poverty and basic needs fulfilment in africa during structural change evidence from cote d ivoire abstract much attention is given in the literature to the evolution of social indicators during periods of structural adjustment and economic reform this paper argues that these processes are not distribution neutral from the point of view of basic needs fulfilment and that hence the focus should not be on aggregate indicators but on the distribution of beneficiaries of social services and changes in this distribution evidence is presented for cote d ivoire during the second half of the 1980s a period of intense structural change which shows that the poorest absorbed the bulk of the decline in basic needs fulfilment as a result of structural change this was the case for almost all aspects of basic needs and occurred regardless of the overall trend in the social indicators

assessing the extent and intensity of energy poverty using multidimensional energy poverty index empirical evidence from households in india abstract in this paper we have made a comprehensive assessment of the extent and various socio economic implications of energy poverty in india amartya sens s capability approach to development underpins the analysis of household level data taken from the india human development survey ii ihds ii 2011 12 using the multidimensional energy poverty index mepi the overall results show that energy poverty is widespread in india and the existence of energy poverty also coincides with the other forms of deprivations such as income poverty and social backwardness for example dalits lower caste and adivasis tribal are found to be extremely energy poor compared to the other social groups in india the results also reveal that it is the responsibility of women to manage the domestic chores such as collection of firewood and making of dung cake in traditional indian households inefficient use of such biomass fuels is found to cause health hazards

illegal drug use and employment this article investigates the relationship between employment and the use of marijuana and cocaine for males in national longitudinal survey of youth data from 1984 and 1988 previous studies yielding mixed evidence may have inadequately accounted for the simultaneity between drug consumption and employment i implement an instrumental variable procedure that identifies drug use with variables that are empirically unrelated to employment including the regional cocaine price and a state marijuana decriminalization indicator results indicate that the use of each drug substantially reduces the likelihood of employment exogeneity tests reveal that standard probit estimates are severely biased toward zero

labor market effects of marijuana and cocaine use among young men using data on marijuana and cocaine use from the 1984 national longitudinal survey of youth the authors examine the hypothesis that drug use reduces labor market productivity as measured by wages from an analysis that controls for the probability of employment and the endogeneity of drug use they find that although long term and on the job use of marijuana negatively affected wages the net productivity effect for all marijuana users both those who engaged in long term or on the job use and those who did not was positive no statistically significant association was found between cocaine use and productivity

redefining payments for environmental services abstract the environmental economics and the ecological economics perspectives on payments for environmental services pes propose rather different views on how to define pes its key elements and on the role of pes in ecosystem conservation and rural development this paper compares these two perspectives and addresses the following questions what is an appropriate definition of pes grounded in the theory and practice underlying it what are the key design elements of pes what should the scope of pes be given the possible trade offs between efficiency and equity it is found that pes schemes should focus on cost effectiveness and best practice for positive livelihood impacts pes schemes should be transparent and provide additional services with conditional payments to voluntary providers

roles and potentials of renewable energy in less developed economies the case of nepal increasing the share of renewable energy in the national energy mix remains one of the major energy policy goals across many economies this paper assesses the roles and potentials of renewable energy sources in less developed economies while citing nepal as an example renewable energy has a significant role to play in the electrification of rural areas in developing economies and contribute towards sustainable development realizing full potentials of renewable however requires addressing both the associated demand side and supply side constraints innovative subsidies and tax incentives adequate entrepreneurial support strengthening institutional arrangement and promoting local community based organizations such as the cooperatives are the necessary factors in promoting the green technologies in countries like nepal international factors such as large scale investment and adequate technology transfer are equally crucial to create a rapid spread and increase affordability of decentralized renewable energy technologies in less developed economies

global policy of rural electrification energy poverty and lack of electricity in the rural area exacerbate the poverty of the developing countries the sustainable renewable technologies can be considered as efficient tools to reduce energy poverty whenever they are conducted based on an appropriate policy electricity can improve the human s lifestyle by increasing the level of health education welfare and technology currently sub sahara africa with only 14 2 of rural electrification has the first rank in the world with lowest access to electricity in that region around 585 million citizens has almost no access to electricity the present study focuses on the general global policies to electrify the rural areas in this regard variety of plans and programs conducted by governmental and private institutes are investigated in the year 2011 the international energy agency iea has developed three global strategies based on the world energy market that defines the overall world energy approach in the present work different technologies for rural electrification are taken into account in two major categories of grid connected and off grid systems furthermore based on sustainable development with emphasis on environmental consideration the feasibility of electrification by using different types of renewable energies such as solar biomass hydro wind and wave have been studied despite reliability of grid connection results indicate that renewable energy sources are the best choice especially in areas far from grid connections challenges between financial institutes and executive agencies result in resource management and technology development in order to overcome existing barriers and issues

between economic loss and social identity the multi dimensional cost of avoiding deforestation in eastern madagascar this paper exhibits the multiple dimensions of the cost of stopping the main driver of deforestation in madagascar slash and burn agriculture tavy as well as being a major component of the economic livelihoods of most local households living at the edge of forests tavy has been described by anthropologists as an important cultural practice in this paper we show that stopping tavy does not only entail an economic cost for local households the loss of the cultural dimension of tavy would come at an additional cultural cost for some our results suggest that a viable cessation of deforestation in madagascar would require going beyond simple compensation of the opportunity costs of avoiding deforestation

rural electrification and energy poverty empirical evidences from brazil the aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on the reduction of energy poverty in brazil through the analysis of 23 000 rural domiciles or rural properties between the years 2000 and 2004 the results indicate a fast change in the profile of energy consumption and a reduction of energy poverty this new approach works as a complement among other variables to analyze and quantify the real economic social and energy impacts in rural electrification programs generally applied in developing countries

energy poor or fuel poor what are the differences abstract energy poverty and fuel poverty are descriptors of problems of households energy consumption they are both distinct problems and have been addressed by many researchers organizations and governments cross use of the terms of energy poverty and fuel poverty in published papers is common as an accurate descriptor is the presupposition of research and policy development especially for those who just started to pay attention to this issue this paper compares the definitions research priorities status quo and problems of these two concepts and summarizes the relationship between them the paper suggests that only when the research targets are households who are living in a cold climate and have difficulty in getting access to electricity or modern cooking facilities and in supplying indoor heating with appropriate cost the concepts of energy poverty and fuel poverty have the chance to be broadened and mutually integrated

energy requirements of households in brazil abstract in this study we determine the total direct plus indirect energy requirements of a given set of brazilian households we use a generalized input output model in order to calculate the energy embodied in goods and services purchased by households of different income level in 11 capital cities of brazil our results show that on average the total energy intensity of household expenditure increases with income level although there is a considerable spread in energy intensities within income classes as well as disparities between regions of the country the total yearly average energy requirement per household in brazil in 1995 96 was 173 6 gj 61 of which was indirect with 32 8 gj for the lower income level 66 of which was indirect and 602 2 gj for the higher income level 62 of which was indirect of this total average energy requirement 76 was required for only three consumption categories utilities 31 mobility 28 and shelter 17 this analysis calls for the attention that has to be given not only to the direct energy consumption as motor fuels and electricity for example but also to the consumption categories that encompass an important part of the indirect energy requirement of households in capital cities in brazil

energy sector reform in eritrea initiatives and implications abstract the government of eritrea gave priority status to the energy sector immediately after the country s independence in may 1991 as manifested by the rapid improvement in electricity and oil supplies electricity generation capacity has increased from a total of 30 mw in 1991 to over 130 mw at present the lengths of transmission and distribution lines have similarly increased from 150 km to 400 km and from 800 to 1300 km respectively however as in most sub saharan africa this public utility is characterised by inefficient managerial technical and financial performances an inability to mobilize the funds needed for expansion low repair and maintenance capacity inappropriate tariff rates and inadequate revenue collection mechanisms this has led the government to take appropriate reform measures in recent years including the restructuring of the eritrea electric corporation eec to operate on commercial principles setting tariffs based on real costs and reasonable profits effective collection of revenues the minimization of wastage and loss in the delivery of energy services facilitating the private sector participation and ring fencing the interests of the poor by setting up a rural electrification fund a regulatory body has been established to enforce these reform measures recognising the role of modern energy in poverty reduction and achieving the millennium development goals mdgs the government with the support of its development partners is expanding energy services to rural areas in an innovative manner the government s commitment to diversify energy sources is exemplified by its agreement with the global environment facility gef to share the costs of an on going pilot wind energy project it has also established an energy research and training centre to promote the application of renewable energies and improved biomass stoves throughout eritrea

the impact of coffee certification on small scale producers livelihoods a case study from the jimma zone ethiopia what is the impact of product certification on small scale farmers livelihoods to what extent does the participation of ethiopian small scale coffee farmers in certified local cooperative structures improve their socioeconomic situation to answer these questions this article employs household data of 249 coffee farmers from six different cooperatives collected in the jimma zone of southwestern ethiopia in 2009 findings show that the certification of coffee cooperatives has in total a low impact on small scale coffee producers livelihoods mainly due to 1 low productivity 2 insignificant price premium and 3 poor access to credit and information from the cooperative differences in production and organizational capacities between the local cooperatives are mirrored in the extent of the certification benefits for the smallholders good cooperatives have reaped the benefits of certification whereas bad ones did not fare well in this regard the cooperative effect overlies the certification effect

cannabis use and its effects on health education and labor market success cannabis is the most popular illegal drug its legal status is typically justified on the grounds that cannabis use has harmful consequences empirically investigating this issue has been a fertile topic for research in recent times we provide an overview of this literature focusing on studies which seek to establish the causal effect of cannabis use on health education and labor market success we conclude that there do not appear to be serious harmful health effects of moderate cannabis use nevertheless there is evidence of reduced mental well being for heavy users who are susceptible to mental health problems while there is robust evidence that early cannabis use reduces educational attainment there remains substantial uncertainty as to whether using cannabis has adverse labor market effects

the environmental paradox in generation how south america is gradually becoming more dependent on thermal generation there has been an increasing focus on global warming emission of green house gases ghg and the problems this might create in this article we review the trend in sustainable and renewable electricity generation in south america where the generation portfolio increasingly depends on thermal generation in particular gas south america is a region that has relatively low emissions but the current development is not desirable in environmental terms we analyze the underlying reasons for this development which is related to security of supply deregulation and the cost of renewable energy we review and discuss the policies to promote renewables in the region we analyze the potential advantages and drawbacks of different types of market interventions such as direct subsidies that create potentially strong market distortions more sophisticated market interventions that might be less intrusive but not necessarily as effective as e g firm energy markets we also review market based solutions such as the clean market mechanism and its potential and the use of renewable electricity in non interconnected zones which might be one of the most economically attractive applications of renewables however without a stronger and more aggressive intervention from the governments in the region it is unlikely that the increase in thermal generation can be stopped

gdp and environment pressure the role of energy in latin america and the caribbean abstract this paper analyzes the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption for a sample of 21 latin american and caribbean countries during the 1970 2007 period the investigation is made on the bases of the energy environmental kuznets curve eekc hypothesis using a panel data analysis energy consumption at aggregate level is used as an indicator of human environmental pressure and gdp per capita as an indicator of economic activity based in a cointegration approach our results does not support the existence of a stable long run relationship between the series rejecting the validity of such hypothesis for the selected sample over the 1970 2007 period

keeping off the grass an econometric model of cannabis consumption in britain this paper presents estimates of a dynamic individual level model of cannabis consumption using data from a 1998 survey of young people in britain the econometric model is a split population generalization of the non stationary poisson process allowing for separate dynamic process for initiation into cannabis use and subsequent consumption the model allows for heterogeneity in consumption levels and behavioural shifts induced by leaving education and the parental home copyright 2004 john wiley sons ltd

rural electrification policy and institutional linkages some of the problems that have besieged rural electrification in most developing countries include inadequate policies weak institutional frameworks and limited financing in the last two decades governments in developing countries have been making various efforts both at the policy level and in financing to facilitate increased levels of rural electrification however the introduction of market based reforms in the power sector in the last decade has affected the institutional and financing arrangements for rural electrification the reforms have also affected the rate of electrification and affordability of electricity there is need therefore to establish the extent to which the reforms have affected access and affordability of electricity in rural areas and to develop appropriate policy and the supporting institutional structures to align rural electrification with reformed power sectors it is cardinal to establish how privatised and commercialised power companies in a reformed power sector could contribute to rural electrification and the role of governments and government agents in facilitating expanded access to electricity in rural areas

letting the energy gini out of the bottle lorenz curves of cumulative electricity consumption and gini coefficients as metrics of energy distribution and equity energy services are fundamental determinants of the quality of life as well as the economic vitality of both industrialized and developing nations few analytic tools exist however to explore changes in individual household and national levels of energy consumption and utilization in order to contribute to such analyses we extend the application of lorenz curves to energy consumption we examined the distribution of residential electricity consumption in five countries norway usa el salvador thailand and kenya these countries exhibit a dramatic range of energy profiles with electricity consumption far more evenly distributed across the population in some industrialized nations than others and with further significant differences in the lorenz distribution between industrialized and industrializing economies the metric also provides critical insights into the temporal evolution of energy management in different states and nations we illustrate this with a preliminary longitudinal study of commercial and industrial electricity use in california during the economically volatile 1990s finally we explore the limits of lorenz analyses for understanding energy equity through a discussion of the roles that variations in energy conversion efficiency and climate play in shaping distributions of energy consumption the lorenz method which is widely employed by economists to analyze income distribution is largely unused in energy analysis but provides a powerful new tool for estimating the distributional dimensions of energy consumption its widespread use can make significant contributions to scientific and policy debates about energy equity in the context of climate change mitigation electric power industry deregulation and restructuring and the development of national infrastructure

does drug use lower wages this study using microdata from the 1980 and 1984 waves of the national longitudinal survey of youth examines the effects of drug use on wages and employment contrary to most previous researcher

who is energy poor evidence from the least developed regions in china abstract energy poverty has become one of the major challenges faced by the world s energy system however there is no consensus on the measure of energy poverty several approaches have been proposed among which the energy poverty line has been defined as the minimum quantity of energy required for basic life particularly for cooking and heating this paper estimates the relationship between energy expenditure and household income and identifies the energy poverty line based on the threshold above which the energy share becomes insensitive to household income using household survey data from rural qinghai china considering the ongoing energy transition and the negative impacts of biomass energy consumption for the environment and health the study sets a scenario in which all bioenergy consumption is replaced with electricity the findings show that 57 of rural households in rural qinghai are energy poor the phase of energy poverty in terms of basic energy access has passed so increasing the share of efficient modern energy in household energy consumption requires more attention considering the existence of a population that is not income poor but is energy poor a conventional policy design that primarily targets income poor households may be inappropriate in this case

reliability of stated preferences for cholera and typhoid vaccines with time to think in hue vietnam weexaminetheeffectofgivingrespondentstimetothinkabouttheirstatedchoices sc in a survey of cholera and typhoid vaccine preferences in hue vietnam because neither vaccine is widely available in vietnam we used the sc approach a stated preference technique and gave half of our respondents overnight to think about their choices to make the hypothetical valuation scenario as similar to a real life choice situation as possible respondents who were given extra time made fewer choices that violated internal validity tests of utility theory and had lower average willingness to pay wtp confirming a result found in similar studies in the contingent valuation literature jel d12 i18 c25

why have some indian states done better than others at reducing rural poverty the unevenness of the rise in rural living standards in the various states of india since the 1950s allowed the authors to study the causes of poverty they modeled the evolution of average consumption and various poverty measures using pooled state level data for 1957 91 they found that poverty was reduced by higher agricultural yields above trend growth in nonfarm output and lower inflation rates but these factors only partly explain relative success and failure in reducing poverty initial conditions also mattered states that started the period with better infrastructure and human resources with more intense irrigation greater literacy and lower infant mortality rates had significantly greater long term rates of consumption growth and poverty reduction by and large the same variables that promoted growth in average consumption also helped reduce poverty the effects on poverty measures were partly redistributive in nature after controlling for inflation the authors found that some of the factors that helped reduce absolute poverty also improved distribution and none of the factors that reduced absolute poverty had adverse impacts on distribution in other words there was no sign of tradeoffs between growth and pro poor distribution

poverty transition and persistence in ethiopia 1994 2004 summary this study analyzes the persistence of poverty in both rural and urban areas in ethiopia during 1994 2004 the key finding is that households move frequently in and out of poverty but the difficulty of exiting from poverty like the chance of avoiding slipping back increases with the time spent in that state and varies considerably between male and female headed households our results imply that it is important to design anti poverty policies both to hinder households from slipping into extreme poverty and to minimize the length of the poverty spell for households once they have fallen into it

one kind of freedom poverty dynamics in post apartheid south africa abstract a 1993 south african living standards survey documented the legacy of apartheid in the form high levels of inequality and human insecurity drawing on a 1998 re survey of households in the 1993 study this paper explores whether this legacy has been superseded or whether apartheid s end has been only one kind of freedom that has left households in a poverty trap from which they cannot escape after proposing a theoretically grounded dynamic poverty typology that distinguishes stochastic from structural poverty transitions the paper goes on to estimate that significant numbers of the south african poor are potentially trapped in a structural poverty trap and lack the means to escape poverty over time

measuring welfare poverty and inequality a class of poverty measures is identified the members of which satisfy strong monotonicity and transfer conditions these measures are closely related to indices of income inequality based on the notion of a mean equivalent income a restriction on the class of admissible measures allows poverty to be interpreted in terms of the loss in mean equivalent income resulting from the fact that some people are poor copyright 1987 by royal economic society

illicit drug use unemployment and occupational attainment in this paper we use data from the british crime survey bcs to examine the effect of illicit drug use on labour market outcomes we find very little evidence to support any relationship between drug use hard or soft and occupational attainment however we find compelling evidence to suggest that drug use particularly the use of opiates cocaine and crack cocaine is associated with an increased risk of unemployment regardless of age or gender

distribution of energy consumption and the 2000 w capita target this viewpoint discusses the intra and international distribution of energy consumption and their implications for intergenerational equity for global development to be sustainable the inequality of energy consumption must have an upper limit a graphic depiction of energy consumption distributions intra and international shows that today s inequalities are large and it is argued that we may have already reached or perhaps even surpassed the sustainability limit of energy consumption inequality

non universal nature of energy poverty energy services assessment of needs and consumption evidences from rural himachal pradesh abstract consumer behavior in rural ecosystems represents considerable variations vis a vis consumption of energy in different forms consumer preference towards any given energy service is a function of geographical situatedness local customs traditions and tastes including local weather conditions rural flavour of energy poverty has a distinctive micro character which can be understood in terms of socio cultural behaviourism of an energy consumer this geo spatial flavour further appears to be a function of socio economic functionalities of communities which could be socio culturally similar or different energy poverty is saddled with conceptual concentricity empirical evidence shows that the phenomena and the concept both are vulnerable in terms of operationalization by means of a single universal definition it exhibits contrarian hues in terms of availability access distribution affordability and acceptability of an energy service this study presents an alternative approach to understanding of both the phenomena and the associated conceptual construct the present paper is an explicit representation of the everyday grain of energy needs and consumption patterns in six rural socio cultural systems this study based upon fieldwork in the six villages viz bhadroya thapkour and gaghwal kangra district and kakira bidingi and talhara chamba district throws up interesting findings which challenge the contemporary discourse on energy poverty

fuel poverty potential risk index in the context of climate change in chile abstract public housing policies face a challenge in order to meet not only the right to housing but also an affordable and comfortable use for them in this context most of the studies related to fuel poverty are based on a diagnosis of existing conditions but there is a lack of information focusing on how to predict the risk of fuel poverty in future dwellings considering a context of climate change this research develops an index to assist policymakers in the decision making process during the early stages of social housing allocation the analysis is based on the applicability of adaptive comfort the influence of climate change the urban context and the building features energy use patterns and the ability to pay utility bills have been also considered for social housing in the central south of chile after that several future scenarios are discussed considering the probable income and energy inflation rates the potential risk variables that influence the early stages of design are also discussed the results reveal that the fuel poverty potential risk index is an effective tool to select appropriate housing for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable segments of society considering the future climate income and energy price trends

protest responses in contingent valuation a significant number of respondents to contingent valuation surveys tend to either state a zero bid or refuse to state a bid at all for reasons associated with the process of valuation these protest responses are routinely removed from contingent valuation samples because it is assumed that they are not indicative of respondents true values the censoring of protest responses has led to the emergence of a definitional controversy one view is that the definition of protest responses and the rules for censoring them are dependent on whether the practitioner conceives of the contingent valuation survey as a market or as a referendum however what is not acknowledged is the possibility that protest responses and their meaning may vary according to the type of good being valued the elicitation format and the interaction between these elements and external factors this potential renders the development of unambiguous rules for censoring protest responses difficult moreover when willingness to pay is viewed as a behavioural intention it becomes important to determine what the responses actually mean this approach does not assume an interpretative position a priori against which the responses should be judged but seeks to inform an existing understanding which is inadequate

the challenge of energy poverty brazilian case study in recent years successive brazilian governments have actively pursued economic and social policies aimed at reducing poverty and promoting social equality and inclusion in the field of energy this has meant introducing and implementing programs aimed at expanding the supply of safe and reliable energy to the poorest sectors of brazilian society including those living in remote rural areas this paper draws attention on the findings of extensive field research to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on energy poverty in the context of government policies aimed at promoting energy equity the authors re examine the concept of an energy poverty line seeking to fine tune its application to brazilian social and economic realities and then apply an analytical framework lorenz curve gap poverty gap quadratic gini coefficient and sen index to evaluate the effectiveness of recent efforts in brazil to expand access to electricity one of the main conclusions of this study is that is that rural electrification leads to a significant reduction of the energy poverty level and a consequent improvement in energy equity

reconciling theory and practice an alternative conceptual framework for understanding payments for environmental services article i nfo this article provides an alternative and novel theoretical approach to the conceptualization and analysis of payments for environmental services pes we devote special emphasis to institutional and political economy issues which have been somewhat neglected in the literature on pes we argue that the coasean and pure market approach dominating the conceptualization of pes in the literature cannot be easily generalized and implemented in practice by contrast taking into account complexities related to uncertainty distributional issues social embeddedness and power relations permits acknowledging the variety of contexts and institutional settings in which pes operate the alternative approach presented in this introductory article to the special section may be more appealing to pes practitioners since while avoiding restrictive and prescriptive standpoints it allows some key sources of complexities they usually deal with on the ground to be more easily understood

rural electrification under liberal reforms the case of peru abstract liberal reform programmes in developing countries were not designed with the need to extend electricity supplies to rural areas this paper focuses on the peruvian experience examining the impact of electricity reform policies on the characteristics of rural electrification in rural areas electrification levels have traditionally been the lowest in the country making them less or non profitable for private firms only in 2002 did the government introduce a specific rural electrification law which was intended to promote electrification within the context of a liberalised market this paper draws upon an analysis of both this piece of legislation and stakeholder interviews indicating that there exists a need to look further into the evolving relationship between the private and public sectors and how it affects the rural poor this study forms part of the resurl international research project on renewable energy for sustainable rural livelihoods in developing countries funded by the uk government s department for international development dfid

bridging the energy divide and securing higher collective well being in a climate constrained world abstract despite the impressive gains in available energy over the last 200 years the associated benefits remain unevenly distributed bridging this divide only adds to the already daunting challenge of securing climate stabilization in fact efforts towards the former are more likely to conflict with the latter to be able to address this dilemma the relationship between energy consumption and human well being beyond its economic dimension needs to be better understood this paper aims to contribute to the emerging knowledge base by examining this relationship using a proxy for human well being that also considers its environmental and social dimensions the ultimate goal of this paper is to investigate the potential incompatibility between efforts towards the achievement of higher collective well being and those associated with climate stabilization to this end it provides estimates of the additional energy needed and its associated carbon emissions under different climate scenarios and compares them with existing carbon budgets results indicate that even if new climate policies were adopted emissions associated with higher well being in all regions where improvements are needed could still reach up to one and a half times estimated 2 c budgets and even more so for lower temperature increase targets

meta analysis of empirical evidence on energy poverty the case of developing economies abstract energy poverty has evolved as an important issue of research from academic and policy perspectives during the last two decades the energy poverty estimates exhibit widespread variations across regions methodologies and datasets making the task of energy and development policies challenging the variations in energy poverty estimates necessitate a systematic and rigorous analysis of these empirical studies to obtain a true measure of energy poverty the present study conducts a meta analysis of 30 studies and 103 estimates of energy poverty on average 71 1 percent of the population in the overall sample studies has been identified as energy poor high i square statistic values suggest heterogeneity bias in the sample studies therefore analysis at the subgroup level has been conducted meta regression analysis of overall sample and subgroups has identified type of methodology citations impact factor of the journal regional dummies average key crude oil price and gross domestic product as significant factors that explain heterogeneity in the energy poverty effect sizes we recommend inclusion of local and regional factors in assessment of energy poverty for developing a uniform methodology to assess energy poverty across developing economies

contingent valuation from dubious to hopeless abstract approximately 20 years ago peter diamond and i wrote an article for this journal analyzing contingent valuation methods at that time peter s view was that contingent valuation was hopele

research and development aspects on decentralized electrification options for rural household abstract low income households living in the rural areas suffer from energy poverty and lack of human and economic development currently many governments of less developed countries are committed in improving access to electricity the same commitment should be adapted globally as part of human right because providing electricity access to low income households improves health and education generates income increases productivity reduces inequality and enhances the quality of life rural electrification is a complicated issue because of user affordability rural inaccessibility and remoteness low population densities and dispersed households low project profitability fiscal deficit scarcity of energy resources population growth lack of professionalism and over dependence on subsidies the demand for electrification cannot be accomplished because of the increasing gap between rural electrification rate and population growth therefore this review aims to study various decentralized household sized energy technologies available in rural areas such as battery diesel generator pedal generator pico hydro photovoltaic pv solar home system and wind preference for one of the options depends on energy source availability economic feasibility rural economic development disposal of residues nature of end user application and government programs and policies pico hydro is the preferred electricity generation source in most rural households followed by wind pv and diesel generators this paper concurs that households in rural areas will be able to afford for electricity access if the payment schedule of the electrification cost is extended and interest rates and taxes if any are dropped

the renewable energy market in brazil current status and potential abstract renewable energy offers a range of options with which to meet the growing demand for energy particularly in the context of the pursuit especially in developing countries of economic development which takes into account social and environmental issues brazil has abundant natural sources of renewable energy such as wind and solar power hydraulic energy small hydroelectric plants ethanol and bio diesel these sources form part of the brazilian strategy aimed at satisfying the demand for 6300 mw of fresh capacity per year arising out of projected economic growth of 5 1 per year over the next 10 years renewable energy sources currently provide 47 2 of the internal supply of primary energy in brazil brazil has been pursuing a strategy of maintaining its renewable energy matrix and developing and providing incentives for further low carbon initiatives in this study we set out an overview of the renewable energy options available in brazil their current status the main positive results obtained to date and future potential we describe the market for renewable energy in brazil and examine specific public policies aimed at overcoming barriers to this market thereby promoting its consolidation and expansion

exploring the links between equity and efficiency in payments for environmental services a conceptual approach this paper addresses the relationship between equity and efficiency in pes schemes from a conceptual point of view emphasis is placed on the role of the institutional setting social perceptions about economic fairness or distributive justice of the payments uncertainty and interactions between agents including power relations we introduce the heuristic concept of the efficiency equity interdependency curve to illustrate potential combinations between equity and efficiency that may be theoretically possible the paper argues that different types of institutional factors determine which equity efficiency combinations may be potentially feasible influence the actual combination that will be achieved on the ground and condition possible changes in that combination due to exogenous factors by stressing the role of institutional aspects in shaping the equity efficiency relationship the paper attempts to go beyond the dominant coasean vision of pes