factor demand technical change and inter fuel substitution in africa abstract the translog production function has been widely used in applied production analysis due to its flexibility and superiority over other functional forms this study develops a translog production function for a group of african countries the random effects model is estimated using generalized least squares estimator the main findings are first output in africa is driven by a more intensive use of petroleum and electricity and to a lesser extent capital labor and coal relative to technological progress second african production technology exhibits increasing returns to scale suggesting a path towards market entry barriers third technical change is scale biased and factor augmenting albeit very slow fourth all energy inputs are substitutes indicating africa s potential to proportionally switch towards cleaner fuels without adversely affecting economic growth finally and perhaps more generally the study reinforces the assertion that imposing restrictions like homotheticity homogeneity or separability on the production technology is unrealistic and should rather be a testable hypothesis within any applied analysis in view of the documented findings relevant implications for africa are discussed

optimal nonparametric estimation of first price auctions this paper proposes a general approach and a computationally convenient estimation procedure for the structural analysis of auctioni data considering first price sealed bid auction models within the independent private value paradigm we show that the underlying distribution of bidders private values is identified from observed bids and the number of actual bidders without any parametric assumptions using the theoiy of minimax we establish the best rate of uniform convergence at which the latent density of private values can be estimated nonparametrically from available data we then propose a two step kernel based estimator that converges at the optimal rate

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

electricity consumption and economic growth in south africa a trivariate causality test abstract in this paper we examine the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth in south africa we incorporate the employment rate as an intermittent variable in the bivariate model between electricity consumption and economic growth thereby creating a simple trivariate causality framework our empirical results show that there is a distinct bidirectional causality between electricity consumption and economic growth in south africa in addition the results show that employment in south africa granger causes economic growth the results apply irrespective of whether the causality is estimated in the short run or in the long run formulation the study therefore recommends that policies geared towards the expansion of the electricity infrastructure should be intensified in south africa in order to cope with the increasing demand exerted by the country s strong economic growth and rapid industrialisation programme this will certainly enable the country to avoid unprecedented power outages similar to those experienced in the country in mid january 2008

energy consumption and economic growth in south africa reexamined a nonparametric testing apporach this paper is an effort to investigate claims concerning granger causality relationship from energy consumption to economic growth in south africa we adopt a nonparametric bootstrap method to reassess evidence supporting granger causality and unravel findings of long run unidirectional causality running from energy consumption to economic growth this implies that energy conservation policies will negatively impact economic growth in south africa in addition the results of this study have implications on co2 emissions in south africa given that coal accounts for about 72 of energy this suggests that energy use would have a long run effect of raising the country s co2 emission levels hence there might be a need to develop a more balanced energy structure which will include higher share of renewable energy a further monte carlo experiment performed reveals that asymptotic granger causality test suffers size distortion problem for south african data these findings provide support for use of a bootstrap methodology and also imply that the results presented in this study are likely to be more reliable

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

an empirical analysis of self employment in the u k the paper formulates a self employment paid employment choice problem that draws upon knight s notion that the individual responds to the risk adjusted relative earnings opportunities in each sector based on a development of such choice theoretic considerations an econometric model is developed with the purpose of empirically examining the determinants of self employment the model features simultaneous determination of employment status and earnings which allows for self selectivity the model is estimated using a sample of 4762 individuals from the general household survey for 1978 the estimation of the earnings equation enables a calculation of the self employment paid employment earnings differential and the estimated probit equation for self employment paid employment status facilitates the prediction of the probability of self employment the paper finds that there is positive selection bias in the observed earnings of employees that the probability of self employment depends positively on the earnings difference between the two sectors and that education and age are significant determinants of self employment

estimates of inter fuel substitution possibilities in chinese chemical industry abstract the chemical sector is a key driver of china s remarkable growth record and accounts for about 10 of the country s gdp this has made the industry energy intensive and consequently a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions ghg and other pollutants this study has attempted to investigate the potential for inter fuel substitution between coal oil natural gas and electricity in chinese chemical sector by employing a translog production and cost function ridge regression procedure was adopted to estimate the parameters of the function estimation results show that all energy inputs are substitutes in addition the study produces evidence that the significant role of coal in the chinese chemical fuel mix converges over time albeit slowly these results suggest that price based policies coupled with capital subsidy programs can be adopted to redirect technology use towards cleaner energy sources like electricity and natural gas hence retaining the ability to fuel the chemical sector while also mitigating ghg emissions notwithstanding one must understand that the extent to which substituting electricity for coal will be effective depends on the extent to which coal or oil is used in generating electricity the findings of this study provide general insights and underscore the importance of chinese government policies that focus on installed capacity of renewable electricity energy intensity targets as well as merger of enterprises

causality analysis of diesel consumption and economic growth in cameroon abstract this study examines the causal relationship between diesel consumption and economic growth in cameroon by using a three step modern time series technique tests for unit roots cointegration and granger causality based on error correction model are employed on annual data covering the period 1975 2008 empirical results of the study confirm the presence of a long run equilibrium relationship between diesel consumption and economic growth the error correction model shows that an estimated 1 increase in economic growth causes a rise in diesel consumption of 1 30 in the long run the overall results show that there exists bidirectional causality in the long run relationship and no causality in the short run relationship between diesel consumption and economic growth at the 5 level of significance thus the energy policies in cameroon should place priority on the discovery of new oil field and building capacity additions of the refinery to increase production of petroleum products as this would propel the economic growth of the country

causal independence between energy consumption and economic growth in liberia evidence from a non parametric bootstrapped causality test abstract this contribution investigates causal interdependence between energy consumption and economic growth in liberia and proposes application of a bootstrap methodology to better reflect causality employment is incorporated as additional variable the study demonstrates evidence of distinct bidirectional granger causality between energy consumption and economic growth additionally the results show that employment in liberia granger causes economic growth and apply irrespective of the short run or long run evidence from a monte carlo experiment reveals that the asymptotic granger causality test suffers size distortion problem for liberian data suggesting that the bootstrap technique employed in this study is more appropriate given the empirical results implications are that energy expansion policies like energy subsidy or low energy tariff for instance would be necessary to cope with demand exerted as a result of economic growth in liberia furthermore liberia might have the performance of its employment generation on the economy partly determined by adequate energy therefore it seems fully justified that a quick shift towards energy production based on clean energy sources may significantly slow down economic growth in liberia hence the government s target to implement a long term strategy to make liberia a carbon neutral country and eventually less carbon dependent by 2050 is understandable

energy consumption and economic growth evidence from 11 sub sahara african countries abstract the paper examines the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for eleven countries in sub saharan africa using the autoregressive distributed lag ardl bounds test the study finds that energy consumption is cointegrated with economic growth in cameroon cote d ivoire gambia ghana senegal sudan and zimbabwe moreover this test suggests that energy consumption has a significant positive long run impact on economic growth in ghana kenya senegal and sudan granger causality test based on vector error correction model vecm shows bi directional relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for gambia ghana and senegal however granger causality test shows that economic growth granger causes energy consumption in sudan and zimbabwe the neutrality hypothesis is confirmed in respect of cameroon and cote d ivoire the same result of no causality was found for nigeria kenya and togo the result shows that each country should formulate appropriate energy conservation policies taking into cognizance of her peculiar condition

energy consumption fuel substitution technical change and economic growth implications for co2 mitigation in egypt abstract energy consumption propels economic growth but the level of co2 emissions associated with a fossil dominated energy structure raises concerns for the fight against climate change to draw consensus this study develops a translog causality based model in order to study causation between electricity natural gas petroleum and economic growth in egypt in addition the models results are used to estimate the substitution possibilities between various energy pairs and to subsequently test the co2 mitigation benefits arising from fuel substitution results support a bidirectional relationship between all energy types and economic growth in egypt and suggest also that these energy types are substitutes although technical progress is estimated to be a bit slow varying between 4 5 and 7 5 there appears to be substantial co2 emissions mitigation benefits from fuel substitution amounting to reductions in the range of 1 5 and 2 2 million metric tons under a 5 investment scenario and 2 5 and 4 5 million metric tons under a 10 investment scenario these results have broader implications for energy conservation policies and industrial merger policies in developing countries moreover by studying technical change insights are provided on future co2 mitigation potential driven by energy efficiency

strategic pricing models and interpretation of price war data abstract price wars cartel breakdowns and other seemingly disequilibrium pricing phenomena are examined questions of interest include when do breakdowns occur how long do they last what determines their severity and are they characterized by increased cross sectional price dispersion and or temporal price volatility the first half of the paper explains how the choice of punishment strategy the specification of the stochastic shocks to the system and the assumptions regarding observability determine the pricing dynamics implicit in several theoretical price war models theories are classified into imperfect monitoring models in which players actions cannot be observed learning models in which structural parameters are unknown to the players and cyclical models in which observability is perfect but business cycles affect the difficulty of colluding the second half in contrast examines data on prices actually set by firms in industries which are subject to periodic wars when the models are confronted with the data we can see how well oligopoly theory explains the behavior of the firms in these industries the object of the exercise is not to pick a winner instead the role of industry characteristics in determining pricing dynamics is assessed and the reasons why simple models may fail to explain complex pricing patterns are examined finally directions for future research are suggested by the empirical regularities which are uncovered

energy consumption political regime and economic growth in sub saharan africa abstract in this paper we examine the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth and how democracy moderates this relationship using panel data of 16 sub saharan african ssa countries for the period 1971 2013 employing a panel vector autoregressive model pvar in a generalized method of moments gmm framework the findings support the feedback hypothesis for energy consumption and growth second the interaction variable energy consumption and democracy is positively and significantly related to economic growth supporting the view that democracy moderates the energy consumption and growth nexus further the results provide strong evidence of a uni directional relationship from trade openness to energy consumption additionally impulse responses and variance decompositions also confirm positive feedback relationships between energy consumption and economic growth energy prices and economic growth

life satisfaction and self employment a matching approach despite lower incomes the self employed consistently report higher satisfaction with their jobs but are self employed individuals also happier more satisfied with their lives as a whole high job satisfaction might cause them to neglect other important domains of life such that the fulfilling job crowds out other pleasures leaving the individual on the whole not happier than others moreover self employment is often chosen to escape unemployment not for the associated autonomy that seems to account for the high job satisfaction we apply matching estimators that allow us to better take into account the above mentioned considerations and construct an appropriate control group in terms of balanced covariates using the bhps dataset that comprises a large nationally representative sample of the british populace we find that individuals who move from regular employment into self employment experience an increase in life satisfaction up to 2 years later while individuals moving from unemployment to self employment are not more satisfied than their counterparts moving from unemployment to regular employment we argue that these groups correspond to opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship respectively these findings are robust with regard to different measures of subjective well being as well as choice of matching variables and also robustness exercises involving simulated confounders

rentierism energy and economic growth the case of algeria and egypt 1965 2010 abstract the algerian economy is an example of a high level of rentierism while the egyptian economy shows a low moderate level of rentierism the ardl bounds test approach was used upon annual time series data from 1965 to 2010 the results suggest cointegration for both countries bi causality between energy consumption and growth in the long run was found for algeria there is a reversed negative energy growth nexus adding a new relationship to the traditional four causal hypotheses on the energy growth nexus for egypt we found positive elasticity both of oil price and energy which is in line with the mainstream

job dissatisfaction of the self employed in indonesia in developed countries the self employed have been found to be more satisfied with their jobs than paid employees we found the exact opposite for a developing country after analyzing 8732 respondents in the indonesian family life survey the job dissatisfaction of the self employed was not fully explained by earnings personal traits job characteristics anticipation or adaptation but mostly by segregation into a small number of industries with few job benefits this finding is consistent with the dual labor market theory we also found that among the self employed those with the highest probability of being paid employees were the least satisfied paid employment was highly sought after in developing countries and these were presumably self employed workers with high abilities this finding cannot be explained by the dual labor market theory alone to explain this inconsistency we enriched this theory with relative deprivation our results suggest that the existence of the dual labor market and relative deprivation are important determinants of the job satisfaction of the self employed in developing countries

energy consumption and economic growth evidence from the economic community of west african states ecowas access to modern energy is believed to be a prerequisite for sustainable development poverty alleviation and the achievement of the millennium development goals however theoretical models and empirical results offer conflicting evidence on the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth that we remain largely unsure of the cause and effect nature of this relationship if indeed a relationship exists at all this paper tests in a panel context the long run relationship between energy access and economic growth for fifteen african countries from 1980 to 2008 by using recently developed panel cointegration techniques we adopt a three stage approach consisting of panel unit root panel cointegration and granger causality tests to study the dynamic causal relationships between energy consumption energy prices and growth as well as relationship between electricity consumption prices and growth results show that gdp and energy consumption as well as gdp and electricity move together in the long run by estimating these long run relationships and testing for causality using panel based error correction models we found unidirectional long run and short run causality the causality is running from gdp to energy consumption in the short run and from energy consumption to gdp in the long run there is also evidence of unidirectional causality running from electricity consumption to gdp in the long run this study thus provides empirical evidence of long run and causal relationships between energy consumption and economic growth for our sample of fifteen countries suggesting that lack or limited access to modern energy services could hamper economic growth and compromise the development prospects of these countries

output and substitution elasticities of energy and implications for renewable energy expansion in the ecowas region abstract this study estimates output and substitution elasticities of renewable energy and nonrenewable energy for the economic community of west african states ecowas and discusses implications for expanding the former the results show that nonrenewable energy promises greater benefits for ecowas economic transition with output elasticities averaging between 0 052 0 579 and 0 055 to 0 223 for nonrenewable energy and renewable energy respectively overall estimated technological progress is low 0 5 to 2 6 the bulk coming from input efficiency substitution elasticities 0 02 0 94 suggest potential for switching towards renewable energy notwithstanding scale economics and sitting problems inherent in renewable power generation challenge the opportunities for energy substitution a sustainable policy solution therefore appears to be one favoring scaled and efficient electricity generation from fossil energy in the short run with a gradual switch towards renewable power in the long run in general the applied model provides insights that energy efficiency enhances sustainable growth by propelling technological advancement especially when technical change is scale biased and factor augmenting the study also provides insights that impacts of exogenous shocks to inputs are temporary and hence do not jeopardize efforts aimed at scaling output through increased and efficient use of labor capital and energy especially nonrenewable energy

can african countries efficiently build their economies on renewable energy abstract the translog production model is estimated to provide insights on the effectiveness of renewable energy for africa the analysis shows that capital labor renewable energy and nonrenewable energy drive output in african countries with renewable energy being a higher driver of growth than the conventional fossil fuels over the sample period this finding is reflective of the fact that renewable sources like wind hydro and solar account for a greater share of power generation in most african countries output elasticities computed for both energy types reaffirm the results and suggest that eastern and central african countries are more renewable energy dependent than the other three regions in addition technological progress is driven mainly by the efficiency with which various factors and energy inputs are used while africa has great potential of facing out conventional fossil energy the discussion provided in this study suggests that such transition is limited in practice due to issues of scale economics and sitting problems

energy economic growth and causality in developing countries a case study of tanzania and nigeria the debate about the precise role of energy in economic development remains contentious existing empirical studies have produced varying results some have argued the complementarity between energy and other factors of production and others have indicated that energy can be substituted for other factors of production commonly these studies have focused primarily on the developed countries one explanation being that supply constraints and price rigidities render any study on factor substitutions in developing countries meaningless however the functional relationship between energy consumption and income in developing countries is constantly investigated with the use of regression techniques while such techniques are useful in empirical analysis no mechanism exists for indicating causal directions between variables this limits the scope for policy analysis and prescription the need to identify causal direction between energy consumption and income growth in developing countries is overwhelming apart from providing further insights into the role of energy in economic development it provides policy analysts with a clearer understanding of the likely impact of energy supply constraints on economic growth this article examines the causal directions between energy consumption and economic growth proxied by gdp and gnp for nigeria and tanzania the results show a simultaneous causal relationship between energy and economic growth for both countries the implication being that unless energy supply constraints are eased economic growth and development will remain elusive to these countries given similar economic characteristics and profiling the same energy scenario for other developing countries our finding supports the view that energy plays a key role in economic development

cointegration and causality between electricity consumption and gdp empirical evidence from malawi abstract the granger causality gc and error correction ecm techniques were applied on 1970 1999 data for malawi to examine cointegration and causality between electricity consumption kwh and respectively overall gdp agricultural gdp agdp and non agricultural gdp ngdp cointegration was established between kwh and respectively gdp and ngdp but not with agdp the gc results detect bi directional causality between kwh and gdp suggesting that kwh and gdp are jointly determined but one way causality running from ngdp to kwh the ecm results detect causality running one way from gdp also from ngdp to kwh suggesting that a permanent rise in gdp may cause a permanent growth in electricity consumption

the relationship between unions and job satisfaction this paper examines the assoication between canadian unions and their member attitudes data on job satisfaction indicate that unionized workers in canada are less happy with the quality of their jobs than non union workers the former however are more satisfied with their financial compensation and job security than non members

carbon emissions energy consumption and output a threshold analysis on the causal dynamics in emerging african economies abstract following the recent global economic downturn attention has gradually shifted towards emerging economies which have experienced robust growth amidst sluggish growth of the world economy a significant number of these emerging economies are in africa rising growth in these economies is associated with surging demand for energy to propel the engines of growth with direct implications on emissions into the atmosphere further these economies are constantly being shaped by series of structural reforms with direct and indirect effects on growth demand for energy etc to this end this paper examines the causal dynamics among energy use real gdp and co2 emissions in the presence of regime shifts in six emerging african economies using the gregory and hansen 1996a j econ 70 99 126 threshold cointegration and the toda and yamamoto 1995 j econometrics 66 225 250 granger causality techniques results confirm the presence of regime shift effects in the long run inter linkages among energy use real gdp and co2 emissions in the countries considered thus indicating that structural changes have both economic and environmental effects hence integration of energy and environmental policies into development plans is imperative towards attaining sustainable growth and development

energy consumption and economic growth evidence from cameroon abstract the aim of this paper is to study the nature of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in cameroon through a three step approach i study the stationarity of the chronic ii test of causality between variables and iii estimate the appropriate model the study concludes in a non stationarity of the series using the data in first difference the granger causality test yields a strong evidence for unidirectional causality running from oil to gdp cointegration tests also show that these two series are co integrated and the error correction model ecm reveals that every percentage increase in oil products consumption increases economic growth by around 1 1 this result confirms the intuition that an economic policy aimed at improving energy supply will necessarily have a positive impact on economic growth on the other side a lack of energy is a major bottleneck for further economic development in cameroon

trivariate causality between economic growth urbanisation and electricity consumption in angola cointegration and causality analysis abstract this paper investigates the causal relationship between economic growth urbanisation and electricity consumption in the case of angola while utilizing the data over the period of 1971 2009 we have applied lee and strazicich 2003 the review of economics and statistics 63 1082 1089 2004 working paper department of economics appalachian state university unit root tests to examine the stationarity properties of the series using the gregory hansen structural break cointegration procedure as a complement we employ the ardl bounds test to investigate long run relationships the vecm granger causality test is subsequently used to examine the direction of causality between economic growth urbanisation and electricity consumption our results indicate the existence of long run relationships we further observe evidence in favour of bidirectional causality between electricity consumption and economic growth the feedback hypothesis is also found between urbanisation and economic growth urbanisation and electricity consumption granger cause each other we conclude that angola is energy dependent country consequently the relevant authorities should boost electricity production as one of the means of achieving sustainable economic development in the long run

an international literature survey on energy economic growth nexus evidence from country specific studies in this paper an extensive review of the rapidly growing in the literature on the nexus between economic growth and four types of energy consumption total energy consumption electricity consumption nuclear consumption and renewable consumption the various hypotheses associated with the causal interaction between these variables along with a survey of the empirical literature are also discussed the survey focuses on country coverage periods modeling techniques and empirical conclusions a general observation from these studies that results are found to be sensitive to methodology and type of energy considered the empirical results for the specific countries surveyed show that i for energy consumption growth nexus 29 supported the growth hypothesis 27 the feedback hypothesis 23 the conservation hypothesis and 21 the neutrality hypothesis ii for the electricity consumption growth nexus 40 supported the growth hypothesis 33 the feedback hypothesis and 27 conservation hypothesis iii for the nuclear consumption growth nexus 60 supported the neutrality hypothesis and 40 the growth hypothesis and iv for the renewable consumption growth nexus 40 supported the neutrality hypothesis 40 the conservation hypothesis and 20 the growth hypothesis these mixed results may be attributed to the different used data selected variables and econometric approaches undertaken

energy consumption and economic growth the experience of african countries revisited abstract the aim of this paper is to re examine the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for seventeen african countries in a multivariate framework by including labor and capital as additional variables we apply the variance decomposition analysis due to pesaran and shin pesaran m h and shin y generalised impulse response analysis in linear multivariate models economics letters 1998 58 17 29 to evaluate how important is the causal impact of energy consumption on economic growth relative to labor and capital the results of our multivariate modified granger causality analysis due to toda and yamamoto toda h y and yamamoto t statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated process journal of econometrics 1995 66 225 250 tend to reject the neutrality hypothesis for the energy income relationship in fifteen out of the seventeen countries in contrast results of our variance decomposition analyses show that in eleven out of the seventeen countries energy is no more than a contributing factor to output growth and not an important one when compared to capital and labor labor and capital are the most important factors in output growth in fifteen out of the seventeen countries however these results should be interpreted with care as they may not be sufficiently robust enough to support the inference that energy consumption plays a minor role in the economic growth of african countries

energy consumption pollutant emissions and economic growth in south africa article i nfo article history this paper examines the long run and the causal relationship between economic growth pollutant emissions and energy consumption for south africa for the period 1965 2006 in a multivariate framework which includes labour and capital as additional variables using the bound test approach to cointegration we found a short run as well as a long run relationship among the variables with a positive and a statistically significant relationship between pollutant emissions and economic growth further applying a modified version of the granger causality test we also found a unidirectional causality running from pollutant emissions to economic growth from energy consumption to economic growth and from energy consumption to co2 emissions all without a feedback the econometric evidence suggests that south africa has to sacrifice economic growth or reduce its energy consumption per unit of output or both in order to reduce pollutant emissions in the long run however it is possible to meet the energy needs of the country and at the same time reduce co2 emissions by developing energy alternatives to coal the main source of co2 emissions however the econometric results upon which the policy suggestions are made should be interpreted with care as they may not be sufficiently robust enough to categorically warrant the choice of an unpalatable policy option by south africa

risk incomprehension and its economic consequences abstractalmost all theoretical and empirical studies implicitly assume that every economic agent understands the concept of risk we exploited a unique feature of the indonesian family life survey and argued that this assumption may not apply to the developing world a third of working men failed to understand the concept of risk and this incomprehension did not result from a mistake or a preference for simple answers moreover after applying ols we found that relative to risk comprehensive men risk incomprehensive men earned 11 9 per cent less and possessed household assets worth 9 8 per cent less

delving into liberia s energy economy technical change inter factor and inter fuel substitution abstract the industrial energy mix of liberia is dominated by petroleum products this has generated serious environmental problems contributing immensely to co 2 emissions and other pollutants in the country this study has attempted to investigate the potential for inter factor and inter fuel substitution between capital labor petroleum and electricity in liberia by employing a translog production and cost function approach ridge regression procedure has been adopted to estimate the parameters of the function due to multicollinearity in the data estimation results show that all inputs are substitutes these suggest that price based policies coupled with capital subsidy programs can be adopted to redirect technology use towards cleaner energy sources like electricity hence retaining the ability to fuel the economy while also mitigating greenhouse gas ghg emissions substitution between energy and labor and energy and capital implies that removal of price ceilings on energy in liberia would tend to reduce energy use and increase capital and labor intensiveness notwithstanding the study seems to show no evidence of convergence in relative technological progress of the four inputs implying that petroleum will continue to play a dominant role in the energy consumption mix of liberian industry while labor investment will continue to outweigh capital inputs finally the findings of this study provide general insights and underscore the importance of policies that focus on installed capacity of renewable electricity energy intensity targets as well as merger of enterprises

output renewable energy consumption and trade in africa abstract we use panel cointegration techniques to examine the relationship between renewable energy consumption trade and output in a sample of 11 african countries covering the period 1980 2008 the results from panel error correction model reveal that there is evidence of a bidirectional causality between output and exports and between output and imports in both the short and long run however in the short run there is no evidence of causality between output and renewable energy consumption and between trade exports or imports and renewable energy consumption also in the long run there is no causality running from output or trade to renewable energy in the long run our estimations show that renewable energy consumption and trade have a statistically significant and positive impact on output our energy policy recommendations are that national authorities should design appropriate fiscal incentives to encourage the use of renewable energies create more regional economic integration for renewable energy technologies and encourage trade openness because of its positive impact on technology transfer and on output

games economists play a noncooperative view for some thirty years following world war ii most bright young economists did not go into industrial organization it was not hard to see why this was so the quick big payoffs in economics tend to go to theorists and industrial organization was a subject in which theory was not only unsatisfactory but moribund the promise of the chamberlin robinson revolution of the early 1930s had not been fulfilled and while institutional and verbaltheoretic writings on the subject were sometimes illuminating there was no hard analytic theory formalizing the structure conduct performance paradigm oligopoly in particular showed no signs of analytic tractability today the atmosphere is altogether different the profession is full of young theorists whose principal occupation is industrial organization indeed industrial organization has become the hot topic for microtheorists journals meetings and seminars abound in research on oligopoly and judging by the market this is a booming industry of course the principal reason for the change is the rise of game theory and its applications in these areas von neumann and morgenstern s great work was published in 1944 and hailed immediately by theorists von neumann and morgenstern 1944 jacob marschak indeed stated in reviewing it marschak 1946 p 1 15 ten more such books and the progress of economics is assured nevertheless it was not until the last decade that game theory came to the ascendant as the premier fashionable tool of microtheorists that ascendancy appears fairly complete bright young theorists today tend to think of every problem in game theoretic terms including problems that are easier to deal with in other forms every department feels it needs at least one game theorist or at least one theorist who thinks in game theoretic terms oligopoly theory in particular is totally dominated by the game theoretic approach the field appears to be in an exciting stage of ferment to understand why i believe that such excitement is not warranted it is necessary to step back briefly review the history of oligopoly theory before the game theory revolution and consider what it is that one wants theory to deliver

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

self employment in the developing world summary this paper analyzes heterogeneity among the self employed in 74 developing countries representing two thirds of the population of the developing world after profiling how worker characteristics vary by employment status it classifies self employed workers outside agriculture as successful or unsuccessful entrepreneurs based on two measures of success whether the worker is an employer and whether the worker resides in a non poor household four main findings emerge first jobs exhibit a clear pecking order with household income and worker education highest for employers followed by wage and salaried employees non agricultural own account workers non agricultural unpaid family workers and finally agricultural workers second a substantial minority of own account workers reside in non poor households suggesting that their profits are often a secondary source of household income third as per capita income increases across countries the structure of employment shifts rapidly first out of agriculture into unsuccessful non agricultural self employment and then mainly into non agricultural wage employment finally roughly one third of the unsuccessful entrepreneurs share similar characteristics with their successful counterparts suggesting they have the potential to be successful but face constraints to growth the authors conclude that although interventions such as access to credit can benefit a substantial portion of the self employed effectively targeting the minority of self employed with higher growth potential is important particularly in low income contexts the results also highlight the potential benefits of policies that facilitate shifts in the nature of work first from agricultural labor into non agricultural self employment and then into wage and salaried jobs

earnings gaps for conspicuous characteristics evidence from indonesia recent research has begun to analyze the effects of height on earnings in indonesia a developing country with a large population little has been done on the potential effects of weight and general health status on earnings using a household production function grossman and benham 1974 provide empirical evidence of the positive effect of good health on earnings carefully accounting for selection into the workforce and the potential endogeneity of our health variables we use a sample of individuals between the ages of 25 and 55 from the indonesian family longitudinal survey ifls to identify the effect of health on earnings and conduct oaxaca blinder decompositions to identify possible discrimination we compare these results to those using less conspicuous health measures such as blood pressure cholesterol and chest pain endogeneity of our health measures is subsequently addressed using several econometric methodologies results suggest that overweight males in indonesia earn an income premium while underweight females are subject to an income penalty