on measures of excess burden and their application abstract new measures of the additional excess burden of a tax reform are proposed and are shown to be useful in three key policy applications these new measures induce a unique measure of marginal excess burden meb among its interesting properties meb is uniformly zero for a proportional tax on inelastically supplied labor problems in applying the standard measures of total excess burden are demonstrated it is concluded that the induced measure of the marginal cost of funds mcf should be regarded as the most useful concept in applied tax analysis

sustainability of power sector reform in india what does recent experience suggest abstract india has been flirting with the idea of power sector reform for more than a decade however despite the enactment of a comprehensive legal framework for governing the electricity industry limited progress has been made in terms of achieving widespread sector liberalisation and privatisation this paper presents a systematic approach to analysing the sustainability of the reform model and the experience in implementing it it argues that the reforms to date have not produced desirable political economic financial social or environmental outcomes political instability and opportunistic behaviour of political parties in india have reduced the acceptability of reforms while the poor financial performance of utilities and subsidy burden show little signs of improvement reform has not succeeded in rationalising tariffs or balancing supply and demand electricity market reform has not increased access levels and the rise of captive power generation is likely to have an adverse impact upon the natural environment in conclusion there are doubts about the sustainability of reform measures highlighting a need to find policy alternatives

interrupted work careers depreciation and restoration of human capital the quantitative effects and even the existence of a human capital depreciation phenomenon have been a subject of controversy in the recent literature prior work however was largely cross sectional and the longitudinal dimension if any was retrospective using longitudinal panel data on married women in nls we have now established that real wages at reentry are indeed lower than at the point of labor force withdrawal and the decline in wages is greater the longer the interruption another striking finding is a relatively rapid growth in wages after the return to work this rapid growth appears to reflect the restoration or repair of previously eroded human capital the phenomenon of depreciation and restoration is also visible in data for immigrants to the united states however while immigrants eventually catch up with and often surpass natives returnees from the nonmarket do not fully restore their earnings potential

multinationals and the developing countries in multinational enterprise and economic analysis caves provides a summary of economic research on multinationals and developing countries yet for policy makers major questions remain unanswered the gaps can be grouped into four categories the impact of the widespread change in development strategies on multinationals the net impact of foreign direct investment on host countries the causes of declining tensions between developing countries and foreign investors and links between our economic knowledge and the decisions that face private and government managers

world bank directives domestic interests and the politics of human capital investment in latin america recent studies underscore the importance of international organizations in transmitting norms ideas and values to developing countries but has this diffusion influenced government policy in less developed countries during the past two decades the world bank has emphasized the need for third world governments to increase the stock of human capital by investing in education and health specifically it has encouraged developing countries to shift an increasing share of their resources toward primary education the authors examine 13 latin american countries between 1980 and 1992 to establish the relationship between world bank project lending and government investment in human capital they combine time series cross sectional analysis with field research to evaluate the world bank s influence on government spending on education and health although the world bank may be successful in convincing developing country technocrats to invest in people this research suggests that it is less successful in co

economic dispatch savings in the coal fired power sector an empirical study of china abstract the current equal share dispatch approach has often been criticized for its negative influence on the electricity system operation in china which worsens the energy security environmental sustainability and affordability problems to provide references for the on going electricity market reform this study employs an optimization model to quantify the economic dispatch savings in the coal fired power sector key findings are summarized as follows 1 the heat rates of 2803 coal generators in china range from 273 91 gce kwh to 348 38 gce kwh units in 2014 and the great differences among these generators at different geographical areas exhibit the necessity for economic dispatch 2 5 67 of the coal used for power generation could be saved from economic dispatch in a provincial level the monetary value of which can reduce the average electricity price by 0 0058 yuan kwh in 2014 3 three major political and economic challenges hinder the transition from the current dispatch mode to economic dispatch namely the insufficient running hours for cost recovery limited cross border trading due to electricity over supply and local protectionism and the political economy problems from generators of different ownership types

price reforms in the power sector the world bank s role this paper discusses whether the world bank s bank s policy has been successful in promoting economic efficiency in the power sector the conclusion is that the bank s presence has improved the situation as four countries receiving a disproportionate share of bank assistance have witnessed a more positive development since the late 1980s than developing countries as a whole loans provided through periods of non compliance may have eased the urgency of reform in a longer perspective the financing of such over investment may have been justified on grounds of maintaining the bank s presence in these countries and laying the foundation for the more recent sector reforms co ordination with broader sector reforms is also found to yield positive results

developing countries and the gains from regionalism links between trade and farm policy reforms in mexico we use a multi country computable general equilibrium cge model with agricultural policy details to simulate the effects of north american free trade agreement nafta we find that mexico gains from nafta only when it also removes domestic distortions in agriculture in that case agriculture can generate allocative efficiency gains large enough to offset the terms of trade losses that arise because mexico has higher initial tariffs than its nafta partners when an rta forces a developing country to reform its domestic distortions that are linked to trade restrictions it becomes a building block toward multilateralism

the effects of job relocation on spousal careers evidence from military change of station moves we investigate the impact of military job relocation on spousal earnings and employment by creating a unique longitudinal database that tracks over 900 000 military spouses over the period 2001 2012 based on data from two administrative sources military records on personnel and their dependents and social security earnings records this database allows us to estimate the effects of military change of station moves controlling for some key observable characteristics of the service member and household and controlling for individual spouse fixed effects we find that military moves cause a substantial decline in spousal earnings in the year of the move on the order of 2 100 or 14 of average spousal earnings moves also increase the likelihood that the spouse has no earnings for the year we find larger earnings reductions for moves that cross state lines and for older spouses male spouses and those with young children the career costs persist over time and spouses continue to experience significantly lower earnings 2 years after the move this persistence combined with the typical military member experiencing a change of station move every 2 or 3 years may substantially limit the ability of military spouses to accumulate human capital over time jel h56 r23 j45 j16 j64

labor immobility and the formation of gender wage gaps in local markets family ties have an important effect on the wage gap between male and female workers because wives are often more geographically tied to their husband s location which may not be the best market for the wife s skills theory implies a testable inverse relationship between urban size reflecting labor market size and male female wage differentials our results indicate that the wage gap between married men and women narrows with urban size about 17 percent of the wage gap between married men and women can be accounted for by urban size or more fundamentally by geographic immobility due to the family tie constraint

power sector reform in india current issues and prospects power sector reforms in india were initiated at a juncture when the sector was plagued with commercial losses and burgeoning subsidy burden investment in the sector was not able to keep pace with growing demand for electricity this paper takes stock of pre reform situation in indian power sector and identifies key concerns that led to initiation of the process of reform the paper discusses major policy and regulatory changes undertaken since the early 1990s the paper also illustrates changes in the market structure as we move along the reform process we also discuss some of the major provisions of the recently enacted electricity act 2003 that aims to replace the prevailing acts which govern the functioning of the power sector in the country in this context we discuss two issues arising out of it namely open access and multi year tariff that we think would have a significant bearing on the performance of the sector in the near future the paper also evaluates the reform process in the light of some of the regulatory changes undertaken finally the paper briefly discusses the issues involved in introduction of competition in the power sector primarily through development of a market for bulk power

why are power couples increasingly concentrated in large metropolitan areas using the panel study of income dynamics psid we test costa and kahn s colocation hypothesis which predicts that power couples couples in which both spouses have college degrees are more likely to migrate to the largest cities than part power couples or power singles we find no support for this hypothesis instead regression analyses suggest that only the education of the husband and not the joint education profile of the couple affects the propensity to migrate to large metropolitan areas the observed location trends are better explained by higher rates of power couple formation in larger metropolitan areas

a multicriteria approach to sustainable energy supply for the rural poor abstract despite significant progress in energy technology about two billion people worldwide particularly the poor in rural areas of developing countries have no access to electricity decision making concerning the most appropriate energy technology for supplying these areas has been difficult existing energy decision support tools have been useful but are mostly incomplete trade offs as well as impacts that can be positive or negative may emerge as a result of implementing modern forms of energy these can affect both community s livelihoods as well as the confidence of decision makers in relation to alternative technologies the paper discusses a newly designed multicriteria approach and its novel robustness analysis for selecting energy generation systems for the improvement of livelihoods in rural areas the proposed methodology builds upon a sustainable rural livelihoods framework to address multiple interactions and calculate trade offs aimed at boosting decision makers confidence in the selected technologies the methodology is tested via a case study in colombia

identification of supplier induced demand in the health care sector this paper explores the issues and pitfalls encountered when attempting to test empirically the hypothesis that physician hospital or any other input supply level induces increasing demand for health services in the strict sense of demand shift and through that increased demand for the input in question evidence is presented which suggests that an empirical test of the supplier induced demand sid hypothesis of the type traditionally performed may not in fact be feasible with cross sectional aggregate data such as is usually used

theories of policy diffusion lessons from latin american pension reform what accounts for the waves of policy diffusion that increasingly sweep across regions of the world why do many diverse countries adopt similar changes focusing on the spread of chilean style pension privatization in latin america this article assesses the relative merit of four theoretical explanations that scholars of diffusion have proposed as the principal mechanism driving innovations spread these approaches emphasize external pressures emanating especially from international financial institutions the quest for symbolic or normative legitimacy rational learning and cost benefit calculation and cognitive heuristics respectively the article assesses which one of these frameworks can best account for the three distinctive features of diffusion namely its wavelike temporal pattern its geographical clustering and the spread of similarity amid diversity while several approaches contribute to understanding policy diffusion the analysis suggests that the cognitive psychological framework offers a particularly persuasive account of the spread of pension reform

does eu enlargement increase agro food export duration this paper examines the impact of eu enlargement on agro food export performance across 12 new eu member states and five newly independent states in the eu markets covering the period 1999 to 2007 the performance is examined by duration of export and hazard model we find larger duration for the agro food exports from the new eu member states the results confirm gains from the eastward eu enlargement and governance on export increases and longer duration for exporting higher value added specialized consumer ready food and more competitive niche agro food products

false prophet or genuine savior assessing the effects of economic openness on sustainable development 1980 99 while many herald globalization the increasing interconnectedness of national economies to be associated with rising standards of living across the globe others fear its effects on sustainability antiglobalization forces and environ mentalists view these developments as a threat to the welfare of future generations because of profligate and excessive current consumption this study is the first to estimate the effects of dependence on trade foreign direct investment fdi and an index of economic freedom on the world bank s measure of sustainability the gen uine savings rate which measures the rate at which investment in the total stock of manufactured human and natural capital exceeds its depreciation contrary to pessi mists fears our indicators of economic openness show positive effects on sustain ability results that are robust to sample size testing procedure and several alternative specifications the results support those who suggest that distorted economies tend to be both inefficient and damaging to future generations if increasing trade fdi and economic freedom are hallmarks of globalization then worries about its effects on future well being are misplaced

electricity privatization the case of india abstract privatization is resorted to by developing country governments mainly to augment resource mobilization either on their own initiative or under the dictat of the world bank and less as a recipe for efficiency improvement the present paper discusses the electricity privatization in india as a case study and outlines the practical problems faced when the theoretical issues of privatization come up against the messiness of the real world such as high cost of private power compared to the low cost of public power and the goal conflicts of public and private utilities it suggests a different model to make privatization feasible

what s the point of reciprocal trade negotiations exports imports and gains from trade this paper explains why trade policy makers may prefer reciprocal trade negotiations rtn to unilateral tariff reductions utr for economic reasons it answers puzzles like why wto reciprocity and strengthens the unnecessarily weak case made for the wto by those who downplay or dismiss benefits from foreign tariff reductions ftr rtn is superior to utr because it provides economic benefits that utr cannot namely ftr benefits which are clearer than potentially important utr benefits whereas each policy offers efficiency gains any terms of trade effect of utr generally detracts from these gains while any terms of trade effect of ftr is typically beneficial especially for a small price taking country with this benefit augmenting ftr s efficiency gains moreover benefits from reductions in foreign barriers may come from several sources they are not solely the result of terms of trade improvement or economies of scale the two benefits already noted in the literature though often dismissed for example with foreign ntb elimination possible home benefits are shown even with rising costs and terms of trade deterioration rtn is also superior to utr because by eliminating protection in either ntb or tariff form rtn provides an escape from not only a terms of trade prisoners dilemma but many other previously unrecognised prisoners dilemmas including one in international rent transfers and several others with no economies of scale or terms of trade motivation of course if superior rtn is not an option utr may well be desirable if reciprocity is an option but only in a narrower cu or fta form such reciprocity may still be superior to utr or it may be inferior theory cannot unambiguously rank these

power sector reform in south asia why slow and limited so far although south asian developing countries had initiated some form of electric power sector reform in the 1990s often under external lending agency pressures not much progress has been made so far and there is hardly any noteworthy example of a successful reform in the region this paper provides a brief review of power sector reform efforts in five south asian countries and uses an institutional economics framework to identify the factors shaping the success of power sector reforms four factors namely instability of rule makers poor overall acceptance slow adaptation and poor transition management are identified and their effect on the reform process of south asia are analysed the paper finds that political instability has affected the power sector reform of the region making hard decisions difficult to take slow progress of reform has also affected the sector viability as signs of adverse effects on the power sector investment and performance are already visible

principal players in utility restructuring the case of orissa abstract research on reform and restructuring in the electricity supply industry does not adequately focus on the process of actual implementation using the restructuring of orissa state electricity board as a case study this paper identifies the principal players and their roles during the restructuring of an electric utility the key players in a utility restructuring exercise are the government top management lending agencies and the consultants three conceptual phases are identified in the restructuring process namely impetus phase reorganisation phase and consolidation phase as the restructuring process moves from one phase to another the roles of the principal players also undergo significant qualitative changes this paper highlights the changing role of the key players as the restructuring process moves from one phase to another

promoting policy reforms the twilight of conditionality abstract for the past 15 years the world bank often in cooperation with the international monetary fund and sometimes also with bilateral donors has tried to encourage policy reforms through conditions attached to structural or sector adjustment loans in the 1990s however such loans are a rapidly dwindling portion of the bank s disbursements this article examines major reasons for this shift including increased flows of private capital democratization the changing nature of the reform agenda itself and growing bank emphasis on ownership reduced direct conditionality is likely to be replaced in part by growing selectivity the results may well be constructive but will not ease tensions in the aid relationship

the british electricity experiment the privatization of the electricity supply industry esi in britain which began 1990 is in itself an unremarkable event much of the esi is privately owned in several european countries and in the united states and the u k privatization program has embraced utilities since 1984 when british telecom was privatized the thing that is remarkable about recent policy toward the industry is the radical nature of the regulatory reform accompanying privatization a vertically integrated administered generation and transmission structure was replaced overnight on march 31 1990 by one that is deintegrated and market based generation and transmission have been separated and there has been an attempt to establish competition in generation a number of countries have been moving gradually in the direction of encouraging competition but nowhere else have such dramatic changes been implemented so quickly

electricity privatization revisited a commentary on the case for new initiatives in india abstract normally privatization is resorted to by different economies for different reasons resource mobilization introducing efficiency by promoting competition and for achieving commercial orientation often these are assumed to be independent objectives the indian experience is showing that they are quite interdependent and unless all the three objectives are tackled simultaneously privatization will not succeed specifically the poor financial performance of the state electricity boards and their lack of commercial orientation is applying a brake on investment in the power sector by foreign ipps similarly the government s approach to privatization without promoting competition through the so called memorandum of understanding is leading to high cost solutions and acrimonious public debates demanding transparency in decision making and review of those already made

status of electricity act 2003 a systematic review of literature abstract the electricity act 2003 was a landmark act which promised to remove the maladies which afflict the indian power sector and that too at a time when the sector was ridden with problems with concepts such as open access multiple distribution licensees wheeling of electricity etc the said act intended to encourage competition which in turn was meant bring a paradigm shift in the sector the paper undertakes a systematic literature review to find the status of review of the promising act more than a decade has passed since its enactment and amendments are due with the legislative body of india but none of the literature reviewed gives a comprehensive view encompassing all the objectives of the act moreover these documents study either the probable impact or the impact on a particular segment only it has important implications for the power sector which highlights a significant gap in literature and provides a basis on which future research can be built upon

privatization of electricity distribution in the northeast of brazil the good the bad the ugly or the naive this paper analyzes the evolution of five electricity distribution companies in the northeast of brazil using technical and financial indicators three privatized and two public firms were analyzed between 1997 and 2008 the financial indicators are used as proxies for the capacity of the business to generate value for shareholders while the technical indicators are used as proxies for service quality provided to consumers we observed that the privatized firms had their financial indicators improved after privatization increasing the value of the firm for the shareholders however there is no evidence that privatization affected the quality of service provided to consumers

growth and exchange rate volatility a panel data analysis the aim of this article is to assess the role of real exchange rate rer volatility on long run economic growth for a set of 82 advanced and emerging economies using a panel data set ranging from 1970 to 2009 with an accurate measure for exchange rate volatility the results for the two step system generalized method of moments gmm panel growth models show that a more less volatile rer has a significant negative positive impact on economic growth the results are also robust for different model specifications

the privatization of eeb from cash drain to major contributor in this paper we describe the successful part privatization of empresa de energia de bogota eeb the city owned electricity company in bogota colombia we describe the reason the preparation and the actual sale process as well as the outcome following the part privatization eeb went from being a company on the edge of bankruptcy to one of the most financially secure electricity companies in south america we also place the case in relation to the standard views on direct foreign investment and their social benefit finally we aim to generalize the experience to see what other organizations in a similar position can learn

why trade liberalisation is good for growth there are three titles that might have been assigned for this paper 1 why is growth so rapid with outer oriented trade strategies 2 do countries with outer oriented trade strategies grow faster and 3 the one actually assigned they are not the same of the three the first is probably the most difficult to answer the second is a factual question and the empirical demonstration is straightforward sachs and warner 1995 the third by focussing on trade liberalisation implies that developing countries have highly restrictive trade regimes and thus asks if a move away from those regimes is good for growth it is far easier to show why especially over time liberalising a restrictive trade regime is conducive to more rapid growth than it is to show why outer oriented trade strategies have been so highly successful trade strategies and development strategies are closely related and it is useful to start by defining a few terms an import substitution is industrialisation strategy was adopted by most developing countries in the years following the second world war in most cases those countries were then predominantly agricultural and exporters of primary commodities the belief then was that rapid industrialisation was the essential if not the sole feature of economic growth and that only by domestically producing goods then imported could developing countries industrialise 1 under is it was intended to provide protection to new industries during their developmental period until they could compete with their counterparts in industrialised countries in practice the is strategy pulled most new resources into import competing activites with a number of negative consequences discussed later and one result was that export earnings grew less rapidly than the demand for foreign exchange and usually less rapidly even than real gdp an almost universal policy response was then to impose restrictive import licensing in response to foreign exchange shortage the stated reasons for this were the need to conserve scarce foreign exchange for essential developmental needs the outcome was of course a restrictive trade regime for reasons to be discussed below as is strategies continued trade regimes increased in restrictiveness and growth slowed hence to discuss trade liberalisation is to address the removal or at least reduction of incentives for is industrialisation and because again to be discussed below growth spurred under an is industrialisation strategy slows

barriers to political analysis in aid bureaucracies from principle to practice in dfid and the world bank summary politics has become a central concern in development discourse and yet the use of political analysis as a means for greater aid effectiveness remains limited and contested within development agencies this article uses qualitative data from two governance leaders the united kingdom department for international development and the world bank to analyze the administrative hurdles facing the institutionalization of political analysis in aid bureaucracies we find that programing management and training practices across headquarters and country offices remain largely untouched by a political analysis agenda which suffers from its identification with a small cross national network of governance professionals

power couples changes in the locational choice of the college educated 1940 1990 college educated couples are increasingly located in large metropolitan areas these areas were home to 32 percent of all college educated couples in 1940 39 percent in 1970 and 50 percent in 1990 we investigate whether this trend can be explained by increasing urbanization of the college educated or the growth of dual career households and the resulting severity of the colocation problem we argue that the latter explanation is the primary one smaller cities may therefore experience reduced inflows of human capital relative to the past and thus become poorer

the effects of trade liberalization on imports in selected developing countries abstract this paper analyses the impact of the reduction of tariff and nontariff barriers on the imports of 22 selected developing countries utilizing dynamic panel data techniques domestic income and relative prices are found to be significant determinants of import growth in addition the results indicate that import duties reduce import growth but the effect varies according to the region and the type of trade policy regime existing in the country the results also show that the elimination of trade policy distortions has a strong positive impact on import growth finally it is found that income and price elasticities are higher as a result of trade policy reform

responses to electricity liberalization the regional strategy of a chilean generator abstract chilean reformers joined the new trend toward liberalization of the electricity markets around 1980 12 years before any other latin american country this paper summarizes the main characteristics of the electricity reforms in chile and other latin american countries it then analyzes the strategic response by the electricity generating company endesa de chile to these reforms endesa completely reformulated its competitive strategy its most significant commitments were its investments across latin america in privatized power plants in argentina peru colombia and brazil endesa based its internationalization on its chilean experience in transforming an inefficient state owned firm and operating it in the new electrical regulatory framework favorable to market competition the company s competitive advantage originated to a great extent in that chile was the first country in latin america to reform its electrical sector

redefining the role of the state an interview with introduction by brian snowdon professor joseph stiglitz is without question one of the world s leading economists in his extensive research he has made seminal contributions to the analysis of the economic consequences of incomplete information and uncertainty this work has greatly enhanced economists understanding of the welfare properties of markets and the sources of market failure his research has also contributed to the development of better microeconomic foundations for keynesian macroeconomic models most recently professor stiglitz has been heavily involved in controversial public policy debates relating to the east asian crisis problems of transition from communism to capitalism the limitations of the washington consensus and globalisation and development a common theme in all of these debates relates to the role of government and legitimate borders of the state in both developed and developing economies in this article interview professor stiglitz gives his views on these and several other important global issues

energy efficiency in world bank power sector policy and lending new opportunities abstract this paper examines the role of and opportunities for energy efficiency in the world bank s electric power sector policy and lending it finds that the dynamic environment in which the bank operates provides substantial opportunity for the bank to more effectively fulfill its mandate through an aggressive effort to develop the energy efficiency market opportunities in its client countries the paper finds a variety of market conditions that indicate both an opportunity for the bank in efficiency markets and a need for bank influence in the development of these markets in assessing the bank s current policy and lending practices the paper finds that the bank continues to be fundamentally oriented towards the traditional supply side measures that have long defined the bank s focus between 1992 and 1996 less than one half of one percent of the bank s power sector loans financed demand side efficiency improvements by neglecting the significant potential for demand side efficiency improvements the bank is missing major opportunities to fulfill its mandate in developing countries and capitalize on the investment opportunities in this business in new markets as the flow of private sector financing to developing country power sectors grows the bank s continued focus on traditional supply side investments is increasingly inconsistent with its mandate to be a lender of last resort yet more importantly in neglecting the emerging energy efficiency market the bank is missing a strategic opportunity to foster environmentally sound development in developing countries and establish a vital new role for itself in the dynamic power sector the paper recommends that the bank take advantage of this opportunity by adopting a new approach to the power sector one that combines continued pricing reforms with institutional reforms and capital investments in both demand side efficiency and supply side expansion towards this end it identifies ways in which the bank could finance large scale investments in demand side efficiency in developing countries finally the paper suggests that only by considering such energy efficiency investments early in the project identification process rather than as an add on to projects fundamentally conceived as supply side projects will the full potential for such investments be realized

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

measuring the efficiency of grid companies in china a bootstrapping non parametric meta frontier approach abstract the unbundling policy reform of power industry has become a worldwide trend since 1980s there are quite many studies focusing on the efficiency changes of transmission and distribution sectors in european and latin american countries while few reports on china s issues have been found this paper employs a nonparametric frontier estimation combined with meta frontier and bootstrapping method to measure the productive efficiency and changes in the decomposition index for china s 31 grid companies from 2004 to 2013 in addition it further employs tobit regression model to analyze the influences of relevant policies and heterogeneity factors such as natural conditions and economic development the results indicate that the grouping approach extends the application of non parametric data envelopment analysis which may decrease the assumption of homogeneity for the decision making units and provide better efficiency estimates by increasing the credibility of the evaluation results overall productive efficiency increased during the whole study period with technology progress the main contributor to this improvement efficiency trends fluctuated with changes in economic development and power supply situation and the economics and customer density had positive effects on productive efficiency while the influence of clean power proportion is negative

deregulation and restructuring of the global electricity supply industry and its impact upon power plant suppliers abstract this paper analyses the deregulation and restructuring of the global electricity supply industry and its impact upon fuel usage generation technologies and suppliers of power plant deregulation encouraged the growth of new independent power producers whose business requirements transformed the power plant industry the plant suppliers had to develop new capabilities and services to compete in the global market economies of scale and scope became crucial given the cost of developing the new technologies and providing the services required by the operators this led to the global consolidation of the power plant industry because only large integrated power engineering companies had the necessary resources and capabilities to compete in the new global environment

political pricing of electricity can it go with universal service provision abstract political parties in india are known to use electricity prices as a tool to secure a win in the democratic election process this article examines the setting of electricity prices from a political economy perspective citizens differ in their willingness to pay for electricity and the consumer surplus and electoral uncertainty seem to influence their choices while exercising their franchise to win political parties must receive a majority of votes and a party in power may try to achieve this by choosing to ignore a consumer group either by charging a price higher than their willingness to pay or by choosing to satisfy them by charging a lower price two theoretical models are proposed the first model computes the possible prices when common perfectly correlated electoral shocks are anticipated while the second model computes the possible prices for independent and identically distributed electoral shocks we test these models with available data on willingness to pay and electricity price for agricultural domestic and industrial consumers in an indian state by generating prices that would be charged to each of these types of consumers to maximize the chances of re election actual prices seem to confirm the second model more than the first

do all countries grow alike abstract this paper investigates the driving forces of output change in 77 countries during the period 1970 2000 a flexible modeling strategy is adopted that accounts for i the inefficient use of resources and ii different production technologies across countries the proposed model can identify technical efficiency and input change for each of three endogenously determined regimes membership in these regimes is estimated rather than determined ex ante this framework enables explorations into the determinants of output growth and convergence issues in each regime

openness and the politics of potable water improving access to potable water has become an increasingly urgent concern for developing nations in the current era of globalization according to standard wisdom if developing countries undertake certain domestic reforms such as investing in infrastructure and engineering then safe and clean drinking water will improve this analysis uncovers however that in addition to such domestic efforts one of the greatest factors affecting water uncertainty is in fact internationally induced trade surprisingly both scholars and practitioners have neglected the potential impacts of expanding trade on access to potable water this analysis is the first large n cross national study of water that focuses on the interplay of trade and politics both international and domestic as the primary driving forces behind improvements in or constraints to water access the author hypothesizes that growing export pressures are constraining drinkable water in poor countries but a particular domestic condition can mit

costs and potentials of energy conservation in china s coal fired power industry a bottom up approach considering price uncertainties abstract energy conservation technologies in the coal fired power sector are important solutions for the environmental pollution and climate change issues however a unified framework for estimating their costs and potentials is still needed due to the wide technology choices especially considering their economic feasibility under fuel and carbon price uncertainties therefore this study has employed a bottom up approach to analyze the costs and potentials of 32 key technologies new promotions during the 13th five year plan period 2016 2020 which combines the conservation supply curve csc approach and break even analysis findings show that 1 these 32 technologies have a total coal conservation potential of 275 77 mt with a cost of 238 82 billion yuan and their break even coal price is 866 yuan ton 2 steam water circulation system has the largest energy conservation potential in the coal fired power industry 3 considering the co benefits will facilitate these technologies promotions because their break even coal prices will decrease by 2 35 yuan ton when the carbon prices increase by 1 yuan ton 4 discount rates have the largest impacts on the technologies cost effectiveness while the future generation level affect their energy conservation potentials most

power sector reform in orissa an ex post analysis of the causal factors abstract from the early 1990s dramatic changes have been taking place in the structure of electricity supply industry esi worldwide the primary reasons for electricity sector reform has however been different for industrialised and developing countries the objective of this paper is to study and identify various factors leading to power sector reform in developing countries the restructuring of orissa state electricity board in india was used as a case study in identifying the various factors the factors that result in implementation of restructuring are a contextual factors they are the primary drivers for initiating reform the performance of the utility and the conditionalities of the lending agencies are contextual factors b trigger factor it is the determining factor that creates a compelling necessity to undergo restructuring the inability of the government to continue to support the utility acts as the trigger factor c facilitating factors they act as facilitators for initiating reform support of the government absence of a powerful lobby and the support of the top management are facilitating factors