economic analysis of investment in the rooftop photovoltaic systems a long term research in the two main markets abstract nowadays due to incentive policies the photovoltaic pv installations become an economically attractive investment the different policies aim to reduce the pv installation costs consequently to the deployment of the market in recent years a progressive price decrease of components for pv installations has occurred according their learning curve every doubling of the volume implies approximately a cost reduction of 20 in order to reduce the burden of the incentive rate on the national budget maintaining the economic margin of the investment attractive for investors a progressive tariff decline has also taken place this paper provides a technical economic analysis of investments in pv systems installed on the rooftop considering incentive policies and applies it to some significant case studies in the countries in which pv market is the most prosperous germany and italy the analysis puts into evidence the past and current economic margins of the pv investments since 2006 to 2012 four case studies from 3 kwp to 1 mwp are examined in detail the profitability indexes in terms of net present value and internal rate of return evaluated throughout incentive duration of 20 years become very interesting above all in italy higher than 100 of the installation cost and higher than 10 respectively since 2009 when an abrupt decrement in installation cost occurred in italy the best profit margins occur for large size pv plants and are poorly counterbalanced by the decline of the feed in tariff up to 2012 when a new framework has given a knock to the investments whereas in germany the best margins happen for medium size pv plants and are well adjusted by the feed in tariff however it is predictable that a cut in german feed in tariff will take place because the profit margins have been higher in last year than in the previous years

the energy ladder theoretical myth or empirical truth results from a meta analysis abstract modern fuels are an important enabler of social and economic development still over 2 billion people rely on traditional biomass for their daily energy needs to overcome the negative effects of traditional energy on human health and the environment and to enhance the livelihood conditions of the poor a transition towards cleaner and more efficient forms of energy is needed understanding household fuel choice and fuel switching behaviour is of vital importance in search for policies to support such a transition process this paper adds to the existing energy transition literature in two ways first we provide a novel conceptual framework to analyze the decision environment underlying energy and fuel choices second we apply this framework in a meta analysis of existing choice models investigating energy switching and stacking behaviour in urban and rural areas in developing countries the meta analysis shows that socio economic household characteristics appear to receive most attention so far in identifying groups of fuel users while relatively little information is available on the impact of the external decision context on household energy choices

new evidence of energy growth nexus from inclusive wealth abstract gross domestic product gdp has been inappropriately used as the main indicator for assessing the sustainability of economic development for a long time inclusive wealth iw offers a new approach to assess sustainability by comprehensively measuring the productive base of the economy that involves three types of capital assets of nations produced human and natural capital and aggregates them into a single measure of wealth this study proposes an alternative to the literature on the conventional energy growth nexus that widely uses gdp as a proxy of the growth this study aims to investigate the impact of energy consumption on wealth in the iw framework and forecast the growth of iw over the next three decades for this purpose this study uses both parametric and non parametric analyses on 104 countries for 1993 2014 our results indicate that there is a negative and significant impact of energy consumption on iw growth suggesting an unsustainable pattern of world energy consumption using a machine learning technique it is forecasted that increasing the efficiency of energy consumption leads to a higher growth in average per capita iw this study also suggests that a shift to renewables is a precondition for sustainable development

mark to market accounting for banks and thrifts lessons from the danish experience university of michigan tharvard university we appreciate helpful suggestions received from participants at the stanford summer camp and the price waterhouse symposium workshop participants at the university of chicago cornell university indiana university the ohio state university university of michigan university of pittsburgh university of rochester university of southern california tulane university and university of utah mary barth bill beaver george benston allen berger fisher black paul healy jack hughes robert kaplan richard leftwich jim leisenring niels nielsen finn ostrup bob ruland pete wilson and an anonymous referee we also appreciate the assistance of our contacts in denmark who shared their time and expertise with us so willingly these include mr ole bjarrum and mr lars nielsen of nykredit mr jesper jesperson and mr aksel olsen of kpmg revisionsfirmaet c jespersen mr lars tonnesen and mr birger schmidt of the danish bankers association mr kim hartvig olsen of the danish financial supervisoryauthority mr jorgen kock of den danske bank and professors jens elling merete christiansen finn ostrup and niels nielson of the copenhagen business school we thank professors dwight crane and bob kaplan of the harvard business school and bob swieringa and jim leisenring of the financial accounting standards board for help in conducting this research we are grateful for financial statement data furnished by the danish financial supervisory authority for access to the account database provided by professors elling and christensen of the copenhagen business school and for excellent research assistance by elizabeth andersen christine botosan marlene plumlee and james myers we also appreciate the willingness

mitigating the pro cyclicality of basel ii policy discussions on the recent financial crisis feature widespread calls to address the pro cyclical effects of regulation the main concern is that the new risk sensitive bank capital regulation basel ii may amplify business cycle fluctuations this paper compares the leading alternative procedures that have been proposed to mitigate this problem we estimate a model of the probabilities of default pds of spanish firms during the period 1987 2008 and use the estimated pds to compute the corresponding series of basel ii capital requirements per unit of loans these requirements move significantly along the business cycle ranging from 7 6 in 2006 to 11 9 in 1993 the comparison of the different procedures is based on the criterion of minimizing the root mean square deviations of each adjusted series with respect to the hodrick prescott trend of the original series the results show that the best procedures are either to smooth the input of the basel ii formula by using through the cycle pds or to smooth the output with a multiplier based on gdp growth our discussion concludes that the latter is better in terms of simplicity transparency and consistency with banks risk pricing and risk management systems for the portfolio of spanish commercial and industrial loans and a 45 loss given default lgd the multiplier would amount to a 6 5 surcharge for each standard deviation in gdp growth the surcharge would be significantly higher with cyclically varying lgds rafael repullo jesus saurina and carlos trucharte

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

employment factors for wind and solar energy technologies a literature review abstract in this paper we present an up to date literature review on employment opportunities associated with the deployment of renewable energy technology we identified approximately 70 studies and data sources published over the past decade that report analysed or observed employment impacts of renewable energy growth these publications cover many different countries and several technology options and present widely varying results derived from distinct methodological approaches our first overall conclusion is that there is clear lack of authenticity of findings in this literature since recursive referencing abounds and relatively few studies yield truly original research when we omit non authentic analyses as well as those that aggregate results in a way that does not allow us to calculate employment factors defined as the number of jobs or amount of work generated per unit of electricity production capacity the total list of references is brought to 31 independent items of these only 14 references provide separate estimates of the employment factors for the stages of manufacturing and installation respectively as opposed to employment factors for these two activities combined a total of 23 items provide values for operation and maintenance o m employment factors we observe significant uncertainties in quoted figures for job creation both across and within publications

critical evaluation of financial supporting schemes for wind based projects case study greece after a long stagnating period during the second half of the 1990s the market of wind energy in greece was described by remarkable but unstable growth rates that resulted in the operation of 1 gw of wind power by the end of 2009 still though penetration of wind energy is not the one anticipated on the other hand national targets regarding the renewable energy sources res contribution and existence of excellent wind potential areas across greece challenge new wind energy investments acknowledging the unsteady development rates of wind power in greece efficiency of the state support mechanisms is currently investigated based on an analytical evaluation model the investigation undertaken is extended to provide a detailed cost benefit analysis of several wind energy case studies including mainland and island applications as well as comparison with both conventional power stations and photovoltaic plants for this purpose the financial support provided by the state is directly compared with benefits accruing from the operation of wind parks considering also the avoidance of social costs deriving from thermal power stations based on the results obtained the beneficial characteristics of wind energy applications for the greek society are clearly demonstrated especially in the case of non interconnected island grids

energy transition poverty and inequality in vietnam this paper investigates energy transition energy poverty and energy inequality in vietnam employing a longitudinal dataset of a nationally representative household survey we use the data on residential energy expenditure of more than 9 000 households over the period 2004 2016 we find a transition from traditional energy to modern energy but this transition varies across regions between ethnic and welfare groups and between rural and urban population the poor and ethnic minority households still rely heavily on traditional energy sources such as coal and biomass to meet their energy demands electricity poverty has decreased but energy cost poverty has increased in addition energy inequality tends to decrease at a more significant rate than income and consumption inequalities we propose a national program for energy poverty alleviation be established to devise policies to lower households energy costs further assistance to the poor and ethnic minority households is also recommended so that they can afford a higher level of electricity consumption

additions to bank loan loss reserves good news or bad news abstract this paper examines the effects of citicorp s and succeeding banks loan loss reserve announcements in 1987 it was found that while the average effect on bank stock return portfolios was weak the effect on individual bank returns was heterogeneous tests were undertaken to determine which bank specific variables explained the latter result two significant variables were the size of a banks ldc debt exposure and its position in ldc rescheduling committees

modeling household cooking fuel choice a panel multinomial logit approach we use three rounds of a rich panel data set to investigate the determinants of household cooking fuel choice and energy transition in urban ethiopia we observe that the expected energy transition did not occur following economic growth in ethiopia during the decade 20002009 regression results from a random eects multinomial logit model suggest that households economic status price of alternative energy sources and education are important determinants of fuel choice in urban ethiopia the results also suggest the use of multiple fuels or fuel stacking behavior by households we argue that policy makers could target these policy levers to encourage transition to cleaner energy sources

earnings regulatory capital and tax management comments abstract in the preceding papers beaver and engel and adiel investigate managerial discretion in the financial services industry this comment evaluates the contribution and limitations of both papers and suggests avenues for further extensions

overfunded defined benefit pension plan settlements without asset reversions abstract this study examines why firms settle their overfunded defined benefit pension plans under the new accounting standard fasb statement no 88 companies settling their overfunded pension plan can immediately recognize a portion of deffered pension gain as current earnings focusing on settlement transactions unaccompanied by asset reversions we examine financial characteristics of settlement firms including earnings debt covenants management incentive compensation and firms risk and financial structures our results suggest that firms undertake settlement to offset a decline in earnings and mitigate restrictive debt covenant constraints however a settlement firm s systematic risk beta does not change after settlement

earnings management under price regulation empirical evidence from the spanish electricity industry abstract this paper analyses the effect of price regulation on the accounting policy of spanish electricity companies over the period 1991 2001 as predicted by the political costs hypothesis watts and zimmerman 1986 watts r l zimmerman j l 1986 positive accounting theory prentice hall englewood cliffs nj managers artificially reduce reported earnings when the government establishes tariff increases in this way companies attempt to diminish their political visibility and counteract social outcry arising from the government s decision several abnormal accruals models existent in the literature are used to obtain a proxy for managerial accounting discretion on earnings

business cycles and bank regulations what happens to bank provisioning a more comprehensive look at 49 countries numerous researchers provide evidence that many banks intend to increase their loan loss provisioning llp when the economy is in a downward trend however the answer whether banks provide sufficient provisions when the economy is in an upturn trend remains unsolved furthermore provisioning must be influenced not only by business cycles and bank earnings but also by the regulatory system nevertheless empirical research on this issue has been scarce thus this study intends to answer two questions shown above the evidence shows that with steady growth in both the economy and bank earnings the bank management will tend to increase llp whereas with a buoyant economy but negative growth in bank earnings the management will exhibit an inclination to reduce llp as regards the influence of bank regulation on provisions the evidence shows that under certain circumstances banks make more provision based on regulatory considerations this explains why bank regulations regarding llp across countries

household energy consumption versus income and relative standard of living a panel approach our fundamental premise is that energy consumption at the household level is a key indicator of standard of living we employ state of the art panel cointegration techniques to evaluate the nature of the relationship between income measures and energy consumption measures for seven east indian ocean countries the general finding is that income and household electricity consumption are not cointegrated given this finding we conclude that standard of living measures that rely on income measures and do not include household level energy consumption information will necessarily miss important indications of both levels and changes of standard of living

loan loss provisions bank valuations and discretion a comparative study between conventional and islamic banks this study investigates the use of reported loan loss provisions llp by investors in their valuations of banks within the middle east and north africa region between the years 2006 and 2011 we decompose llp into discretionary and non discretionary components to test for differential valuations in the two banking sectors we use alternative criteria to define the components of llp in banks loan quality size and earnings management manipulation incentives we employ a price level valuation model estimated using two stage analyses we find that llp has positive value relevance to investors in both banking sectors investors in islamic banks price the discretionary component relatively lower than their conventional counterparts we attribute this result to differences in product and governance structures as well as to the religious perception of islamic banking in both banking sectors investors construe an increase in the non discretionary component as irrelevant valuation information our results are relevant to bank regulators in showing the signalling effect of llp to bank value and stability

the limitations of market value accounting and a more realistic alternative abstract market value accounting mva might improve market and regulatory discipline on financial institutions unfortunately there are serious conceptual measurement and incentive problems with implementing mva that have not received significant attention these problems are suggested by the theory of asymmetric information and the role intermediaries play in solving information and monitoring problems after analyzing the problems with mva we develop an alternative approach that applies mva principles where they are most feasible and uses a statistical procedure where asymmetric information problems make mva particularly problematic an empirical analysis suggests that this procedure may substantially improve the distribution of regulatory discipline

discretionary accounting and the behavior of japanese banks under financial duress abstract this paper investigates utilization of discretionary accounting practices in the context of international bank regulation under the basle accord specifically we explore implications of earnings management as a means of regulatory capital arbitrage by japanese banks during a period of financial duress 1989 1996 using a sample of 607 pooled time series and cross sectional observations we find evidence that japanese banks lending was capital constrained and that banks set gains on securities sales and loan loss provisions in such a way as to smooth reported income and replenish regulatory capital our results support the hypothesis that the form of earnings management examined may have been instrumental in enabling some japanese banks to comply with international capital regulation we contend that this behavior is otherwise inexplicable on the basis of significant informational tax or economic motivations

who benefit most from fuel subsidies evidence from nigeria abstract the paper studies the benefit incidence of fuel subsidies in nigeria household sector combining annual subsidy estimates with the households expenditure data from the 2009 10 harmonized living standard survey we investigate how the benefits from fuel subsidies are accrued to each income groups in nigeria the results show that while the kerosene subsidy is more evenly distributed across income groups petrol subsidy is concentrated to high income groups in aggregate the top 20 households enjoy twice as much the benefit of fuel subsidies as the bottom 20 households we also examine the concentration and progressivity of fuel subsidies using gini coefficient measures and lorenz concentration curves and find both fuel subsidies are more regressive than the per capita expenditure

energy poverty policies in the eu a critical perspective abstract once confined to the uk context where it was struggling to receive political recognition for years the concept of energy or fuel poverty is slowly entering the eu s agenda where it has crept into a number of regulatory documents and policy proposals using evidence gathered from an international workshop and semi structured interviews with decision makers experts and advocacy activists in brussels and sofia this paper explores the adoption of policies aimed at addressing energy poverty within i the organisational context of the eu and ii national state institutions in bulgaria a member state facing considerable problems at the energy affordability social inequality nexus while the former are largely nascent and poorly co ordinated the latter have already been implemented de jure to a significant extent however many unresolved issues surrounding their de facto implementation remain at the same time national policy makers remain largely unaware of the existence of direct energy poverty related initiatives at the eu level

optimal installation of small hydropower plant a review abstract most of the countries have access to large amounts of water through rivers and canal with this renewable resource electricity can be generated without polluting the environment because of the increasing in electricity demand it is important to estimate the future potential of hydropower it would then be possible to plan development through mix of energy and implement measures to control the development of the electricity market by the use of sustainable small hydropower projects in the present paper attempt has been made to review the different types of model developed to evaluate the cost of the small hydropower projects a review on the different types of correlations developed by earlier investigators has also been presented the present review attempts to cover the benefits such as clean development mechanism cdm internal rate of return irr for financial viability of such projects a review on the different types of optimization techniques is also been presented to minimize the cost of the installation of shp projects

geographies of energy transition space place and the low carbon economy this paper makes a case for examining energy transition as a geographical process involving the reconfiguration of current patterns and scales of economic and social activity the paper draws on a seminar series on the geographies of energy transition security climate governance hosted by the authors between 2009 and 2011 which initiated a dialogue between energy studies and the discipline of human geography focussing on the uk government s policy for a low carbon transition the paper provides a conceptual language with which to describe and assess the geographical implications of a transition towards low carbon energy six concepts are introduced and explained location landscape territoriality spatial differentiation scaling and spatial embeddedness examples illustrate how the geographies of a future low carbon economy are not yet determined and that a range of divergent and contending potential geographical futures are in play more attention to the spaces and places that transition to a low carbon economy will produce can help better understand what living in a low carbon economy will be like it also provides a way to help evaluate the choices and pathways available

factors underlying rural household energy transition a case study of china abstract this paper identifies factors underlying the energy transition of rural households in china based on province level panel data for years of 1991 2014 it indicates that there exists the energy stacking process of rural household energy transition characterized by the significant consumption inertia effects of traditional biomass energy tbe traditional commercial energy tce and advanced commercial energy ace respectively the insignificant substitution effect of tce and ace for tbe and the significant partial substitution of ace for tce with regard to the factors underlying rural household energy transition 1 per capita disposal income is negatively correlated with tbe tce and ace consumption 2 the number of motorcycles is positively correlated with tce and ace consumption 3 the number of firewood saving stoves and the price for ace are positively correlated with tbe consumption 4 household size and the number of motorcycles and the number of appliances are positively correlated with ace consumption 5 education level is positively correlated with tbe but negatively with tce consumption 6 the number of rural energy management institutions is positively correlated with tbe but negatively correlated ace consumption therefore some policy implications are discussed

are the energy poor also income poor evidence from india abstract the energy poverty line is defined as the threshold point at which energy consumption begins to rise with increases in household income this approach is applied to cross sectional data from a comprehensive 2005 household survey representative of both urban and rural india the objective is to determine if the energy poor are also income poor and whether and how energy policies help reduce energy poverty independent of income the findings suggest that in rural areas some 57 of households are energy poor versus 22 that are income poor but in urban areas the energy poverty rate is 28 compared to 20 that are income poor that is energy policies are expected to play some roles in mitigating energy poverty we find that reducing energy poverty requires not only support for rural electrification but also more use of modern cooking fuels such as lpg while income growth matters a combination of energy related programs can play an independent and substantial role in reducing energy poverty

earnings management and auditor specialization in the post sox era an examination of the banking industry abstract this study examines the impact of auditor specialization on bank loan loss provisions for a large cross section of us banks for the period 2002 2006 we find a positive relationship between earning before provision and loan loss provision suggesting that bank managers use llp to smooth earnings in the post sox period however this relationship is significantly moderated by audit industry expertise providing strong evidence that industry specialization constrains income smoothing in further analysis we find some evidence that auditor specialization is more effective in reducing potentially incoming increasing earnings management our results hold after controlling for self selection bias and are robust to alternative measures of industry specialization overall our findings support the conclusion that audit industry expertise plays an effective monitoring role in constraining management s discretionary accounting choices

nonlinear dynamics in discretionary accruals an analysis of bank loan loss provisions abstract several studies have analyzed discretionary accruals to address earnings smoothing behaviors in the banking industry we argue that the characteristic link between accruals and earnings may be nonlinear since both the incentives to manipulate income and the practical way to do so depend partially on the relative size of earnings given a sample of 15 268 us banks over the period 1996 2011 the main results in this paper suggest that depending on the size of earnings bank managers tend to engage in earnings decreasing strategies when earnings are negative big bath use earnings increasing strategies when earnings are positive and use provisions as a smoothing device when earnings are positive and substantial cookie jar accounting this evidence which cannot be explained by the earnings smoothing hypothesis is consistent with the compensation theory neglecting nonlinear patterns in the econometric modeling of these accruals may lead to misleading conclusions regarding the characteristic strategies used in earnings management

measuring energy poverty in japan 2004 2013 abstract this paper first examines energy or fuel poverty in japan from 2004 to 2013 especially around the time of the 2011 great east japan earthquake geje to analyze the issue the paper employs various poverty and vulnerability measures with the assistance of our unique dataset the results indicate the aggravation of energy poverty among lower income and vulnerable households during the past decade resulting from both the escalation of energy prices and lowering of income the analysis also employs a new decomposition technique and identifies the explanatory factors associated with the increase in energy poverty these results suggest there were major changes in the forces driving the increase in energy poverty before and after the geje after 2011 income alleviates energy poverty in japan with energy prices becoming the main driving factor

the role of policy in energy transitions lessons from the energy liberalisation era the aim of this paper is to discuss the period of energy privatisation and liberalisation which began in the 1980s within its wider historical context the key issues are what has been learned from this recent period and how significant is it in the light of an energy transition to low carbon energy system by 2050 energy liberalisation has led to positive and globally widespread but modest efficiency gains but a lack of clearly visible direct benefits to households in many countries it has significantly improved the governance of monopoly utilities via independent regulators the prospects for competition and innovation and the quality of policy instruments for environmental emissions control through the emergence of trading mechanisms we conclude that it is not liberalisation per se that will determine the movement towards a low carbon energy transition but the willingness of societies to bear the cost which will be significant no matter what the extent of liberalisation

aggregation of test statistics an evaluation of the evidence on contracting and size hypotheses abstract more powerful tests of a theory of choice of accounting methods and the effect of changes in these choices on equity values are provided the power increase comes from efficiently aggregating results across studies one conclusion is that at least six variables common to more than one study have explanatory power these variables are managerial compensation leverage size risk and constraints on interest coverage and dividends another conclusion is that the posterior probability that the theory taken as a whole has explanatory power is close to one this conclusion includes the effect of variables that only appear in one study

low quality or high quality coal household energy choice in rural beijing abstract household low quality coal consumption contributes to severe haze pollution in china in response subsidy policies on high quality coal consumption and the adoption of new type coal stoves have been implemented using survey data in rural beijing this paper characterizes the determinants of coal consumption and switching behavior between low quality and high quality coals to this end we apply bivariate probit regression and tobit regression to evaluate the effectiveness of government policies and the influence of cognitive psychological and socioeconomic factors on coal consumption behaviors our empirical results reveal that prosociality and local environmental concern play crucial roles in household choices and consumption behaviors between two types of coals but global environmental concern does not the promotion of new type coal stoves significantly facilitates the transition from low quality to high quality coal while price subsidies on high quality coal do not influence market acceptance of high quality coal these results demonstrate the importance of cognitive psychological factors and promotion policies on coal consumption behavior overall we suggest that an education campaign or program regarding local environmental awareness prosocial values and behaviors and on new type coal stoves should be further promoted to accelerate the transition from low quality to high quality coal

the extraction of natural resources the role of thermodynamic efficiency abstract the modelling of production in microeconomics has been the subject of heated debate the controversial issues include the substitutability between production inputs the role of time and the economic consequences of irreversibility in the production process a case in point is the use of cobb douglas type production functions which completely ignore the physical process underlying the production of a good we examine these issues in the context of the production of a basic commodity such as copper or aluminium we model the extraction and the refinement of a valuable substance which is mixed with waste material in a way which is fully consistent with the physical constraints of the process the resulting analytical description of production unambiguously reveals that perfect substitutability between production inputs fails if a corrected thermodynamic approach is used we analyze the equilibrium pricing of a commodity extracted in an irreversible way we force consumers to purchase goods using energy as the means of payment and force the firm to account in terms of energy the resulting market provides the firm with a form of reversibility of its use of energy under an energy numeraire energy resources will naturally be used in a more parsimonious way

paths of renewable energy development in small island developing states of the south pacific abstract pacific small island developing states psids are small and remote island economies highly reliant on fossil fuels although they are mainly self governing nations they are highly vulnerable to exogenous events such as global fuel price volatility and tropical cyclones the work presented here targets 12 psids located in the south pacific the analysis takes a functional approach to assess the state of the energy governance system and to determine its relationship to renewable energy re penetration using a suite of governance market and financial progress indicators a range of re preparedness levels was identified in psids analysis demonstrated that strengthening of re enabling indicators led to only a limited increase of re penetration consequently the region has fallen behind global rates of re uptake inward investment by development partners for re demonstration projects failed to be upscaled by government facilitated private sector the focus on mitigating global climate change has failed to put re into a local context this contrasts to the strong sense of place and spiritual nature of traditional pacific communities thus in energy terms psids are yet to attain a self defined energy identity

how has the financial crisis affected earnings management a european study the article aims to investigate whether and how in the european union eu the burst of the 2008 financial crisis affected misrepresentation of financial information due to earnings management by analysing a sample of 11 844 firm year observations listed in the eu over the period 2006 2012 an event study methodology allows us to calculate and compare country by country abnormal accruals over the estimation period and over the event period our findings validate our research hypothesis and suggest a decrease of misrepresentation in the large majority of the european countries after the burst of the financial crisis the results take part in the debate in the accounting literature about the change of earnings management over a financial crisis and have several implications for standard setters and regulators that could learn how the common incentives of entities to attract potential investors during a crisis could lead them to provide a high quality financial reporting

vietnam s energy sector a review of current energy policies and strategies abstract since the introduction of market oriented economy in 1986 vietnam has made noticeable socio economic progress in this progress the energy sector has played a vital role this role is likely to deepen in the years to come as vietnam strives to achieve even higher levels in economic progress such deepening in the role of energy this paper argues will heighten concerns about the security of energy supply and economic environmental social and political consequences in order to address these issues vietnam has over the last decade developed a suite of energy policies a deeper review of these policies suggests that they are typified by economic growth orientation exclusive focus on a single sector or single issue and largely neglect the significance of cross sectoral and cross thematic issues arising from the interdependencies between energy economy and the polity at large the existing energy policy settings are therefore unlikely to be able to provide a satisfactory redress to the challenges noted above this paper provides an overview of the current energy policies with a view to identify areas where further policy effort is needed in order to facilitate a sustainable development of the vietnamese energy sector

the coming sustainable energy transition history strategies and outlook abstract facing global climate change and scarce petroleum supplies the world must switch to sustainable energy systems while historical transitions between major energy sources have occurred most of these shifts lasted over a century or longer and were stimulated by resource scarcity high labor costs and technological innovations the energy transition of the 21st century will need to be more rapid unfortunately little is known about how to accelerate energy transitions this article reviews past transitions and factors behind them along with their time frames three modern case studies are discussed brazil which shifted from an oil based transportation system to one based on sugarcane ethanol success france which shifted from oil fired electric power to nuclear power success and the united states which attempted to shift from foreign oil to a mix of domestic energy resources failure lessons from these attempts to govern energy transitions are discussed several policy instruments to accelerate a transition are identified though even under ideal circumstances a global energy supply transition will be very slow given the need to simultaneously implement programs in countries with different political economies a greater focus on energy efficiency promotion of smart grids and possibly a new treaty should yield more timely results

fair value accounting effects on banks earnings volatility regulatory capital and value of contractual cash flows abstract we investigate fair value accounting critics assertions by restating earnings and regulatory capital to reflect banks disclosed investment securities fair values we find 1 fair value based earnings are more volatile than historical cost earnings but share prices do not reflect the incremental volatility 2 banks violate regulatory capital requirements more frequently under under fair value than historical cost accounting fair value based violations help predict regulatory capital violations but share prices do not reflect this potential increased regulatory risk only historical cost violations are market information events 3 share prices reflect interest rates changes even though investment securities contractual cash flows are fixed

an analysis of the greek photovoltaic market abstract the number of photovoltaic applications has increased slightly over the last 10 years in greece with a forecasted 40 increase in the annual rate of sales over the next few years a target similar to the rest of the eu member states this article i presents an analysis of the current situation on the photovoltaic market in greece and attempts to segment this market ii investigates the existing incentives policy as well as the crucial barriers for the wide dissemination of the photovoltaic applications and iii records the market actors aspects and predictions for the future furthermore in order to supply essential information for business development the current investment and legislative framework is presented

energy poverty in rural bangladesh energy poverty is a well established concept among energy and development specialists international development organizations frequently cite energy poverty alleviation as a necessary condition to reduce income poverty several approaches used to measure energy poverty over the past 20 years have defined the energy poverty line as the minimum quantity of physical energy needed to perform such basic tasks as cooking and lighting this paper uses a demand based approach to define the energy poverty line as the threshold point at which energy consumption begins to rise with increases in household income at or below this threshold point households consume a bare minimum level of energy and should be considered energy poor this approach was applied using cross sectional data from a comprehensive 2004 household survey representative of rural bangladesh the findings suggest that some 58 percent of rural households in bangladesh are energy poor versus 45 percent that are income poor the findings also suggest that policies to support rural electrification and greater use of improved biomass stoves might play a significant role in reducing energy poverty

household level effects of electricity on income abstract this paper studies the effect of electricity on income using the nepal living standards survey iii nlssiii carried out in the years 2010 11 to account for endogeneity issues we use a two stage probit least squares 2spls model we find that causality runs both ways that is income explains whether a household is connected to electricity but also a household being connected to electricity has a very large and significant effect on income

empirical research on accounting choice abstract we review research from the 1990s that examines the determinants and consequences of accounting choice structuring our analysis around the three types of market imperfections that influence managers choices agency costs information asymmetries and externalities affecting non contracting parties we conclude that research in the 1990s made limited progress in expanding our understanding of accounting choice because of limitations in research design and a focus on replication rather than extension of current knowledge we discuss opportunities for future research recommending the exploration of the economic implications of accounting choice by addressing the three different reasons why accounting matters

bank valuation and accounting discretion during a financial crisis this paper shows that banks overstate the value of distressed assets and their regulatory capital during the us mortgage crisis real estate related assets are overvalued in banks balance sheets especially those of bigger banks compared to the market value of these assets banks with large exposure to mortgage backed securities also provision less for bad loans furthermore distressed banks use discretion over the classification of mortgage backed securities to inflate their books our results indicate that banks balance sheets offer a distorted view of the financial health of the banks and provide suggestive evidence of regulatory forbearance and noncompliance with accounting rules

energy for sustainable development a case of developing countries abstract today there are 1 4 billion people around the world that lack access to electricity some 85 of them in rural areas without additional dedicated policies by 2030 the number of people drops but only to 1 2 billion some 15 of the world s population still lack access the majority of them living in sub saharan africa the number of people relying on the traditional use of biomass is projected to rise from 2 7 billion today to 2 8 billion in 2030 addressing these inequities depends upon international recognition that the projected situation is intolerable a commitment to effect the necessary change and setting targets and indicators to monitor progress a new financial institutional and technological framework is required as is capacity building in order to dramatically scale up access to modern energy services at the local and regional levels in this paper we discussed the energy situation of the developing countries for sustainable development

energy poverty an overview abstract in the coming decades the energy sector will have to face three major transformations concerned with climate change security of supply and energy poverty the first two have been extensively analysed but less attention has been paid to the third even though it has a great influence on the lives of millions of people this paper presents an overview on energy poverty different ways of measuring it and its implications according to the who indoor pollution causes an estimated 1 3 million deaths per annum in low income countries associated with the use of biomass in inadequate cookstoves although energy poverty cannot be delinked from the broader more complex problem of poverty in general access to energy infrastructures would avoid its most serious consequences and would help to encourage autonomous development according to the iea the cost of providing universal access to energy by 2030 would require annual investment of 35 billion i e much less than the amount provided annually in subsidies to fossil fuels finally the paper argues that energy and energy poverty need to be incorporated into the design of development strategies

fair value disclosures by bank holding companies abstract this paper examines the value relevance of fair value data disclosed under sfas 107 by banks for 1992 and 1993 collectively the evidence suggests differences between fair and book values of financial instruments are associated with market to book ratios however fair value disclosures for financial instruments other than securities are value relevant only in limited settings in addition only in 1992 are fair value variables associated with market to book ratios after incorporating existing historical cost information further analysis suggests the weaker 1993 results are not necessarily due to increased measurement error in fair value numbers

the relevance of the value relevance literature for financial accounting standard setting another view this paper explains that value relevance research assesses how well accounting amounts reflect information used by equity investors and provides insights into questions of interest to standard setters a primary focus of financial statements is equity investment other uses of financial statement information such as contracting do not diminish the importance of value relevance research value relevance questions can be addressed using extant valuation models value relevance studies address econometric issues that otherwise could limit inferences and can accommodate and be used to study the implications of accounting conservatism r 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classification m41 m44 g12

welfare impacts of rural electrification a panel data analysis from vietnam abstract most past studies on the development impact of rural electrification have relied on cross sectional surveys comparing households with and without electricity this study tests the validity of the perceived correlation between welfare outcomes and rural electrification and quantifies electricity s benefits on the basis of sound econometric techniques that control for endogeneity bias the study used panel surveys conducted in rural vietnam in 2002 and 2005 covering some 1 120 households in 41 communes by 2005 all surveyed communes had connected to the grid and four fifths of their households had a connection the econometric estimations suggest grid electrification s positive effects on both household income and expenditure and education we find differential returns to electricity for commune and household level connection the former generates externality benefiting the poor more than the rich farm more than nonfarm income and girls over boys for schooling outcome conversely the latter

the energy transition in action urban domestic fuel choices in a changing zimbabwe two questionnaire surveys of fuel use by low income households in zimbabwe were conducted in four small towns in 1994 and in these towns plus four larger towns in 1999 an energy transition from wood through kerosene to electricity occurred a with rising household income b with increasing electrification status among towns and c over time in the smaller towns in spite of falling household incomes in two of the towns increasing discrepancy in the incomes of higher and lower income groups over time was not associated with greater divergence in their fuel choices by 1999 electricity was used by almost all households in towns with good electricity supplies while use of firewood in these towns was infrequent however even the wealthiest households continued to combine electricity with other fuels usually kerosene electricity use by less affluent households is apparently limited by lack of connections in the home and by access to appliances while fuel prices which are subject to government subsidies and fell in real terms over 5 years have been less important zimbabwe s urban domestic energy policy has had considerable success in terms of equity but this is increasingly difficult to maintain given present economic and political uncertainty

techno economic evaluation of small hydro power plants in greece a complete sensitivity analysis abstract hydropower has by far been the most mature renewable energy resource used for electricity generation in our planet recently the investors interest was whipped up by the mass development of small hydropower shp stations as they are the most prosperous for additional hydropower penetration in developed electricity markets in greece the increasing interest for building shp stations got off the ground since 1994 ever since an enormous number of requests keep piling up in the greek regulatory authority of energy and the ministry of development with the object of creating new shp stations of total capacity over 600 mw the present work is concentrated on the systematic investigation of the techno economic viability of shp stations the study is concluded by a sensitivity analysis properly adapted for the local market financial situation in order to enlighten the decision makers on the expected profitability of the capital to be invested according to the results obtained the predicted internal rate of return irr values are greater than 18 for most shp cases analysed finally as per the sensitivity analysis carried out the installation capacity factor the local market electricity price annual escalation rate and the reduced first installation cost are found to be the parameters that mostly affect the viability of similar ventures

managing interacting accounting measures to meet multiple objectives a study of lifo firms abstract using a sample of lifo users we examine the strengths and weaknesses of adopting a simultaneous equations approach to study managers adjustments of interacting accounting measures that meet multiple objectives we focus on the importance of considering differences in the costs and the effectiveness of adjusting accounting measures in addition we examine managers objectives in subsequent years and how adjustments reversals affect those objectives although generally consistent with earlier studies of lifo inventory adjustments our results indicate that modelling interacting accounting measures such as other current accruals and depreciation leads to differing conclusions about the role of taxes

capital adequacy ratio regulations and accounting choices in commercial banks abstract this study examines a commercial bank manager s incentives to reduce regulatory costs imposed when the bank s capital adequacy ratio falls below its regulatory minimum it also tests the general political sensitivity hypothesis that a manager seeks to reduce political costs incurred when revenue is unusually large tests of adjustments to the loan loss provision loan charge offs and securities gains and losses attempt to control for exogenous economic conditions and previous investing decisions results are consistent with hypotheses associating accounting adjustments with capital adequacy ratio guidelines but fail to support the political sensitivity hypothesis

determinants of household energy consumption in india improving access to affordable modern energy is critical to improving living standards in the developing world rural households in india in particular are almost entirely reliant on traditional biomass for their basic cooking energy needs this has adverse effects on their health and productivity and also causes environmental degradation this study presents a new generic modelling approach with a focus on cooking fuel choices and explores response strategies for energy poverty eradication in india the modelling approach analyzes the determinants of fuel consumption choices for heterogeneous household groups incorporating the effect of income distributions and traditionally more intangible factors such as preferences and private discount rates the methodology is used to develop alternate future scenarios that explore how different policy mechanisms such as fuel subsidies and micro financing can enhance the diffusion of modern more efficient energy sources in india

measuring and monitoring fuel poverty in the uk national and regional perspectives abstract throughout the industrialised world fuel poverty is the most commonly accepted term with which to describe a household s inability to afford basic standards of heat power and light whilst the term gained widespread acceptance with the publication of the uk s fuel poverty strategy in 2001 little is known about the origins of the term itself this paper traces the earliest formulations of the concept focusing particularly on the 10 needs to spend threshold which was adopted in 1991 and remains in place some 20 years later this paper argues that understanding more about the origins of this threshold yields a more critical understanding of why fuel poverty targets in the uk have not been reached and enables a more informed approach to setting realistic targets for the future it also provides an opportunity to explore regional disparities in uk fuel poverty prevalence highlighting the extent to which rigid adherence to a 10 threshold has created an unstable regional mosaic of over estimation and under estimation

accounting for banks capital regulation and risk taking this paper examines risk taking incentives in banks under dierent accounting regimes with capital regulation in the model the bank s decisions of capital issuance and investment policy are jointly determined given exogenous minimum capital requirement the bank is more likely to issue equity capital in excess of the minimum required level and implement less risky investment policy under either lower of cost ormarket accounting or fair value accounting than under historical cost accounting but fair value accounting may induce more risk taking compared to lower of cost or market accounting due to short term interest in the part of the bank however the disciplining role of lower of cost or market accounting may discourage bank s incentive to exert project discovery eort

the german energy transition as a regime shift abstract in this paper i use the resilience framework to interpret the project of transforming the german energy system into a renewable energy sources res based system the so called energiewende as a regime shift this regime shift comprises several transformations which are currently altering the technological political and economic system structure to build my argument i first sketch how technological political and economic developments reduced the resilience of the conventional fossil nuclear energy regime and created a new res regime second i depict recent changes in german public discourse and energy policy as the shift to the res regime third i highlight the challenges involved with increasing the resilience of the res regime in particular sufficient resilience of the electricity transmission grid appears to be crucial for facilitating the transformation of the whole energy system

an empirical analysis of household energy choice in ghana abstract using data from two recently available living standards surveys we trace the dynamics in cooking fuel choice among ghanaian households over the period 2005 6 and 2012 13 and further investigate the main forces driving households choice of a cooking fuel evidence from this paper reveals a significant transition from fuelwood use towards lpg over the period results further reveal factors such as price reliability in supply of lpg income and other household attributes as significant factors influencing households choice of a given energy type for cooking relevant policy prescriptions are offered to engender sustainable energy use and reduce over reliance on the already depleted forest resources for biomass energy

the exploitation of electricity production projects from renewable energy sources for the social and economic development of remote communities the case of greece an example to avoid abstract since 2009 an anarchic policy has been followed by the investors regarding the submission of a large number of applications in greece for the construction of electricity production projects from renewable energy sources r e s applications and licenses without any strategic design usually of extremely large size in relatively small insular territories often violating several environmental or cultural constraints defined in the relevant legislation applications and licenses that have been submitted without informing the local communities neglecting the existing industrial agricultural or domestic activities the land properties and consequently provoking the common sense and reverting the generally positive common attribute about r e s recorded in greece before 2008 these applications and licenses exhibit low maturity characterized by violation of environmental constraints disapproval of local communities inadequacy to procure the required land properties and lack of r e s potential measurements ultimately they exhibit very low probabilities to be implemented furthermore all these premature applications cover large geographical territories preventing thus other mature and more realistic r e s projects from applying for licensing consequently the existing applications and licenses instead of promoting the r e s development in greece continue to keep it steady this article aims at the investigation of the causes that resulted in the above described negative reality potential deficiencies of the existing legislative framework are analyzed some characteristic examples of the submitted applications or issued licenses are presented and their technical and economic feasibility is evaluated finally the article proposes measures for the rational development of r e s electricity production projects in greece these measures aim to combine the maximization of the r e s development with the protection of the local communities furthermore they aim to support the participation of local investors and public organizations in the r e s projects this perspective will maximize the social and economic benefits to the local communities

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

tax planning regulatory capital planning and financial reporting strategy for commercial banks we test whether banks investment and financing policies can be explained by tax status we document changes in bank holdings of municipal bonds in response to changes in tax rules relating to deductibility of interest expense we also document an association between banks marginal tax rates and their investment and financing decisions which is consistent with the existence of tax clienteles however banks do not sort themselves perfectly into investment and financing clienteles because of adjustment costs we posit specific types of transaction cost impediments to tax planning and document that banks apparently trade off these costs against tax planning benefits article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

implementation of renewable energy in scottish rural area a social study abstract nowadays renewable energy is considered one of the valuable sources of energy in the energy sector it is contributing major role in fulfilling the increasing level of global energy crisis although most of study of renewable energy is done through its technological development and a few are done in its acceptance level socially in such consequences this research considers the social acceptability of renewable energy in terms of economical environmental and cultural perspectives as a test bed scottish rural areas were considered for this social study where the areas are regarded as lacking of continuous energy supply due to weak grid and socio economic growth this research investigates the intimate and sensitive nature of the social issues in rural scotland that are important in the communities when decisions are made on renewable energy supply and demand the social interactions are investigated by means of both interviewing the local residents and distributed questionnaires among them the responses from the interviews and the questions are analyzed according to the predefined criterion of renewable energy such as willingness to accept changes of life style income and pay and education and employment

exploring renewable energy pricing with analytic network process comparing a developed and a developing economy abstract increasing use of renewable sources has a vital importance in mitigating increasing energy demand and global warming the limited reserves and negative environmental impacts associated with fossil fuel consumption make the renewable energy sources considerable alternatives in case environmental externalities are taken into consideration pricing models for renewable energy alternatives are commonly based on the same fundamentals as the fossil fuels but this approach neglects some of the characteristics that are unique to renewable energy alternatives in order to develop more accurate pricing models these unique variables which are mostly considered as market externalities need to be integrated in the current forms of pricing models the originality of this work is its ability to combine social technical environmental and economic aspects using analytic network process in order to provide a more holistic point of view on factors impacting renewable energy pricing through a comparison of two case studies united states u s and turkey are the two cases analyzed in this paper u s represents a developed economy whereas turkey represents a developing economy it is expected that the results of this work would be helpful for further research in understanding the dynamics behind pricing mechanism of the renewable sources in different environments for instance fundamental differences in relative importance of pricing factors between two case countries have been identified as different levels of enforcement through laws and regulations impact of geographic characteristics on site selection and job opportunities created through new investments

discretionary behavior with respect to allowances for loan losses and the behavior of security prices abstract the study examines the capital market pricing of discretionary and nondiscretionary components of a major accrual in the banking industry the allowance for loan losses the analysis employs a two stage approach in which the allowance account is first decomposed into estimates of its nondiscretionary and discretionary components the second stage evaluates the market s valuation of the estimates of the components evidence suggests that the capital market perceives the allowance to be comprised of two components a nondiscretionary component which is negatively priced and a discretionary component whose incremental pricing coefficient is positive

does basel ii affect the market valuation of discretionary loan loss provisions we use a sample of banks from 24 european countries to investigate whether the adoption of the basel ii capital accord in 2008 affects the market valuation of discretionary loan loss provisions dllps although basel ii lowers the incentives of internal ratings based irb banks to recognize income increasing dllps in an opportunistic manner it has no such impact on the remaining banks which adopt the standardized methodology we use this setup in a difference in difference did design where standardized banks act as a control group our evidence supports the three hypotheses that for irb relative to standardized banks basel ii is associated with i less income increasing dllps and ii less income smoothing via dllps which enhances the informational content of dllps about future loan losses and leads to iii higher market valuation of dllps our findings are timely and have policy implications for future regulatory developments in the banking industry

an empirical analysis of the economic implications of fair value accounting for investment securities abstract this paper analyzes security returns of bank holding companies and insurance companies during periods surrounding the adoption of sfas 115 we find bank share prices were negatively affected by the examined events but find little share price reaction for insurance companies our evidence suggests banks were adversely affected by the standard because of problems with the standard s market value accounting approach cross sectional analysis of event period returns shows that banks that more frequently traded their investments with longer maturing investments and that are more fully hedged against interest rate changes were the most negatively impacted by the standard

who adopts lpg as the main cooking fuel and why empirical evidence on ghana based on national survey the aim of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the probability of adopting lpg as the main cooking fuel in ghana using household level data gleaned from last two nationwide household surveys glss 5 glss 6 using a flexible semi parametric specification the following were uncovered first we find socioeconomic and demographic factors such as income education access to urban infrastructure and location of household as key drivers of households choice of lpg as main cooking energy source again the influences of these factors are stable across time and with a strong price effect the evidence shows that urban households with better socioeconomic and demographic factors are likely to adopt lpg as the main cooking fuel relative to households in rural areas and also urban households with poor socioeconomic and demographic factors finally we observe that the imposition of fully parametric structure functional form prior to estimation on factors such as age of household head income and household size as done in the literature is inappropriate at least in the case of ghana and tend to bias the marginal effects there is strong evidence of variations in the response rate of lpg adoption over the domains of income household size and the age of the household head the results suggest a policy dichotomy between rural and urban dwellers for it to be effective

rent seizing and environmental concerns a parametric valuation of the italian hydropower sector abstract this paper is the first attempt to estimate the hydroelectricity rent in italy as several concessions are about to expire and the first to analyze the implications of different redistribution mechanisms due to budgetary constraints local authorities want to capture a higher part of the rent thought to be considerable at the same time the renewal procedure entails the implementation of environmental mitigation measures as set forth in the water framework directive hence rent seizing and environmental protection generate a major trade off we focus our analysis on the county of sondrio home to 18 of the overall hydropower capacity where the first renewals will take place we obtain the highest rent ever estimated for hydropower production averaging from 30 3 mwh to 82 4 mwh these high values explain why local authorities are pushing for the introduction of a 30 revenue sharing fee as they would earn almost 90 of the rent much more than the 50 currently seized albeit satisfying the rent seizing objective the proposed fee hinders the implementation of costly mitigation measures in this paper we advocate the adoption of a resource rent tax as we show that it would reduce the trade off between rent seizing and environmental protection

energy and economic analysis for large scale integration of small photovoltaic systems in buildings the case of a public location in southern spain abstract the integration of grid connected pv systems into buildings or public areas is one of the most usual applications of the photovoltaic solar energy in developed countries and it is being highly promoted by several european governments in this paper it has been evaluated the photovoltaic potential of the campus of the university of jaen and it has been defined possible areas where the pv systems could be installed according to power requirements space possibilities the electrical configuration of the campus and some social integration requirements too the definition of the pv potential together with a technical analysis for the calculation of the energy generated is the previous step for carrying out an economic and cost analysis in order to certify the profitability of these systems in general particularizing the study for the case of this university located in southern spain the pv electricity cost generated has been calculated through the concept levelised cost of electricity lcoe where in our case is estimated to be around 0 13 0 14 kwh 1 the results obtained in this economic analysis recommend the implementation of pv grid connected systems pvgcs as the internal rate of return reaches a maximum value of 6 21 the net present value is positive and the discounted payback time is around 16 years an additional sensitive analysis shows the influence that some parameters have on the lcoe specially the initial investment the energy yield and the nominal discount rate

citizens views on electricity use savings and production from renewable energy sources a case study from a greek island abstract a country s economic growth is closely linked to the availability generation distribution and use of energy at the same time the increased rate of global energy consumption is a risk to development and to the efforts to safeguard people s living standards for the future the production of electricity from res substantially contributes to the energy security of states and to environmental protection greece has a valuable and exploitable potential in several res and can significantly increase their use however various significant institutional changes have taken place in greece over the last decades involving changes to the energy mix the penetration of res and attracting foreign investment the present research took place on the island of andros greece with the help of a questionnaire and face to face interviews it is noted that the respondents agree with the need to save energy and to expand the use of green energy they say they are slightly satisfied by the messages given through the mass media they have insufficient information regarding res systems that can be used in households and believe that a major subsidy from the state would lead to their purchase

maintaining adequate bank capital an empirical analysis of the supervision of european banks abstract during the recent financial crisis many large banks losses were absorbed by their sponsoring governments despite the fact that these banks complied with basel standards for adequate capital we illustrate a serious supervisory problem by demonstrating that large european banks reported regulatory capital measures often far exceeded their loss absorbing capacity during 1997 2011 the cumulative value of government guarantees thereby extended to the largest 25 european banks over that period amounts to nearly 1 4 trillion corresponding to an average of 28 5 of the banks equity market values we show that early regulatory attention to declining equity value can substantially reduce the social cost of dealing with bank losses this research is particularly relevant for european institutions at the present time as the european union deals with joint solvency concerns about its banks and its governments

why bank credit policies fluctuate a theory and some evidence in a rational profit maximizing world banks should msdntain a credit policy of lending if and only if borrowers have positive net present value projects why then are changes in credit policy seemingly correlated with changes in the condition of those demanding credit this paper argues that rational bank managers with short horizons will set credit policies that influence and are influenced by other banks and demand side conditions this leads to a theory of low frequency business cycles driven by bank credit policies evidence from the banking crisis in new england in the early 1990s is consistent with the assumptions and predictions of the theory

the economic viability of commercial wind plants in greece a complete sensitivity analysis abstract the influence of the governing techno economic parameters on the economic behaviour of commercial wind parks is investigated for this purpose a complete cost benefit analysis model properly adapted for the greek market is developed in order to calculate the pay back period and the economic efficiency of similar investments in the energy production sector moreover the impact of various parameters such as capital cost return on investment index local inflation rate index electricity price escalation rate installation capacity factor m o cost turn on key cost of the power plant size of wind turbines used on the economic viability and attractiveness is extensively investigated using a well elaborated simple expert system type numerical code finally the prediction results are summarised in a representative sensitivity analysis map including the most reasonable economic scenarios taking into account the analytical results of the proposed study along with the existence of high wind potential regions in greece a remarkable growth of the wind energy sector is expected in the near future leading to considerable investment profits and offering a strong position share of the liberalised local power market

stock market valuation of gains and losses on commercial banks investment securities an empirical analysis abstract prior studies document an insignificant effect of unrealized gains losses urgl and a negative effect of realized gains losses sgl on bank stock returns we argue that these results may reflect the omission of changes in value of other net assets resulting from interest rate changes we find that after controlling for effects of other on balance sheet net assets both urgl and sgl have significant positive effects on bank returns in normal periods but the sgl effect is significantly lower in periods of low capital and earnings these findings are relevant to the market value accounting debate

the federal deposit insurance fund that didn t put a bite on u s tax payers abstract unlike the federal savings and loan insurance corporation and the bank insurance fund the national credit union share insurance fund ncusif survived the 1980s without falling into a state of accounting insolvency this paper analyzes how differences in incentive structure constrain the attractiveness of interest rate speculation and other risk taking opportunities to managers and regulators of credit unions despite these better incentives robust present value calculations establish that ncusif fell into economic insolvency during the mid 1980s besides calculating the extent of this insolvency the paper also seeks to explain why after ncusif became insolvent it could rebuild its reserves without an explicit or implicit taxpayer bailout our explanation turns on cross industry coinsurance responsibilities and the shallowness of the fund s observed insolvency relative to industry net worth we identify forces in the decisionmaking environment tending to limit the depth and duration of unresolved insolvencies at individual credit unions managerial opportunities to benefit personally from taking risks that would flow through to ncusif are constrained by difficulties in converting a credit union to stockholder form and by the intensity of proactive monitoring of troubled credit unions by sister institutions and other private coinsurers we conjecture that expanded use of coinsurance and private monitoring could reduce taxpayer loss exposure elsewhere in government deposit insurance systems