china s oil use 1990 2008 abstract over the past two decades china s oil demand has risen steeply in 1990 it was only about 25 higher than that of 1978 the year economic reform was introduced by 2008 it had reached 396 0 million tons roughly four times the 1978 level making china the second largest oil user worldwide the country became a net oil importer in 1993 and between 1993 and 2008 its net import dependency a yardstick for energy security soared from 7 5 to 50 0 china s increased demand for oil has made the country a global energy player of critical importance although the literature on the global implications of china s oil use has proliferated relatively few studies have attempted to examine how china uses oil hence this study covers every oil consuming facility and sector in china exploring the patterns of and factors involved in oil demand by power plants oil refineries heat plants and gas works and industrial transport agricultural household and commercial sectors it concludes that in virtually all sectors in china oil demand will grow with transport and industry leading the way

dynamics of energy related co2 emissions in china during 1980 to 2002 the relative importance of energy supply side and demand side effects abstract based on a newly developed model that integrates energy production transformation and consumption processes this paper compares the relative importance of some traditionally recognized factors operating on the energy demand side with a body of newly defined factors on the supply side in terms of their contribution to trends in china s co2 emissions related to the total primary energy supply c tpes before 1996 changes in china s c tpes were mainly driven by changes on the energy demand side factors operating on the energy supply side played trivial roles during the period 1996 2000 however increasing demand side effects declined dramatically and at the same time decreasing effects from supply side expanded significantly such changes resulted directly in a decline in the c tpes the decreasing effects from international trade as well as statistical imbalances between supply and demand reinforced the declining trend the shrinkage of demand side effects mainly arose from the slowdown of economic growth and speed of decrease in energy intensity the expansion of supply side effects was principally attributed to the speed of decrease in gross unit consumption in transformation sectors especially in electricity sector therefore the acceleration of efficiency improvements in end use and transformation sectors accounted for the decline in the c tpes over the period 1996 2000

mobility and wage growth of male household heads 1989 mobility and wage growth of male household heads applied economics vol 21 no 4 pp 475 485

co2 emissions from china s power sector at the provincial level consumption versus production perspectives abstract the chinese electricity sector plays an important role in domestic co2 mitigation efforts due to its large contribution to overall emissions however primary energy resources used for electricity generation are not evenly distributed across the country such a supply and demand mismatch in reality results in large parts of electricity to be transferred from economically less developed provinces in the west to economic growth centres in the east a literature review shows that the emissions embodied in electricity transfer within china have not been explicitly studied although in fact they cause a shift of environmental pollution away from economically well off provinces to resource rich and less developed provinces therefore it is critical for policy makers to address this issue under such a circumstance a bottom up model is developed to calculate direct co2 emissions embodied in electricity export and import between chinese provinces it helps quantifying emissions from the power sector associated with both production and consumption perspectives and sheds lights on the environmental impact of regional supply and demand mismatch in china results show that the difference between consumption and production based co2 emissions from electricity sector in some provinces were higher than the total co2 emissions from electricity sector in netherlands in the case of beijing or as high as the total co2 emission from france s electricity sector in the case of guangdong based upon chinese realities policy implications and suggestions are made such as how to set up appropriate emission reduction targets for electricity sector at provincial level and the inclusion of consumption emissions in designing china s cap and trade mechanism the methodology and findings may be useful for investigation of embodied emissions throughout various regions of the world

do unionized firms hire better workers i introduction many economists firmly believe that union firms offset higher union wages by hiring better workers the contrasting view that union employers react to higher union wages by hiring poorer quality workers is regarded as impossible 1 yet this contrasting view is highly plausible in the context of standard economic modeling and with what is known about labor markets there is evidence supporting this view the standard story for unionized firms hiring better workers goes like this a union raises wages and the firm foils the union by hiring better quality workers the problem with this myopic story is that it ignores what happens in the future it assumes that unions will sit idly by and let union firms whittle away any union wage differential by hiring better quality workers i would argue that it is more likely that unions would respond to better quality workers by raising wages even more employers anticipating this may respond by hiring lower quality workers this article is the first to consider how unionized firms choose worker quality when they anticipate the future consequences of quality on wages under reasonable conditions these consequences cause employers to hire lower quality workers while i do not contend this always occurs i do argue that there are reasonable grounds for rejecting the better quality proposition in addition there is evidence that unionization often does result in lower quality workers the results presented here suggest that economists should look again at how unions affect wages productivity equality and society this is not the first paper to suggest unions lead to lower quality workers it is however the first to suggest this result is due to employers making profit maximizing decisions when they anticipate the future consequences of their actions there are two other articles that also suggest unions can lead to lower quality workers first robinson 1989 assumes that unionized employers do want higher quality workers but do not hire them because nonunion firms pay them more as the nonunion firms are assumed to have better monitoring technology and a more flexible reward system second bronars and lott 1989 show that unions that seek the maximum dues will want poorer quality workers while these models focus on factors that may prove to be important the model presented here is theoretically more forceful first it is based upon standard economic modeling second using ochkam s razor it assumes the least added factors and finally its central assumption that people anticipate the future has a large body of economic evidence behind it by demonstrating that the better quality proposition is not supported by conventional economic analysis this article shows the better quality proposition should not be given a greater weight in the priors of economists having done this these other models then should and hopefully will be examined more closely ii the case for unions leading to better quality workers in discussing the wage gap between union and nonunion workers h gregg lewis 1986 46 concisely presents the case that union firms select better workers i have strong priors on the direction of the selectivity bias let a union through collective bargaining impose on an employer higher wages for his workers than he otherwise would pay them with worker quality not tightly specified in the collective bargaining agreement the higher wages will lengthen the queue of the applicants for the unionized jobs including some applicants of greater productiveness than otherwise would have applied the employer has an incentive to evade the increase in his labor costs by employing workers of greater quality the evasion will take time and will be impeded by the cost of screening workers imperfect substitution in production among worker quality and employment constraints in the collective bargaining agreements

market related reforms and increased energy efficiency in transition countries empirical evidence energy efficiency improvement is a desirable response to growing climate change and security of energy supply concerns this article studies the impacts of a varied set of macro level market oriented reforms as well as structural change on economy wide measure of energy efficiency across a group of the transition countries these countries experienced a rapid marketization process which since the early 1990s transformed their economies from central planning towards market driven models we use a bias corrected fixed effect analysis technique to estimate this effect for the period 1990 to 2010 the results suggest that reforms aimed at market liberalization financial sector and most infrastructure industries drove energy efficiency improvements we find significant differences in improvements in energy efficiency between transitional central european and baltic states south east europe ones and the commonwealth of independent states the reasons for these differences are also discussed

energy policies for managing china s carbon emission abstract the well documented close relationship between economic growth and energy use indicates that the emergence of a country as an economic power cannot occur without increased in energy use but just as the scale of china s rise as an economic power has no clear parallel in history its conflict between economic growth and energy use has also shattered all precedents this planet s future energy scenario hinges on the ability of this decoupling the question this policy forum addressed is how to find the optimum way to accomplish this decoupling through government directive government centered command and control approaches or cac or market forces market based instruments or mbi it concludes that market rather than government can decide the optimum way to decouple china s economic growth from energy use facilitating this decoupling driven by market force requires getting the prices right for energy

an analysis of the driving forces of co2 emissions embodied in japan china trade abstract by using the latest china japan input output data sets and the index decomposition analysis ida approach this article analyzes the driving forces of co2 emissions embodied in trade between the two countries during 1990 2000 we found that the growth of trade volume had a large influence on the increase of co2 emissions embodiments in bilateral trade the dramatic decline in carbon intensity of the chinese economy is a primary cause in offsetting co2 emissions exported from china to japan over 1995 2000 we argue that a better understanding of the factors affecting co2 emissions embodied in international trade will assist in seeking more effective climate policies with wider participation in the post kyoto regime

a portfolio view of consumer credit abstract to compute risk adjusted returns and gauge the volatility of their portfolios lenders need to know the covariances of their loans returns with aggregate returns we use unique credit bureau data to measure individuals covariance risk i e the covariance of their default risk with aggregate consumer default rates and more generally to analyze the distribution of credit including the effects of credit scores we find significant heterogeneity in covariance risk across consumers also the amount of credit they obtain significantly increases with their credit scores and decreases with their covariance risk especially revolving credit though the effect of covariance risk is smaller

how to reduce energy intensity in china s heavy industry evidence from a seemingly uncorrelated regression abstract with rapid development and large scale urbanization china s environmental and resource constraints are becoming increasingly severe compared to other industries china s heavy industry is energy intensive and emission intensive which exerts pressure on energy conservation policies in this paper by establishing a theoretical model of the impact factors of energy intensity we investigate the effects of energy prices ownership structure and industrial concentration and r d investment on the energy intensity of china s heavy industry and seemingly unrelated regression model was used in the estimation of corresponding coefficients the results show that increase in energy prices decrease in state owned enterprises and increase in industrial concentration may reduce the energy intensity of the industry also the study points to evidence that an increase in r d investment may reduce the oil intensity of heavy industry

demographic and time patterns in layoffs and quits this article decomposes the monthly transition from employment to unemployment as measured by gross flow data into layoffs and quits for ten age sex groups it examines three patterns for each subflow over the 1967 83 periods and compares age and sex groups it finds that layoffs are more cyclically sensitive than quits into unemployment and that trend is a more influential determinant of layoffs than business cycle factors for most males whereas the opposite is true for most females other researchers have not found such robust cyclical results probably because they have not distinguished between layoffs and quits in the employment to unemployment transition policy implications are briefly discussed

a review on global wind energy policy with the increasing negative effects of fossil fuel combustion on the environment in addition to limited stock of fossil fuel have forced many countries to inquire into and change to environmentally friendly alternatives that are renewable to sustain the increasing energy demand energy policy plays a vital role to mitigate the impacts of global warming and crisis of energy availability this paper explores the wind energy industry from the point of view of the wind energy policy it is noticed that energy policy could help increasing wind power generation as well as stimulating the energy industry it may be stated that without specific energy policy a country would not be able to solve the acute problems like reducing greenhouse gases ghgs emission scarcity of energy etc this paper discussed the existing successful energy policies for few selected countries based on literatures it has been found that fit rps incentives pricing law and quota system are the most useful energy policies practiced by many countries around the world then status of wind energy policy for malaysia was investigated and compared with few selected countries around the world

job queues and the union status of workers this paper develops a model of the determination of the union status of workers that allows for the possibility of queuing for union jobs the empirical results derived using a sample from the university of michigan panel study of income dynamics are supportive of the queuing hypothesis the no queue model can be rejected using a likelihood ratio test this suggests that a simple probit or logit model for union status is misspecified because it is not based on any consistent behavioral theory an important implication of the model is that because most new entrants to the labor market prefer union jobs but cannot get them and because accrual of nonunion seniority makes workers progressively less likely to desire union jobs the union status of workers is largely determined by their success in being selected from the queue early in their working life

causes and consequences of layoffs using probit analysis this article finds that differential treatment accounts for a substantial portion of the higher layoff rates of blacks in comparison to whites however women are found to be considerably less prone to layoffs than men with similar characteristics among those who obtained subsequent employment taking into account the possible selectivity bias in such a subsample white males are hurt more by layoffs than black males in terms of both short term and long term earnings growth women s earnings are not necessarily affected by layoff at all however whites and males are found to be more likely to be reemployed than blacks and females respectively

substitution possibilities and determinants of energy intensity for china abstract this paper measures technological change factor demand and inter factor and inter fuel substitutability measures for china we use individual fuel price data and a two stage approach to estimate total factor cost functions and fuel share equations both inter factor and inter fuel substitution elasticities are calculated and the change in energy intensity is decomposed into its driving forces the results suggest that energy is substitutable for capital regionally and for labor nationally capital substitutes for energy more easily than labor does energy intensity changes vary by region but the major drivers seem to be budget effect and the adoption of energy intensive technologies which might be embodied in high level energy using exports and sectors capital investment and even old technique and equipment imports whether the trend in rising energy intensity continues will be significant for china and the rest of the world

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

the returns to mobility and job search by gender using data from the national longitudinal survey of youth the authors estimate the returns to job search mobility and the interaction of search and mobility for young men and women they find st

government expenditure and energy intensity in china the recent economic stimulus package of china has raised growing concern about its potential impact on energy demand and efficiency to what extent does such expansion of government expenditure influence energy intensity this question has not been well answered by the previous research using provincial panel data this paper provides some evidence of a link between government expenditure and energy intensity in china the empirical results demonstrate that the expansion of government expenditure since asian financial crisis has exerted a significant influence on energy intensity an increase in government expenditure in china leads to an increase in energy intensity further analysis compares such relationships in different economic situations the comparison shows that such positive effect of government expenditure remains significant after the alteration in economic situation therefore the results suggest introducing some measures to consolidate china s existing gains in energy efficiency the analysis also explains why the downward trend in energy intensity is reversed in china since 2002

can market oriented economic reforms contribute to energy efficiency improvement evidence from china since china accelerated its market oriented economic reforms at the end of 1992 its energy intensity has declined 3 6 annually over 1993 2005 however its energy intensity declined 4 2 annually during its first reform period 1979 1992 therefore can we conclude that the accelerated marketization since the end of 1992 has made no contribution to its energy efficiency improvement in order to answer this challenging question we examine the changes of energy own price elasticity as well as the elasticities of substitution between energy and non energy capital and labor in china during the periods of 1979 1992 and 1993 2003 generally in transition or developing economies holding the technology and output level fixed if the energy own price elasticity algebraic value declines or the substitution elasticity between factors rises they will contribute to energy efficiency improvement our empirical study finds that 1 during 1979 1992 the energy own price elasticity is positive 0 285 and capital energy labor energy are both morishima complementary which indicates a distorted energy price and inefficient allocation and 2 during 1993 2003 the own price elasticity for energy is negative 1 236 and capital energy and labor energy are both morishima substitute all factor demands become more elastic and all elasticities of substitution increase the implication is that the accelerated marketization contributes substantially to energy efficiency improvement since 1993 c 2006 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

china s energy economy technical change factor demand and interfactor interfuel substitution with its rapid economic growth china s primary energy consumption has exceeded domestic energy production since 1994 leading to a substantial expansion in energy imports particularly of oil china s energy demand has an increasingly significant impact on global energy markets in this paper allen partial elasticities of factor and energy substitution and price elasticities of energy demand are calculated for china using a two stage translog cost function approach the results suggest that energy is substitutable with both capital and labor coal is significantly substitutable with electricity and complementary with diesel while gasoline and electricity are substitutable with diesel china s energy intensity is increasing during the study period 1995 2004 and the major driver appears to be due to the increased use of energyintensive technology

the economic consequences of labor mobility unlike most previous research on the relative changes in earnings of job stayers and job changers this study examines the variance in earnings changes rather than simply average changes men and women rather than only men and the five year period following job change rather than only the first year or two the author finds great variability in earnings changes both within and across race and gender groups notably men gained more from quits and except in the case of low wage workers lost less from layoffs than women also men suffered a much smaller penalty than women for repeated job changes for all groups the percentage difference between earnings before and after leaving a job generally persisted for several years

job mobility and gender based wage growth differentials i introduction evidence presented by goldin 1989 o neill 1985 and others shows that the gender wage gap is narrowing much of the narrowing has been attributed to changes in female employment behavior such as the increased consistency of labor force participation and investment in education however because wages are not yet equal questions remain for example does mobility play a role in the remaining wage gap in this paper we examine the role of mobility because this has been a relatively neglected area of interest for researchers concerned about the gender wage gap some evidence on gender differences in mobility and the returns to mobility has been presented but there is little consistency in the reported evidence keith and mcwilliams 1995 demonstrate that the mobility histories of young men and women differ significantly loprest 1992 reports that for a sample of individuals who worked full time for four consecutive years young men s wages grew twice as much when they changed jobs i e employers as young women s did however abbott and beach 1994 find that the wage effects of mobility for women are similar in magnitude to the gains that mincer 1986 and holmlund 1984 find for men given the sometimes conflicting results reported so far determining the extent and the cause of gender differences in wage mobility effects has important implications for gender wage gap arguments in this study we examine the patterns and the returns to mobility for young men and women to examine mobility patterns we disaggregate mobility into involuntary or employer initiated and voluntary or employee initiated separations we further disaggregate involuntary separations into layoffs and discharges and we further disaggregate voluntary separations into family related and non family related quits by examining the impact of each of these different types of job separation on wage growth and the difference in the relative frequency of each type of separation for men and women we can make inferences about the impact of early career mobility on the gender wage gap the remainder of this paper is organized as follows in section ii we review evidence on the returns to different types of mobility in section iii we present evidence on gender differences in mobility and wage growth we use data from the national longitudinal survey of youth nlsy to examine the mobility patterns of men and women and to calculate average wages and average wage growth in section iv we describe how we selected a sample and specified a model for estimating the determinants of wage growth in section v we examine the wage growth effects of different types of mobility controlling for starting wages and individuals fixed effects in section vi we discuss our conclusions ii the returns to different types of mobility workers change jobs for different reasons some voluntary and some involuntary there is some evidence that the returns to different types of mobility differ not surprisingly there is consistent evidence that employee initiated separations quits increase wage growth and that employer initiated separations layoffs and discharges decrease wage growth relative to staying with the same employer 1 additional evidence on the job mobility and wage growth of men has been offered as well bartel and borjas 1981 show that job related quits have a larger positive impact on wage growth than do non job related quits with the highest wage growth resulting from those quits that are associated with successful job shopping parsons 1989 shows that for young men an employer initiated separation with prejudice a discharge results in a larger wage penalty than an employer initiated separation without prejudice a layoff keith 1993 and keith and mcwilliams 1995 show that the number of previous discharges decreases and the number of previous job related quits increases the current wage for samples of young men

unemployment insurance job queues and systematic job search an equilibrium approach the labor market effects of unemployment insurance ui have been viewed in several contexts by economists on the one hand the ui system of jobless benefits and experiencerated taxation of firms is seen as influencing firms decisions to lay off workers 9 10 24 2 key in such analyses is the degree to which firms layoffs are subsidized by an imperfect experience rating a tax system in which employers ui taxes increase by less than their workers benefits increase on the other hand many other studies of ui place primary focus on the worker although employer concern for worker well being plays a role even in the work on the impact of ui on firm layoff decisions each of these worker based studies is concerned with one of two issues 1 ui and compensating wage differentials 14 24 or 2 u i and the job search process first hutchens assumes that workers face a choice in the labor market between high wage high layoff probability firms and low wage low layoff probability firms 14 by reducing the cost of being laid off ui increases one s likelihood of choosing the former kind of job along these lines topel finds evidence that ui generosity substitutes for wages and therefore lowers the compensating differential associated with a high layoff job 23 second several authors have studied the effect of ui on job search this work recognizes that ui lowers the cost of searching and therefore raises the reservation wage expected unemployment duration and expected post unemployment wages 2 previous work on the impact of ui on firm layoff decisions has assumed either a layoff subsidy 9 or demand uncertainty 2 in order to generate layoffs and therefore a u i impact on layoffs in contrast to such work this paper views layoffs in an equilibrium context they occur in our model even with no layoff subsidy and or with no demand uncertainty layoffs are of value to the firm in our model since they correspond to workers rejected from a queue of potential trainees from the firm s point of view a queue of applicants may be desirable in order to lower

electricity consumption and economic growth in china abstract this paper applies the error correction model to examine the causal relationship between electricity consumption and real gdp for china during 1971 2000 our estimation results indicate that real gdp and electricity consumption for china are cointegrated and there is unidirectional granger causality running from electricity consumption to real gdp but not vice versa in order to overcome the constraints on electricity consumption the chinese government has to speed up the nation wide interconnection of power networks to upgrade urban and rural distribution grids and to accelerate rural electrification

measuring the covariance risk of consumer debt portfolios abstract the covariance risk of consumer loans is difficult to measure due to high heterogeneity using the chilean household finance survey i simulate the default conditions of heterogeneous households over distinct macro scenarios i show that consumer loans have a high covariance beta relative to the stock market and bank assets banks loan portfolios have very different covariance betas with some banks being prone to high risk during recessions high income and older households have lower betas and help diversify banks portfolios households covariance risk increases the probability of being rejected for credit and has a negative impact on loan amounts

an imbalanced development of coal and electricity industries in china china s coal and electricity industries have a strong reliance on each other however because of excessive invasion of government it is difficult for these two industries to form a stable reasonable and transaction cost saving relationships but long run disputes and quarrels this paper discusses the pricing policies and transaction relationship between these two industries from the historical perspective it begins with the discussion of coal coal market has become competitive since 1980 due to the system of dual track approach but coal sold to electricity was still tightly controlled by government guided pricing then the paper examines electricity investment and tariff reform unlike coal entry to electricity generation sector was gradually relaxed but generation and retailing tariffs are still strictly regulated as energy demand and prices soared after 2002 coal and electricity enterprises are all unsatisfied with the rule of price setting of coal sold to electricity industry this paper concludes that the deliberate low coal price policy does protect electricity industry from fuel cost fluctuation but harm coal industry allocative and productive efficiency are difficult to achieve in the long run

understanding young women s marriage decisions the role of labor and marriage market conditions using the 1970 1980 1990 censuses the authors investigate the impact of labor and marriage market conditions on the incidence of marriage of young women age 16 24 they first estimate the effects on marriage of personal characteristics and metropolitan statistical area msa indicators separately by race and education group they then regress the first stage msa effects on msa level labor and marriage market conditions and welfare benefits taking account of fixed effects and time trends specific to each msa better female labor markets worse female marriage markets worse male labor markets are found to lower marriage rates fr whites in all education groups results for these variables for blacks are sensitive to estimation technique although stronger results are obtained for an older age group 25 34 while welfare benefits have a negative effect in cross sectional analyses the association becomes considerably weaker in fixed effects specifications

decomposition of electricity demand in china s industrial sector in the past five years china s demand for electricity has accelerated far beyond what central planners had forecasted leading to supply constraints and costly brownouts throughout the country this paper presents analysis of the effect of changes in the industrial sector on electricity demand an important economic sector contributing to these above patterns as it consumes nearly 70 of the electricity generated in china using decomposition analysis it is found that both increased industrial activity and fuel shifts helped increase industrial sector electricity demand between 1998 and 2002 the period of focus in this study but significant increases in energy efficiency countered this

china s energy consumption under the global economic crisis decomposition and sectoral analysis abstract it is now widely recognized that there is a strong relationship between energy consumption and economic growth most countries energy demands declined during the economic depression of 2008 2009 when a worldwide economic crisis occurred as an export oriented economy china suffered a serious exports decline in the course of the crisis however it was found that energy consumption continued to increase against such a background this paper aims to assess and explain the factors causing the growth of energy consumption in china first we will explain the impact of domestic final use and international trade on energy consumption by using decomposition analysis second embodied energy and its variation across sectors are quantified to identify the key sectors contributing to the growth lastly the policy implications for long term energy conservation are discussed the results show that the decline in exports was one of the driving forces for energy consumption reduction in the crisis but that the growth of domestic demand in manufacturing and construction largely stimulated by economic stimulus plans had the opposite effect on energy consumption international trade contributed to decreasing energy consumption of china during and after the crisis because the structure of exports and imports changed in this period

the demand for labor market structure an economic approach this paper formulates and estimates a model for the determination of employer and union demand for multiemployer vs single employer bargaining units utility maximizing risk averse firms and unions are both assumed to weigh the impact of each type of bargaining unit on the expected level and variability of profits and wages respectively the model is tested on a 1975 sample of 3 486 individual collective bargaining agreements because either party can generally leave a multiemployer unit without the other party s consent a partially observed bivariate probit model is used to estimate demand for structure it is found that the forgone profits due to a multiemployer unit relative to a single firm unit lower firm demands for this type of unit while forgone wages in a multiemployer unit relative to a single firm unit lower union demand for this type of unit

expectations heterogeneous forecast errors and consumption micro evidence from the michigan consumer sentiment surveys the household data underlying the michigan index of consumer sentiment are used to test the rationality of consumer expectations and their usefulness in forecasting expenditure the results can be interpreted as characterizing the shocks that hit different types of households over time expectations are found to be biased and inefficient at least ex post people underestimated the disinflation of the early 1980s and the severity of recent business cycles people s forecast errors are also systematically correlated with their demographic characteristics in part because of time varying group level shocks further sentiment helps forecast consumption growth some of this rejection of the permanent income hypothesis is due to the systematic demographic components in forecast errors

rural residential energy transition and energy consumption intensity in china abstract this paper examines the impact of residential energy transition on residential energy consumption per capita recpc and identifies the underlying drivers in rural china based on province level panel data for years 1991 2014 in rural china it is shown that energy transition from traditional biomass energy tbe to traditional commercial energy tce significantly decreases recpc while energy transition from tbe or tce to advanced commercial energy ace significantly increases recpc as is revealed by the energy stacking model per capita income has a significantly negative impact on recpc and the impact of lagged recpc is opposite due to the regulation of energy price there exists price distortion in china s rural energy market and the price mechanism functions poorly besides factors including juvenile dependency ratio and education level significantly reduce recpc therefore it is vital to integrate rural energy into national energy strategic system facilitate energy transition process and introduce the market system reform of rural energy and continue to improve the education level of rural residents in rural china

china s ongoing energy efficiency drive origins progress and prospects abstract in 2004 china s government launched a vigorous programme to reverse the trend of rising national energy intensity and to reduce intensity by 20 over the period 2006 2010 the aim of this paper is to examine this programme in the context of nearly 30 years of measures to enhance energy efficiency in china and thus to evaluate the likelihood that today s policies will yield improvements over a longer period the country achieved a sustained decline of energy intensity in the period 1980 2001 but this trend was reversed in 2002 this reversal arose from a shift in the structure of the economy to more energy intensive industries and from a decline in the rate of technical innovation the measures taken since 2003 have been directed principally at energy intensive industries but have also addressed other sectors of the economy though the energy intensity target for the year 2010 may be achieved greater efforts will be needed to address a number of constraints which include the reluctance to use economic and financial instruments the dependency of energy policy on industrial and social policies the nature of political decision making and of public administration a shortage of skills and social attitudes to energy

the reaction of consumer spending and debt to tax rebates evidence from consumer credit data we use a new panel data set of credit card accounts to analyze how consumers responded to the 2001 federal income tax rebates we estimate the monthly response of credit card payments spending and debt exploiting the unique randomized timing of the rebate disbursement we find that on average consumers initially saved some of the rebate by increasing their credit card payments and thereby paying down debt but soon afterward their spending increased counter to the permanent income model spending rose most for consumers who were initially most likely to be liquidity constrained whereas debt declined most so saving rose most for unconstrained consumers

benefits of relationship banking evidence from consumer credit markets abstract using a unique panel dataset that contains comprehensive information about the relationships between a large bank and its credit card customers we show that relationship accounts exhibit lower probabilities of default and attrition and have higher utilization rates than non relationship accounts dynamic information about changes in the behavior of a customer s other accounts at the same bank helps predict the behavior of the credit card account over time these results imply that relationship banking offers significant potential benefits to banks information the lender has at its disposal can be used to mitigate credit risk on the credit card account

what happens when information leaves a market evidence from postbankruptcy consumers federal law mandates the removal of personal bankruptcies from credit reports after 10 years the removal s effect is market efficiency in reverse the short term effect is a spurious boost in apparent creditworthiness especially for the more creditworthy bankrupts delivering a substantial increase in both credit scores and the number and aggregate limit of bank cards the longer term effect is lower scores and higher delinquency than initial full information scores predict these findings relate to both the debate over the bankruptcy code and the wisdom of influencing market clearing by removing information

evidence of preseparation earnings losses in the displaced worker survey this paper attempts to quantify preseparation earnings losses of workers displaced in mass layoffs using the displaced worker survey the largest and most representative sample of displaced workers using the 1986 displaced worker survey and random samples of the 1984 and 1985 current population survey as a comparison group it is found that workers lose on average 9 percent of their earnings prior to separation as a result of wage cuts this result is very similar to the preseparation losses found in other studies using different data sources one implication of this finding is that those studies that only take into consideration the post displacement losses of workers displaced in mass layoffs clearly underestimate the total costs suffered by these workers

the effects of direct trade within china on regional and national co2 emissions curbing national carbon emissions and clarifying regional carbon reduction responsibility are two challenges faced by china both of which are influenced by interregional trade to exclude the influence of trade balance this paper proposes a methodology to parcel the pollution haven hypothesis into a multi regional input output model applies it to a longer time gap which is made up of two representative periods of chinese economy 1997 2002 and 2002 2007 and clarifies the provincial and sectoral contributions to national emissions we find that 1 embodied co2 emissions first remain relatively stable and then increase sharply for the two periods and the changing trends are mainly determined by the decreasing carbon intensity and the expanding trade scale respectively 2 with the secondary industry as the main contributor regional carbon spillover is mainly concentrated in the coastal provinces but it contributes to an increase of co2 emissions in the central and western regions 3 the coastal and inland provinces contribute to the increase of national carbon emissions through interregional imports and exports respectively but the pollution haven hypothesis is not obvious and is only observed in 2002

gradual reforms and the emergence of energy market in china evidence from tests for convergence of energy prices this study investigates the emergence of energy markets by testing for convergence of energy prices with a new dataset on energy spot prices in 35 major cities in china both descriptive statistics and unit root are employed to test the convergence of energy prices for each of four fuel price series the whole study period is divided into two sub periods in order to reconcile the gradual energy reforms the results show the steady improvement in energy market performance in china especially during the second sub period which suggests that the market appears to be playing an increasing role in determining energy prices while panel unit root tests show energy markets are integrated in china as a whole city by city univariate unit root tests suggest that there are still many regional energy markets probably because energy reserves especially coal vary widely across regions since china s energy economy is gradually moving towards market oriented mechanisms the existing literature may become obsolete soon

the wage effects of cumulative job mobility this analysis of data from the national longitudinal survey of youth shows that cumulative job mobility had statistically significant effects on wages in the years 1979 88 the direction of the wage effects positive or negative and their magnitude varied depending on the type of cumulative mobility examined employee initiated versus employerinitiated separations economic versus family related quits layoffs versus discharges the results also indicate that although men and women had different mobility histories men for example had been discharged more often than women and women had quit for family related reasons more often than men the wage effects of each type of cumulative mobility economic quits family related quits layoffs and discharges were similar for men and women tn this paper we examine the impact of cumulative job mobility on the subsequent wages of young men and women most previous work on this subject has focused on the impact of specific mobility events such as quits or layoffs rather than on the impact of total job history on wages researchers looking at single mobility decisions have consistently reported evidence that a change in employers does affect a worker s subsequent wage therefore it is reasonable to ask whether the impact ofjob change is cumulative that is does a worker s current wage reflect the impact of all past mobility decisions quits layoffs and discharges also since most of the

an empirical analysis of personal bankruptcy and delinquency this article uses a new dataset of credit card accounts to analyze credit card delinquency personal bankruptcy and the stability of credit risk models we estimate duration models for default and assess the relative importance of different variables in predicting default we investigate how the propensity to default has changed over time disentangling the two leading explanations for the recent increase in default rates a deterioration in the risk composition of borrowers versus an increase in borrowers willingness to default due to declines in default costs even after controlling for risk composition and economic fundamentals the propensity to default significantly increased between 1995 and 1997 standard default models missed an important time varying default factor consistent with a decline in default costs debt issued by consumers is an understudied asset class there has been particularly little academic study of recent trends in default on this debt between 1994 and 1997 the number of personal bankruptcy filings in the united states rose by about 75 the 1 35 million filings in 1997 represented well over 1 of u s households delinquency rates on credit cards rose almost as sharply federal reserve bank of cleveland 1998 the resulting losses to lenders amounted to a sizable fraction of the interest payments they collect potentially raising the average cost of credit these trends in default both in bankruptcy and delinquency are especially surprising in light of the strong economy over the period they provide an unusually rich source of variation to test the stability of models that forecast personal default and of credit risk models more generally there are two leading explanations for these trends first the risk composition of borrowers might have worsened under the risk effect less

systematic and random search a synthesis this paper synthesizes two models of search in the labor market systematic and random we construct and test a theoretical model in which the searcher is endowed with information on some possibly zero or all individual firms in the labor market as well as the overall wage offer distribution we test the model using a special wave of the 1976 current population survey the major theoretical results of our model are as follows searchers with lower stocks of knowledge about individual firms higher discount rates or having lower coverage by unemployment insurance are more likely to engage in random search activities

what goes up recent trends in china s energy consumption since 1996 china s energy output has dropped by 17 while primary energy use has fallen by 4 driven almost entirely by shrinking output from coal mines and declining direct use since china is the world s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases it is important to understand the sources of this apparent transformation and whether it portends a permanent change in patterns of energy use this remarkable reversal of the long term expansion of energy use has occurred even as the economy has continued to grow albeit more slowly than in the early 1990s generation of electric power has risen implying a steep fall in end uses particularly in industry available information points to a variety of forces contributing to this phenomenon including rapid improvements in coal quality structural changes in industry shutdowns of factories in both the state owned and non state segments of the economy improvements in end use efficiency and greater use of gas and electricity in households a combination of slowing economic growth industrial restructuring broader economic system reforms and environmental and energy efficiency policies has apparently led to at least a temporary decline in and perhaps a long term reduction in the growth of energy use and therefore greenhouse gas emissions

changes in industrial electricity consumption in china from 1998 to 2007 abstract electricity consumption in the industrial sector experienced a dramatic increase between 1998 and 2007 accounting for approximately 75 of china s total electricity consumption this study analyzes the potential factors influencing the growth of electricity consumption in china s industrial sector over the past decade using a logarithmic mean divisia index i decomposition method results show that activity effect and shift effect caused by the change in the electricity s share of industrial energy use are the major factors responsible for the rise in electricity consumption between 1998 and 2007 it is found that structural change also contributed to the increase in electricity consumption it had only a small effect in contrast the technological effect is responsible for a decrease in electricity consumption during this period the influences of technological effects and shift effects followed approximately an inverse u shaped and u shaped curve respectively furthermore the results show that the main contributors to incremental electricity consumption among industrial subsectors were manufacturing of raw chemical material and products manufacturing of non metal mineral products smelting and pressing of ferrous and non ferrous metals and production and supply of electric power and heat power these sectors should take priority for industrial restructuring in order to implement policies for energy and electricity savings

default risk and private student loans implications for higher education policies abstract in recent years the proportion of students facing a binding constraint on government student loans has grown this has led to substantially increased use of private loans as a supplementary source of finance for households higher education investment a critical aspect of the private market for student loans is that loan terms must reflect students risk of default college investment will therefore differ from a world in which government student loans whose terms are not sensitive to credit risk are expanded to no longer bind moreover beyond simply crowding out private lending expansions of the government student loan program will feed back into default risk on private loans the goal of this paper is to provide a quantitative assessment of the likely effects of the private market for student loans on college enrollment we build a model of college investment that reflects uninsured idiosyncratic risk and a well defined life cycle that is consistent with observed borrowing and default behavior across family income and college preparedness we find that higher government borrowing limits increase college investment but lead to more default in the private market for student loans while tuition subsides increase college investment and reduce default rates in the private market consequently higher limits on government student loans have small negative welfare effects while tuition subsidies increase aggregate welfare

do liquidity constraints and interest rates matter for consumer behavior evidence from credit card data this paper utilizes a unique new dataset of credit card accounts to analyze how people respond to changes in credit supply the data consist of a panel of thousands of individual credit card accounts from several different card issuers with associated credit bureau data we estimate both marginal propensities to consume mpcs out of liquidity and interest rate elasticities we also evaluate the ability of different models of consumption to rationalize our results distinguishing the permanent income hypothesis pih liquidity constraints precautionary saving and behavioral models we find that increases in credit limits generate an immediate and significant rise in debt counter to the pih the average mpc out of liquidity ddebt dlimit ranges between 10 14 the mpc is much larger for people starting near their limits consistent with binding liquidity constraints however the mpc is significant even for people starting well below their limit we show this response is consistent with buffer stock models of precautionary saving nonetheless there are other results that conventional models cannot easily explain e g why so many people are borrowing on their credit cards and simultaneously holding low yielding assets unlike most other studies we also find strong effects from changes in account specific interest rates the long run elasticity of debt to the interest rate is approximately 1 3 less than half of this elasticity represents balance shifting across cards with most reflecting net changes in total borrowing the elasticity is larger for decreases in interest rates than for increases which can explain the widespread use of temporary promotional rates the elasticity is smaller for people starting near their credit limits again consistent with liquidity constraints

economic reform energy and development the case of mexican manufacturing abstract given increasing concern over global climate change and national security there is a burgeoning interest in examining the relationship between economic growth and energy use in developed and developing countries more specifically decoupling energy use per unit of gross domestic product gdp has fast come to be seen as in the interests of national economies and the world as a whole recent attention has been paid to the dramatic decreases in the energy intensity of the chinese economy which fell by 55 between 1975 and 1995 do other developing economies follow similar trajectories this paper examines the energy intensity of the mexican economy for the period 1988 1998 although the long term trend in mexican energy intensity is rising the energy intensity of the mexican economy began to decline in 1988 this paper explores the factors that have contributed to this reduction diminishing mexican energy use per unit of gdp has been driven by significant decreases in industrial energy intensity we show that these changes have resulted from changes in the composition of mexican industrial structure and technological change

the unemployment rates of men and women a transition probability analysis women s unemployment rates were considerably higher than men s for many years but during the 1980s this difference has virtually disappeared this study is the first to examine that change through an analysis of trends in the probabilities of labor force transitions movements between employment unemployment and nonparticipation in the labor force using bls data the authors find that about half of the narrowing of the unemployment rate differential during the 1968 85 period was due to the increasing labor force attachment of women and the decreasing attachment of men the other half reflects changes in men s and women s tendencies to move between employment and unemployment which the authors attribute primarily to the secular decline of male dominated industries

the effect of increasing exports on industrial energy intensity in china abstract given china s heavy reliance on fuel energy and the dominance of its industrial sector in the economy improving energy efficiency remains one of the practical means for the country to decrease energy intensity and to fulfill its commitment made at the copenhagen climate change conference to achieve a 40 45 percent reduction in co 2 emission intensity by 2020 this study investigates the impact of exports on industrial energy intensity to explore the possibility of reducing energy intensity through greater exports a panel varying coefficient regression model with a dataset of china s 20 industrial sub sectors over 1999 2007 suggests that in general greater exports aggravate energy intensity of the industrial sector and that great divergences exist in the impact of exports on energy intensity across sub sectors a panel threshold model further estimates the thresholds for the major determinants of energy intensity exports input in technological innovations and foreign direct investment fdi intensity given the great differences in specific sub sector characteristics and the changing roles played by different factors across sub sectors there is no general export policy that would work for all sub sectors in reducing sub sector energy intensity instead policies and measures aiming to encourage more efficient use of energy should take into full consideration the characteristics and situations of individual sub sectors

empirical analysis of the environmental and energy policies in some developing countries using widely employed macroeconomic indicators the cases of brazil china and india abstract this paper proposes an empirical analysis concerning the environmental and energy policies of some important developing countries brazil china and india today present in the international scenario with very different features than in the past the research is carried out using two of the most important macroeconomic indicators several times proposed in the field of policy analysis emission intensity ratio and energy intensity ratio moreover the emission intensity ratio is used in order to verify the empirical existence of the so called environmental kuznets curve for the three countries for what concerns this last point final results do not correspond closely to the theoretical strict formulations hypothesised in the classical environmental kuznets curve model this paper follows completing and concluding the previous one carried out by the same author for some industrialised countries after a brief but ineluctable premise considering the theoretical basic assumptions to define the question and regarding general statements the specific cases are analysed main findings show that resulting trends in these developing countries are different and furthermore they differ from those already observed in industrialised ones

energy consumption in china past trends and future directions abstract in 2003 china s energy consumption amounted to 1678 million tonnes coal equivalent mtce making china the world s second largest consumer behind only the united states china is now also one of the largest oil importers in the world with an economy that is expected to maintain a rate of growth of 7 8 for decades china s role in the world energy market becomes increasingly influential this makes it important to predict china s future demand for energy the objective of this paper is to apply the bayesian vector autoregressive methodology to forecast china s energy consumption and to discuss potential implications the results of this paper suggest that total energy consumption should increase to 2173 mtce in 2010 an annual growth rate of 3 8 which is slightly slower than the average rate in the past decade the slower growth reflects expected slower economic growth and a decline in energy consumption due to structural changes in the chinese economy

credit card redlining abstract this paper evaluates the presence of racial disparities in the issuance of consumer credit using a database of credit histories i link location based information on race with individual credit files after controlling for place specific factors such as housing vacancy rates and general population demographics i find qualitatively large differences in the amount of credit offered to similarly qualified applicants living in black versus white areas high data quality allows distinguishing between issuer provision supply and utilization of credit demand additional estimates using information on payday lending provide support for idea that issuers condition lending on location

evaluating the effects of embodied energy in international trade on ecological footprint in china based on sub sectoral level of economy and detailed traded items embodied energy ee in international trade flow in china is estimated during 1996 2004 and the effects of ee on sustainability are quantified by using one of the most popular indicators ecological footprint ef a framework of ef method which is more relevant to realism of specific country is proposed in this paper the results show that china is a net importer of ee during the period covered by this study except for the year from 1997 to 1999 imported exported and net imported ee tends to increase sharply along time series net imported energy would increase 38 and energy consumption would increase 2 8 in 2004 if ee were taken into account footprint energy is the most important part of ef components and is significantly affected by ee and the effects of ee on ef are similar to that of footprint energy footprint energy ef and ecological deficit of 2004 will be underestimated about 2 92 1 36 2 83 respectively if ee is not taken into the national energy budget continuous increase of ef and ecological deficit along time series indicates that china is moving away from sustainability 1 47 times chinese territories are accurately occupied by china in 1996 while 1 71 times in 2004 obviously unsustainability procedure of china is accelerated by ee the contribution of ee to ef and ecological deficit is small in absolute terms expressed in per capita but the effects on whole nation are huge if the population of china multiplies them to curb the increase of ef and ecological deficit and to achieve the goal of sustainability some policy and measures are also proposed c 2006 elsevier b v all rights reserved

energy intensity and investment ownership across chinese provinces abstract the main objective of this paper is to investigate whether openness and investment ownership are key factors in explaining the diffusion of energy saving technologies in china compared with previous studies the novel aspect of this work is the use of a rich dataset at provincial level which allows the high level of regional heterogeneity to be taken into consideration the unbalanced regional growth has been translated into differences in the need for energy resources across the vast territory of china a detailed analysis of these issues may provide new insights into the energy situation in this country the analysis is also disaggregated by type of energy coal electricity and petroleum we estimate the models by panel corrected standard errors developed by beck and katz 1995 over the period 1985 2008 results obtained confirm the hypothesis that both foreign and non state investments play a leading role in the decline of energy intensity across chinese regions whereas there is no evidence of a positive contribution of state investment the findings also reveal differences in energy intensity across regions thus confirming the importance of accounting for the regional dimension when analyzing energy consumption in china

job tenure and job mobility in britain using work history data from the british household panel survey the authors examine job mobility and job tenure over the period 1915 90 british men and women held an average of five jobs over the course of their work lives and half of all lifetime job changes occurred in the first ten years separation hazards were higher for more recent cohorts implying an increase in job instability as jobs accumulated average tenure lengthened but the proportion of involuntary separations increased for both men and women the rise in job instability was particularly marked in the lowest occupational classification in general job insecurity was greater for men than women

gender differences in displacement cost evidence and implications this paper uses a unique and newly available data set on displaced workers to estimate differences in the wage costs of displacement between women and men while predisplacement wages rise at about the same rate with tenure for women as men in this data set women lose more from displacement than men and the magnitude of this loss increases with tenure overall we interpret our results as not supportive of the specific capital hypothesis that women accumulate less firmspecific human capital than men and we suggest that future attempts to explain our result focus on gender differences in the process of search for a new job

sex differentials in unemployment rates a case for no concern this paper reevaluates the concept of unemployment in the context of differing labor market and nonmarket opportunities for men and women discussing common fallacies in female to male unemployment rate comparisons and their use as an indicator of labor market equality suggestive empirical evidence is presented for an alternative unemployment rate concept for women for interpreting the procyclical variation in female to male unemployment rate differentials and for decomposing unemployment differences into differences in labor market characteristics and in behavioral coefficients for the two sexes the paper concludes that a large part of the observed unemployment rate differential may be attributed to the definition and methodology used in deriving unemployment statistics rather than to discrimination in productive opportunities

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

energy consumption and economic growth evidence from china at both aggregated and disaggregated levels using a neo classical aggregate production model where capital labor and energy are treated as separate inputs this paper tests for the existence and direction of causality between output growth and energy use in china at both aggregated total energy and disaggregated levels as coal oil and electricity consumption using the johansen cointegration technique the empirical findings indicate that there exists long run cointegration among output labor capital and energy use in china at both aggregated and all three disaggregated levels then using a vec specification the short run dynamics of the interested variables are tested indicating that there exists granger causality running from electricity and oil consumption to gdp but does not exist granger causality running from coal and total energy consumption to gdp on the other hand short run granger causality exists from gdp to total energy coal and oil consumption but does not exist from gdp to electricity consumption we thus propose policy suggestions to solve the energy and sustainable development dilemma in china as enhancing energy supply security and guaranteeing energy supply especially in the short run to provide adequate electric power supply and set up national strategic oil reserve enhancing energy efficiency to save energy diversifying energy sources energetically exploiting renewable energy and drawing out corresponding policies and measures and finally in the long run transforming development pattern and cut reliance on resource and energy dependent industries

the dynamic links between energy consumption economic growth financial development and trade in china fresh evidence from multivariate framework analysis abstract this study investigates the relationship between energy use and economic growth by incorporating financial development international trade and capital as important factors of production function in case of china over the period of 1971 2011 the ardl bounds testing approach to cointegration was applied to examine long run relationship among the series while stationarity properties of the variables was tested by applying structural break test our empirical evidence confirmed long run relationship among the variables the results showed that energy use financial development capital exports imports and international trade have positive impact on economic growth the granger causality analysis revealed that unidirectional causal relationship running from energy use to economic growth financial development and energy use granger cause each other there is bidirectional causality between international trade and energy use the feedback relation exists between financial development and international trade there is also bidirectional causality exists between capital and energy demand financial development and economic growth and international trade and economic growth this paper makes significant contribution in energy economics and opens up new direction for policy makers to explore new and alternative sources of energy which would be helpful in meeting the rising demand of energy due to sustained rate of economic growth