taxing agriculture instruments and incidence abstract this paper analyzes the ways in which individual instruments of tax subsidy policy involving agriculture affect income distribution production and trade in developing countries it highlights the interactions among policy instruments in effecting income transfers among government farmers and nonagricultural sectors these interactions and indirect effects become intelligible only when the multiplicity and characteristic forms of government interventions in international trade and the domestic economy are explicitly recognized in developing countries terms of trade taxes on agriculture cannot be easily replaced hence attempts to remove trade distortions with hypothetically nondistorting taxes can be counterproductive

economic determinants of free trade agreements abstract the purpose of this study is to provide the first systematic empirical analysis of the economic determinants of the formation of free trade agreements ftas and of the likelihood of ftas between pairs of countries using a qualitative choice model we develop this econometric model based upon a general equilibrium model of world trade with two factors of production two monopolistically competitive product markets and explicit intercontinental and intracontinental transportation costs among multiple countries on multiple continents the empirical model correctly predicts based solely upon economic characteristics 85 of the 286 ftas existing in 1996 among 1431 pairs of countries and 97 of the remaining 1145 pairs with no ftas

price distortions in agriculture and their effects an international comparison the central thesis of this paper is that agricultural pricing policies pursued by developing countries produce effects which are diametrically opposite to those produced by the pricing policies of many developed countries and that the policies of both are costly in terms of global welfare in general the agricultural sector in developing countries is heavily taxed while that in the developed countries receives substantial price protection the effects of agricultural price distortions on output consumption trade and rural employment are estimated for nine countries in addition the effects of price distortions on the distribution of income between producers and consumers on government revenue and foreign exchange and the net social losses of the policies are calculated the results indicate that there are large income transfers and impacts on migration from the rural to the urban sector in developing countries and from the urban to the rural sector in developed economies

material flows vs natural capital what makes an economy sustainable abstract in the discourse about sustainable development constant natural capital is frequently referred to as a criterion for ecological sustainability but what is natural capital the concept will be analyzed by presenting arguments in favour of using the term and different versions of sustainability strong and weak subsequently a critique of the natural capital concept is brought forward from an ecological as well as from an economic perspective following this critique the use of material inputs and the material input per unit of service mips as a measure for the environmental impact potential is suggested dematerialisation is understood to be an alternative management rule for sustainability in conclusion a change of perspective is proposed due to the conceptual and measurement problems associated with the constant natural capital criterion which refers to a stock it seems more reasonable from a scientific as well as from a practical perspective to add flows i e material inputs to a decision criterion for whether a development is sustainable or not

sustainable consumption within a sustainable economy beyond green growth and green economies abstract in 1992 one unambiguous result of the unced conference was the need for changing consumption and production patterns with affluent countries taking the lead 20 years later at the 2012 uncsd little is left over and instead the green economy has been the theme pursued by the oecd the eu and other countries so the question needs to be answered if this is finally an attempt to put into practice what was promised 20 years ago or another diversion from what needs to be accomplished sustainable development is still a convincing concept if the original definition is taken avoiding the confusion caused by partisan interests reinterpreting the concept focussing on human needs fulfilment and respecting environmental limits it can still guide strong sustainable consumption green economy green growth on the other hand is a new terminology for what is known since 40 years as ecological modernisation it is indeed overdue but with its focus on efficiency and innovation it cannot guarantee to fulfil the brundtland sustainability criteria a factor analysis based on the i p a t formula demonstrates how optimistic the assumptions regarding future technologies must be to support the green growth concept consequently the authors pledge for a pragmatic risk avoiding approach by slimming the physical size of the economy this requires strong sustainable consumption including production as resource consumption which in turn requires a change of the societies institutional settings formal and informal mechanisms and orientations finally some elements of a strategy towards this end are pointed out with special emphasis on the role of non governmental organisations ngos through networking and advocacy they can both stimulate bottom up action and mobilise the pressure necessary for the institutional changes which are needed to mainstream strong sustainable consumption

agricultural performance and development strategy retrospect and prospect abstract the slow pace and inequitable pattern of past agricultural growth have been major factors in the continuing problems of poverty hunger and unemployment especially in the poorer regions of the third world past experience shows that agriculture has an important potential in economic development given appropriate structures and policies these historical lessons are of strategic significance for poor countries as they confront severe problems of adjustment this paper examines the main payoffs and obstacles to the pursuit of an agriculture led industrialization strategy together with proposals for appropriate policies that can support such a strategy

efficiency and equity in the producer levy of india india s producer levy scheme has been considered a prime example of government market intervention to depress price incentives for farm producers analysis in this study shows that the scheme increases the average producer price for the short run with inelastic supply in this case significant improvements in income distribution can be obtained with little loss of economic efficiency if the scheme is implemented effectively however if the scheme is applied for the long run it might result in market instability more critically the scheme is likely to have an adverse effect on income distribution in the absence of effective implementation

international migration and trade agreements the new role of ptas this paper provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between preferential trade agreements ptas and bilateral migration flows building on the empirical literature on the determinants of migration flows i estimate a modified gravity model to assess the role of ptas and their content on bilateral migration flows using a sample of 29 oecd destination countries over the period 1998 2008 i show a strong positive effect of ptas on bilateral migration flows i find that the content of ptas also matters when visa and asylum and labour market related provisions are included in ptas this further stimulates bilateral migration flows different estimation strategies including instrumental variables are employed to address the potential endogeneity bias problems related to ptas and their content

deep integration and production networks an empirical analysis this paper investigates the two way relationship between deep integration and production networks trade we capture deep integration with a set of indices constructed in terms of policy areas covered in preferential trade agreements we estimate an augmented gravity equation to investigate the impact of deep integration on production networks trade the results show that on average signing deeper agreements increases production networks trade between member countries by almost 12 percentage points in addition the impact of deep integration is higher for trade in automobile parts and information and technology products compared with textile products to analyse whether higher levels of network trade increase the likelihood of signing deeper agreements we follow the literature on the determinants of preferential trade agreements the estimation results show that after taking into account other pta determinants a ten percentage increase in the share of production network trade over total trade increases the depth of an agreement by approximately 6 percentage points in addition the probability of signing deeper agreements is higher for country pairs involved in north south production sharing and for countries belonging to the asia region

the employment effects of sustainable development policies abstract this paper argues that it is time for ecological economists to bring the employment impacts of sustainable development policies to the forefront of the research agenda important conservation efforts continue to founder because of their perceived employment effects the paper examines the evidence on the employment impacts of sustainable development policies and argues that maintaining or even increasing employment depends critically on appropriate policy design and attention to the political economy of implementation of policies the paper concludes that a better understanding of these issues fair labour market and structural adjustment programs and especially forward planning to anticipate problem areas must replace the piecemeal knee jerk reactions to environmental issues such as were evident in australia during the last federal election

scale prices and biophysical assessments abstract in a recent forum on biophysical assessments a number of ecological economists expressed serious reservations about the use of prices to assess the appropriate scale of macroeconomic systems while such reservations are warranted the preference for biophysical assessments over prices indicates that many ecological economists are focussing on one notion of scale and neglecting another altogether there are two notions of scale that are critical to achieving sustainable development sd one is the maximum sustainable macroeconomic scale the other is the optimal macroeconomic scale the maximum sustainable scale is the largest macroeconomic scale that can be sustained by a throughput of matter energy that is within the ecosphere s regenerative and waste assimilative capacities the optimal scale is a preferable macroeconomic scale and is one that is not only sustainable but one that maximises the net benefits of economic activity biophysical assessments are needed to determine the maximum sustainable scale because ecological sustainability is a biophysical problem not an economic problem thus it is through biophysical assessments that the necessary restrictions on the incoming resource flow can be calculated and imposed however since the achievement of an optimal macroeconomic scale is an economic problem albeit a constrained economic problem relative prices are required to efficiently allocate the sustainable resource flow so the macroeconomy can adjust to the optimum failure to recognise the two notions of scale and the most appropriate means of their assessment is likely to thwart rather than advance the movement toward sd

risks and tensions in water industry innovation understanding adoption of decentralised water systems from a socio technical transitions perspective abstract globally centralised urban water systems are under pressure to respond to environmental and economic pressures in australia high infrastructure costs and variable rainfall have prompted governments end users and property developers to begin investing in more decentralised systems that use alternative water sources rainwater stormwater and wastewater this trend is based on a fit for purpose principle and is part of a global shift toward sustainable urban water management these developments suggest that australia s urban water sector may be in the early stages of transition and represent a multi decadal shift from centralisation of water supply and sanitation to partial decentralisation based on local conditions much of the scholarship on decentralised systems focuses on drivers and barriers to adoption which implies a static and mechanistic process of change and overlooks the complex interplay between exogenous pressures innovation multiple actors and industry reform this paper addresses this gap by analysing temporal processes of australia s urban water sector using a regionally based case study comprising an historical review and interview study that analyses the multi level decadal and actor developments at the nexus between water service provision and property development the analysis revealed emerging tensions between incumbent water utilities property developers and end users and an inherent conflict between neo liberal and environmental policy agendas such tensions and conflicts are missing from urban water policy and research discourse

is the wto passe the wto has delivered policy outcomes that are very different from those likely to emerge out of the recent wave of preferential trade agreements ptas should economists see this as an efficient institutional hand off where the wto has carried trade liberalization as far as it can manage and is now passing the baton to ptas to finish the job this paper surveys a growing economics literature on international trade agreements and argues on this basis that the wto is not passe rather and subject to some caveats this survey of research to date suggests that the wto warrants strong support while a more cautious view of ptas seems appropriate

peeling away the layers impacts of durable tariff elimination abstract we demonstrate that durable mfn tariff elimination affects trade patterns through several layers and magnitudes of effects are sizable the wto information technology agreement s ita unique setting allows us to overcome the challenges associated with identifying effects of non discriminatory trade policies due to two reasons i ita constitutes a quasi natural experiment of several passive signatories joining the agreement as an unavoidable part of pursuing a larger policy objective and ii ita s partial coverage of the it sector provides a natural control group for identification based on cross product variation our analysis finds novel nonlinear impacts of tariff liberalization complete tariff elimination results in large additional trade gains over and above tariff reductions especially for intermediate goods the commitment to durable tariff elimination through wto bindings adds another two layers boosting both imports and exports more than equivalent unilateral reforms this commitment spurned development of a downstream it export sector in passive signatories

deceleration of economic growth the main course seeking sustainability in developed countries abstract deceleration of economic growth is a characteristic feature of developed countries percentage gross domestic product gdp growth rate in the old organization for economic co operation and development oecd countries has decreased approximately 2 3 times over the last 50 years and countries have managed successfully to adopt this trend the largest reduction of gdp growth rate was observed in countries such as japan where the biocapacity exceedance was the largest in addition the analysis of long term changes of gdp and self reported life satisfaction in developed countries supports easterlin s paradox indicating that richer people do not feel more satisfied with their lives however people from countries with higher per capita gdp feel more satisfied at the same time a statistically insignificant correlation was detected between gdp growth rate and life satisfaction supporting a conclusion that in the developed countries further economic growth does not increase people s well being this suggests that decelerating the rate of economic growth gradually approaching the zero growth steady state phase is the natural way towards sustainability and it does not contradict the well being objective in developed countries especially ones with high biocapacity exceedance

analysis of energy embodied in the international trade of uk interest in the role embodied energy plays in international trade and its subsequent impact on energy security has grown as a developed nation the uk s economic structure has changed from that of a primary producer to that of a primary consumer although the uk s energy consumption appears to have peaked it imports a lot of energy embodied in international trade alongside the more obvious direct energy imports the uk has seen increasing dependency on imported fossil energy since the uk became a net energy importer in 2005 in this paper an energy input output model is established to calculate not only the amount of fossil energy embodied in uk s imports and exports but also the sector and country distributions of those embodied fossil energy the research results suggest the following uk s embodied fossil energy imports have exceeded embodied fossil energy exports every year since 1997 uk embodied energy imports through the so called made in china phenomena are the largest accounting for 43 of total net fossil energy imports if net embodied fossil energy imports are considered the gap between energy consumption and production in uk is much larger than commonly perceived with subsequent implications to the uk s energy security

regional versus global production networks where does latin america stand this article quantifies the effects of the latin american integration association laia and the southern common market mercosur on the trade of intermediate goods and also on the trade of final goods it is the first article to investigate whether increasing imports of intermediate goods from different regions to latin america have led to higher exports of final and intermediate goods the article uses sectoral data for trade in goods between 11 laia members over the period 1991 2008 the main results indicate evidence of increasing regional production networks which have strengthened in the 2000s moreover the findings show evidence of the emergence of global production networks especially with respect to intermediate imports from china

inertia and change related to sustainability an institutional approach despite increased awareness of environmental crisis and social inequity the world is becoming more not less unsustainable obviously there is great inertia a disinclination to enact change in f

dynamic governance of clean energy markets how technical innovation could accelerate climate policies abstract this article explores the governmental means to accelerate technical progress in climate protection it is based on selected best practice cases in which the diffusion of low carbon technologies has been accelerated by ambitious policies the empirical cases involve not just renewable energies but also energy efficiency the latter being considered more difficult in terms of governance the examples are taken from advanced oecd countries as well as from emerging economies this article will explore which factors have caused this dynamic development the conclusion reached will show that the interaction of positive feedback mechanisms which has already been described as virtuous cycle provides only a plausible theoretical explanation if the policy cycle is added to the market cycle and the innovation cycle climate policy should not only define ambitious targets but also address all three feedback mechanisms

should degrowth embrace the job guarantee degrowth should consider the right to work a job guarantee jg as a way of making a smaller economy more just and socially sustainable economic shrinkage in richer countries is accompanied by increased unemployment a bad enough problem in itself but also a barrier to voters acceptance of the degrowth path since being out of work is distinct from being poor anti poverty income policies should be approached separately the jg is one of several paths to full employment including reduced working time this essay only briefly mentions some real world jg programs and some technical objections the main suggestion is to move employment from being a matter of economics particularly economic growth to being a political right a right to work is necessarily effective and would avoid sacrificing the ecological and social goals of degrowth on the altar of full employment

beyond the wto an anatomy of eu and us preferential trade agreements it is often alleged that ptas involving the ec and the us include a significant number of obligations in areas not currently covered by the wto agreement such as investment protection competition policy labour standards and environmental protection the primary purpose of this study is to highlight the extent to which these claims are true the study divides the contents of all ptas involving the ec and the us currently notified to the wto into 14 wto and 38 wto x areas where wto provisions come under the current mandate of the wto and wto x provisions deal with issues lying outside the current wto mandate as a second step the legal enforceability of each obligation is evaluated and judged on the extent to which the text specifies clear obligations among the findings are i ec agreements contain almost four times as many instances of wto x provisions as do us agreements ii but ec agreements evidence a very significant amount of legal inflation i e non legally enforceable provisions in the wto x category and us agreements actually contain more enforceable wto x provisions than do the ec agreements iii us agreements tend to emphasise regulatory areas more compared to ec agreements 2010 blackwell publishing ltd

agricultural price policy in general equilibrium models results and comparisons a number of alternative policies toward agricultural prices food subsidies and intersectoral allocation of investment are analyzed with computable general equilibrium models for six countries the models generally allow us to trace the intersectoral and intertemporal growth effects of these policies as well as their income distribution effects across social groups the results obtained are shown to be eventually quite different from those derived from partial equilibrium and multimarket approaches sensitivity analysis to alternative specifications of the mechanism of wage determination shows that the real income effects of price policies are critically dependent upon the particular theory of wage determination used

potential consequences on the economy of low or no growth short and long term perspectives potential consequences on the economy of low or no growth short and long term perspectives

the impact of ftas on mena trade in agricultural and industrial products abstractthis article analyses the impact of free trade agreements ftas on middle east and north african countries mena trade for the period 1994 2010 the analysis distinguishes between industrial and agricultural trade to take into account the different liberalization schedules an augmented gravity model is estimated using up to date panel data techniques to control for all time invariant bilateral factors that influence bilateral trade as well as for the so called multilateral resistance factors we also control for the endogeneity of the agreements and test for self selection bias due to the presence of zero trade in our sample the main findings indicate that north south ftas and south south ftas have a differential impact in terms of increasing trade in mena countries with the former being more beneficial in terms of exports for mena countries but both showing greater global market integration we also find that ftas that include agricultural products in which mena countries have a clear comp

india s food procurement and distribution policy impact on prices and welfare abstract india procures wheat rice and sugar at a price below the market price and sells them in ration shops in the urban areas the rest is sold in the open market various authors including dantwala mellor and hayami et al have claimed that such a policy raises the open market price to such an extent that it leads to an increase in the average price received by farmers they conclude that both farmers and low income urban consumers with access to the ration shops gain while high income urban consumers who buy at the open market price lose we argue in this paper that the above result holds only in a special case and under unrealistic assumptions we examine several alternative cases we find that the impact of the policy on the average price is either negative or ambiguous a negative impact implies that farmers lose from the procurement policy the impact of the policy on the average price is unambiguously negative under rationing and an unsegmented market access by the rich to the ration shops under rationing and market segmentation the impact on the average price is ambiguous unless there is significant queuing at the ration shops in which case the impact is negative the impact is also negative under free trade the inclusion of distribution costs increases the probability that the policy will have a negative impact on the average price

economic determinants of the timing of preferential trade agreement formations and enlargements preferential trade agreements ptas have proliferated over the past 60 years while a small number of recent studies have examined empirically the economic determinants of the likelihood of a pair of countries having a pta this study explains empirically the timing of all pta formations and enlargements from 1950 through 2006 using duration analysis our main and novel goal is to predict in and out of sample a substantive share of these 1 560 pta events using a parsimonious model with mainly economic variables taking selection dynamics into account our analysis reveals that we can predict correctly in sample the actual year of entry into force for 26 of the 1 560 bilateral pta formations enlargements in the period 1950 2006 among 10 518 pairings of 146 countries using only a few economic and political variables moreover we can predict correctly in sample 57 of these pta events within a 10 year window leading up to the event using this model the model also performs well out of sample for the near term 82 but not if the out of sample period is very long we conclude with an evaluation of the model s ability to predict the timing of the north american free trade agreement the european union s formation and enlargements and the model s ten most likely post 2006 pta events jel f14 f15

a degrowth transition pathways for the degrowth niche to replace the capitalist growth regime abstract facing the intertwined environmental social and economic crisis requires us to seriously consider alternatives to the current capitalist system including the emerging concept of degrowth existing understandings of degrowth have focused on characterizing the shape the key elements and the proposals for a degrowth society however its dynamic and evolving nature as an alternative vision of the future and the dynamics of a transition toward degrowth are inadequately considered this paper seeks to address this conceptual gap through a reconceptualisation of degrowth as a radical niche innovation to the capitalist growth regime by extending the multi level perspective framework to the capitalist growth system we undertake a critical reconsideration of the multi level perspective exposing key assumptions of this framework grounded in capitalist economic theory through this we propose a pluriversal potential pathway for change to consider this further a bibliometric analysis is used to measure and visualize research activity in degrowth as a proxy for the processes of development of the degrowth niche then we return to the multi level perspective to consider two potential pathways for change involving the degrowth niche and the capitalist growth regime finally we point to areas for further research that build on this new conceptualisation of a degrowth transition

technology appropriation in a de growing economy this article proposes a concept of technology appropriation as a means of ideological repurposing of technology in a de growing economy its economic and institutional foundations are set forth using an endogenous theory of economic development in the spirit of marx schumpeter and veblen technological and institutional change lead interdependently to the emergence of socio technical complexes which are subject to ideological appropriation these complexes are analyzed as actor networks from an ontological perspective and exemplified using special cases in the information and communication technologies icts the approach contributes to synthesizing critical political economy with actor network theory technology appropriation is elaborated as a means of repurposing existing technologies in terms of recombination with an emphasis on the strategy of habilitation this political economic strategy delivers new insights for a solidary mode of economic reproduction in a low carbon de growing economy

agricultural supply response a survey abstract this paper surveys the literature on agricultural supply response to prices in developing countries empirical estimates of elasticities depend both on the methodology adopted and on country specific factors relating to technology economic structure and macro constraints the paper seeks to establish some general conclusions on supply responsiveness within these limitations supply response to output prices at the aggregate and at the crop levels is considered first crop specific acreage elasticities range between zero and 0 8 in the short run while long run elasticities tend to be higher between 0 3 and 1 2 yield elasticities are smaller and less stable than acreage elasticities clearly inter crop pricing can be relied upon to effect shifts in the commodity composition of agricultural output evidence also suggests that supply elasticities vary systematically with such factors as price and yield risks multiple cropping the importance of the crop farm incomes farm size tenancy and literacy the most controversial and important aspect of supply response is the effect on aggregate agricultural output of agriculture s terms of trade conventional time series estimates range from 0 1 to 0 3 a major cross country study reports an aggregate elasticity as high as 1 66 it is argued that cross country estimates are apt to exaggerate aggregate responsiveness while time series studies underestimate it somewhat for ldcs a tentative range of 0 4 to 0 5 seems plausible hence the distributive effects of the terms of trade are likely to be more significant than the allocative effects asian evidence shows that only a third of the inter country differences in fertilizer use can be attributed to fertilizer price policies provided new technologies and infrastructure are in place fertilizer subsidies can help in technology diffusion and in over coming credit constraints the choice between price supports and input subsidies will depend on a variety of country or situation specific factors nevertheless a significant general factor favoring price supports is that they can more easily be coupled with price stabilization goals than input subsidies though sparse the available evidence on the response of marketed surplus suggests that price policy is not a reliable instrument for regulating inter sectoral trade

working time reduction policy in a sustainable economy criteria and options for its design abstract reducing per capita consumption particularly amongst high income groups is often deemed necessary to reduce the environmental impacts of the global economy far from implying a necessary reduction in wellbeing some research suggests this could actually improve it as reduced expenditure means a reduced need for income and hence paid work then there is the possibility for average working hours to fall providing increased leisure time in which to pursue happiness through less consumption intensive but more time consuming ways to date however there has been little critical discussion of the details of what policy might need to cover to allow and encourage substantial working time reduction in a way that successfully reconciles these environmental and wellbeing goals this article addresses this gap in the literature it begins by reviewing the conditions under which working time reduction could bring environmental and wellbeing benefits it then presents examples of innovative voluntary working time policies from the netherlands and belgium drawing these elements together the article presents a new green life course approach for working time policy design it argues that as a complement to more conventional working time policies this could be a valuable tool to combine environmental and wellbeing goals

global value chains a survey of drivers and measures global value chains gvcs emerged as the paradigm for the international organisation of production for most goods and services production is nowadays vertically fragmented across different countries and this reality gave rise to a significant new strand of research in in ternational trade this article starts by discussing the major driving forces of gvcs in recent decades next it surveys the main measures of gvcs accounting for their different scopes and required datasets the artic le highlights the timing of the contributions to the literature signalling their sequential nature and the trend towards more accurate and data demanding indicators

plan and market in china s agricultural commerce this article examines interactions between markets and state commercial planning in the context of china s agricultural sector it begins with a discussion of recent trends in agricultural planning and commerce in china and then presents a theoretical model that analyzes the way that a mixed commercial system of the sort observed in china functions the theoretical analysis suggests that a mixed system is sustainable and can have desirable efficiency and distributional effects markets however limit the range of sustainable plans and in the presence of markets state planning may no longer directly influence production and consumption behavior

in defence of degrowth abstract this article defends the proposal of sustainable degrowth a starting premise is that resource and co2 limits render further growth of the economy unsustainable if degrowth is inevitable the question is how it can become socially sustainable i e a prosperous and stable rather than a catastrophic descent pricing mechanisms alone are unlikely to secure smooth adaptation a full ensemble of environmental and redistributive policies is required including among others policies for a basic income reduction of working hours environmental and consumption taxes and controls on advertising policies like these that threaten to harm the economy are less and less likely to be implemented within existing market economies whose basic institutions financial property political and redistributive depend on and mandate continuous economic growth an intertwined cultural and political change is needed that will embrace degrowth as a positive social development and reform those institutions that make growth an imperative sustainable degrowth is therefore not just a structuring concept it is a radical political project that offers a new story and a rallying slogan for a social coalition built around the aspiration to construct a society that lives better with less

strong sustainable consumption governance precondition for a degrowth path this paper aims to link two debates and literatures at the cutting edge of sustainable development research and governance sustainable consumption and degrowth interestingly these literatures have only recently started to exchange and integrate insights despite their similar interest in the fundamental systemic challenges to sustainable development the paper argues that this lack of connection is due to a predominance of perspectives in sustainable consumption governance that focus almost exclusively on questions of efficiency gains this weak sustainable consumption governance however is not able to address the challenges to sustainable development arising from overconsumption in general or the rebound effect and distributive issues in particular in contrast a strong sustainable consumption perspective provides a basis for a promising inquiry into the linkages between consumption and sustainable development as well as a fruitful exchange with degrowth specifically it allows the delineation of relevant insights on the role of values in governance obstacles to political reform and promising political strategies for the degrowth debate and literature

can targeted food programs improve nutrition an empirical analysis of india s public distribution system abstract despite the widespread belief that a substantial assault on poverty requires targeting scarce resources toward the poor practitioners frequently claim that targeted programs deliver fewer benefits to poor households than do universal programs this article evaluates this concern through an analysis of india s targeted food distribution program the public distribution system it first examines the case for targeting by assessing the responsiveness of caloric intake to the amount of the food grain subsidy a low elasticity suggests that improvements in nutrition may require large subsidies and hence a targeted program it then examines whether targeting adversely affects the probability of poor households participating in the program the empirical analysis identifies the effect of the program by combining time varying policy changes in the value of the program with cross sectional variation in program benefits generated by variation in market prices the results confirm the low responsiveness

distributional consequences of rural food levy and subsidized urban rations abstract governments in many developing countries have imposed food levies on farmers to provide subsidized food to urban consumers the resulting price discrimination between individuals has general equilibrium effects so that the welfare consequences of such a policy for different socio economic groups have been controversial we relate the distributional consequences to the parameters of the economy and identify systematic relationships among different partitions of the outcomes we show for instance that if the policy helps hurts richer city dwellers then it hurts helps poorer farmers

capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development an indicator of weak sustainability the measurement of sustainable development is not without considerable difficulties yet this should not detract from the positive advances that can be made in this direction in this paper we present one form that a weak sustainability indicator can take derived from a simple but intuitive savings rule it incorporates the idea that the level of overall capital stock should be non decreasing although subject to qualification at this stage some interesting results emerge from the application of the rule to 18 countries

do deep trade agreements boost vertical fdi an increasing number of preferential trade agreements ptas and the rise of offshore production are distinctive features of the modern world economy exploiting the world trade organization wto database on the content of deep trade agreements the authors build on the existing literature to investigate whether deep trade agreements between countries are related to vertical foreign direct investment fdi specifically the authors show that deeper trade agreements increase vertical fdi measured with a proxy constructed in osnago rocha and ruta with data on foreign firm ownership and subsidiaries revenues available in the orbis database

degrowth taking stock and reviewing an emerging academic paradigm degrowth has evolved within a decade from an activist movement into a multi disciplinary academic paradigm however an overview taking stock of the peer refereed degrowth literature is yet missing here we review 91 articles that were published between 2006 and 2015 we find that the academic degrowth discourse occupies a small but expanding niche at the intersection of social and applied environmental sciences the discourse is shaped by authors from high income mainly mediterranean countries until 2012 articles largely constitute conceptual essays endorsed by normative claims more recently degrowth has branched out into modelling empirical assessments and the study of concrete implementations authors tend to agree in that economic growth cannot be sustained ad infinitum on a resource constraint planet and that degrowth requires far reaching societal change whether degrowth should be considered as a collectively consented choice or an environmentally imposed inevitability constitutes a major debate among degrowth thinkers we argue that the academic discourse could benefit from rigid hypotheses testing through input output modelling material flow analysis life cycle assessments or social surveys by analyzing the potentials for non market value creation and identifying concrete well being benefits the degrowth discourse could receive wider public support and contribute to a paradigmatic change in the social sciences

3 d sustainability an approach for priority setting in situation of conflicting interests towards a sustainable development abstract this paper aims to provide a new approach to objectively assess hierarchies and priority setting in the relationship between environmental social and economic sustainability within sustainable development after a literature review several widely used conceptual figures diagrams describing this relationship were assessed using swot analyses in order to identify the major weaknesses in these pictorial descriptions based on the findings a new concept called 3 d sustainability has been developed and is presented visually as well as is described in the text this concept introduces and ranks criteria for the assessment of hierarchies within and conflicts of interests between social environmental and economic sustainability the three dimensions of sustainability these criteria are applied to several existing hierarchies and solutions to conflicts of interests based on the swot analyses the main shortcomings of the widely used conceptual figures were identified as 1 misinterpretation of embeddings 2 misjudgement of equity between the three dimensions of sustainability 3 a lack of expression of limitations and 4 lack of adequate decision support these shortcomings are overcome theoretically and in practice by 3 d sustainability a slightly more complex but conceptually richer figure than the widely used conceptual figures assessed in particular the shift of the burden of proof within the three sustainability dimensions is argued as a main solution the application of the criteria of 3 d sustainability to several real examples indicates its usefulness in decision support while justifying more sustainable hierarchies and solutions in the settlement of conflicts of interests within the three sustainability dimensions

effects of subsidized wheat consumption by state in india this paper reports the results of a study of the effects of the indian government s consumer subsidies on wheat demand results indicate consumption of subsidized wheat is higher in urban areas than in rural areas the public distribution of wheat in most states had little effect on demand in the commercial market which suggests the government is effective in targeting subsidized wheat to poor consumers

bona diagnosis bona curatio how property economics clarifies the degrowth debate abstract this contribution postulates that a theoretical explanation of the foundational conditions of economic growth is a prerequisite for conceptually elaborating on the ways to foster degrowth it suggests that reorienting the current unsustainable and inequitable path and implementing the degrowth transition in an ecologically sustainable and socially equitable manner requires a shift in the hierarchy of social norms from the property based economic rationale where social and ecological considerations are subordinated to the specific requirements of capitalist expansion towards an eco social economic rationale where economic activities are subordinated to social and ecological considerations and imperatives such an eco social rationale could subordinate property capitalist expansion through the following interrelated ways limiting the scope of the property domain regulating capitalisation practices orienting investments distributing returns and limiting the capitalist expansion of property nonetheless getting out of the involutionary path of western development might require more radical alternatives such as non property possession based institutional arrangements and partnerships

environmentally sustainable household consumption from aggregate environmental pressures to priority fields of action unsustainable consumption patterns of the north or rather of the global affluent consumers class have been identified by agenda 21 as one of the key driving forces behind the unsustainable development however neither accounting based on the system of national accounts sna nor household economics provide the proper instruments to assess the environmental impact of household decision making eco efficiency assessments as familiar in the business sector provide no appropriate tool for households as an alternative an environmental space based assessment scheme is suggested covering the major pressures on the environment caused by household decisions the methodology is used twice once to analyse the environmental relevance of the main activity clusters of household consumption and once to identify the dominant acts of consumption within each cluster the latter provide the basis for deriving environmental performance indicators a rough analysis of household influence potentials permits to identify housing eating and mobility as the three priority fields for action for minimising the environmental impact of households extending the influence analysis actor matrixes are derived allocating influence and thus responsibility for environmental pressures to different groups of economic agents

agriculture under trade policy reform a quantitative assessment for india abstract under the impetus of the general agreement on tariffs and trade gatt accord the indian government is likely to extend the ongoing trade liberalization process to the agricultural sectors this paper provides a fresh quantitative assessment of such a policy of agricultural trade reform using a dynamic nine sector seven income classes computable general equilibrium model developed for india s seventh plan period 1985 90 the simulation outcomes suggest that the gains from agricultural trade liberalization may not be as large or as unambiguous as is often suggested the results also high light the possible conflict between successful agricultural trade liberalization and the requirement to reduce agricultural subsidies under gatt

degrowth initiatives in the urban water sector a social multi criteria evaluation of non conventional water alternatives in metropolitan barcelona abstract debates on degrowth have mainly focused on theoretical issues specially around the unsustainability of the current economic model based on growth along those lines some scholars have dealt with the opportunities and barriers to voluntary social action for degrowth at a general level notwithstanding the key importance of such debates we argue that local strategies to move towards degrowth are still to be explored departing from the specific case of water in this paper we interrogate the compatibility of non conventional centralised and decentralised water supply technologies desalination reclaimed water reuse greywater reuse and rainwater harvesting with degrowth principles taking as a case study the metropolitan area of barcelona spain a social multi criteria evaluation has been performed to explore the feasibility desirability and acceptability of both models the paper aims to explore the pros and cons of the different water alternatives in two different and hypothetic societies one based on growth business as usual and one based on degrowth the technical analysis reveals that rainwater harvesting and reclaimed water reuse are the most preferred alternatives from a degrowth perspective while reclaimed water reuse and desalination are the most preferred alternatives from a growth perspective the social multi criteria analysis also serves to unveil which social actors may favour or block the adoption of each alternative notwithstanding that most social groups see desalination as the least desired option this is the hegemonic non conventional source in spain which evidences the prevalence of growth discourses in water management local decision makers city council managers and environmental groups clearly opt for the promotion of rainwater harvesting and as a result they appear as potential allies to promote degrowth in water consumption the social multi criteria evaluation helps to elucidate the main challenges that need to be addressed in the pursuit of a more sustainable and equitable water management

capital flow deflection abstract this paper focuses on the coordination problem among countries imposing controls on capital inflows in a simple model of capital flows and controls we show that inflow restrictions distort international capital flows to other countries and that in turn such capital flow deflection may lead to a policy response we then test the theory using data on inflow restrictions and gross capital inflows for a large sample of developing countries between 1995 and 2009 our estimation yields strong evidence that capital controls deflect capital flows to other countries with similar economic characteristics notwithstanding these strong cross border spillover effects we do not find evidence of a policy response

the unsupportable support price an analysis of collusion and government intervention in paddy auction markets in north india abstract this paper uses auction theory incorporating buyer asymmetry to analyse the structure of a small market for parmal paddy in north india and to assess the implications of alternative government policies our results suggest that two buyers collude in this market we are able to quantify the extent to which prices are depressed as a consequence such collusion probably characterizes many small grain markets in india government intervention in grain markets in india is pervasive and has in recent years led to its acquiring excessive food stocks and an unwillingness to enforce the support price using simulations we demonstrate that while reducing the support price for paddy may not have the desired effect of reducing government purchases a decrease in the percentage that millers are required to sell as levy to the government will

sustainability of catch up growth in the extended european union abstract this paper analyses the compatibility of growth and sustainability in the european union eu including a new eu member states from the former soviet bloc eu 10 the extension of eu borders financial and technological support stimulated rapid convergence and decreased the socio economic differences between the old eu 15 and newly accepted eu member states the transition from a command to a market economy resulted in the remarkable increase in resource efficiency and other positive aspects of sustainability along with 1 5 times increased gdp final energy consumption decreased by 20 greenhouse gases emissions by 25 and the emissions of acidifying compounds were halved during the period from the collapse of former soviet bloc to the recent economic crisis however the per capita production and consumption in eu 10 is still approximately half that of eu 15 and further catch up growth should be expected ensuring that economic and social cohesion is not achieved at the expense of increased environmental impact decelerated economic growth is a feature characteristic of mature economies and the gdp growth rate in eu 15 states decreased almost 2 5 times during the last 50 year similar trends are characteristic of other developed countries and market economies have adapted to this trend even with a decelerated growth rate the ecological footprint in developed countries currently exceeds three and more times the allowable limits and almost two thirds of the ecological footprint relates to traditional energy de fossilisation by a greater increase in energy efficiency use of renewable energy and more intense material recovery is the most promising option for reducing the ecological footprint of these countries deceleration of the economic growth rate supplemented by the aforementioned options is a hard but realistic track leading to the reduction of ecological footprint in developed countries to allowable limits without radical de growth in consumption and production that can result in unpredictable and unacceptable consequences

self limited empowerment democracy economic development and rural india this study deals with two questions i what accounts for the rise of the countryside in india s polity and ii how has rural power in the polity affected economic policy and economic outcomes for the peasantry the rural sector is typically weak in the early stages of development a powerful countryside therefore is a counter historical occurrence universal franchise and a competitive democracy in a primarily agrarian india have led to the empowerment of the countryside the power of the rural sector is however not unconstrained the first principal constraint is ironically the size of the agricultural sector itself beyond a point subsidising a large rural sector is fiscally difficult the size of the rural population thus cuts both ways it makes the countryside powerful in a democratic political system but checks this power economically the second principal constraint on rural power stems from the cross cutting nature of rural identities and interests farmers are also members of caste et

does decreasing working time reduce environmental pressures new evidence based on dynamic panel approach abstract there is a growing interest in the correlation between working time and environmental pressures but prior empirical studies were mostly focused on static methods within limited country groups to fill the gap this study aims to stimulate the discussion by distinguishing between different time periods for developed and developing country groups respectively in particular we contribute to a further understanding of the environmental effects of working time reduction policies by comparing the differences under the dynamic framework of system generalized method of moments we applied this dynamic panel regression approach for 55 countries worldwide over the period 1980 2010 and employing carbon emissions per capita as the environmental indicator in general results confirmed the significant relationship between hours of work and environmental impacts in developed economies although this is not the case for the developing counterparts interestingly the significant correlations for the developed country group turned from positive during the first sub period 1980 2000 to negative during the second sub period 2001 2010 connecting these results with previous literature we proposed the reasons of rebound energy use derived from certain leisure activities which were more energy intensive if excessive non working time provided

do trade agreements stimulate international trade differently evidence from 296 trade agreements in a seminal article rose 2004 found that the assumed positive impact of the wto on international trade was questionable this finding has been scrutinised and modified in subsequent research using different data sets econometric methods and separating the wto from other forms of trade agreements a key characteristic of the subsequent literature is the rather simplistic way in which trade agreements are treated whereby all trade agreements are lumped together trade agreements come however in many different forms and shapes this study addresses these differences in trade agreements using a unique database of 296 trade agreements we distinguish 17 trade related policy domains and indicate whether the agreements contain legally enforceable commitments this extensive and novel taxonomy of trade agreements enables us to allow for the possible heterogeneity of the impact of trade agreements on international trade using a gravity model we find that trade agreement heterogeneity indeed matters for international trade and that countries experience significant trade increases due to comprehensive trade agreements even if not all participants are in the wto

getting agricultural prices right abstract are agricultural price policies in developing countries inimical to both growth and equity in recent critiques of govenment policy such a view has been repeatedly affirmed this paper takes the view that a positive analysis of the constraints under which price and tax policies must be set is seriously lacking and that without such understanding both the direction and the consequences of reform must remain uncertain it attempts to lay the groundwork for such analysis by specifying a number of hypotheses concerning government policies and their consequences

green growth from a growing eco industry to economic sustainability abstract there are many questionable assumptions in the discussion of economic growth one of them is the idea that governments are able to achieve sustained high growth another one is the believe that the solution to pressing financial and social problems centers on higher growth it is also questionalble however to say that giving up on economic growth as a paradigm is the necessary condition to tackle the environmental crisis in actuality solving such problems is about radical growth in environmental and resource saving technologies it is also about radical de growth in products and processes that undermine long term living and production conditions this paper describes some best practice cases of green growth and the conceptual generalisations given by the oecd and other established institutions in europe and asia it traces the transformation of the concept of green growth and evaluates the strategy that accompanies it

the energy metabolism of countries energy efficiency and use in the period that followed the global financial crisis this paper discusses how the deceleration of economic growth that followed the financial crisis of 2008 influenced the energy efficiency allocation and use of 18 european countries by using a multi scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism musiasem the relationships between energy requirements economic trends and population are investigated for the years 2008 and 2015 the analyses are performed for the entire society level n for the household and the paid sectors level n 1 and for the agricultural the industrial and the service activities level n 2 results show that two main groups of countries performed the largest energy reductions namely the country most affected by the global financial crisis such as greece romania and spain where the total energy throughput decreased by 19 6 15 8 and 12 1 respectively and the countries such as ireland and united kingdom that experienced the largest energy intensity reductions 38 7 and 19 2 together with the highest gdp increases 44 8 and 10 2 by providing an overview of the relationships existing between socio economic and energy variables this paper contributes to the debate around growth and efficiency and can support the design of policies oriented to promote the achievement of a more sustainable and competitive economy

a meta analysis investigation of the direction of the energy gdp causal relationship implications for the growth degrowth dialogue abstract the complex relation between energy use and the economic process has long attracted attention issues such as the scarcity of energy resources energy theory of value degrowth and a growth approaches are closely related to the relationship between energy and development the present study traces the implications of the energy gdp causality dialogue for the context of the growth degrowth debate where the energy development link plays a decisive role in that context the present research investigates the possible existence of a fundamental macro direction of causality between energy use and economic growth that is not influenced by study specific characteristics and events towards this objective we perform a meta analysis that takes into account 158 studies on causality between energy and gdp covering the period 1978 2011 this is the first time to our knowledge that meta analysis has been applied to investigate the direction of the energy and gdp causal relationship the meta analysis results neither support the existence of a fundamental macro direction nor the so called neutrality hypothesis e gdp in the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth

sustainable growth criteria minimum benchmarks and scenarios for employment and the environment abstract the relationship of economic growth and environmental impact has spurred fierce debates between growth optimists referring to the phenomenon of the environmental kuznets curve and pessimists referring to the limits to growth however no operational set of simple criteria has been developed so far to assess the sustainability of a given growth pattern this is all the more true for measures combining environmental and social criteria the paper undertakes to sketch out such criteria and to assess them by applying them to transdiciplinary sustainability scenarios and model simulations with panta rhei one of the most complex models of the german economy theoretical considerations as well as the empirical work with the model demonstrate that there are indeed trade offs between economic growth and environmental impacts and a positive correlation of growth and employment nonetheless it is still possible to develop carefully orchestrated strategies that combine economic competitiveness low unemployment rates and an easing of the pressure on the environment social and technical innovation reduced working time a modernised social security system green taxes and salary increases proportional to labour productivity growth are essential parts of any such strategy the triple effectiveness of such strategies regarding environmental social and economic sustainability is demonstrated by the model runs

globalization outsourcing and wage inequality there is considerable debate over whether international trade has contributed to the declining economic fortunes of less skilled workers one issue that has become lost in the current discussion is how firms respond to import competition and how these responses in turn are transmitted to the labor market in previous work we have argued that outsourcing by which we mean the import of intermediate inputs by domestic firms has contributed to an increase in the relative demand for skilled labor in the united states if firms respond to import competition from low wage countries by moving non skill intensive activities abroad then trade will shift employment towards skilled workers within industries in this paper we extend our previous work by combining new import data from the revised nber trade database with disaggregated data on input purchases from the census of manufactures we construct industry by industry estimates of outsourcing for the period 1972 1990 and reexamine whether outsourcing has contributed to an increase in relative demand for skilled labor our main finding is that outsourcing can account for 31 51 of the increase in the relative demand for skilled labor that occurred in u s manufacturing industries during the 1980s compared to our previous estimate of 15 33 this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

the paradox of growth critique narrative analysis of the finnish sustainable consumption and production debate abstract academic discussion on economic growth and the environment has made a comeback under the auspices of the degrowth debate to date however literature on the topic has been mainly theoretical and empirical studies of actual policy discussions have received less attention this article contributes to the debate with a narrative policy analysis of interviews with members of finland s committee on sustainable consumption and production narrative policy analysis is suitable for complex policy cases by tracing and comparing the different stories non stories and counterstories in the debate the analysis clarifies the issue and paves the way for solutions we found that it is common even among business and ministry representatives to criticize the current growth bound economic system from the perspective of narrative policy analysis however this critique only increases uncertainty and complexity in the policy field which paradoxically leads to a strengthening of the dominant growth stories we suggest that constructing a complete degrowth story is essential for supporting democratic deliberation on sustainability robust institutional support for degrowth work together with research and experimentation are important milestones on the way

uncontrolled prices on a market with supply control abstract it is investigated in this article how a price increasing supply control measure on a regulated market influences the price on a parallel non regulated market determinants of the net impact including the rigidity of quota policy are elaborated

an evaluation of indian government rice policy in tamil nadu abstract the indian government procures rice from wholesalers or producers at a price below the market price and then distributes it to low income consumers at a subsidized price this paper uses a simulataneous equations econometric model to evaluate the effects of this policy on supply demand of rice in the state of tamil nadu between 1956 and 1985 results show that production is more responsive to power for irrigation and fertilizer prices than to output prices because supply is inelastic producers bear the burden of the tax imposed by procurement even though rice is procured from the wholesaler rice distributed by the government displaces rice demanded in the open market and thus the government distribution of rice has not increased the total consumption of rice

third country effects on the formation of free trade agreements the recent proliferation of free trade agreements ftas has resulted in an increasingly complex network of preferential trading relationships the economics literature has generally examined the formation of ftas as a function of the participating countries economic characteristics alone in this paper we show both theoretically and empirically that the decision to enter into an fta is also crucially dependent on the participating countries existing fta relationships with third countries accounting for the interdependence of ftas helps to explain a significant fraction of fta formations that would not otherwise be predicted by countries economic characteristics

the growth discourse growth policy and sustainable development two thought experiments abstract this paper addresses three aspects of growth the discourse the policy and the impacts the growth discourse claims that the central factor for social economic political and environmental progress is economic growth it is assumed to create wealth and provide the necessary means for social and environmental purposes on the basis of the growth discourse different growth policies can be derived based on different economic and political ideologies in order to reveal the implications of de facto degrowth two thought experiments are conducted for physical and economic end to growth strategies the latter is capable of meeting environmental objectives but implies significant social tensions and hardships and calls for transition strategies consisting of carefully designed steps

food price policy the rationale for government intervention abstract policy makers in the most successful developing countries have not accepted either of the two major schools of thought on food price policy the neo classical school favours free trade to maximize efficiency of resource allocation the structuralist school favours interventions to satisfy goals for income distribution especially in the rapidly growing rice based economies of asia policy makers have been more concerned about stability of domestic prices than their level relative to world prices this concern traditionally dismissed by economists as purely political is justified on economic grounds because of improved macroeconomic and dynamic efficiency from stable food prices the paper identifies both the benefits from food price stability and the costs of achieving it

middle income classes and food crises the new food feed competition famine was averted the novelty was that a 3 shortfall in grain production led to a 250 price increase this specific manifestation of the food crisis was the result of the congruence of an old force population pressure with new ones the income explosion and income inequality in a world in which the economic distance between the rich and the poor grows ever greater even minor food shortages are likely to assume major proportions the agricultural price instability that will ensue represents a major threat to the food security of less developed countries examination of the ingredients of modern food crises can help explain some of the new ramifications of the age old problem of world hunger the three elements that are reflected in the food demand situation are population incomes and prices to avoid needless complexity i will reserve my examination of prices to the end population and incomes deserve more detailed analysis