on electricity consumption and economic growth in china abstract the invention and application of the electric power technology triggered the second industrial revolution in human history which marked the human society entered the age of electricity electricity provides the sustainable power for economic and social development with the rapid development of economy the electricity consumption is also increasing the increase of electricity consumption has further promoted the progress of the industrial economy in order to achieve the goal of improving the level of economic development while reducing energy consumption it is necessary to reveal the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth this study is an extensive overview of the literature surrounding this topic in this paper we focus on the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth in china we first analyze the general situation of china s electricity consumption and economic development then we explore the relationship between china s electricity consumption and economic growth from three dimensions i e the time dimension the regional dimension and the industrial dimension finally we study the key issues in the research of the relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth including variable selection model construction and results discussion this work suggests that the nature of the nexus in china should and can be explored from a wider perspective by developing a suitable integrated methodological framework

clearing the air the costs and consequences of higher cafe standards and increased gasoline taxes abstract concerns about energy security and climate change have sparked legislators interest in reducing gasoline consumption by increasing corporate average fuel economy cafe standards using an empirically rich simulation model and cost estimates for anticipated fuel economy technologies we estimate annual costs of reducing long run gasoline consumption by 10 via a 3 8 miles per gallon increase in the standards and the potential cost savings from allowing manufacturers to buy and sell fuel economy credits maximum gasoline savings would be realized only after all existing vehicles were replaced or 14 years in our model a gasoline tax would produce greater immediate savings by encouraging people to drive less and eventually to choose more fuel efficient vehicles we demonstrate the advantage of a tax by comparing the cost of the higher cafe standards over the first 14 years against the cost of a gasoline tax that would save the same amount of gasoline over that time

the economics of rising stars this paper analyzes an occupation in which there is substantial uncertainty about individual performance and past performance is correlated with future outcomes in equilibrium only the young enter the occupation and only the successful stay on the young are numerous and earn incomes well below what their current alternative o ffers success is rare and rewarded highly the implied distribution of earnings must have positive skewness copyright 1988 by american economic association

football spectator no show behaviour in the german bundesliga despite an extensive literature on stadium attendance demand our understanding of those factors shaping spectator no show behaviour is rudimentary at best here we explore such behaviour by using

estimates of energy subsidies in china and impact of energy subsidy reform abstract for a transitional economy such as china some energy subsidies are reasonable and sometimes even necessary for achieving social goals however with rising energy prices and environmental concerns we see conflicts emerging between energy subsidies energy demand supply fundamentals and climate change considerations energy subsidies have important implications for sustainable development through their effects on energy use efficiency and the choice of fuel source this paper applies the price gap approach to estimate china s energy subsidies results indicate that china s energy subsidies amounted to cny 356 73 billion in 2007 equivalent to 1 43 of gdp subsidies for oil products consumption are the largest followed by subsidies for the electricity and coal sectors furthermore a cge model is used to analyze the economic impacts of energy subsidy reforms our findings show that removing energy subsidies will result in a significant fall in energy demand and emissions but will have negative impacts on macroeconomic variables we conclude that offsetting policies could be adopted such that certain shares of these subsidies are reallocated to support other sustainable development measures which could lead to reducing energy intensity and favoring the environment

feed in tariff outlook in malaysia this paper aims to present the feed in tariff fit outlook in malaysia which is in the process of being enacted through a renewable energy re policy by the government of malaysia gom a brief in policies leading towards the re policy and the potential of each re sources under fit mechanism have been discussed the successful utilisation of re source in electricity generation and the fit implementation globally are positive indicators to implement fit in malaysia potentials of fit on biomass biogas and solid waste energy are currently very promising in malaysia but it is solar energy which is predicted to be the main re of the future surpassing all other res

energy conservation through energy service companies empirical analysis from china abstract china s energy service companies escos have developed only modestly despite favorable political and market conditions we argue that with sophisticated market institutions still evolving in china trust based relations between escos and energy customers are essential for successful implementation of energy efficiency projects chinese escos who are predominantly small and private enterprises perform poorly in terms of trust building because they are disembedded from local business social and political networks we conclude that in the current institutional setting the esco model based on market relations has serious limitations and is unlikely to lead to large scale implementation of energy efficiency projects in china

the development of policy instruments in supporting low carbon governance in china abstract this paper examines the development of policy instruments that support the low carbon governance in china the instruments are analysed in five aspects in relation to the key policies in low carbon governance in china including energy conservation developing new energy reforestry developing circular economy and industry restructuring each aspect is discussed in three instrument groups which are 1 law and regulations 2 industry standard and 3 finance and taxation this research suggests that law enforcement for the new established laws should be further strengthened and stricter supervision systems should be in place to safeguard effective implementation of low carbon policies measures and standards especially for those energy condensed sectors more rigorous industry standards regarding energy efficiency should be considered to help eliminate outdated equipments in industries and promote the introduction of more climate friendly technologies the industrial standards should be given strong legal support in accountability in order to enforce their complete application once in operation new policies and instruments need to be introduced in order to reduce carbon print by landfill the backward law and industrial standards in china should be upgraded more regularly therefore to support the low carbon development strategy

designation and influence of household increasing block electricity tariffs in china abstract electricity is the guarantee of normal life and the electricity price is widely concerned as a developing country in the transition stage abundant policy implications are included in the electricity price in china thus whether to adjust the resident electricity price is a dilemma for the government however the current single tariff system cannot cope with the complex social and environmental problems a new price mechanism is indeed needed this paper tries to design an increasing block tariffs system with the consideration of residential income and electricity consumption the result indicates that the increasing block tariffs system with four tier structure is more reasonable for china although the increasing block tariffs will result in the increase of electricity price it is still acceptable and affordable the increasing block tariffs will greatly improve the equity and efficiency and promote the electricity saving and emissions reduction moreover the power companies will increase tariffs revenue which would use to the transmission networks investment in poor area in order to the offset the limitations of the increasing block tariffs the government should adopt some complementary measures

the impact of china s differential electricity pricing policy on power sector co2 emissions abstract this article investigates the impact of china s differential electricity pricing policy on power sector co 2 emissions using the logarithmic mean divisia index method the differential pricing policy intended to reduce energy intensity in manufacturing is being implemented in eight electricity intensive industries the study finds that during 2004 2009 the policy accounted for a drop of roughly 115 twh in electricity use which amounted to a reduction of 82 million tons of co 2 emissions the policy has been most effective in reducing electricity use in the nonferrous metal smelting and rolling industry and least effective in the ferrous metal smelting and rolling industry because the differential pricing policy has had significantly different effects across industries improving the policy s design and implementation going forward will require a more detailed understanding and analysis of how it can be better tailored to individual industries

a snapshot of the european energy service market in 2010 and policy recommendations to foster a further market development abstract as of 2010 the energy service market in europe is still far from utilising its full potential wide scale peer reviewed studies investigating the development and up to date status of the european esco market are scarce this article presents a comprehensive insight of the european esco industry based on the results from a large scale survey carried out 2009 2010 in 39 european countries the observed market development during the period 2007 2010 trends in business practices and factors influencing the esco industry evolution are described finally having considered the remaining barriers and the supporting factors as well as the successful experiences in europe policy measures that could further promote esco activities are proposed

the economic design of sporting contests what is the optimal number of entrants in a race or the optimal number of teams in a baseball league what is the optimal structure of prizes for a golf tournament or degree of revenue sharing for a football championship how evenly balanced should the competing teams be in the nascar or formula one championships what is the maximum number of entrants per nation to the olympic games that should be permitted what quota of qualifying teams to the soccer world cup should be allocated to the developing nations

a review on global fuel economy standards labels and technologies in the transportation sector abstract globally the transportation sector is the second largest energy consuming sector after the industrial sector and accounts for 30 of the world s total delivered energy in 2008 the transportation sector accounted for about 22 of total world co2 emissions it is believed that this sector is currently responsible for nearly 60 of world oil demand within this sector road vehicles dominate oil consumption and represents 81 of total transportation energy demand the purpose of this paper is to highlight the possible opportunities to improve fuel economy and thus reduce global oil consumption and greenhouse gases there are three measures that have been reviewed passenger vehicle fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards fuel economy labels and improvement in vehicle fuel efficiency by advanced technologies fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards have proven to be one of the most effective tools in improving fuel economy japan and europe lead the world with the most stringent passenger vehicle fuel economy standards labeling is another measure that could play an important role in consumers vehicle purchasing decisions between similar vehicles labeling accompanied by standards of an appropriate type and level of stringency may yield synergistic results in this review several examples of fuel economy labels around the world have been presented such as in usa united kingdom canada china and australia finally advanced technologies have been discussed there are many technical opportunities to improve fuel efficiency and economy of motor vehicles in this review the possibilities of reducing vehicle power requirement advanced engine and transmission technology and alternative power plants have been reviewed it has been found that fuel economy standards labels and technologies offer a massive potential of energy saving that can be achieved in this sector and thus the authors promoted adopting these measures in the transportation sector

china s renewable energy law and its impact on renewable power in china progress challenges and recommendations for improving implementation beginning in 2006 china experienced a rapid growth in its renewable energy resources particularly wind power placing it among the world s leading countries in terms of renewable energy installation and generation this growth was greatly enabled by the renewable energy policy framework created by its landmark renewable energy law passed in 2005 and amended in 2009 which established key policies including national renewable energy targets a mandatory connection and purchase policy a national feed in tariff system and arrangements for cost sharing and funding of renewable energy incentives this paper describes the mechanisms established by the renewable energy law and its implementing regulations as well as the challenges china continues to face in improving its renewable energy policy framework to improve integration and utilization of renewable energy sources it also provides a comparison of the chinese renewable energy policy framework with those in the european union and united states finally the paper provides recommendations for improving implementation of the renewable energy law with regard to implementing a renewable power quota system and priority dispatch policy developing technical standards for connection of renewable resources with the grid development of a more advanced feed in tariff system and central local coordination of renewable energy development

beyond revealed preference choice theoretic foundations for behavioral welfare economics we propose a broad generalization of standard choice theoretic welfare economics that encompasses a wide variety of nonstandard behavioral models our approach exploits the coherent aspects of choice that those positive models typically attempt to capture it replaces the standard revealed preference relation with an unambiguous choice relation roughly x is strictly unambiguously chosen over y written xp y iff y is never chosen when x is available under weak assumptions p is acyclic and therefore suitable for welfare analysis it is also the most discerning welfare criterion that never overrules choice the resulting framework generates natural counterparts for the standard tools of applied welfare economics and is easily applied in the context of specific behavioral theories with novel implications though not universally discerning it lends itself to principled refinements

energy savings obligations in the uk a history of change this paper looks at energy savings obligations in the uk more specifically it discusses how the policy instrument changed over time and what the drivers of that change were the uk was the first country in europe that introduced obligations on suppliers to save energy at the customer end in 1994 since then this policy changed rapidly and is now the principal instrument to deliver energy savings in the housing stock the paper aims to answer three questions first how did the policy instrument change over time second what were the key drivers of that change third how did those pressures filter through the policy process and affect the energy savings obligations

a critical review of china s rapidly developing renewable energy and energy efficiency policies renewable energy and energy efficiency reee policies have far reaching implications for energy security climate change economic competitiveness pollution and human livelihood for these reasons reee has become a national priority for the chinese government particularly since 2005 this paper aims to critically review china s reee policies in six sectors electricity industry transportation buildings and local government in addition to examining the progress china has made in the development and implementation of reee policies this review also identifies limitations and room for improvement finally five policy recommendations are presented

feed in tariff vs renewable portfolio standard an empirical test of their relative effectiveness in promoting wind capacity development abstract this paper examines the relative effectiveness of feed in tariff fit and renewable portfolio standard rps in promoting wind capacity development using panel data conservative estimates suggest that on average across countries fit increases total wind capacity more than rps by a magnitude of about 1800 mw when using time variant policy indicators the difference between the two policies increases to nearly 2000 mw roughly 8 of 2009 cumulative capacity in germany as for annual wind capacity since 2005 this paper has found no significant difference between fit and rps it is also found that wind energy development responds to high electricity demand and high oil dependence

fuel consumption rates of passenger cars in china labels versus real world abstract recently china has implemented many policy measures to control the oil demand of on road vehicles in 2010 china started to report the fuel consumption rates of light duty vehicles tested in laboratory and to require new vehicles to show the rates on window labels in this study we examined the differences between the test and real world fuel consumption of chinese passenger cars by using the data reported by real world drivers on the internet voluntarily the sales weighted average fuel consumption of new cars in china in 2009 was 7 80 l 100 km in laboratory and 9 02 l 100 km in real world representing a difference of 15 5 for the 153 individual car models examined the real world fuel consumption rates were 8 to 60 different from the test values the simulation results of the international vehicle emission model show that the real world driving cycles in 22 selected chinese cities could result in 8 to 34 of changes in fuel consumption compared to the laboratory driving cycle further government effort on fuel consumption estimates adjustment local driving cycle development and real world data accumulation through communication with the public is needed to improve the accuracy of the labeling policy

on the decisiveness of a game in a tournament abstract in sport tournaments in which teams are matched two at a time it is useful for a variety of reasons to be able to quantify how important a particular game is the need for such quantitative information has been addressed in the literature by several more or less simple measures of game importance in this paper we point out some of the drawbacks of those measures and we propose a different approach which rather targets how decisive a game is with respect to the final victory we give a definition of this idea of game decisiveness in terms of the uncertainty about the eventual winner prevailing in the tournament at the time of the game as this uncertainty is strongly related to the notion of entropy of a probability distribution our decisiveness measure is based on entropy related concepts we study the suggested decisiveness measure on two real tournaments the 1988 nba championship series and the uefa 2012 european football championship euro 2012 and we show how well it agrees with what intuition suggests finally we also use our decisiveness measure to objectively analyse the recent uefa decision to expand the european football championship from 16 to 24 nations in the future in terms of the overall attractiveness of the competition

unscripted drama soccer audience response to suspense surprise and shock by modeling minute by minute television audience figures from english premier league soccer matches with close to 50 000 minute observations we show that demand is partly driven by suspense and surprise we also identify an additional relevant factor of appeal to audiences namely shock which refers to the difference between pre match and current game outcome probabilities suspense surprise and shock remain significant in the presence of a traditional measure of outcome uncertainty jel c23 d12 l82 l83 z20

comparing the feed in tariff incentives for renewable electricity in ontario and germany the development of feed in tariff fit programs to support green electricity in ontario the green energy and green economy act of 2009 and germany the erneuerbare energien gesetz of 2000 is compared the two policies are highly comparable offering similar rates for most renewable electricity technologies major differences between the policies include the level of differentiation found in the german policy as well as the use of a price degression strategy for fit rates in germany compared to an escalation strategy in ontario the german renewable electricity portfolio is relatively balanced compared to ontario where wind power dominates the portfolio at the federal level canada does not yet have a policy similar to the european directive on renewable energy and this lack may impact decisions taken by manufacturers of renewable technologies who consider establishing operations in the province ontario s green energy and green economy act could be benefit from lessons in the german system especially with regard to degression of feed in tariff rates over time which could significantly reduce payments to producers over the course of a contract and in turn encourage greater competitiveness among renewable power providers in the future

china s experiment on the differential electricity pricing policy and the struggle for energy conservation abstract differential electricity pricing was promulgated by china s central government to guide the development of high energy consuming industries which are significant for energy conservation this paper examines the twists and turns of the policy implementation at the provincial level and seeks to elucidate the difficulties in its implementation local governments concerned that following the central directives would hurt local interests have tried to deviate from the central orders while the central revises the policy from time to time to ensure local compliance three difficulties are analyzed 1 the current relations between the central and local energy regulatory institutions make these local institutions difficult to perform their duties and affect incentives for local governments to respond to central directives 2 financial reform puts a great burden on local governments to raise revenues to cover expenditures making local governments focus mainly on economic development rather than serving merely as political agents of the central government 3 the aggressive attitude of local governments in pursuing gdp growth is not necessarily driven by the central government but by pressure from competition among localities and the need to win local support solving these difficulties is important for making national energy conservation polices effective and efficient

perceived game uncertainty suspense and the demand for sport this study tries bridging between different behavioral economic explanations for the lack of support of the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis in spectator sports we test a measure of perceived game uncertainty that is comparable to objective measures frequently tested in the literature econometric results suggest that fans do not perceive closeness of a game differently than how economists have tended to measure it however fans perceptions of suspensefulness are distinct from their perceptions of game uncertainty moreover the finding that fans preferences for game uncertainty are dominated by loss aversion also emerges independently of fanship status in our stated preference setting jel l83 d12 z2

competitive balance versus competitive intensity before a match is one of these two concepts more relevant in explaining attendance the case of the french football ligue 1 over the period 2008 2011 the aim of this article is to investigate the determinants of attendance at french football ligue 1 matches over the period 2008 2011 with an emphasis on examining the effects of both competitive balance and intensity before a match competitive balance is measured by the point difference between the two teams concerned by a match in the championship competitive intensity is measured by the point difference for the home team in relation to ranks with sporting stakes results show that competitive balance has an insignificant impact whereas competitive intensity has a significantly positive impact implications are drawn