high technology exports of eec countries persistence and diversity of specialization patterns high tichnology export of eec countries is considered the analysis relies on a bundle of products selected from the eurostat database comext high technology goods are considered as an innoviate output indicator a test of the hypotheses of hystersis and divesity of trade patterns at country level has been performed to verify some claims made by the evolutionary theory of innovation and trade the theree mode principal component analysis carried out confirms the persistence of specialization patterns of each eec country in high techonology export and highlights their sharp differences

targeting energy justice exploring spatial racial ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in urban residential heating energy efficiency abstract fuel poverty the inability of households to afford adequate energy services such as heating is a major energy justice concern increasing residential energy efficiency is a strategic fuel poverty intervention however the absence of easily accessible household energy data impedes effective targeting of energy efficiency programs this paper uses publicly available data bottom up modeling and small area estimation techniques to predict the mean census block group residential heating energy use intensity eui an energy efficiency proxy in kansas city missouri results mapped using geographic information systems gis and statistical analysis show disparities in the relationship between heating eui and spatial racial ethnic and socioeconomic block group characteristics block groups with lower median incomes a greater percentage of households below poverty a greater percentage of racial ethnic minority headed households and a larger percentage of adults with less than a high school education were on average less energy efficient higher euis results also imply that racial segregation which continues to influence urban housing choices exposes black and hispanic households to increased fuel poverty vulnerability lastly the spatial concentration and demographics of vulnerable block groups suggest proactive area and community based targeting of energy efficiency assistance programs may be more effective than existing self referral approaches

characterizing the technology firm an exploratory study abstract technology firms occupy a central position in modern economies they drive economic growth productivity gains and have created new industries and innovative products many will agree that technology firms are distinguished from others in their emphasis on technological activities since this observation is too general researchers suggested a variety of specific criteria and definitions a number of definitions of technology firms appear in the literature but many are arbitrary and simplistic and none gained wide acceptance similarly the number of characteristics suggested is large reflecting a variety of perspectives and interests in this case too no agreement exists as to which are the important ones also many seem to be interrelated capturing different aspects of the same underlying concepts this paper is concerned with the issue of definition and classification of technology firms we demonstrate the usefulness of a different approach to the definition and classification problem we rely on executives evaluations of their firms technology profile and level an analysis of these evaluations reveals the underlying dimensions the executives used in making their judgments we regard the dimensions we uncover as capturing the essence of technology firms and use them to classify the firms we study the specific characteristics the executives used to evaluate their firms were derived from a systematic scan of the literature thus the list represents the set of characteristics early researchers viewed as describing and defining technology firms the connection to early work enhances our findings validity and lends some credence to our belief that the three dimensions we uncover r d activities which are closely associated with a set of organizational elements and market conditions product strategy and corporate culture can be used by others to define technology firms and classify firms according to their technology level in our study we use these three dimensions to classify the firms studied we show that the commonly used practice of classifying firms as high and low technology according to the industry to which they belong is flawed our goal in this study is not to offer a new or better definition and characterization of technology firms or to offer the best approach to the generation of the classification criteria rather we demonstrate here the usefulness of a different approach to the problem while our approach does suffer from limitations it has important advantages we hope future studies will confirm not only the usefulness of our approach but also the general applicability of the specific criteria we identify in this study

sources procedures and microeconomic effects of innovation fabio arcangeli paul david frank engelman christopher freeman massimo moggi richard nelson luigi orsenigo nathan rosenberg michele salvati g n von tunzelman two anonymous referees and the participants at the meeting of the committee on distribution growth and technical progress of the italian national research council cnr rome november 16 1985 have helped with various redraftings a particularly grateful acknowledgment is for the insightful and patient help of moses abramovitz this work has been undertaken at the science policy research unit spru university of sussex as part of the research program of the designated research centre sponsored by the economic and social research council esrc earlier support to the research that led to this paper by the italian national research council cnr is also gratefully acknowledged the statistical research has been undertaken with the assistance of stephano brioschi ilaria fornari and giovannu prennushi

is western europe losing the technological race abstract using a variety of indicators this paper compares technological levels in japan the usa and w europe there is no justification for assuming general european technological backwardness whilst it lags in electronics and since 1975 has had a relatively slow rate of growth of innovative activities it also has sectors of strength chemicals machinery production engineering and countries whose relative commitments of resources to innovative activities are at least equal and sometimes superior to those of japan and the usa frg sweden switzerland its main policy challenges are to increase the rate of growth of innovative activities in lagging countries and to ensure pervasive applications of information technology similarly there is no convincing evidence that w europe is relatively backward in converting technology into economically efficient innovations some policy problems are significant in all three regions skill shortages whilst others are in the usa and w europe short term planning horizons of top management particular european problems are the effects of social legislation on worker flexibility and mobility of national regulations on intra european competition and of slow rates of growth of output on the growth of innovative activities japan and the usa have their problems with the latter continuously under challenge from the former and increasingly specialised in defence and raw materials related technologies

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

on measuring energy poverty in indian households summary the relationship between energy and poverty is obvious and goes both ways recognizing this this paper provides a short overview of different approaches to measuring energy poverty it then presents a novel two dimensional measure of energy poverty and energy distribution that combines the elements of access to different energy types and quantity of energy consumed an assessment of the extent of energy poverty and changes in energy distribution pattern are analyzed by applying this measure to indian household survey data for 1983 2000 the analysis shows a significant reduction in the level of energy poverty and a rapidly developing subcontinent the new measure is a good complement to conventional monetary measures and is general enough to be applied to other developing countries

measuring fuel poverty in france which households are the most fuel vulnerable fuel poverty is a growing concern in france following the hike in energy prices that started in 2004 the problem of energy affordability for low income households entered the political debate with the grenelle de l environnement in 2007 according to the standard uk definition 10 ratio 3 8 million households were subject to fuel poverty in france in 2006 we question the way fuel poverty is currently measured and compare the impact of alternative measurement approaches on the extent and composition of fuel poverty in france then we identify and characterize vulnerable households that are not ordinarily poor but can be pushed into poverty because of their fuel bills a logit a clog log and a mixed effect logit model are used to analyze which factors influence the probability of vulnerable households to fall into poverty the study indicates that the proportion of fuel poor people and their characteristics differ significantly depending on the fuel poverty measure chosen the econometric results show that the probability of falling into poverty is higher for those who are retired living alone rent their home use an individual boiler for heating cook with butane or propane and have poor roof insulation current french fuel poverty reduction policies appear to be inappropriate given our conclusions

energy poverty in china an index based comprehensive evaluation abstract energy poverty has got increasing attention during the latest three decades measuring energy poverty is the premise of policy making to alleviate energy poverty there is no unified energy poverty measurement that has been widely accepted this paper reviews the commonly used energy poverty measurements through classifying them into three categories energy service availability energy service quality and satisfaction of energy demand for human s survival and development this paper also analyzes the suitability of the commonly used energy poverty measurement for china from the prospective of data availability and index applicability furthermore we construct a new energy poverty comprehensive evaluation index in this study and the index is illustrated to evaluate regional energy poverty in china the evaluation results indicate that china s energy poverty showed an alleviating trend from 2000 to 2011 and during this period china s energy service availability improved slightly energy consumption cleanliness showed no significant change energy management completeness decreased with fluctuations and household energy affordability and energy efficiency improved continually in addition china s regions show different characteristics of energy poverty for example middle reaches of yangtze river region showed the worst energy availability and eastern coastal region showed the worst energy management completeness several policy implications for energy poverty alleviation are also proposed in this study including for instance increasing investment on energy infrastructure and spreading energy management organization in rural area decreasing relative cost on household commercial energy consumption and encourage the utilization of modern clean and efficient household energy consumption equipment

can premium tariffs for micro generation and small scale renewable heat help the fuel poor and if so how case studies of innovative finance for community energy schemes in the uk abstract in the uk the introduction of micro generation feed in tariffs fits and a proposed renewable heat incentive rhi for domestic and small scale schemes have re energised the market for investment in domestic scale renewable energy these incentives may provide financial opportunities for those with capital to spend but for the record numbers with low incomes in fuel poverty these benefits may seem out of reach this paper shows that with appropriate financial intermediaries it is possible for renewable energy incentives to be used to alleviate fuel poverty simple financial analysis demonstrates the theoretical potential of fits to help those in fuel poverty two case studies of renewable energy projects in low income areas investigate how the incentives may be used in practice what barriers exist and what success factors are evident the analysis shows that local energy organisations leos are key if the poor are to access benefits from premium tariff schemes low interest finance mechanisms good information sharing and community involvement are found as key success factors

sectoral patterns of technical change towards a taxonomy and a theory abstract the purpose of the paper is to describe and explain sectoral patterns of technical change as revealed by data on about 2000 significant innovations in britain since 1945 most technological knowledge turns out not to be information that is generally applicable and easily reproducible but specific to firms and applications cumulative in development and varied amongst sectors in source and direction innovating firms principally in electronics and chemicals are relatively big and they develop innovations over a wide range of specific product groups within their principal sector but relatively few outside firms principally in mechanical and instrument engineering are relatively small and specialised and they exist in symbiosis with large firms in scale intensive sectors like metal manufacture and vehicles who make a significant contribution to their own process technology in textile firms on the other hand most process innovations come from suppliers these characteristics and variations can be classified in a three part taxonomy based on firms 1 supplier dominated 2 production intensive 3 science based they can be explained by sources of technology requirements of users and possibilities for appropriation this explanation has implications for our understanding of the sources and directions of technical change firms diversification behaviour the dynamic relationship between technology and industrial structure and the formation of technological skills and advantages at the level of the firm the region and the country

industrial governance structures innovation strategies and the case of japan sectoral or cross national comparative analysis in comparative research on industrial policy strategies attention has shifted from national level variables to sectoral variables in both the description and the explanation of policy the sectoral literature however lacks analytic focus and has provided little systematic insight into the causes of cross sectoral variance in governance structures and policy strategies based on recent contributions to the economics and sociology of formal organizations this article attempts to sharpen the concept of industrial sector and to provide a rationale for why sectoral structures and strategies vary next it develops a synthetic explanatory framework that combines sectoral analysis and national domestic structuralism in order to account for industrial innovation strategies in advanced capitalist countries in the final section the fruitfulness of this approach is illustrated by developing a new account of japan s success and failure in industrial innovation an account that overcomes the contradictions among the main alternatives offered in the past the key objective of the article however is to develop a new set of theoretical hypotheses for cross national research not a rigorous empirical test of its main propositions

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

quantifying the severity of fuel poverty its relationship with poor housing and reasons for non investment in energy saving measures in ireland fuel poverty has generally been calculated by quantifying the number of households spending in excess of 10 of income on home heating this definition has a number of significant practical and scientific limitations this paper employs self reported data to calculate the severity of fuel poverty in ireland to identify chronic fuel poor households from occasional sufferers it also assesses domestic energy efficiency levels ireland is a useful case study as it demonstrates the highest variations in seasonal mortality and morbidity in northern europe both of which are associated with fuel poverty ireland is also experiencing extreme difficulties meeting its environmental emissions targets in light of recent spectacular economic growth reducing fuel poverty would lower energy related emissions assisting policy makers achieve these challenging targets furthermore little empirical research has been undertaken on fuel poverty in ireland this paper identifies key social groups at risk by conducting detailed socio economic and socio demographic analyses the relationship between fuel poverty and adverse housing conditions damp condensation is also examined moreover the reasons behind householders not investing in energy saving measures are reported the results show that ireland suffers from similar levels of fuel poverty as the uk with low income households suffering the greatest the key policy implications are outlined

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

the value of retrofitting carbon saving measures into fuel poor social housing abstract with current fuel poverty and carbon saving policies continuing to miss their targets in the uk the synergy between the two problems is investigated to highlight an approach that could be mutually beneficial focussing on the 550 000 fuel poor socially housed dwellings in the uk costs of between 3 9 and 17 5 bn are estimated as the required capital investment for achieving deep cut carbon savings defined as at least 50 across this section of the housing stock with a potential total annual carbon saving of 1 7 mtco2 it is assumed that such costs would be largely or totally state funded though additional private investment could clearly increase the possible carbon savings across this section of the stock the use of these socially housed fuel poor dwellings as low carbon exemplars is discussed and benefits for the private housing sector are postulated the study also focuses on the problem of installing non cost effective measures i e technologies that would not currently be encouraged by existing subsidy schemes but which might be necessary for achieving large carbon saving targets

the rate and motives of the internationalisation of large firm r d 1994 2005 towards a turning point this paper addresses the internationalisation of rd and iii a rapid rise but still limited of asian firm r d internationalisation third these movements did not promote as anticipated the role of technology based motives asset augmenting strategies in the internationalisation of large firms r d technology based motives remain the most important of driver but the gap with market based considerations has narrowed

the mediating role of social workers in the implementation of regional policies targeting energy poverty abstract this paper aims to provide a socio political reflection of the role played by social workers in regional policies and of the real needs of households affected by energy poverty the paper also examines the impact of technical specialised training on the ability of social workers to prevent and mitigate conditions of household energy poverty in europe the adoption of a research action participation methodological framework and a training research approach has permitted the opinions of social workers to be collected through surveys and their central role in implementing regional policies to be highlighted the conclusions obtained have made possible the construction of a self diagnosis and data collection tool which increases the ability of social workers to mediate and implement urgent mitigation measures for energy poverty finally regional policies which aim to mitigate household energy poverty are examined from the professional perspective of social workers

can the green deal be fair too exploring new possibilities for alleviating fuel poverty abstract energy efficiency and social programmes have failed to stem the dramatic increase in the number of fuel poor households in recent years as the 2016 deadline for eradicating fuel poverty nears energy efficiency and fuel poverty programmes are undergoing significant changes the ambitions for britain s green deal the overhaul of supplier obligations alongside the winding down of warm front and the introduction of an incentive for renewable heat combine to form a sea change in how energy efficiency and fuel poverty objectives are financed and delivered green deal finance gdf eliminates the up front capital cost of energy efficiency measures to the household by linking repayments to energy savings and spreading them over many years this paper asks whether and how gdf could be beneficial to fuel poor households using scenarios modelled on the english house condition survey it explores the extent to which fuel poverty could be reduced allowing for repayments incurred by gdf it examines how much further fuel poverty could be alleviated were the capital cost subsidised or repayments supported and concludes that a flexible design for gdf is necessary if it is to contribute to alleviating fuel poverty

rural electrification and energy poverty empirical evidences from brazil the aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on the reduction of energy poverty in brazil through the analysis of 23 000 rural domiciles or rural properties between the years 2000 and 2004 the results indicate a fast change in the profile of energy consumption and a reduction of energy poverty this new approach works as a complement among other variables to analyze and quantify the real economic social and energy impacts in rural electrification programs generally applied in developing countries

energy poor or fuel poor what are the differences abstract energy poverty and fuel poverty are descriptors of problems of households energy consumption they are both distinct problems and have been addressed by many researchers organizations and governments cross use of the terms of energy poverty and fuel poverty in published papers is common as an accurate descriptor is the presupposition of research and policy development especially for those who just started to pay attention to this issue this paper compares the definitions research priorities status quo and problems of these two concepts and summarizes the relationship between them the paper suggests that only when the research targets are households who are living in a cold climate and have difficulty in getting access to electricity or modern cooking facilities and in supplying indoor heating with appropriate cost the concepts of energy poverty and fuel poverty have the chance to be broadened and mutually integrated

analysis of energy poverty intensity from the perspective of the regional administration empirical evidence from households in southern europe abstract the current economic situation has increased the number of households in europe experiencing restrictions and or limitations of affordability of energy services demonstrating the urgent need to intervene in those extreme cases in which households suffer the daily consequences of what is internationally defined as energy poverty in such a context this paper presents the results obtained in a case study characterising a sample of 615 households with demonstrated energy poverty in the region of aragon spain in parallel the intensity of energy poverty in the studied cases is examined by measuring the percentage of energy expenditures with respect to income in the households that suffer it and a descriptive analysis of the main determinants of energy poverty in the homes studied is presented as well as the policy implication at regional level

the technological competencies of the world s largest firms complex and path dependent but not much variety firm specific technological competencies help explain why firms are different how they change over time and whether or not they are capable of remaining competitive data on more than 400 of the world s largest firms show that their technological competencies have the following characteristics 1 1 they are typically multi field and becoming more so over time with competencies ranging beyond their product range in technical fields outside their distinctive core 2 2 they are highly stable and differentiated with both the technology profile and the directions of localised search strongly influenced by firms principal products 3 3 the rate of search is influenced by both the firm s principal products and the conditions in its home country however considerable unexplained variance suggests scope for managerial choice these findings confirm the importance of complexity and path dependency in the accumulation of firm specific technological competencies and show that managers are heavily constrained in the directions of their technological search they also show the limits of the notion of competition through variety given that the same specific field of technological competence is often essential to the development of a range of possible product configurations technological imperatives still exist

what moves and works broadening the consideration of energy poverty greater detail on the specific technological and planning challenges facing energy deprived developing economies is required to improve energy policy making and development assistance practice the current literature tends to highlight electricity services and to a lesser extent clean cooking this article calls for a closer look at mobility and mechanical power as essential energy services in addition to a refinement of the specific institutional arrangements needed to reduce energy poverty and deprivation this article augments and refines arguments made by morgan bazilian and his colleagues in their viewpoint more heat and light

sectoral patterns of production and use of innovations in the uk 1945 1983 abstract based on information on more than 4000 innovations commercialised in the uk between 1945 and 1983 we analyse sectoral patterns and trends in the production and use of innovations a few core sectors chemical mechanical instruments and electronic are of major importance in the production of technology that gets used over a much wider range of sectors including those outside manufacturing similar sectoral patterns of production and use exist in the uk and usa the trend over time in the uk has been toward greater sectoral interdependence in technology and a higher share of uses outside manufacturing reflecting the growth and spread of the electronic based technological cluster any understanding of the nature determinants and dynamics of intersectoral differences in patterns of production and use of technology will require an integration into empirical and theoretical analysis of the characteristics of innovating firms

historical evolution of technological diversification a positive relationship exists between national technological size and technological diversification across fields of innovative activity this paper shows how the nature of this relationship has changed historically there has been a downward structural shift in the cross country size diversification frontier since 1965 for any given size countries have become less diversified or more narrowly concentrated in their technological specialisation one explanation is that international technology sourcing by mnes has led locations to focus on what they do best a supporting factor may be a rise in technological interrelatedness which encourages focus upon a specific selection of complementary combinations

neoliberalism and income distribution in latin america abstract this paper reviews the principal neoliberal policy measures instituted in latin america in the last decade and their impact on equity it first emphasizes the difficulty of separating the impact of liberalization measure from the necessary fiscal adjustments of the 1980s and their transitional vs longrun effects and then places the observed movements in distribution in global and historical context the second part places several innovations of neoliberal regimes in historical perspective and argues that their overall impact is unlikely to be regressive and that previous regimes were probably not especially progressive over the long run developments in factor markets the demand side driven by reoriented industrial growth and the increasing importance of the service sector interacting with the relative supplies of skilled and unskilled labor are likely to be of overriding importance in determining the evolution of the distribution of income

the policy implications of energy poverty indicators abstract the methodologies and indicators that have been proposed in the literature to measure energy poverty are quite diverse some are subjective approaches based on personal or third parties perceptions of affordable warmth at home whereas others calculate objective indicators although these different proposals have already been theoretically compared an empirical comparative analysis that measures in a real case study the practical impact of the theoretical limitations detected for the different indicators was still pending the goal of this paper is thus to contribute to this debate by comparing critically the different approaches used to measure energy poverty in a real case spain in 2015 and to propose a new methodology that might be able to overcome some of the major problems that affect current methods

some determinants of cost distributions in the process of technological innovation abstract industrial research and development r d is a set of activities within the broader set of decisions and activities the process of technological innovation ti it is technology transfer commercialization of the innovation that leads to technology diffusion that permits production and employment expansion and hence economic growth an important goal of industrial policy firms managements and government policy makers should recognize the close relationships among the phases of ti and direct their policy planning budgeting and control decisions to the complete process many policies currently focus their attention to only one or a few points such as r d in this study we conducted a detailed cost analysis of a limited number of innovation projects and studied the distributions of ti cost over the process phases we find that almost half of ti costs are devoted to r d which implies that government support of this phase is important different cost patterns emerge when we classify innovations by industrial sectors firms sizes and project complexity complex innovations require larger and more variable risky r d budgets smaller firms need more assistance in technology transfer these are only a few important policy implications this study emphasizes the importance of post r d phases and concludes that differential industrial policy may be required for technological innovations

an empirical investigation into students experience of fuel poverty abstract the trend of expansion in higher education in the uk since 1992 has created a massive demand for accommodation for students where the housing stock is one of the oldest and least efficient in europe and the private rented sector is often singled out for containing some of the least energy efficient and in worst condition properties the extent to which students factor in energy efficiency and fuel poverty concerns into their accommodation choices is explored in this paper along with the perception of the phenomena by students from a survey of 286 students it was revealed that while students themselves may not consider themselves to be living in fuel poverty the activities taken in their day to day lives suggest the opposite the impact of the housing stock on student quality of life is investigated as well

a multidimensional measure of energy poverty in china and its impacts on health an empirical study based on the china family panel studies abstract inability or insufficient access to modern forms of energy is an important issue in development which makes the notion of energy poverty a widely discussed topic a consensus has been reached that energy poverty has serious health education and other socio economic impacts for people in a country however measurements of energy poverty have generally been absent or inaccurate especially for developing countries at the micro level this paper begins with the multidimensional nature of energy poverty and uses household level survey data in china to construct a quantitative measure of energy poverty covering both affordability of and accessibility to a broad range of forms of energy it then builds an econometric model to address empirically how much energy poverty affects health a statistically significant and robust negative impact on health from energy poverty is confirmed our results have important policy relevance in terms of understanding the current status quo of energy poverty in china and its consequences the concept can also be expanded to investigate similar issues in other developing countries

patterns of diffusion of electronics technologies an international comparison with special reference to the italian case abstract the paper analyzes the patterns of diffusion of information and microelectronics based production technologies in western europe usa and japan the evidence suggests asymmetries in both levels and rates of changes in their adoptions between the three areas and within europe itself with little support to any hypothesis of long term convergence among these regional and national patterns some suggestions on why diffusion rates differ are then examined together with the likely consequences on the patterns of competitiveness

the roles of science in technological innovation abstract one of the central issues in science policy during the past decade has been the extent to which the national levels of expenditure on scientific education and research influence the standard of living this paper provides empirical evidence to show that the pay off from this investment in science is more complex and indirect than previously supposed

the challenge of energy poverty brazilian case study in recent years successive brazilian governments have actively pursued economic and social policies aimed at reducing poverty and promoting social equality and inclusion in the field of energy this has meant introducing and implementing programs aimed at expanding the supply of safe and reliable energy to the poorest sectors of brazilian society including those living in remote rural areas this paper draws attention on the findings of extensive field research to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on energy poverty in the context of government policies aimed at promoting energy equity the authors re examine the concept of an energy poverty line seeking to fine tune its application to brazilian social and economic realities and then apply an analytical framework lorenz curve gap poverty gap quadratic gini coefficient and sen index to evaluate the effectiveness of recent efforts in brazil to expand access to electricity one of the main conclusions of this study is that is that rural electrification leads to a significant reduction of the energy poverty level and a consequent improvement in energy equity

energy equity and the future of the fuel poor abstract a warm and adequately lit home is considered a basic need together with access to energy consuming appliances ranging from a fridge to a tv an underlying tenet of sustainable energy is that such basic needs should be affordably met yet low incomes energy inefficient housing and appliances and high energy costs mean that roughly 10 per cent of uk households many of them elderly or with young children fail to attain this basic standard these households which would need to spend more than 10 per cent of their income to attain adequate energy services are officially defined as fuel poor their cold poorly equipped homes lead to chronic cold related health conditions exacerbate social isolation and may undermine educational achievement in addition rural areas have a disproportionately high incidence of fuel poverty this review examines the current distribution of energy consumption its social impacts and the opportunities to address fuel poverty through improvements to the housing stock it will then consider potential future developments

measurement of spatial socioeconomic impact of energy poverty abstract this article presents a spatial analysis of the evolution of energy poverty in spanish households and aims to measure the socioeconomic impact of energy poverty the economic financial measurement of palliative measures implemented and social perceptions of energy poverty are also dimensioned in order to analyse holistically the economic financial and social impact of energy poverty at a territorial level a statistical analysis of the financial aids has been conducted and the perception of technicians employed by both the public and the private sectors who work with affected households has been compiled in addition this paper explores the relationship between media coverage and the economic financial impact at territorial level to this goal 259 newspaper articles about energy poverty were classified and analysed to examine the socio genesis of the problem of energy poverty the measurement of the socio economics impact of energy poverty in households in a territory represents the spatial dimension of the problem for the definition of local energy policies taking into consideration the evolution of different measures implemented over time their limitations scope and flexibility

meta analysis of empirical evidence on energy poverty the case of developing economies abstract energy poverty has evolved as an important issue of research from academic and policy perspectives during the last two decades the energy poverty estimates exhibit widespread variations across regions methodologies and datasets making the task of energy and development policies challenging the variations in energy poverty estimates necessitate a systematic and rigorous analysis of these empirical studies to obtain a true measure of energy poverty the present study conducts a meta analysis of 30 studies and 103 estimates of energy poverty on average 71 1 percent of the population in the overall sample studies has been identified as energy poor high i square statistic values suggest heterogeneity bias in the sample studies therefore analysis at the subgroup level has been conducted meta regression analysis of overall sample and subgroups has identified type of methodology citations impact factor of the journal regional dummies average key crude oil price and gross domestic product as significant factors that explain heterogeneity in the energy poverty effect sizes we recommend inclusion of local and regional factors in assessment of energy poverty for developing a uniform methodology to assess energy poverty across developing economies

large firms in the production of the world s technology an important case of non globalisation us patenting by 686 of the world s largest manufacturing firms shows that their share of the world s production of technology is less than their share of r d activities and varies greatly amongst sectors in most cases the technological activities of these large firms are concentrated in their home country the characteristics of which influence the volume and trends in their technological activities much more strongly then the international component of these activities at the same time these large firms are major elements in the volume and the pattern of sectoral specializations in their home countries technological activities

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

energy poverty in ghana any progress so far abstract this paper investigates the dynamics of energy poverty in ghana using two nationwide cross sectional datasets ghana living standards surveys round 5 and round 6 employing the multidimensional energy poverty index mepi as a measure of energy poverty this paper estimates that the share of energy poor people decreased from 88 4 in 2005 2006 to 82 5 in 2012 2013 the results indicate that although there has been a significant decline in the overall energy poverty in ghana during the study periods the incidence of energy poverty remains high moreover the study findings show a large gap between urban and rural energy poverty over the two periods rural people are almost twice as energy poor as urban people these findings suggest the need for the incorporation of energy poverty reduction strategies into income poverty reduction strategies to help improve not only access to modern energy but also in terms of affordability

u s technological leadership where did it come from and where did it go abstract during the quarter century following the second world war the united states was the world s most productive economy by virtually all measures and the technological leader across a very broad front this paper is concerned with the sources of u s technological leadership during that era and the reasons for the erosion of that leadership it is proposed that there were two distinguishable components of post war u s technological dominance one was a lead in mass production industries and this was of long standing the other was leadership in high technology industries due to massive american investments in science and technology eduction and research and development and this was new the u s advantage in mass production industries eroded when after bretton woods the world became a common market the u s preeminence in high technology industries diminished as other countries matched u s investments in science and technology it is argued that since the late 1960s the major industrial nations are bound together technologically as never before