securitization of taxes implicit in payg pensions to preserve solvency a pay as you go payg pension system needs to adjust contribution rates and pension promises over time currently it is not possible to hedge in the financial market against politically determined uncertainty as regards these parameters i consider a policy reform whereby property rights are established on the implicit lifetime tax levied by payg finance and are assigned to the pension institution these property rights are well defined if the reform also features rule based allocation of aggregate risk in the form of defined contribution or defined benefit schemes i show that a payg pension system may indeed be instantly restructured so as to minimize political risk and allow financial market diversification of risk a side benefit is securitization of human capital flows which are not traded in existing financial markets the new securities if traded in appropriately competitive financial markets are complementary to the notional account reforms of the 1990s however fiscal instability can increase if securitization is implemented in the absence of initial solvency and credible adoption of rule based methods to allocate aggregate risk salvador valdes prieto

who governs energy the challenges facing global energy governance this article conceptualizes the energy problems facing society from a global governance perspective it argues that a notion of global energy governance taken to mean international collective action efforts undertaken to manage and distribute energy resources and provide energy services offers a meaningful and useful framework for assessing energy related challenges the article begins by exploring the concepts of governance global governance and global energy governance it then examines some of the existing institutions in place to establish and carry out rules and norms governing global energy problems and describes the range of institutional design options available to policymakers it briefly traces the role of a selection of these institutions from inter governmental organizations to summit processes to multilateral development banks to global action networks in responding to energy issues and points out their strengths and weaknesses the article concludes by analyzing how the various approaches to global governance differ in their applicability to addressing the conundrums of global energy problems

the real but limited influence of expert ideas a number of influential studies in political science argue that important economic policy changes in the rich democracies since the mid 1970s were caused by the introduction of new economic ideas this article claims that while experts exert strong influence over the selection of policy instruments their influence over the formulation of policy objectives is much weaker in the 1970s 1980s and 1990s the predominance of keynesianism in austria and denmark did not lead austrian and danish governments to maintain low unemployment longer than sweden where keynesianism was less strong but it did lead them to regard fiscal policy as an instrument that can be used to control the level of activity in the economy while their swedish counterparts relied instead on exchange rate and monetary policy

who formulates renewable energy policy a swedish example a broad participation by stakeholders and an extensive reliance on expert advice are often seen as preconditions for a legitimate and successfully implemented renewable energy policy however we have lacked systematic data for testing this argument this article s contribution is to examine the actors who take part in the making of swedish energy policy with the help of data on the composition of various committees of inquiry over the last twenty years 1988 2009 swedish renewable energy policy is often characterised with words like pioneering and forerunner suggesting that the policy making process in this area engages many different experts and stakeholders our data give only some support to this argument results point to a noteworthy predominance of politicians civil servants and representatives of state agencies within the policy process producers of uranium and fossils based energy have been engaged more often than producers of renewable energy experts have played a prominent role but this is mostly due to the participation of expert bureaucrats rather than of scientists the study suggests that a better understanding of the making of energy policy both in sweden and elsewhere requires greater attention to the networks and role of various state employees

on the determinants of bank interest margins under credit and interest rate risks abstract this paper explores the determinants of optimal bank interest margins based on a simple firm theoretical model under multiple sources of uncertainty and risk aversion the model demonstrates how cost regulation credit risk and interest rate risk conditions jointly determine the optimal bank interest margin decision we find that the bank interest margin is positively related to the bank s market power to the operating costs to the degree of credit risk and to the degree of interest rate risk an increase in the bank s equity capital has a negative effect on the spread when the bank faces little interest rate risk the effect of rising interbank market rate on the spread is ambiguous and depends on the net position of the bank in the interbank market our findings provide alternative explanations for the empirical evidence concerning bank spread behavior

wind power development in sweden global policies and local obstacles abstract recently the swedish government adopted a national planning goal of a yearly wind power generation of 10 twh by 2015 implying a substantial increase from the current 0 6 twh level in this paper we provide an economic assessment of the potential for future wind power investments in sweden in close conjunction with an analysis of the legal attitudinal and policy related uncertainties that face a wind mill investor it is shown that the economics of swedish wind power is negatively affected by a the lack of policy stability b public criticism at the local level and in particular c the legal provisions governing the assessment of the environmental impacts of wind mills and the planning procedures for mill location while national and global energy policies as well as the general public point out wind power as particularly environmentally friendly most of the objections to its expansion at the local level tend to have environmental origins the interests of those who object to wind mill installations gain strong legal protection and the municipal territorial planning monopoly in sweden implies that it is hard to make national energy policy goals heard at the local implementation stage compared to its competitors wind power is the technology that tends to have the most to loose from the risk and uncertainties created by this investment environment the paper identifies and discusses a number of ways in which the national policy interests could be strengthened at the local level we discuss the role of citizen participation as well as solutions within the realms of the legal system moreover since the diffusion of wind power encounters the most strident legal and attitudinal obstacles where it interferes with competing land uses a move offshore appears to be an efficient strategy from the perspective of a wind mill investor a stronger political commitment to wind power expansion in legal provisions as well as in the form of long run stability in policy instrument implementation will probably be necessary to attain the 2015 policy goal

institutional work and climate change corporate political action in the swedish electricity industry this paper utilises qualitative methods to examine factors that influence corporate political actions cpa linked to climate policy in the swedish electricity industry cpa strategies are examined in connection to two policy instruments the eu emission trading scheme and the swedish electricity certificate scheme these instruments are the main drivers of climate related investments in the sector the study treats cpa as a form of institutional work and examines reasons for companies to seek to maintain disrupt institutions the study finds that cpa is driven primarily by the need to manage external resource dependencies and that where risks are more acute companies are more likely to seek to disrupt regulative institutions however the study also shows that respondents appraisals of policy instruments are based on a convergent set of shared values cognitive institutions that form the basis of cpa and which actors do not seek to disrupt despite resource based risks cpa is thus characterised as a means to transmute cognitively held values and beliefs into regulative institutions the study concludes with implications for policymakers and theory

understanding the behavior of bank spreads in latin america abstract over the last decade many countries in latin america have eliminated interest rate ceilings reduced reserve requirements and stopped direct credit controls these market oriented reforms have encouraged financial deepening thereby producing considerable economic benefits to the countries nevertheless the persistence of high interest rate spreads has been a disquieting outcome of the reforms this paper explores the determinants of bank spreads in a systematic way for argentina bolivia chile colombia mexico peru and uruguay during the mid 1990s the analysis shows that high operating costs raise spreads as do high levels of non performing loans although the size of these effects differs across the countries in addition reserve requirements in a number of countries still act as a tax on banks that gets translated into a higher spread beyond bank specific variables uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment facing banks appears to increase interest spreads the combination of these microeconomic and macroeconomic factors is a cause for concern in latin america as spreads widen the cost of using the financial system becomes prohibitive to some potential borrowers in addition the results suggest that bank capital requirements may not prevent excessive risk taking by banks when bank spreads are high

the determinants of bank interest margins theory and empirical evidence this paper has developed a model of bank margins or spreads in which the bank is viewed as a risk averse dealer it was demonstrated that an interest spread or margin would always exist and that this was the result of transactions uncertainty faced by the bank moreover it was shown that this pure spread depended on four factors the degree of managerial risk aversion the size of transactions undertaken by the bank bank market structure and the variance of interest rates the model implied that liability and asset structures had to be analyzed together since they were directly interrelated through transactions uncertainty it was shown that because of this transactions uncertainty hedging behavior was perfectly rational within an expected utility maximizing framework extending the model from a structure with one kind of loan and deposit to loans and deposits with many maturities should lead to further interesting insights into margin determination especially as portfolio effects may become apparent

bioenergy policy and market development in finland and sweden abstract the use of biomass in finland and sweden has steadily increased over the past 25 years up to approximately 20 of the primary energy supply in 2001 in both countries most biomass originates from forests forest biomass is now an integral part of modern energy systems although primarily in industry and in the heating sector for example biomass accounts for 7 9 and 53 of the fuel mix in district heating in finland and sweden respectively the general energy policy of both countries has supported biomass for energy over the entire period although specific policies have changed with time research development and demonstration has been continuously supported and some subsidy schemes have been applied in particular for district heating systems dhs and combined heat and power heavy taxation of competing fossil fuels seems to have been the most effective policy instrument although this has been directed mainly at the heat and transportation fuel markets electricity taxes are imposed on consumption industry is largely exempt and do not discriminate significantly between the sources of electricity starting in 2003 sweden will have a quota based system a renewable portfolio standard which is expected to increase biomass based electricity production both countries possess vast and not fully exploited biomass resources in the form of forests and have a history of rational and large scale forestry strong actors exist both with regard to forest ownership and the industrial processing of forest products the user side in particular represented by dhs can also be characterised by strong and professional management over time structures have developed that facilitate an increased use of biomass for energy for example the forest industry infrastructure and extensive district heating actors within these structures have had the ability to react to policies resulting in a stable growth in biomass use

the enactment of socio technical transition pathways a reformulated typology and a comparative multi level analysis of the german and uk low carbon electricity transitions 1990 2014 abstract this paper aims to make two contributions to the sustainability transitions literature in particular the geels and schot 2007 res policy 36 3 399 transition pathways typology first it reformulates and differentiates the typology through the lens of endogenous enactment identifying the main patterns for actors formal institutions and technologies second it suggests that transitions may shift between pathways depending on struggles over technology deployment and institutions both contributions are demonstrated with a comparative analysis of unfolding low carbon electricity transitions in germany and the uk between 1990 2014 the analysis shows that germany is on a substitution pathway enacted by new entrants deploying small scale renewable electricity technologies rets while the uk is on a transformation pathway enacted by incumbent actors deploying large scale rets further analysis shows that the german transition has recently shifted from a stretch and transform substitution pathway to a fit and conform pathway because of a fightback from utilities and altered institutions it also shows that the uk transition moved from moderate to substantial incumbent reorientation as government policies became stronger recent policy changes however substantially downscaled uk renewables support which is likely to shift the transition back to weaker reorientation

new frontiers and conceptual frameworks for energy justice this article explores how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision making and highlight the moral and equity dimensions of energy production and use it defines energy justice as a global energy system that fairly distributes both the benefits and burdens of energy services and one that contributes to more representative and inclusive energy decision making the primary contribution of the article is its focus on six new frontiers of future energy justice research first is making the case for the involvement of non western justice theorists second is expanding beyond humans to look at the rights of nature or non anthropocentric notions of justice third is focusing on cross scalar issues of justice such as embodied emissions fourth is identifying business models and the co benefits of justice fifth is better understanding the tradeoffs within energy justice principles sixth is exposing unjust discourses in doing so the article presents an agenda constituted by 30 research questions as well as an amended conceptual framework consisting of ten principles the article argues in favor of justice aware energy planning and policymaking and it hopes that its reconsidered energy justice conceptual framework offers a critical tool to inform decision making

carbon pricing and deep decarbonisation abstract experts frequently point to carbon pricing as the most cost effective tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions empirical studies show that carbon pricing can successfully incentivise incremental emissions reductions but meeting temperature targets within defined timelines as agreed under the paris agreement requires more than incremental improvements it requires achieving net zero emissions within a few decades to date there is little evidence that carbon pricing has produced deep emission reductions even at high prices while much steeper carbon prices may deliver greater abatement political economy constraints render their feasibility doubtful an approach with multiple instruments including technology mandates and targeted support for innovation is indispensable to avoid path dependencies and lock in of long lived high carbon assets we argue that carbon pricing serves several important purposes in such an instrument mix but also that the global commitment to deep decarbonisation requires acknowledging the vital role of instruments other than carbon pricing

banking spreads in latin america i introduction financial intermediation in latin america is low by international standards financial systems in latin america are still largely bank based but after a short period of strong credit growth sparked by financial liberalization in the early 1990s bank lending has not yet recovered from the collapse following the banking crises of the mid 1990s as shown by singh et al 2005 as a result from figure 1 it is clear that bank lending as a percentage of gross domestic product gdp is low compared to industrialized countries and other emerging markets this lack of financial intermediation is seen as an important obstacle to growth there is a considerable body of evidence indicating that financial intermediation is not only correlated with growth but also a causal factor in explaining economic performance see e g levine 2004 the low levels of lending in latin america appear related to the prevalence of high intermediation costs in the region intermediation spreads in latin america are high compared to those in other banking markets this is true when measuring spreads as either ex ante bank spreads the difference between weighted averages of lending rates and bank funding costs figure 2 or ex post net interest margins defined as the bank s total interest income minus total interest expense divided by the sum of interest bearing assets figure 3 the high levels of spreads are not a recent phenomenon and unlikely to be a result of the ongoing process of bank consolidation as in other regions in the 1990s latin america saw a trend toward bank consolidation and concentration to a large extent as depicted in inter american development bank 2004 consolidation was driven by financial crises and subsequent regulatory tightening while this resulted in a marked reduction in the number of banks in most countries it does not seem to have yielded a decline in competition intensity partly because it was accompanied by a lowering of barriers of entry to foreign banks which is shown in gelos and roldos 2004 and inter american development bank 2004 in fact banking spreads have fallen somewhat over the past decade although the pace of the reduction has been slow figure 4 1 this paper takes a closer look at the determinants of bank interest margins in latin america using bank and country level data from 85 countries including 14 latin american economies we assess the role of bankand country specific factors in determining banking spreads using microdata from more than 2 200 banks taking an international perspective allows us to delineate the key dimensions in which latin america differs from other regions the paper differs from existing studies in further dimensions apart from the latin american specific focus in a cross country approach among other aspects we make use of new or expanded data sets including comprehensive information on reserve requirements and foreign ownership and investigate the relationship between competition and bank spreads using behavioral measures of bank competition suggested by the new industrial organization literature figure 1 omitted figure 2 omitted the results suggest that latin america has higher interest rate levels less efficient banks and larger reserve requirements than other regions and that these factors have a significant impact on spreads however latin american countries do not differ markedly from their peers in other aspects that are found important in determining the cost of financial intermediation such as inflation bank profit taxation average bank size or average equity as a percentage of total bank assets ii the determinants of spreads literature review the extensive literature on bank behavior suggests that at the country level the following factors are likely to influence the cost of credit creditor rights and the quality of the legal framework higher recovery rates and shorter times to repossess collateral in countries with better legal environments are expected to reduce bank spreads

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

potential impact of transition to a low carbon transport system in iceland abstract this paper develops a system dynamics model of iceland s energy sector unisyd is that is based on the unisyd nz model of new zealand s energy economy the model focuses on the energy supply sector with endogenous representation of road transport energy demand equilibrium interactions are performed across electricity hydrogen biofuels and road transport sectors possible transition paths toward a low carbon transport in iceland are explored with implications for fuel demand greenhouse gas ghg emissions and associated costs the consumer sector simulates the long term evolution of light and heavy duty vehicles through a vehicle choice algorithm that accounts for social influences and consumer preferences through different scenarios the influences of four fundamental driving factors are examined the factors are oil price carbon tax fuel supply push and government incentives the results show that changes in travel demand vehicle technologies fuel types and efficiency improvements can support feasible transition paths to achieve sufficient reduction in ghg for both 4 c and 2 c climate scenarios of the nordic energy technology perspectives study initial investment in supply infrastructure for alternative fuels will not only mitigate ghg emissions but also could provide long term economic benefits through fuel cost saving for consumers and reduced fuel import costs for government

contestation contingency and justice in the nordic low carbon energy transition the five nordic countries have aggressive climate and energy policies in place and have already emerged to be leaders in renewable energy and energy efficiency denmark is renowned for its pioneering use of wind energy finland and sweden bioenergy norway hydroelectricity and iceland geothermal energy all countries aim to be virtually fossil free by 2050 this study explores the nordic energy transition through the lens of three interconnected research questions how are they doing it what challenges exist and what broader lessons result for energy policy the study firstly investigates the pathways necessary for these five countries to achieve their low carbon goals it argues that a concerted effort must be made to 1 promote decentralized and renewable forms of electricity supply 2 shift to more sustainable forms of transport 3 further improve the energy efficiency of residential and commercial buildings and 4 adopt carbon capture and storage technologies for industry however the section that follows emphasizes some of the empirical barriers the nordic transition must confront namely political contestation technological contingency and social justice and recognition concerns the study concludes with implications for what such historical progress and future transition pathways mean for both energy researchers and energy planners

the politics of electricity deregulation in sweden the art of acting on multiple arenas this article investigates the deregulation of the swedish electricity industry as a political process discussions about deregulation started in the late 1980s a first step in the process was the corporatization of the swedish state owned utility vattenfall in 1992 the deregulatory process culminated with the new electricity law which entered into force in 1996 we investigate in historical depth how a diverse range of actors contributed to shaping both the new institutional environment and the political discourse the article scrutinizes not only the formal political decision making process and the activities of a variety of ministries boards and agencies but also the processes by which energy companies and other relevant industrial actors influenced the outcome of the regulatory reforms we explicitly focus on activities taking place on both political and business arenas showing that major stakeholders acted on several arenas simultaneously to influence the deregulatory process and that the large power companies were most skilful in doing so we also show that activities on the political and business arenas mutually reinforced each other in shaping the new regulatory framework

ecological tax reform in denmark history and social acceptability abstract despite the long term and positive experience with ecological tax reform etr the petras study indicates that awareness about the principles behind etr is low among both businesses and the general public in denmark as well as the lack of awareness of etr attitudes towards environmental taxation appear negative when explaining the political intentions behind etr attitudes seem to improve somewhat but they still remain overall sceptical based on the history and the results of the petras project the article will describe some of the main impediments for further development of environmental tax and etr policies in denmark the article concludes that the main reason why the etr policy has been met with such apparently low social acceptability in denmark is that the green of the green tax reform has been somewhat oversold on this basis it recommends the pursuit of a courageous government strategy of openly and repeatedly stressing the revenue purposes of environmentally related taxes over the environmental purposes in an effort to redirect public discussions towards relevant issues like the pros and cons of environmentally related taxation compared with other types of taxation and the connection between the overall tax burden and demands for government spending such a bold government confession to the obvious revenue purposes of the environmentally related taxes could make them if not popular then at least a bit more acceptable to businesses and the general public

identifying the bank lending channel in brazil through data frequency we study how monetary policy affects bank lending behavior with an unique database and an event study approach using the daily frequencies of interest rates and new loans in our data as a source of identification we estimate banks reactions to monetary policy committee copom decisions and to announcements of reserve requirement changes we argue that these estimated reduced form coefficients can be interpreted as supply shifts the behavior of the estimates corroborates the claim that we capture supply movements since new loans depends negatively on unexpected basic interest rate and reserve requirements changes and the opposite is true for the lending interest rate evidence suggests that banking lending channel is unimportant results are robust to using different bank characteristics to define financial constraint to the monetary policy instrument basic interest rates or reserve requirement and to the measure of monetary policy stance

a model of the commercial loan rate this paper explores the theoretical and empirical determinants of the commercial loan rate charged by commercial banks based on a model of financial intermediary behavior which assumes monopolistic competition in asset and liability markets the model incorporates the constraint that banks must maintain at least a minimum quantity of bonds in asset portfolios equations are estimated on a time series basis to explain the behavior of commercial loan rates over the period 1953 to 1980 the evidence appears consistent with the hypothesis that commercial banks operate in a market characterized by imperfect competition and that they explicitly set loan rates the development of large scale econometric models has focused attention on the operation of the commercial loan market because of the importance of commercial loan activity in the transmission of monetary policy moreover it is commonly accepted that the quantity of commercial loans or changes in these loans has an important influence on the holding of free reserves by commercial banks and this implies that the commercial loan market has an effect on the supply of money 2 nevertheless the determinants of commercial loan rates have drawn relatively little analytical attention previous work on the commercial loan market has generally focused on the question of whether this market is characterized by credit rationing 3 most studies assume that the commercial loan market is generally competitive but at times the commercial loan rate does not clear the market the quantity of loans transacted is constrained by the supply function and commercial banks engage in nonprice rationing of customers a corollary of this rationing hypothesis is that events in the deposit market have an important influence on the quantity of commercial loans 4 the purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of the commercial

the demand for environmental quality in driving transitions to low polluting energy sources the purpose of this paper is to understand the long run demand for energy related environmental quality its influence on legislation and on transitions to low polluting energy sources it starts by presenting a simple framework of the relationship between the demand for and supply of environmental quality environmental legislation and energy this forms the structure for presenting a series of episodes in british history where a demand for improvements in energy related environmental quality existed this analysis proposes that markets can drive transitions to low polluting energy sources in specific economic conditions however most probably governments will need to push them and this cannot be expected without strong and sustained demand for environmental improvements yet while demand is a prerequisite it is not enough it must also be spearheaded by strong creative and sustained pressure groups i e powerful lobbying and the weakening of the counter lobby to introduce legislation to enforce it and to avoid it being over turned by future governments

how foreign participation and market concentration impact bank spreads evidence from latin america increasing foreign participation and high concentration levels characterize the recent evolution of banking sectors market structures in developing countries the authors analyze the impact of these factors on latin american bank spreads during the late 1990s their results suggest that foreign banks were able to charge lower spreads relative to domestic banks this was more so for de novo foreign banks than for those that entered through acquisitions the overall level of foreign bank participation seemed to influence spreads indirectly primarily through its effect on administrative costs bank concentration was positively and directly related to both higher spreads and costs

information and bank credit allocation abstract private information obtained by lenders leads to borrower capture to the extent that such information cannot be communicated credibly to outsiders we analyze how this capture affects the loan portfolio allocation of informed lenders first we show that banks charge higher interest rates and finance relatively less creditworthy borrowers in market segments with greater information asymmetries second when faced with greater competition from outside lenders banks reallocate credit toward more captured borrowers flight to captivity third if borrower quality and captivity are sufficiently correlated an increase in the competitiveness of uninformed lenders can worsen the informed lender s overall loan portfolio the model explains observed consequences of financial liberalizations

the nordic welfare model providing energy transition a political geography approach to the eu res directive the eu renewable energy strategy res directive requires that each member state obtain 20 of its energy supply from renewable sources by 2020 if fully implemented this implies major changes in institutions infrastructure land use and natural resource flows this study applies a political geography perspective to explore the transition to renewable energy use in the heating and cooling segment of the swedish energy system 1980 2010 the nordic welfare model which developed mainly after the second world war required relatively uniform standardized local and regional authorities functioning as implementation agents for national politics since 1980 the welfare orientation has gradually been complemented by competition politics promoting technological change innovation and entrepreneurship this combination of welfare state organization and competition politics provided the dynamics necessary for energy transition which occurred in a semi public sphere of actors at various geographical scales however our analysis suggest that this was partly an unintended policy outcome since it was based on a welfare model with no significant energy aims our case study suggests that state organization plays a significant role and that the eu res directive implementation will be uneven across europe reflecting various welfare models with different institutional pre requisites for energy transition

why did better place fail range anxiety interpretive flexibility and electric vehicle promotion in denmark and israel with almost 1 billion in funding better place was poised to become one of the most innovative companies in the electric mobility market the system better place proposed had two novel prongs first to reduce the cost of batteries and second to reduce range anxiety public infrastructure concerns and long charging times yet despite this seemingly strong combination better place failed to make any progress in denmark and israel the first two markets it operated in and subsequently declared bankruptcy selling off its collective assets for less than 500 000 drawing from science and technology studies and the notion of interpretive flexibility this paper posits several reasons to explain the failure of better place including that denmark is not as green as it seems nor is the israeli market as attractive as believed and that better place s solution to charging time and range anxiety resolved a psychological not a functional barrier of the general public to adopt electric vehicles before investigating these two reasons the paper presents a short history of better place and explores the contours of its operations in denmark and israel it then discusses why better place failed across both countries before concluding with implications for energy planning policy and analysis

exploring a pioneering bioenergy system the case of enkoping in sweden in order to contribute to knowledge on how to expand bioenergy this paper examines an example of success from sweden the idea is to identify factors that can explain the difference between success and failure of bioenergy systems in the aftermath of the oil crises in the 1970s the local government in the town of enkoping in sweden was cautioned by the local swedish military regiment to shift towards domestic energy supplies rather than imported fossil fuels during the decades that followed the local energy companies developed a pioneering bioenergy system there are 3 important conditions relevant to explain the success 1 the introduction of the carbon tax in sweden provided market conditions making bioenergy sufficiently competitive with fossil fuels 2 the know how developed by the local energy companies through experimentation and collaboration with research institutions encouraged investments in local opportunities and 3 the formation of partnerships in a regional network of actors including private companies providing biofuels and technology research institutions and local government helped to co ordinate the development of the bioenergy system less

interest margins and bank regulation in central america and the caribbean abstract this paper examines empirically the determinants of bank interest margins in central america and the caribbean over the period 1998 2014 a particular focus is set on the impact of differences in the regulatory environment and market structure across countries in explaining the interest margins of individual banks our results suggest that bank market power operating costs credit risk and liquid asset holdings increase the margin between loan and deposit rates while increased income diversification and gdp growth are associated with lower loan deposit spreads when considering information on banking regulation we find strong evidence to support our main hypothesis that improvements in market quality and liberalization have a significant effect on interest margins more specifically reductions in entry requirements to banking higher involvement of foreign banks and increased financial statement transparency are associated with significant reductions in interest margins

local implementation for green manufacturing technology diffusion policy in china from the user firms perspectives abstract in recent years china has started to change its growth strategy to a more sustainable model in response to the limits to growth dilemma specifically the national policy advocates to promote the use of green manufacturing technologies through demonstration projects and to incentivize chinese manufacturers to adopt these green technologies that are also encouraged by local governments these green technologies can increase the economic gains of manufacturers by reducing costs on energy consumption and shift away from selling low margin products however the local authorities often encounter obstacles when implementing policies for promoting these technologies among manufacturing firms this paper explores the factors that affect the decision making of user firms throughout the policy implementation process based on the econometric analysis of the survey for china s electric motors upgrading project in guangdong province this study shows that three key factors are helpful in the local government s effort to implement the national project i e manufacturers awareness the understanding of the energy efficiency technology and the long term macroeconomic benefits in addition encouraging the participation of financial institutions is especially useful for local governments to convince small and medium sized firms these findings are beneficial for local implementation of green manufacturing technology diffusion policies in china and have worldwide policy implication as well

reason for reserve reserve requirements and credit this paper considers the impact of a regulatory policy action on bank credit and traces its incidence across banks i make use of a reserve requirement increase in lebanon that was considerably greater on foreign currency deposits than on domestic currency deposits all banks cut lending as they scrambled to adjust portfolios but the policy shock disproportionately affected banks with a greater reliance on dollar funding and with low buffers of dollar liquid assets exposed domestic owned banks also adjusted more slowly than similar foreign owned banks that obtained outside funding descriptive firm bank matching evidence reveals a disproportionate impact on small firms

public debts and fiscal politics how to decide the phenomenal growth in our public deficits over the past twenty years is a matter of public and professional concern see symposium 1989 while this concern may indeed be well founded particularly given current deficit levels public deficits are not always bad certainly in times of deep recessions short term deficit financing can stimulate aggregate demand increase national income and reduce unemployment in a keynesian fashion see richard startz 1989 second long term deficit financing may be needed to sustain a long term path of optimal consumption see peter diamond 1965 third public deficits including pay as yougo social security can offer welfare gains for significant subsets of consumers who have been liquidity constrained r glenn hubbard and kenneth judd 1986 who have been unable to purchase indexed private annuities alan blinder 1988 or who have been unable to sufficiently diversify their investment portfolios away from human capital robert merton 1983 finally robert barro 1979 has argued that public deficits may be an important policy instrument to insure intertemporal welfare maximization when public expenditures are stochastic and public taxes are economically inefficient taxes can be smoothed to reduce the lifetime excess burden of public financing the concern today is not that we have deficits but rather that we may be overdoing a good thing if this is the issue then we need to ask why and what can be done about it this is my agenda here i the political economy of recent deficits

the trials and tribulations of the village energy security programme vesp in india the indian ministry of new and renewable energy mnre launched the village energy security programme vesp in 2004 but discontinued it during the 12th five year plan starting in 2012 after a series of unexpected challenges planners structured the program so that a village energy committee vec ran a decentralized village program involving biomass gasifiers straight vegetable oil svo systems biogas plants and improved cookstoves this suite of technologies was intended to produce electricity and thermal energy to meet the total energy requirements of rural communities at the end of january 2011 a total of 79 vesp projects were sanctioned in 9 states and 65 of these projects were fully commissioned yet more than half were not operational the mnre envisaged that the vesp would provide energy services to eradicate poverty improve health reduce drudgery enhance education raise agricultural productivity create employment generate income and reduce migration however vesp projects have had limited success and the trials and tribulations of the vesp offers important lessons for policymakers launching rural energy programs in india and other developing economies

the rise and fall of go trading in european renewable energy policy the role of advocacy and policy framing this paper examines policy processes surrounding the rise and fall of the proposed eu wide policy instrument designed to help achieve the eu s renewable energy targets the trading of guarantees of origin go it discusses its origins and examines factors in the policy processes over time leading first to its development and then to its abandonment a first analysis looks at the near term policy making process before and after the proposal on go trading in january 2008 focusing on the european policy making institutions and influences of interest groups and member state governments it then takes a step back and looks over a longer time period at how competing policy frames have shaped the agendas underlying the debate results show how a strong internal market frame acted as a primary driving force in the commission to promote the go trading instrument the rejection of the go trading proposal in the council and parliament can be largely attributed to the lack of a strong lobby in favour of go the accumulated experience with and institutionalisation of national res support policies such as feed in tariffs and growing general political concerns for supply security innovation and competitiveness

antisocial security the puzzle of beggar thy children policies the u s social security program has irrevocably transferred substantial wealth from workers to their ostensibly altruistic parents after some alternative explanations for this paradox are addressed a formal model is developed to show that a majority of rational voters who care about their descendants can support the preservation of current benefits for themselves but accept the prospect of social security s future retrenchment incorporating elements of tabellini s 2000 positive theory of social security and benabou and ok s 2001 analysis of income mobility the model identifies specific forces affecting this time varying individual support for social security these forces are embodied in three hypotheses related to income mobility relative income level and age an ordered logit analysis of cumulative anes data supports these hypotheses

some stronger measures of risk aversion in the small and the large with applications the arrow pratt measures of risk aversion for von neumann morgenstern utility functions have become workhorses for analyzing problems in the microeconomics of uncertainty they have been used to characterize the qualitative properties of demand in insurance and asset markets to examine the properties of risk taking in taxation models and to study the interaction between risk and life cycle savings problems to name just a few applications equally importantly they have generated the linear risk tolerance class of utility functions which has provided canonical examples in such diverse areas as portfolio theory and the theory of teams despite these successes there have been a number of areas for which the results have been weaker than hoped it is natural to use the risk aversion measures to compare the behavior of individuals in risky choice situations for example consider the individual portfolio choice problem in a two asset world with a riskless asset and a risky asset if individual a has a uniformly higher arrow pratt coefficient of risk aversion than individual b then b will always choose a portfolio combination with more wealth invested in the risky asset but suppose that both assets are risky now there is no obvious sense in which the more risk averse individual can be said to hold a less risky portfolio but it seems strange that such a simple alteration should destroy the analytics which support the basic intuition similarly consider the basic insurance problem if one individual a is more risk averse than another b in the arrow pratt sense it follows that a will pay a larger premium to insure against a random loss than will b typically though an individual evaluates partial rather than total insurance that is only some gambles can be insured against and others must be retained in this case even when the gambles which are retained are independent from those which are insured it is no longer true that the individual whose arrow pratt measure of risk aversion is higher will pay a larger insurance premium the situation is no better when we consider comparative statics exercises for a single individual decreasing absolute risk aversion in the sense of arrow and

guiding the future energy transition to net zero emissions lessons from exploring the differences between france and sweden abstract despite similarities in their current energy mixes france and sweden s pathways have been very different since the 1970s when both systems were highly dependent on fossil fuels after the oil crisis both countries chose to reduce their oil consumption by developing nuclear power however sweden pursued a more diversified energy policy that has subsequently allowed it to reduce its co2 emissions today both countries have committed to a carbon neutrality goal by 2045 for sweden and 2050 for france in order to understand the key factors that can drive energy transition toward a carbon neutrality goal we propose to compare the past energy transitions in france and sweden two countries that have significantly reduced their co2 emissions and fossil fuel dependency to assess the impacts of the current energy system and its regulations on the feasibility of meeting carbon neutrality we use times bottom up energy system optimization models the results show that france faces more challenges in transforming its energy system than sweden i e an increase in power production a decrease in gas consumption the replacement of heating systems in buildings and the electrification of industry thus confirming that its energy policy has to be driven with a long run perspective

regulations market structure institutions and the cost of financial intermediation this paper examines the impact of bank regulations market structure and national institutions on bank net interest margins and overhead costs using data on over 1400 banks across 72 countries while controlling for bankspecific characteristics the data indicate that tighter regulations on bank entry and bank activities boost the cost of financial intermediation inflation also exerts a robust positive impact on bank margins and overhead costs while concentration is positively associated with net interest margins this relationship breaksdownwhencontrolling for regulatory impediments to competition and inflation furthermore bank regulations become insignificant when controlling for national indicators of economic freedom or property rights protection while these institutional indicators robustly explain cross bank net interest margins and overhead expenditures thus bank regulations cannot be viewed in isolation they reflect broad national approaches to private property and competition

hydrogen technological innovation systems in practice comparing danish and american approaches to fuel cell development this paper investigates danish and american hydrogen fuel research from a modified technological innovation system tis perspective we ask which approach to hydrogen research is more effective and what do the differences between the two cases tell us about the research process and theories of innovation to answer these questions we begin by justifying our selection of hydrogen systems and denmark and the united states as our case studies we proceed to introduce a modified theoretical framework of tis and focus on seven core elements of hydrogen research knowledge development and diffusion entrepreneurial experimentation political and social influence market formation legitimation resource mobilization and positive externalities we conclude by offering insights from our comparison as they relate to hydrogen research strategy and policy effectiveness at achieving national goals and the need for further research and better conceptual models about innovation

are tradable green certificates a cost efficient policy driving technical change or a rent generating machine lessons from sweden 2003 2008 in the european policy debate tradable green certificates tgc have been suggested to be a superior regulatory framework for promoting the diffusion of renewable electricity technologies the purpose of this paper is to assess the performance of the swedish tgc system contributing to the european debate on the suitability of different types of frameworks the expectations of the tgc system were that it would a be effective in terms of increasing the supply of green electricity b do this in a cost effective manner from both a social and a consumer perspective c generate an equitable distribution of costs and benefits and d drive technical change so far it has performed adequately in terms of effectiveness and social cost effectiveness however consumer costs have been substantially higher than expected very large rents are generated and at best it contributes marginally to technical change thus a tgc framework should be selected if the overriding concern is to minimize short term social costs of reaching a certain goal with a high degree of predictability however it cannot be expected to also drive technical change keep consumer costs down and be equitable such trade offs need to be revealed and not obscured by analysts

energy policymaking in denmark implications for global energy security and sustainability denmark is arguably the most energy secure and sustainable country in the organization of economic cooperation and development oecd the country has reduced its dependence on foreign sources of energy to zero and become self sufficient in its own energy production and use offering important lessons for other nations around the world this study explores the core of denmark s successful approach a commitment to energy efficiency prolonged taxes on energy fuels electricity and carbon dioxide and incentives for combined heat and power chp and wind turbines through these commitments the study shows how denmark transitioned from being almost 100 percent dependent on imported fuels such as oil and coal for their power plants in 1970 to becoming a net exporter of fuels and electricity today the country leads the world in terms of exportation of wind energy technology with a hold on roughly one third of the world market for wind turbines it was able to phase out the use of virtually all oil fired power plants in less than five years and implemented a progressive moratorium on future coal fired power plants in the 1990s their most recent strategy seeks to achieve 30 percent of total energy supply from renewable energy by 2025

levelling the playing field the influence of national wind power planning instruments on conflicts of interests in a swedish county slow and complicated wind power planning and permitting procedures have been a large obstacle for wind power diffusion in sweden and other countries this paper complements previous siting oriented literature with a planning perspective on these problems the focus is two national planning instruments implemented in sweden in the early 2000s a national planning target and an appointment of areas of national interest for wind power the paper identifies different types of conflicts of interest related to wind power in addition to the conflict between wind power as a national public interest and various local private interests and analyses the impact of the national planning instruments on the handling of these conflicts in the land use planning process in the county of ostergotland the analysis shows that the planning target actually made local planning officials even more inclined to treat wind power as a private rather than a public interest and that the method used to identify areas of national interest of wind power forced wind power to compete with the combined strengths of all other public interest the planning instruments thus left wind power to fight an uphill battle rather than to meet other interests face to face on a level playing field

green electricity policies in the netherlands an analysis of policy decisions over the last decades fundamental changes can be observed in both market conditions and the national policy framework for green electricity in the netherlands the dutch government has regularly intervened in markets demonstrating fundamental shifts in policy and approach this study aims to analyse the developments in renewable energy policy making in the netherlands it assesses changes in the choice of policy instruments and target groups the role of stakeholders and offers explanations behind policy successes and failures dutch green electricity policy over the last decade can be characterised roughly by three phases in the early 1990s the government negotiated voluntary agreements with the energy distribution sector on targets for green electricity sales which were never met in the second half of the 1990s a regulatory energy tax was introduced from which customers of green electricity were exempt this led to a substantial increase in demand which was largely met by green electricity imports and did not lead to additional domestic renewable energy capacity finally a change in policy has taken place recently 2003 shifting the focus from promotion of demand to the promotion of supply through a system of regulated feed in tariffs despite the renewable energy policies growth of the renewable energy market in the netherlands has been small and targets have not been fully met the dutch government has not yet succeeded in substantially reducing market uncertainties and in building confidence among market parties because the policies have not been stable and policy objectives have frequently been partly ambiguous in addition the influence of stakeholders in renewable energy policy making has been small which has the early acceptance and implementation of alternative policies

the determinants of bank interest rate margins an international study abstract this paper studies the determinants of bank net interest margins nims in six selected european countries and the us during the period 1988 1995 for a sample of 614 banks we apply the ho and saunders model ho t saunders a 1981 the determinants of bank interest margins theory and empirical evidence journal of financial and quantitative analyses 16 581 600 to a multicountry setting and decompose bank margins into a regulatory component a market structure component and a risk premium component the regulatory components in the form of interest rate restrictions on deposits reserve requirements and capital to asset ratios have a significant impact on banks nims the empirical results suggest an important policy trade off between assuring bank solvency high capital to asset ratios and lowering the cost of financial services to consumers low nims the more segmented or restricted the banking system both geographically and by activity the larger appears to be the monopoly power of existing banks and the higher their spreads macro interest rate volatility was found to have a significant impact on bank nims this suggests that macro policies consistent with reduced interest rate volatility could have a positive effect in reducing bank margins