energy efficiency and the cost of ghg abatement a comparison of bottom up and hybrid models for the us a highly influential report by the mckinsey consulting firm suggests that a large potential for profitable energy efficiency exists in the us and that substantial greenhouse gas emissions reductions can therefore be achieved at a low cost this result is consistent with other studies conducted using a bottom up methodology that dates back to the work of lovins beginning in the 1970s research over the past two decades however has identified shortcomings with the conventional bottom up approach and this has led to the development of new analytical frameworks that are referred to as hybrid energy economy models using the cims hybrid model we conducted simulations for comparison with the mckinsey results these exercises suggest a more modest potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a given marginal cost as well as a smaller contribution from energy efficiency relative to other abatement opportunities such as fuel switching and carbon capture and storage hybrid models incorporate parameters reflecting risk and quality into their estimates of technology costs and our analysis suggests that these play a significant role in explaining differences in the results

scientific ambiguity and climate policy economic evaluation of climate policy traditionally treats uncertainty by appealing to expected utility theory yet our knowledge of the impacts of climate policy may not be of sufficient quality to be described by unique probabilistic beliefs in such circumstances it has been argued that the axioms of expected utility theory may not be the correct standard of rationality by contrast several axiomatic frameworks have recently been proposed that account for ambiguous knowledge in this paper we apply static and dynamic versions of a smooth ambiguity model to climate mitigation policy we obtain a general result on the comparative statics of optimal abatement and ambiguity aversion and then extend our analysis to a more realistic dynamic setting where we introduce scientific ambiguity into the well known dice model of the climate economy system for policy relevant exogenous mitigation policies we show that the value of emissions abatement increases as ambiguity aversion increases and that this ambiguity premium can in some plausible cases be very large in these cases the effect of ambiguity aversion on welfare is comparable to that of other much studied welfare parameters thus ambiguity aversion may be an important neglected aspect of climate change economics and seems likely to provide another argument for strong abatement policy

the efficiency of european regional banking w illiams j and g ardener e p m 2003 the efficiency of european regional banking reg studies 37 321 330 financial deregulation may segment european banking into pan national and regional tiers regional banking must finance productive investment to facilitate regional economic growth local banks are the appropriate financing vehicles because of their specialist knowledge of regional market risks and conditions employing stochastic frontier analysis the efficiency of regional banks in producing financial services is estimated along with the determinants of bank cost inefficiencies regional banks are found to be highly cost efficient with inefficiencies significantly correlated with bank liquidity competitiveness capitalization and organizational structure financial deregulation accompanies significant improvements in bank productivity whereas moves by banks towards industry best practice are positive but insignificant w illiams j et g ardener e p m 2003 l efficacite des operations

are optimal emissions really optimal four critical issues for economists in the greenhouse although the greenhouse effect is by many considered as one of the most serious environmental problems several economic studies of the greenhouse effect most notably nordhaus s dice model suggest that it is optimal to allow the emissions of greenhouse gases ghg to increase by a factor of three over the next century other studies have found that substantial reductions can be justified on economic grounds this paper explores into the reasons for these differences and identifies four partly overlapping crucial issues that have to be dealt with when analysing the economics of the greenhouse effect low probability but catastrophic events cost evaluation methods the choice of discount rate the choice of decision criterion the paper shows that i these aspects are crucial for the policy conclusions drawn from models of the economics of climate change and that ii ethical choices have to be made for each of these issues this fact needs wider recognition since economics is very often perceived as a value neutral tool that can be used to provide policy makers with optimal policies

evidence of direct and indirect rebound effect in households in eu 27 countries abstract this research estimates the direct and indirect rebound effect of energy efficiency in households for the eu 27 countries the first twenty seven member states of the european union a hybrid methodology that combines econometric estimates environmental extended input output analysis and re spending models has been developed although most of the economies present values below 100 there are seven countries situated above this critical threshold by weighting individual estimates by gdp an average value for the overall eu 27 economy has been found between 73 62 and 81 16 these results suggest that the energy policy at the european level should be rethought if efficiency measures pursue reducing energy consumption and tackling climate change

climate change policy what do the models tell us very little a plethora of integrated assessment models iams have been constructed and used to estimate the social cost of carbon scc and evaluate alternative abatement policies these models have crucial flaws that make them close to useless as tools for policy analysis certain inputs e g the discount rate are arbitrary but have huge effects on the scc estimates the models produce the models descriptions of the impact of climate change are completely ad hoc with no theoretical or empirical foundation and the models can tell us nothing about the most important driver of the scc the possibility of a catastrophic climate outcome iam based analyses of climate policy create a perception of knowledge and precision but that perception is illusory and misleading jel c51 q54 q58

dynamic evolution characteristics of european union emissions trade system price from high price period to low price period abstract carbon market is a valid measure for promoting green and low carbon development and price is the core of market mechanism in this work combining directed limited penetrable visibility graph and coarse graining method a new method is proposed to identify the potential periods and dynamic evolution characteristics of carbon price which opens up a new perspective for government and investors to understand evolution characteristics and prevent risks at the same time a empirical analysis is conducted based on eu ets daily price from september 29 2009 to september 29 2017 and the dynamic fluctuation characteristics of carbon price from high price period to low price period are obtained

the threat of rent extraction in a resource constrained future abstract ecological economists aim to transform our economic institutions so that society can flourish within planetary boundaries the central message of this article is that private rent extraction forms a key barrier to the realisation of that goal i define rent as an economic reward which is sustained through control of assets that cannot be quickly and widely replicated and which exceeds proportionate compensation for the labour of the recipient i argue that unless we close opportunities for rent extraction and socialise unavoidable rents our governments will be compelled to pursue output growth regardless of its environmental consequences in order to prevent spiralling inequality and unemployment the positive proposition in this article is that the concept of rent can help us to identify and build democratic support for the institutional transformations necessary to prepare for a resource constrained future measures to reduce and redistribute rentier power could be emancipatory for the poorest in society whilst making more feasible many proposals that have been advocated already in this journal including reduced working hours and resource caps by contrast if environmental protections are introduced before opportunities for private rent extraction are closed we could see intensified rent seeking asset price bubbles poverty and economic insecurity

global energy subsidies an analytical taxonomy governments around the world have pledged to eliminate or sharply reduce subsidies to energy firms in order to increase economic efficiency and reduce environmental externalities yet definitions of subsidies vary widely and as a result estimates of their global magnitude vary by orders of magnitude i review why energy subsidies are so difficult to define and measure i show why some non standard measures are very poor proxies for subsidy costs and in fact may vary inversely with them in particular recent attempts to treat unpriced externalities as subsidies yield especially misleading results in general energy subsidies as conventionally understood do exist but only comprise a small portion of some very large recently reported estimates the bulk of which are indirect measures that may have little connection with actual costs to governments or allocational inefficiencies

a chinese sky trust distributional impacts of carbon charges and revenue recycling in china abstract the introduction of carbon charges on the use of fossil fuels in china would have a progressive impact on income distribution this outcome which contrasts to the regressive distributional impact found in most studies of carbon charges in industrialized countries is driven primarily by differences between urban and rural expenditure patterns if carbon revenues were recycled on an equal per capita basis via a sky trust the progressive impact would be further enhanced low income mainly rural households would receive more in sky trust dividends than they pay in carbon charges and high income mainly urban households would pay more than they receive in dividends thus a chinese sky trust would contribute to both lower fossil fuel consumption and greater income equality

price quantity strategic market games this paper is yet another in a rapidly growing series e g 2 11 on strategic approaches to economic equilibrium our aim here is to make precise the remark implicitly due to bertrand 1 or 10 ch 4 5 that if the agents in an economy use price setting strategies then the strategic nash equilibria will in fact be walrasian and this without any assumption of a large number of small agents however in our models not only prices but also quantities are set by the agents thus it might actually be more appropriate to call them bertrand cournot types of models we begin with a standard walras exchange economy with a finite number of traders and commodities this is recast as a game in strategic form in essentially two different ways there is a trading post for each commodity to which traders send contingent statements about how much they wish to buy and sell and at what prices in model 1 the trading point is determined by the intersection of the aggregate supply and demand curves in model 2 trade takes place so as to meet as many contingent statements as possible each buyer whose orders are filled pays the price he quoted using a fiat money which can be borrowed costlessly and limitlessly but after trade is over there is a settlement of accounts and a penalty is levied on those who are bankrupt no attempt is made to model the penalty in any detail it is simply described in the form of a disutility but this in turn may be imagined to stem from confiscation of assets see remark 5 or the necessity of procuring highly priced loans etc call a noncooperative equilibrium active if it turns out that no trader is isolated i e trapped as the sole buyer or seller at some trading post then our results may be described as follows in model 1 the active2 n e of the game coincide with the c e of the market furthermore there is a subset of tight active n e which also coincide with the c e and each n e in this subset is strong

the rate of convergence to efficiency in the buyer s bid double auction as the market becomes large a trader who privately knows his preferences may misrepresent them in order to influence the market price this strategic behaviour may prevent realization of all gains from trade in this paper trade in a simple market with an explicit rule for price formation is modelled as a bayesian game we show that the difference between a trader s bid and his reservation value is maximally 0 1 m where m is the number of traders on each side of the market competitive pressure as m increases thus quickly overcomes the inefficiency private information causes and f ces the market towards an efficient allocation

coase lecture taxes targets and the social cost of carbon in environmental economics the marginal external cost of emitting a pollutant determines the optimal abatement policy which might take the form of an emissions tax but the marginal external cost is often difficult to estimate this is especially the case when it comes to climate change estimates of the social cost of carbon scc range from around 10 per metric ton to well over 200 per metric ton and there has been little or no movement toward a consensus number partly as a result rather than an scc based carbon tax climate policy has focused on a set of targets that would put limits on temperature increases or atmospheric co2 concentrations which in turn imply targets for emission reductions economics however can tell us little about whether such targets are socially optimal i discuss the trade off between taxes versus targets as the focus of policy explain why it has been so difficult to estimate a marginal scc and suggest an approach to estimating an average scc through the use of expert elicitation i argue that such an approach could serve as the basis for a harmonized carbon tax

carbon pricing effectiveness and equity abstract the 2015 paris agreement adopted the goal of limiting the rise in global mean temperature to 1 5 2 c above pre industrial levels carbon pricing can play a key role in meeting this objective a cap and permit system or alternatively a carbon tax indexed to a fixed emission reduction trajectory not only can spur cost effective mitigation and cost reducing innovation but also crucially can ensure that emissions are held to the target level the carbon prices needed to meet this constraint are likely to be considerably higher however than existing prices and conventional measures of the social cost of carbon this poses issues of distributional equity and political sustainability that can be addressed by universal dividends funded by carbon revenues

a meta analysis on the price elasticity of energy demand abstract price elasticities of energy demand have become increasingly relevant in estimating the socio economic and environmental effects of energy policies or other events that influence the price of energy goods since the 1970s a large number of academic papers have provided both short and long term price elasticity estimates for different countries using several models data and estimation techniques yet the literature offers a rather wide range of estimates for the price elasticities of demand for energy this paper quantitatively summarizes the recent but sizeable empirical evidence to facilitate a sounder economic assessment of in some cases policy related energy price changes it uses meta analysis to identify the main factors affecting short and long term elasticity results for energy in general as well as for specific products i e electricity natural gas gasoline diesel and heating oil

seller incentive properties of epa s emission trading auction abstract the new clean air act amendments instruct the environmental protection agency epa to conduct annual sealed bid offer auctions of emission allowances the auction pricing rules are discriminative and sellers with the lowest asking prices receive the highest bids this paper assesses the seller incentives of this auction and demonstrates that the auction rules cause sellers to choose asking prices that under reveal their cost of emission control furthermore increasing the number of sellers intensifies this misrepresentation if the number of buyers remains fixed the epa s rules can therefore generate significantly biased price signals and reduce the efficiency of the allowance trading market

a note on tradeable permits this note offers a perspective on whether tradeable permits are a passing fad or an enduring trend it does so in noting how various types of tradeable permit systems relate to conventional environmental permits what are the unique requirements of tradeable permit systems and why they might be preferred to alternative instruments a final observation concerns the analogy between tradeable permits for environmental goods and private property in land

designing organizations for trading pollution rights regulators and academicians have recently become interested in using a marketable permits program as a new way to control aggregate pollution emissions our research focuses on choosing a permit trading mechanism that is both economically efficient and politically viable we consider an organized trading process and a revenue neutral auction both of which involve an initial allocation of permits based on past history each is tested in a competitive and in a non competitive environment to determine which mechanism performs best the results of our research suggest that overall the organized trading process outperforms the revenue neutral auction

the luenberger indicator and productivity growth a note on the european savings banks sector we employ the luenberger productivity indicator to estimate productivity growth and its decomposition into technical change and efficiency change components for savings banks sectors in 10 eu countries between 1996 and 2003 the luenberger indicator requires less restrictive assumptions than standard nonparametric productivity indexes and it allows the assumption of profit maximization to be made for sample firms we estimate average productivity growth in the savings banks sector to be 2 78 per annum and driven almost entirely by technical change whilst the general results confirm earlier findings this study is one of the earliest to identify cross border differences in productivity growth in the savings banks sector

reviewing reforming and rethinking global energy subsidies towards a political economy research agenda this article provides a review of global energy subsidies of definitions and estimation techniques their type and scope their drawbacks and effective ways to reform them based on an assessment of both policy reports and peer reviewed studies this article presents evidence that energy subsidies could reach into the trillions of dollars each year it also highlights how most subsidies appear to offer net costs to society rather than benefits in the form of government deficits increased waste shortages of energy fuels and aggravated environmental impacts among others the review then talks about how tools such as best practices in measurement and estimation subsidy elimination impact studies and adjustment packages can dramatically reorient subsidies so that they become more socially and environmentally sustainable it also argues that such efforts need to explicitly learn from previous successes and recognize the importance of political economy the possible winners and losers to subsidy reform the final part proposes a future research agenda

a review of the stern review on the economics of climate change the stern review calls for immediate decisive action to stabilize greenhouse gases because the benefits of strong early action on climate change outweighs the costs the economic analysis supporting this conclusion consists mostly of two basic strands the first strand is a formal aggregative model that relies for its conclusions primari ly upon imposing a very low discount rate concerning this discount rate aspect i am skeptical of the review s formal analysis but this essay points out that we are actual ly a lot less sure about what interest rate should be used for discounting climate change than is commonly acknowledged the review s second basic strand is a more intuitive argument that it might be very important to avoid possibly large uncertain ties that are difficult to quantify concerning this uncertainty aspect i argue that it might be recast into sound analytical reasoning that might justify some of the review s conclusions the basic issue here is that spending money to slow global warming should perhaps not be conceptualized primarily as being about consump tion smoothing as much as being about how much insurance to buy to offset the small change of a ruinous catastrophe that is difficult to compensate by ordinary savings

what explains carbon pricing variation between countries abstract economists generally view carbon pricing as an efficient policy to address externalities from energy use but political feasibility can be a persistent issue this paper aims to comprehensively consider underlying factors contributing to carbon pricing magnitude including environmental social political and economic variables we use the between estimator and focus on exogenous variables to explain continuous carbon pricing variables for a global sample of countries we find that larger coal reserves per capita have a negative effect on the log of the product of carbon price levels and coverage control of corruption is a key governance variable that is positively associated with carbon pricing outcomes another important political dimension is the degree of political globalisation for economic resources there is evidence that larger stocks of domestic credit help to enable carbon pricing there is some evidence that climate change awareness is positively associated with carbon pricing but the proportion perceiving climate change as a serious threat is negatively associated with carbon pricing our global results complement case study approaches that consider carbon pricing design for local contexts

on the economics of carbon pricing insights from econometric modeling with industry level data abstract the literature which tests the porter hypothesis by studying the role of environmental policies on innovation is not only fragmented but mostly employs broad measures of environmental regulations in order to draw consensus in this literature and sufficiently incentivize the pursuit of environmental policy objectives further contributions on the economics of environmental regulations utilizing alternative methods and data are needed therefore our analysis takes the chinese national emission trading scheme ets as specific example of such a policy in the econometric analysis chinese carbon prices from this market are used and their impact on innovation is estimated using a dynamic panel data regression the main findings are that while a carbon price appears to stimulate r d intensity innovation input the boost in r d does not result into increased sales and profits for industries innovation output high energy consuming industries have higher tendencies to innovate but this takes place at the distribution and marketing stages of the value chain however since the energy requirement at these levels is less relative to the actual production stage the energy costs saving may be limited therefore to better the economics of carbon pricing in a competitive world in which risk aversion is a possibility policies which encourage energy intensive industries to innovate at the production stage would present opportunities in general these findings contribute to our understanding of innovation behavior and have the potential to stimulate new debates in the literature

the income inequality and carbon emissions trade off revisited abstract this paper investigates the marginal effect of income inequality on carbon emissions per capita we use a panel consisting of 68 countries over a 50 year period from 1961 to 2010 we report estimates that support the hypothesis that there is a trade off between carbon emissions per capita and income inequality this trade off is not homogeneous across countries and depends upon the level of development measured by income per capita using panel smooth transition regression we find that this relationship is negative for countries with low to moderate income per capita but becomes slightly positive after passing a threshold located around fifteen thousand 2011 us dollars moreover the inequality elasticity of emissions per capita is comparable in magnitude to its income elasticity therefore both inequality and income levels are crucial to define policies to reduce carbon emissions this implies a challenge to policymakers who pursue to reduce both income inequality and carbon emissions

a simple analysis of the us emission permits auctions we examine a stylized version of epa auctions when agents know the list of values of sellers and buyers there are inefficient equilibria where no goods are traded and efficient equilibria where all exchange occurs at a uniform price we also provide examples under incomplete information when the uniform price equilibrium holds and when it does not hold c 1999 elsevier science s a all rights reserved jel classification d44 q29

financial innovations in banking impact on regional growth carbo valverde s lopez del paso r and rodriguez fernandez f 2007 financial innovations in banking impact on regional growth regional studies 41 311 326 this paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between finance and growth by analysing the relationships between financial intermediation and economic growth within the regions of one country rather than with different countries the focus on regions is relevant since regional information is more homogeneous the legal and institutional factors are similar and the relevant financial market is more accurately defined the study also incorporates the effects of a set of banking innovations the analysis is undertaken for the spanish regions the results show that product and service delivery innovations contribute positively to regional gross domestic product investment and gross savings growth carbo valverde s lopez del paso r et rodriguez fernandez f 2007 les innovations financieres dans le secteur bancaire l impact sur l

poverty and distributional effects of carbon pricing in low and middle income countries a global comparative analysis abstract even though concerns about adverse distributional implications for the poor are one of the most important political challenges for carbon pricing the existing literature reveals ambiguous results for this reason we assess the expected incidence of moderate carbon price increases for different income groups in 87 mostly low and middle income countries building on a consistent dataset and method we find that for countries with per capita incomes of below usd 15 000 per year at ppp adjusted 2011 usd carbon pricing has on average progressive distributional effects we also develop a novel decomposition technique to show that distributional outcomes are primarily determined by differences among income groups in consumption patterns of energy rather than of food goods or services we argue that an inverse u shape relationship between energy expenditure shares and income explains why carbon pricing tends to be regressive in countries with relatively higher income since these countries are likely to have more financial resources and institutional capacities to deal with distributional issues our findings suggest that mitigating climate change raising domestic revenue and reducing economic inequality are not mutually exclusive even in low and middle income countries

pollution permits and compliance strategies abstract this paper analyzes the impact of spot and futures markets for tradeable pollution permits on the potential polluters compliance decisions polluters can buy permits invest in pollution abatement or else stop production or source out we show that stand alone spot markets induce excessive investment the introduction of a futures market reduces this incentive to invest but is not the optimal way to control pollution a menu of options on pollution rights possibly coupled with intertemporally bundled sales yields higher welfare because of its focus on long run demand elasticities and rent extraction this paper can be applied to a variety of situations such as demand side management public transportation bypass in telecommunications or forward sales by a private monopolist

three laws of energy transitions the paper formulates and explores a hypothesis on three general energy transition laws the law of stable long term energy costs to income ratio the law of improving energy quality and the law of growing energy productivity these laws are essential for shaping long term projections and checking for their consistency all three are rooted in amazingly stable in time and universal across countries energy costs to income ratios limited energy purchasing power sets up thresholds which if exceeded bring asymmetry to energy demand to price elasticity the author believes that the theoretical postulate on the substantial substitution among production factors which is used in the production functions theory may be incorrect in reality innovations mainly lead to the substitution of a low quality production factor with the same yet of a better quality improving energy quality with stable costs to income ratio is accompanied by growing energy productivity energy costs to income thresholds are indicators allowing for better projections of oil prices

the incidence of fuel taxation in india abstract fuel taxes have returned to centre stage as a potential policy instrument for greenhouse gas abatement on the basis of some studies in developed countries critics have complained that a fuel tax would be regressive this paper uses data from a representative household survey covering more than 124 thousand indian households to examine this claim it finds that a fuel tax would be progressive as would a carbon tax using an input output approach it is found that the progressivity results holds good even when one considers indirect consumption of fuel through its use as an intermediate input sensitivity checks allowing for differing price elasticities of demand between rich and poor confirm this result for most of fuels a tax on kerosene is the only fuel tax that is regressive in all situations

does improved environmental quality prevent a growing economy abstract a major concern for sustainable development is how countries can lower pollution while avoiding adverse output and energy shocks since economic activities change with time we develop a dynamic applied equilibrium model to study the dynamics of co2 emissions and evaluate how the pursuit of environmental policy objectives can influence output and productivity in a surrogate country in transition under an optimal environmental policy which ensures mitigation between 38 and 50 we show that productivity projected towards the year 2075 increases slightly from between 3 8 and 6 2 to between 5 7 and 7 6 respectively the required carbon tax begins from 5 29 ton in 2020 and grows on average by 3 5 reaching up to 35 83 per ton carbon towards the year 2075 even though these tax rates ensure huge benefits for mitigation they represent marginal productivity growth and substantial output and consumption costs in other words improved environmental quality presents opportunities for multifactor productivity mfp but this productivity improvement is too marginal to offset the compliance costs of the carbon tax thereby causing output to decline hence to ensure maximum economic dividend from carbon pricing especially in transitional economies measures are required to improve the innovation benefits of carbon taxes towards levels that offset the compliance costs of environmental regulations otherwise caution should be taken by developing countries in their environmental policy designs especially when boosting consumption and economic growth is a major priority

the impact of a carbon tax on inequality abstract climate change and economic inequality are inextricably linked despite widespread agreement among researchers and policymakers that a carbon tax is the most efficient mechanism to curb greenhouse gas emissions such a tax exacerbates inequality since low income households spend a greater share of their income on carbon intensive goods using input output tables and detailed expenditure data for the united states we estimate households carbon footprints and examine the impact of a revenue neutral tax of 50 per ton of co2 on multiple forms of inequality devoting carbon tax revenue to fund a carbon dividend makes the policy progressive minimizes redistribution among households of similar means mitigates group based inequalities and benefits 56 of people including 84 in the bottom half of the distribution while some researchers have dismissed dividends on efficiency grounds we show that the double dividend typically associated with labor tax cuts is insufficient to protect the purchasing power of a majority of americans

an experimental investigation of the seller incentives in the epas emission trading auction the clean air act requires the epa to conduct annual auctions of emission allowances under the discriminative auction rules sellers with the lowest asking prices receive the highest bids this paper studies an inverted version of this auction in which buyers face the same incentives as sellers in the epa auction consistent with theoretical predictions buyers bid above their valuation auction outcomes are inefficient and increasing the number of buyers increases bids buyers facing human opponents compete more aggressively than the risk neutral prediction but bids do not differ systematically from this prediction when buyers face computerized nash robots copyright 1995 by american economic association

how large are global fossil fuel subsidies summary this paper estimates fossil fuel subsidies and the economic and environmental benefits from reforming them focusing mostly on a broad notion of subsidies arising when consumer prices are below supply costs plus environmental costs and general consumption taxes estimated subsidies are 4 9 trillion worldwide in 2013 and 5 3 trillion in 2015 6 5 of global gdp in both years undercharging for global warming accounts for 22 of the subsidy in 2013 air pollution 46 broader vehicle externalities 13 supply costs 11 and general consumer taxes 8 china was the biggest subsidizer in 2013 1 8 trillion followed by the united states 0 6 trillion and russia the european union and india each with about 0 3 trillion eliminating subsidies would have reduced global carbon emissions in 2013 by 21 and fossil fuel air pollution deaths 55 while raising revenue of 4 and social welfare by 2 2 of global gdp

estimation of global rebound effect caused by energy efficiency improvement abstract rebound effect refers to the phenomenon that the actual reduction in energy use and emissions is less than the expected reduction caused by an energy efficiency improvement due to induced behavior adjustment of relevant economic agents this article studies the global rebound effects on energy use and related emissions caused by an energy efficiency improvement we adopt a global computable general equilibrium cge model to design a scenario of energy efficiency improvement which is compared to a business as usual bau scenario to identify the global rebound effect our results show very large rebound effect on energy use 70 and related emissions 90 in 2040 at the global level with regional and sectoral differences important determinants among others are induced labor movement among economic activities and labor supply and substitution elasticity between energy and other goods labor mobility has a marked impact on both rebound effects and on fuel mix the global rebound effect is still considerable even with a low substitution elasticity between energy and other goods the effect of capital accumulation over time contributes marginally to the global rebound effect as it is utilized to promote economic growth by using energy input more efficiently

bank office outreach structure and performance in regional banking markets burgstaller j bank office outreach structure and performance in regional banking markets regional studies this paper studies bank penetration market structure and banking conduct across austrian districts neither differences in market concentration nor in the activity of out of market banks can explain the regional dispersion of interest rates bank profitability and efficiency a higher bank density is connected to more competition and lower mark ups and indicates more efficient banking markets as well as efficiency is the main determinant of bank profits and competition seems to be mildly indicative of stronger regional growth the preservation of a fair regional bank outreach appears to be an important policy target burgstaller j burgstaller j le rayon d action des guichets ban

regional financial development and bank competition effects on firms growth fernandez de guevara j and maudos j regional financial development and bank competition effects on firms growth regional studies this paper analyses the effect of regional financial development and bank competition on firms growth using the spanish provinces as a testing ground the results show that firms in industries with a greater dependence on external finance grow faster in more financially developed provinces the results also show that bank monopoly power has an inverted u effect on firms growth suggesting that market power has its highest effect at intermediate values the effect is heterogeneous among firms according to the financial dependence of the industry to which they belong this result is consistent with the literature on relationship banking which argues that bank competition can have a negative effect on the availability of finance for more informationally opaque firms fernandez de guevara j et maudos j le developpement financier regional et la concurrence bancaire l imp

a review of the stern review on the economics of climate change how much and how fast should we react to the threat of global warming the stern review argues that the damages from climate change are large and that nations should undertake sharp and immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions an examination of the review s radical revision of the economics of climate change finds however that it depends decisively on the assumption of a near zero time discount rate combined with a specific utility function the review s unambiguous conclusions about the need for extreme immediate action will not survive the substitution of assumptions that are consistent with today s marketplace real interest rates and savings rates

on modeling and interpreting the economics of catastrophic climate change with climate change as prototype example this paper analyzes the implications of structural uncertainty for the economics of low probability high impact catastrophes even when updated by bayesian learning uncertain structural parameters induce a critical tail fattening of posterior predictive distributions such fattened tails have strong im plications for situations like climate change where a catastrophe is theoretically possible because prior knowledge cannot place sufficiently narrow bounds on overall damages this paper shows that the economic consequences of fat tailed structural uncertainty along with unsureness about high temperature damages can readily outweigh the effects of discounting in climate change policy analysis

improving the liquidity of china s carbon market insight from the effect of carbon price transmission under the policy release abstract through a series of policies release the trading system of china s carbon market is being improved but its current liquidity is still low to improve market liquidity this paper analyzes the relation between the release of policy related to carbon market operations and the volatility of carbon price thus arranging an optimal adjustment scheme for government s policy making through the jump test and logit regression we investigate historical policies and prices of 7 emission trading scheme pilots in china to explore the impact of policy release on carbon price and then quantify the effectiveness of these policies empirical results indicate that in the short term new policies can rapidly lead to a large volatility of carbon price but it can also reduce the abnormal volatility with the spread of price information further the demand stimulus policies promote a positive volatility of carbon price in the long term the insufficient demands for carbon emissions quota raise the disappearance of market dividends caused by the policy release and lead to an excessive call back of carbon price thus increasing mid and long term risks in carbon markets additionally china s macro environment policy can stabilize carbon price and thus an effective tool for improving the liquidity of carbon markets is developing demand stimulus policies

on the sources of heterogeneity in banking efficiency literature one learns two main lessons from studying the great quantity of banking efficiency literature these lessons regard the heterogeneity in results and the absence of a comprehensive review aimed at understanding the reasons for this variability surprisingly although this issue is well known it has not been systematically analyzed before in order to fill this gap we perform a meta regression analysis mra by examining 1 661 efficiency scores retrieved from 120 papers published over the period 2000 2014 the meta regression is estimated by using the random effects multilevel model reml because it controls for within study and between study heterogeneity the analysis yields four main results firstly parametric methods yield lower levels of banking efficiency than nonparametric studies this holds true even after controlling for the approach used in selecting the inputs and outputs of the frontier secondly we show that banking efficiency is highest when using the value added approach followed by estimates from studies based on the intermediation method whereas those based on the hybrid approach are the lowest thirdly efficiency scores also depend on the quality of studies and on the number of observations and variables used in the primary papers as far as the effects of sample size dimension and quality of papers are concerned there are significant differences in sign and magnitude between parametric and nonparametric studies finally cost efficiency is found to be higher than profit and production efficiency interestingly mra results are robust to the potential outliers in efficiency and sample size distributions