the optimal biopower capacity in co firing plants an empirical analysis abstract biomass fuels carry appealing features in replacing traditional fossil fuels especially coal in power generation due to the bulk sparse and low energy density drawbacks of biomass many studies implicitly indicate small and limited scale in biopower generation this study contributes to the bioenergy literature by explicitly studying the optimal biopower capacity of biopower co firing technology in coal fired power plants which has practical implications for potential biopower practitioners investors and policymakers this study indicates that the optimal biopower capacity of biomass co firing in coal powered plants is intermediate i e 12 mw on average in order to take advantage of economies of scale without incurring high transportation cost regional variations are also found in the aspects of production cost and optimal capacity due to local characteristics local biomass availability plays a critical role in shaping biopower s generation cost optimal capacity and cost changing patterns

the neolithic revolution from a price theoretic perspective article i nfo the adoption of agriculture during the neolithic period triggered the first demographic explosion in history when fertility returned to its original level agriculturalists were more numerous more poorly nourished and worked longer hours than their hunter gatherer ancestors we develop a dynamic price theoretic model that rationalizes these events in the short run people are lured into agriculture by the increased labor productivity of both adults and children in the long run the growth in population overrides the productivity gains and the later generations of agriculturalists end up being worse off than the hunter gatherers counter intuitively the increase in the labor productivity of children causes the long run reduction in welfare in the long run the increase in adult labor productivity only contributes to population growth 2010 elsevier b v all rights reserved

supply of biomass bioenergy and carbon mitigation method and application this study develops an analytical framework for deriving the supply of biomass feedstock and subsequently electricity and co2 displacement generated from the biomass this systematic approach minimizes the total cost of both feedstock and electricity production and involves the determination of the optimal power plant size and the derivation of the supply curves the analytical framework is applied to the case of logging residues in the us both the theoretical and empirical results point to the importance of simultaneously considering feedstock production energy conversion and environmental benefits costs in bioenergy project development leading to useful policy implications for bioenergy development and deployment

on the early holocene foraging to early agriculture we consider a world in which the mode of food production foraging or agriculture is endogenous and in which technology grows exogenously within a model of coalition formation we allow individuals to form co operative communities bands of foragers or farmers rationally at the lowest levels of technology equilibrium entails the grand coalition of foragers a co operative structure which avoids over exploitation of the environment but at a critical state of technology the co operative structure breaks down through an individually rational splintering of the band at this stage there can be an increase in work and through the over exploitation of the environment a food crisis in the end technological growth may lead to a one way transition from foraging to agriculture

an equilibrium conflict model of land tenure in hunter gatherer societies i apply features of the economics of conflict and spatial competition in developing a model of the emergence of land ownership in hunter gatherer societies tenure regimes are the result of interactions between those seeking to defend claims to land and those seeking to infringe on those claims the model highlights the dependence of land ownership on ecological parameters such as resource density and predictability and allows for situational ownership in which the nature of ownership changes as realized ecological conditions change the paper concludes with a comparative assessment of tenure across a representative sample of hunter gatherer peoples

outline of the economic and technical problems associated with the co combustion of biomass in poland abstract the paper presents the economic and technical problems associated with the use of biomass in co combustion processes in the energy sector in poland the particular attention was paid to the extent of the use of biomass in the energy sector the technologies and techniques applied as well as the economic determinants as it results from the analyses the co combustion of biomass in poland is a predominant direction in the green energy production co combustion processes are carried out mainly with the use of direct combustion technologies in the largest entities operating in the energy market the widespread use of biomass in the polish energy sector results in specific problems such as those associated with the prices of green certificates and the import of biomass currently the polish renewable energy sector is developing as intended however the validity of the funds spending which aimed at supporting renewable energy sources res may raise some doubts this results from insufficient monitoring of the amount of energy produced on the basis of renewable sources which in 2012 led to over production of the res based energy and consequently to a significant decrease in prices of green certificates

poverty and environmental degradation in the nicaraguan hillsides abstract this article questions the assumption of poverty as a major cause of environmental degradation examining five environmentally harmful natural resource management practices in the nicaraguan hillsides it shows that the immediate agents of environmental degradation are the nonpoor farmers not the poorest it argues that to analyze the causal links between poverty and environment a distinction between poverty as a state of deprivation and poverty as a relational phenomenon is necessary finally the article warns that the often strategic reference to poverty as the major cause of environmental degradation made by nonpoor and poor farmers may lead to negative environmental impacts

the creation of effective property rights traditionally general equilibrium models have taken effective property rights to be given and have been concerned only with analyzing the allocation of resources among productive uses and the distribution of the resulting product but this formulation of the economic problem is incomplete because it neglects that the appropriative activities by which people create the effective property rights that inform allocation and distribution are themselves an alternative use of scare resources this paper develops two canonical general equilibrium models of resource allocation and income distribution that allow for the allocation of time and effort to the creation of effective property rights to valuable resources in one model the valuable resources are initially in common pool in the other models the analysis reveals how the amount of time and effort that agents allocate to the creation of effective property rights on the technology of production and on the scale of the economy the paper also analyses the security of initial claims to valuable resources and speculates about why initial claims are perfectly secure

on the origins of property rights conflict and production in the state of nature i analyse the emergence of property rights in a model of conflict and production in the absence of institutions of enforcement the population of agents evolves dynamically through conflicts for possession of factor goods among pairs of randomly matched agents conflicts are incomplete information wars of attrition with an agent s type consisting of his or her independently drawn valuation of the prize and cost of competing for it i prove equilibrium existence and show that in the steady state of the game the population sorts into two stable groups resource haves and have nots in accordance with a known function of their primitive types

sex equality and growth abstract we set up a model of economic and demographic long run development where inequality in income and reproductive success polygynous mating plays a central role the model generates a slow and gradual compression of the income gap between landholders and landless together with rising levels of human capital this process spurts at some stage as society endogenously transits into sustained growth simultaneously inequality in income and reproductive success drops society becomes monogamous

the rise of europe atlantic trade institutional change and economic growth the rise of western europe after 1500 is due largely to growth in countries with access to the atlantic ocean and with substantial trade with the new world africa and asia via the atlantic this trade and the associatedcolonialism affected europe not only directly but also indirectly by inducing institutional change where initial political institutions those established before 1500 placed significant checks on the monarchy the growth of atlantic trade strengthened merchant groups by constraining the power of the monarchy and helped merchants obtain changes in institutions to protect property rights these changes were central to subsequent economic growth

property rights and the political organization of agriculture we propose a general equilibrium model where the economic organization of agriculture and the political equilibrium determining the security of property rights are jointly determined in particular because the form of organization may affect the probability and distribution of benefits from future property challenges it may be shaped in anticipation of this impact property rights security may then be secured at the expense of economic efficiency the model provides a framework for understanding why in some contexts land is redistributed primarily via land sales and tenancy markets but via politics and conflict in others we test some implications of the theory using a five decade panel dataset that traces changes in the extent of tenancy and tenancy reform across 15 indian states

slavery education and inequality abstract we investigate the effect of slavery on the current level of income inequality across us counties we find that a larger proportion of slaves over population in 1860 persistently increases inequality and in particular inequality across races we also show that a crucial channel of transmission from slavery to racial inequality is human capital accumulation i e current inequality is primarily influenced by slavery through the unequal educational attainment of blacks and whites finally we provide suggestive evidence that the underlying links run through the political exclusion of former slaves and the resulting negative influence on the local provision of education

violence and property rights abstract since the middle ages when europe was still at a malthusian stage of development interpersonal violence has been in steady decline and institutions and norms limiting violence in particular property rights have expanded here we put forward a malthusian model of violence where these trends can be interpreted as a response to easing population pressure following an acceleration in technological progress the idea is that agents rationally risk dying in violent resource competition in order to make more of their children survive starvation violence carries a positive externality because those who die free up resources for survivors this generates a socially optimal level of violence which can be implemented with the right amount of property rights protection it is shown that faster technological progress can lead to a decline in violence and improved property rights protection similar to the path followed by europe

economic feasibility of utilizing forest biomass in district energy systems a review abstract recent global protocols and agreements have motivated countries to use biomass for energy generation however the barriers in biomass utilization including variations in biomass availability high moisture content low bulk density and dispersed distribution of biomass have made investors reluctant to invest in bioenergy projects in some parts of the world in this paper in addition to a brief summary of the conversion technologies used for energy generation a review of the world literature on techno economic assessment of district energy systems using forest biomass as the primary fuel with references extending over two decades is provided although energy generation from forest biomass is found to be expensive in many countries the review of literature revealed important factors that increased the share of biomass in energy production in other countries these important factors include using more efficient technologies providing governmental grants and subsidies setting new policies in favor of biomass utilization increasing emission reduction targets and introducing tradable carbon credits the feasibility of utilizing forest biomass in district heating systems has been examined in the literature mainly based on the costs while considering social and environmental profiles of these systems could improve their acceptance future research studies on assessing the performance of biomass district energy systems should consider environmental and social impacts of these systems in addition to their costs

anarchy and its breakdown anarchy defined as a system in which participants can seize and defend resources without regulation from above is not chaos but rather a spontaneous order however anarchy is fragile and may dissolve either into formless amorphy or into a more organized system such as hierarchy under anarchy each contestant balances between productive exploitation of the current resource base and fighting to acquire or defend resources anarchy is sustainable only when there are strongly diminishing returns to fighting effort the decisiveness parameter is sufficiently low and incomes exceed the viability minimum these considerations explain many features of animal and human conflict

slavery and other property rights the institution of slavery is found mostly at intermediate stages of agricultural development and less often among hunter gatherers and advanced agrarian societies we explain this pattern in a growth model with land and labor as inputs in production and an endogenously determined property rights institution the economy endogenously transits from an egalitarian state with equal property rights to a despotic slave society where the elite own both people and land thereafter it endogenously transits into a free labor society where the elite own the land but people are free

history lessons institutions factor endowments and paths of development in the new world the explanations offered for the contrasting records of long run growth and development among the societies of north and south america most often focus on institutions the traditional explanations for the sources of these differences in institutions typically highlight the significance of national heritage or religion we in contrast argue that a hemispheric perspective across the wide range of colonies established in the new world by the europeans suggests that although there were many influences factor endowments or initial conditions had profound and enduring effects on the long run paths of institutional and economic development followed by the respective economies

landownership concentration and the expansion of education we study the relationship between large landownership concentration and the expansion of mass education in nineteenth century prussia cross sectional estimates show a negative association between landownership concentration and enrollment rates fixed effects panel estimates indicate that regions with an initially stronger landownership concentration exhibit increasing enrollment rates this relationship is not driven by differences in the supply of schooling we argue that the implementation of agricultural reforms including the stepwise abolition of serfdom is an important driver of the change in enrollment the results are consistent with the interpretation that emancipation from labor coercion increased the private demand for education

from malthus to modern growth can epidemics explain the three regimes we model demographic and economic long run development in a setting where mortality is endogenous and subject to epidemic shocks the model replicates the full transition from malthusian stagnation to modern growth consistent with the historical facts the economy also passes an intermediate post malthusian phase where growth rates of both population and per capita income increase simultaneously as mortality rates fall and become less volatile the escape from the malthusian trap is the result of a series of mild epidemic shocks making it inevitable at some stage but its timing random calibrations show that it can differ by thousands of generations absent differences in exogenous parameters

population technology and growth from malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond this paper develops a unied growth model that captures the historical evolution of population technology and output it encompasses theendogenous transitionbetween three regimes that have characterized economic development the economy evolves from amalthusianregime wheretechnologicalprogressis slow andpopulationgrowthprevents anysustainedriseinincomepercapita intoapost malthusianregime wheretechnological progress rises and population growth absorbs only part of output growth ultimately a demographic transition reverses the positive relationship between income and population growth andtheeconomyentersamoderngrowthregimewithreducedpopulationgrowth

equilibrium in the jungle in the jungle power and coercion govern the exchange of resources we study a simple stylized model of the jungle that mirrors an exchange economy we de ne the notion of jungle equilibrium and demonstrate that a number of standard results of competitive markets hold in the jungle jel classi cation c7 d4 s477 b201

empowerment and efficiency tenancy reform in west bengal the paper analyzes the effect of agricultural tenancy laws offering security of tenure to tenants and regulating the share of output that is paid as rent on farm productivity theoretically the net impact of tenancy reform is shown to be a combination of two effects a bargaining power effect and a security of tenure effect analysis of evidence on how contracts and productivity changed after a tenancy reform program was implemented in the indian state of west bengal in the late 1970s suggests that tenancy reform had a positive effect on agricultural productivity there

malthus to solow a unified growth theory is developed that accounts for the roughly constant living standards displayed by world economies prior to 1800 as well as the growing living standards exhibited by modern industrial economies our theory also explains the industrial revolution which is the transition from an era when per capita incomes are stagnant to one with sustained growth the authors use a standard growth model with several technologies the first denoted the malthus technology requires land labor and reproducible capital as inputs the second denoted the solow technology does not require land the authors show that in the early stages of development only the malthus technology is used and due to population growth living standards are stagnant despite technological progress eventually technological progress causes the solow technology to become profitable and both technologies are employed at this point living standards improve since population growth has less influence on per capita income growth in the limit the economy behaves like a standard solow growth model excerpt