spectrum auction designs and revenue variations this study examines a sample of 93 national 3g spectrum auctions for the period 2000 2011 to identify the sources of substantial revenue variations an implied reduced form econometric model that recognises the censored nature of the sample relates per capita winning bid per mhz per million populations values to regulator determined auction design characteristics auction competitiveness mobile wireless market conditions and spectrum package attributes identified from tender documents the analysis reveals that among other factors all auction design characteristics independently impact on realized 3g spectrum auction revenues

declining values and the afternoon effect evidence from art auctions we study the order of sale in art auctions the final bid relative to the auctioneer s estimated price declines throughout the course of an auction a theoretical model shows that in an auction ordered by declining valuation even in the presence of risk neutral strategic bidders the price received relative to the estimate for later items in an auction should be less than the price relative to the estimate for earlier items furthermore ordering heterogeneous items by value maximizes revenue for the auctioneer

the effect of collusion on efficiency in experimental auctions abstract this paper examines the effect of collusion on allocative efficiency in a second price sealed bid auction in which bidders valuations have both private and common value components we present a theoretical model which shows that explicit collusion improves average efficiency furthermore a reduction in common value signal variance increases the efficiency of allocations when a cartel is present we test for the presence of these patterns in a laboratory experiment subjects can choose whether to compete or to form a cartel colluding bidders can communicate and make side payments using a knockout auction our results show that a large majority of bidders joins a cartel and collusion has a negative impact on efficiency

energy consumption and economic development in sub sahara africa sub saharan african countries economic development is dependent on energy consumption this paper assesses total energy demand which is composed of traditional energy wood fuel and commercial energy electricity and petroleum in the central east south and west regions of sub saharan africa cross sectional time series data for 20 countries in 25 years are analyzed and the results of the study show that wood fuel accounts for 70 of energy consumption followed by petroleum with most industrial activities utilizing some form of wood fuel regression results suggest that energy demand is inversely related to the price of petroleum and industrial development but positively related to gdp population growth rate and agricultural expansion and that price elasticity is less than one the model results also show that there are regional differences in energy demand in addition the interaction of population growth rates by regions generates mixed results and there are regional differences in the use of commercial energy consumption and gdp growth the findings of this study suggest that countries must diversify their energy sources and introduce energy efficient devices and equipment at all levels of the economy to improve gdp growth rate and gdp per capita

contracts as a barrier to entry it is shown that an incumbent seller who faces a threat of entry into his or her market will sign long term contracts that prevent the entry of some lower cost producers even though they do not preclude entry completely moreover when a seller possesses superior information about the likelihood of entry it is shown that the length of the contract may act as a signal of the true probability of entry

testing for price anomalies in real estate auctions this paper reports on the results of an auction sale of 83 condominium apartment units in new jersey at the auction every unit was hammered down but unknown to the 2 348 registered bidders 40 of the sales fell through prices in the subsequent sale of condominium units in face to face negotiations resulted in identical units selling for 13 less than they fetched at auction and the discount was largest for those units hammered down early in the auction these results are inconsistent with the usual predictions from the theory of common value auctions and suggest that uninformed bidders in this auction may have been the subject of a winner s curse which generated considerable profit for the seller this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from ano this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

does energy poverty really exist in china from the perspective of residential electricity consumption abstract china is undergoing a market oriented reform in energy and the residential sector will be involved in the near future the analysis of energy poverty is crucial in breaking the illusion of the dilemma between enhancing energy efficiency and controlling poverty based on chinese residential energy consumption survey we firstly estimated the energy poverty in china by the 10 indicator and lihc indicators and then proposed a minimum end use method to classify the energy poor households into lifeline and consumption energy poverty results show that energy poverty exists in china at the proportion of 18 9 and 46 of the energy poor houses are in short of modern energy consumption and are sensitive to tariffs with a level of electricity consumption lower than the basic demand the energy poverty rate is highest in central china while the lifeline energy poor are relatively concentrated in the western region in terms of public policy we suggest focusing on heterogeneity by considering different groups of households when implementing energy efficiency measures and targeting more on the consumption energy poor in poverty alleviation we also suggest paying particular attention to targeting households with low income by supporting practices such as coupons for energy consumption and appliance purchasing

a techno economic and environmental assessment of long term energy policies and climate variability impact on the energy system abstract this paper examines the impact of climate variability and change cv c and energy policies on the future energy system in australia scenarios were developed to represent cv c impacts and policy options which were analysed with the long range energy alternative and planning system for the period 2010 2050 the results indicate that although energy demand is likely to increase threefold in the business as usual scenario cv c further increases demand to 150 petajoule a combined policy option involving modal shift and penetration of electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles results in a 49 53 decrease in transport fuel demand and emissions the economic analysis reveals a substantial decline in sales revenue and increase in generation costs due to cv c impacts higher renewable energy integration results in lower wholesale electricity prices across independent electricity markets cumulative cost benefit analysis indicates that economic benefits increase to us 4 9 trillion in an advanced renewable energy scenario emissions and energy consumed increased under climatic conditions but decreased after policy intervention ignoring the influence of cv c may result in underestimation of future energy demand and installed capacity in australia therefore energy and climate policies should consider long term economic benefits over short term system costs

towards a sustainable electrification in ghana a review of renewable energy deployment policies abstract ghana has been facing perennial power rationing over the years due to fuel supply challenges the country s energy system is likely to suffer additional strain from rising energy demand fueled by population growth rapid urbanization and economic development fortunately there are enormous renewable energy resources which can provide sustainable electrification as backbone to socioeconomic development while curbing global warming ghana s energy strategy targets 100 access to electricity and 10 share of sustainable power in national generation mix by 2020 despite the existence of numerous policies and a renewable energy act current contribution of non conventional renewable energy to electricity generation is less than 1 the right mix of policies to address the unique domestic conditions and achieve its specific development goals remains insufficient this study reviews the regulatory framework financing incentives and other provisions of ghana s renewable energy act it critically examines the policy s strengths weaknesses opportunities and treats based on comparative analysis and lessons drawn from failed and successful implementation of similar policies around the world the study also assesses the impact of policy on project development it was found that the performance of ghana s renewable energy policy on grid connected electricity has been poor compared to its target the fundamental reasons for this unsatisfactory performance may be attributed to partial implementation of policies lack of market driven support schemes lack of pricing policy framework weak grid network limited access to funds and inconsistencies in renewable energy development strategies this study proposes the following countermeasures i ghana should comprehensively harmonize renewable energy regulatory and fiscal policies with domestic electricity pricing regime ii market driven support schemes should be prioritized for cost effectiveness and minimum governmental influence these reforms can help eliminate some of the major barriers to sustainable electrification in ghana while the lessons provide a learning curve for other african countries

satisfying the rural residential demand in liberia with decentralized renewable energy schemes abstract with the lowest access to electricity in the world the country of liberia west africa has efforts underway for electrification through a fossil based centralized scheme around its capital city and possible connections to the larger western africa power pool network these plans leave a large part of the rural population with no access to electricity this work analyzes the potential of decentralized generation to provide electricity to the rural liberian population the suppressed demand of the rural population is calculated at 235 gwh yr there is sufficient renewable energy potential to supply this demand the capital costs and electricity prices of decentralized generation with different fuels are calculated and compared to the ability and willingness to pay of rural liberians small diesel units have the lowest capital cost but photovoltaic small hydropower and small biomass projects provide lower electricity prices biomass and small hydro electricity are affordable for liberians at 0 08 kwh and 0 11 kwh respectively diesel and photovoltaic with levelized cost of electricity of 0 62 kwh and 0 33 kwh respectively exceed liberians willingness to pay centralized and decentralized electricity developments are not mutually exclusive both may be used within a comprehensive electrification plan decentralized generation with emphasis on rural areas can complement the existing plans to achieve the government of liberia s goal of universal access to electricity providing social equity and economic progress in order to become a reality rural decentralized electrification will need policy support and focused funding

a note on sequential auctions this note provides an explanation for the declining price anomaly in sequential second price auctions we illustrate how the average winning bids of risk neutral agents bidding for objects with valuations drawn from independent identical distributions are lower in later auctions than in earlier auctions when the objects are not identical we determine the optimal order in which they should be auctioned

electricity planning and implementation in sub saharan africa a systematic review abstract universal electricity access is an important development objective and the focus of a number of key global un initiatives while robust electricity planning is widely believed to be a prerequisite for effective electrification to date no comprehensive overview of electricity planning research has been undertaken on sub saharan africa the world region with the lowest access rates this paper reviews quantitative and qualitative electricity planning and related implementation research considering each of the 49 sub saharan african countries the four regional power pools and the sub continent as a whole applying a broad understanding of electricity planning and a practical limit of 20 reviewed articles per country and region 306 relevant peer reviewed journal articles are included in this review a general classification scheme is introduced that classifies the planning literature along the addressed value chain depth number of different analysed criteria and number of evaluated decision alternatives the literature is found to be strongly clustered in a few countries with less than 5 identified relevant articles in 36 of the 49 countries the total amount of articles per year is clearly increasing over time addressing technology choice operation distribution and implementation analyses although including different high level criteria in analysing electricity systems is common the literature is only starting to use formalised multi criteria decision making mcdm tools the review indicates that 63 of relevant articles favour renewable energy technologies for their given problems frequently mentioned success factors for electrification in sub saharan africa include adequate policy design sufficient finance and favourable political conditions while considerable regional and methodological literature gaps are apparent the literature in this review identifies a rich and fruitful ground for future research to fill these gaps

collusive bidder behavior at single object second price and english auctions models of collusive bidder behavior at single object second price and english auctions are provided the ind ependent private values model is generalized to permit the formulatio n of coalitions and a strategic response by the auctioneer cooperati ve strategies are found to be dominant in these models coalitions of any size are viable and the payoff to each member increases with th e size of the coalition in addition the collusive strategies of the coalition represent a noncooperative equilibrium the optimal respon se of the auctioneer is to establish a reserve price that is a functi on of the coalition s size these and other features of the model are found to be consistent with the essential features of actual behavio r copyright 1987 by university of chicago press

the finnish power market are imports from russia low cost electricity market integration of high and low price areas is expected to bring benefits to the consumers in a high price area however these potential benefits are highly dependent on the market characteristics and the policy interventions we use simulation to study the effects of different alternatives for the expansion and operation of the interconnector finland russia on the finnish market a high price area our results show that the current trading arrangement where a single trader owns the transmission rights and limits the trade during peak hours to avoid capacity charges in russia is beneficial for finland at the current interconnection capacity however if the interconnector is expanded the behaviour of the trader would create significant distortions in the finnish market we also analyse the pros and cons of maintaining a strategic reserve in finland in combination with the different scenarios of interconnection expansion and trading arrangements we conclude that in the absence of trust in imports the need for a strategic reserve is undeniable this will slightly reduce the economic benefits of integration for finnish consumers but it will significantly improve reliability

appliance ownership and aspirations among electric grid and home solar households in rural kenya in sub saharan africa there are active debates about whether increases in energy access should be driven by investments in electric grid infrastructure or small scale home solar systems e g solar lanterns and solar home systems we summarize the results of a household electrical appliance survey and describe how households in rural kenya differ in terms of appliance ownership and aspirations our data suggest that home solar is not a substitute for grid power furthermore the environmental advantages of home solar are likely to be relatively small in countries like kenya where grid power is primarily derived from non fossil fuel sources

the declining price anomaly abstract data from wine auctions indicate that identical products sold sequentially typically follow a decreasing pattern of prices known as the declining price anomaly this is explained for both first and second price auctions by appealing to risk averse bidders earlier bids are then equal to expected later prices plus a risk premium associated with the risky future price we show that this logic rests on the assumption of nondecreasing absolute risk aversion which is necessary for pure strategy equilibrium bidding functions to exist thus decreasing absolute risk aversion implies ex post inefficiency with positive probability data from wine auctions are used to confirm the existence of the declining price anomaly journal of economic literature classification numbers d43 d44 d81 d82 l81

a review of trends policies and plans for increasing energy access in ghana abstract the need to secure future energy in the forms of electricity and modern cooking fuels is recognized as critical to achieving the millennium development goals particularly poverty reduction ensuring improved education health water supply and environmental sustainability this paper presents a review of the trends policies plans and programmes for increasing energy access in ghana with primary focus on electricity cooking fuels and renewable energy the paper argues that even though governments over the years have had the provision of energy services high on the national development agenda past and existing policies and plans have not delivered effective results to accelerate energy access especially in the rural and peri urban areas where the services are badly needed the paper therefore calls for a coherent national energy policy with inputs from a wider section of the public that has precise targets and clearly laid down strategies including financing mechanisms to achieve the targets

exclusionary practices and technological competition this paper examines the effects of exclusionary practices on the process of technological change modeled as a sequence of innovations the winner of an early innovation may be able to take possibly costly actions that effectively exclude its rivals from competition for subsequent innovations the possibility of exclusion can change the equilibrium time pattern of investments in research from that of the case of no exclusion conditions that make such a change most likely are also conditions under which such a change is most likely to reduce the efficiency of the allocation of resources to technological change many people believe that the possession of unchallenged economic power deadens initiative discourages thrift and depresses energy that immunity from competition is a narcotic and rivalry a stimulant to industrial progress judge learned hand in the alcoa decision in analyzing such business strategy ex visu a given point in time the economist sees restrictions which seem to him synonymous with loss of opportunities to produce he does not see that restrictions of this type are in the conditions of the perennial gale of creative destruction often unavoidable incidents of a long run process of expansion which they protect rather than impede

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

2012 international year for sustainable energy for all african frontrunnership in rural electrification abstract 2012 has been declared the international year for sustainable energy for all by the un while africa remains the most underpowered continent the prognosis for a brighter future is looking good as key stakeholders governments private sector civil society and the donor community have mobilized at an unprecedented scale to experiment with new policies regulatory frameworks and business models to rapidly upscale access to sustainable energy the top down central grid expansion approach to increasing electricity access is very capital intensive and yet has gained considerable momentum at the expense of lower cost options that utilize decentralized off grid solutions a decentralized bottom up approach could also use indigenous renewable energy sources and foster more significant linkages with livelihood opportunities in the rural un served territories this paper evaluates the emerging experiments through the lenses of c k prahalad s bottom of the pyramid theory and clayton christensen s disruptive technologies perspective three front runner initiatives involving new business models innovative technologies and institutional capacity building will be analyzed in addition the paper examines a regulatory policy initiative designed to stimulate clean energy investments in ghana though the examples are all from ghana they illustrate general challenges to sub saharan africa as a whole

shared agents and competition in laboratory english auctions at livestock auctions the same purchasing agent can represent more than one processor repeated multiple unit english auctions are created in a laboratory to measure the impact of shared agents on trade prices under alternative treatments with six and as few as two agents representing six principals treatments are constructed in which the agents either know or do not know quantity for sale and in which there are progressively fewer agents bidding knowledge of quantity for sale can be anticompetitive evolution toward increased market concentration leads to consistent anticompetitive pricing resulting in prices significantly lower than the predicted competitive equilibrium prices

innovation and industry evolution the theoretical literature on innovation has been concerned with a single innovation produced by a number of identical agents by contrast we consider a market in which one firm is the current incumbent while the remaining firms are challengers moreover we consider a sequence of innovations so that success does not imply that the successful firm reaps monopoly profits forever after but only until the next better innovation is developed we begin with a fully optimizing behavioral model and derive the equivalent of the schumpeterian process of creative destruction that is a firm enjoys temporary monopoly power but is soon overthrown by a more inventive challenger the essential point to grasp is that in dealing with capitalism we are dealing with an evolutionary process the fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers goods the new methods of production or transportation the new markets the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates schumpeter 1942 pp 82 83

understanding the role of energy consumption in human development through the use of saturation phenomena a correlation is presented between the un human development index and per capita energy consumption for 120 nations a strong relationship between index values and energy consumption is observed for the majority of the world additionally a distinct secondary trend emerges from the dataset representing heavy energy exporters such as the organization of the petroleum exporting countries and some former soviet union nations among others the preliminary observation is made that these two trends closely resemble saturation curves exhibited by a variety of natural phenomena for the primary trend three regions are isolated a steep rise in human development relative to energy consumption for energy poor nations a moderate rise for transitioning nations and essentially no rise in human development for energy advantaged nations consuming large amounts of modern energy these correlations suggest that tremendous gains in human development are possible for the world s poorest with small incremental access to energy

how auctions work for wine and art interview auctioneers and even to buy a little wine in the meantime i have also had the opportunity with john abowd 1988 to observe and collect data on the auction sale of impressionist and contemporary paintings this paper reports on some of the empirical regularities that i and others have observed in the actual operation of the auction markets for these items in view of the rich and diverse array of theoretical literature on auctions it seems high time economists began to spell out precisely what facts it is meant to explain 2

greening africa technologies endowments and the latecomer effect abstract africa is well endowed with potential for hydro and solar power but its other endowments shortages of capital skills and governance capacity make most of the green options relatively expensive while its abundance of hydro carbons makes fossil fuels relatively cheap current power shortages make expansion of power capacity a priority africa s endowments and the consequent scarcities and relative prices are not immutable and can be changed to bring opportunity costs in africa closer to those in the rest of the world the international community can support by increasing africa s supply of the scarce factors of capital skills and governance

counting and multidimensional poverty measurement this paper proposes a new methodology for multidimensional poverty measurement consisting of an identification method k that extends the traditional intersection and union approaches and a class of poverty measures m our identification step employs two forms of cutoff one within each dimension to determine whether a person is deprived in that dimension and a second across dimensions that identifies the poor by counting the dimensions in which a person is deprived the aggregation step employs the fgt measures appropriately adjusted to account for multidimensionality the axioms are presented as joint restrictions on identification and the measures and the methodology satisfies a range of desirable properties including decomposability the identification method is particularly well suited for use with ordinal data as is the first of our measures the adjusted headcount ratio we present some dominance results and an interpretation of the adjusted headcount ratio as a measure of unfreedom examples from the us and indonesia illustrate our methodology

optimal combination of energy crops under different policy scenarios the case of northern greece energy crops production is considered as environmentally benign and socially acceptable offering ecological benefits over fossil fuels through their contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gases and acidifying emissions energy crops are subjected to persistent policy support by the eu despite their limited or even marginally negative impact on the greenhouse effect the present study endeavors to optimize the agricultural income generated by energy crops in a remote and disadvantageous region with the assistance of linear programming the optimization concerns the income created from soybean sunflower proxy for energy crop and corn different policy scenarios imposed restrictions on the value of the subsidies as a proxy for eu policy tools the value of inputs costs of capital and labor and different irrigation conditions the results indicate that the area and the imports per energy crop remain unchanged independently of the policy scenario enacted furthermore corn cultivation contributes the most to ifncome maximization whereas the implemented cap policy plays an incremental role in uptaking an energy crop a key implication is that alternative forms of motivation should be provided to the farmers beyond the financial ones in order the extensive use of energy crops to be achieved

climate change hydro dependency and the african dam boom summary we examine africa s increasing reliance on hydropower in light of climate change induced variations in rainfall and the potential power outages that may result we use a continent wide riverflow model and ippc climate change scenarios and show that current plans for african dam building are fairly well matched with river flow predictions so that fears that international donors and national governments are making a series of expensive and environmentally damaging investments may be overstated however predictions of an increase in extreme events and reduced rainfall for certain countries mean there are still viability concerns for certain planned hydropower investments

overuse of wood based bioenergy in selected sub saharan africa countries review of unconstructive challenges and suggestions excessive wood consumption for energy and over dependence on fossil fuel based energy are fundamental issues of importance regarding the destruction of environmental sanity in this respect international communities are seeking to explore opportunities on how to encourage aggressive deployment of technologies for clean and sustainable development and possibly renewable the kyoto protocol on climate change meeting in 1997 with about 160 countries in attendance has been used as one of the platform of discourse on carbon emissions reduction strategies advocated strategies agreed include increase in renewable energy consumption via modern techniques massive deployment of renewable energy systems on a global scale will ensure a reasonable displacement of oil based energy production which is the main source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in sub saharan africa limited access to modern energy in the region has stepped up reliance on bioenergy consumption in form of wood fuel and charcoal resulting to attendant effects on human health environment and the biodiversity in general in view of the foregoing this study presents a review on the current situations of unconstructive effects in the overuse of fuel wood and its charcoal derivative for energy consumption in three selected sub saharan african countries nigeria ghana and uganda in conclusion suggestions on how to confront the challenges associated with the over exploitation conditions of fuel wood in the region are put forward the suggestions could be part of the pursuit to increase electricity availability reliability and security with lower level of emissions in the region

financing renewable energy in africa key challenge of the sustainable development goals abstract given the challenge of offering a development perspective to a rapidly growing population it might be tempting for africa to pursue a strategy of fueling growth with the cheapest source of energy available and take care of the environment later such an approach however would disregard the social cost of fossil fuels which the population would have to bear using the sustainable development goals as a benchmark for inclusive and sustainable growth we identify the synergy effects provided by renewable energy already substantial efforts of financing the additional cost of re are under way an analysis of possible leverage points available instruments and involved actors shows that there remains a large additional potential

absentee bidders and the declining price anomaly in wine auctions the anomaly is concerned with the observation that in multiple item auctions of identical objects prices tend to decline over time i show that in the case of wine auctions which have been analyzed frequently the anomaly is likely to be caused by the fact that most bids are entered by absentees who use nonoptimal bidding strategies therefore wine auctions can hardly be used to illustrate the standard multiple object auction model

low carbon energy scenarios for sub saharan africa an input output analysis on the effects of universal energy access and economic growth abstract meeting sub saharan african ssa human development goals will require economic development to be the priority over the coming decades but economic development at all cost may not be acceptable across these goals this paper aims to explore five development scenarios for the five largest economies in ssa to understand the implications to co 2 equivalent emissions co 2 e and off grid energy modernisation in 2030 within this scope gdp growth economic structure availability of energy resources international trade and the development of distributed generation for remote locations are considered regional co 2 emissions were studied using a multi regional input output model for africa under the scenarios analysed all five nations will be unable to reduce 2030 co 2 e emissions below 2012 levels whilst simultaneously achieving forecast gdp growth and universal access to modernised energy services 100 off grid modernisation is estimated to require a three fold increase in primary energy supply and a 26 1317 mt increase in 2030 co 2 e emissions total regional co 2 e emissions could be reduced from 45 to 35 by meeting a 50 renewable energy supply target by 2030 climate change policy would need to focus on multi sector reform to reduce regional emissions as the agricultural sector is the largest emitter in nigeria ethiopia and kenya

demand for cooking fuels in a developing country to what extent do taste and preferences matter overreliance on biomass energy such as firewood and charcoal for cooking in developing countries has contributed to high rates of deforestation and resulted in substantial indoor pollution which has negatively impacted the health of many individuals however the effectiveness of public policies aimed at encouraging households to switch to cleaner fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas lpg and kerosene hinges on the extent to which they are mentally committed to specific fuels using data on four cooking fuels charcoal firewood lpg and kerosene from the ghana living standards survey we found strong evidence that the most preferred fuel is lpg followed by charcoal with kerosene the least preferred in addition with the exception of kerosene that has price elastic demand the price elasticities of demand for the fuel types examined are inelastic this finding suggests the so called fuel ladder is not robust

improving electricity supply security in ghana the potential of renewable energy for decades ghana s economy has been fuelled by abundant inexpensive hydropower as a developing economy ghana s electricity demand has long been relatively low though rising in recent times due to increasing economic growth urbanization and industrial activities however the rapid demand growth as well as periodic hydrological shocks leaves the country increasingly reliant on expensive oil and gas based generation power plants with a resultant drain on the national economy the main electricity generation company the volta river authority is not able to generate enough electricity for all the demand sectors the electricity supply demand margins the difference between peak demand and available supply of the country fall short of the recommended engineering practice and thus presents a high supply security risk the country has been experiencing an increase in the frequency of power cuts over the last ten years it is clear that ghana will have to expand and diversify its generation capacity in order to improve supply security this paper provides a review of the assessed potential renewable energy resources their current exploitation status and their potential contribution to the electricity supply of the country the paper also presents the barriers to their utilization and the existing policy and regulatory instruments to overcome those barriers plus the current and expected future impacts of these instruments the results show that ghana has several res such as wind solar pv mini hydro and modern biomass that can be exploited for electricity production while their exploitation for electricity generation is currently very low providing just 0 13 of the country s generation the review shows a great potential for res generation to increase substantially over the next decade looking at the government commitment and legal frameworks that are being put in place

high growth entrepreneurial firms in africa a quantile regression approach this article analyses the growth performance of a large set of entrepreneurial firms in ten manufacturing sectors of 11 sub saharan african countries the focus of the article is on identifying those entrepreneurs attributes and firm characteristics that tend to generate a significant number of high growth firms in these countries to this end we use a quantile regression which provides a more complete estimation of the growth distribution of firms conditional on different attributes the results indicate that firms that engage in product innovation have their own transport means and are connected to the internet through their own website are especially characterized by higher growth rates and also display a distribution of growth rates skewed to the right hosting a higher number of high growth firms the effect of the last two variables which relate to distance bridging modes of infrastructure points to the self reinforcing growth effects they generate in creating wider input and output markets education raises growth opportunities by affecting the lower quantiles but it does not appear to influence the upper quantiles the estimated conditional growth distributions for the technology intensive machinery and electronics sectors show more extreme tails and a lower mean in comparison to the traditional industries indicating the more risky nature of doing business in these industries

what is challenging renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries this paper cumulates the findings from a review of the challenges faced by renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries to date research that could facilitate the success of renewable energy entrepreneurs in the world s developing regions has been fragmented across two main bodies of literature management specifically entrepreneurship and renewable energy by conducting a qualitative review of the extant literature i propose that the findings from both bodies of research may be distilled to six 6 key challenges inadequate access to institutional finance the price of renewable energy technologies rets the lack of skilled labour underdeveloped physical infrastructure and logistics power dominance of incumbents inadequate government or policy support through this research i not only advance a unified conceptualisation of the challenges faced by renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries but also highlight a number of the revealed opportunities for future research

assessing the extent and intensity of energy poverty using multidimensional energy poverty index empirical evidence from households in india abstract in this paper we have made a comprehensive assessment of the extent and various socio economic implications of energy poverty in india amartya sens s capability approach to development underpins the analysis of household level data taken from the india human development survey ii ihds ii 2011 12 using the multidimensional energy poverty index mepi the overall results show that energy poverty is widespread in india and the existence of energy poverty also coincides with the other forms of deprivations such as income poverty and social backwardness for example dalits lower caste and adivasis tribal are found to be extremely energy poor compared to the other social groups in india the results also reveal that it is the responsibility of women to manage the domestic chores such as collection of firewood and making of dung cake in traditional indian households inefficient use of such biomass fuels is found to cause health hazards

energy poverty an overview abstract in the coming decades the energy sector will have to face three major transformations concerned with climate change security of supply and energy poverty the first two have been extensively analysed but less attention has been paid to the third even though it has a great influence on the lives of millions of people this paper presents an overview on energy poverty different ways of measuring it and its implications according to the who indoor pollution causes an estimated 1 3 million deaths per annum in low income countries associated with the use of biomass in inadequate cookstoves although energy poverty cannot be delinked from the broader more complex problem of poverty in general access to energy infrastructures would avoid its most serious consequences and would help to encourage autonomous development according to the iea the cost of providing universal access to energy by 2030 would require annual investment of 35 billion i e much less than the amount provided annually in subsidies to fossil fuels finally the paper argues that energy and energy poverty need to be incorporated into the design of development strategies

the cost of providing electricity to africa abstract sub saharan africa lacks electricity we estimate the cost of providing electricity to the region to do so we build an optimisation model that links the electricity demand to the supply and links the supply to the generation distribution and transmission of electricity between countries to the best of our knowledge such a model is novel in the literature we determine that the investment cost of providing electricity to sub saharan africa over a 10 year period is between 160 and 215 billion u s dollars depending on assumptions for electricity access and the cross country electricity trade although the electricity trade increases the investment cost estimate moderately it provides a high return to african countries and is cost efficient overall

green growth in oil producing african countries a panel data analysis of renewable energy demand renewable energy has been considered as the solution to the hydra headed problems of energy security energy access and climate change especially in africa in addition renewable energy sources such as the sun wind wave and waste abound in africa are in need of investment in order to provide both policy and investment guide this study investigates the drivers of renewable energy demand in oil producing african countries three panel data models a random effect model a fixed effects model and a dynamic panel data model are used to estimate renewable energy demand with a comprehensive set of determinants the estimation results indicate that the main drivers of renewable energy in oil producing african countries are real income per capita energy resource depletion per capita carbon emissions per capita and energy prices the study recommends that policies should encourage the consumption of commercial sources of renewable energy to attract the needed investments

energy policy for low carbon development in nigeria a leap model application this paper applied a scenario based analysis to explore nigeria s future energy demand supply and associated ghg emissions from 2010 to 2040 using the long range energy alternative planning leap model the impact of different energy policies are analysed for the nigerian energy system by considering four scenarios the reference scenario ref the low carbon moderate scenario lcm the low carbon advanced scenario lca and the green optimistic scenario go by considering aggressive energy policies and strategies from lcm to lca and even more aggressive options in the go scenario we find that under the ref scenario energy demand is expected to reach 3 075 pj and a corresponding increase in ghg emissions of 201 2 mt co2e by 2040 more aggressive policy intervention by the nigerian government as in the go scenario would lead to a decrease in energy demand 2 249 pj and ghg emissions 124 4 mt co2e in 2040 a cost benefit and energy system analysis were also carried out in the study

fighting collusion in auctions an experimental investigation the danger of collusion presents a serious challenge for auctioneers in this paper we compare the collusive properties of two standard auctions the english auction and the first price sealed bid auction and a lesser known format the amsterdam second price auction in the amsterdam auction the highest losing bidder earns a premium for stirring up the price we study two settings in one all bidders can collude and in another only a subset is eligible the experiments show that the amsterdam auction triggers less collusion than the standard auctions we compare experimental results to theoretical predictions and provide an explanation where they differ

overcoming the club dilemma of village scale bioenergy projects the case of india small scale decentralised electricity generation at village level based on locally available biomass is a promising solution for providing electricity access in remote rural areas as it can supply villages with an independent reliable high quality and environmentally friendly energy source however despite such systems technological feasibility they are often discontinued research so far has not studied the reasons for discontinuation this article analyses a case of biomass based gasification in india by studying the type of goods the village system provides and the distribution of benefits within the system in this case the infrastructural and social system provide electricity as a club good given fluctuating numbers of service users the club faced the decision to either expand the system to new members or to reduce the services provided the focus on the village community hampered the extension of the club a reduction in the quality and quantity of services however decreased the comfort provided by the system the system faced what here is called a club dilemma to avoid the club dilemma and for a sustained energy provision policy needs to find means to secure feedstock i e by the means of subsidies or collaboration with agricultural departments

techno economic and environmental analysis of power generation expansion plan of ghana this paper examines the current electrical generation expansion plan of ghana and compares it with proposed expansion pathways with higher penetration of renewable energy technologies an adaptation of schwartz s scenario methodology was used to develop the scenarios which were then analysed using the long range alternatives planning leap model each of the scenarios represents policy options for generation expansion in ghana up to 2040 energy economic and environmental analysis of the three alternative scenarios compared to the base scenarios was undertaken sensitivity results show that if the country were to follow the generation expansion path described in the renewable energy scenarios it could reap economic benefits of 0 5 13 23 depending on the developments in fuel prices and renewable technology capital cost the analysis further quantifies benefits to be derived from a reduction in greenhouse gases of the scenarios policy implications for the generation system of ghana based on the results are also discussed

global policy of rural electrification energy poverty and lack of electricity in the rural area exacerbate the poverty of the developing countries the sustainable renewable technologies can be considered as efficient tools to reduce energy poverty whenever they are conducted based on an appropriate policy electricity can improve the human s lifestyle by increasing the level of health education welfare and technology currently sub sahara africa with only 14 2 of rural electrification has the first rank in the world with lowest access to electricity in that region around 585 million citizens has almost no access to electricity the present study focuses on the general global policies to electrify the rural areas in this regard variety of plans and programs conducted by governmental and private institutes are investigated in the year 2011 the international energy agency iea has developed three global strategies based on the world energy market that defines the overall world energy approach in the present work different technologies for rural electrification are taken into account in two major categories of grid connected and off grid systems furthermore based on sustainable development with emphasis on environmental consideration the feasibility of electrification by using different types of renewable energies such as solar biomass hydro wind and wave have been studied despite reliability of grid connection results indicate that renewable energy sources are the best choice especially in areas far from grid connections challenges between financial institutes and executive agencies result in resource management and technology development in order to overcome existing barriers and issues

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

an economic analysis for the design of ipp contracts for grid connected renewable energy projects abstract in this paper we undertake an integrated financial economic stakeholder analysis of a grid connected onshore wind project that is owned and operated by an independent power producer ipp in santiago island cape verde this ipp project has received considerable positive publicity and has won many awards cape verde has a very good wind resource but it suffers from high transportation costs for petroleum fuels due to its location hence it would appear to be an ideal site for an ipp investment in a wind farm this analysis is conducted from the perspectives of the electric utility the country s economy the government and the private sector investor the key question is whether the design of the power purchase agreement ppa can simultaneously yield a high enough cash flow for the project to be bankable while at the same time yielding a positive net financial and economic present value to the electric utility and the country respectively the analysis shows that a negotiated ppa results in a negative outcome for the economy of cape verde in almost all circumstances in contrast the owners of the ipp are guaranteed under all circumstances a very substantial return on their investment

an empirical analysis of household energy choice in ghana abstract using data from two recently available living standards surveys we trace the dynamics in cooking fuel choice among ghanaian households over the period 2005 6 and 2012 13 and further investigate the main forces driving households choice of a cooking fuel evidence from this paper reveals a significant transition from fuelwood use towards lpg over the period results further reveal factors such as price reliability in supply of lpg income and other household attributes as significant factors influencing households choice of a given energy type for cooking relevant policy prescriptions are offered to engender sustainable energy use and reduce over reliance on the already depleted forest resources for biomass energy

renewable based distributed generation in uganda resource potential and status of exploitation abstract uganda is gifted by nature with abundant energy resources mainly renewables which can potentially provide the country with sufficient capacity to meet future growth in energy demand surprisingly uganda has one of the lowest electricity penetration levels with only 9 12 of the total population having electricity access 2 3 of them living in rural communities there is multitude of challenges facing the energy sector of uganda forcing energy demand to always exceed the supply for decades hydropower has been and is still the base electricity supply of the country with a supplement of limited biomass diesel based thermal and solar electricity the objective of this paper is to review the potential and progress of renewable based distributed generation in uganda the potential of the country s natural renewable resources and existing distributed generation is described and existing government policies are assessed the challenges facing the energy sector and the suggested remedies are discussed various distributed generation systems that could be incorporated into the energy system of the country to improve renewable energy re utilization and possibly contribute to the electricity needs of the population are also proposed and discussed exploitation of abundant re resources through distributed energy generation around the region will not only improve the electricity needs of the country but also increase the economic welfare of the growing population

inventories and public information in private negotiation a laboratory market study using laboratory markets this research investigates the impacts of reporting different kinds of aggregated trade information to buyers and sellers who conduct transactions through bilateral private negotiation there are a limited number of bargaining rounds or matches between buyer and seller pairs sellers hold a perishable inventory before negotiations begin we find that knowledge of trades along with price improves the coordination and bargaining position of buyers trade prices are lower and buyer earnings are higher relative to the no information treatment or when just past quantities or just past prices are reported market efficiency declines as public information is reported copyright 2007 oxford university press

financing off grid sustainable energy access for the poor this paper examines the role of public instruments in promoting private finance to achieve off grid sustainable energy access renewable energy technologies are increasingly becoming the cheapest solutions for off grid energy access the dramatic uptake of mobile phones in developing countries shows how quickly decentralized services can develop on a commercial basis under the right conditions and raises the prospect that private finance could also drive decentralized energy access for the poor indeed there are already a number of instances of clean energy solutions such as solar portable lights household biogas units or solar home systems that have managed to scale up through leveraging private finance however the experience gained from first generation market development projects show that in almost all cases significant public resources have been necessary to increase the affordability of clean energy technologies provide access to financing for the poor and remove non economic barriers such public interventions may be funded by international public finance domestic budgets and carbon finance despite mounting fiscal constraints facing governments worldwide the emergence of new sources of climate finance and the political momentum in support of energy subsidy reforms as well as new programming modalities offer opportunities to leverage additional resources to achieve universal energy access by 2030

optimal auctions when a seller is bound to sell to collusive bidders i consider optimal auctions for a seller who is bound to sell a single item to one of two potential buyers organized in a well coordinated cartel i show that even though the seller cannot deter collusion he can optimally accommodate it by employing a simple mechanism which imposes an inefficient allocation on the bidders unless they pay a sufficiently high amount to avoid it

access to electricity in small island developing states of the pacific issues and challenges abstract energy poverty is widespread in small island developing states sids of the pacific it is estimated that 70 percent of pacific islander households do not have access to electricity which is equivalent to access rates in sub saharan africa and slightly below the average for low income countries pacific sids face unique challenges in expanding access to electricity given that their populations are spread across tens of thousands of islands governments and development partners in pacific sids continue to prioritise development of electricity grids as is evident in ongoing subsidisation of grid based power consumption and the establishment of ambitious grid based renewable energy targets this paper argues that traditional approaches to rural electrification which prioritise grid extension are not suited to the pacific islands region increased funding should be directed by both governments and development partners towards rural electrification especially in off grid areas where isolated systems are more appropriate institutional reform is also important regulatory reform is needed for power utilities to extend electricity grids into rural areas institutional arrangements that facilitate the sustainable operation and maintenance of off grid systems also need to be established past donor and government funded off grid rural electrification projects have rarely been sustainable alternative approaches involving payment of output based subsidies to energy service companies are worth exploring although will only succeed where sound regulatory arrangements are in place

financing energy access and off grid electrification a review of status options and challenges abstract this paper provides a review of funding needs and financing mechanisms for energy access in general and off grid electrification in particular to find whether the funding for these activities has been adequate whether sufficient funding is likely to be available to meet the needs of universal energy access whether innovative approaches can be used in funding it finds that in all successful cases the state has played an important role in funding infrastructure investments but many developing countries have neglected the energy access issue for a long time international donor agencies have provided selective and limited support while the innovative mechanisms are also unfriendly towards small scale projects weak governance limited organisational capacity and unfavourable policy environment militate against large scale mobilisation of financial resources in the poorest countries of the world where energy access is a chronic problem the challenge of mobilising finance and ensuring its appropriate delivery and use remains a major issue and would require a co ordinated effort of all relevant stakeholders

insights into biofuel development in burkina faso potential and strategies for sustainable energy policies abstract in many african countries the upswing in oil prices is one factor that favours the adoption and implementation of a national biofuel policy this trend has a major impact on state budgets and domestic trade balances while also limiting the access of rural inhabitants to modern energy services contribution of biofuels in stabilizing the energy sector influences ongoing negotiations on the global dynamics of climate change the reduction in greenhouse gas ghg emissions and sustainable development the question of biofuels as an alternative energy thus depends on international national and local considerations biofuels represent opportunities e g energy independence and security new national income and employment sources as well as potential food security problems african policy makers therefore need to make the right choices to guide the development of biofuel production and use this article aims to support the development of a biofuel policy by reviewing the latest technical economic environmental and social knowledge so as to be able to evaluate the potential and limits of biofuels in burkina faso

the economics of renewable energy expansion in rural sub saharan africa accelerating development in sub saharan africa will require massive expansion of access to electricity currently reaching only about one third of households this paper explores how essential economic development might be reconciled with the need to keep carbon emissions in check the authors develop a geographically explicit framework and use spatial modeling and cost estimates from recent engineering studies to determine where stand alone renewable energy generation is a cost effective alternative to centralized grid supply the results suggest that decentralized renewable energy will likely play an important role in expanding rural energy access but it will be the lowest cost option for a minority of households in africa even when likely cost reductions over the next 20 years are considered decentralized renewables are competitive mostly in remote and rural areas while grid connected supply dominates denser areas where the majority of households reside these findings underscore the need to de carbonize the fuel mix for centralized power generation as it expands in africa

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

who adopts lpg as the main cooking fuel and why empirical evidence on ghana based on national survey the aim of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the probability of adopting lpg as the main cooking fuel in ghana using household level data gleaned from last two nationwide household surveys glss 5 glss 6 using a flexible semi parametric specification the following were uncovered first we find socioeconomic and demographic factors such as income education access to urban infrastructure and location of household as key drivers of households choice of lpg as main cooking energy source again the influences of these factors are stable across time and with a strong price effect the evidence shows that urban households with better socioeconomic and demographic factors are likely to adopt lpg as the main cooking fuel relative to households in rural areas and also urban households with poor socioeconomic and demographic factors finally we observe that the imposition of fully parametric structure functional form prior to estimation on factors such as age of household head income and household size as done in the literature is inappropriate at least in the case of ghana and tend to bias the marginal effects there is strong evidence of variations in the response rate of lpg adoption over the domains of income household size and the age of the household head the results suggest a policy dichotomy between rural and urban dwellers for it to be effective

the politico economics of electricity planning in developing countries a case study of ghana abstract off grid technologies are increasingly being proposed as a way of ensuring cost efficient universal access to electricity in many developing countries however many un electrified communities would prefer access to electricity via the national grid rather than off grid technologies electricity planning based on cost efficiency alone could therefore be undermined by political pressure from discontented communities that are assigned off grid technologies using a case study of un electrified communities in ghana we develop an electricity planning algorithm based on hierarchical lexicographic programming and consider specifications where the priorities are adjusted to give weight to 1 cost efficiency and 2 political economy considerations so that communities with larger populations and therefore votes are given priority in terms of grid electrification the results emphasise the need to incorporate the political economy considerations in the national planning of universal electrification showing significant regional differences in terms of where grid extensions ought to be placed incorporating a political economy perspective in national planning also suggests that the most important policy trade offs shift from considering the grid versus off grid balance to focussing more on the effectiveness of grid investment in providing universal access

novelty and disclosure in patent law the stringency of the novelty requirement in patent law affects the pace of innovation because it affects the amount of technical information that is disclosed among firms it also affects ex ante profitability of research we compare weak and strong novelty requirements from the standpoint of social efficiency we ask how our answer depends on the rule that determines which firm gets a patent when two firms have patents pending on the same technology the possible rules are first to invent which applies in the u s and first to file which applies everywhere else

an integrated framework for rural electrification adopting a user centric approach to business model development rural electrification re has gained prominence over the past two decades as an effective means for improving living conditions this growth has largely been driven by socio economic and political imperatives to improve rural livelihood and by technological innovation based on a content analysis of 232 scholarly articles the literature is categorized into four focal lenses technology institutional viability and user centric we find that the first two dominate the re debate the viability lens has been used less frequently whilst the user centric lens began to engage scholars as late as 2007 we provide an overview of the technological institutional and viability lenses and elaborate upon the user centric lens in greater detail for energy policy and practice we combine the four lenses to develop a business model framework that policy makers practitioners and investors could use to assess re projects or to design future rural electrification strategies

least cost network evaluation of centralized and decentralized contributions to global electrification abstract the choice between centralized and decentralized electricity generation is examined for 150 countries as a function of population distribution electricity consumption transmission cost and the cost difference between decentralized and centralized electricity generation a network algorithm is developed to find the shortest centralized transmission network that spans a given fraction of the population in a country the least cost combination of centralized and decentralized electricity that serves the country is determined case studies of botswana uganda and bangladesh illustrate situations that are more and less suited for decentralized electrification specific maps for centralized and decentralized generation are presented to show how the least cost option varies with the relative costs of centralized and decentralized generation and transmission cost centralized and decentralized fractions are calculated for 150 countries for most of the world s population centralized electricity is the least cost option for a number of countries particularly in africa substantial populations and regions may be most cost effectively served by decentralized electricity

comparing drivers barriers and opportunities of business models for renewable energies a review abstract this article systematically reviews the emerging field of research on business models for renewable energies differentiating between developing and industrialized countries the key findings on developing countries are as follows first there is a lack of quantitative data second opportunities are driven primarily by unfulfilled basic needs and micro finance whereas corruption and weak electricity grids are the main barriers and third business models should be replicable the key findings on industrialized countries are as follows first opportunities are driven primarily by climate change mitigation and energy efficiency improvements second stuck thought patterns and high costs of energy storage are important barriers and third cooperation is a key in future business models to handle increasing complexity this review reveals implications for researchers and policy makers promising avenues for future research are the analysis of intermodal business models and opportunities concerning energy self supply and renewable district heating policy makers are advised to design legal frameworks that account for the global nature of the renewable energy challenge and are simultaneously adapted to regional disparities

the long term forecast of taiwan s energy supply and demand leap model application abstract the long term forecasting of energy supply and demand is an extremely important topic of fundamental research in taiwan due to taiwan s lack of natural resources dependence on energy imports and the nation s pursuit of sustainable development in this article we provide an overview of energy supply and demand in taiwan and a summary of the historical evolution and current status of its energy policies as background to a description of the preparation and application of a long range energy alternatives planning system leap model of taiwan s energy sector the taiwan leap model is used to compare future energy demand and supply patterns as well as greenhouse gas emissions for several alternative scenarios of energy policy and energy sector evolution results of scenarios featuring business as usual policies aggressive energy efficiency improvement policies and on schedule retirement of taiwan s three existing nuclear plants are provided and compared along with sensitivity cases exploring the impacts of lower economic growth assumptions a concluding section provides an interpretation of the implications of model results for future energy and climate policies in taiwan

does size matter simulating electricity market coupling between colombia and ecuador since the beginning of the liberalization era the integration of electricity markets has been promoted in many regions arguing that this will bring benefits in terms of security of supply and efficiency however little progress has been made in the last decades in most regions with some successful exceptions such as the nordpool and more research is needed to determine under which circumstances those benefits are achievable we develop a system dynamics model to analyze the potential benefits and risks of market coupling and to improve the understanding of its implications on policy design this model allows us to simulate the long term behavior of two interconnected countries under different interconnection scenarios and different policies regarding capacity payments the analysis is focused on colombia and ecuador which have been trading electricity for more than 10 years and offer an interesting case study given their complementarity in terms of hydropower supply however the results of the simulations show that this complementarity is not necessarily exploited while the relative size of the countries determines the magnitude of the potential benefits of integration the interconnector capacity plays a key role in achieving those benefits additionally both factors significantly affect the outcome of policies such as the implementation of capacity payments we conclude that capacity policies and integration policies need to be coordinated

market structure and incomplete information price formation in a real world repeated english auction abstract this paper examines the effect of buyer size on price formation in an english auction of used state police cars while open auctions generally favor competitive pricing bikhchandani 1988 develops a model of a second price common value auction in which bidders can use strategic behavior based on repeated sales to develop an aggressive reputation and as a result pay lower prices in equilibrium the paper tests this hypothesis by examining sales of 340 used automobiles sold at 13 public auctions conditional on the volume of purchases made by the three largest buyers at the auctions the empirical results show that the number of buyers plays a stronger role in price formation than does buyer size

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

collusive practices in repeated english auctions experimental evidence on bidding rings the repeated meeting of buyers at english auctions where multiple units are sold is a common occurrence the art auctions at sotheby s christie s and other prestigious auction houses are attended by a regular group of institutional buyers more mundanely the same taxicab buyers meet at vehicle auctions for used police cars jon p nelson 1995 commission order buyers attend the same livestock and agricultural commodity auctions these buyers may be agents for multiple meat processors u s department of agriculture grain inspection packers and stockyards administration 2001 the 1946 american tobacco antitrust case american tobacco co et al v united states 328 u s 781 1946 is a well known account of how buyers of tobacco operated to hold down the price of auctioned leaf tobacco at various sites buyers for the big three cigarette manufacturers had developed facilitating practices that helped them purchase raw tobacco at relatively low prices these buyers voluntarily restricted themselves to attend the same auctions buyers were aware of the amount of leaf and the tobacco grades available at auction sites they had instructions from the cigarette makers on the highest bid prices they could pay and communication among these buyers seemed evident from a coordinated practice of buying low grade tobacco that was not used by the makers in the sale of livestock cattle producers have claimed that packer buyers act to hold down cattle prices at the auction site there are a few large processors who give their agents buy orders these orders along with further communication between the processor and agent instruct the agent on the number of cattle to purchase during a given week and provide a schedule of prices they can pay for varying types of cattle some agents represent more than one processor or packer and therefore have multiple buy orders agents repeatedly meet each other at regional cattle auctions they may not be the only buyers but they are the largest purchasers of slaughter cattle brought to market and at most auction sites have substantial monopsony power this paper documents the impacts of several practices that may facilitate low sale prices when multiple units are sold at repeated english auctions laboratory english auction markets are created the number of symmetric buyers attending the auction is either six or two with total demand in these two environments held constant the six buyer market is intended to represent a relatively competitive environment while auctions with two buyers represent rivalry with substantial monopsony power held by each agent we use these two market environments to study how selected treatments or facilitating influences affect the behavior of buying agents the six buyer market generally is viewed as a control for comparison to the dominant twobuyer environment but very collusive behavior may be observed in the six buyer auctions depending upon market practices phillips department of economics and finance university of wyoming p o box 3985 laramie wy 82071 e mail owenphil uwyo edu menkhaus department of agricultural and applied economics university of wyoming p o box 3354 laramie wy 82071 e mail menkhaus uwyo edu coatney u s department of agriculture grain inspection packers and stockyards administration competition branch aurora co 80011 e mail kalyn t coatney usda gov this work has been supported by the u s department of agriculture under grant numbers usdagipsnc5418 and usdag00354009126 the findings and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agency 1 these are regional auctions houses where slaughter cattle primarily cull cows and fed steers and heifers and feeder cattle are sold cull cows are animals taken out of a herd and slaughtered because of age inability to produce calves or reduced milk production concerns regarding slaughter cow possessors sharing common purchasing agents have been raised in assessment of the cattle and hog industries calendar year 2000 u s department of agriculture grain inspection packers and stockyards administration june 2001

collusion facilitating and collusion breaking power of simultaneous ascending and descending price auctions this article demonstrates that a robust tacit collusion evolves quickly in a collusion incubator environment but is destroyed by the simultaneous descending price auction theories of collusion producing behavior along with the detail of the states on which strategies are conditioned lead to a deeper understanding of how tacit collusion evolves and its necessary conditions these theories explain how the descending price auction destroys the collusion the experiments proceed by conducting simultaneous ascending price auctions in the collusion incubator then once the tacit collusion developed changing to the descending auction the change moved prices from collusive levels to near competitive levels