unemployment and effort at work we measure the sensitivity of work effort to local labour market conditions using self reported non work at the workplace in the american time use survey atus 2003 12 non work at work is quantitatively significant and varies positively with local unemployment but in opposite directions at the extensive and intensive margins the fraction of workers reporting positive values declines with unemployment while time spent in non work conditional on any such time rises with unemployment the results speak to issues of labour hoarding efficiency wages and the cyclicality of labour productivity we also demonstrate a relationship between the incidence of non work and unemployment benefits in state data linked to the atus there are also pronounced occupational differences in the incidence and intensity of non work

global impact of uncertainties in china s gas market abstract this paper examines the uncertainties in chinese gas markets analyze the reasons and quantify their impact on the world gas market a literature review found significant variability among the outlooks on china s gas sector further assessment found that uncertainties in economic growth structural change in markets environmental regulations price and institutional changes contribute to the uncertainties the analysis of china s demand and supply uncertainties with a world gas trading model found significant changes in global production trade patterns and spot prices with pipeline exporters being most affected china s domestic production and pipeline imports from central asia are the major buffers that can offset much of the uncertainties the study finds an asymmetric phenomenon pipeline imports are responding to china s uncertainties in both low and high demand scenarios while lng imports are only responding to high demand scenario the major reasons are higher top levels and the current practice of import only up to the minimum top levels for lng as well as a lack of liberalized gas markets the study shows that it is necessary to create lng markets that can respond to market dynamics through either a reduction of top levels or change of pricing mechanisms to hub indexation

sustaining growth in agriculture a quantitative review of agricultural research investments abstract growth in agriculture depends on many things but one of the most important is investment in agricultural research decision making in the agricultural research policy area can only be aided by access to better information this article overviews a recent endeavor to move policy dialogue beyond merely qualitative impressions towards a process that is underpinned with new and cogent data the data used have been assembled at isnar in a manner designed to make comparisons both over time and between countries more valid than has been the case in the past the comparisons thus possible reveal considerable diversity both between countries and between broad regional aggregations also illuminated here are issues related to the commodity orientation capital and labor intensity and size and scope of particular national programs

china s natural gas resources production and its impacts abstract in order to achieve energy consumption targets and subsequently reduce carbon emissions china is working on energy strategies and policies aimed at actively increasing the consumption of natural gas the lowest carbon energy of the fossil fuels and to enhance the proportion of gas in total primary energy consumption to do this it is a necessary prerequisite that china must have access to adequate gas resources and production to meet demand this paper shows that the availability of domestic gas resources are overestimated by china s authorities due to differences in classification and definitions of gas resources reserves between china and those accepted internationally based on official gas resource figures china s gas production remains low with respect to the projected demand and will only be 164 6 bcm in 2020 far lower than the 375 bcm of forecast demand the gap between gas production and demand will reach 210 4 bcm by 2020 existing plans for the importation of gas and the development of unconventional gas will not close this gap in the next 10 years and this situation will therefore present a severe challenge to china s gas security achievement of targets in improving energy consumption structure and reducing carbon emissions

assessing the sustainability of rice production growth in bangladesh abstract this paper identifies the sources of growth in rice production in bangladesh over the 1973 99 period the main contributor was found to be the conversion of rice growing areas from local to modern varieties the most important conclusion based on simulations is that the current level of per capita production can be sustained only through increased yields of modern rice varieties population control is found to have significant long run benefits while faster conversion of remaining area to modern varieties has important short run payoffs the latter two actions however can only complement but not substitute efforts to increase the yields of modern varieties

has the green revolution been sustained the quantitative impact of the seed fertilizer revolution in pakistan revisited abstract quantitative impacts of the green revolution on food production in the punjab of pakistan are reviewed and the effects of different technologies on wheat yields over the past two decades decomposed new quantitative evidence of sustainability problems in irrigated systems is presented the yield increases expected in the post green revolution period from the further spread of modern wheat varieties a tripling of fertilizer dosage and the release of newer higher yielding varieties have been cancelled by problems resulting from increased cropping intensity use of poor quality groundwater low fertilizer efficiency and increased weed and disease losses new directions in institutional policies and research and extension strategies are outlined to improve efficiency and sustainability in wheat production and prevent pakistan from becoming a major food grain importer in the coming decades

an empirical study of the patterns and sources of technical inefficiency in traditional and hyv rice cultivation in bangladesh production frontiers are estimated from survey data from a village in bangladesh to examine the technical efficiency of farmers in the cultivation of traditional and high yielding variety hyv rice in spite of much higher yields hyv cultivation displays lower technical efficiency and much greater variability in efficiency also efficiency is not independent of household endowments in that small farmers and or those with the least education and growing experience are least efficient policies that promoted education and provided smaller farmers with greater access to public services would promote efficiency and equity and help reduce hyv yield variability

data watch the american time use survey we discuss the new american time use survey atus an on going household survey of roughly 1 200 americans per month 1 800 per month in the first year 2003 that collects time diaries as well as demographic interview information from respondents who had recently been in the current population survey the characteristics of the data are presented as are caveats and concerns that one might have about them a number of novel uses of the atus in economic research including in the areas of macroeconomics national income accounting labor economics and others are proposed to illustrate the magnitude of this new survey s possible applications

trends and projections for bangladeshi food production an alternative viewpoint abstract this article analyses growth in bangladeshi food production and yields by reviewing past evidence and critically examining the contribution of james k boyce general statistical evidence is considered on whether the past growth rate is being sustained the evidence suggests that past growth is unlikely to continue data from a recent field survey in two different areas of bangladesh add weight to this view on both ecological and economic grounds it seems likely that bangladesh s ability to feed its population will continue to decline

modern varieties productivity and sustainability recent experience and emerging challenges abstract the contribution of modern varieties of cereal crops to increased productivity in the postgreen revolution period is reviewed and the future role of hybrids and biotechnology discussed particular emphasis is given to the ways in which modern varieties may contribute to input efficiency and sustainability finally economic and institutional issues in restructuring plant breeding programs for the most efficient use of resources in both the public and private sectors and at the national and international levels are analyzed

trends and projections for bangladeshi food production rejoinder to m alauddin and c tisdell abstract this rejoinder considers the issues raised in an article by m alauddin and c tisdell on foodgrain production in bangladesh a comparison of official output statistics and a revised data series constructed by j k boyce methodological problems in growth rate estimation and the ustainability of bangladeshi foodgrain production in the author s view the key constraint on agricultural growth in bangladesh is the inability of cultivators to achieve effective water control within the framework of an inequitable agrarian structure

the mineral economy how prices and costs can falsely signal decreasing scarcity abstract natural resource prices and costs of extraction have declined simultaneously with increasing quantities of extraction for a long time in a hotelling sense this indicates decreasing scarcity since low cost resources normally would be used first and quantities of extraction normally would decrease over time the main reason for the trend being opposite to hotelling characteristics is usually thought to be due to technological innovation however an alternative reason for decreasing costs and prices and increasing quantities of extraction may be due to georgescu roegen s georgescu roegen nicholas 1972 energy and economic myth in georgescu roegen nicholas ed energy and economic myths institutional and analytical economic essays published 1976 pergamon press new york pp 3 36 concept of bonanza where there is only the appearance of decreasing scarcity norgaard s norgaard r b 1990 economic indicators of resource scarcity a critical essay j environ econ manage 19 1 19 25 mayflower problem can be used to model an alternative neo classical approach to resource extraction and scarcity in this paper a model of resource exploration is developed where the explorer does not know total reserves of the resource base as he searches for and extracts the natural resource the explorer never entirely knows how big the resource base is but does gain information about the potential location of new reserves as discovery proceeds that reduces exploration costs the lower exploration costs can cause the price to fall over time until eventually scarcity of the resource causes the price to rise the true scarcity is only revealed towards the end of exhaustion the model shows that it is possible to have several years of increasing production simultaneous with lower prices and costs until a sudden intense price rise occurs with a huge cut in production when technology is able to cut costs and increase the reserve base the decline in prices and costs and the increase in production can last longer however even with better technology it is still possible for a sharp increase in price as long as demand is growing faster than technological innovation the problem is that the true size of the resource base is never known society does not know if technology is actually overcoming scarcity or not until demand for a resource outstrips supplies it is even possible for a price shock of incredible magnitude to surprise an economy within one or two years after a hundred years of declining prices and increasing production

is china s natural gas market globally connected abstract the rise of the shale gas industry and the need for clean low carbon energy transformation in china has meant that the relationship between domestic and foreign natural gas markets has become closer therefore identifying the changing relationships between the major global natural gas markets and china s natural gas market has important practical value for the current chinese domestic natural gas pricing system this paper used the dcc garch nardl ardl ecm as the analytical framework to study these relationships from which it was found that there was no unified global natural gas market and that china s natural gas market was not yet aligned with this market it was shown that there was no significant asymmetry in the impact of international gas prices on china s gas prices as no flexible adjustment measures were found in china s imported natural gas pricing mechanism moreover while international natural gas prices were found to have a significant impact on china s natural gas prices over the long term there were obvious regional differences over the short term accordingly new pricing policies should be designed to promote market oriented natural gas pricing reforms in acknowledging features such as asymmetry the difference between imported gas sources and the periodicity of price adjustment

agricultural productivity and sources of growth in south asia estimates of partial factor productivity growth for rice and wheat in india bangladesh and pakistan show relatively rapid growth in yields per hectare since adoption of modern rice and wheat varieties began in the mid to late 1960s byerlee rosegrant while partial factor productivity growth for rice and wheat in south asia has been extensively analyzed there is relatively little understanding of total factor productivity growth and the sources of productivity growth in the crops sector or of the relative contribution to output growth from productivity growth compared to increased factor use this paper assesses total factor productivity tfp growth in india examines the sources of productivity growth and estimates the rates of return to public investments in research and extension a comparison is made with results for bangladesh dey and evenson and pakistan azam bloom and evenson the paper describes the methodology for estimation of tfp decomposition of tfp and estimation of rates of return to public investments describes the data and presents results and policy implications

cyclical variation in labor hours and productivity using the atus we examine monthly variation in weekly work hours using data for 2003 10 from the current population survey cps on hours worker from the current employment survey ces on hours job and from the american time use survey atus on both the atus data minimize recall difficulties and constrain hours of work to accord with total available time the atus hours worker are less cyclical than the cps series but the hours job are more cyclical than the ces series we present alternative estimates of productivity based on atus data and find that it is more pro cyclical than other productivity measures

analysis of resource potential for china s unconventional gas and forecast for its long term production growth abstract china is vigorously promoting the development of its unconventional gas resources because natural gas is viewed as a lower carbon energy source and because china has relatively little conventional natural gas supply in this paper we first evaluate how much unconventional gas might be available based on an analysis of technically recoverable resources for three types of unconventional gas resources shale gas coalbed methane and tight gas we then develop three alternative scenarios of how this extraction might proceed using the geologic resources supply demand model based on our analysis the medium scenario which we would consider to be our best estimate shows a resource peak of 176 1 billion cubic meters bcm in 2068 depending on economic conditions and advance in extraction techniques production could vary greatly from this if economic conditions are adverse unconventional natural gas production could perhaps be as low as 70 1 bcm peaking in 2021 under the extremely optimistic assumption that all of the resources that appear to be technologically available can actually be recovered unconventional production could amount to as much as 469 7 bcm with peak production in 2069 even if this high scenario is achieved china s total gas production will only be sufficient to meet china s lowest demand forecast if production instead matches our best estimate significant amounts of natural gas imports are likely to be needed

oil futures a comparison of global supply forecasts this paper compares and evaluates fourteen contemporary forecasts of global supply of conventional oil and provides some observations on their relative plausibility despite the wide range of modelling approaches used and multiplicity of assumptions made it is shown that forecasts can be usefully compared along two dimensions namely shape of future production profile and assumed or implied ultimately recoverable resource of conventional oil other differences between forecasts are either secondary or are components of these two parameters the paper shows how large differences in the assumed size of the resource make relatively little difference to the timing of a global peak in conventional oil production it also examines the impact of rates of discovery reserves growth and depletion on the forecast date of peak and shows how forecasts that delay this peak until beyond 2030 rest on assumptions that are at best optimistic and at worst implausible

profit efficiency among bangladeshi rice farmers abstract production inefficiency is usually analyzed by its three components technical allocative and scale efficiency in this study we provide a direct measure of production efficiency of the bangladeshi rice farmers using a stochastic profit frontier and inefficiency effects model the data which are for 1996 include seven conventional inputs and several other background factors affecting production of modern or high yielding varieties hyvs of rice spread across 21 villages in three agro ecological regions of bangladesh the results show that there are high levels of inefficiency in modern rice cultivation the mean level of profit efficiency is 77 suggesting that an estimated 23 of the profit is lost due to a combination of technical allocative and scale inefficiency in modern rice production the efficiency differences are explained largely by infrastructure soil fertility experience extension services tenancy and share of non agricultural income

unemployment market work and household production time diary data from four countries suggest that differences in market time between the unemployed and employed represent additional leisure not increased household production in areas where unemployment is cyclically high however reduced market work is offset by additional home production

productivity and the labor market comovement over the business cycle the productivity driven mortensen pissarides model predicts that labor productivity dened as the ratio of output to employment is strongly correlated with employment unemployment vacancies and wages whereas these correlations were argued to be much weaker in the data especially since the mid 1980s we rst document that the size of these discrepancies between the data and the model becomes substantially smaller if employment data from the current population survey is used in measuring productivity instead of the commonly used employment data from the current employment statistics second we show that incorporating time to build and a stochastic value of home production helps reconcile the quantitative performance of the model with the data with stochastic productivity being the key determinant of the business cycle dynamics of the model