are biofuels a feasible option abstract recently a number of objections have been raised against the use of ethanol produced from agricultural products such as maize sugarcane wheat or sugar beets as a replacement for gasoline despite some of their advantages such as being cleaner and to some extent renewable we address these objections in this paper topics discussed include the corn connection which was theorized to be a cause of deforestation in the amazonia the rise of food prices due to ethanol production and the real possibilities of ethanol in reducing greenhouse gas emissions it has been shown that such concerns are grossly exaggerated and that ethanol from sugarcane as produced in brazil is the preferred option for the production of fuel not only in terms of cost but also as a favourable energy balance finally the possibility of expanding ethanol production to other sugar producing countries is also discussed

an economic theory of self control the concept of self control is incorporated in a theory of individual intertemporal choice by modeling the individual as an organization the individual at a point in time is assumed to be both a farsighted planner and a myopic doer the resulting conflict is seen to be fundamentally similar to the agency conflict between the owners and managers of a firm both individuals and firms use the same techniques to mitigate the problems which the conflicts create this paper stresses the implications of this agency model and discusses as applications the effect of pensions on saving saving and the timing of income flows and individual discount rates

the quest for eco social efficiency in biofuels production in brazil equating eco efficiency with the business link to sustainable development is clearly limited especially with the new paradigms brought up by corporate social responsibility which has shown that the private sector s contribution to sustainable development can go far beyond the sphere of pollution control it is necessary to give eco efficiency a broader meaning so that it can support the quest for sustainable development this requires the inclusion of social aspects leading to a kind of eco social efficiency the present paper illustrates this idea by comparing brazilian production and use of ethanol from sugarcane in the context of the national alcohol program proalcool with biodiesel production and use in the context of the biodiesel national program pnpb despite the problems presented pnpb was designed to encourage companies to align productivity concerns with social ones what could be the beginning of the here called eco social efficiency

biofuels what a biopact between north and south could achieve abstract with very few exceptions such as the recent remarks by international energy agency iea head claude mandil commentators on the world s energy issues have yet to recognize the enormous contribution that biofuels producers from the south could make to solving the world s greenhouse gas emission problems and problems to do with the peaking of oil supplies once the equation between biofuels and high cost land intensive cultivation in the north is broken and a quite different scenario involving production in the south is adopted then the possibilities are dramatically changed the argument of this paper is that a transition to substitution of 20 percent of oecd gasoline needs by 2020 could be met from the south by creating the equivalent of 18 brazils over the course of the next decade such an enormous transition will not occur by itself or through the operation of market forces alone it needs an institutional framework one that guarantees for the countries of the north regular supplies of biofuels produced in a responsible manner and guarantees for the countries of the south open markets for the biofuels produced the oecd is in the best position to bring about such an arrangement through taking the initiative of offering developing countries a biopact between north and south thereby creating for the first time a global market for biofuels the launch of an international biofuels forum under the auspices of the un in early 2007 is a step towards the creation of such an international framework where north south issues on biofuels may be fruitfully addressed

the one child policy a macroeconomic analysis abstract this paper studies the effects of china s one child policy using a calibrated general equilibrium model a benchmark with a fertility constraint in place is compared to a counterfactual experiment without the fertility constraint the results indicate that the implementation of the one child policy promotes the accumulation of human capital and increases per capita output in addition the policy leads to different welfare effects across generations and skill groups the initial generation would benefit from relaxing the one child policy but the following generations would be hurt a redistribution effect between skilled and unskilled workers is also observed these findings demonstrate that focusing solely on gdp per capita as a measure of economic well being paints an incomplete picture of the welfare consequences of population policies

optimal social security in a dynastic model with investment externalities and endogenous fertility this paper studies optimal pay as you go social security with investment externalities positive bequests and endogenous fertility with an investment externality a competitive solution without social security suffers from under investment in capital and over reproduction of population we show the existence of time consistent optimal social security that improves welfare by reducing fertility and increasing capital intensity we also illustrate numerically that a small degree of this externality can justify the observed high ratios of social security spending to gdp

a model of urban demography this study develops an overlapping generations model that involves the endogenous determination of demographic and city structure to fully analyze the social and natural changes in city populations we provide conditions under which the model exhibits the spatial features of demography observed in urban areas city centres have a lower total fertility rate than suburbs and larger cities have a lower total fertility rate than smaller cities through calibration we also show that spatial factors have a significant impact on demographic characteristics and city growth resume un modele de demographie urbaine cette etude developpe un modele de generations qui se chevauchent qui genere la determination endogene de la demographie et de la structure urbaine pour analyser pleinement les changements sociaux et culturels des populations urbaines on presente les conditions qui font que le modele genere les caracteristiques spatiales de la demographie observee dans les zones urbaines le centre ville avec un taux de fecondite plus faible que les banlieues et les grandes villes arborant une fecondite totale plus faible que les petites villes a l aide de calibration on montre que les facteurs spatiaux ont un impact significatif sur les caracteristiques demographiques et la croissance des villes

the effect of life expectancy on fertility saving schooling and economic growth theory and evidence we construct a simple growth model where agents with uncertain survival choose schooling time life cycle consumption and the number of children we show that rising longevity reduces fertility but raises saving schooling time and the growth rate at a diminishing rate cross section analyses using data from 76 countries support these propositions life expectancy has a significant positive effect on the saving rate secondary school enrollment and growth but a significant negative effect on fertility through sensitivity analyses the effect on the saving rate is inconclusive while the effects on the other variables are robust and consistent these estimated effects are decreasing in life expectancy

removal of u s ethanol domestic and trade distortions impact on u s and brazilian ethanol markets we analyze the impact of trade liberalization and removal of the federal tax credit in the united states on u s and brazilian ethanol markets using a multi market international ethanol model calibrated on 2005 market data and policies the removal of trade distortions induces a 23 2 percent increase in the price of world ethanol on average between 2006 and 2015 relative to the baseline the u s domestic ethanol price decreases by 14 1 percent which results in a 7 5 percent decline in production and a 3 2 percent increase in consumption the lower domestic price leads to a 2 5 percent rise in the share of fuel ethanol in gasoline consumption u s net ethanol imports increase by 192 8 percent brazil responds to the higher world ethanol price by increasing its production by 8 8 percent on average total ethanol consumption in brazil decreases by 3 2 percent and net exports increase by 61 9 percent relative to the baseline the higher ethanol price leads to a 4 7 percent increase in the share of sugarcane used in ethanol production the removal of trade distortions and 51 per gallon tax credit to refiners blending ethanol induces a 22 5 percent increase in the world ethanol price

can new legislation in importing countries represent new barriers to the development of an international ethanol market the use of ethanol as a fuel has been attracting increasing attention in countries that are interested in reducing their dependence on imported oil and lowering their greenhouse gas emissions despite this growing interest the global ethanol market is still incipient because of the small number of producing countries the lack of technical standardization and the existence of tariff and non tariff trade barriers new laws have taken effect in 2010 in the united states and the european union imposing domestic requirements for sustainable production of ethanol although these are generally positive developments they can create greater difficulties for the development of an international ethanol market this work examines the technical barriers posed by these new laws and how they can be resolved under the auspices of the world trade organization in addition this work analyses the brazilian and caribbean cases discussing to what extent these new technical barriers will affect ethanol production and exports arising from these countries

biofuels and sustainable energy development in brazil summary through the assessment of three decades of the alcohol program in brazil the paper shows that adequate public policies regarding biomass production can deliver direct benefits like energy security improvement foreign exchange savings and local employment generation reduced urban air pollution and avoided co2 emissions moreover the paper shows that brazilian produced ethanol has faced economies of scale technical progress and productivity gains and is no longer dependent on subsidies to be competitive the paper also examines the potential in brazil for fostering other biofuels namely biodiesel obtained from vegetable oils as well as their implications on sustainable energy development

efficient education subsidization and the pay as you use principle abstract we investigate whether the pay as you use principle of public finance should apply to education subsidization for children to internalize human capital externalities in an intergenerational model with endogenous fertility leisure and accumulations of human and physical capital we characterize social optimality concerning physical and human capital accumulation leisure labor and fertility to guide the design of efficient education subsidization we show that efficient education subsidization requires future generations benefitting from it pay for it when fertility and leisure are endogenous namely the government should uphold the pay as you use principle to subsidize children s education by deficit and repay the debt by future taxes

the hyperbolic consumption model calibration simulation and empirical evaluation ur preferences for the long run tend to conflict with our short run behavior when planning for the long run we intend to meet our deadlines exercise regularly and eat healthfully but in the short run we have little interest in revising manuscripts jogging on the stairmaster and skipping the chocolate souffleala mode delay of gratification is a nice long term goal but instant gratification is disconcertingly tempting this gap between long run intentions and short run actions is apparent across a wide range of behaviors including saving choices a 1997 survey found that 76 percent of respondents believe they should be saving more for retirement looking only at respondents who believed they were at an age where you should be seriously saving already the survey found that 55 percent reported being behind in their savings and only 6 percent reported being ahead farkas and johnson 1997 the report on the survey concluded t he gaps between people s atti tudes intentions and behavior are troubling and threaten increased insecurity and dissatisfaction for people when they retire americans are simply not doing what logic and their own reasoning suggests they should be doing a 1993 luntz webber merrill lynch survey found similar answers when baby boomers were asked what percentage of your annual household income do you think you should save for retirement and what percentage of your annual

international trade in biofuels an introduction to the special issue abstract currently many countries are establishing goals for substituting biofuels for fossil fuels these goals usually foresee 5 10 substitution while today s production in most countries is far below 2 evidently many countries will seek to meet their ambitious biofuel targets through imports this global trade in biofuels which is to some extent already taking place will have a major impact not only on other commodity markets like vegetable oils or animal fodder but also on the global land use change and on environmental impacts this special issue focuses on the relation between trading policy making and sustainability impacts of biofuels it demonstrates the strong but complex link between biofuels production and the global food market it unveils policy measures as the main drivers for production and use of biofuels and it analyzes various sustainability indicators and certification schemes for biofuels with respect to minimizing the adverse effects of biofuels while maximizing the benefits of the future use of biofuels

towards a sustainably certifiable futures contract for biofuels abstract how are biofuels to be certified as produced in a sustainable and responsible fashion in the global debate over this issue one party to the proceedings seems rarely to be mentioned namely the commodities exchanges through which a global biofuels market is being created in this contribution i propose a solution to the problem of sustainability certification through a biofuels futures contract equipped with proof of origin documentation the proposal does not call for any radical break with current practice extending existing certification procedures with a requirement for the vendor to provide documentation probably in barcoded form of the history of the biofuel offered for sale including plantation and biorefinery where the biofuel was produced and subsequent blendings it may have undergone the proposal is thus compatible with the blending practices of large global traders whose activities are the source of the difficulties of other approaches to certification it is argued that if such a sustainable futures contract for bioethanol in the first instance were to be introduced then it would likely trade at a premium and become the primary vehicle for north south trade in biofuels

population concentration urbanization and demographic transition abstract this paper investigates how urbanization and demographic transition interrelate with each other via merits agglomeration economies and demerits congestion diseconomies of population concentration it reveals the mechanism by which agglomeration economies and congestion diseconomies affect the fertility rate furthermore analysis also shows that by assuming declines in infant and child mortality rate the model developed in this paper can replicate the following well known historical patterns i advances in urbanization ii rises in the wage rate iii declines in fertility and iv rises followed by declines in the population growth rate the inverted u shaped demographic transition

a framework for scaling and framing policy problems in sustainability abstract it is argued that a necessary but lacking component of our approach in seeking policy responses to sustainability issues is some repeatable means whereby the relative magnitude and characteristics of these various policy problems faced in a given context can be analysed and described to this end a simple and tentative framework is constructed based on the definition of the key attributes which shape policy problems pertaining to environmental change these are spatial scale of cause and effect magnitude timing and longevity of possible impacts reversibility mensurability complexity and connectivity nature of cause s relevance to the given polity tractability availability and acceptability of means public concern and existence of goals these attributes inform a general taxonomy of micro meso and macro problems the attributes and the taxonomy are described with supporting examples to illustrate possible application of the framework it is discussed briefly in the contexts of operationalising the precautionary principle and policy instrument choice it is concluded that the framework can help focus debate and operationalise vague principles introduce relativity into the notion of sustainability and make policy choice more efficient

axiomatization and measurement of quasi hyperbolic discounting this article provides an axiomatic characterization of quasi hyperbolic discounting and a more general class of semi hyperbolic preferences we impose consistency restrictions directly on the intertemporal trade offs by relying on what we call annuity compensations our axiomatization leads naturally to an experimental design that disentangles discounting from the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in a pilot experiment we use the partial identification approach to estimate bounds for the distributions of discount factors in the subject pool consistent with previous studies we find evidence for both present and future bias jel codes c10 c99 d03 d90

household and economy welfare economics of endogenous fertility mark nerlove assaf razin and efraim sadka academic press new york 1987 pp xii 155

child policy solutions for the unemployment problem abstract using a simple overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility minimum wages and involuntary unemployment it is shown that the child tax can be used as an instrument to promote population growth and restore full employment

brazilian biofuels and social exclusion established and concentrated ethanol versus emerging and dispersed biodiesel increasing interest in biofuels trade between developed and developing countries has spurred worldwide discussions on issues such as subsidies and the food for fuel crisis one issue missing in recent discourse is the pressure exerted on developing countries to adopt large scale mechanized farming practices to increase economic efficiencies such approaches often exclude small scale farmers from participating in the emerging biofuels market thus exacerbating poverty and social exclusion drawing on both qualitative and technical data we discuss such pressures using brazilian ethanol and biodiesel production pressure from international markets to become more economically efficient may contribute towards the erosion of recent schemes to encourage social benefits for small farmers in biodiesel production we conclude with trade and policy implications

socially optimal social security and education subsidization in a dynastic model with human capital externalities fertility and endogenous growth abstract this paper considers socially optimal government policies in a dynastic family model with physical capital human capital endogenous fertility and positive spillovers from average human capital such spillovers reduce human capital investment but raise fertility from their social optimum we first characterize the social optimum with a non convex feasible set due to the quantity quality tradeoff concerning children we then show that social security and education subsidization together financed by labor income taxes can fully eliminate the efficiency losses of the spillovers and achieve the social optimum under plausible conditions however none of the policies can do so alone

energy from sugarcane bagasse under electricity rationing in brazil a computable general equilibrium model in the midst of the institutional reforms of the brazilian electric sectors initiated in the 1990s a serious electricity shortage crisis developed in 2001 as an alternative to blackout the government instituted an emergency plan aimed at reducing electricity consumption from june 2001 to february 2002 brazilians were compelled to curtail electricity use by 20 since the late 1990s but especially after the electricity crisis energy policy in brazil has been directed towards increasing thermoelectricity supply and promoting further gains in energy conservation two main issues are addressed here firstly we estimate the economic impacts of constraining the supply of electric energy in brazil secondly we investigate the possible penetration of electricity generated from sugarcane bagasse a computable general equilibrium cge model is used the traditional sector of electricity and the remainder of the economy are characterized by a stylized top down representation as nested ces constant elasticity of substitution production functions the electricity production from sugarcane bagasse is described through a bottom up activity analysis with a detailed representation of the required inputs based on engineering studies the model constructed is used to study the effects of the electricity shortage in the preexisting sector through prices production and income changes it is shown that installing capacity to generate electricity surpluses by the sugarcane agroindustrial system could ease the economic impacts of an electric energy shortage crisis on the gross domestic product gdp

fuzzy input output model for optimizing eco industrial supply chains under water footprint constraints global water stress is expected to increase due to population growth economic development and climate change because of this trend there is an increased interest in the water intensity of industrial activities conducted via the product supply chain or within specified geographical boundaries or regions both at the enterprise or regulatory level the total water footprint of economic activities should be evaluated in consideration of local water resource consumption virtual water trade and resource availability as individual entities seek to protect their respective interests the challenge is to optimize inter regional trade of goods with the consideration of the interests of participants in the network this work presents a fuzzy inputeoutput model for optimizing supply chains under water footprint constraints two case studies involving tile manufacturing and biofuel production are considered to demonstrate the use of the model

fertility choice land and the malthusian hypothesis in a standard overlapping generations growth model with a fixed amount of land and endogenous fertility the competitive economy converges to a steady state with a zero population growth rate and positive consumption per capita the malthusian hypothesis is interpreted as a positive statement about the relationship between population growth and consumption per capita when production exhibits diminishing returns to labor and there is a fixed amount of land essential for production even when individuals care only about the number of their children and not about their children s welfare the equilibrium is such that they eventually would choose to have only one child for each adult hence if malthus s positive check on population is the result of the response of optimizing agents to competitively determined prices malthus s pessimistic conjecture is not necessarily true even though his other assumptions hold from authors

import demand for brazilian ethanol a cross country analysis abstract this study presents an empirical analysis of the import demand for brazilian ethanol by its six major foreign buyers the primary objectives of this study were to identify the economic factors affecting the demand for ethanol imports and to derive long run price and income elasticities of import demand these elasticities could be used to analyze the impact of government policies such as mandatory gasoline ethanol blends and import tariffs import demand models were estimated with ordinary least squares ols using quarterly time series data for the 1997 2007 time period the results suggest that the factors influencing the import demand for ethanol vary across countries markets adopting mandatory blends of renewable fuels tend to have less price elastic import demand schedules ethanol imports were found to be price elastic and statistically significant in the caribbean region 1 66 mexico 2 08 japan 1 44 and nigeria 1 38 while import demand was price inelastic and not statistically different from zero in the us 0 76 and europe 0 21 the regression results could not determine the impacts of import tariffs for the united states mexico and nigeria on the quantity of imports because tariffs did not vary during the time period studied results show that mandatory gasoline ethanol blends have been an important determinant of ethanol imports

property rights and efficiency in olg models with endogenous fertility is there an economic rationale for pronatalist policies we propose and analyze a particular market failure that leads to inefficiently low fertility in equilibrium the friction is caused by the lack of ownership of children if parents have no claim on their children s income the private benefit from producing a child can be smaller than the social benefit we analyze an overlapping generations model with fertility choice and parental altruism ownership is modeled as a minimum constraint on transfers from parents to children using the efficiency concepts proposed in golosov jones and tertilt 2007 we find that whenever the transfer floor is binding fertility choices are inefficient second we show that the usual conditions for efficiency are not sufficient in this context third in contrast to settings with exogenous fertility a payg social security system cannot be used to implement efficient allocations to achieve an efficient outcome government transfers need to be tied to fertility choice

the alcohol program the rational for the launching of the alcohol program from sugarcane in brazil in the mid 1970 s is described as an answer to the first oil crisis as well as a solution to the problem of the fluctuating sugar prices in the international market the technical characteristics of ethanol as a fuel are given as well as a discussion of the evolution of the cost of production environmental and social consequences regarding costs ethanol production was close to 100 dollars a barrel in the initial stages of the program in 1980 falling rapidly due to economies of scale and technological progress to half that value in 1990 followed by a slower decline in recent years considering the hard currency saved by avoiding oil importation through the significant displacement of gasoline by ethanol and the decrease in the amount of external debt that the displaced oil importation was able to provide it is possible to demonstrate that the alcohol program has been an efficient way of exchanging dollar debt by national currency subsidies which are paid by the liquid fossil fuel users even with this economic gains for society the continuity of the program is difficult to maintain two solutions to this problem are discussed internal expansion of the use of ethanol and exports to industrialized countries where it could be used as an octane enhancer the main attractiveness of the program the reduction of co2 emissions as compared to fossil fuels is stressed mainly as a solution for industrialized countries to fulfill their commitments with the united nations framework climate change convention

the latte revolution regulation markets and consumption in the global coffee chain abstract coffee is a truly global commodity and a major foreign exchange earner in many developing countries the global coffee chain has changed dramatically as a result of deregulation new consumption patterns and evolving corporate strategies from a balanced contest between producing and consuming countries within the politics of international coffee agreements power relations shifted to the advantage of transnational corporations a relatively stable institutional environment where proportions of generated income were fairly distributed between producing and consuming countries turned into one that is more informal unstable and unequal through the lenses of global commodity chain analysis this paper examines how these transformations affect developing countries and what policy instruments are available to address the emerging imbalances

application of the modified tobin s q to an uncertain energy saving project with the real options concept abstract this paper is to develop a modified tobin s q evaluation method which successfully combines the evaluation criteria of the traditional tobin s q and the real options this study provides flexible thinking for decision making criteria that is it clearly provides decision makers with a reference in choosing enter or exit strategies such as quantitative indicators references the proposed model introduces two variables stochastic process in continuous time and explores the impact of the occurrence of unexpected events on the project value so that it can more authentically response to the project value the studied issue deals with the firms that have not established energy saving equipment yet it attempts to figure out the optimal timing to adopt an energy saving investment project when it is beneficial and the optimal timing to terminate it when the continuous operation of that business is unprofitable the future discounted benefit cost ratio q follows the geometric brownian motion with the poisson jump process and the replacement of investment equipment except for the evaluation of energy saving equipment investment project the proposed model can be applied to other related project evaluation issues such as energy saving co 2 emission reduction or general investment projects

removing distortions in the u s ethanol market what does it imply for the united states and brazil we analyze the impact of trade liberalization and removal of the federal tax credit in the united states on ethanol markets using a multimarket international ethanol model we find that u s trade barriers have been effective in protecting the ethanol industry under current policy there is separability of the u s ethanol market from world markets with trade liberalization the ethanol market deepens making it less susceptible to price volatility the effect of trade liberalization extends beyond ethanol markets affecting agricultural markets the results show that the impact of removal of the tax credit overrides the impact of the tariff removal copyright 2008 oxford university press

fertility intra generational redistribution and social security sustainability incorporating heterogeneity in preference to having children into an overlapping generations model of a small open economy we examine the effects of changes in the size of pay as you go payg social security on fertility choices of individuals and population growth of the economy it is shown that payg social security will raise population growth by increasing the number of individuals who have children and the number of children parents have if the system involves redistribution between retirees with different contributions whereas if it has no redistribution payg social security does not affect the fertility decisions of individuals fecondite redistribution intra generationnelle et durabilite de la securite sociale incorporant l heterogeneite des preferences pour avoir des enfants dans un modele d une petite economie ouverte avec des generations qui se chevauchent on examine les effets de changements dans l importance de la securite sociale par repartition sur les choix de fecondite des individus et sur la croissance de la population dans l economie on montre que cette forme de securite sociale augmente la croissance de la population en accroissant a la fois le nombre de personnes qui ont des enfants et le nombre d enfants que les parents choisissent d avoir si le systeme implique une redistribution entre les gens a la retraite qui ont fait des contributions differentes alors que si le regime n implique aucune redistribution le regime de securite sociale par repartition n affecte pas les decisions de fecondite des individus

the new competition for land food energy and climate change abstract the paper addresses the new competition for land arising from growing and changing demand for food when combined with increasing global demand for transport energy under conditions of declining petro chemical resources and the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions the paper starts from the premise of a food energy and environment trilemma tilman et al 2009 where all demands to expand the area of cultivated land present high risks of increasing the carbon footprint of agriculture having reviewed the main drivers of demand for food and for liquid transport fuels the paper weighs the controversies surrounding biofuels arising from food price spikes the demand for land and consequent direct and indirect land use change it suggests that we need a more complex and geographically differentiated analysis of the interactions between direct and indirect land use change the paper then reviews evidence of land availability and suggests that in addition to technical availability in terms of soil water and climate political social and technological factors have significantly shaped the competition for land in different global regions particularly the three major biofuel producing ones of the usa brazil and europe this point is further developed by reviewing the different innovation pathways for biofuels in these three regions the main conclusion of this review is firstly that any analysis requires an integrated approach to the food energy environment trilemma and secondly that strategic political direction of innovation and sustainability regulation are required to bring about major shifts in agriculture leading to sustainable intensification of cultivation royal society 2009 rather than the continued expansion of cultivated area the consequent perspective is one of considerable global variety in technologies agricultural productive systems and use of natural resources this contrasts sharply with the world of a dominant global and integrated technology platform based on petro chemicals to which we have become accustomed

addiction and cue triggered decision processes we propose a model of addiction based on three premises 1 use among addicts is frequently a mistake 2 experience sensitizes an individual to environmental cues that trigger mistaken usage 3 addicts understand and manage their susceptibilities we argue that these premises find support in evidence from psychology neuroscience and clinical practice the model is tractable and generates a plausible mapping between behavior and the characteristics of the user substance and environment it accounts for a number of important patterns associated with addiction gives rise to a clear welfare standard and has novel implications for policy

efficiency with endogenous population growth in this paper we generalize the notion of pareto e ciency to make it applicable to environments with endogenous populations two di erent e ciency concepts are proposed p e ciency and a e ciency the two concepts di er in how they treat people that are not born we show how these concepts relate to the notion of pareto e ciency when fertility is

a world away and close to home the multi scalar making of indonesia s energy landscape abstract indonesia is the world s largest producer of palm oil a feedstock for agrofuels and an important source of direct nutritional energy for human consumption the country is also an important global supplier of coal petroleum and natural gas while per capita fossil energy consumption is relatively low for biomass and fossil fuel based energy indonesia has been transforming its energy landscape in order to provide for foreign demand the landscape both in literal and in the figurative sense simultaneously forms and is formed by the material resource flows required for society s biophysical reproduction i e the social metabolism in the context of the ongoing energy transition both are subject to change in our analysis of indonesia s palm oil production we find that the drivers shaping the country s resource use as well as its energy landscape are located at a spatial temporal and functional distance from where they take effect the energy landscape and resource use patterns are formed across levels of scale from the subnational to the global energy policy confined to the framework of the sovereign nation state cannot effectively address the complex drivers of increasingly detrimental environmental change associated with energy transitions nor can it trigger a sustainability transition

models of limited self control comparison and implications for bargaining abstract this paper compares two models of limited intertemporal self control the linear cost version of fudenberg and levine s dual self model 2006 and the quasi hyperbolic discounting model the main distinction between the two frameworks can be formulated as whether agents care about future self control costs dual selves do while quasi hyperbolic discounters do not the dual self model is applied to a bargaining game with alternating proposals where players negotiate over an infinite stream of payoffs and it is shown that in subgame perfect equilibrium the first proposer s payoff is unique and agreement is immediate by contrast lu 2016 shows that with quasi hyperbolic discounters a multiplicity of payoffs and delay can arise in equilibrium

a dual self model of impulse control we propose that a simple dual self model gives a unified explanation for several empirical regularities including the apparent time inconsistency that has motivated models of quasi hyperbolic discounting and rabin s paradox of risk aversion in the large and small the model also implies that self control costs imply excess delay as in the o donoghue and rabin models of quasi hyperbolic utility and it explains experimental evidence that increased cognitive load makes temptations harder to resist the base version of our model is consistent with the gul pesendorfer axioms but we argue that these axioms must be relaxed to account for the effect of cognitive load

an entry and exit model on the energy saving investment strategy with real options this paper presents an improved decision model based on the real options approach presented by ansar and sparks 2009 for the firms that have not yet established energy saving equipment under the entry and exit strategies furthermore the proposed model takes account of the inevitable equipment renewal and the occurrence of unexpected events under the poisson jump process the timing for terminating an investment when continuous operations of that business are unprofitable is also explored to realize the optimal timing of implementing the energy saving strategy the future discounted benefit b follows the geometric brownian motion with the poisson jump process and the replacement of investment equipment a numerical analysis is followed by a sensitivity study of various parameters to better realize their impacts on the entry and exit thresholds the results show that for the jump case the higher probability of occurrence of unfavorable events will result in a higher entry threshold and lower exit threshold investors are forced to request higher benefit thresholds to cover the higher probability of losses brought by unfavorable events

the problem of population and growth a review of the literature from malthus to contemporary models of endogenous population and endogenous growth abstract this paper deals with the evolution of the literature on the problem of population and growth from the classical period to the recent literature on endogenous growth and development the problem concerns two distinct issues 1 how to explain the observed covariation of the levels and rates of growth of per capita income and population size over time and space and 2 how to improve the human condition represented by these variables through an accommodating social policy the evolution of the literature we survey is reflected by the progressive treatment of key variables as endogenous rather than exogenous to the growth process it is also reflected by a shift from the historical concern about population explosion and its implications for growth to the more recent concern about the association between growth and population implosion in many developed countries

millian efficiency with endogenous fertility should governments implement policies that affect fertility decisions on efficiency grounds what is the correct notion of efficiency to use to address these issues this paper develops an extension of the notion of pareto efficiency referred to as millian efficiency to evaluate symmetric allocations in an overlapping generations setting with endogenous fertility this extension is based on preferences of those agents who are actually alive and exclusively allows for welfare comparisons of symmetric allocations first we provide necessary and sufficient conditions to determine whether an allocation is millian efficient or not and we show that the sufficient conditions for dynamic efficiency offered by cass 1972 and balasko and shell 1980 cannot be directly applied when fertility decisions are endogenous second we characterize millian efficient allocations as the equilibria of a decentralized price mechanism and we present a sufficient condition for dynamic efficiency that uses the sequence of prices associated to such decentralized equilibria finally we analyse how intergenerational policies should be designed to restore efficiency and achieve net welfare gains in two different settings in which markets yield inefficient allocations dynamic inefficiencies and financial market incompleteness regarding human capital in the former a pay as you go social security system eliminates dynamic inefficiencies provided pensions are explicitly linked with fertility decisions in the latter a specific link between social security and public education becomes a necessary condition for millian efficiency copyright wiley blackwell

the spatio temporal dynamics of ethanol gasoline price ratio in brazil abstract we use an innovative method to analyze the spatio temporal evolution of the ethanol gasoline price ratio to end consumers in brazil this model allows estimating the distribution of prices throughout the country using a continuous space model estimated by bayesian methods we use data from the national petroleum natural gas and biofuels agency s price survey system a weekly sample of 10 of fuel suppliers in brazil to estimate continuous projections of the price ratio for the entire country for the 2007 2014 period we use this model to build an indicator of ethanol advantage in the country and show how this advantage has declined since 2009

endogenous fertility and the henry george theorem abstract models of endogenous demographic change deal with population size as an additional object of the welfare analysis in these models the overlapping generations olg model serves as the basic framework in club theory too population size is treated as an endogenous variable in local public goods lpg models the so called henry george theorem which requires local public expenditures to be financed by a 100 tax on aggregate land rent is known as a first order condition for club efficiency the present paper establishes and exploits an isomorphism between steady states of the olg model and allocations of the lpg model the paper revisits samuelson s fallacy concerning his goldenest golden rule and it explores institutional arrangements that sustain the optimum growth of population

the revealed preference theory of changing tastes we analyse preferences over finite decision problems in order to model decision makers with changing tastes we provide conditions on these preferences that identify the strotz model of consistent planning building on an example given by peleg and yaari 1973 we show that for problems with infinitely many choices strotz s representation of preferences may not be well defined for that case we propose a well defined approximation which is empirically indistinguishable from the strotz preference that is being approximated

total utility overlapping generations and optimal population the necessary and sufficient conditions for the solution to an optimal population growth model with overlapping generations using the sum of total utility per generation as the objective function are derived the solution for a specific steady state model and an example are presented and compared to that for a similar model without overlapping generations in both cases a positive but less than infinite optimal growth rate is found next since an additively separable individual utility function is used the differences between a total utility per generation model and a total utility per period model a la lerner are discussed finally the results of the total utility model are compared to those from a model in which the discounted sum of per capita utility is the objective function an extension to the samuelson lerner utility paradox concerning the optimal rate of population growth is discussed

can we meet targets for biofuels and renewable energy in transport given the constraints imposed by policy in agriculture and energy abstract the deployment of biofuels is significantly affected by policy in energy and agriculture in the energy arena concerns regarding the sustainability of biofuel systems and their impact on food prices led to a set of sustainability criteria in eu directive 2009 28 ec on renewable energy in addition the 10 biofuels target by 2020 was replaced with a 10 renewable energy in transport target this allows the share of renewable electricity used by electric vehicles to contribute to the mix in achieving the 2020 target furthermore only biofuel systems that effect a 60 reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared with the fuel they replace are allowed to contribute to meeting the target in the agricultural arena cross compliance which is part of eu common agricultural policy dictates the allowable ratio of grassland to total agricultural land and has a significant impact on which biofuels may be supported this paper outlines the impact of these policy areas and their implications for the production and use of biofuels in terms of the 2020 target for 10 renewable transport energy focusing on ireland the policies effectively impose constraints on many conventional energy crop biofuels and reinforce the merits of using biomethane a gaseous biofuel the analysis shows that ireland can potentially satisfy 15 of renewable energy in transport by 2020 allowing for double credit for biofuels from residues and ligno cellulosic materials as per directive 2009 28 ec through the use of indigenous biofuels grass biomethane waste and residue derived biofuels electric vehicles and rapeseed biodiesel

sugar rush prospects for a global ethanol market in 2005 the major economies of the world including the g8 and 5 developing nations mexico india brazil china and south africa along with the united nations the international energy agency and the european union launched the global bioenergy partnership to discuss ways to promote the sustained use and production of biofuels around the globe reflecting growing concerns for finding economically viable substitutes for petroleum this paper examines whether and if a vibrant global market in biofuels based on sugarcane based ethanol is economically feasible the paper finds that while there is already international trading in biofuels it is highly limited compared with its potential in the current climate of accelerating fossil fuel prices biofuels represent an increasingly attractive displacement for some of our fossil fuel addiction not only do they substitute for petrol but they also produce lower emissions the paper finds that sugarcane ethanol could make an important contribution to substituting for a portion of petroleum and also offer potential benefits for international development

income distribution policies with endogenous fertility the implications of endogenous fertility for intra generational welfare comparisons of alternative policies with respect to income taxation and family allowances are considered the interactions among the choices between leisure options labor force participation and fertility are shown to be crucial to the determination of both the signs and the magnitudes of the optimal child allowances and income tax rates the implications of a negative marginal tax rate and a negative child allowance are considered annotation

multi actor governance of sustainable biofuels in developing countries the case of mozambique this paper describes and analyses the multi actor governance process that made mozambique the first african nation state to develop a national policy framework for sustainable biofuels the paper draws on findings from action research conducted in mozambique between december 2008 and july 2012 we analyse interactions between the changing governance context the course of the multi actor governance process and the choices in relation to governance framework characteristics and content for four successive stages of governance framework development this provides the basis for reflection on the competences required for effective multi actor sustainability governance and a discussion about the role of the nation state in sustainability governance of global economies such as biofuels the governance framework for sustainable biofuels has contributed to a more transparent and secure investment climate for biofuels in mozambique key factors for success were 1 the presence of different types of competences during the various stages of the governance framework development 2 closing the gap between licences to sell and licences to produce across different governance levels and 3 balancing between the short and long term objectives for biofuel production in mozambique and requirements of global biofuel markets developing country nation states can provide an essential contribution to these success factors for global governance of sustainable biofuels

biomass production from the u s forest and agriculture sectors in support of a renewable electricity standard production of renewable energy from biomass has been promoted as means to improve greenhouse gas balance in energy production improve energy security and provide jobs and income however uncertainties remain as to how the agriculture and forest sectors might jointly respond to increased demand for bioelectricity feedstocks and the potential environmental consequences of increased biomass production we use an economic model to examine how the agriculture and forest sectors might combine to respond to increased demands for bioelectricity under simulated future nationallevel renewable electricity standards both sectors are projected to contribute biomass although energy crops like switchgrass produced on agriculture land are projected to be the primary feedstocks at the highest targets for bioelectricity production we project increased conversion of forest to agriculture land in support of agriculture biomass production although land conversion takes place in response to renewable electricity mandates we project only minor increases in forest and agriculture emissions similarly crop prices were projected to generally be stable in the face of increased bioelectricity demand and displacement of traditional agriculture crops

health spending savings and fertility in a lifecycle dynastic model with longevity externalities we investigate health spending savings fertility and policy implications in a lifecycle dynastic model with longevity externalities in annuity returns we show that such externalities engender not only excessive health spending but also under saving and excessive fertility social security and health subsidization increase health spending and savings but reduce fertility from laissez faire levels a publicly funded universal health system under labour income taxation raises fertility taxing health spending or using social security and public health together can obtain socially optimal health spending savings longevity and fertility numerical results based on us observations suggest substantial variations among these cases especially in old age health spending

dynamic inconsistency and self control a planner doer interpretation we show that gul and pesendorfer s econometrica 69 2001 1403 representation result for preferences with temptation and self control can be reexpressed in terms of a costly intrapersonal conflict between a planner and doer as in thaler and shefrin j political econ 89 1981 392 and psychologists standard view of self control problems

population size and the social welfare functions of bentham and mill abstract the consequences of the social welfare function of bentham and mill b m for optimal population size are explored when individuals utility is a function of own consumption the number of progeny and the welfare of those children

infectious disease and preventive behavior in an overlapping generations model abstract this paper incorporates prevalence of disease and agent s preventive behavior i e health investment into a small open overlapping generations model and investigates the dynamic behaviors of the competitive equilibrium allocation using the model it is shown that agents prevalence elastic behaviors which are supported from empirical studies can be obtained and that such agents behaviors cause the cyclicity of the spread of disease we also show that although the agents preventive behavior in a competitive equilibrium may be insufficient because of the existence of external effects a one shot medical aid from foreign countries does not necessarily improve the agents welfare in the pareto sense

elderly labor supply and fertility decisions in aging population economies with a longer life expectancy individuals who plan to work when they are old may increase the number of their children therefore when individuals choose the time of retirement the fertility rate may not necessarily decline but even rise

population growth and economic growth a reconsideration abstract in an endogenous growth model endogenous fertility a neo malthusian relation emerges only when all exogenous variables are controlled for this suggests that conflicting findings in the literature may originate from heterogeneity in unobserved variables in cross country panel data sets

optimal intergenerational redistribution in a two country model with endogenous fertility we analyze a model with two countries that are linked by anintegrated capital market fertility and thus population growth isendogenously determined by households our analysis proceeds inthree steps first we characterize an optimal intertemporal andinterregional allocation in a model with endogenous fertility andtwo countries second we look for an institution supporting theoptimal allocation it turns out that in general a decentralizedequilibrium is inefficient national public pension systems withbenefits that are related to the number of children implements theoptimal allocation this provides a justification for governmentinterventions beyond its role as a night watchman third weanalyze whether national governments have the right incentives toimplement the optimal system it turns out that every nationalgovernment has an incentive to deviate from the optimal structureand to shift part of the burden to the other country policyimplications for the institutional arrangements within the europeanunion are discussed

social security and endogenous growth abstract this paper examines the effects of social security on the steady state growth of per capita income in an endogenous growth model in which agents care about their own consumption the number of children and the welfare of each child it shows that an unfunded program may simulate growth by reducing fertility and increasing the ratio of human capital investment per child to per family income when bequests are positive also it may cause faster growth than funded programs especially when receipts from funded programs are independent of contributions when voluntary saving is positive funded social security is neutral if receipts are linked to contributions and most likely depresses growth if receipts are independent of contributions

economic geography fertility and migration abstract this paper analyzes the relationship among economic geography fertility and migration the empirical evidence presented reveals that persistent regional variations in fertility exist within a country and that regional total fertility rates are negatively related to regional population density a two period overlapping generations model of endogenous fertility incorporating n regions agglomeration economies and congestion diseconomies is constructed to explain this negative relationship while agglomeration economies have both positive income and negative substitution effects on fertility congestion diseconomies have a negative income effect on it combined with the mobility of people interaction among these effects generates the negative relationship as a steady state equilibrium outcome it is also shown that net migration from regions with lower population density to regions with higher population density occurs in an equilibrium which in turn maintains the regional variations in fertility

the brain as a hierarchical organization based on recent neuroscience evidence we model the brain as a dual system organization subject to three conflicts asymmetric information temporal hori zon and incentive salience under the first and second conflicts we show that the uninformed system imposes a positive link between consumption and labor at every period furthermore decreasing impatience endogenously emerges as a consequence of these two conflicts under the first and third conflicts it becomes optimal to set a consumption cap finally we discuss the behavioral implications of these rules for choice bracketing and expense tracking and for consumption over the life cycle jel dil d74 d82 d87 d91

bio energy policies in a global context abstract against the background of an increasing global demand for bio energy the need for sustainability standards and a certification system ensuring sustainable production and trade has grown rapidly nevertheless there is currently no specific forum for discussions on how to deal with biomass trade at the multilateral level distortions in agricultural and energy trade regimes the myriad of standards and the lack of a clear biomass classification in the multilateral trade regime suggest that bio energy products may not deliver sustainable development gains for all trading partners this paper analyses then the global impact of bio energy policies on biomass production and trade paying particular attention to sustainable development in the bio energy sector it examines how a possible reduction and elimination of trade barriers as well as a phasing out of trade distorting support measures would contribute to the development of a global sustainable bio energy market

space for innovation for sustainable community based biofuel production and use lessons learned for policy from nhambita community mozambique abstract this paper provides insights and recommendations for policy on the opportunities and constrains that influence the space for innovation for sustainable community based biofuel production and use promoted by the mozambican government nhambita community established jatropha trials in 2005 initial results were promising but crop failure and the absence of organized markets led to scepticism amongst farmers we start from the idea that the promotion of community based biofuel production and use requires taking interactions between social cultural biophysical economic political and legal subsystems across different scales and levels of analysis through time into account our analysis demonstrates that heterogeneous farming strategies and their synergies at community level should be carefully assessed furthermore national and international political and legal developments such as the development of biofuel sustainability criteria influence the local space in which community based biofuel developments take place we conclude that ex ante integrated assessment and creating an enabling environment can enhance space for sustainable community based biofuel production and use it may provide insights into the opportunities and constraints for different types of smallholders and promote the development of adequate policy mechanisms to prevent biofuels from becoming a threat rather than an opportunity for smallholders

endogenous fertility and optimal population size pareto optimality which is the standard criterion of efficiency in general equilibrium models takes population size as given and therefore cannot be directly applied to analyze the question of optimal population size the criterion then for optimal population size must be based on a more restrictive definition of optimality this paper extends peter diamonds 1965 golden golden rule growth model by assuming that individuals derive utility from their own consumptionand from their own children offspring are assumed to consume resources before reaching adulthood the authors show that the optimal steady state utility yields a higher population growth rate when it converges to the golden rule allocation they then demonstrate that a voluntary social security program in which the size of the transfer to a particular agent is directly tied to his own fertility leads the competitive allocation to be identical to the allocation corresponding to the maximum of the steady state utility of the representative individual

governance of the emerging bio energy markets despite its promising prospects a growing global bio energy market may have sustainability risks as well governing this market with respect to installing safeguards to ensure sustainable biomass production might reduce these risks therefore proposals for governance systems for bio energy are discussed in this article the proposals are based on comparative case study research on the governance of comparable commodities by assessing the governance system of global coffee trade fair trade coffee the global and the eu sugar market and forest stewardship council fsc wood strong and weak points of governance systems for commodities are discerned fsc is selected as the best performing case study and serves as the proposal s basis fsc s weaknesses are minimized by among others using the lessons learned from the other case studies this results in a system consisting of two pillars a bio energy labelling organization blo and a united nations agreement on bio energy unab although consulted experts in the research process are critical about this system they do suggest several conditions a governance system for bio energy should meet in order to be effective such as a facilitative government professional monitoring and using progressive certification combined with price premiums these conditions have been taken into account in the final proposal

in the market but not of it fair trade coffee and forest stewardship council certification as market based social change summary this paper discusses two well known market based social change initiatives fair trade coffee and forest stewardship council certification which harness market forces to pursue social and environmental objectives a serious challenge for both is to operate in the conventional market without undermining their original objectives a global commodity chain analysis approach is combined with insights from economic sociology embeddedness theory to explore the social cultural and organizational factors shaping the initiatives governance structures both initiatives are seen to move along opposite organizational trajectories but face similar pressures from conventional market logics practices and dominant actors a preliminary framework is proposed for comparative assessment focusing on distribution of benefits how conventional market institutions may be questioned and how internal governance manages diverse stakeholder interests and influence

european union leadership in biofuels regulation europe as a normative power the rapid emergence of the european union eu as a leader in global environmental politics has led many scholars to argue in favour of the eu being a normative power in international relations this paper critically examines the eu s biofuels policy and evaluates whether its attempts to lead by example and shape international practice in this field could support such arguments europe s biofuel policies are evaluated through a sustainable development lens so as to determine the extent to which it has embraced a holistic approach to sustainability while not dismissing that the identity of the eu is indeed an explanatory factor and that normative intentions may well be regarded as a motivating force this study argues that an interest based perspective on international environmental regulation offers a supplementary view of how an actor s preferences for an international regime are shaped by erecting barriers aimed at shielding its own inefficient domestic biofuels production the eu is in essence placing trade competitiveness and economic growth above environmental protection thus permitting sustainability concerns to be addressed only in part

integrated assessment of sustainability trade offs and pathways for global bioenergy production framing a novel hybrid approach abstract current controversies and debates on bioenergy production in the areas of greenhouse gases emission reduction food and energy security social exclusion and welfare erosion and ecosystem deterioration attest to the challenges which the bioenergy sector has to overcome to achieve its global production potentials because it is yet an evolving sector the sustainability of bioenergy production in different regions is very elusive experiences show that bioenergy policies in one region can have impacts not only on its own but also on other regions social economic and ecological sustainability it is thus important to assess development pathways for bioenergy to exploit the potential benefits and forestall any unnecessary costs this paper frames a novel hybrid approach for assessing bioenergy potentials for regions with diverging economic social and ecological systems the approach is based on a conceptual framework that takes into account trade offs decisions on sustainability goals and production options in the assessment of bioenergy pathways it combines different empirical techniques for the systematic investigation of trade offs and pathways including fuzzy logic conjoint logit and path analyses to show the relevance and utility of these techniques for the integrated assessment of trade offs and pathways in bioenergy development we illustrated their application using results and data from previous related studies

the bargaining within abstract this short paper shows that intrapersonal bargaining in a dual self model can be used to provide a foundation for quasi hyperbolic discounting model popularized by laibson laibson david 1994 essays in hyperbolic discounting ph d dissertation mit laibson david 1997 golden eggs and hyperbolic discounting quarterly journal of economics 112 443 477

international bioenergy trade a review of past developments in the liquid biofuel market policies aimed to promote biofuels locally had tremendous effects on global market developments across the past decade this article develops insights into the interaction of these policies and market forces via a comprehensive collection and analysis of international production and trade data it shows that world biofuel production and trade has grown exponentially from below 30 pj in 2000 to 572 pj in 2009 for biodiesel from 340 pj in 2000 to over 1540 pj in 2009 for fuel ethanol the eu has dominated world biodiesel whereas the us and brazil have led fuel ethanol production world net biofuel trade reached 120 130 pj in 2009 and was directed towards the most lucrative markets for biodiesel this has been the eu whose imports rose to 92 pj in 2008 and remained at 70 pj in 2009 regarding fuel ethanol both the us and the eu have been prime destinations for competitively priced exports the vast majority of which originated in brazil international biofuel trade is both supply and demand driven the demand side was shaped by support policies which generally increased the domestic market value of biofuels trade developed wherever these policies prices were not accompanied by respective measures it is found that import duties largely influenced trade volumes whereas trade routes were mainly driven by tariff preferences trade regimes appear to have been designed and adapted unilaterally along national interests causing market disruptions trade inefficiencies and disputes to avoid these it is important to explicitly consider international trade implications of national trade policies a prerequisite is to improve the understanding of the underlying complex and interwoven links within the market the current lack of adequate homogeneous international reporting of biofuel production and trade statistics could be bridged via internationally standardized custom clarifications trade factor interrelations also need to be investigated further

population growth and human capital investments theory and evidence this paper presents evidence from empirical studies that test hypotheses derived from models of household behavior pertaining to the interrelationships among population growth human capital and economic development these studies have exploited quasi natural experiments embodied in the cross area variability in the wage rates of children in a number of low income countries the intercouple variation in the biological propensity to conceive and the geographically selective introduction of new high yielding seed varieties in india in the period 1961 71 the different varieties of evidence support the hypotheses that alterations in the returns to human capital associated with exogenous technical change lead simultaneously to increases in human capital investments and to reductions in fertility and that the costliness of fertility control is a significant but modest factor in inhibiting human capital investments

fertility and the tax benefit system a reconsideration of the theory of family taxation the author examines the simultaneous nature of the decision to have children the decision to spend money on them and the decision to seek employment it will be argued that the children income trade off emphasised by the present paper is more relevant to most family decisions than the income leisure trade off on which much of the policy debate has been centred in order to do that we shall bring together the recently developed economic theory of the family or new home economics with the microeconomic branch of the theory of public finance a model of family choice is developed the main message of the present paper is that if as the evidence suggests parents have some control over the number of children they put into the world then the effect of taxes and subsidies on the familys allocation of time and money will be generally weaker and in some respects the opposite of what it would be if the number of children were physiologically constrained or exogenously given another is that if parents derive utility from having children this has to be taken into account in any welfare calculation fertility may thus affect the design of optimal policy in two ways indirectly through its effect on market behaviour and directly through its effect on welfare excerpt

self control and bargaining abstract this paper examines a bargaining game with alternating proposals where sophisticated quasi hyperbolic discounters negotiate over an infinite stream of payoffs in markov perfect equilibrium payoffs are almost always unique and a small advantage in self control can result in a large advantage in payoff in subgame perfect equilibrium a multiplicity of payoffs and delay can arise despite the complete information setting markov perfect equilibria are the best subgame perfect equilibria for the agent with more self control and the worst for the agent with less self control naivete can help a player by increasing their reservation value

intergenerational transfers and demographic transition abstract this paper presents an analysis of demographic transition based on the endogenous evolution of intergenerational transfers along an economy s endogenous path of development two period lived agents belonging to overlapping generations choose optimally their desired levels of consumption and fertility together with their desired sizes of transfers to both parents and children parents are more efficient than children in producing output but some parental time must be devoted to child rearing at low levels of development fertility is high and the flow of net intergenerational transfers is from the young to the old at high levels of development fertility is low and the flow of net transfers is from the old to the young these results accord strongly with empirical observations and the analysis may be seen as formalising for the first time a long standing and well respected hypothesis in the demographic transition literature

social security and endogenous fertility pensions and child allowances as siamese twins abstract this paper analyses public pensions and child support in a model with endogenous fertility we show that the individual fertility choice may not coincide with the social optimum due to the existence of external effects of children on society as a whole the market outcome without government intervention is efficient however as the externalities exactly cancel out in that case if the government wants to redistribute towards the old it cannot replicate the command optimum by merely applying lump sum transfers but rather needs a child allowance scheme to effectively alter the number of offspring finally we analyse whether a pareto improving social security reform is possible it is shown that merely reducing the payg scheme cannot be pareto improving but the introduction of a child allowance scheme can be

evaluating the effects of optimally distributed public programs child health and family planning interventions this paper develops and tests an optimizing model determining the distribution of family planning and health subsidies across heterogeneous households and assesses the biases in cross area estimates of the health effects of such subsidies due to public resource optimization the model incorporates both health externalities and the endogenous response of the size of the recipient population to program subsidies longitudinal data describing child health and publicly provided family planning and health programs in 20 barrios in laguna province in the philippines are used to estimate the effects of such programs on child health and the relationships between the distribution of the programs and preprogram health levels the impact of a program on a particular childs health status is viewed as dependent upon the childs length of exposure to the program a basic feature of the model is the presence of health externalities which is shown to be sufficient along with plausible features of household behavior to make selective subsidization of fertility control either alone or in combination with health investment subsidies pareto efficient the model suggests that subsidization of fertility control is likely to be pareto efficient in the presence of health or human capital externalities when human capital and family size are gross substitutes and or when any per child human capital subsidies may substitute for direct subsidies to health investment and an equalizing distribution of the subsidies the highest family planning subsidies to the lowest health recipient households is efficient when both health and family planning subsidies are used fertility control subsidies minimize the subsidy burden for donors and are highest when total subsidy expenditures per child are greatest

opportunities and barriers for international bioenergy trade recently the international trade of various bioenergy commodities has grown rapidly yet this growth is also hampered by some barriers the aim of this paper is to obtain an overview of what market actors currently perceive as major opportunities and barriers for the development of international bioenergy trade the work focuses on three bioenergy commodities bioethanol biodiesel and wood pellets data were collected through an internet based questionnaire the majority of the 141 respondents had an industrial background geographically two thirds were from mainly western europe with other minor contributions from all other continents results show that import tariffs and the implementation of sustainability certification systems are perceived as potentially major barriers for the trade of bioethanol and biodiesel while logistics are seen mainly as an obstacle for wood pellets development of technical standards was deemed more as an opportunity than a barrier for all commodities most important drivers were high fossil fuel prices and climate change mitigation policies concluding to overcome some of the barriers specific actions will be required by market parties and policy makers import tariffs for biofuels could be reduced or abolished linked to multinational trade agreements and harmonization including provisions on technical standards and sustainability requirements