provision of electricity to african households the importance of democracy and institutional quality how can differences in per capita household electricity consumption across african countries be understood based on theories that highlight the importance of democracy and institutional quality for provision of public goods the aim of the paper is to analyse the degree to which the level of per capita household electricity consumption in african countries can be attributed to the countries democratic status and their institutional quality we rely on regression analysis employing a pooled data set for 44 african countries over the time period 1996 2009 the analysis shows that democracy and institutional quality both have significant positive effects on per capita household consumption of electricity our results have implications for how energy sector reforms are promoted in developing countries at a more general level they illustrate that institution building policy efforts are relevant also in areas where contemporary debates have tended to primarily centre on economic development financial prerequisites and ownership issues

renewable energy in pacific small island developing states the role of international aid and the enabling environment from donor s perspectives abstract dependency on fossil fuels is an issue for numerous countries and in particular it is an acutely challenging problem for pacific small island developing states for the utilization of renewable energy in pacific small island developing states donor agencies and international organizations play major roles in funding this study introduces the nature of the past renewable energy projects in pacific small island developing states and in the process clarifies the contribution of international aid to renewable energy deployment thereafter the paper identifies the most important factors related to enhancing an enabling environment for the introduction of renewable energy in pacific small island developing states and the relative importance of these factors with a special focus on donors perspectives the paper clarifies that approximately 1 5 billion usd 2011 was received by pacific small island developing states over the 44 years from 1970 to 2014 as funding for renewable energy projects that included funding for hardware and the amount of aid allocated for renewable energy in the region greatly varies between countries the paper also identifies the important factors that can enhance an enabling environment for the introduction of renewable energy and the relative importance of these factors some of the highlighted implications that can be made from the findings of the research are 1 high renewable energy targets need to be supported by well structured action plans 2 there is a need for an effective regulatory body responsible for renewable energy and 3 the financial aspects of utilities are of higher importance than technological aspects of utilities

energy policy aid and the development of renewable energy resources in small island developing states abstract small island developing states sids have established ambitious renewable energy targets the promotion of renewable energy has been motivated by several factors a desire to lessen dependence on fossil fuels to attract development assistance in the energy sector and to strengthen the position of sids in climate change negotiations here we explore the interplay between the role of aid and energy policy in the development of renewable energy resources in sids we find that the importance of development assistance has implications for the sustainability of renewable energy development given that funding is not always accompanied by necessary energy policy reforms we also identify energy efficiency and access to modern energy services as having received insufficient attention in the establishment and structure of renewable energy targets in sids and argue that this is problematic due to the strong economic case for such investments

barriers to efficiency and the privatization of township village enterprises abstract qian 2000 and others suggest that post 1994 tax and banking reforms in china combined with the development of markets for allocating resources influenced the economic performance of township village enterprises tves and private enterprises pes this paper uses chinese provincial level data to search for evidence of advantages and or disadvantages offered to tves and pes before and after the 1994 reforms we define a sectoral net income based measure of overall efficiency and decompose the measure into components that highlight the existence of credit constraints output target constraints and labour hiring constraints the results offer empirical support for qian and others explanation of why private enterprises eventually emerged as the dominant institution for allocating resources in post 1994 rural china

opening up and transition success and problems financing and reforms of the electric power sector in latin america and the caribbean abstract financing problems triggered the wave of electric power sector reforms in latin america and the caribbean the reforms in turn have changed the functioning of financing in the power sector financial institutions have continually adapted their instruments existing sources of capital have stepped up investing in the sector and new financial sources have emerged this paper reviews the evolution of financing and its interplay with legal and structural reforms and property rights changes in the electric power sector of latin america and the caribbean it classifies sector development in the region by reform strategies and their consequences for financing finally it conducts an assessment using criteria such as sector financing sector efficiency general economic efficiency economic development objectives and the environment it finds that the different reform and financing strategies have distinctive impacts on the sustainable development of the sector through their impacts on the choice of generating technology and fuel on the contribution of cogeneration and renewable energy sources on participation of national capital and national human capital formation and on rational use of energy

is the kenyan electricity regulatory board autonomous abstract results of research work into electric power sector reforms in kenya spanning over a period of about 30 years are presented in this article of particular interest is the autonomy or independence of the electricity regulatory board erb of kenya established in 1998 through a new electricity law the electric power act epa number 11 of 1997 the autonomy of the erb is reviewed in depth and its ability to ensure that the electricity industry provides services for the poor assessed the following are considered as key factors underpinning the degree of autonomy that erb can enjoy legal status of erb as provided for under the epa and whether there were any other statutes impacting on its autonomy chain of command particularly in relation to the role of the kenyan government institutions which may have some links to the power sector mode of appointment of erb members or directors including its chairman range and relevance of representation of stakeholders in the erb with special emphasis on the representation of the poor adequacy of funding for the erb provisions for the process of appeal against the board s decisions

reforms in sub saharan africa s power industries most sub saharan countries wish to carry out reforms in the organisation of their power companies up to now only three countries have operated major changes in their statutory system a few others are well engaged in the process but many still find themselves at a stage of definition and preparation of reforms delays observed in relation to agendas fixed initially can mainly be explained by hesitation of the decision makers over the schemes to be maintained as much because the solutions proposed do not provide totally satisfactory answers to the questions they are confronted with because of the desire to explore other possibilities better adapted to the african reality the recent advent of independent power production and of interconnection development projects in these countries the impact of which needs to be fully assessed can have an initial effect of slowing down the pace of reforms but the possibilities these developments offer for diversification of power supply sources endow them with particular interest for the definition of new sectorial models

educational mismatch and promotions to managerial positions a test of the career mobility theory abstractcareer mobility theory suggests that given a certain occupation schooling improves upward mobility in terms of promotion and wage growth we are the first to test the implications of this theory for over and undereducation by means of direct information about promotions to managerial positions using german administrative data entailing an employer reported and hence objective measure of educational requirements we show that overeducated workers are indeed more likely to be promoted and that this career mobility advantage is more pronounced in the early stages of their working lives by contrast undereducated workers are less likely to be promoted to managerial positions moreover in terms of wage growth while overeducated workers benefit more undereducated workers benefit less from promotions than their well matched educational peers altogether these findings strongly support the career mobility theory furthermore by differentiating between internal and external promotions we prov

the impact of sustainable construction and knowledge management on sustainability goals a review of the venezuelan renewable energy sector the recognition of the relevance of energy especially of the renewable energies generated by the sun water wind tides modern biomass or thermal is growing significantly in the global society based on the possibility it has to improve societies quality of life to support poverty reduction and sustainable development renewable energy and mainly the energy generated by large hydropower generation projects that supply most of the renewable energy consumed by developing countries requires many technical legal financial and social complex processes sustained by innovations and valuable knowledge besides these efforts renewable energy requires a solid infrastructure to generate and distribute the energy resources needed to solve the basic needs of society this demands a proper construction performance to deliver the energy projects planned according to specifications and respecting environmental and social concerns which implies the observance of sustainable construction guidelines but construction projects are complex and demanding and frequently face time and cost overruns that may cause negative impacts on the initial planning and thus on society the renewable energy issue and the large renewable energy power generation and distribution projects are particularly significant for developing countries and for latin america in particular as this region concentrates an important hydropower potential and installed capacity using as references the performance of venezuelan large hydropower generation projects and the guri dam construction this research evaluates the tight relationship existing between sustainable construction and knowledge management and their impact to achieve sustainability goals the knowledge management processes are proposed as a basic strategy to allow learning from successes and failures obtained in previous projects and transform the enhancement opportunites into actions to improve the performance of the renewable energy power generation and distribution projects

simple solutions to the initial conditions problem in dynamic nonlinear panel data models with unobserved heterogeneity i study a simple widely applicable approach to handling the initial conditions problem in dynamic nonlinear unobserved effects models rather than attempting to obtain the joint distribution of all outcomes of the endogenous variables i propose finding the distribution conditional on the initial value and the observed history of strictly exogenous explanatory variables the approach is flexible and results in simple estimation strategies for at least three leading dynamic nonlinear models probit tobit and poisson regression i treat the general problem of estimating average partial effects and show that simple estimators exist for important special cases copyright 2005 john wiley sons ltd

renewable energy investment by the world bank world bank group lending for renewable energy accelerated in the 1990s and resulted in 17 approved projects with 700 million in bank loans and 230 million in grants by the global environment facility the bank s 1999 energy sector strategy fuel for thought charted new directions for renewable energy investment the present paper considers the implementation challenges of fuel for thought strategies and the opportunities for carrying them out the paper distinguishes between agendas in the energy and rural development sectors and reviews limitations to implementing these agendas lessons from projects are just emerging but suggest ve areas of support for renewable energy by the bank in the future renewable energy nancing electric power policy frameworks rural energy enterprises regulated rural energy concessions and domestic technology manufacturing interviews with the private sector suggest additional forms of support assist with business plans nance pre feasibility studies reduce commercial risks support joint ventures build market volume and stability and pilot and test innovative business models the e ectiveness of the bank in following through on its ambitious agenda fundamentally rests on the willingness and commitment of developing countries to pursue these strategies and the degree to which renewable energy applications are seen to serve countries development priorities 2001 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

renewable energy support mechanisms in the gulf cooperation council states analyzing the feasibility of feed in tariffs and auction mechanisms renewable energy will be a crucial ingredient in the transition to a more sustainable future the renewable energy sector requires a variety of financial support mechanisms in order to further consolidate and expand currently the most prominent renewable energy support mechanisms are feed in tariffs and renewable energy auctions although these mechanisms have been used and analyzed extensively in western countries and more recently economies in transition they have rarely been examined in the arab gulf region yet particularly the gulf cooperation council gcc states have undertaken important steps towards renewable energy adoption which could be greatly facilitated with the use of financial support mechanisms this paper analyzes the feasibility of feed in tariffs and renewable energy auctions adoption in gcc based on an extensive meta analysis of the literature on these two mechanisms in both developed and developing countries the paper identifies a set of conditions necessary for success and evaluates the presence of favorable these conditions in the gcc context our findings reveal that while conditions that would ensure political feasibility are largely absent for both types of mechanisms auctions could be a more successful strategy at the moment

renewable energy sector development in the caribbean current trends and lessons from history island regions and isolated communities represent an understudied area of not only clean energy development but also of innovation caribbean states have for some time shown interest in developing a regional sustainable energy policy and in implementing measures which could help to protect its member states from volatile oil markets while promoting reliance on local resources here we examine four case studies of renewable energy advancements being made by public utility companies and independent energy companies in the caribbean we attempt to locate renewable energy advances in a broader historical framework of energy sector development indicating a few policy lessons we find that different degrees of regulatory and legislative sophistication have evolved in different islands islands should have specialized policy focus contrasting the ad hoc nature of current regional energy policy discussion we also conduct a cost benefit analysis which shows that these early innovative alternative energy projects show themselves to be both profitable and significant sources of emissions reduction and job creation this lends support to the potential benefits of regional energy policy

overeducation undereducation and the theory of career mobility the theory of career mobility sicherman and galor journal of political economy 98 1 169 92 1990 claims that wage penalties for overeducated workers are compensated by better promotion prospects sicherman journal of labour economics 9 2 101 22 1991 was able to confirm this theory in an empirical study using panel data however the only retest using panel data so far robst eastern economic journal 21 539 50 1995 produced rather ambiguous results in the present paper random effects models to analyse relative wage growth are estimated using data from the german socio economic panel it is found that overeducated workers in germany have markedly lower relative wage growth rates than adequately educated workers the results cast serious doubt on whether the career mobility model is able to explain overeducation in germany the plausibility of the results is supported by the finding that overeducated workers have less access to formal and informal on the job training which is usually foun

paths of renewable energy development in small island developing states of the south pacific abstract pacific small island developing states psids are small and remote island economies highly reliant on fossil fuels although they are mainly self governing nations they are highly vulnerable to exogenous events such as global fuel price volatility and tropical cyclones the work presented here targets 12 psids located in the south pacific the analysis takes a functional approach to assess the state of the energy governance system and to determine its relationship to renewable energy re penetration using a suite of governance market and financial progress indicators a range of re preparedness levels was identified in psids analysis demonstrated that strengthening of re enabling indicators led to only a limited increase of re penetration consequently the region has fallen behind global rates of re uptake inward investment by development partners for re demonstration projects failed to be upscaled by government facilitated private sector the focus on mitigating global climate change has failed to put re into a local context this contrasts to the strong sense of place and spiritual nature of traditional pacific communities thus in energy terms psids are yet to attain a self defined energy identity

power sector reform in small island developing states what role for renewable energy technologies abstract due to various pressures and desires more and more developing countries embark on power sector reform programmes yet there are a wide range of reform options and at present insufficient evidence is available as to which path will deliver best the desired objectives presently most small island developing states sids are dependent on high cost fossil fuel imports for power generation in spite of evidence that harnessing abundant domestic renewable sources of energy can deliver environmental social and economic benefits however depending on the type of power sector reform the transition towards renewable energy technologies rets can be either undermined or facilitated the specific focus on sids is justified because they have inherent characteristics that limit the degree to which the power sector can be transformed in comparison to larger continental developing countries with specific reference to sids this manuscript reviews the drivers and desires for power sector reform as well as presenting the available reform options and their implications on the up take of rets in addition to elaborating aspects of market governance other barriers to the consideration of rets such as financial bias in investment human capacity and environmental policy are discussed in view of this discussion which is based on evidence from recent reform programmes and theoretical academic literature recommendations are formulated that discourage full privatisation of the power sector as well as proposing less dogmatic lending conditions by international assistance bodies

power sector reform in developing countries mismatched agendas power sector reform is rapidly spreading across all corners of the developing world at an alarmingly rapid pace while the rationales for reform seem to have gained acceptance among the stakeholders the reform model and process are contested this paper examines the impacts of reform using the promised outcomes as a basis for analysis the ability of reform to meet the developmental challenges facing the reformers is explored it concludes that reform has had some achievements if conventional performance indicators are used but also questions the validity of some of these indicators reform has however not fulfilled many of its goals and the prevailing recipes are likely to leave developing countries socially and economically worse off than in the pre reform period progressive government intervention is needed to shift reform process towards a more responsible development path

financing investments in renewable energy the impacts of policy design abstract the costs of electric power projects utilizing renewable energy technologies rets are highly sensitive to financing terms consequently as the electricity industry is restructured and new renewables policies are created it is important for policymakers to consider the impacts of renewables policy design on ret financing this paper reviews the power plant financing process for renewable energy projects estimates the impact of financing terms on levelized energy costs and provides insights to policymakers on the important nexus between renewables policy design and financing we review five case studies of renewable energy policies and find that one of the key reasons that ret policies are not more effective is that project development and financing processes are frequently ignored or misunderstood when designing and implementing renewable energy policies the case studies specifically show that policies that do not provide long term stability or that have negative secondary impacts on investment decisions will increase financing costs sometimes dramatically reducing the effectiveness of the program within u s electricity restructuring proceedings new renewable energy policies are being created and restructuring itself is changing the way rets are financed as these new policies are created and implemented it is essential that policymakers acknowledge the financing difficulties faced by renewables developers and pay special attention to the impacts of renewables policy design on financing as shown in this paper a renewables policy that is carefully designed can reduce renewable energy costs dramatically by providing revenue certainty that will in turn reduce financing risk premiums

a theory of career mobility this paper analyzes theoretically and empirically the role and significance of occupational mobility in the labor market focusing on individuals careers it provides additional dimensions to the analysis of investment in human capital wage differences across individuals and the relationships among promotions quits and interfirm occupational mobility it is shown that part of the returns to education is in the form of higher probabilities of occupational upgrading within or across firms given an origin occupation schooling increases the likelihood of occupational upgrading furthermore workers who are not promoted despite a high probability of promotion are more likely to quit

fuelling the pacific aid for renewable energy across pacific island countries abstract pacific island countries have strong economic political and environmental incentives to switch from imported fossil fuels to indigenous renewable energy technologies and are well positioned to achieve such a switch given their ample renewable energy potential as well as their ambitious renewable energy goals for the pacific island countries to reach these goals however they depend on donor funding this paper therefore analyses energy related aid to the south pacific from 1990 through 2012 and specifically evaluates its development in three areas energy technology grid vs off grid solutions and project components using data from the organisation of economic cooperation and development i find a recent shift in donor thinking donors have over the past years put greater emphasis on renewable energy especially hydro and increasingly solar power donors have also invested more in off grid solutions often solar powered finally donors have begun to focus more on software that is capacity building training and policy making if pacific island countries together with the donors continue on this path they are well positioned to reach their ambitious renewable energy goals and to serve as an example for other countries both developing and developed islands and non islands

consumer preferences and willingness to pay for compact fluorescent lighting policy implications for energy efficiency promotion in saint lucia this article examines consumer willingness to pay for energy saving compact fluorescent light bulbs using the results of a stated preferences study conducted in the caribbean island nation of saint lucia geographic location low income status and age are found to affect willingness to pay for compact fluorescent lighting while higher income status and other demographic variables appear to have minimal or no significant impacts energy efficiency knowledge is associated with increased willingness to pay for energy efficient bulbs and with increased use of compact fluorescent lighting contrary to theoretical expectations past purchase of compact fluorescent bulbs is found to have no impact on self reported willingness to pay we hypothesize that this null result is due to the recent emergence of low cost low quality compact fluorescent bulbs in the saint lucian lighting market which may be negatively influencing consumers preferences and expectations regarding energy efficient lighting findings support the argument that government sponsored education and subsidy programs will likely result in increased use of energy saving technologies in saint lucia but such behavioral changes may not be sustained in the long run unless low quality bulbs the lemons of the compact fluorescent lighting market can be clearly identified by consumers

the institutions and governance of economic development and reform why are the ambitions of economic development practitioners and reformers so often disappointed one answer is that development policymakers and reformers are congenital optimists another answer is that good plans are regularly defeated by those who occupy strategic positions an intermediate answer is that institutions are important yet are persistently neglected in the planning process the article takes a bottom up microanalytical approach to economic development and reform it examines the governance of contract investment and private ordering through the lens of transaction cost economizing and it assesses the efficacy of the de facto as against the de jure institutional environment with respect to credible commitments in effect institutional economists are cast in the role of archaeologists of economic reform and development with the task of unpacking the lessons of the past to inform choices and programs for the future

power sector renewable energy integration for expanding access to electricity in sub saharan africa abstract a looming energy supply crisis in sub saharan africa ssa raises concerns about a long lasting energy shortage this energy crisis is expected to persist for an indefinite period in the region unless immediate actions are taken to reverse the trend although global aspiration to reduce greenhouse gas ghg emissions into the atmosphere is high such desire is low in ssa regional stakeholders are more worried about increasing power generation capacity to enhance better access to different sorts of development to progress in line with advanced patterns of energy development globally to increase the availability of electrical energy and to sustain emissions reductions exploitation of local renewable energy re resources is inevitable consequently this paper presents a comprehensive review of re integration for expanding access to electricity in ssa the review covers the sustainability of re resources in ssa the regional status of re applications and the necessity of re power generation integration planning from a management aspect finally the benefits of re integration into the power sector of ssa and some conceptual challenges affecting its integration in the region are highlighted

a one line proof of the slutsky equation one focus of the usual classroom discussion of consumer theory is the demonstration that the individual consumer s reaction to a change in the market price of a commodity can be usefully broken down into vectors of substitution effects and income effects the slutskv equation relating the price effect to the substitution and income effects can be simply nmotivated by j r hicks graphical presentation p 31 but the usual proof see paul samuelson is very tedious and nonintuitive if the instructor includes a discussion of the expenditure function in his curriculum however he has available a concise intuitively appealing proof of the slutsky equation 1 suppose a consumer with income y faces a vector of commoditv prices p his marshallian demand curve for commodity j is given by xj dj y p the minimum expenditure necessary for the consumer to achieve any utility level u is given by his expenditure function y m u p here y is in units of the jth good his hicksian income compensated demand for commodity j is represented xj hi u p if m is differentiable we have the well known result that

nigeria s electric power sector reform what should form the key objectives nigeria s electric power sector requires substantial reform if the country s economic development and poverty alleviation program is to be realised this understanding is behind the reform programme recently initiated by the nigerian government with the goal of privatising the national electric power monopoly nepa currently the country faces serious energy crisis due to declining electricity generation from domestic power plants which are basically dilapidated obsolete unreliable and in an appalling state of disrepair reflecting the poor maintenance culture in the country and gross inefficiency of the public utility provider building on an analysis of the major shortcomings of the current electric power company this paper presents the central issues that should form the key objectives of the proposed reform this include corporatization of the electric power industry increasing access and power delivery capacity constraining the costs of the power industry and increasing efficiency and share of renewables in energy generation as well as minimising environmental damage we conclude with the observation that efforts at reform will not yield the desired result if the current end user inefficiency is not constrained as nigeria implements its national utility privatisation programme it is hoped that this review will benefit policy makers and emerging managers and providers of electricity service in the country

decompositions of corn price effects implications for feed grain demand and livestock supply this article examines how corn prices affect the demand for feed grains and the supply of livestock outputs the differential approach to the theory of the multiproduct firm is employed to examine ex ante decisions about feed grain demand and livestock supply the estimation results suggest that livestock producers have little flexibility in adjusting the demand for corn in response to an increase in corn prices the substitutable relationship between corn and distillers grains contributes to alleviating pressures on feed costs in response to high corn prices in addition the estimation results highlight that the composition of livestock supply can be altered by changes in livestock prices on the basis of the estimated elasticities the decompositions of profit maximizing input demand are conducted to examine the effects of changes in corn prices on feed grain demand and livestock supply the decomposition results reveal that an increase in corn prices reduces corn demand but raises the demand for distillers grains mainly due to the substitution effects of corn price changes the decomposition results also show that an increase in the price of corn reduces cattle supply but raises the supply of chicken and pork due to the output relationships in supply

measuring the energy input substitution and output effects of energy price changes and the implications for the environment abstract previous studies of decomposition of factor inputs have limited their analysis on the estimation of substitution and output effects however this paper develops a two step approach to estimate the substitution and output effects of changes in energy demand resulting from changes in prices and further examines the implications of these effects on co2 emissions using european industrial dataset over the period 1995 2007 in our empirical estimations instead of relying only on isur model like previous studies we introduced a multilevel model which is a more befitting model to our data our analysis covers industry as a whole and for different sector types the primary results emerged from our analysis suggest a strong evidence using the multilevel model generally our results show that production inputs are substitutable we find the substitution and output effects to be negatively related to co2 emissions however the substitution effects dominate from policy perspectives our results suggest that output adjustments may not play a significant role in reducing emissions we find the overall effects of changes in energy demand to be moderate then we argue that increment in energy taxes should be complemented by cleaner factor substitution and sustainable growth to achieve a desirable carbon reduction

decomposing energy demand across briic countries energy plays an important role within the production technology of fast emerging economies such that firms reaction to changes in energy prices provides useful information on factor productivity and factor intensity as well as the likely outcome of energy policy initiatives among other things drawing on duality theory this paper decomposes changes in energy demand into substitution and output effects using annual sector level production data for brazil russia india indonesia and china briic for the period 1995 2009 unlike previous studies this study analyzed the economic properties of the underlying production technology results indicate that changes in energy demand are strongly dominated by substitution effects more importantly an intriguing finding that emerges from our analysis is the role of economies of scale and factor accumulation as opposed to technical progress in giving rise to the growth performance of sampled economies

job mismatches and career mobility does over education assist or hinder occupational advancement career mobility theory hypothesizes that over education leads to a higher level of occupational advancement and wage growth over time

optimal mismatch and promotions i introduction a substantial proportion of workers are employed in jobs for which they appear to be either overqualified or underqualified for instance using data from the panel study of income dynamics sicherman 1991 finds that 40 percent of his sample are overeducated and another 16 percent are undereducated rumberger 1987 reports similar values using data from the quality of employment surveys other studies which find substantial education mismatch include duncan and hoffman 1981 verdugo and verdugo 1989 and hersch 1991 and evidence that a single firm hires both under and overqualified workers is presented here this paper provides an explanation for why firms hire both overqualified and underqualified workers firms hire overqualified workers because these workers require less training for their initial positions such workers also form a pool from which promotions are made which lowers hiring costs for higher level positions within the firm workers accept positions for which they are overqualified to enhance their probability of promotion and because of search and mobility costs but if they fail to be promoted to a position that better matches their qualifications they are more likely to quit firms hire underqualified workers despite their longer training requirement since such workers are less likely to quit and provide continuity of the labor force over time thus contrary to job matching arguments that would explain these hires as a result of imperfect information hiring of seemingly mismatched workers is optimal and these matches are made with perfect information the model developed in this paper yields three testable hypotheses 1 training time for entry level jobs is inversely related to overqualification at the time of hire 2 workers who are overqualified on their current job are those who have failed to be promoted to a job which better matches their qualifications and such workers are more likely to quit and 3 workers overqualified at time of hire are more likely to be promoted to test these hypotheses i use new data collected for this purpose previous empirical research such as that cited above was restricted by data availability to examining only the match between education and the worker s current job thus the quality of the match with the worker s initial job and the match between worker qualifications other than education has gone unexplored however various worker characteristics in addition to education are often substituted for each other in determining a worker s qualification for a job thus i examine additional qualifications including the match between the worker s experience level of previous job and use of skills information on the match between the worker s qualifications and those required for the initial job with the employer is particularly important since entry level qualifications determine training time for the initial job as well as the likelihood of promotion further individual specific training time for the initial job is necessary but typically not available since data sets providing information on training such as the panel study of income dynamics and quality of employment surveys request information on training time for the average worker and not for the individual worker the data set reveals several interesting statistics qualification mismatch at hire is fairly common for this firm 29 percent of the sample report themselves overqualified for their first job with the firm while 13 percent report themselves as underqualified lateral intra firm mobility is common and occurs far more frequently than promotions workers in the sample average 1 3 promotions but four different jobs with the employer this suggests that the job matching process occurs not only by turnover but through intrafirm mobility consistent with the assumptions and implications of the model the empirical results indicate that workers who are overqualified at hire receive less training and more promotions and that workers overqualified for their current job are more likely to quit

green electricity in the market place the policy challenge the paper explores the implications of the liberalization of electricity markets in europe and north america for policy means and mechanisms to enhance the market penetration of renewables applying a co evolutionary approach the argument highlights the need for policy intervention to help producers and consumers move out of technological trajectories favoring non renewable electricity on the production side energy generation is locked into the central power station system deriving from more than a hundred years of technological development along a specific system trajectory on the consumption side the locked in effect results from a similarly long experience with electricity provision by monopoly suppliers and the associated lack of consumer choice and responsibility for product differentiation as the analysis shows policy strategies targeting both the production and consumption sides of the electricity market are needed for effective intervention furthermore policy strategies should draw on a clear analysis of the inertia and dynamism underlying the production and consumption of electricity in the light of such evolutionary dynamics the analysis demonstrates the insufficiency of the policy approaches currently employed to foster the market share of renewables based electricity instead the authors suggest a reflexive policy approach to initiate and support a reorientation towards green electricity emphasizing the need for learning and communication between and among societal actors

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

overeducation undereducation and asymmetric information in occupational mobility due to short term asymmetric information overeducated and undereducated workers are shown to have different optimal strategies in seeking upward occupational mobility into their next positions undereducated workers typically have other human capital strengths but these strengths are not marketable to outsiders overeducated workers typically have other human capital weaknesses that are not apparent to outsiders while their excess schooling is marketable in labour markets with dynamic asymmetric information this article presents empirical evidence showing that job tenure increases the probability of upward occupational mobility more if individuals are undereducated moreover the probability of finding upward occupational mobility is increased by overeducated workers engaging in firm switching this article also validates prior empirical studies finding overeducated workers more likely to self report engaging in firm switching activities and more likely to experience upward occupational mobility than o

rural electrification policy and institutional linkages some of the problems that have besieged rural electrification in most developing countries include inadequate policies weak institutional frameworks and limited financing in the last two decades governments in developing countries have been making various efforts both at the policy level and in financing to facilitate increased levels of rural electrification however the introduction of market based reforms in the power sector in the last decade has affected the institutional and financing arrangements for rural electrification the reforms have also affected the rate of electrification and affordability of electricity there is need therefore to establish the extent to which the reforms have affected access and affordability of electricity in rural areas and to develop appropriate policy and the supporting institutional structures to align rural electrification with reformed power sectors it is cardinal to establish how privatised and commercialised power companies in a reformed power sector could contribute to rural electrification and the role of governments and government agents in facilitating expanded access to electricity in rural areas

gdp and environment pressure the role of energy in latin america and the caribbean abstract this paper analyzes the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption for a sample of 21 latin american and caribbean countries during the 1970 2007 period the investigation is made on the bases of the energy environmental kuznets curve eekc hypothesis using a panel data analysis energy consumption at aggregate level is used as an indicator of human environmental pressure and gdp per capita as an indicator of economic activity based in a cointegration approach our results does not support the existence of a stable long run relationship between the series rejecting the validity of such hypothesis for the selected sample over the 1970 2007 period

policy measures to promote the widespread utilization of renewable energy technologies for electricity generation in the maldives abstract this study adopts a stakeholder based approach to understand the size and nature of the market and financial barriers to the widespread utilization of renewable energy technologies rets in the maldives in light of these barriers and the interests of relevant stakeholders this study evaluates different policy options in terms of their suitability to develop a domestic market for rets in the maldives evaluating the different policy instruments it was found that pricing laws that regulate market access are more suitable than quota systems provided that the current subsidies for conventional energy are removed or shifted towards rets as for the other financial incentives rebates on investments and low interest loans should be provided to ret project developers to overcome the high initial project costs in addition to these measures the limited institutional capacity suggests that policy support should also focus on enabling the steady development of regional institutions rather than on supporting individual ret projects these institutions should enable islands in each atoll to take advantage of efficient management and access to financial capital this will allow the development of sustained renewable energy projects that in turn will result in increased renewable capacity and decreased costs

importance of islands in renewable energy production and storage the situation of the french islands abstract the islands are often not or only partially connected to continental electrical networks and have to manage their energy supplies in reaching themselves the production demand balance while ensuring the quality of the delivered electricity the low consumption and the lack of interconnections induce higher energy costs than in other regions for increasing their security the islands prefer to use indigenous sources as renewable ones unfortunately the intermittence and stochastic character of these fatal energy sources make them more difficult to manage and it is aggravated in the case of small island networks the islands are good locations for using and testing new technologies of energy production and storage most islands have a good renewable energy re potential often underused the difficulties of electricity management in island grids are first shown particularly with the impact on the energy production cost then the problem of the integration of renewable energy sources res in island electrical grids is highlighted the energy situation of french islands is presented with a particular focus on the part of renewable sources a higher share of renewable energy in the energy mix can be reached only with the development of the energy production efficient prediction with the development of energy storage means and with an optimal management of the energy flux via the utilization of smart grids

overeducation in the labor market this article examines the reasons for the observed discrepancy between workers actual and required levels of schooling and the resulting differences in returns to schooling overeducated workers are found to be younger and to have lower amounts of on the job training than workers with the required level of schooling they also have higher rates of firm and occupational mobility characterized by movement of higher level occupations the findings suggest that overeducation can be explained by the trade off between schooling and other components of human capital and by the mobility patterns of overeducated workers

the impact of surplus schooling on earnings some additional findings this paper examines the impact of overeducation or surplus schooling on earnings overeducated workers are defined as those with educational attainments substantially above the mean for their specific occupations two models are estimated using data from the 1980 census though our models data and measure of overeducation are different from those used by rumberger 1987 our results are similar our results show that overeducated workers often earn less than their adequately educated and undereducated counterparts

input demands and inefficiency in u s agriculture markov chain monte carlo mcmc methods are used to estimate a seemingly unrelated regression sur system of input demand functions for u s agriculture our demand functions have flexible forms and allow for nonrandom technical inefficiency concavity constraints are imposed at individual data points and the distributions of measures of relative technical efficiency are constrained to the unit interval results are evaluated in terms of characteristics of the posterior distributions of parameters measures of relative technical efficiency and other nonlinear functions of the parameters

duality the output effect and applied comparative statics except for kako agricultural production studies using cost functions have analyzed technology via allen elasticities technological change parameters and homotheticity tests kako used a transcendental logarithmic translog cost function to decompose empirically changes in derived factor demand into three separate components output level factor substitution effects and technical change kako s work allows further investigation of technical change on derived factor demands however kako s output effect is different from the traditional concept the production analog of the income effect in consumer theory this note outlines a theoretical and econometric approach for measuring the output effect the output effect is important because it presents a more complete picture of factor employment adjustments than do demand elasticities generated from cost functions elasticities generated from cost functions restrict the producer to a given level of output producers however may also adjust output as factor prices change the output effect captures this adjustment this paper demonstrates a method for deriving the output effect from the cost function first the general assumptions and the model are outlined then the cost function is related to the indirect production function and the output effect obtained results are presented for the special case of a homothetic production function the paper concludes with an empirical application to the u s meat products industry

reform despite politics the political economy of power sector reform in fiji 1996 2013 abstract attempts to reform the electricity sector in developing countries have achieved mixed results despite the implementation of similar reforms in many developed countries and concerted effort by donors to transfer reform models in many cases political obstacles have prevented full and effective implementation of donor promoted reforms this paper examines the political economy of power sector reform in fiji from 1996 to 2013 reform has been pursued with political motives in a context of clientelism policy inconsistency and reversal is explained by the political instability of ethnic based politics in fiji modest success has been achieved in recent years despite these challenges with fiji now considered a model of power sector reform for other small islands developing states sids in the pacific the experience demonstrates that reform is possible within difficult political environments but it is challenging takes time and is not guaranteed the way in which political motives have driven and shaped reform efforts also highlights the need for studies of power sector reform to direct greater attention toward political drivers behind reform

electricity generation cost in isolated system the complementarities of natural gas and renewables in the canary islands abstract the canary islands offer an example of an isolated electric grid of relative important size within the eu due to its peculiarities the role of renewable energies and their complementarity with fossil fuels offers a solid path to achieving the main energy policy goals of the islands the purpose of this paper is to assess the current situation and the energy objectives proposed in the energy plan of the canaries pecan 2006 for the electricity industry taking into account the average cost and the risk associated with the different alternatives for generating electricity by means of the mean variance portfolio theory our analysis highlights the inefficiency of the current electricity generating mix in terms of cost risk and lack of diversification shifting toward an efficient system would involve optimizing the use of endogenous energy sources and introducing natural gas to generate electricity this scenario would mean reducing both cost and risk by almost 30 each as well as atmospheric co 2 emissions our results agree with the pecan philosophy

assessing the determinants of sids pattern toward sustainability a statistical analysis abstract the aim of this paper is twofold first we assess the sids pattern towards energy sustainability second we try to understand the macro factors that drive policy makers in setting the optimal framework for investments in renewable energy sources the empirical analysis is performed on a large dataset of 136 countries and 41 variables observed in the time span 2000 2011 countries analyzed include a sample of 12 sids bahrain cuba dominican republic fiji islands guyana haiti jamaica maldives mauritius papua new guinea singapore trinidad and tobago distributed worldwide due to the large number of variables collected and their high degree of collinearity the first step of the analysis concerns the implementation of a principal component analysis in order to extract factors explaining the majority of variation of the original variables in the second step three different scenarios of modeling are designed to examine the key factors promoting res investments in a first scenario we employ a pooled regression model in the second a fixed effect model and in the third a random effect model is estimated the main results of empirical analysis could be unexpected at first sight they show in fact that sids are not on a energy sustainability path as in the case of other developing countries policy makers prefer to use resources to improve economic aspects of development leaving behind issues related to the environmental protection the use of res and sustainability in order to improve economic and environmental resilience of sids a synergy between local governments and international organizations to promote the investments in res is needed moreover an energy plan that clearly supports the generation of energy from res is recommended finally policy makers should strength their commitment in raising population s awareness toward a green energy generation such synergic interventions will allow sids to achieve a more sustainable development