cost efficiency and electricity market structure a case study of oecd countries the oecd electricity sector has witnessed significant institutional restructuring over the past three decades as a consequence many power generation utilities now act as unregulated companies that technically compete to sell power on an open market this paper analyses the performance in term of cost efficiency for electricity generation in oecd power sector while accounting for the impact of electricity market structures we employ the short run cost function in which capital stock is treated as a quasi fixed factor input empirical models are developed for the cost function as a translog form and analysed using panel data of 25 countries during the period 1980 to 2009 we show that it is necessary to model latent country specific heterogeneity in addition to time varying inefficiency the estimated economies of scale are adjusted to take account of the importance of the quasi fixed capital input in determining cost behaviour and long run constant returns to scale are verified for the oecd generation sector the research findings suggest there is a significant impact of electricity market regulatory indicators on cost in particular public ownership and vertical integration are found to have significant and sizable increasing impacts on cost thereby indicating policy lessons on the desirable ways to implement structural electricity generation reforms

common agency and coordination general theory and application to government policy making we develop a model of common agency with complete information and general preferences with nontransferable utility and we prove that the principals nash equilibrium in truthful strategies implements an efficient action we apply this theory to the construction of a positive model of public finance where organized special interests can lobby the government for consumer and producer taxes or subsidies and targeted lump sum taxes or transfers the lobbies use only the nondistorting transfers in their noncooperative equilibrium but their intergroup competition for transfers turns into a prisoners dilemma in which the government captures all the gain that is potentially available to the parties

the effects of environmental regulation on technology diffusion the case of chlorine manufacturing we use a hazard model to estimate the effect of environmental regulation on the diffusion of membrane cell production technology in the chlorine manufacturing industry we estimate the effect of regulation on both the adoption of the membrane technology at existing plants and on the exit of existing plants using older technologies we find that environmental regulation did affect the diffusion of the cleaner technology in the chlorine industry however it did so not by encouraging the adoption of membrane cells by existing facilities but by reducing the demand for chlorine and hence encouraging the shutdown of facilities using the environmentally inferior options this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

scale economies and over capitalization in japanese electric utilities this paper presents empirical evidence on scale economies and overcapitalization in japanese electric utilities we employ the short run equilibrium model in which the variable cost function treats capital stock as a quasi fixed factor we specify the variable cost function as a translog form and estimate it using panel data of nine japanese electric utility firms during the period 1981 to 1985 our results show that eight of the nine firms experience scale economies in the short run but diseconomies in the long run and that seven firms significantly over capitalize as expected by the averch johnson effect

patent quality and research productivity measuring innovation with multiple indicators we analyse the determinants of the decline in research productivity using panel data on manufacturing firms in the us for the period 1980 93 we focus on three factors the level of demand the quality of patents and technological exhaustion we develop an index of patent quality using detailed patent information and show that using multiple indicators substantially reduces the measured variance in quality research productivity at the firm level is inversely related to patent quality and the level of demand as predicted by theory and patent quality is positively associated with the stock market value of firms

costs of nuclear power plant construction theory and new evidence studies of the cost of construction of nuclear power plants rely upon a measure of cost called overnight cost that contradicts accepted capital theory the studies report evidence that construction cost per megawatt of capacity decreases as plant scale increases we employ a more correct measure of cost and compare the results of this measure versus overnight cost for japanese nuclear power plants using overnight cost the results give evidence of economies of scale in japanese power plants but when the correct measure of cost is substituted the scale variable is not statistically significant

does fdi have energy saving spillover effect in china a perspective of energy biased technical change abstract existing studies pay little attention to when or under which conditions foreign direct investment fdi can spill energy saving technologies from a perspective of energy biased technical change and using a two layer nested constant elasticity of substitution ces production function this paper investigates the energy saving spillover effect of fdi on technical change i e energy saving spillovers in china between 2002 and 2015 in particular we consider the conditions of marketization industry technology and labor mobility to examine whether and when fdi has energy saving spillovers the results indicate no income inequality effect i e there is no evidence supporting that fdi flowing into low and middle income regions increases energy consumption while fdi flowing into high income regions conserves energy however there is a condition effect fdi can improve support the halo effect or deteriorate contradict the halo effect the environmental performance under different conditions moreover there is a threshold effect the direction of fdi spillovers varies with the different levels of the threshold variables an increasing marketization motivates enterprises to select energy biased technologies it is more likely to generate energy saving spillovers in the regions with a lower specialized agglomeration level fdi will have energy biased spillovers when domestic technological level is relatively high with an evident energy biased technology in addition a moderate labor mobility is beneficial to the energy saving spillovers of fdi

innovation policy for directing technical change in the power sector this paper discusses policy instruments for redirecting technical change within the electricity sector to mitigate climate change first we unravel the mechanism behind directed technical change explaining why markets may underprovide innovations in expensive renewable technologies in comparison to innovations in energy efficient fossil fuel generators subsequently we characterize technical change in electricity generation technologies stressing the heterogeneity of knowledge spillovers both within and between clean electricity generation technologies we argue that there exists a rationale for a portfolio approach to innovation in the electricity sector i e optimal innovation policies are neither fully generic nor fully specific and they need to be adapted in response to new information learned by the government the existing innovation literature does not however provide a clear cut answer for designing such a policy we compare policy instruments and argue that public r d support to clean technologies either in the form of subsidies or prizes seems to be the prime candidate for implementing non generic innovation policy

the determinants of technology adoption the case of the banking firm using data on the adoption of automatic teller machines by firms in the banking industry this study examines the relationship between the decision to adopt new technology and its determinants since banking firms differ considerably in terms of the competitive environments in which they operate focusing on this one innovation in this industry allows a stronger test of the relationship between market structure and the adoption of new technology than has been previously conducted using a failure time estimation procedure we find that larger banks and banks operating in more concentrated local banking markets register a higher conditional probability of adopting this new technology all else equal we also find that other results are consistent with the underlying model and that the bank s regulatory environment shapes its adoption decision in plausible ways

on the estimation of returns to scale using variable cost functions abstract this paper compares two methods of estimating returns to scale based on variable cost functions it shows specifically how the methods differ and indicates why it is important to select an appropriate method when drawing inferences about policy

historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors the existing literature on the construction costs of nuclear power reactors has focused almost exclusively on trends in construction costs in only two countries the united states and france and during two decades the 1970s and 1980s these analyses koomey and hultman 2007 grubler 2010 and escobar rangel and leveque 2015 study only 26 of reactors built globally between 1960 and 2010 providing an incomplete picture of the economic evolution of nuclear power construction this study curates historical reactor specific overnight construction cost occ data that broaden the scope of study substantially covering the full cost history for 349 reactors in the us france canada west germany japan india and south korea encompassing 58 of all reactors built globally we find that trends in costs have varied significantly in magnitude and in structure by era country and experience in contrast to the rapid cost escalation that characterized nuclear construction in the united states we find evidence of much milder cost escalation in many countries including absolute cost declines in some countries and specific eras our new findings suggest that there is no inherent cost escalation trend associated with nuclear technology

regional differences in nuclear and fossil fuel generation of electricity previous research on electric gen eration costs has mainly relied on economy wide data this study disaggregates a broad sample into regions known to have marked differences in fossil fuel availability climate regulatory ef fects and other variables we find differences exist in generation costs among the studied re gions and nuclear power using estimates of scale economies and other measures we also find smaller minimum efficient size fossil fuel firms than previous studies based on recent cost information this study provides insights into several industry structure issues such as capac ity expansion competition input costs environ mental policy and transmission access jel q42

exploring links between innovation and diffusion adoption of nox control technologies at us coal fired power plants while many studies have looked at innovation and adoption of technologies separately the two processes are linked advances and expected advances in a single technology should affect both its adoption rate and the adoption of alternative technologies this paper combines plant level data on us coal fired electric power plants with patent data pertaining to nox pollution control techniques to study this link as in other studies of environmental technologies the effect of other explanatory variables is dominated by the effect of environmental regulations demonstrating that the mere presence of environmental technologies is not enough to encourage its usage nonetheless i do find that technological advances are important for the adoption of existing combustion modification technologies however these advances are less important for the adoption of newer post combustion control techniques which are adopted only when needed to comply with the strictest emission limits

trade in environmental goods evidences from an analysis using elasticities of trade costs negotiations on the liberalization of environmental goods egs and services within the wto doha round mandated in november 2001 are facing specific challenges conflicting interests and differing perceptions of the benefits of increased trade in egs were reflected in different approaches proposed for determining egs using import data of 34 organisation for economic co operation and development oecd member countries and from a sample of 167 countries from 1995 to 2012 we discuss the trade effect of reducing barriers on egs we analyze the lists of egs proposed by the asia pacific economic cooperation and oecd using a translog gravity model we found that removing tariff barriers for egs will have a modest impact because for the biggest importers and exporters elasticities of trade costs are very low while for most trading relationships they are very high making it difficult for exporters to maintain their markets overall our results suggest that because of their substantial effect on international trade future negotiations on egs should also address the issues of standards and nontariff barriers

guyana gold a unique resource curse this article offers explanations for the underwhelming economic performance of guyana a country heavily dependent on the revenue generated from gold mining here government intervention has spawned a gold mining sector which today is comprised exclusively of local small and medium scale operators but whilst this rather unique model appears to be the ideal blueprint for facilitating local development the country seems to be experiencing many of the same setbacks that have beset scores of other resource rich developing world economies unless these problems are anticipated properly diagnosed and appropriately tackled a resource curse type outcome is inevitable irrespective of the context

rank stock order and epidemic effects in the diffusion of new process technologies an empirical model in this article we construct a general duration model of technology adoption that incorporates the main factors discussed in different theories of diffusion of new process technologies the model is applied to data on diffusion of cnc in the uk engineering industry although we find strong evidence in support of rank and endogenous learning effects there seems to be little evidence in support of the stock and order effects the main factors affecting the diffusion of cnc are found to be endogenous learning firm size industry growth rates the cost of the technology and expected changes in the cost of the technology

economies of scale in nuclear power generation current prospects for the expansion of nuclear electric generating capacity appear dim there has not been a domestic order placed for a nuclear power plant since 1978 and over 80 plants have been cancelled since the early 1970s while a host of economic political and environmental factors are responsible for the current state of the nuclear power industry concern has increasingly focused on the cost effectiveness of nuclear power with critics arguing that nuclear power is not an economically feasible alternative economies of scale are a crucial consideration in addressing nuclear power costs at the plant level scale economies could be associated with the size of generating units or with multiunit siting if the former is important the strong trend toward larger reactors would imply that all else equal electricity produced by new plants should cost less than previous experience would indicate siting several reactors at a plant which is common practice in france for example would lead to lower costs if the latter factor is important despite the importance of these issues virtually no empirical evidence on economies of scale in nuclear power operations is available 2 existing studies of nuclear power production costs 20 7 26 23 22 typically specify some plant size and type often the proverbial 1 000 mwe plant and sum up the costs of the inputs required to run it including a capital cost by contrast cost analyses for fossil fueled electricity generation are more sophisticated 3 perhaps the first application of econometric modeling in this area was by nerlove 19 however a more up to date example is the study of christensen and greene 4 who estimated a translog cost function using cross sections of privately owned utilities in 1955 and 1970 straightforward application of christensen and greene s techniques to nuclear power is prob

cost effective advantages due to clean technologies water compliance scenarios for a mexican paper mill abstract the limited water supply of the metropolitan area of mexico city has become a challenge for local companies the region s aquifer is listed as closed due to pressure on the water supply as a result of growth in manufacturing as well as increased domestic water use the environmental economic and legal benefits of a cleaner production scenario studied were highly encouraging implementation of cleaner technologies reduces water extraction by up to 16 times while initial investment is high the internal rate of return rate is approximately 35 per year implying a three year return on initial investment under this scenario the business complies with environmental regulations avoiding great amounts of water extraction and future wastewater discharge thus conserving this vital resource this study proves what silvo et al 2009 states that in the longer run the combination of the integrated pollution and prevention control permit approach with other regulatory and voluntary policy instruments taking into account the results of system assessments such as life cycle assessment could potentially produce eco efficient solutions thus for this industry cleaner production pays off in the long run

on the sources of technological change assessing the evidence this paper uses a selective review of the economic literature on technological change to support four points that are important for interpreting and incorporating technological change into formal models of energy and the environment the review 1 supports the notion that no single source dominates the process of technological change it supports roles for rd 3 indicates that these spillovers are often indirect requiring own industry activities to utilize and 4 indicates that simple experience curve calibrations often used in formal models likely include a range of sources of technological change in addition to learning by doing some of which might not be induced by the sorts of policies typically considered in the climate context

governance institutions resource rights regimes and the informal mining sector regulatory complexities in indonesia summary this study examines how shifting resource governance regimes affect labor inequities in the small scale mining sector in indonesia it focuses on the implications of governance decentralization processes and mining regulation reforms for indigenous and migrant populations who rely on informal unlicensed mining for income in central kalimantan while the findings illustrate the territorially uneven impacts of recent reforms they highlight how dominant paradigms that prioritize the enforcement of property rights schemes have contributed to problems of livelihood insecurity and poor environmental governance the article urges for more nuanced attention to contested articulations of power as well as local resource rights and institutional arrangements to assist rural communities in reversing marginalization

international patent protection 1960 2005 abstract this note provides an update to the index of patent protection published in this journal in 1997 the original paper presented the index for 1960 1990 for 110 countries the index has now been updated to 2005 and extended to 122 countries the adoption of stronger patent laws and the composition of patent rights vary across countries by level of economic development

cost overruns and financial risk in the construction of nuclear power reactors a critical appraisal lovering and colleagues attempt to advance understanding of construction cost escalation risks inherent in building nuclear reactors and power plants a laudable goal although we appreciate their focus on capital cost increases and overruns we maintain in this critical appraisal that their study conceptualizes cost issues in a limiting way methodological choices in treating different cost categories by the authors mean that their conclusions are more narrowly applicable than they describe we also argue that their study is factually incorrect in its criticism of the previous peer reviewed literature earlier work for instance has compared historical construction costs for nuclear reactors with other energy sources in many countries and extending over several decades lastly in failing to be transparent about the limitations of their own work lovering et al have recourse to a selective choice of data unbalanced analysis and biased interpretation

gold exploitation and socioeconomic outcomes the case of burkina faso abstract in the early 2000s burkina faso launched several legal reforms aimed at increasing gold production this resulted in a gold mining boom making gold the main export product and the main source of economic growth of the country we hypothesize that gold extraction improved population living standards this paper investigates how the gold boom in burkina faso which began in 2007 has affected socioeconomic outcomes we use a simple theoretical model to motivate the testing of several hypotheses regarding these impacts employing a difference in differences strategy as well as panel data models we estimate the impacts using data from household surveys undertaken in 2003 and 2009 and administrative data consistent with our model the results suggest that areas hosting gold extraction have better average living standards in terms of headcount ratios poverty gaps and household expenditures than do areas without gold however the gold boom is also shown to have potentially increased local inequality and child labor in areas with these income gains these results demonstrate the importance of proactive government policy in mitigating negative welfare impacts

firing the furnace an econometric analysis of utilities fuel choice abstract this paper attempts to estimate how the fuel mix of german electricity producers does react to fuel price changes the empirical analysis is based on panel data 1968 1998 of major utilities two different aspects of fuel choice are distinguished at the one hand the construction of usually fuel specific capacities for electric power generation i e investment decisions that determine the fuel mix in the long run at the other fuel use conditional on existing generation capacities i e short run inter fuel substitution according to the results from panel unit root tests both the econometric models which describe these two aspects are specified in changes rather than levels the partly discrete nature of investment decisions is taken into account by constructing a discrete model of capacity adjustment our estimation results suggest that the fuel mix of electric utilities is price inelastic either if long term investment or short term inter fuel substitution is considered finally the empirical results are used to predict the potential impacts of co 2 emissions trading on fuel choice in the german electric power industry

making concessions extractive enclaves entangled capitalism and regulative pluralism at the gold mining frontier in burkina faso summary this paper studies the regulation of concessions in the global gold mining rush the liberalization of the gold mining sector has given way to complex forms of regulation where non state and illegal mining entrepreneurs compete in governing mining extraction taking the case of gold mining in burkina faso this paper analyses the conditions and dynamics under which such complex regulation takes place we draw on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in northern burkina faso in particular the burkinabe mining sector we argue that enclave economies in the gold mining sector are co produced by state and market regulation through a plurification of regulatory authority this plurification is the effect of competition among different frontier entrepreneurs who seek to broker regulatory authority in mining concession sites we show that concession sites are not discrete extractive enclaves but are better understood as indiscrete sites that are entangled in local politics and social relations rather than thinning social relations as is often claimed we observe that enclave economies thicken politics around concessionary regimes where governmental bodies re emerge as an arbitrating regulatory force these findings problematize policy prescriptions to formalize the gold mining sector and draw attention to the role of the state in re producing frontier entrepreneurs with unequal political rights to claiming concessions

bridging the trade environment divide protection for free traders this word represents the consummate evil for environmentalists it is the ultimate good of course for the trade community protection conjures up dark images of smoot and hawley while the environmental camp sees clear mountain streams lush green forests and piercing blue skies one cannot blame all of the tensions at the trade environment interface on linguistic differences but these competing perspectives are emblematic of a deep clash of cultures theories and assumptions trade officials often seek to limit efforts to link trade and environmental policy making and sometimes to prohibit such efforts altogether in this regard the narrow focus and modest efforts of the world trade organization s committee on trade and environment are illustrative 1 the launch of negotiations for a free trade area of the americas with an express decision to exclude environmental issues from the agenda provides an even starker example of the trade community s hostility toward serious environmental engagement economists have been prominent among those arguing that pollution control and natural resource management issues are best kept out of the trade policy making process cooper 1994 bhagwati 1999 other economists however have tried to set trade policy making in a broader context and to build environmental sensitivity into the international trading system runge 1994 rodrik 1997 summers 2000

vertical and horizontal scope economies in the regulated us electricity power industry this paper investigates vertical economies between generation and distribution of electric power and horizontal economies between different types of power generation in the u s electric utility industry our quadratic cost function model includes three generation output measures hydro nuclear and fossil fuels which allows us to analyze the effect that generation mix has on vertical economies our results provide sample mean estimates of vertical economies of 8 1 and horizontal economies of 5 4 an extensive sensitivity analysis is used to show how the scope measures vary across alternative model specifications and firm types

trade and environment an empirical analysis of the technology effect in the steel industry abstract the objective of this paper is to study the impact of free trade on global environmental quality by focusing on the technology effect that is the relationship between trade openness and the adoption diffusion of clean technologies the paper attempts to empirically verify the existence of the technology effect by looking at the relationship between trade policy regime or openness and the speed of clean technology diffusion in the steel industry focusing on a cleaner steel technology the electric arc furnace eaf in 30 steel producing countries over 25 years the results show that eaf technology is diffused faster in countries that have more open trade policy regimes thereby supporting the existence of the technology effect for the industry considered

trade in environmental goods and air pollution a mediation analysis to estimate total direct and indirect effects based on panel data covering 114 countries between 1996 and 2011 this study investigates the impact on pollution of trade in environmental goods egs we check the validity of the implicit consequences assumed by the win win scenario in the current trade climate negotiations arguing that market dynamics should guarantee that egs liberalization is automatically in the interest of all countries regardless their market and institutional capacities we show that trade in egs alone fail to address environmental problems effectively in particular although we found efficiency gains from trade in egs in terms of co2 and so2 emissions per 1 us of gdp and more recurrently for net exporters than for net importers our results often failed to highlight environmental effectiveness in terms of total co2 and so2 emissions a general conclusion that emerges from our empirical results is that trade in egs cannot effectively replace non market based solutions when it comes to non trade objectives however it seems to complement them efficiently our multiple equation gmm estimations reveal specific direct indirect and total effects on pollution depending on the countries net trade status leading to several policy recommendations for an increased environmental effectiveness of trade in egs

trade technology and the environment does access to technology promote environmental regulation abstract focusing specifically on regulation of coal fired power plants we examine how technological innovation by early adopters influences the timing of new environmental regulation in non innovating countries we build a general equilibrium model of an open economy to identify the political economy determinants of regulation with a newly created dataset of so 2 and no x regulations for coal fired power plants and a patent based measure of the technology frontier we estimate the determinants of environmental regulation diffusion our findings support the hypothesis that international economic integration eases access to environmentally friendly technologies and leads to earlier adoption ceteris paribus of regulation in non innovating countries however we also find evidence that domestic trade protection promotes earlier adoption allowing shifts of regulatory costs to domestic consumers furthermore international market power permits large countries to shift costs to foreign consumers other political economy factors such as the quality of domestic coal are also important determinants

the resource curse what have we learned from two decades of intensive research introduction to the special issue there has been increasing interest in the so called resource curse that is the tendency of resource rich countries to underperform in several development outcomes this has generated a mountain of often contradictory evidence leaving many floundering in the flood of information this special issue compiles eight papers from some of the most prominent contributors to this literature combining original research with critical reflection on the current stock of knowledge the studies collectively emphasise the complexities and conditionalities of the curse its presence intensity is largely context specific depending on the type of resources socio political institutions and linkages with the rest of the economy

stochastic production and cost most production processes are stochastic in nature many firms function by setting production goals and developing output control procedures to help the firm come close to their goals in general while entrepreneurs may plan to produce some specified level of output they often do not exactly fulfill their plans shortfalls or overages occur in many firms output control is an everpresent part of the firm s activity automotive manufacturers food processors and transportation companies are obvious examples randomness in the production process is not a new topic zellner kmenta and dreze 24 resurrected the direct estimation of the cobb douglas model by considering a multiplicative term and firms that maximize expected profit feldstein 9 considers a more general cobb douglas case and derives results for the estimation procedure and implications for factor shares of returns from production while there have been a number of papers concerned with stochastic input prices rothenberg and smith 16 appear to be the first to trace out some of the general equilibrium resource allocation effects of assuming the noise to be in input variables rather than the prices more recently a number of papers 14 17 have been concerned with estimating stochastic production functions to provide insight about issues of efficiency in production mak 13 has extended shephard s deterministic analysis 18 to the case of stochastic production correspondences his paper is purely concerned with the technology and does not consider the stochastic production problem in the context of an expected profit maximizing firm what is new in this paper is the direction of the inquiry while for the most part the literature has been concerned with the econometrics of analyzing cost and production our interest will concern the models of cost and production themselves specifically we study some of the implications of using standard models for analysis of technology when there is noise i e random disturbances in the production process it is shown that ignoring noise

heterogeneous policies heterogeneous technologies the case of renewable energy this paper investigates empirically the effect of market regulation and renewable energy policies on innovation activity in different renewable energy technologies for the eu countries and the years 1980 to 2007 we built a unique dataset containing information on patent production in eight different technologies proxies of market regulation and technology specific renewable energy policies our main finding is that compared to privatisation and unbundling reducing entry barriers is a more significant driver of renewable energy innovation but that its effect varies across technologies and is stronger in technologies characterised by potential entry of small independent power producers in addition the inducement effect of renewable energy policies is heterogeneous and more pronounced for wind which is the only technology that is mature and has high technological potential finally ratification of the kyoto protocol which determined a more stable and less uncertain policy framework amplifies the inducement effect of both energy policy and market liberalisation

substitution possibilities for unpriced natural resources restricted cost functions for the canadian metal mining industry a bstract the effects of resource depletion on economic growth depend critically on the elasticities of substitution between non renewable natural resources and reproducible inputs estimation of the elasticities of substitution for natural resources has been hindered by the absence of data on their prices which results from the prevalence of vertical integration in natural resource industries in this paper we use the theory of restricted cost functions to develop a general procedure for estimating substitution possibilities for unpriced inputs estimation of the model with data for the canadian metal mining industry indicates that the elasticities of substitution for the natural resource metallic ore are equal to unity

innovation and the international diffusion of environmentally responsive technology abstract new evidence is presented on environmental innovation and diffusion over the 1970s and 1980s at a global level a substantial amount of innovations occurred in the united states japan and germany the share of environmental patents in all patents varied between 0 6 and 3 and as such was higher than the corresponding share of pollution abatement expenditure in gdp japanese environmental innovation rates were consistently high certain plausible connections between environmental regulation and innovation also emerge across these three countries and over time innovation responded to pollution abatement expenditure an indicator of the severity of environmental regulations environmental patenting rates in developing countries were also high reaching 2 in many years in brazil developing country innovators obtained a non trivial number of patents most of which appear geared towards adapting imported technologies to local conditions however domestic innovation was only one path to new technologies imports of disembodied environmental technologies foreign patents registered in developing countries were substantial foreign patents were typically important or generic patents evidence also suggests that such patents protected intellectual property in equipment exported developing countries especially in east asia often chose to obtain technologies embodied in pollution abatement equipment

the multidimensionality of exclusion in the small scale gold mining sector in guyana institutional reform landlordism and mineral uncertainty abstract proponents of formalization argue that bringing artisanal and small scale mining asm into the legal sphere represents the best way of enabling social and economic development critics counter that formalization policies can be a source of exclusion for smaller producers as new properties become difficult and expensive to access and new regulatory standards prove beyond the technical and financial capacity of smaller operators guyana s long formalized asm gold mining sector offers a useful lens through which to examine these arguments this article finds that guyana s relatively established and egalitarian asm sector has become the site of various complex exclusionary dynamics on the one hand the impacts of increasingly restrictive state led forms appear to support contentions about how formal mining environments tend towards the exclusion of smaller operators on the other hand evidence shows that it is not merely state policies that are responsible for exclusion but further social and ecological factors such as landlord tenant relations and the depth and scarcity of mineral deposits overall these findings offer new perspectives on asm dynamics within formalized institutional environments they suggest that understanding exclusion can be aided by adopting an analytical lens capable of capturing the complex interactions between a range of social and ecological phenomena