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

a microsimulation model of swedish housing demand abstract this paper presents a microsimulation model of housing demand aimed at analyzing effects of changes in tax schedules like many other countries sweden s income tax laws treat homeowners and renters asymmetrically therefore most changes in tax laws will affect housing demand and tenure choice we develop a microsimulation model which generates consistent estimates of the mean and variance of total housing demand and show that commonly used measures like analytic elasticities evaluated at mean values of the exogenous variables can yield very misleading predictions our model can be used to simulate almost any change in the tax system here we report results of three simple experiments one of which is a change in the rate at which imputed income from owner occupied housing is taxed

relative versus absolute income joy of winning and gender brain imaging evidence in this paper we study the role of absolute versus relative income using functional magnetic resonance imaging fmri while being scanned in two adjacent mri scanners pairs of subjects had to simultaneously perform a simple estimation task that entailed monetary rewards for correct answers we show that a variation in the comparison subject s payment affects blood oxygenation level dependent bold responses in the ventral striatum this brain region is engaged in the prediction and registration of primary rewards such as food delivery as well as more abstract forms of rewards like money in particular we show that activation in the ventral striatum increases in absolute income and for a given level of absolute income decreases in lower relative income using a male and a female sample allows us to study whether the perception of relative and absolute incomes is gender specific we find that the effects of absolute and relative incomes are strong and relatively similar for both genders finally we analyze the importance of joy of winning i e the impact of outperforming another subject our results suggest that the mere fact of outperforming the other subject positively affects reward related brain areas

material interests moral reputation and crowding out species protection on private land we consider how the reputation of being socially responsible works as an effective source of motivation in protecting a public good such as endangered species this paper investigates the mechanism design for endangered species protection on private land under asymmetric information about reputation and land quality we examine optimal monetary transfer by designing an efficient mechanism which takes into account the crowding out effect of monetary rewards on socially responsible behavior we find landowners who have good reputation contribute more than the optimum level landowners with poor reputation sacrifices information rent rather they buy reputation

gis and rural electricity planning in uganda abstract sustainable development is literally fuelled by the energy sector in uganda the electricity sector has experienced dramatic market liberation in recent years this reform was centred around the unbundling of the main government utility uganda electricity board ueb a monopoly divided into three companies created to introduce competition into the market market reform has also led to the creation of a regulatory body and a rural electrification fund with the aim of subsidising rural electricity investments through a multi sectoral programme financed by the world bank and the global environment facility gef the ministry of energy is developing a rural electrification master plan to provide a more systematic tool for rural electricity investments unlike previous approaches this plan is demand driven this paper discusses the use of geographic information systems gis in the planning process for rural electrification the aim is to identify patterns of demand and priority areas for investment by creating a demand side scenario electricity can then be supplied to targeted areas a cross sectoral view is taken to examine the energy demand patterns using physical data and available country statistics incorporated into a gis master database based on geo referenced data of population and existing infrastructure the initial priority demand side sectors targeted are education and health an energy benefit point system is then applied to each sector based on local conditions and needs assessments their aggregated points then provide an indicator of energy demand distribution for electricity planning at district level as a result of this preliminary work specific areas could then be targeted for investment and optimised supply systems could be designed which include off grid renewable energy plants such as small scale hydropower schemes

the demand for residential electricity in south africa abstract this paper examines the residential demand for electricity in south africa as a function of real gross domestic product per capita and the price of electricity during the period 1978 2005 we make use of the bounds testing approach to cointegration within an autoregressive distributed framework suggested by pesaran et al 2001 bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships journal of applied econometrics 16 3 289 326 following the literature we use a linear double logarithmic form using income and price as independent variables in the empirical analysis in the long run we find that income is the main determinant of electricity demand while electricity price is insignificant

counterfactual decomposition of changes in wage distributions using quantile regression we propose a method to decompose the changes in the wage distribution over a period of time in several factors contributing to those changes the method is based on the estimation of marginal wage distributions consistent with a conditional distribution estimated by quantile regression as well as with any hypothesized distribution for the covariates comparing the marginal distributions implied by different distributions for the covariates one is then able to perform counterfactual exercises the proposed methodology enables the identification of the sources of the increased wage inequality observed in most countries specifically it decomposes the changes in the wage distribution over a period of time into several factors contributing to those changes namely by discriminating between changes in the characteristics of the working population and changes in the returns to these characteristics we apply this methodology to portuguese data for the period 1986 1995 and find that the observed increase in educational levels contributed decisively towards greater wage inequality copyright 2005 john wiley sons ltd

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

future energy development in tanzania the energy costs of urbanization abstract this paper utilizes the detailed energy balance data developed as part of the tanzania urban energy project to examine future energy use in tanzania the energy costs of urbanization are shown to be quite substantial national energy balances demonstrate that the urban areas make up a large share of the consumption of all fuels except woodfuel as urbanization continues into the future it will be accompanied by dramatic increases in the consumption of petroleum fuels electricity and charcoal for example using base case or business as usual assumptions over a planning period stretching from 1990 to 2010 every 1 increase in the level of urbanization can be expected to lead to a 12 increase in electricity consumption a 14 increase in the consumption of all petroleum fuels and a 14 increase in the consumption of charcoal finally the paper examines different energy policy options which are consistent with the stated national energy policy after the examination of a set of ambitious policy efforts a set of feasible policies are tested and shown to have a significant impact on the goals of improving efficiency obtaining the desirable energy consumption profile and conserving indigenous woodfuel resources

the distribution of abilities and the progressive income tax abstract this paper develops a model of endogenous labor supply where agents are uncertain about their future wages assuming risk aversion some redistributive taxation is thus warranted it is shown that for a particular parameterization of the tax system an optimally progressive income tax exists comparative ststics analysis demonstrates how this tax system is effected by changes in the wage distribution the paper ends with a discussion of whether an optimally progressive income tax can be politically sustained it is shown that generally this is not the case in a political system with majority voting

powering africa s sustainable development the potential role of nuclear energy abstract the electricity deficit is one of the most serious contemporary issues facing sub saharan africa many countries in the region have insufficient generation capacity to meet rapidly rising demand electricity shortages have become a binding and powerful constraint on the continent s sustainable development their resolution will require coordinated effort to improve the effectiveness and governance of the region s utilities and to significantly scale up generation capacity a broad portfolio of low carbon low c technologies needs to be deployed in order to address the electricity deficit in a cost effective way and not be disruptive to economic growth since nuclear power can deliver low c electricity in bulk reliably and without intermittency it could make a significant contribution towards resolving africa s power crisis however the post fukushima safety concerns related to large nuclear plants with substantial radioactive inventories will be especially pronounced in africa moreover large scale reactors with huge upfront investment requirements are likely to be unsuitable for capital constrained african countries with small electricity grids one promising direction for nuclear development in africa might be to downsize reactors from the gigawatt scale to less complex smaller units with substantially smaller radioactive inventory that are more affordable

powering africa meeting the financing and reform challenges africa faces chronic power problems including insufficient generation capacity low connectivity poor reliability and high costs all of which constrain development power capacity additions in sub saharan africa excl sa since the 1990 s were minuscule historically investments in the power sector in africa have come mostly from governments or public utilities with foreign aid support in recent years these sources of funding have been flat the fastest new sources of funding are from independent power producers ipps and from china to understand the determinant of the new sources the paper analyses the effect of several key factor and find non expected results such as there is no obvious correlation between unbundling or the presence of an independent regulator and the level of private investment through ipps or that there is no correlation between chinese investment in generation and resource rich countries dispelling the myth that chinese firms are only interested in africa s resources the paper delivers several recommendations that indicate that more attention needs to be given to issues related to planning procurement and contracting as well as securing revenue flows jel classification o13 o25 l94

urban household energy use in tanzania prices substitutes and poverty abstract this paper presents the findings of the tanzanian urban household energy survey undertaken as part of the tanzania urban energy project household energy use varies by income group according to local fuel availability considerable differences between the marginal costs of supplying fuels and market prices paid by consumers have led to major misallocations of resources when the results of this survey are compared to the results of the 1987 household energy survey a significant shift by households toward kerosene and electricity away from fuelwood charcoal and lpg is shown to have taken place these shifts toward modern fuels are consistent with the claims of the households in the 1990 survey and can largely be explained by fuel prices finally an assessment of the lifeline tariff and the kerosene cross subsidy demonstrate that the latter is a more effective method of ensuring the basic energy needs of the urban and rural poor

housing prices and tenure choice with asymmetric taxes and progressivity abstract this paper studies the effects of tax schedule changes on prices and tenure choice in the housing market it is shown that given the present asymmetric treatment of owner occupants vs renters an increase in the degree of progressivity is likely to lead to an increasein the prices of both owner occupied and rental housing a numerical example indicates that the effects may be quite large equilibrium prices are calculated based on the actual swedish income tax schedules for 1971 and 1979 according to these simulations the tax changes that took place between these years caused the price of owner occupied houses to increase by around 30 percent and the rent level to increase by 2 or 3 percent

solar energy applications and development in nigeria drivers and barriers abstract in this study current perspectives of solar energy utilization as a renewable energy option in nigeria are examined and discussed from the standpoint of sustainable development the country being a world crude oil and natural gas producer is over dependent on these energy sources for electricity generation and other energy applications this has currently put the country at a risk of impending energy crises in view of the fast diminishing fossil reserves inadequate refining capacity to meet domestic consumption and serious cases of energy insecurity in restive regions where exploitations exist in spite of the vast fossil based energy reserves a meager electricity production capacity that is put at 4517 6 mw as at december 2012 is generated to support the economy of a teeming population of approximately 170 million people nigeria is naturally endowed with abundant deposit of renewable energy resources of which solar energy from the sun being the world s most abundant and permanent energy source has for decades been enjoying very high level utilization by rural dwellers for agricultural processings in the country it is vastly deposited with an estimated 17 459 215 2 million mj day of solar energy falling on the country s 923 768 km2 land area approximate range of 12 6 mj m2 day in the coastal region to about 25 2 mj m2 day in the far north the different applications to which solar resources have been put and the extent of utilization including details of existing projects in the country were thoroughly investigated and discussed the possible motivations for extensive development of solar energy conversion systems in nigeria are also discussed and some of the barriers and challenges are presented steps and policy measures to overcome the barriers and facilitates the utilization of this resource are suggested

accounting for inequality trends decomposition analyses for the uk 1971 86 eight explanations for uk income inequality trends between 1971 and 1986 are assessed by pooling evidence from inequality index decompositions by population sub group and by income source the principal causes of the aggregate trends were a mixture of changes in earnings inequality employment structure and unemployment but this mixture changed over time the impact of wage inequality changes on income inequality changes fell during the 1970s and 1980s reflecting the secular decline in the importance of employment earnings for household income packages unemployment changes had their largest impact at the start of the 1980s between 1981 and 1986 self employment income changes appear to have had the largest influence

post neoliberal electricity market re reforms in argentina diverging from market prescriptions this paper focuses upon the policy and institutional change that has taken place within the argentine electricity market since the country s economic and social crisis of 2001 2 as one of the first less developed countries ldcs to liberalise and privatise its electricity industry argentina has since moved away from the orthodox market model after consumer prices were frozen by the government in early 2002 when the national currency was devalued by 70 although its reforms were widely praised during the 1990s the electricity market has undergone a number of interventions ostensibly to keep consumer prices low and to avert the much discussed energy crisis caused by a dearth of new investment combined with rising demand levels this paper explores how the economic crisis and its consequences have both enabled and legitimised these policy and institutional amendments while drawing upon the specifics of the post neoliberal market re reforms to consider the extent to which the government appears to be moving away from market based prescriptions in addition this paper contributes to sector specific understandings of how despite these changes neoliberal ideas and assumptions continue to dominate argentine public policy well beyond the postcrisis era

transforming the nigerian power sector for sustainable development abstract nigeria has been plagued with acute power shortages due to poor performance of its power sector several policies and reforms have been implemented by the government to address the poor performance of the power generation transmission and distribution sectors of the electricity industry also various strategies were employed by the government which includes encouraging private sector participation diversification of the energy generation sources and promoting energy efficiency for sustainable development in addition the government has spent billions of dollars since 2001 in the construction of new power generation facilities transmission lines and distribution centers to boost the power supply it has deregulated the generation and distribution sectors to encourage private sector participation and empowers the energy commission of nigeria to embark on programs and strategies that can boost energy generation from renewable sources this paper examined the country s energy sources and the power sector reforms adopted by the government the paper also outlined some recommendations based on reforms implemented by other countries with similar resources to nigeria which yielded positive results

power sector reforms in zimbabwe will reforms increase electrification and strengthen local participation abstract zimbabwe is a developing country currently in the grips of an economic crisis the power sector has been starved of investments and there is an inadequate revenue flow into the country to finance new investment internal resources are inadequate to maintain the current system and to finance new investment financial and operational performance has deteriorated rural electrification is very low with only 18 of the population having access to electricity the government and the utility zimbabwe electricity supply authority have recognised their inability to meet these challenges and have initiated a reform program in order to open up the power sector to private investors this article analyses the current technical and operational problems faced by the utility and their impact on its financial performance in addition the article reviews the status of electrification in zimbabwe and the participation of local private investors in the power sector policy recommendations on how the technical and financial performance of the utility can be enhanced and on how the rate of electrification especially in rural areas can be improved are presented the increased participation of local private sector players into the power industry is a key issue and recommendations are made on how the government can provide incentives to facilitate their effective participation

reassessing the energy ladder household energy use in maun botswana abstract in the context of sub saharan africa s rapid urbanization improved insight into urban energy use is increasingly important based on the predictions of energy transition theory a regional shift from biomass to modern fuels has long been expected to occur in tandem with urban growth however trends observed in the region s towns and cities have often not followed such patterns and fuelwood continues to be important in most areas this paper examines the practical relevance of transition theory using a recent case study conducted by the authors in maun botswana and results previously reported in the literature it finds that despite the long term link between socio economic development and increased modern fuel consumption at the national scale the notion of transition does not accurately reflect ongoing energy use patterns at lower levels of aggregation this is chiefly because its model of household fuel switching largely dismisses the importance of active and strategic decision making by urban consumers and their responsiveness to structural factors such as relative fuel prices as the botswana case illustrates this weakness can significantly distort expectations and policies around urban fuelwood use

tariffs and subsidies in zimbabwe s reforming electricity industry steering a utility through turbulent times abstract in 1991 the government of zimbabwe adopted a public enterprise reform strategy as part of a world bank driven economic structural adjustment programme esap for the electricity sector the government adopted a two pronged programme of reform a performance improvement programme pip for the national utility the zimbabwe electricity supply authority zesa and a legal and regulatory reform programme for the electricity sector in general ten years later significant success has been achieved in improving the utility s performance in technical operations and customer service however there has been very little progress on the legal and regulatory front this has adversely affected the utility s financial performance as well as frustrating the government s efforts in attracting private sector investment the centrality of the tariff question reflects the importance of the customer or end user to the power sector reform process this article outlines the power sector reform experiences in zimbabwe with special focus on the tariff question the paper suggests from the perspective of a utility executive reasons for the mixed results at zesa and lessons for other countries in the region undertaking similar reforms

rational benevolence in small committees we consider a game in which three committee members must divide up a benefit among themselves in response to the large literature on sequential procedures in this type of game we propose an institution that is inspired by auction theory the sealed bids of the players are proposals for a distribution of the benefit and are given simultaneously if any of the bids is preferred to all others in a pairwise comparison i e a condorcet winner exists then this proposal is implemented if such a bid does not exist then an equal split of the benefit is assumed an equilibrium of this game is for each player to suggest that one of the opponents should receive the lion s share of the benefit even though each player cares only about his own share we call this phenomenon rational benevolence although the end that is desired by the players is purely egoistic the means of achieving it may be perceived as benevolent several applications of the game are suggested

household energy demand in kenya an application of the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids abstract this paper estimates price and fuel expenditure elasticities of demand by applying the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids to 3665 households sampled across kenya in 2009 the results indicate that motor spirit premium msp automotive gas oil ago and lubricants are price elastic while fuel wood kerosene charcoal liquefied petroleum gas lpg and electricity are price inelastic kerosene is income elastic while fuel wood charcoal lpg electricity msp and ago are income inelastic the results also reveal fuel stack behaviour that is multiple fuel use among the households main policy implications of the results include increasing the penetration of alternative fuels as well as provision of more fiscal incentives to increase usage of cleaner fuels this not withstanding however the household income should be increased beyond a certain point for the household to completely shift and use a new fuel

modelling electricity demand in ghana revisited the role of policy regime changes as policy regime changes demand elasticities are unlikely to be constant since individuals change how they form their expectations and this will change the estimated decision rules in this paper the time varying nature of electricity demand elasticities prior to and post the economic reform period in ghana is analysed using the fm ols three different sample periods pre reform post reform and full period was used in the analysis the result from the full sample period revealed that in the long run electricity demand is significantly affected by industry efficiency industry value added and real per capita gdp urbanization rate however has no significant effect the pre reform estimate showed lower income output and urbanization elasticities but higher industry energy efficiency elasticity relative to the post reform period this suggests that technological change in the pre reform period has been energy saving whilst technological change in the post reform period has been energy consuming the result further showed evidence of changing structure of the economy from the more energy intensive sector to the less energy intensive sector after the reform government should renew her effort in promoting energy saving technologies in the industrial sector and adjust the industrial structure to encourage the expansion of low energy intensive industries or high technology efficient industries

adaptation of feed in tariff for remote mini grids tanzania as an illustrative case abstract following the successful feed in tariffs fits system worldwide few countries have implemented fits explicitly tailored for off grid or mini grid systems this study takes an integrated approach to examine the feasibility of an off grid feed in tariff off fit for existing and new remote mini grids in tanzania using a combination of geographical analysis technical economic and institutional assessments based on detailed modelling of two community off grid cases i pv diesel and ii mini hydro we identify least cost rural electrification options that make solar and mini hydro energy competitive with diesel generators and potential effect of the support scheme on rural electrification plans in the first case we illustrate where the off fit complements diesel generation of an existing mini grid pv diesel in the second case mini hydro we illustrate conditions where the off fit policy brings mini hydro generation to non electrified communities and sells renewable electricity directly to new customers currently tanzania has standardized power purchase spp rates which target generators connected to the national grid and distribution systems of mini grids or isolated grids we found for the off fit tariff the total amount needed to support the same number of customers by solar and hydro mini grids versus diesel would be of 31 5 million us or a premium of 0 11 us kwh to the present current spps tariff of 0 24 us kwh for pv we also found that a technology specific fit tariff would be most suitable to attract national and international investors by providing a rate of return that compensates the risk of the investment the overall support is comparable to the 36 million us that the government currently subsidizes and allocates to diesel mini grids in country and this shows the potential for a long term renewable energy strategy for mini grid areas

community based electric micro grids can contribute to rural development evidence from kenya summary in this paper we clarify the mechanisms through which rural electrification can contribute to rural development through a detailed case study analysis of a community based electric micro grid in rural kenya we demonstrate that access to electricity enables the use of electric equipment and tools by small and micro enterprises resulting in significant improvement in productivity per worker 100 200 depending on the task at hand and in a corresponding growth in income levels in the order of 20 70 depending on the product made access to electricity simultaneously enables and improves the delivery of social and business services from a wide range of village level infrastructure e g schools markets and water pumps while improving the productivity of agricultural activities we find that increased productivity and growth in revenues within the context of better delivery of social and business support services contribute to achieving higher social and economic benefits for rural communities we also demonstrate that when local electricity users have an ability to charge and enforce cost reflective tariffs and when electricity consumption is closely linked to productive uses that generate incomes cost recovery is feasible 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

sources of ethnic inequality in vietnam vietnam s ethnic minorities who tend to live mostly in remote rural areas typically have lower living standards than the ethnic majority how much is this because of differences in economic characteristics such as education levels and land rather than low returns to characteristics is there a self reinforcing culture of poverty in the minority groups reflecting patterns of past discrimination the authors find that differences in levels of living are due in part to the fact that the minorities live in less productive areas characterized by difficult terrain poor infrastructure less access to off farm work and the market economy and inferior access to education geographic disparities tend to persist because of immobility and regional differences in living standards but the authors also find large differences within geographical areas even after controlling for household characteristics they find differences in returns to productive characteristics to be the most important explanation for ethnic inequality but the minorities do not obtain lower returns to all characteristics there is evidence of compensating behavior for example pure returns to location even in remote inhospitable areas tend to be higher for minorities though not high enough to overcome the large consumption difference with the majority the majority ethnic group s model of income generation is a poor guide on how to fight poverty among ethnic minority groups nor is it enough to target poor areas to redress ethnic inequality policies must be designed to reach minority households in poor areas and to explicitly recognize behavior patterns including compensating behavior that have served the minorities well in the short term but intensify ethnic inequalities in the longer term it will be important to open up options for minority groups both by ensuring that they are not disadvantaged in labor markets for example and by changing the conditions that have caused their isolation and social exclusion

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

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

how much inequality can we explain a methodology and an application to the united states we develop two simple measures of how much inequality is explained by individual population characteristics or groups of characteristics analogous to r2 in regression analysis we investigate the measures empirical implementation using several alternative theoretically consistent approaches to inequality decomposition results are illustrated using us psid income data explaining the level of and trends in inequality is an intriguing topic but one that is often dependent on a researcher s particular approach to inequality measurement sometimes the approach is simply one that accords with intuition sometimes principles of applied welfare economics or statistical analysis are invoked the particular approach adopted is important the issue of the explanation of inequality is not just a matter of computational procedure but can significantly affect our understanding of economic inequality and can potentially guide the design of economic policy in this paper we develop new summary measures of explanation the income inequality literature s analogue of the r2 statistic used in regression analysis using an approach which pays particular attention to theoretically consistent methods for inequality decomposition and illustrate them using a specially cleaned set of us psid data an important example of the explanation issue that is relevant to current policy debate is the suggestion that personal attributes and labour market status are major determinants of interpersonal income differences formal economic models stress the role of labour market opportunities in the structure of the income distribution other types of analysis emphasise the importance of characteristics such as ethnicity age and gender it is commonly supposed that these factors explain a major part of observed income inequality and of changes in inequality in the case of the united states we show that this conjecture is empirically unfounded the supposed determinants of inequality in fact account for only a very small part of the actual inequality of broadly defined personal income

tax reform and housing demand the distribution of welfare gains and losses abstract we study distributional effects of a recent reform of the swedish system of income taxation which affects the price of owner occupied housing in calculating the welfare effects we account both for the non linearities of the income tax schedule and the dichotomous choice aspect of housing demand to own or to rent small and rosen 1981 have shown how the standard harberger type approximation formulae can be adapted to handle discrete choices and we modify their analysis for a non linear budget constraint

conflict on the commons natural resource entitlements the public interest and agricultural economics i began this odyssey toward a presidential address reflecting on certain problems i see out there in the real world what they mean and what lessons they suggest for us as ag economists that is the strength of our discipline and profession an anchor in real events it is more useful to start with problems and seek order with economics than to start with a principle or method and shop for a problem there are battles being waged in the u s countryside that speak volumes for us as applied social scientists it has to do with private discretion the right of individuals with access to natural resources to do what they want when they want whatever the impacts on others it has to do with power entitlement economic and social change interdependence vision for the future sense of the commons in private action some farm leaders have been saying very intemperate things lately about property rights and alleged government takeovers as is usually the case in the political economics of who may do what to whom verbal symbols encase larger ideas and become the proxies in battle terms and phrases like independence freedom the public interest my god given right the farming way of life the rural myth market distortions greedy landowners and rabid environmentalists dominate the debate there is disarray in rural institutions rules that create rights and obligations in use of natural resources are simply out of step with general economic and social changes underway in rural america i have also had concerns about us ag economists particularly research and education types in land grant universities and government we seem less open adaptable and expansive than we were even ten years ago we were pushing the boundaries of our discipline and problem set now there are pressures to go back to basics perhaps it is the economic crisis in academia with fewer jobs shrinking departments no raises little wonder we are skittish then it dawned on me we are behaving exactly like farmers and other property owners we are building fences trying to scare off the bureaucrats declaring our rights fighting to preserve disciplinary purity this paper is about property rights the public interest and our particular piece of agricultural economics real estate in the path of economic and social change i will examine selected natural resource institutional issues for insight about our discipline and profession the parallels lead to certain recommendations essential

tax and education policy in a heterogeneous agent economy what levels of redistribution maximize growth and efficiency this paper studies the effects of progressive income taxes and education finance in a dynamic heterogeneous agent economy such redistributive policies entail distortions to labor supply and savings but also serve as partial substitutes for missing credit and insurance markets the resulting tradeoffs for growth and efficiency are explored both theoretically and quantitatively in a model that yields complete analytical solutions progressive education finance always leads to higher income growth than taxes and transfers but at the cost of lower insurance overall efficiency is assessed using a new measure that properly reflects aggregate resources and idiosyncratic risks but unlike a standard social welfare function does not reward equality per se simulations using empirical parameter estimates show that the efficiency costs and benefits of redistribution are generally of the same order of magnitude resulting in plausible values for the optimal rates aggregate income and aggregate welfare provide only crude lower and upper bounds around the true efficiency tradeoff

re thinking the power transmission model for sub saharan africa abstract a vision for a united states of africa has been advocated since the dawn of independence by among others pioneers like kwame nkrumah gamal abdel nasser and julius nyerere more recently the idea gained new momentum through such initiatives as the new partnership for african development nepad and the african union au to create a single market of africa s 750 million people that is competitive within itself and within the global economy this would be achieved through a deliberate systematic and concerted effort to integrate upgrade and modernize infrastructure that would offer the required catalyst for economic growth however the prioritization by african policy makers of a grand plan to link up the entire african continent s electric power grid networks would appear to be incompatible with 21st century thinking the specifications for a centrally managed power grid were made by nicola tesla in 1883 and have served the power industry for over 125 years but are now obsolete in the era of digital micro electronics and smart grid concepts this paper examines some issues that surround the evolution of sub sahara african regional power pools and highlights the anomalies and perhaps wrong timing around the conceptualization and prioritization of grand inter state power grids the authors then propose an alternative model that conforms to a new and more sustainable paradigm in electricity supply economics the proposals are however not meant to provide a panacea but it is hoped that the article will ignite a debate that will lead to a lasting solution

demand for energy in rural and urban centres of ethiopia an econometric analysis the paper starts by briefly discussing the current energy situation in ethiopia the major source of energy in ethiopia is traditional and the major consumer is the household a simple model of household utility function where energy consumption is the major variable is developed and a reduced form is derived to make the model operational a simultaneous equation system describing the demand for and supply of traditional and modern energy sources has been specified the model is closed by equating the demand for energy with the supply data from the national energy survey were used to estimate the model the major finding of the study is that price of traditional energy plays an important role in the consumption of fuelwood and other traditional energy sources by manipulating the price variable the government may be ale to control the high rate of depletion offorest resources

rank regressions wage distributions and the gender gap in this paper we propose a novel rank based procedure to decompose changes in the gender wage gap into three components changes in the skill distribution changes in the wage structure and improvements in the position of women in a distribution of reference using cps data from 1979 and 1991 we perform the decomposition at each percentile of the wage distribution and show that the results are sensitive to the choice of distribution of reference male versus overall wage distribution we also find that relative wage gains of women may have been a source of increasing wage inequality among men

how sustainable is policy incoherence a rationalist policy analysis of the cameroonian electricity reform abstract instead of being the milestone in cameroon s economic reform program that the international finance corporation ifc claimed it would be the 2001 privatisation of the cameroonian electricity sector has turned out to be a millstone round the government and country s neck this paper documents and analyses the multidimensional incoherence embedded in the cameroonian electricity sector reforms initiated under the pressure of structural adjustment credit projects led by the world bank more specifically 12 policy incoherencies are examined in the cameroonian context they range from a poor understanding of the electricity sector s problems to pre determined solutions and important shortcomings in the assessment of possible impacts the results of these policy inconsistencies are analysed in terms the sector s sustainability based upon the five key concepts introduced by bruntland suggesting that the reforms have failed to promote social environmental or economic sustainability although this study concerns cameroon its relevance goes beyond this specific country as similar policies are being implemented around the world

determinants of rural urban inequality in vietnam detailed decomposition analyses based on unconditional quantile regressions abstractthis study examines determinants of the rural urban gap of household welfare in vietnam during 2008 2012 using national household data we have used unconditional quantile regressions uqr

the effects of rural electrification on employment new evidence from south africa this paper estimates the impact of electrification on employment growth by analyzing south africa s mass roll out of electricity to rural households using several new data sources and two different identification strategies an instrumental variables strategy and a fixed effects approach i find that electrification significantly raises female employment within five years this new infrastructure appears to increase hours of work for men and women while reducing female wages and increasing male earnings several pieces of evidence suggest that household electrification raises employment by releasing women from home production and enabling microenterprises migration behavior may also be affected jel h54 l94

effects of the swedish 1983 85 tax reform on the demand for owner occupied housing a microsimulation approach the effects of the swedish 1983 85 tax reform are analyzed with respect to the housing market a microsimulation model is used which takes into account the household s tenure choice owning vs renting as well as the quantity demanded conditional on the tenure choice the reform consists of a reduction in marginal tax rates and limitations on the deductibility of mortgage interest the simulations show that this will cause a general reduction in demand for owner occupied houses on a disaggregated level there will be an increase in the demand for small and medium sized houses while the demand for large units will fall sharply

threshold cointegration and causality relationship between energy use and growth in seven african countries abstract the paper investigates the long run and the causality relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for seven sub saharan african countries during the period 1970 2007 using the gregory and hansen 1996a 1996b testing approach to threshold cointegration we find that energy consumption is cointegrated with economic growth in cameroon cote d ivoire ghana nigeria and south africa moreover this test suggests that economic growth has a significant positive long run impact on energy consumption in these countries before 1988 and this effect becomes negative after 1988 in ghana and south africa furthermore causality tests suggest bidirectional causality between energy consumption and real gdp in cote d ivoire and unidirectional causality running from real gdp to energy usage in the case of congo and ghana

institutional barriers to a perfect policy a case study of the senegalese rural electrification plan abstract this paper investigates the political and institutional factors that have influenced the success of the senegalese rural electrification action plan plan d action senegalais d electrification rurale paser paser is of interest because its innovative design attracted extensive offers of finance from donors and independent power providers however it has had limited effect on electrification levels this paper examines paser s progress and problems in detail with the aim of informing rural electrification policy internationally an extensive literature review was combined with 26 semi structured stakeholder interviews to produce a snapshot of the plan s status after its first decade of operation paser s experiences are compared with other reform based rural electrification initiatives across sub saharan africa paser has faced significant institutional and political barriers with delays arising from organisational opposition inconsistent ministerial support protracted consultations and the inherent challenges of implementing an innovative policy framework in a country with limited institutional capacity the development of human and institutional capacity has been compromised by inconsistent political commitment such experiences mirror those of electrification initiatives across sub saharan africa whilst paser s successes in garnering external support and fundraising are noteworthy and won praise from early reviews in terms of delivery the plan has failed to resolve common institutional barriers

decomposing the labor market earnings inequality the public and private sectors in vietnam 1993 2006 in contrast with the typical transition to a market economy earnings inequality in vietnam between 1993 and 2006 appears to have decreased and the earnings gap in favor of public employees appears to have widened we use a comparative advantage model to disentangle the effect of sorting workers across sectors from the effect of the differences in returns to workers skills the selection of the best workers into the public sector is clearly an important component of the explanation for the public private sector earnings gap but the widening of this gap over time is primarily due to changes in the compensation patterns we find that in the 1990 s public employees were underpaid compared with their earning potential in the private sector whereas in the early 2000s public employees earned similar returns to their comparative advantage in the public and private sectors the increasing homogeneity in returns to skills in the vietnamese labor market appears to explain both the increase in the public private pay gap and the decrease in overall inequality

electricity sector reform in cameroon is privatization the solution abstract the economic difficulties of cameroon and of its government owned companies led the international monetary fund imf and the world bank to set up a vast privatization program with the government s collaboration in the electricity sector the state had a complete control over the industry through the societe national d electricite sonel an integrated monopoly utility under the imf world bank program sonel has been sold to foreign interests this article presents cameroon s electricity sector the proposed reform and the importance of electricity in economic development an evaluation of the reform is presented from two different perspectives first we consider the reform from a theoretical and market design point of view second we challenge the reform from a more fundamental level by questioning the relevance of privatization at this stage of the electricity sector development this brings us to review the strategic place of electricity in economic growth how different countries have dealt with their electricity industry in early development stage and how the objective of multinational corporations could be in conflict with specific electricity sector goals from these two different perspectives we conclude that the imf and the world bank have set up a reform process that is against good public policy we conclude with some suggestions for improving the reform process

inter provincial migration and inequality during vietnam s transition abstract vietnam s economic boom during the transition to a market economy has centered on very rapid growth in some sectors and provinces yet poverty has diminished across the entire country with capital investments highly concentrated by province and sector geographic labor mobility may be critical in spreading the gains from growth conversely rising income inequality may be attributable in part to impediments to migration we first use census data to investigate migration patterns and determinants we then examine the role of migration as an influence on income ratios between pairs of provinces the former analysis robustly confirms economic motives for migration but also suggests the existence of poverty related labor immobility at the provincial level examination of income ratios between pairs of provinces reveals that the impact of migration on inequality can be either negative or positive a robust inequality reducing impact of migration is found for migration flows into provinces where most of vietnam s trade oriented industrial investments are located

renewable energy technologies as beacon of cleaner production a real options valuation analysis for liberia abstract the importance of energy consumption for growth and development calls for improved decision support for a sustainable energy transition given africa s dependence on fossil fuels the economic and environmental savings from research development and deployment of renewable energy technologies may be substantial although the benefits of renewable energy technologies research development funding may appear to be low assuming immediate deployment the uncertainty in the non renewable energy price and the flexibility over timing makes research development program more appealing this study develops different scenarios in order to quantify benefits provided by research development funding for renewable power generation in liberia by using real options pricing approach to estimate the value of renewable energy technologies while taking into account the uncertainty of fossil fuel prices and learning by doing in renewable energy technologies the optimal solution shows that renewable energy technologies are economically attractive especially when external costs are internalized however annual research development funding is low and should be raised significantly in order to guarantee the highest possible investment incentives with minimal expenditures the study also hypothesizes that with the likelihood of renewable energy to replace non renewable energy renewable power use in liberia can potentially reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 13 9 by 2015 compared to the 2008 levels the key insight provided by the real options analysis in this study is that while renewable energy may have inherent limitations such as seasonality of supply low energy content and capacity factor issues they still hold a significant amount of value which can only be detected when externalities are internalized thus underscoring the need for external costs related policies

can the urban poor afford modern energy the case of ethiopia abstract comparing rough measures of costs of using modern fuels and purchasing power of the urban poor in ethiopia this article finds that while kerosene is relatively cheap even for the very poor electricity is extremely expensive even for the relatively well to do the upper stratum of the poor may have the purchasing power to access butane gas in addition the article examines the relevance of the energy ladder hypothesis generally both at the aggregate level and for individual urban areas the prediction from the hypothesis holds but our results indicate that the relevance of the hypothesis weakens on lower levels of aggregation implying significant inter city variations finally demand equations for each fuel are econometrically estimated and the elasticities are used to examine price and income effects the budget elasticities indicate that with economic growth the demand for traditional fuels will increase in addition the cross price elasticities show that increase in the price of a traditional fuel mainly shifts demand towards other traditional fuels rather than towards modern fuels this slows down the transition towards modern fuels the article concludes by presenting policy recommendations arising from the analysis

a note on participatory decision making and rationality this paper addresses a particular issue of institutional choice it is concerned with one aspect of the argument for participatory decision making structures how to make sense of the claim that participation can raise productivity because it produces a change in motivation the argument of the paper turns first on distinguishing between the rational choice account of behaviour and a norm guided one and second on the thought that participatory structures give scope for norm guided behaviour to flourish in ways not found in hierarchies

differences in wage distributions between canada and the united states an application of a flexible estimator of distribution functions in the presence of covariates we construct a tractable flexible functional form estimator of cumulative distribution functions for non negative random variables which admits large numbers of covariates the estimator adopts and extends techniques from the spell duration literature for estimating hazard functions to distribution functions for wages earnings and income we apply these methods to investigate sources of wage inequality for full time male workers between canada and the united states finding that the canadian wage density has a thinner left tail because low educated workers have higher pay and a thinner right tail because of a lower proportion of highly educated workers unions appear to play a large role in these outcomes

reforming small electricity systems under political instability the case of nepal this paper assesses the issues and options in reforming small electricity sector systems in general while citing nepal as a specific case political instability and increasing electricity demand are two major complicating factors in power sector reform of small systems such as that of nepal lessons from international experience suggest that measures such as cost reflecting pricing restructuring and independent regulation are important for the success of reforms in small systems the creation of an independent regulatory authority is more important than unbundling of the sector in the present context of nepal accounting separation of the main activities may be a pragmatic restructuring approach given the present political and market condition as the systems gradually grow larger vertical separation of the system and horizontal splitting of the generation segment and competition in organised wholesale market followed by privatisation remains an option in the long run