explaining the attacker s advantage technological paradigms organizational dynamics and the value network abstract understanding when entrants might have an advantage over an industry s incumbent firms in developing and adopting new technologies is a question which several scholars have explained in terms of technological capabilities or organizational dynamics this paper proposes that the value network the context within which a firm competes and solves customers problems is an important factor affecting whether incumbent or entrant firms will most successfully innovate in a study of technology development in the disk drive industry the authors found that incumbents led the industry in developing and adopting new technologies of every sort identified by earlier scholars at component and architectural levels competency enhancing and competency destroying incremental and radical as long as the technology addressed customers needs within the value network in which the incumbents competed entrants led in developing and adopting technologies which addressed user needs in different emerging value networks it is in these innovations which disrupted established trajectories of technological progress in established markets that attackers proved to have an advantage the rate of improvement in product performance which technologists provide may exceed the rate of improvement demanded in established markets this mismatch between trajectories enables firms entering emerging value networks subsequently to attack the industry s established markets as well

scenario analysis on co2 emissions reduction potential in china s electricity sector abstract with the approach of the year 2012 a new round of international negotiations has energized the entire climate change community with this analyses on sector based emissions reduction and mitigation options will provide the necessary information to form the debate in order to assess the co2 emissions reduction potential of china s electricity sector this research employs three scenarios based on the long range energy alternative planning system leap model to simulate the different development paths in this sector the baseline scenario the current policy scenario and the new policy scenario seek to gradually increase the extent of industrial restructuring and technical advancement results imply that energy consumption and co2 emission in china s electricity sector will rise rapidly in all scenarios until 2030 triple or quadruple the 2000 level however through structural adjustment in china s electricity sector and through implementing technical mitigation measures various degrees of abatement can be achieved these reductions range from 85 to 350 million tons co2 per year figures that correspond to different degrees of cost and investment demand side management and circulating fluidized bed combustion cfbc ranked in order are employed prior to use to realize emissions reduction followed by supercritical plants and the renovation of conventional thermal power plants in the long term nuclear and hydropower will play the dominant role in contributing to emissions reduction it is also suggested that a self restraint reduction commitment should be employed to help contribute to the reduction of emission intensity an avenue that is more practical for china in light of its current development phase setting the year 2000 as the base year the intensity reduction target could possibly range from 4 2 to 19 4 dependent on the implementation effectiveness of various mitigation options

the reform of electricity power sector in the pr of china deregulation was launched as a concept in the united states more than a decade ago the european union commission has also formally announced that electric deregulation must be completed by the end of 2005 deregulation or reform has already been a popular topic on the electricity power sector this paper will discuss the restructuring and regulatory reforms in the pr china s power sector it begins with a discussion of the characteristics of electricity reform or deregulation in other countries including the us the united kingdom and so on it will be followed by the industry structure and regulatory framework that characterized china s power industry during the latter part of the 20th century and the history of china s reform to restructure the power industry to competitive suppliers of generating services in recent years it discusses the role of the state power corporation in the reform and gives a detailed description of the latest electricity reform in the year 2002 the paper concludes with some thoughts regarding future challenges and trends on the reform for china s power sector

a conjoint analysis of corporate preferences for the sectoral crediting mechanism a case study of shanxi province in china it is crucial to understand corporate preferences in designing and planning new market based instruments using the method of conjoint analysis this paper evaluates corporate preferences for policy alternatives of the sectoral crediting mechanism aiming at supporting its discussions and development data were collected from 94 companies in all 11 prefecture level cities of shanxi province china the results confirm that companies are most concerned about three policy attributes domestic policy instruments the relationship with the clean developing mechanism and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities from the viewpoint of the chinese businesses surveyed the ideal policy alternative has a domestic policy instrument in which installations with voluntary targets receive tradable units while co existing with the clean developing mechanism and providing opportunities to get financial and technical assistance from developed countries meanwhile the coverage of the sectoral crediting mechanism could be expanded to small companies that are the most inefficient and thus have the lowest abatement costs in some sectors the results of this study are important in light of ongoing discussions and developments of the sectoral crediting mechanism in china

emissions reduction and economic implications of renewable energy market penetration of power generation for residential consumption in the mena region this paper examines the implications of renewable energy re deployment in power generation for residential consumption in the middle east and north africa mena region under various re penetration targets a comparative assessment revealed a great heterogeneity among countries with turkey dominating as the highest emitter at the sub regional level the middle east sub region contributes more than double the ghg emissions estimated for the gulf and north africa sub regions with all sub regions achieving reductions in the range of 6 38 depending on the re target penetration and promising up to 54 savings on investment excluding positive externalities associated with the offset of greenhouse gas ghg emissions savings

cointegration and threshold adjustment this article proposes an extension to the engle granger testing strategy by permitting asymmetry in the adjustment toward equilibrium in two different ways we demonstrate that our test has good power and size properties over the engle granger test when there are asymmetric departures from equilibrium we consider an application namely whether there exists cointegration among interest rates for instruments with different maturities this issue has been widely tested with mixed results we argue that either cautious policy or possibly opportunistic behavior on the part of the federal reserve implies that an equilibrium relationship between short and long term interest rates exists but that adjustments from disequilibrium are asymmetric in nature empirical tests using u s yields confirm the asymmetric nature of error correction among interest rates of different maturities

designing an eu energy and climate policy portfolio for 2030 implications of overlapping regulation under different levels of electricity demand abstract the european union s current climate and energy policy has to operate under an ex ante unforeseen economic crisis as a consequence prices for carbon emission allowances in the eu emissions trading system collapsed however this price collapse may be amplified by the interaction of a carbon emission cap with supplementary policy targets such as minimum shares for renewables in the power sector the static interaction between climate and renewable policies has been discussed extensively this paper extends this debate by analysing the efficiency and effectiveness of a policy portfolio containing a cap and trade scheme and a target for a minimum renewable share in different states of aggregate electricity demand making use of a simple partial equilibrium model of the power sector we identify an asymmetric interaction of emissions trading and renewable quotas with respect to different states of aggregate electricity demand the results imply that unintended consequences of the policy interaction may be particularly severe and costly when aggregate electricity demand is low and that carbon prices are more sensitive to changes in economic activity if they are applied in combination with renewable energy targets our analysis of the policy interaction focuses on the eu yet the conclusions may also be of relevance for fast growing emerging economies like china

clean production pathways for regional power generation system under emission constraints a case study of shanghai china china is now facing pressures of emission reduction both from greenhouse gases ghgs and local air pollutants laps considering power generation system contributes a great share of co2 and pm2 5 emissions a regional power generation system modelling and optimization framework using long range energy alternatives planning system leap is conducted in order to explore the cost effective cleaner capacity expansion pathways under various emissions constraints a case study of shanghai follows focusing on analysis of capacity additions for different power generation technologies as well as energy inputs reduction co benefits and system costs the results indicate that i the clean production pathways differentiate along with stricter co2 constraints ii ultra supercritical coal fired units have significant advantage under no emission constraint which are substitute by cleaner power generation units such as wind power solar power and integrated gasification combined cycle igcc under the co2 constrained scenario and the combined co2 pm2 5 constrained scenario iii co2 constraint displays stronger reduction co benefits than that of pm2 5 iv emission constraints are conductive to energy savings that will increase system cost finally policy recommendations are made through sensitivity analysis that only when the price of natural gas declines sharply can natural gas units become one of the alternatives that reduce coal consumption and the related co2 emissions

reform of china s electric power industry challenges facing the government abstract china s electrical power industry requires substantial reform if the country s economic growth is to be sustained the 1997 electricity law the creation of a state power company and the abolition of the ministry of electric power are important first steps on the path of reform but it seems that a clear plan is lacking objectives of the reform should include increasing the capacity to deliver power constraining the costs of the power industry increasing end user efficiency and minimising environmental damage efforts should be directed at restructuring the industry in such a way that fair competition may be introduced at least in power generation and at establishing a viable regulatory agency both tasks have the potential to be thwarted by a range of vested interests at different levels of government and industry

electricity consumption and economic growth in china abstract this paper applies the error correction model to examine the causal relationship between electricity consumption and real gdp for china during 1971 2000 our estimation results indicate that real gdp and electricity consumption for china are cointegrated and there is unidirectional granger causality running from electricity consumption to real gdp but not vice versa in order to overcome the constraints on electricity consumption the chinese government has to speed up the nation wide interconnection of power networks to upgrade urban and rural distribution grids and to accelerate rural electrification

an instrumental variables approach to estimating tax revenue elasticities evidence from sub saharan africa this paper exploits the significant response of real gdp growth of sub saharan african countries to exogenous international commodity price and rainfall shocks to construct instrumental variables estimates of the tax revenue elasticity iv estimates yield that a 1 increase in gdp increases tax revenues by up to 2 5

dhsy revisited the role of asymmetries davidson et al s data set is used to demonstrate the existence of a significant asymmetry in the adjustment of consumption towards equilibrium the granger lee and escribano pfann methods of partitioning the error correction term are compared and it is shown that the latter produces better results in this case it is concluded that adjustment is faster under conditions of recession than it is during boom periods

investigation of production sales and inventory relationships using multicointegration and non symmetric error correction models the accumulated sum of a stationary series is called integrated if a linear combination of some of the integrated series is stationary it is said to be cointegrated this paper presents empirical results on inventories to consider the possibility of a deeper form of cointegration called multicointegration which is introduced in granger and lee 1989 a vector integrated series is multicointegrated if the accumulated sum of its stationary cointegrated linear combination is again cointegrated with itself inventory which is the accumulated sum of production minus sales is probably cointegrated with production and sales the empirical results generally support the presence of multicointegration of production and sales in many u s industries and industrial aggregates the results also favour the non symmetric error correction model providing evidence that the strength of attraction is different on both sides of the attractor a modified s s rule for inventory control is investigated in the context of a non symmetric error correction model and the results generally do not support the s s rule sufficient evidence is found to conclude that multicointegration is a useful concept in the area of inventory determination

energy models for demand forecasting a review abstract energy is vital for sustainable development of any nation be it social economic or environment in the past decade energy consumption has increased exponentially globally energy management is crucial for the future economic prosperity and environmental security energy is linked to industrial production agricultural output health access to water population education quality of life etc energy demand management is required for proper allocation of the available resources during the last decade several new techniques are being used for energy demand management to accurately predict the future energy needs in this paper an attempt is made to review the various energy demand forecasting models traditional methods such as time series regression econometric arima as well as soft computing techniques such as fuzzy logic genetic algorithm and neural networks are being extensively used for demand side management support vector regression ant colony and particle swarm optimization are new techniques being adopted for energy demand forecasting bottom up models such as markal and leap are also being used at the national and regional level for energy demand management

the impact of china s differential electricity pricing policy on power sector co2 emissions abstract this article investigates the impact of china s differential electricity pricing policy on power sector co 2 emissions using the logarithmic mean divisia index method the differential pricing policy intended to reduce energy intensity in manufacturing is being implemented in eight electricity intensive industries the study finds that during 2004 2009 the policy accounted for a drop of roughly 115 twh in electricity use which amounted to a reduction of 82 million tons of co 2 emissions the policy has been most effective in reducing electricity use in the nonferrous metal smelting and rolling industry and least effective in the ferrous metal smelting and rolling industry because the differential pricing policy has had significantly different effects across industries improving the policy s design and implementation going forward will require a more detailed understanding and analysis of how it can be better tailored to individual industries

factors influencing co2 emissions in china s power industry co integration analysis more than 40 of china s total co2 emissions originate from the power industry the realization of energy saving and emission reduction within china s power industry is therefore crucial in order to achieve co2 emissions reduction in this country this paper applies the autoregressive distributed lag ardl co integration model to study the major factors which have influenced co2 emissions within china s power industry from 1980 to 2010 results have shown that co2 emissions from china s power industry have been increasing rapidly from 1980 to 2010 the average annual growth rate was 8 5 and the average growth rate since 2002 has amounted to 10 5 secondly the equipment utilization hour as an indicator of the power demand has the greatest influence on co2 emissions within china s power industry in addition the impact of the industrial added value of the power sector on co2 emissions is also positive from a short term perspective thirdly the granger causality results imply that one of the important motivators behind china s technological progress within the power industry originates from the pressures created by a desire for co2 emissions reduction finally this paper provides policy recommendations for energy saving and emission reduction for china s power industry

measuring protection mission impossible abstract there seems to be some confusion between openness and protection measures in the international trade literature the aim of this paper is to bring together the state of the art in quantifying trade policy measures and for this reason we focus on the extent of the protection granted by policies rather than on the degree of openness of the economy given the considerable amount of literature that deals with these issues we will limit our review as follows on the one hand we focus on trade policies implemented at the border and therefore do not consider all the other possible public interventions influencing trade flows on the other hand we only take into account indexes that explicitly adopt a metric expressed in a scalar aggregate tariff and quota equivalent measures or an index in a closed interval we distinguish between indexes that aggregate across products same barrier for more products and indexes that aggregate across instruments more barriers for the same product finally in order to classify the large number of indexes covered in our review we propose a typology based on three categories incidence outcome and equivalence

marginal abatement cost under the constraint of carbon emission reduction targets an empirical analysis for different regions in china abstract as the global climate and environmental issues become increasingly serious low carbon development has become a consensus among countries to seek new economic growth pathway as an important emitter of carbon dioxide china has put forward thirteenth five year plan tfyp outline that carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product gdp will be 18 lower in 2020 than that in 2015 to measure the policy effects on co2 emission reduction and abatement costs the directional distance function model is introduced in this paper and the sensitivity analysis is conducted to verify the rationality of our index formulation the results show the areas with the highest carbon emission control target level have significantly higher marginal abatement costs than that of other areas in the short term the reduction targets policy effect on decreasing carbon abatement cost is not significant through sensitivity analysis we further discovered that the carbon emission reduction cost is less sensitive to the carbon emission reduction target and the impact in the short term is smaller however as time goes by the impact increases we suggest that the government should guide interregional enterprises to cooperate and play a synergistic role implementing the multilevel emission reduction targets and expanding the scope of trading in the national carbon trading market are especially important to optimize the allocation

assessing the design of three carbon trading pilot programs in china abstract to help overcome the challenge of growing co2 emissions china is experimenting with market based instruments including pilot co2 emissions trading systems etss in seven regions that serve as precursors of a national co2 ets implementing an ets in a rapidly growing economy in which government authorities exercise significant control over markets poses many challenges this study assesses how well three of the most developed pilot etss in guangdong shanghai and shenzhen have adapted carbon emissions trading to china s economic and political context we base our study on new information gathered through interviews with local pilot ets regulators and experts analysis of recent trading data and extensive legal and literature reviews we point out instances in which pilot regulators have deftly tailored carbon emissions trading to china s unique context and instances in which designs are insufficient to ensure smooth operation we also indicate areas in which broader institutional reforms of china s political economy may be required for carbon emissions trading to operate successfully we make nine recommendations to improve the design and operation of the pilot programs and to inform the construction of a national co2 ets

the impacts of liquidity dynamics on emissions allowances price different evidence from china s emissions trading pilots abstract the liquidities of china s emissions trading markets have significant impacts on emissions allowances price movement and pricing efficiency liquidity measures on illiquidity ratio and trade values indicate hubei emissions allowances hbea product has the highest liquidity shenzhen allowances sza and guangdong emissions allowances gdea products have the higher liquidity than beijing emissions allowances bea and shanghai emissions allowances shea products while tianjin emissions allowances tjea product has the lowest market liquidity in considered china s emissions trading pilots the dynamics of the illiquidity ratios for all selected emissions allowances products are negatively related with emissions allowances returns and trade volumes for bea tjea sza and hbea products are also negatively related with emissions allowances returns the dynamics of daily illiquidity ratios and trade based liquidity in beijing tianjin guangdong shenzhen hubei emissions pilots have significant volatility clustering impacts on the variances of regional emissions allowances returns previous market shocks of overnight and intraday price variations have the more persistent influences on the gdea returns than hbea returns reflecting greater inter day price ranges clustering effect

eu economic partnership agreements and wto negotiations a quantitative assessment of trade preference granting and erosion in the banana market the paper provides a quantitative assessment of the impact on the banana market of the expansion of trade preferences the european union granted africa caribbean and pacific acp countries with the economic partnership agreements epa and of the possible erosion of these preferences as a result of different possible conclusions if any of on going wto negotiations the results of the simulations performed suggest that the impact of the epa on production and consumption of bananas in the eu will be limited while benefits for acp countries will be significant at the expense of most favoured nation mfn exporters an agreement between the eu and mfn countries to end the outstanding wto disputes on bananas and or the conclusion of the wto doha round may bring an erosion of the preferential margins currently enjoyed by acp countries of such an order of magnitude as to cancel out most of these benefits

incorporating life cycle external cost in optimization of the electricity generation mix the present work aims to examine the strategic decision of future electricity generation mix considering together with all other factors the effect of the external cost associated with the available power generation technology options not only during their operation but also during their whole life cycle the analysis has been performed by integrating the life cycle assessment concept into a linear programming model for the yearly decisions on which option should be used to minimize the electricity generation cost the model has been applied for the case of greece for the years 2012 2050 and has led to several interesting results firstly most of the new generating capacity should be renewable mostly biomass and wind while natural gas is usually the only conventional fuel technology chosen if externalities are considered wind energy increases its share and hydro power replaces significant amounts of biomass generated energy furthermore a sensitivity analysis has been performed one of the most important findings is that natural gas increases its contribution when externalities are increased summing up external cost has been found to be a significant percentage of the total electricity generation cost for some energy sources therefore significantly changing the ranking order of cost competitiveness for the energy sources examined

the growth and variability of regional taxes an application to italy abstractthe growth and variability of regional taxes an application to italy regional studies this paper investigates the potential long term growth and short term cyclical stability of the italian regional tax system short and long run elasticities with respect to regional gross domestic product gdp are estimated between 2001 and 2012 for the surtax on central personal income tax rpit and for the regional tax on productive activities rtpa cyclical reactions are more marked for the rtpa and higher in the southern regions significant long run growth of the rpit and rtpa on the other hand is found only in the northern regions the results suggest that the behaviour of regional taxes may increase the italian north south gap and cast some doubt on these taxes in financing essential public services such as health in each region

electricity demand and supply scenarios for maharashtra india for 2030 an application of long range energy alternatives planning abstract forecasting of electricity demand has assumed a lot of importance to provide sustainable solutions to the electricity problems leap has been used to forecast electricity demand for the target year 2030 for the state of maharashtra india holt s exponential smoothing method has been used to arrive at suitable growth rates probable projections have been generated using uniform gross domestic product gdp growth rate and different values of elasticity of demands three scenarios have been generated which include business as usual bau energy conservation ec and renewable energy ren subsequent analysis on the basis of energy environmental influence and cost has been done in the target year 2030 the projected electricity demand for bau and ren has increased by 107 3 per cent over the base year 2012 and ec electricity demand has grown by 54 3 per cent the estimated values of green house gas ghg for bau and ec in the year 2030 are 245 2 per cent and 152 4 per cent more than the base year and for ren it is 46 2 per cent less sensitivity analysis has been performed to study the effect on the total cost of scenarios policy implications in view of the results obtained are also discussed

growth and volatility of tax revenues in latin america against the backdrop of high macroeconomic instability and the need to meet the demands of public spending we analyze the trade off between growth and volatility of tax revenues in latin america short run and long run elasticities for a sample of 11 economies are estimated accounting for state dependent asymmetric reactions controlling for composition of revenue sources and other idiosyncrasies we find revenues above below its long run equilibrium to react stronger weaker to business cycle dynamics our detailed elasticity estimates can give some orientation on how to stably reach higher tax levels on the way to develop an adequate internal tax system

impacts of wto restrictions on subsidized eu sugar exports the study evaluates the impact of world trade organization wto restrictions on the european union eu sugar sector and the world sugar market a small reduction in production quotas would be sufficient to satisfy the export subsidy limitations of the uruguay round agreement complete elimination of export subsidies by 2005 would require either a 10 reduction in production quotas or the combination of an 8 reduction in quotas and an 11 reduction in intervention prices higher world prices resulting from reduced eu exports would result in increased production of unsubsidized c sugar with different impacts across eu member countries explained by differences in institutional pricing arrangements and marginal production costs

the effects of trade policies for fresh fruit and vegetables of the european union abstract this paper examines the economic effects of the trade policies for fresh fruit and vegetables adopted by the european union eu after the uruguay round agreement on agriculture uraa the new import regimes are based on entry prices that in effect work as minimum prices at the same time the eu has signed trade preference agreements particularly with southern mediterranean countries that are important suppliers of fruit and vegetables to the eu the management of the import regime is a balance between two conflicting objectives to support internal producers and to preserve trade flows from preferred countries on the side of export subsidies to handle the reduction commitments under the uraa the eu has introduced rationing trough tender procedures the analysis shows that such subsidies do not seem able to boost the exports of eligible products therefore eu policy makers should ask whether the eu should continue to offer such subsidies

sustainable energy development scenario forecasting and energy saving policy analysis of china abstract the development of renewable energy which is an important way to solve the environmental protection has now become a research focus around the world as a developing country with rapid growth china gains the rapid development of economy but the environmental pollution is becoming increasingly serious in recent years electricity industry plays an important role for energy saving and emission reduction in china in order to reduce the environment pollution it needs to consider how the electricity consumption affects the carbon emissions in this paper a stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stripat model was built which estimates the relationship between the carbon emissions population gdp per capita electricity consumption and energy consumption it found that population gdp per capita and the ratio of electricity consumption in energy consumption are change 1 the carbon emissions will change 1 207 0 901 and 1 188 respectively based on the relationship there electricity energy development scenarios were assumed and analyzed and it found that the way to reduce carbon emissions should consider improving technical ability which should accounting for improving the ratio of electricity power ratio in the energy consumption improving the efficiency of using fossil energy and the development of renewable energy

how people respond to contingent valuation questions a verbal protocol analysis of willingness to pay for an environmental regulation abstract this paper investigates what a respondent is thinking when answering a willingness to pay question in a contingent valuation using a think aloud technique from psychology called verbal protocol analysis the willingness to pay responses we observed seem to be constructed from a variety of considerations including an obligation to pay a fair share of the cost of the solution and signaling concern for a larger set of environmental issues the finding that respondents seem to construct their values at the time they are asked rather than reporting a more well defined value is seen as consistent with over two decades of research on the psychology of decision making potential uses of verbal protocols in contingent valuation studies are also discussed

emissions trading in china emerging experiences and international lessons grants by the robert bosch foundation under the program sustainable partners partners for sustainability the australian research council and the australian government supported different parts of the project

public preferences for carbon tax attributes the impacts of climate change are already visible throughout the world recognizing the threats posed by climate change the durban platform the 17th session of the conference of parties cop 17 underscores that the global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation and ambitious action by all countries a crucial starting point for the design of effective and publicly acceptable policies is to explore public preferences for climate policy instruments using a choice experiment this study investigates public preferences for carbon tax attributes in a developing country context the results account for heterogeneity in preferences and show that turkish people prefer a carbon tax with a progressive cost distribution rather than one with a regressive cost distribution the private cost has a negative effect on the probability of choosing the tax earmarking carbon tax revenues increases the public acceptability of the tax moreover there is a preference for a carbon tax that promotes public awareness of climate change

potential erosion of trade preferences in agricultural products abstract this paper assesses the potential impact of the uruguay round on agricultural trade preferences the potential value of such preferences given by the european union japan and the united states is estimated at us 1 9 billion in 1992 one third going to africa 40 per cent to latin america and the caribbean and the rest mainly to developing countries of the far east and oceania after the uruguay round reduction in most favoured nation mfn rates the potential value of preferences is estimated to fall by around us 0 7 billion of which africa latin america and the caribbean and the far east account for 26 per cent 39 per cent and 28 per cent respectively on a commodity basis the biggest losses are estimated for fruit and nuts coffee and tea

price behaviour in the us sweetener market a cointegration approach the sweetener market in the united states is complicated because of the substitution possibilities between high fructose corn syrup hfcs and sugar this study focuses on the relationship between raw sugar prices and the prices for high fructose corn syrup sugar and hfcs are imperfect substitutes for several industrial uses sugar can be used for all industrial uses but hfcs has limited uses this study uses cointegration analysis to examine the relationship between sugar and hfcs prices as well as the relationship between raw and refined sugar prices over time the results indicate that sugar and hfcs prices move together for the 1983 1996 period however after this time period hfcs prices no longer follow sugar prices

dynamic elasticities of tax revenue evidence from the czech republic abstracttax revenue elasticities with respect to tax bases are key parameters for the modeling of public finances yet the existing studies estimating these elasticities for emerging countries disregard the effects of tax reforms on tax revenue which renders their estimates inconsistent we introduce a framework for estimating both short and long run tax revenue elasticities using quarterly data adjusted for the effects of reforms our results suggest that the long run elasticities in the czech republic are 1 4 for wage tax 0 9 for value added tax 1 7 for profit tax and 1 for social security contributions the adjustment process for value added tax and social security contributions is fast but for the remaining two categories it is important to distinguish between the short and long run elasticities the initial response of revenue to changes in the bases is weak in the case of wage tax it takes half a year for the elasticity to surpass unity

the effects of climate policy on corporate technological upgrading in energy intensive industries evidence from china abstract the innovation effect is an important component when measuring the performance of environmental policy instruments based on a questionnaire survey this research has examined corporate energy conservation and emission reduction efforts in energy intensive industries in china under the pressure of different climate policies and in particular looked into their adoption of those technological innovation and diffusion activities the results show a large variety of corporate adoption of energy saving practical activities in general climate policies have played a greater role in promoting the adoption of managerial energy saving activities in respondent companies while comparatively their influences on the adoption of technology upgrading activities are relatively weak regulatory measures have exerted greater pressure and influence on corporate short term behavioural change as stated by the respondent companies however market based instruments show greater incentive effect in promoting adoption of energy conservation and emission reduction activities that refer to corporate long term oriented strategic planning or adjustment for instance they exert a significant incentive effect on increasing long term research and development investment for technological innovation and also play an important role in optimising corporate organisational structure the econometric analysis further proves the influences of market based instruments in promoting corporate adoption of technological innovation and diffusion activities

demand side management in china the context of china s power industry reform abstract the reform of china s power industry has lasted for decades while the implementation of demand side management dsm in china is still in its infancy in this paper we present a comprehensive study of the dsm and demand response dr programs in china under the context of china s power industry reform we first present a brief introduction of the background including the socio economic status and geographical location of china the energy policy of china china s power industry the smart grids and microgrid in china and the reform of china s power industry then based on the introduction of dsm and the analysis of dsm practices in some countries we discuss the development status of dsm and the reform of electricity pricing in china finally the main challenges in five aspects for the future development of dsm programs in china are proposed and discussed these challenges include customer understanding and participation advanced metering infrastructure ami and information and communication technology ict pricing mechanisms and optimal scheduling big data analytics based decision support as well as government regulations and market policies

long term electricity demand in china from quantitative to qualitative growth abstract this paper develops scenarios of electricity demand in china until 2010 at a national a sectoral and a regional level it takes into account the recent macroeconomic downturn in the chinese economy and the potential effects of deregulation and price increases in the power sector the medium growth scenario hints at a gross electricity demand of 1500 twh in 2010 should the structural change from agriculture and heavy industry towards light industry and services accelerate electricity demand may be another 10 lower these figures are significantly below the projections fixed in the government s 9th five year plan which forecasts a demand of 2500 twh the aggregate and sectoral scenarios imply that current development plans for generating capacity and coal consumption until 2010 too need to be scaled down the disaggregation at the level of the 13 inter provincial and provincial power grids hints at potential regional discrepancies the large industrial areas in eastern china and the central region are likely to face overcapacity whereas north china and the peripheral regions may face deficits

utility subsidy reform in abu dhabi a review and a computable general equilibrium analysis abstract electricity and water consumption in abu dhabi has increased substantially in recent years along with rapid economic and population growth as one of the oil producing economies located in arid regions abu dhabi s electricity and water are produced predominantly with fossil fuel based power water co generation which generate carbon emissions the consumption of electricity and water is heavily subsidized to support industrial growth lower cost of living and distribute state wealth to the population the low utility prices however may have contributed to high per capita carbon emissions for the emirate this paper reviews critical literature on energy subsidy policy for oil exporting economies we then examine the economic and environmental effects of water and electricity subsidy reduction in abu dhabi using a computable general equilibrium analysis the result shows that utility subsidy reduction alone increases gross domestic product gdp of the emirate through expanding the high value added service sector and reduces carbon emissions with decreasing carbon intensive industrial and utility productions meanwhile private consumption declines with decreasing wage electricity subsidy reduction in general has greater economic and environmental effects than water subsidy reduction the positive economic and environmental gains may incentivize utility subsidy reform in the long run when the negative wage effect is mitigated

an analysis of company choice preference to carbon tax policy in china abstract this paper summarizes an analysis of choice preferences of chinese companies to the design options of carbon tax policy the data were collected from 201 companies with around half of them based in the western shanxi province and the other half from the eastern jiangsu province modeling analysis of the discrete choice dataset confirms the statistically significant relationships between the company s preferences to carbon tax policy with the policy attributes including tax rate tax relief measures and the revenue utilization from the viewpoint of chinese businesses the option of carbon tax policy with tax rate at 10 30 yuan t co 2 allowing tax relief to energy intensive sectors using the revenues specific for climate change and starting as early as the 13th five year plan period 2016 2020 would be preferable and realistic the results of this research may be referred for the discussions and development of carbon tax policy in china

sectoral crediting mechanism how far china has to go abstract based on the review of the basic design of the sectoral crediting mechanism scm a promising option for developing countries emission reduction commitments this paper analyzes five important practical issues for china to solve before participating in scm which include 1 difficulties in determining a crediting baseline 2 the unsolved over supply problem in the carbon market 3 the very likely carbon credits falling short of mitigation costs problem 4 the immature market oriented price system jeopardizing the success of motivation incentives and 5 inadequate capacity building corresponding suggestions or compromise solutions are given after a discussion of each issue it is also recommended that in order to witness scm come into being researchers and negotiators should endeavor to solve the practical issues that scm meets now bearing in mind the balance of interests of both developing and developed countries finally we believe that scm s political barriers can be overcome when technical economic institutional and capacity problems are solved

a monte carlo based decision support tool for assessing generation portfolios in future carbon constrained electricity industries abstract this paper presents a novel decision support tool for assessing future generation portfolios in an increasingly uncertain electricity industry the tool combines optimal generation mix concepts with monte carlo simulation and portfolio analysis techniques to determine expected overall industry costs associated cost uncertainty and expected co 2 emissions for different generation portfolio mixes the tool can incorporate complex and correlated probability distributions for estimated future fossil fuel costs carbon prices plant investment costs and demand including price elasticity impacts the intent of this tool is to facilitate risk weighted generation investment and associated policy decision making given uncertainties facing the electricity industry applications of this tool are demonstrated through a case study of an electricity industry with coal ccgt and ocgt facing future uncertainties results highlight some significant generation investment challenges including the impacts of uncertain and correlated carbon and fossil fuel prices the role of future demand changes in response to electricity prices and the impact of construction cost uncertainties on capital intensive generation the tool can incorporate virtually any type of input probability distribution and support sophisticated risk assessments of different portfolios including downside economic risks it can also assess portfolios against multi criterion objectives such as greenhouse emissions as well as overall industry costs

revisiting co2 mitigation potential and costs in china s electricity sector abstract to improve the reliability of sectoral mitigation potential and cost analysis this paper made an in depth exploration into china s electricity sector s thermal efficiency and inner structure it is found that unlike what many literatures portray china is actually among the world s leaders in coal fired power plants generating efficiencies besides although there are still numerous small and inefficient generating units in the current generation fleet many of them are in fact playing important roles in supporting local economic development meeting peak load needs balancing heat and electricity supply and providing job opportunities to the local economy therefore their existence does not necessarily mean low cost mitigation potential given the efficiency and structural characteristics of china s electricity sector it is pointed out that some other mitigation options such as demand side management igcc and renewable energy as well as the break through of ccs technology may play an even more important role in emission reduction considering the significant lock in effects in electricity sector it is warned that china if continues putting majority investment in large and advanced coal fired generating units will face another round of chasing after for the new and advanced renewable generation technologies therefore china should put more efforts in renewable generation technologies now

affordability of energy cost increases for korean companies due to market based climate policies a survey study by sector this paper estimates the affordability of energy cost increases for energy intensive companies due to the introduction of market based climate policies in korea data were collected from 62 respondents from iron steel cement and petrochemical industries over 90 of which are under control of the target management scheme an ongoing mandatory system limiting the greenhouse gases ghg emissions of large energy consuming entities the affordable energy cost increase was estimated using the multiple bounded discrete choice mbdc format results of which show that a mean energy cost increase of 2 6 is acceptable for all the entities sampled companies from the three sectors had similar affordability with an average acceptable energy cost increase of 2 5e2 8 the affordable policy induced energy cost in creases equate to carbon prices of 2500e4000 krw t co2 about 2 3e3 5 usd t co2 for the companies surveyed econometric analysis confirmed a strong correlation between energy price level and company ownership with cost affordability with a view to developing carbon tax policy and a domestic ghg emissions trading scheme in korea this research provides a basis from an industrial perspective for carbon pricing

fruit and vegetable access to eu markets dissecting tariffs faced by mediterranean countries this paper analyzes the access of eastern and southern mediterranean countries to the eu fruit and vegetables market and provides a measure of the level of preferences from which they benefit to take into account the complexity of eu protection in the fv morocco has the highest preference while syria and israel have the lowest we simulated a multilateral reduction in the mfn tariffs as planned in the doha round and showed that this would reduce the heterogeneity within the zone by more strongly eroding the preferences of the most advantaged countries the classification of entry price products as sensitive products would either benefit or have no effect on most mediterranean countries

company s affordability of increased energy costs due to climate policies a survey by sector in china this paper estimates the affordability of chinese companies on energy cost increases due to the introduction of market based climate policies the data were collected from 170 respondents mainly from iron and steel cement and chemical industries using a multiple bounded discrete choice mbdc format estimations indicate that a mean of 8 8 in energy cost increase would be acceptable for all the samples the chemical companies express a slightly higher affordability with the mean of acceptable ratios of energy cost increases being 9 9 while the cement companies show slightly lower affordability with a mean of 7 7 econometric analysis confirms that the market competition degree has a significant but negative relationship with the affordability while the company s size is significantly and positively associated with the affordability calculations indicate that the mean of affordable energy cost increases roughly equals a carbon price of 83 7 cny t co2 about 12 usd t co2 for chemical companies and around 40 cny t co2 about 6 usd t co2 for iron and steel and cement sectors this result provides a meaningful referendum for the development of carbon tax and the establishment of a domestic carbon emissions trading scheme in china especially from the perspective of surveyed industries

impacts of trade liberalizations under the uruguay round on the world sugar market the impacts of the uruguay round policy provisions on the world sugar market show that these policies will stabilize the world sugar price at slightly higher levels than in the baseline global sugar consumption will increase as a result of the income growth caused by the uruguay round economic resources will be allocated more efficiently among the sugar industries of the various countries however the impacts on the sugar industries in countries with strong producer supports will be rather small because the negotiation process of the uruguay round has accommodated the changes in sugar policies already implemented by individual countries in the past few years low cost sugar producing countries will benefit from the higher world sugar price and consumers in countries with protected markets will benefit from lower domestic prices

tax base elasticities a multi state analysis of long run and short run dynamics we examine the relative dynamic responses of state personal tax revenues and sales tax bases to changes in state personal income our econometric analysis which includes separate analyses of long run and short run dynamics for each state permits the estimation of asymmetric short run responses depending upon the relationship between current and expected tax base growth results indicate that the average long run elasticity for income taxes is more than double that for sales taxes most states have asymmetric short run income elasticities which are again greater for income taxes than for sales taxes however a joint analysis of long and short run dynamics reveals that neither tax is universally more volatile after calculating state specific income elasticities for both taxes we employ cross section regression techniques to explain the variation in elasticities across states several policy factors are found to be important including elements of tax bases and rate structures

new market mechanism and its implication for carbon reduction in china abstract this article presents a detailed review and analysis of the discussions around the new market mechanism nmm and explores its potential in china it contributes to the current discussion of the nmm in three aspects first this article attempts to streamline ideas about the nmm the term nmm is considered to be an umbrella concept for emission trading systems which all parties can engage in on a voluntary basis in the implementation of their intended nationally determined contributions and which need to satisfy three criteria i having a large scale scope ii aiming to facilitate a net emission reduction iii allowing flexibility for the host country we also present a framework to clarify the nmm based on this framework major options with a high implementation potential are identified second we argue that the national level operational framework determines the chance of successful implementation of the nmm we identify different options based on a literature survey and evaluate them with respect to effectiveness and efficiency third we choose china a highly influential country regarding climate change polices as a case to analyze the potential contributions and challenges of the nmm and its implementation at different stages of national development

the eu entry price system for fresh fruits and vegetables paper tiger or powerful market barrier abstract the eu protects eu growers of 15 kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables against international competition by the entry price system eps which is designed to restrict imports below the product specific politically designated entry price level this study investigates the relevance of the eps per product and country of origin we develop two indicators for the effectiveness of the eps which serve as variables in a cluster analysis identifying four classes differing in the relevance of the eps the relevance of the eps is found to be heterogeneous among products as well as countries of origin it is highest for artichokes courgettes cucumbers lemons plums and tomatoes the influence of the eps on apples clementines and pears is significantly lower and of least relevance for apricots mandarins oranges peaches and nectarines and table grapes the eps has the greatest effect on countries which neighbour the eu whereas it is of minor importance for exports from far away countries with the exception of china and south africa