implications of energy subsidy reform in india abstract this paper analyses welfare impact of energy subsidy reform in india based on the data from 1970 71 to 2014 15 to this end auto regressive distributed lag ardl model and error correction model ecm have been estimated to quantify the short run and long run price and the income elasticity of various energy products the results show that the price elasticity of demand for all fossil fuels is low but the respective income elasticity is higher therefore an increase in the general price level caused by the subsidy reform will lead to the erosion of real income and will have related welfare implications in india the results also reveal that energy expenditure will obviously increase and hence energy consumption will decline depending upon the extent of the withdrawal of subsidy therefore policy makers in india while undertaking further reforms must ensure that the subsidy reaches to those who truly deserve so that the socioeconomic casualty of reforms can be minimized along with achieving fiscal goals

ecosystem service valuation for national accounting a reply to obst hein and edens 2016 while recent experimental frameworks for national ecosystem service accounting have shown substantial progress in our view some crucial methodological issues remain that deserve further consideration before setting final standards in response to the landmark work of obst et al environ resour econ 64 1 23 2016 doi 10 1007 s10640 015 9921 1 we provide arguments with regard to the suitability of particular valuation approaches generally we agree that respective valuation methods need to produce values that are consistent with national accounting standards such as representing exchange values however we disagree with their conclusions regarding specific valuation techniques firstly the circumstance that methods used for estimating shadow prices can also be used to derive consumer surplus does not justify the general exclusion of all shadow pricing methods for valuation of ecosystem services for national accounts especially for public ecosystem services secondly that preference based methods can also be used to assess welfare changes does not imply that cost based methods are generally better suited for ecosystem accounting to the contrary we see an essential need for preference information in accounting contexts thirdly that accounting standards use a written down replacement cost approach does not mean ecosystem accounting requires to employ a replacement cost approach to the contrary we argue that assessing ecosystem degradation through restoration costs would be in line with writing down depreciation but we also point to its limits

tax evasion and self employment in a high tax country evidence from sweden self employed individuals have arguably greater opportunities than wage earners to underreport their incomes this article uses recent swedish income and expenditure data to examine the extent of underreporting of income among self employed individuals a key hypothesis is that underreporting of incomes among the self employed would be visible in the data as excess food consumption for a given level of observed income our results confirm the underreporting hypothesis in particular we estimate that households with at least one self employed member underreport their total incomes by around 30 under reporting appears to be much more prevalent among self employed people with unincorporated businesses as among those with incorporated businesses

rethinking ecosystem services to better address and navigate cultural values ecosystem service approaches have become a prominent basis for planning and management cultural services and non use values are included in all major typologies and present some of the most compelling reasons for conserving ecosystems though many barriers exist to their explicit characterization the values that conform least well to economic assumptions variously lumped together with as cultural services have proven elusive in part because valuation is complicated by the properties of intangibility and incommensurability which has in turn led to their exclusion from economic valuation we argue that the effectiveness of the ecosystem services framework in decision making is thwarted by i conflation of services values and benefits and ii failure to appropriately treat diverse kinds of values we address this challenge by 1 distinguishing eight dimensions of values which have implications for appropriate valuation and decision making 2 demonstrating the interconnected nature of benefits and services and so the ubiquity of intangible values 3 discussing the implications of these propositions for ecosystem services research and 4 outlining briefly a research agenda to enable decision making that is ecologically appropriate and socially just because many ecosystem services co produce cultural benefits full characterization of services must address non material values through methods from diverse social sciences

quantifying the impacts of energy price reform on living expenses in saudi arabia abstract as part of vision 2030 saudi arabia has initiated a broad based energy reform programme aimed at gradually reducing its dependence on oil this paper assesses the impacts of energy price reforms on living expenses of various household groups in saudi arabia for this purpose the input output table combined with household expenditure data are used to model the impacts results show that the distributional impacts of energy price reforms are regressive with low income households experiencing a higher increase in living expenses compared to high income households the impacts are primarily instigated by rising prices of energy intensive products after decomposing the impacts into direct and indirect effects it was found that indirect effect is not only responsible for a considerable rise in household expenditure on energy intensive products but it is also distributionally regressive it is therefore vital for policymakers to review and fine tune the social protection system to protect poor households against reforms

the private financial gains to entrepreneurship is it a good use of public money to encourage individuals to become entrepreneurs recent evidence comparing earnings from entrepreneurship versus wage earning shows that after allowing for obvious observable differences most entrepreneurs in most developed countries earn less than similar wage earning employees does this mean that the decision to become an entrepreneur should be discouraged the answer depends in part on whether we believe that entrepreneurs report their income truthfully or not adjusting for what is considered to be underreporting by entrepreneurs lifts entrepreneurial earnings by between 10 and 40 reversing the fortunes of the entrepreneur such that they appear to be earning much more than their counterparts in a wage earning job if this adjustment should prove to be appropriate then there is no obvious reason to increase the incentive for individuals to become entrepreneurs such as with tax breaks or direct start up subsidies in developed countries and there is reason instead to discuss decreasing these subsidies

a cautionary note on tests of overidentifying restrictions in this note we argue that tests of overidentifying restrictions give little information on the validity of the moment conditions implied by the underlying economic model and therefore are mute about the possibility of identifying the parameters of interest

fossil fuel subsidy reforms and their impacts on firms abstract while the potential adverse effects of fossil fuel subsidy reform are well documented for households the literature has largely ignored the effect of subsidy reform on firms competitiveness this paper discusses how firms are affected by and respond to energy price increases caused by subsidy reforms it highlights that cost increases both direct and indirect do not necessarily reflect competitiveness losses since firms have various ways to mitigate and pass on price shocks this paper presents and discusses direct and indirect transmission channels for price shocks and firms response measures absorbing cost shocks into profits inter fuel substitution increasing energy and material efficiency and passing on price increases it argues that further micro econometric studies using enterprise surveys are essential for quantifying the role of these mechanisms and for designing policy measures that ensure that competitiveness losses due to subsidy reforms are minimised

social and private total hicksian incomes of multiple use forests in spain abstract the present national accounting system for forests measures only the commercial flows of the production account and the consumption of durable goods produced by human intervention and focuses particularly on final output while ignoring any intermediate output not arising from harvested agricultural crops environmental goods and services whether for public consumption or for the landowner s private use owner s self consumption are ignored in conventional measurements of the net domestic product of forests this paper presents and applies a forest accounting methodology that overcomes these limitations and allows for homogeneous aggregation of commercial and environmental values using exchange values and not welfare measurements for the latter we have applied the accounting system proposed here to two major types of multiple use forest of the iberian peninsula mediterranean forest monfrague cork oak dehesa and conifer forest scottish pine in the guadarrama mountain range our results show that non commercial incomes are relatively more important in the pine forest under consideration both in private and in social terms cork oak forest is notably more profitable in private terms than pine forest however conventional national accounting measures only 24 and 77 of social total income in guadarrama scottish forest and monfrague cork oak dehesa respectively

who benefit most from fuel subsidies evidence from nigeria abstract the paper studies the benefit incidence of fuel subsidies in nigeria household sector combining annual subsidy estimates with the households expenditure data from the 2009 10 harmonized living standard survey we investigate how the benefits from fuel subsidies are accrued to each income groups in nigeria the results show that while the kerosene subsidy is more evenly distributed across income groups petrol subsidy is concentrated to high income groups in aggregate the top 20 households enjoy twice as much the benefit of fuel subsidies as the bottom 20 households we also examine the concentration and progressivity of fuel subsidies using gini coefficient measures and lorenz concentration curves and find both fuel subsidies are more regressive than the per capita expenditure

refined oil import subsidies removal in ghana a triple win abstract in this study claims and counterclaims that fossil fuel subsidies removal yields benefits in terms of budget deficits energy efficiency and mitigation are assessed in order to do this a global computable general equilibrium cge model has been estimated to evaluate the impact of subsidies removal on imported refined oil in ghana on prices carbon dioxide co 2 emissions households demand firm s production and real gdp the simulation experiment points to evidence that subsidy removal raises prices increases the rate of co 2 emissions reduces households demand reduces aggregate output and affects various sectors differently the increased rate of co 2 emissions due to the removal of subsidies is indicative of the existence of the so called green paradox these results underscore the fact that a removal of subsidies on fossil fuels may win in some regards but fail in others a general implication from the applied model therefore is one which supports the assertion that removal of subsidies on fossil fuels removal on energy should be implemented along with policies aimed at stimulating economic activities and reducing the level of co 2 emissions especially where there is evidence of the green paradox

fossil fuel subsidy removal and inadequate public power supply implications for businesses abstract we briefly consider the impact of fossil fuel subsidy removal policies in the context of inadequate power supply with a focus on the implications for businesses in doing so we utilize the case of the early 2012 fuel subsidy removal in nigeria the rationale for such subsidy removal policies is typically informed by analysis showing that they lead to an economically inefficient allocation of resources and market distortions while often failing to meet intended objectives however often the realities of infrastructural and institutional deficiencies are not appropriately factored into the decision making process businesses in many developing countries already impaired by the high cost of power supply deficiencies become even less competitive on an unsubsidized basis we find that justifications for removal often do not adequately reflect the specific environments of developing country economies resulting in poor recommendations or ineffective policy

fossil fuel subsidies in the pacific island context analysis of the case of kiribati abstract kiribati is highly vulnerable to climate change induced sea level rise at the same time the country is also very dependent on fossil fuel imports kiribati uses price controls and tax exemptions to make fossil fuels more affordable for low income households this study reviews the subsidies on consumption of fossil fuels specifically gasoline diesel and household kerosene in kiribati and investigates their macroeconomic fiscal distributional and environmental impact the subsidies are quantified using price gap approach over a five year period the subsidies were on average aud 4 2 million when using 2011 2015 data with 2015 tax policies this is equivalent to 2 2 per cent of kiribati gdp over 2011 2014 the average fiscal impact would have been equivalent to 3 7 per cent of government revenues and 29 per cent of government health expenditure apart from being a fiscal burden the subsidies increase greenhouse gas emissions and make kiribati even more dependent on fossil fuel imports and more vulnerable to volatility in international fuel prices no evidence was found to support the argument for using the subsidies to support low income households in fact there are signs of considerable leakages to high income households which is consistent with findings from studies in other countries

entrepreneurship and personal income tax evidence from canadian provinces this paper employs the dynamic panel estimation method to investigate the effects of the top personal income tax rate on entrepreneurship as proxied by the employer business entry rate using data from canadian provinces over the period 1984 2015 the empirical findings of this paper show that the top income tax rate has a negative and statistically significant effect on entrepreneurship both in the short and long term according to the preferred estimate of this study a one percentage point increase in the top statutory marginal income tax rate is associated with a 0 13 percentage point decrease in the business entry rate in the short term and a 0 41 percentage point decrease in the long term based on the long term results on average a province that raises its top personal income tax rate by one percentage point can expect to have about 405 fewer new employer businesses enter its economy this is a significant loss for an economy that has been experiencing a decline in entrepreneurship for a long time the key findings of this paper are robust to various sensitivity checks

simulated exchange values and ecosystem accounting theory and application to free access recreation abstract this paper discusses the simulated exchange value method a practical method to estimate values for goods and services currently outside of the market in a manner consistent with the market based figures considered in national accounts the method proposes to simulate in a partial equilibrium context the price that would occur if a good or service outside of the market such as free access recreation in forests were internalized the method takes into account the demand estimated using non market valuation techniques the supply and the market structure the discussion covers the case of a linear demand and the case in which the demand is estimated using discrete choice methods this paper applies the method to free access recreation in the forests of andalusia in the south of spain and compares the results to those obtained using hicksian variations

reducing fuel subsidies and the implication on fiscal balance and poverty in indonesia a simulation analysis abstract there is an urgent need for phasing out fuel subsidies in indonesia due to a severe budget deficit and a worsening of income distribution fuel subsidies of which almost 72 are enjoyed by the 30 of the richest income groups have consumed on average 63 8 of the total subsidies between 1998 and 2013 this paper aims at evaluating the relationship between existing fuel subsidies and fiscal balance and at analysing the poverty impact of phasing out fuel subsidies applying a cge microsimulation this study found that removing 25 of fuel subsidies increases the incidence of poverty by 0 259 percentage points if this money were fully allocated to government spending the poverty incidence would decrease by 0 27 percentage points moreover the 100 removal of fuel subsidies and the reallocation of 50 of them to government spending transfers and other subsidies could decrease the incidence of poverty by 0 277 percentage points however these reallocation policies might not be effective in compensating for the adverse impacts of the 100 removal of fuel subsidies if economic agents try to seek profit through mark up pricing over the increase of production costs

determinants of oil price subsidies in oil and gas exporting countries abstract this paper investigates the implicit subsidization of refined products in oil and gas exporting countries most of these countries as well as some other countries mostly developing countries but one could argue that us gasoline prices do not account for external costs distribute large subsidies subsidies that are offered for a long period are not only inefficient but also dangerous due to gradual increases in the energy demand low domestic prices have led to immense oil demand growth that cannot continue if these countries wish to continue exporting only very high price jumps can stop this development but politically these price jumps are very costly if not suicidal for many governments indeed we argue that the currently low oil prices not only harm oil and gas exporting countries but also provide a unique opportunity to eliminate this costly subsidy policy at manageable political costs this paper begins with theoretical normative and positive explanations of low domestic energy prices and then addresses how to phase out subsidies again from a normative and positive perspective finally we empirically address the obstacles that individual countries may face when attempting to eliminate subsidies by quantifying the factors political economic and social that influence the existing subsidies

reducing subsidies on household fuels in india how will it affect the poor kerosene and lpg are widely used in households in india for lighting and cooking these fuels have historically been subsidized as part of the restructuring of the energy sector the government is committed to limiting these subsidies this paper examines the impact of reducing energy subsidies on the welfare of the poor the paper uses data from nationally representative surveys of over 100 000 households the paper concludes that the case for reducing lpg subsidies is strong although the kerosene subsidy is an inefficient means of subsidizing fuel use by the poor reduction in it will need to be supported by other policies that would limit the adverse impacts

sectoral changing patterns of china s green gdp considering climate change an investigation based on the economic input output life cycle assessment model abstract the rapid growth of energy intensive and high emission industries has underpinned china s economic boom over the past few decades since her economic development entered the new normal phase in 2013 china has faced the challenge of mitigating greenhouse gas ghg emissions while achieving medium high economic growth transforming the economic development pattern and restructuring the economy is a principal solution and one important prerequisite is discerning great sectoral disparities of ghg emissions and corresponding environmental costs because the diversity of characteristics among different sectors causes the pollutants that are discharged to vary hence this paper aims to assess the environmental costs of china s total and sectoral ghg emissions based on the system of environmental and economic accounts and using the economic input output life cycle assessment model this study calculates the green gdp and green output value of 27 sectors to reflect the environmental costs of ghg emissions in china during 1991 2016 the findings are as follows 1 while china s direct ghg emissions increased from 3 040 60 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent mtco2eq to 10 641 10 mtco2eq during 1991 2014 declining trends were observed in the total and 16 sectors direct ghg emissions in the subsequent two years 2 although the ratios of direct ghg emissions to total ghg emissions in most sectors decreased total ghg emissions in eight sectors rose first and then fell and in 15 sectors continued to rise 3 china s green gdp grew from 2 003 88 billion chinese yuan to 26 245 25 billion chinese yuan during 1991 2016 and the difference between china s gdp and green gdp decreased from 2 73 to 1 02 and 4 differences between the output value and green output value decreased in over 20 sectors finally some policy implications are given from the perspective of some key sectors of the manufacturing industry agricultural sector and transport storage and post sector

recording environmental assets in the national accounts accounting information is a core element of economic decision making at both national and corporate levels it is widely accepted that much economic activity is dependent upon natural capital and natural resources generically termed environmental assets in an accounting context environmental assets are under threat of depletion and degradation from economic activity consequently the incorporation of information on environmental assets into standard accounting frameworks is an essential element in mainstreaming environmental information and broadening the evidence base for economic decisions and the assessment of sustainability this paper describes the treatment of environmental assets within the national economic accounts and summarizes recent developments that extend the accounting approaches as described in the united nations system of environmental economic accounting seea the potential for implementation of accounting standards for environmental assets is shown through a description of work in australia on environmental economic accounting

incidence and impact the regional variation of poverty effects due to fossil fuel subsidy reform since fossil fuel subsidy reforms can induce significant distributional shifts and price shocks effective compensation and social protection programs are crucial based on the statistical simulation model by araar and verme 2012 this study estimates the regional variability of direct welfare effects of removing fuel subsidies in nigeria uncompensated subsidy removal is estimated to increase the national poverty rate by 3 4 on average however uniform cash compensation that appears effective at the national average is found to fail to mitigate price shocks in 16 of 37 states thus putting livelihoods and public support for reforms at risk states that are estimated to incur the largest welfare shocks coincide with hotspots of civil unrest following nigeria s 2012 subsidy reform attempt the study illustrates how regionally disaggregated compensation can be revenue neutral and maintain or reduce pre reform poverty rates in all states overall it highlights the importance of understanding differences in vulnerability and designing tailored social protection schemes which ensure public support for subsidy reforms

the unequal benefits of fuel subsidies a review of evidence for developing countries summary this paper reviews evidence on the impact of fuel subsidy reform on household welfare in developing countries on average the burden of subsidy reform is substantial and is approximately neutrally distributed across income groups a 0 25 decrease in the per liter subsidy results in a 5 decrease in income for all groups more than half of this impact arises from the indirect impact on prices of other goods and services consumed by households fuel subsidies are a costly approach to protecting the poor due to substantial benefit leakage to higher income groups in absolute terms the top income quintile captures six times more in subsidies than the bottom

impacts of removing fuel import subsidies in nigeria on poverty abstract the petroleum sector contributes substantially to the nigerian economy however the potential benefits are diminished due to the existence of significant subsidies on imports of petroleum products subsidies on imported petroleum products are considered to be an important instrument for keeping fuel prices and hence the cost of living low the costs of these subsidies however has risen dramatically in recent years due to increased volatility in world petroleum and petroleum product prices and increased illegal exportation of subsidized petroleum products into neighboring countries removing the subsidy on fuel is one of the most contentious socio economic policy issues in nigeria today in this paper an economy wide framework is used to identify the impact of removing the fuel subsidy on the nigerian economy and investigates how alternative policies might be used to meet socio economic objectives related to fuel subsidies the results show that while a reduction in the subsidy generally results in an increase in nigerian gdp it can have a detrimental impact on household income and in particular on poor households accompanying the subsidy reduction with income transfers aimed at poor households or domestic production of petroleum products can alleviate the negative impacts on household income

sustainable energy development in nigeria current status and policy options abstract sustainable energy development focuses on maintaining the provision of energy in a manner that can enhance the short medium and long term economic development of a country the provision of sustainable energy requires the development and implementation of technologies that can improve the energy situation of a given country such as renewable energy energy efficient technologies and the proper use of conventional energy resources to achieve this effective energy policy options must be instigated that can adjust to changing circumstances in nigeria the development of sustainable clean modern energy is an immense challenge as is the proper use of the country s conventional energy resources this is as due to the lack of effective support policies and poor participation by the government in clean energy development the energy situation in nigeria could be improved by the provision of adequate energy policy options designed to augment existing energy policies this study critically reviews the current status of energy resources in nigeria and the associated policies important policies unavailable under current government strategies are proposed and prioritised based on their likelihood of success in short medium and long term among the most important policies based on priorities are policies to address crude oil theft complete deregulation of the petroleum subsectors utilisation of associated gases creation of favourable business climate for private investors increase attraction for foreign direct investment in clean energy technology renewable portfolio standards development introduction of tendering schemes use of efficient fuel stoves development of demand side bidding and energy efficiency standard law we believe that these proposed policy options could improve the sustainable development of nigeria s energy resources

tax progressivity and self employment evidence from canadian provinces we examine the effects of personal income tax progressivity in the sense of rising marginal income tax rate on self employment the impacts of income tax progressivity on self employment depend on the relative effects of taxing success and the presence of tax evasion opportunities empirical estimates using canadian provincial data for the period 1979 2006 indicate that there is a negative association between income tax progressivity and self employment this suggests that the adverse impact of income tax on entrepreneurial risk taking outweighs the tax evasion opportunities for the self employed an important implication of our results is that a reduction in income tax progressivity encourages self employment the empirical estimates are robust to the various sensitivity checks

measuring ecological capital state of the art trends and challenges abstract it is essential to assess the value of nature as it provides various benefits for human economic development and well being it has been 20 years since two prominent publications came out in valuing nature new concepts and methods have emerged since then this study aimed to 1 investigate the relationship between the new proposed concept ecological capital and the existing two concepts natural capital and ecosystem services and 2 examine the research trends of ecological capital accounting publications from 1997 to 2017 bibliometric analysis was used to reveal the research trends the results showed that the total number of publications has rapidly increased since 1997 and this growth trend will be maintained in the future the most productive journal country institute and author were ecological economics usa chinese academy of sciences and dr verburg respectively ecosystem services and land were the most frequent types of ecological capital non economic evaluation approaches became less of a favorite over time and economic valuation methods were mostly applied in last five years the integration of different methods has attracted increasing academic attention the progress advantages and limitations of different methods were summarized in this study including seea ecological footprint exergy emergy lca and economic valuation approaches as well as newly developed modelling approaches the last part of this study presented three challenges in this academic field the need to 1 establish a standard framework 2 consider the transfer transport of ecological capital and 3 improve capabilities for decision making

distributional effects of reducing energy subsidies evidence from recent policy reform in argentina abstract we analyze the distributional effects of the reduction in energy subsidies in argentina since 2016 as the policy reform also includes the introduction of a scheme to protect less well off families social tariff we also review how well the targeting mechanism works we apply traditional benefit incidence analysis using household surveys and administrative data focusing on residential subsidies to piped natural gas and electricity in the buenos aires metropolitan area we find that the social tariff is relatively pro poor with significantly higher coverage among the poorest households there are some exclusion errors in the low income deciles and large inclusion errors in the medium and high income deciles the distributive incidence of subsidies does not appear to have changed substantially energy subsidies in argentina albeit lower in aggregate terms continue to be although progressive pro rich this is in large part due to the prevalence of the general flat subsidy rate mechanism over the social tariff mechanism regarding energy budget shares monthly spending on electricity has increased from 1 1 of total household income to 3 4 monthly spending on piped natural gas rose from 1 3 to 3 3 these shares are in line with many other countries in the region naturally there has been a convergence of tariffs towards service provision costs which becomes central in order to incentive sectoral investment and stimulate a good provision of services

evaluating projects and assessing sustainable development in imperfect economies we are interested in three related questions 1 how should accounting prices be estimated 2 how should we evaluate policy change in an imperfect economy 3 how can we check whether intergenerational well being will be sustained along a projected economic programme we do not presume that the economy is convex nor do we assume that the government optimizes on behalf of its citizens we show that the same set of accounting prices should be used both for policy evaluation and for assessing whether or not intergenerational welfare along a given economic path will be sustained we also show that a comprehensive measure of wealth computed in terms of the accounting prices can be used as an index for problems 2 and 3 above the remainder of the paper is concerned with rules for estimating the accounting prices of several specific environmental natural resources transacted in a few well known economic institutions

creating physical environmental asset accounts from markets for ecosystem conservation abstract recent developments in economics make it possible to design and create markets in sectors of the economy where they have previously been missing or inefficient although of interest from an economic efficiency perspective market based approaches to environmental management also reveal information and valuations that could have a role in environmental accounting using data from a pilot involving the creation of a market auction for conservation contracts we demonstrate a methodology to calculate the contribution of purchased ecosystem services to gdp and create selected physical environmental asset accounts consistent with the system of integrated environmental and economic accounts the paper also examines the role this information might play in developing monetary valuations for environmental assets

the role of entrepreneurship in us job creation and economic dynamism the united states has long been viewed as having among the world s most entrepreneurial dynamic and flexible economies it is often argued that this dynamism and flexibility has enabled the us economy to adapt to changing economic circumstances and recover from recessions in a robust manner while the evidence provides broad support for this view the outcomes of entrepreneurship are more heterogeneous than commonly appreciated and appear to be evolving in ways that could raise concern evidence along a number of dimensions and a variety of sources points to a us economy that is becoming less dynamic of particular interest are declining business startup rates and the resulting diminished role for dynamic young businesses in the economy we begin by describing how the concept of entrepreneurship is reflected in existing data on firm age and size the recent addition of firm age to official statistics represents a dramatic improvement in the information available to entrepreneurship researchers we then turn to a discussion of the role of startup firms in job creation business startups account for about 20 percent of us gross total job creation while high growth businesses which are disproportionately young

monetary accounting of ecosystem services a test case for limburg province the netherlands ecosystem accounting aims to provide a better understanding of ecosystem contributions to the economy in a spatially explicit way ecosystem accounting monitors ecosystem services and measures their monetary value using exchange values consistent with the system of national accounts sna we pilot monetary ecosystem accounting in a case study in limburg province the netherlands seven ecosystem services are modelled and valued crop production fodder production drinking water production air quality regulation carbon sequestration nature tourism and hunting we develop monetary ecosystem accounts that specify values generated by ecosystem services per hectare per municipality and per land cover type we analyse the relative importance of public and private ecosystem services we found that the sna aligned monetary value of modelled ecosystem services for limburg was around 112 million in 2010 with an average value of 508 per hectare ecosystem services with the highest values were crop production nature tourism and fodder production due to the exclusion of consumer surplus in sna valuation calculated values are considerably lower than those typically found in welfare based valuation approaches we demonstrate the feasibility of valuing ecosystem services in a national accounting framework

the economic impact of subsidy phase out in oil exporting developing countries a case study of algeria iran and nigeria abstract one of the crucial issues of energy markets in oil exporting developing countries is the high level of subsidies on petroleum products and the low efficiency in energy use the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of a subsidy phase out policy on the energy sector and oil revenues in three countries algeria iran and nigeria by using a standard econometric approach we find that the effects of different deregulation policies are substantial we also analyse the impact of a policy based on autonomous energy efficiency improvement finally a combination of both policies is elaborated and quantified our results show that a policy geared at more rational use of energy would permit these countries to save enough oil to meet future increases in demand while maintaining stable production capacity furthermore such an energy policy could result in additional oil revenues which would enhance their economic development

household welfare implications of fossil fuel subsidy reforms in developing countries abstract with over 200 countries reaching an agreement with the stated aim of restricting global warming to well below 2 c above pre industrial levels the most comprehensive climate change agreement was recently signed though most of the hard work lies ahead it marks an important first step for the collective global community to address climate change fossil fuels continue to remain one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and for many developing countries high levels fossil fuels continues to enable an overconsumption of fossil fuels given the sensitivity of governments to subsidy reforms this study examines the household welfare implications of the removal of fossil fuel subsidies it finds that while welfare implications are unambiguously positive for government the results are mixed for private households although in an overwhelming majority of cases the results are positive however even in the cases where the welfare implications are negative for private households we find that it is possible for governments to carry out the reforms in such a way as to be welfare improving to households incomes by compensating them with some of the fiscal savings gained from the subsidy reform

the welfare effects of unprecedented electricity price hikes in zambia abstract this paper simulates the real household expenditure effects of large electricity price increases in zambia first we find that electricity subsidies are highly regressive the richest household quintile receives over 60 of the subsidies while the poorest quintile receives less than 1 second our partial equilibrium simulations of the welfare effects of a 75 electricity price increase show that the poorest households would experience a 3 times larger percentage loss in real expenditure compared to the wealthiest households naturally these adverse effects lead to an increase in poverty however we find that transferring the fiscal savings realised from the complete elimination of electricity subsidies to the poor reduces extreme poverty significantly this budget neutral strategy is particularly attractive for zambia and other sub saharan economies currently battling the twin challenges of widening budget deficits and high extreme poverty

energy price variation and competitiveness firm level evidence from indonesia abstract this paper uses firm survey data from the manufacturing and mining sectors in indonesia and investigates the extent to which energy prices affect competitiveness proxied by profitability persistent regional price differences due to indonesia s insular geography enable this study to show that energy prices have a small but statistically significant adverse long run effect on competitiveness though different energy types matter in different sectors by estimating cross and own price elasticities and uzawa allen partial elasticities of inter fuel substitution this study also shows that firms have the ability to respond to higher energy prices by adjusting their energy mix i e substituting certain energy goods for others moreover this study shows that firms also respond to higher energy prices by increasing energy efficiency and by passing on costs to end users nevertheless these response measures are not sufficient to fully mitigate the adverse effect of energy prices on firms based on these results policy recommendations are offered which are of immediate relevance for the design of energy pricing reforms

the optimal linear taxation of employment and self employment incomes abstract this paper models optimal linear taxation when occupational choice and labour supply are endogenous workers choose between paid employment self employment and unemployment self employment incomes are risky and employees may be involuntarily laid off calibrating the model to the uk economy the optimal tax solution involves relatively high taxation with substantial redistribution and a higher nominal but not effective marginal tax rate imposed on the self employed than on employees the implications of making unemployment benefits as well as tax rates endogenous are also analysed and robustness checks are performed