an analysis of policy scenario effects on the adoption of energy production on the farm a case study in emilia romagna italy abstract the agriculture sector s contribution to energy production is a central issue in ongoing policy debates and one of the central elements of the development of bioeconomy sector the common agricultural policy cap is one of the main determinants of the different farm strategies of european farmers the cap is now undergoing a thorough revision process which necessarily includes a debate of the role of the policy in rural areas and the effectiveness of the various cap policy mechanisms the objective of this paper is to assess the impact of alternative cap scenarios in the light of the possible changes in 2013 and the willingness to adopt energy plants for energy crops in the province of bologna italy this is pursued using both survey information and farm household mathematical programming models hence using stated intentions and simulated profitability to analyse the adopt of new technologies for energy production the results underscore the relevance of the cap scenarios in altering intentions with regard to the adoption of energy production and the relevant effect of uncertainty in delaying the diffusion of energy production systems

a test of lazear s theory of delayed payment contracts according to lazear workers and firms enter into long term implicit contracts that discourage shirking and malfeasance by shifting compensation to the end of the contract such delayed payment contracts are less likely to occur in jobs in which it is comparatively simple to monitor worker effort this paper uses data from the national longitudinal survey and the dictionary of occupational titles to test that hypothesis in particular it tests whether jobs that involve repetitive tasks tend to be characterized by an absence of pensions mandatory retirement long job tenures and high wages for older workers

communities matter institutional preconditions for community renewable energy abstract energy transitions are high on political agendas from a practical viewpoint community approaches are deemed essential in order to transition from a predominantly centralized energy supply to a decentralized one and to exploit the potential of renewable energies in this paper i discuss how the emergence of community based energy projects can be analyzed from an institutional perspective in this context a community is treated as an individual institutional order that shapes decisions i examine how community structures the implementation of biogas cooperatives in the autonomous province of south tyrol in northern italy my findings suggest that community spirit a cooperative tradition and the norms of locality and responsibility are central drivers behind the emergence and constitution of biogas cooperatives not only do these institutional features of community influence the decision concerning which farmers are in or out but also plant location and scale i argue that community is a necessary analytical category for understanding community energy

power laws in economics an introduction paul samuelson 1969 was once asked by a physicist for a law in economics that was both nontrivial and true this is a difficult challenge as many roughly true results are in the end rather trivial for example demand curves slope down while many nontrivial results in economics in fact require too much sophistication and rationality on the part of the agents to actually hold true in practice 1 samuelson answered the law of comparative advantage the story does not say whether the physicist was satisfied the law of comparative advantage is a qualitative law and not a quantitative one as is the rule in physics indeed many of the insights of economics seem to be qualitative with many fewer reliable

pareto models top incomes and recent trends in uk income inequality i determine uk income inequality levels and trends by combining inequality estimates from tax return data for the rich and household survey data for the non rich taking advantage of the better coverage of top incomes in tax return data which i demonstrate and creating income variables in the survey data with the same definitions as in the tax data to enhance comparability for top income recipients i estimate inequality and mean income by fitting pareto models to the tax data examining specification issues in depth notably whether to use pareto i or pareto ii generalized pareto models and the choice of income threshold above which the pareto models apply the preferred specification is a pareto ii model with a threshold set at the 99th or 95th percentile depending on year conclusions about aggregate uk inequality trends since the mid 1990s are robust to the way in which tax data are employed the gini coefficient for individual gross income rose by around 7 or 8 between 1996 7 and 2007 8 with most of the increase occurring after 2003 4 the corresponding estimate based wholly on the survey data is around 5

gibrat s law for all cities two empirical regularities concerning the size distribution of cities have repeatedly been established zipf s law holds the upper tail is pareto and city growth is proportionate census 2000 data are used covering the entire size distribution not just the upper tail the nontruncated distribution is shown to be lognormal rather than pareto this provides a simple justification for the coexistence of proportionate growth and the resulting lognormal distribution an equilibrium theory of local externalities that can explain the empirical size distribution of cities is proposed the driving force is a random productivity process of local economies and the perfect mobility of workers

earnings by size a tale of two distributions part of the conventional wisdom on the subject of the size distribution of earnings is that earnings are approximately lognormal but with an upper tail which is better described by the pareto function 1 the primary purpose of this paper is to re examine these propositions using british new earnings survey data disaggregated by occupational groups we have several reasons for feeling that such a re examination is timely first most previous studies have considered the distribution among all employees while theoretical considerations suggest that disaggregated data might be more appropriate we elaborate this point in section 1 of the paper second the method of estimating the parameters of the pareto and lognormal functions has not always been given the attention it deserves in section 2 we address this issue and also refer briefly to the related one of goodness of fit the remainder of the paper presents parameter estimates for the pareto and lognormal functions using first aggregate data section 3 and then distributions within occupational groups section 4 section 5 compares these two sets of results and at the same time re assesses the conventional wisdom of the superiority of the pareto function in the upper tail section 6 summarizes our findings

what explains changes in retirement plans during the great recession we examine changes in subjective probabilities regarding retirement between the 2006 and 2008 waves of the health and retirement study using a first difference approach to eliminate individual heterogeneity we find that the steep drop in asset prices in 2008 increased the reported probability of working at age 62 during the great recession increasing unemployment at least partly attenuated this effect but subjective probabilities of working did not respond to changes in housing markets older workers probabilities of working were more sensitive to fluctuations in the stock market but less responsive to changes in labor market conditions

the impact of different energy policy options on feedstock price and land demand for maize silage the case of biogas in lombardy abstract the growing demand of maize silage for biogas production in northern italy has triggered an intense debate concerning land rents maize prices and their possible negative consequences on important agri food chains the aim of this work is to quantify the extent to which the rapid spread of biogas raised the maize price at regional level increasing the demand of land for energy crops for this purpose we applied a partial equilibrium framework simulating the agricultural sector and the biogas industry in lombardy under two alternative schemes of subsidization policy results show that policy measures implemented in 2013 reducing the average subsidy per kwh may contribute to enforce the complementarity of the sector with agri food chains decreasing the competition between energy and non energy uses compared to the old scheme maize demand for biogas would decrease lessening the market clearing price as well as feed opportunity cost for livestock sector and reducing land demand for energy purposes

effects of changes in italian bioenergy promotion schemes for agricultural biogas projects insights from a regional optimization model italy has witnessed an extraordinary growth in biogas generation from livestock effluents and agricultural activities in the last few years as well as a severe isomorphic process leading to a market dominance of 999 kw power plants owned by entrepreneurial farms under the pressure of the economic crisis in the country the italian government has restructured renewable energy support schemes introducing a new program in 2013 in this paper the effects of the previous and current support schemes on the optimal plant size feedstock mix and profitability were investigated by introducing a spatially explicit biogas supply chain optimization model which accounts for different incentive structures by applying the model to a regional case study homogenization observed to date is recognized as a result of former incentive structures considerable reductions in local economic potentials for agricultural biogas power plants without external heat use are estimated new plants are likely to be manure based and due to the lower energy density of such feedstock wider supply chains are expected although optimal plant size will be smaller the new support scheme will therefore most likely eliminate past distortions but also slow down investments in agricultural biogas plants

the top 1 percent in international and historical perspective world top incomes database at http topincomes parisschoolofeconomics eu and has represented a challenge to the economics profession stories based on the and has represented a challenge to the economics profession stories based on the supply and demand for skills are not enough to explain the extreme top tail of supply and demand for skills are not enough to explain the extreme top tail of the earnings distribution nor is it enough to look only at earned incomes different the earnings distribution nor is it enough to look only at earned incomes different approaches are necessary to explain what has happened in the united states over approaches are necessary to explain what has happened in the united states over the past century and also to explain the differing experience in other high income the past century and also to explain the differing experience in other high income countries over recent decades we begin with the international comparison in the countries over recent decades we begin with the international comparison in the fi rst section and then turn to the causes and implications of the evolution of top fi rst section and then turn to the causes and implications of the evolution of top income shares income shares

how will 401 k pension plans affect retirement income two decades ago most workers with pensions had a defined benefit db plan the employer made necessary contributions and investments to meet promised pension benefit payments when the employee retired by 1993 the tide had turned more than half of covered employees participated primarily in defined contribution dc pensions such as 401 k plans employee benefit research institute ebri 1997 this dramatic shift was associated as well with growing concerns about the emerging 401 k plans some viewed 401 k plans as a crisis waiting to happen when current generations having made minimal or no contributions to their dc plan retired with inadequate pension asset balances karen ferguson and kate blackwell 1995 anne willette 1995 another concern was that workers switching jobs would use the lump sum distributions for houses boats or other purchases rather than reinvesting them in another retirement account ellen e schultz 1995 u s department of labor usdol 1998a in a similar vein newly retired workers may not roll over the assets into an annuity and therefore risk spending down their retirement wealth too early e g jeffrey r brown and mark j warshawsky 2001 the most serious charge against 401 k plans

coupling economic and ghg emission accounting models to evaluate the sustainability of biogas policies abstract the aim of this study is to evaluate and quantify the impacts of different biogas and related policies on the agricultural sector as well as their performance in terms of climate change mitigation and associated costs to do so we coupled the partial equilibrium approach simulating the market clearing process with the perspective of life cycle assessment of ghg applying it to the well documented lombardy case results show that the recent italian biogas policy prompting manure utilization and reducing the average subsidy per kwh effectively increased the environmental sustainability of the system which only now seems able to counteract global warming synergies are observed when the recent common agricultural policy greening reform is simultaneously considered by the model

economic determinants of workers retirement decisions the landscape for older workers has changed dramatically in recent decades governments have made cuts to public pension programs private pensions have shifted from defined benefit to defined contribution plans equity and housing markets have been unusually volatile and workers have experienced declining morbidity and mortality at the same time the labor force participation rate for older men and women has been rising over the past two decades implying later retirement are these phenomena related this paper reviews the large and growing body of literature exploring the economic determinants of workers retirement decisions including public and private pensions wealth and savings health and health insurance and labor demand

what the stock market decline means for the financial security and retirement choices of the near retirement population this paper investigates the effect of the current recession on the retirement age population data from the health and retirement study suggest that those approaching retirement age early boomers ages 53 to 58 in 2006 have only 15 2 percent of their wealth in stocks held directly or in defined contribution plans or iras their vulnerability to a stock market decline is limited by the high value of their social security wealth which represents over a quarter of the total household wealth of the early boomers in addition their defined contribution plans remain immature so their defined benefit plans represent sixty five percent of their pension wealth simulations with a structural retirement model suggest the stock market decline will lead the early boomers to postpone their retirement by only 1 5 months on average health and retirement study data also show that those approaching retirement are not likely to be greatly or immediately affected by the decline in housing prices we end with a discussion of important difficulties facing those who would use labor market policies to increase the employment of older workers

how family status and social security claiming options shape optimal life cycle portfolios we show how optimal household decisions regarding work retirement saving portfolio allocations and life insurance are shaped by the complex financial options embedded in u s social security rules and uncertain family transitions our life cycle model predicts sharp consumption drops on retirement an age 62 peak in claiming rates and earlier claiming by wives versus husbands and single women moreover life insurance is mainly purchased on men s lives our model which takes social security rules seriously generates wealth and retirement outcomes that are more consistent with the data in contrast to earlier and less realistic models

top incomes in the long run of history a recent literature has constructed top income shares time series over the long run for more than twenty countries using income tax statistics top incomes represent a small share of the population but a very significant share of total income and total taxes paid hence aggregate economic growth per capita and gini inequality indexes are sensitive to excluding or including top incomes we discuss the estimation methods and issues that arise when constructing top income share series including income definition and comparability over time and across countries tax avoidance and tax evasion we provide a summary of the key empirical findings most countries experience a dramatic drop in top income shares in the first part of the twentieth century in general due to shocks to top capital incomes during the wars and depression shocks top income shares do not recover in the immediate postwar decades however over the last thirty years top income shares have increased substantially in english speaking countries and in india and china but not in continental european countries or japan this increase is due in part to an unprecedented surge in top wage incomes as a result wage income comprises a larger fraction of top incomes than in the past finally we discuss the theoretical and empirical models that have been proposed to account for the facts and the main questions that remain open

economic determinants of workers retirement decisions economic determinants of workers retirement decisions the landscape for older workers has changed dramatically in recent decades governments have made cuts to public pension programs private pensions have shifted from defined benefit to defined contribution plans equity and housing markets have been unusually volatile and workers have experienced declining morbidity and mortality at the same time the labor force participation rate for older men and women has been rising over the past two decades implying later retirement are these phenomena related this paper reviews the large and growing body of literature exploring the economic determinants of workers retirement decisions including public and private pensions wealth and savings health and health insurance and labor demand

institutional and individual investors saving for old age this paper brings together the academic literature on individual and institutional investors in order to understand the nature of difficulties faced by them and set the background for the special issue this introductory article and the papers in the special issue contribute to the debate on how to support individuals in their savings commitments and investment decision making and whether and how institutional investors have fulfilled their role in supporting the development of the funded pension industry there are three main conclusions i individual investors are not ready for the role that has been assigned to them in the pension industry ii institutional investors are a long way short of establishing healthy relational contracts and trustworthy relationships with their clients and iii more effective regulation may be needed

the effect of the financial crisis on the retirement plans of older workers in england this letter revisits the question of how wealth shocks influence retirement behaviour exploiting the dramatic changes in uk asset prices between 2008 and 2009 as a source of such shocks we find no evidence that the wealth shocks arising from this recent financial crisis affected the retirement plans of older workers in england

delayed payment contracts and a firm s propensity to hire older workers there are jobs for which firms employ older workers but tend not to hire new older workers this may be attributable in part to implicit contracts that discourage worker shirking and malfeasance by shifting compensation to the end of the contract such delayed payment contracts can introduce a form of fixed costs into the employment relationship much as with hiring and training costs these fixed costs lead firms to hire primarily young long term workers while firms employ older workers workers who are serving out the last years of their contract they tend not to hire them this paper presents empirical evidence that is consistent with this argument

inequality measurement an axiomatic approach the theory of inequality measurement is examined using some basic axioms which extend the pigou dalton principle of transfers from these basic axioms various inequality indices may be derived as an alternative to ad hoc methods or to methods involving prior specification of a social welfare function the key idea is the concept of distance between two income shares conventional inequality indices are analysed in terms of their implied distance functions

environmental cost effectiveness of bio diesel production in greece current policies and alternative scenarios following european directive 2003 30 ec the greek government adapted legislation that introduces and regulates the bio diesel market the implemented quota scheme allocates the country s annual predetermined tax exempt production of bio diesel to industries based on their ability to meet several criteria a number of bio diesel supply chain stakeholders have criticized this policy for being efficiency robbing and vague this paper uses 2007 data from energy crop farms and three bio diesel producing companies in order to assess these criticisms we study the economic and environmental aspects of the currently adopted policy and compare them to three alternative scenarios we conclude that such criticisms have a merit and that policy makers need to reconsider their alternative options regarding the promotion of bio diesel in transport permission of sales directly to local consumers and promotion of forward integration by farmers are efficiency enhancing and environment friendly means of promoting the use of bio diesel in transport

consumer financial protection the recent financial crisis has led many to question how well businesses deliver services and how well regulatory institutions address problems in consumer financial markets this paper discusses consumer financial regulation emphasizing the full range of arguments for regulation that derive from market failure and from limited consumer rationality in financial decision making we present three case studies of mortgage markets payday lending and financing retirement consumption to illustrate the need for and limits of regulation we argue that if regulation is to be beneficial it must be tailored to specific problems and must be accompanied by research to measure the effectiveness of regulatory interventions

energy production from biogas in the italian countryside policies and organizational models abstract in recent years italy has witnessed a proliferation of agricultural biogas plants this article argues that institutional factors have played an important role in their diffusion it describes the state and evolution of agricultural biogas in italy and then investigates the extent to which institutional pressures have been influential in shaping organizational models of biogas production it finds that the dominance of one particular organizational model is the result of an isomorphic process in which a monopolistic market legal structures and subsidies play a role the prevalence of this organizational model however does not lead to the effective use of biogas production and furthermore it results in low environmental efficiency for a more sustainable development of bioenergy italian policy makers should reform the existing institutional framework by reorganizing subsidies liberalizing the management of gas grids and involving farmers in local projects

effects of corn stover year to year supply variability and market structure on biomass utilization and cost the availability of corn stover can vary considerably from year to year in a region due to annual changes in yield and area planted with corn such variations interacting with biomass market structures can affect biomass cost and utilization rate this study first characterizes year to year variations in corn stover supply for the us in general and for selected major us corn producing counties in particular there have been 20 30 year to year variations in stover supply in the us since 1975 game theoretic analysis is then applied to examining corn stover utilization rate and production cost in three market structures the analysis reveals that a free market structure will take the form of oligopoly oligopsony where large stover supply variations will expose both biorefineries and farmers to significant price volatility price equilibrium will shift significantly from year to year of the three market structures analysed the derisked supply market structure will be most favorable to biorefineries and farmers under this structure biorefineries will maintain a stover supply region that is based on derisked lower than average yield density to buffer for the supply uncertainty associated with annual variations this market structure results in significantly less volatility in biomass cost while on average only 63 of collectable stover will be used for biofuel production our findings suggest that year to year variation in corn stover availability will increase feedstock cost and reduce its potential for biofuel production

global income distribution from the fall of the berlin wall to the great recession we present an improved panel database of national household surveys between 1988 and 2008 in 2008 the global gini index is around 70 5 having declined by approximately 2 gini points china graduated from the bottom ranks changing a twin peaked global income distribution to a single peaked one and creating an important global median class 90 of the fastest growing country deciles are from asia while almost 90 of the worst performers are from mature economies another winner was the global top 1 hence the global growth incidence curve has a distinct supine s shape with gains highest around the median and top

biogas and eu s 2020 targets evidence from a regional case study in italy abstract the provision of renewable energy by agriculture so called agroenergy is a key element of the europe 2020 strategy and has sparked public and research debates on the bio based economy hot topics involve direct and indirect land use change and the ability of agroenergy to foster or hinder food and energy security worldwide research has dealt with these and other issues associated with the sustainability of the diffusion of agroenergy generation systems but the subject is still open this paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the sustainability of agroenergy we propose an empirical model to simulate the diffusion of farm biogas installations and estimate a set of indicators covering the economic environmental and social dimensions of sustainability at the regional level model results show that the current incentive mechanism does not allow to meet eu s energy targets at the local level to do so the policy mix needs an improved design accounting for regional peculiarities across the eu model results show that agroenergy production can help farmers stabilise their income and keep viable rural areas despite some trade offs among socioeconomic and environmental indicators major drawbacks are environmental risks associated with farming intensification

crash and wait the impact of the great recession on the retirement plans of older americans this study uses data from pre and post crash surveys from the cognitive economics study to examine the impact of recent stock and labor market wealth losses on the planned retirement ages of older americans regression estimates imply that the average wealth loss between july 2008 and may june 2009 is associated with an increase in planned retirement age of approximately 2 5 months furthermore pessimism about future stock market returns is found to amplify the impact of wealth losses on retirement timing