new evidence of energy growth nexus from inclusive wealth abstract gross domestic product gdp has been inappropriately used as the main indicator for assessing the sustainability of economic development for a long time inclusive wealth iw offers a new approach to assess sustainability by comprehensively measuring the productive base of the economy that involves three types of capital assets of nations produced human and natural capital and aggregates them into a single measure of wealth this study proposes an alternative to the literature on the conventional energy growth nexus that widely uses gdp as a proxy of the growth this study aims to investigate the impact of energy consumption on wealth in the iw framework and forecast the growth of iw over the next three decades for this purpose this study uses both parametric and non parametric analyses on 104 countries for 1993 2014 our results indicate that there is a negative and significant impact of energy consumption on iw growth suggesting an unsustainable pattern of world energy consumption using a machine learning technique it is forecasted that increasing the efficiency of energy consumption leads to a higher growth in average per capita iw this study also suggests that a shift to renewables is a precondition for sustainable development

environmental policy and international trade when governments and producers act strategically some environmentalists express concern that trade liberalization may damage the environment by giving governments incentives to relax environmental policies to give domestic producers a competitive advantage support for such concern may be given by models of imperfectly competitive trade where there may be rent shifting incentives for governments to relax environmental policies but there are also incentives for producers to act strategically e g through their investment in rd ii allowing governments to act strategically increases the incentive for producers to act strategically iii welfare is lower when both parties act strategically and iv strategic behavior by producers and governments is greater when governments use emission taxes than when they use emission standards

effects of the change from rate of return to price cap regulation this article focuses on the use of incentive regulation in the telephone industry in the united states we first characterize some of the difficulties that have led regulators to move away from traditional rate ofreturn cost based regulation and toward systems of regulation that provide incentives for increasingly efficient production allowing firms to share in the social gains from efficiency with increased profits we then discuss the basic structure of incentive regulation as it has most commonly been adopted in the telephone industry in the united states the first is price cap pc regulation which typically allows the firm to

electricity outages in ghana are contingent valuation estimates valid african countries experience persistent and serious energy outages but while multiple valuation studies provide estimates of the costs of electricity outages in high income countries evidence is scarce for lower and middle income countries the few studies that assess the value of reliable energy supply rely on the contingent valuation method that is under wide scrutiny this paper aims to provide new estimates of households willingness to pay to reduce electricity outages for ghana and contributes to the debate on the validity of contingent valuation results for energy reliability our results suggest that households are willing to pay ghs 67 17 per month for reliable electricity supply equivalent to 7 of respondents income the results of tests for hypothetical bias wtp wta disparity and income effects suggest that the contingent valuation estimates from this study are robust and can support decision makers in prioritizing energy policies and investments

energy transition poverty and inequality in vietnam this paper investigates energy transition energy poverty and energy inequality in vietnam employing a longitudinal dataset of a nationally representative household survey we use the data on residential energy expenditure of more than 9 000 households over the period 2004 2016 we find a transition from traditional energy to modern energy but this transition varies across regions between ethnic and welfare groups and between rural and urban population the poor and ethnic minority households still rely heavily on traditional energy sources such as coal and biomass to meet their energy demands electricity poverty has decreased but energy cost poverty has increased in addition energy inequality tends to decrease at a more significant rate than income and consumption inequalities we propose a national program for energy poverty alleviation be established to devise policies to lower households energy costs further assistance to the poor and ethnic minority households is also recommended so that they can afford a higher level of electricity consumption

the effect of asymmetries on optimal hedge ratios there is widespread evidence that the volatility of stock returns displays an asymmetric response to good and bad news this article considers the impact of asymmetry on time varying hedges for financial futures an asymmetric model that allows forecasts of cash and futures return volatility to respond differently to positive and negative return innovations gives superior in sample hedging performance however the simpler symmetric model is not inferior in a hold out sample a method for evaluating the models in a modern risk management framework is presented highlighting the importance of allowing optimal hedge ratios to be both time varying and asymmetric

equilibrium pollution taxes in open economies with imperfect competition abstract this paper argues that imperfect competition in global markets creates a strategic interaction between governments that can lead to the inefficient distortion of pollution taxes this distortion can be decomposed into a rent capture effect and a pollution shifting effect the rent capture effect lowers equilibrium taxes as each country attempts to gain a competitive advantage over its trading partner and thereby capture foreign rent through net exports the pollution shifting effect raises equilibrium taxes as each country attempts to transfer production and its associated pollution to the other country this effect vanishes if pollution is perfectly transboundary because shifted pollution causes as much damage to the domestic environment as does domestic pollution the net effect on symmetric equilibrium taxes is negative except in the special case of perfect competition with no transboundary pollution in this case the two effects are mutually offsetting and the nash equilibrium is efficient when pollution is at least partially transboundary there also arises the usual transboundary externality and this reinforces the negative net strategic effect giving rise to equilibrium taxes that are lower than what is globally efficient

sustainability assessment of electricity market models in selected developed world countries abstract the paper focuses on the impact of electricity market opening on sustainability of electricity market models the paper aims to identify what electricity market organization models are the best ones based on the established sustainability criteria the sustainability criteria include the main sustainability aspects of power sector economic social and environmental the methodology has been designed to evaluate organisational models of electricity market which allows performing an extensive evaluation encompassing all aspects of sustainable development the evaluation methodology which has been designed for the evaluation of energy market organisation model provides the basis for the identification of indicators that have the most significant impact on sustainability also it lays down the premise for the establishment of critical values and possible changes and the analysis of reasons for the changes in sustainability the paper applies developed model for sustainability assessment of electricity market models in several world countries having different electricity market organisation structures the selection of 12 developed world countries 11 of them are oecd countries from various continents was made based on availability of fully liberalized electricity markets in these countries the proposed assessment allows to review and compare electricity market models in terms of achieving main targets of sustainable power sector development

intertemporal price cap regulation under uncertainty this paper examines the intertemporal price cap regulation of a firm that has market power under uncertainty the unconstrained firm waits longer before investing or adding to capacity and as a corollary enjoys higher prices over time than would be observed in an equivalent competitive industry in the certainty case the imposition of an inter temporal price cap can be used to realise the competitive market solution by contrast under uncertainty it cannot even if the price cap is optimally chosen under uncertainty the monopoly firm will generally a under invest and b impose quantity rationing on its customers

the dynamic relationship between agricultural sustainability and food energy water poverty in a panel of selected sub saharan african countries abstract the relationship between food energy water resources and agricultural sustainability has got a significant policy attraction that generally in favor of livelihood of the poor which is largely affected by climate change food security challenges poor access of water resources and less access of electricity these challenges generally faced by less developing countries while sub saharan african ssa countries has no exemption to escape out from this food water energy poverty nexus due to inadequate socio economic and environmental action programs of sustainable development this study examined the dynamic nexus between agricultural sustainability and food energy water poverty in a panel of selected ssa countries over the period of 1980 2013 the study used pooled least squares regression pooled fixed effects and pooled random effects regression techniques to absorb country specific time variant shocks the hausman 1978 test results reveal that country specific shocks influence the food energy water poverty model therefore the fixed effects regression results are consider a better fit model than that of the pooled random effect model the overall results conclude that agricultural value added cereal yields and forest area significantly decreases food energy water poverty nexus leading to higher economic growth and price levels at the cost of environmental degradation in general agricultural sustainability is the prerequisite for reducing food energy water poverty

the fuelwood consumption in a rural area of greece abstract renewable energy sources are called to play an important role as regards the increasing energy demand worldwide in particular the need to address the problems created by the oil crises has distinguished the importance of renewable energy in economic development biomass is recognized as one of the most important renewable energy sources that can contribute decisively to the energy needs of modern society and the environment protection in both industrialized and developing countries a very important source of biomass is wood and especially fuelwood in greece because of the economic crisis there is an increased consumption of fuelwood especially in rural areas in this paper using a questionnaire and descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis we explore the determinants of fuelwood consumption in a rural area in order to propose appropriate policies for the efficient supply of the market

energy for sustainable development a case of developing countries abstract today there are 1 4 billion people around the world that lack access to electricity some 85 of them in rural areas without additional dedicated policies by 2030 the number of people drops but only to 1 2 billion some 15 of the world s population still lack access the majority of them living in sub saharan africa the number of people relying on the traditional use of biomass is projected to rise from 2 7 billion today to 2 8 billion in 2030 addressing these inequities depends upon international recognition that the projected situation is intolerable a commitment to effect the necessary change and setting targets and indicators to monitor progress a new financial institutional and technological framework is required as is capacity building in order to dramatically scale up access to modern energy services at the local and regional levels in this paper we discussed the energy situation of the developing countries for sustainable development

integrating sustainability into city level co2 accounting social consumption pattern and income distribution abstract from a sustainability perspective city level co2 emissions require reconsiderations correspondingly the economy environment society nexus should be incorporated into city scale co2 accounting therefore in this study the semi closed io model is integrated with a hem to calculate co2 emissions arising from the social consumption pattern and income distribution and to explore economic drivers behind co2 variations this method is applied to a case study of beijing result demonstrate that beijing in 2012 witnessed something different from that in 2005 1 co2 emissions centred in the internal linkages of a broader class of consumption terms with high economic output mainly driven by interprovincial exports 2 imports increasingly helped decarbonize the mixed net forward and backward co2 linkages of consumption items and 3 income driven co2 emissions excluding demand side parts persisted which were more obvious on the supply side where households have more economy wide effects besides urban households played an essential role in household wide co2 reductions this paper ended with corresponding conclusions policy implications and directions for future work

the welfare impacts of discriminatory price tariffs this paper looks at the use of asymmetric tariffs as a regulatory instrument we use a monopolistic market setup with two markets and we introduce price controls in one of the two the purpose of the regulator is to maximise consumer welfare through this price discriminatory practice we consider cases where the welfare of the consumers in the two markets is weighted equally and cases where it is not in some cases we allow for the two markets to be linked through a monopsonistic input market the paper focuses on the welfare implications of this regulatory approach with the firm operating under a profit restriction results suggest that having only one price controlled market is in certain cases a good option from a welfare perspective

household energy choice and consumption intensity empirical evidence from bhutan abstract this paper uses data from three bhutan living standard surveys blss 2003 blss 2007 and blss 2012 to examine the trends and patterns of household energy consumption and identify and analyze the factors that influence household energy choices consumption intensity and the per capita household expenditure on energy sources in bhutan during the last decade significant numbers of bhutanese households have switched to cleaner energy sources empirical results show that a household s choice of cleaner energy sources is driven by income level and household wealth the age gender and education of the household heads access to electricity and location education and income have a differential role on the choice of clean or dirty fuel wealthier and more educated households use and rely more on clean sources of energy like electricity and liquid petroleum gas while poorer households use and rely on dirty fuel such as fuelwood and kerosene the study shows that female headed households are more likely to choose cleaner fuels and above all the availability of a clean and cost effective source of energy within proximity to the household is an important factor in the adoption of clean energy several models using a variety of alternative independent variables such as proxies for education and wealth were estimated and confirmed the robustness of the results

nigeria s energy poverty insights and implications for smart policies and framework towards a smart nigeria electricity network a thorough and exhaustive review of relevant literature and associated works is carried out to critically examine energy poverty in nigeria with respect to ownership and income using the desktop approach and empirical formulas the persistent failure of public infrastructure like healthcare education and security to the poor electricity generation transmission and distribution capacity in the country is examined alongside current government s contribution to buoying our generation capacity and electricity access through policies and investment the findings of the review reveal the urgent need for the smart roll out of distributed generation units in order to stimulate and encourage the ongoing diversification of the economy and also the need for a sustainable road map that incorporates the successes of countries faced with similar challenges this review paper also proposes the need for palliatives in form of subsidized solar home systems shss through a sustainable and economically viable means for off grid homes to assuage the effects of non availability of grid electricity

household preferences for cooking fuels and inter fuel substitutions unlocking the modern fuels in the nepalese household different cooking fuels are associated with various economic and environmental challenges such as increased economic costs indoor air pollution deforestation and deterioration of public health in this study we assess the impact of various socioeconomic factors in a household s cooking fuel choice and motive for making a transition toward cleaner fuels this study uses household level cross sectional data 2011 and pooled data 1996 2004 and 2011 from the nepal living standard survey we use multinomial and binomial logit models for the empirical analysis the results suggest that along with household income other social and ecological factors play a critical role in inter fuel switching decisions we find that transferring property rights of government owned forests to the communities encourages households to move towards cleaner cooking fuels we also find that household head s education distance to the firewood sources energy access status and household income are significant factors influencing the households fuel choice decisions the policy implication is that increasing information spillover involving local communities in forest management and expanding alternative socioeconomic opportunities such as jobs and modern fuels in the remote regions play a vital role in encouraging the households to move towards cleaner energy sources

addressing the renewable energy financing gap in africa to promote universal energy access integrated renewable energy financing in malawi abstract the sustainable energy for all initiative is a global initiative launched by the united nations secretary general in 2012 with a goal of providing universal access to modern energy services by 2030 to achieve this goal substantial financial and technological investments will be required at a rate far exceeding historical levels sub saharan africa has a 30 5 electrification rate and policy reform issues to improve electrification have been poorly implemented thereby sprinkling doubt as to whether the region would be able to achieve 100 access to electricity for all by the year 2030 sub saharan africa faces a tough challenge in order to achieve universal access to modern energy services since the region fails to attract energy sector investments there is also a general perception that the region contributes very little to global greenhouse gas emissions hence offers few opportunities to reduce these emissions consequently missing out on attracting climate finance projects a guarantee of power purchase has been shown to attract energy sector investments however guarantees of power purchases such as feed in tariffs are experiencing slow market growth in developing countries because of a range of technical regulatory and financial barriers using malawi as a case study of a developing country this review provides a perspective from a sub saharan africa least developed country as to the various electrification renewable energy deployment and climate change management challenges that still require urgent attention this study shows that despite the perceived regulatory and financial challenges malawi can integrate and use a combination of adapted price guarantee schemes cross subsidies and environmental taxes in order to support initiatives aimed at supporting the country s development of renewable energy sources and hence indirectly support the sustainable energy for all initiative

non discrimination clauses in the retail energy sector the british energy regulator will soon review a non discrimination licence condition which it imposed to ensure that energy retailers charge the same mark up in different regions many consumers are loyal to incumbent firms necessitating heavy discounting by entrants to attract customers which had led to regional price discrimination matching characteristics of the energy market to models of discrimination we identify the necessary conditions for the licence condition to have a positive effect for consumers and explore whether the policy has helped potentially vulnerable consumers we conclude that the most likely effect of the licence condition is to reduce competition in the mainstream energy markets and welcome the regulator s latest review of the retail market

driving forces for aggregate energy consumption a cross country approach abstract although a cornerstone for development past and current energy use has often posed a major challenge for policymakers with respect to planning and management within this context in this paper an updated multi sectorial cross country assessment of energy consumption trends was undertaken aiming at identifying the main drivers of changes in aggregate energy consumption these drivers have been interpreted in the light of the policy measures that have been implemented over the years by different countries to achieve a sustainable development of the energy sector the cross country assessment encompasses a set of developed united kingdom portugal and spain and emerging brazil china and india countries resorting to the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi decomposition method changes in the aggregate energy consumption were decomposed into three main explanatory effects activity structure and intensity the major findings achieved reflect the relevance of intensity and activity effects in detriment of the structural effect the assessment of energy consumption trends using the lmdi decomposition method provides critical information regarding which is the dominant factor that should be focused in policy design

price discrimination in australia s retail electricity markets an analysis of victoria southeast queensland when capital intensive monopoly industries are restructured and deregulated consumer prices commence a natural drift from regulated uniform average cost tariffs to competitive differential prices and this can raise problems for policymakers deep discounts are welcomed high standing offers are not but price discrimination is unremarkable in economics indeed in industries where fixed sunk costs represent a significant portion of total cost discriminatory pricing is usually welfare enhancing conversely theory predicts and empirical evidence confirms that regulatory efforts to cherry pick differential prices in asymmetric markets will damage consumer welfare in this article we analyse differential retail electricity offer prices in the australian states of victoria and queensland and contrast these with industry average total cost and the marginal cost of retail supply we find deregulated victoria displays high price dispersion with standing offer tariffs 10 above industry average total cost and marginal offers at break even prices i e 20 below average total cost in the semi regulated southeast queensland market where a regulated price cap exists there is lower dispersion but marginal offers include a 6 7 retail mark up efficient pricing requires the marginal unit produced to be priced at marginal cost and victoria meets this criteria but we identify an episode of inter consumer misallocation due to high standing offers we conclude policy initiatives designed to help firms shift vulnerable households from standing offer tariffs is desirable

price elasticities of residential electricity demand estimates from household panel data in bangladesh abstract we collect a household level panel dataset to estimate the price elasticities of electricity demand for different types of urban households in bangladesh we use an instrumental variable estimation strategy which exploits exogenous variation in average electricity prices induced by a value added tax shock the results indicate significant heterogeneity in price elasticities by electricity consumption levels we conduct a number of simulations under alternative policy scenarios to illustrate how incorporating the heterogeneous nature of price elasticities into pricing policy can help decrease electricity demand supply mismatch and inequality in electricity consumption the results have important policy implications for developing countries aiming to address major energy issues by implementing tariff reforms

real options analysis for renewable energy investment decisions in developing countries abstract renewable energy projects in developing countries should provide clean energy supply as well as support sustainable economic development to this end risks arising from uncertainties such as rapidly changing technologies and host government conditions should be carefully addressed however traditional methods for economic assessment are not adequate to support decision making regarding investments in renewable energy this paper proposes a real options analysis framework as a tool to assess renewable energy investment in developing countries a case study involving a hydropower project in indonesia was conducted to validate and verify the proposed framework this framework is expected to help host countries and investors assess renewable energy projects with high volatility and risk

the effect of liberalizing uk retail energy markets on consumers this paper describes the evolution of supply competition in the uk residential energy market and the extent to which consumers in general and vulnerable households in particular have benefited from liberalization it concludes that earlier fears about higher prices for vulnerable groups from tariff rebalancing have not so far been realized however in assessing the extent to which suppliers may be able to exploit individual or joint market power increasing concentration in the downstream market may result in adverse effects on all consumers especially low income households this poses a threat to the government s programme to reduce fuel poverty particularly at a time when upstream costs are expected to rise to reflect environmental concerns copyright 2005 oxford university press

the impact of biomass consumption on co2 emissions cointegration analyses with regime shifts abstract the source of carbon dioxide co2 emissions has been of great interest to researcher s and or policy maker s within ongoing efforts to diminish the emissions in the world due to co2 s serious adverse environmental effect this paper investigates the possible existence of long run relationship between co2 emissions and biomass consumption in us for the period january 1990 september 2011 to this end paper first seeks for effect of biomass on co2 through energy literature and later follows cointegration analyses with structural breaks to reveal parameter estimates of long run equilibrium of co2 with fossil fuel consumption and biomass consumption eventually this paper explores that structural breaks are important to understand the course of co2 and that as expected fossil fuel and biomass effect co2 positively and negatively respectively alternative cointegration analyses with regime shifts confirm negative impact of biomass and positive impact of fossil fuel on co2 as well

energy demand convergence in apec an empirical analysis this paper empirically examines the cross country convergence of per capita energy and electricity usage in apec a significant economic bloc to this end the study applies conventional panel unit root tests and sequential panel selection model spsm procedure based on the panel kss unit root with a fourier function for robustness analysis the results from conventional unit root test results indicate that per capita energy usage and electricity consumption are converging for all apec countries in line with improving living standards in apec the findings also provide some support for policies to promote energy integration among apec countries according to spsm analysis evidence of energy convergence is found for 15 out of 19 apec countries and evidence of electricity convergence is found for 17 out of 19 apec countries pursuit of policies to achieve energy supply stability can move divergent countries toward convergence

multi criteria model for sustainable development using goal programming applied to the united arab emirates abstract sustainable development requires implementing suitable policies integrating several competing objectives on economic environmental energy and social criteria multi criteria decision analysis mcda using goal programming is a popular and widely used technique to study decision problems in the face of multiple conflicting objectives mcda assists policy makers by providing clarity in choosing between alternatives for strategic planning and investments in this paper we propose a weighted goal programming model that integrates efficient allocation of resources to simultaneously achieve sustainability related goals on gdp growth electricity consumption and ghg emissions we validate the model with application to key economic sectors of the united arab emirates to achieve sustainable development goals by the year 2030 the model solution provides a quantitative justification and a basis for comparison in planning future energy requirements and an indispensable requirement to include renewable sources to satisfy long term energy requirements

how much is enough an integrated examination of energy security economic growth and climate change related to hydropower expansion in brazil abstract reconciling economic growth and energy supply with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and other goals for environmental protection is a major challenge for emerging economies such as brazil establishing energy security standards consistent with realistic economic growth projections while considering climate change requires complex calculations and relies upon risky assumptions yet such calculations and decisions must be made to avoid future energy shortages and economic crises this paper discusses the current dilemma concerning planning and decision making for the brazilian electric sector considering the construction of hydroelectric power plants in the amazon region energy security requirements projected economic growth and climate change feedbacks

geographical and environmental perspectives for the sustainable development of renewable energy in urbanizing china with rapid urbanization and industrialization china has become both the largest energy consumer and co2 emitting country in the world as a clean and low carbon energy source renewable energy is a good choice to substitute for the exhausted fossil energy the chinese central and local governments have made a series of policies and optimistic plans to promote a rapid development of renewable energies china s renewable energy development has become a key to the sustainable development of socioeconomic system unlike most of the current studies which mainly identified the challenges regarding policies and technologies around renewable energy or performed specific analyses for a certain kind of renewable energy this paper summarizes the spatial disparity and consistency among the major renewable energies coal resources energy consumption and its major influencing factors in china and reviews the positive and negative environmental impacts of major renewable energies based on the geographical and environmental perspectives this paper recommends that the chinese government constructs the national energy production bases according to the resource distribution integrates different energies on the basis of their natural features and spatial consistency adjusts the overall layout of socio economic development consistent with renewable energies and promotes a moderate renewable energy development to maximize the environmental benefits c 2013 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

renewable energy technology uptake in kazakhstan policy drivers and barriers in a transitional economy kazakhstan has considerable renewable energy potential the development of which can provide significant environmental economic and social benefits the country s national low carbon energy strategy aims to bring the share of renewables in electricity production to 50 by 2050 despite the considerable renewable energy resource base and ambitious deployment targets the current contribution of non hydro renewable energy to final electricity demand is less than one percent adoption of renewable energy technologies in a fossil fuel resource rich country like kazakhstan remains a big challenge but current low oil prices and a weakening economy may offer new opportunities deploying an analytical hierarchy process methodology we identify the most significant barriers to uptake of renewable energy in the context of the electricity sector the main factors preventing the penetration and scale up of renewables include a political and regulatory framework which supports and promotes a continued focus on fossil fuels supported in part by regional geopolitics a lack of awareness of sustainable alternative energy generation systems and a combination of social poverty and poor education in communities that are most likely to benefit from broadly distributed renewable technologies market conditions driven by current electricity tariffs inefficient but incumbent power technologies and a high risk business environment ranking barriers by importance will provide practitioners and regulators a mechanism to improve policies and incentivize renewable energy uptake in kazakhstan and other resource rich transition economies in central asia

factors determining household use of clean and renewable energy sources for lighting in sub saharan africa abstract the purpose of the current research is to examine the factors that influence household use of determinants of renewable and clean energy sources used for lighting purposes in africa using the data from the living standard measurement study lsms from three african countries ethiopia tanzania and malawi for this purpose the paper uses multinomial logit and ordered probit econometrics models the descriptive analysis reveals that rural households are dependent largely on kerosene and batteries for lighting their houses while electricity and batteries form a major source of energy for lighting urban households a small fraction of households uses solid fuels and solar as their source of energy for lighting econometric results show that female headed households are likely to adopt clean and renewable sources of energy compared to male headed households wealthier and more educated households are found to use electricity and solar energy for lighting while poorer households tend to use kerosene batteries and solid fuels empirical results indicated that the ethiopian households followed by malawian households are more likely to use clean sources of energy compared to tanzanian households