trade migration and integration evidence and policy implications this paper takes as its point of departure the unique position recently adopted by swedish policymakers emphasizing migration as a tool to increase trade we attempt to empirically scrutinize this

barriers to energy efficiency a comparison across the german commercial and services sector abstract based on a large sample for the german commercial and services sector this paper econometrically assesses the relevance of various types of barriers to energy efficiency at the sectoral level and across fifteen sub sectors the results at the level of entire sectors suggest that the lack of information about energy consumption patterns and about energy efficiency measures lack of staff time priority setting within organizations and in particular the investor user dilemma are all relevant barriers allowing for sector specific differences in the relevance of these individual barriers yields a more heterogeneous picture the numbers and types of relevant barriers vary across sub sectors and the majority of sub sectors are subject to relatively few barriers the statistically most significant barriers are found for the sub sector of public administrations these findings are robust independent of whether the definition of an organization s energy efficiency performance includes only measures that have actually been realized or also those that are being planned for planned projects however organizations appear to underestimate internal priority setting as a barrier to energy efficiency

the export effect of immigration into the usa much has been written on the connection between migration and international trade human history provides important examples of migrations leading to increased trade activity with perhaps the most well known example of the overseas chinese this study investigates the trade related importance of chinese and other immigrants into the usa previous studies may have underestimated or overestimated the relationship between trade and migration with nations treated as featureless plains rather than as varied landscapes this study contends that an understanding of the immigration trade relationship can be improved upon by examining the specific pattern and destination of immigration into specific us states using state level export data to 28 immigrant source countries in 1993 a strong immigration trade link is found reinforcing conclusions made by previous research using country level data the compelling connection between immigration and trade found in this study and others suggests that future change

modeling technology adoptions for sustainable development under increasing returns uncertainty and heterogeneous agents abstract this paper presents a stylized model of technology adoptions for sustainable development under the three potentially most important stylized facts increasing returns to adoption uncertainty and heterogeneous agents following diverse technology development and adoption strategies the stylized model deals with three technologies and two heterogeneous agents a risk taking one and a risk averse one interactions between the two agents include trade in resources and goods and technological spillover free riding and technology trade with the two heterogeneous agents we run optimizations to minimize their aggregated costs in order to find out what rational behaviors are under different assumptions if the two agents are somehow cooperative by considering uncertain carbon taxes the model also addresses environmental issues as potential driving forces for technology adoptions

does the energy efficiency paradox exist technological progress and uncertainty we explain why firms may choose not to undertake investments inenergy saving technologies that appear profitable from a net presentvalue perspective as future technological advances are inherentlyuncertain and investments in new technology are at least partly irreversible it may pay to postpone investments in energy savingand wait for the arrival of improved varieties this insight casts doubton the existence of so called low hanging fruits in energy saving although we do not wish to deny that organisational failures may alsobe important failure to appreciate the underlying stochasticity oftechnological progress may obscure the insight that there is value inwaiting and costs involved in terminating the option to invest theappetite for low hanging fruits will be less when these costs areincorporated in the analysis we demonstrate that the effect of thearrival rate of new technologies on the adoption lag for a rational firmis ambiguous the same holds for the effect of the expected jump inefficiency of new technologies government policies aimed at enhancingthe adoption of new technologies through stimulation of r d maytherefore be counterproductive

buyer supplier interaction asset specificity and product choice abstract firms often differentiate their products through the use of inputs that are differentiated or specialized the goal of this paper is to explore how the demand for specific investments may affect product variety in a bilateral duopolistic industry i develop a model where the degree of specificity of investments is endogenously determined through the product choices of both downstream buyers and upstream suppliers of inputs the existence of non contractible investments results in the emergence of a single supplier of a non specialized input however as the importance of having specific inputs increases fully specialized suppliers may emerge the buyers choose to increase their own competition by producing more similar products only in cases when the inputs are non specialized they do so to increase the investment incentives of the suppliers

immigrant trade links transplanted home bias and network effects macro level data for the us and 73 trading partners spanning the years 1980 to 2001 is used with a gravity specification to investigate the influence of immigration on bilateral trade prior research has identified immigrant stocks as a significant determinant of trade however this study indicates that the us immigrant trade link is driven by immigration from relatively low income countries a 10 increase in the immigrant stock is found to generate respectively 4 7 and 1 5 increases in domestic imports from and exports to the typical low income home country the observed link is decomposed into two hypothesized channels network effects and transplanted home bias considerable variation in per immigrant trade effects is found across home countries imports from the typical low income home country are estimated to increase by up to 2057 due to transplanted home bias and by as much as 2967 as a result of network effects while exports rise by up to 910 as a result of networks

the role of the discount rates in energy systems optimisation models abstract the selection of the social discount rate and the consideration of hurdle rates in energy systems optimisation models affect the creation of sound and comprehensive scenarios useful for energy modellers due to the lack of studies about the use of different discounting options in energy optimisation models the goal of this paper is to fill that gap by establishing the foundations for a debate among energy modellers policy makers and stakeholders in this regard so firstly we introduced the concept of discount rates both social and technology specific including a thorough literature review concerning figures scopes and approaches secondly two models etsap tiam and times norway were used to assess the behaviour of the energy systems at different regionalisation levels europe and norway respectively thirdly we analysed the evolution of the electricity production mixes and system costs for both models and considering several values for the discount rates finally results showed that the energy system is strongly affected by changes in the social discount rate the lower the social discount rate is the higher the renewable contribution the social discounting exerts influence on capital intensive investments so it is quite important to look at the energy carriers pathways fossil renewable transition this is what happens in the case of etsap tiam for europe reversely in the case of times norway as the electricity system is almost 100 renewable it is important to take into account the hurdle rates of the technologies to enrich the competition by including their particular risks and barriers in summary we recommend using a value not higher than 4 5 for the social discount rate for the european countries as well as to include an exhaustive portfolio of hurdle rates for all the technologies included in the energy optimisation model

compatibility and bundling of complementary goods in a duopoly this paper presents a simple model of compatibility and bundling in industries where consumers assemble several necessary components into a system that is close to their ideal the authors show that for a wide range of parameters firms will choose to produce compatible components but will offer discounts to consumers who purchase all components from the same firm however firms would be better off if they could commit not to provide such discounts furthermore the equilibrium tends to involve socially excessive bundling finally mixed bundling strategies tend to increase the range of parameters over which socially excessive standardization occurs copyright 1992 by blackwell publishing ltd

the aim end use model and its application to forecast japanese carbon dioxide emissions abstract the asian pacific integrated model aim has been developed for predicting greenhouse gas emissions and evaluating policy measures to reduce them two socioeconomic scenarios were assumed and co 2 emissions were predicted based on these scenarios and policy intervention assumptions it is found that mitigating co 2 emissions by 6 to the 1990 level is possible without scaling back productive activities or living standards in japan however this cannot be achieved by relying on the market mechanism alone our analysis shows that it is indispensable to introduce new policies and measures such as a carbon tax and subsidies

beyond case studies barriers to energy efficiency in commerce and the services sector to assess the empirical relevance of various barriers to the diffusion of energy efficient measures we conduct econometric analyses for 19 sub sectors in the german commercial and services sectors results from estimating a separate logit model for each sub sector suggest that the most important barriers are the investor user dilemma and the lack of information about energy consumption patterns typically multiple types of barriers are found to be statistically significant but they vary considerably across sub sectors finally we discuss policy implications for the most relevant barriers

desirability of compatibility in the absence of network externalities i compare the incentives firms have to produce individual components compatible with components of other manufacturers instead of systems composed of components that are incompatible with components of competing manufacturers i show that even in the absence of positive consumption externalities network externalities prices and profits will be higher in the regime of compatibility equilibrium total surplus could be higher in either regime both regimes overprovide variety compared to the surplus maximizing solution in today s environment many products are complex specified by a long array of characteristics part of the decision of the firm is to choose if it should break this long array of features into two or more smaller parts and produce the products corresponding to the smaller arrays instead of the product that embodies the full array we will call the products that correspond to these smaller arrays components and the product that corresponds to the full array a system note that components are by their definition complements components produced by different manufacturers are compatible if it is feasible for the consumers to combine them costlessly into a working system in this paper we will assume that there are two components which make up a system we will discuss competition under full compatibility when components produced by all firms are compatible with each other and under incompatibility when no components produced by different firms are compatible and no hybrid systems can exist 2 assuming availability of the same

incentives for investment in energy efficiency an econometric evaluation and policy implications technical studies suggest that there exist many opportunities to improve energy efficiency and that a substantial proportion is profitable by current business standards this study deals with the question why so many of these profitable opportunities are not used reasons for not implementing profitable opportunities are idetified and their effect is estimated on the basis ofa survey among dutch firms designed specifically for this study the reasons that prevail indicate what policy measures may accompany energy taxes in the pursuit of energy efficiency improvement in addition energy efficiency elasticities are estimated as well as the factors that determine the elasticities these too indicate opportunities for government policy if it wants to improve the effectiveness of energy taxes

motor systems energy efficiency supply curves a methodology for assessing the energy efficiency potential of industrial motor systems motor driven equipment accounts for approximately 60 of manufacturing final electricity use worldwide a major barrier to effective policymaking and to more global acceptance of the energy efficiency potential in industrial motor systems is the lack of a transparent methodology for quantifying the magnitude and cost effectiveness of these energy savings this paper presents the results of groundbreaking analyses conducted for five countries and one region to begin to address this barrier using a combination of expert opinion and available data from the united states canada the european union thailand vietnam and brazil bottom up energy efficiency supply curve models were constructed to estimate the cost effective electricity efficiency potentials and co2 emission reduction for three types of motor systems compressed air pumping and fan in industry for the selected countries region based on these analyses the share of cost effective electricity saving potential of these systems as compared to the total motor system energy use in the base year varies between 27 and 49 for pumping 21 and 47 for compressed air and 14 and 46 for fan systems the total technical saving potential varies between 43 and 57 for pumping 29 and 56 for compressed air and 27 and 46 for fan systems

product differentiation in successive vertical oligopolies this is a successive oligopoly model with two varieties of a final product downstream firms choose one variety to sell on a final market upstream firms specialize in the production of one input specifically designed for one variety but they also produce the input for the other variety at an extra cost we show that as more downstream firms choose one particular variety more upstream firms specialize in the input specific to that variety and vice versa multiple equilibria may result and the softening effect of product differentiation on competition might not be strong enough to induce maximal differentiation jel classification l11 l13 l23

estimating energy conservation potential in china s energy intensive industries with rebound effect abstract the energy consumption of china s six most energy intensive sub industries is about half of the total national energy consumption and accounts for more than 70 of industrial energy consumption in recent years these six industries are capital and energy intensive and have a great impact on the energy consumption of china so they are directly related to the achievement of the energy conservation goal in the 13th five year plan this paper investigates the influential factors of energy consumption in the industries by employing the cointegration method and estimates the possible energy conservation potential considering energy rebound effect the results show that gdp and the scale of industries are the deterministic factors increasing energy consumption while r d intensity decreases it energy price has little impact on energy consumption the average energy rebound effect is calculated using the latent variable approach and the result is 90 75 considering energy rebound effect the energy conservation potential of china s energy intensive industries is 14 18 26 54 million tons of standard coal equivalent in 2020 and 44 64 80 72 million tons of standard coal equivalent in 2030

complementarity coordination and compatibility the role of fixed costs in the economics of systems abstract we analyze industry equilibrium and incentive to compatibility when goods produced by different producers generate utility only when consumed as component parts of a system we assume the presence of two systems each composed of some basic component and a set of differentiated complementary products the combination of complementarity between the two components of the system and of fixed costs in the production of the complementary product results in a form of network effect we focus on the role played by the size of the fixed costs in the production of the complementary products in determining the size of this system effect and by this means the structure and types of equilibria that may be observed monopolistic or duopolistic symmetric or asymmetric we also highlight the consequence of the same fixed costs for the private and social incentives to render the systems compatible

vertical governance change and product differentiation under decreasing component costs in deciding on whether and when to outsource component production firms should consider the trade off between total production costs and the ability to horizontally differentiate products we study the outsourcing decision in a duopoly under decreasing but uncertain market rates for components given that outsourcing increases the substitutability of the final products we find that there is at least one firm that eventually outsources component production because it cannot differentiate its product enough by in house production to justify the eventually higher costs the follower outsources at a lower market rate or may even remain vertically integrated the follower thus incurs the eventually much higher in house component costs longer while the low substitutability is enjoyed by both firms under endogenous roles firms thus engage in a preemption game to be the first to outsource we also find that firms generally outsource at lower market rates if uncertainty is higher but seek to preempt at remarkably higher market rates if substitutability remains low

migration and trade theoretical and empirical research in economics suggests that bilateral migration triggers bilateral trade through a number of channels this paper assesses the functional form of the impact of migration on trade flows in a quasi experimental setting we provide evidence that the relationship is not log linear in particular at small levels of immigration stocks the elasticity of trade to migration is quite high and it declines to zero at about 4 000 immigrants if immigration stocks exceed such a level the evidence suggests that trade will not increase anymore this suggests that for cross country network and other effects flowing from immigration to materialise at a significant level for trade a high enough level of immigrant stocks is necessary but there appears to be satiation as immigrant numbers increase

implementation of energy efficiency projects by dutch industry as potentials for energy savings are huge industry can provide a major contribution to energy savings goals this paper focuses on the energy savings realized under the dutch voluntary agreements in the period 2001 2011 participants in these schemes are obliged to plan and implement all measures with a payback period of less than 5 years this paper shows how many of these projects have been implemented and how much savings they generate our findings show that large differences exist in the realized savings between individual companies there is however no significant difference in savings observed between companies that participate in the emission trading system ets and companies that do not although it is impossible to disentangle the drivers behind the implementation of these projects the amount of savings suggest that at least part of them was implemented because of different energy policy instruments

immigration and trade creation econometric evidence from canada immigrants may expand trade with their country of origin owing to superior knowledge of or preferential access to market opportunities the authors test this proposition using canadian trade data with 136 partners from 1980 to 1992 in an augmented gravity equation they find that a 10 percent increase in immigrants is associated with a 1 percent increase in canadian exports to the immigrant s home country and a 3 percent increase in imports they also find that among the primary categories of immigrants independents have the greater influence on trade immigration via the entrepreneur class appears to have less impact on trade than all other classes except refugees

vertical foreclosure with the choice of input specifications we develop an equilibrium model of vertical foreclosure with the choice of input specifications vertical foreclosure occurs as the upstream division of the integrated firm makes a specialized input for its sister downstream division while it would as an independent firm provide a generalized input the changes in incentives with vertical integration can be explained by the externalities the choice of a specialized input entails vertical integration allows the upstream firm to internalize the benefit of raising the rival firm s costs at the downstream level we derive conditions for equilibrium vertical foreclosure to occur and discuss its welfare consequences

barriers to industrial energy efficiency investments in greece abstract this paper sets out to investigate the main determinants of industrial decision making process with respect to energy efficiency investments based on a survey among greek industries in the empirical analysis probit models are employed the results support that an energy saving campaign should regard industries as subgroups with different needs and different managerial aspects the importance of qualified employees is also established from this survey an energy conservation framework would be more effective if the diffusion of information with regard to industrial energy saving investments is based on investment in human capital

where are the industrial technologies in energy economy models an innovative cge approach for steel production in germany top down computable general equilibrium cge models are used extensively for analysis of energy and climate policies energy intensive industries are usually represented in top down economic models as abstract economic production functions commonly of the constant elasticity of substitution ces or translog functional form this study explores methods for improving the realism of energy intensive industries in top down economic models we replace a ces production function with a set of specific technologies and provide a comparison between the traditional production function approach in cge models and an approach with separate technologies for making iron and steel in particular we investigate the response of the iron and steel sector to a set of co2 price scenarios our technology based integrated approach permits a choice between several technologies for producing iron and steel and allows for shifts in technology characteristics over time towards best practice innovative technologies in addition the general equilibrium framework allows us to analyze interactions between production sectors for example between electricity generation and iron and steel production investigate simultaneous economy wide reactions and capture the main driving forces of greenhouse gas emissions reductions under a climate policy we conclude that technology specific effects are crucial for the economic assessment of climate policies in particular the effects relating to process shifts and fuel input structure

endogenous technological change and emissions the case of the german steel industry abstract the paper starts from the observation that innovation and technical progress are only portrayed superficially in the predominant environmental economic top down models and that the assumption of perfect factor substitution does not correctly mirror actual production conditions in many energy intensive production sectors bottom up models on the other hand neglect macroeconomic interdependencies between the modelled sector and the general economy this paper presents a new modelling approach in an integrated bottom up top down approach based on the example of crude steel production in germany it is demonstrated how technological progress can be portrayed as process related and policy induced and how the technology choice between limitational processes can be explicitly modelled and implemented in the econometric input output model panta rhei the new modelling approach presented permits a process specific analysis of the impacts of changed frame conditions the effects of which on the choice of technology on the one hand and the technological progress on the other can be described endogenous to the model these features are demonstrated in a co2 tax simulation results show that policy induced technological change is besides a switch in production processes the major source of co2 reduction for the steel sector

the efficiency paradox bureaucratic and organizational barriers to profitable energy saving investments abstract the paradox of why profitable energy saving investments are not undertaken continues to provoke debate the underlying phenomenon might be called the efficiency paradox because it represents a case in which business firms which are often presumed or taken axiomatically to be economically efficient make decisions that do not maximize profits new data from one of the us environmental protection agency s voluntary pollution prevention programs enables this paradox to be explored statistically the data show that both the level and variation in returns to lighting upgrade investments cannot be explained by standard economic models substantial gains in energy efficiency can be achieved without sacrificing profitability both economic and organizational factors account for some of the variation in observed returns to these investments but the results suggest a need for improved and more comprehensive theories of the investment behavior of firms and other organizations

a plant specific bottom up approach for assessing the cost effective energy conservation potential and its ability to compensate rising energy related costs in the german iron and steel industry abstract germany produces more steel than any other european country 42 7 mt steel in 2012 the steel production accounts for 22 of germany s final industrial energy consumption we assessed the potential of 32 identified energy conservation measures by deriving fuel electricity and co2 conservation cost curves we developed a methodology which respects the current efficiency of individual plants and two different system boundaries a process boundary for benchmarking measures and a facility boundary for calculating the total energy conservation potential with moderate electricity and carbon price developments for the investigation period 2013 2035 the cost effective conservation potentials are estimated to be 11 7 for fuel 2 2 for electricity and 12 2 for fuel and process related co2 emissions compared to the industry s final energy use and co2 emissions in 2012 for the sensitivity analysis we varied electricity and carbon prices and our results showed that adopting cost effective energy conservation measures can compensate for rising energy prices but the extent differs between the production routes while the eaf route could compensate up to 50 higher electricity prices the options for the bf bof route to reduce the fossil fuel consumption are limited thus the energy related production costs of the bf bof route increased in average by 6 13 between 2013 and 2035

forecasting global developments in the basic chemical industry for environmental policy analysis the chemical sector is the largest industrial energy user but detailed analysis of its energy use developments lags behind other energy intensive sectors a cost driven forecasting model for basic chemicals production is developed accounting for regional production costs demand growth and stock turnover the model determines the global production capacity placement implementation of energy efficient best practice technology bpt and global carbon dioxide co2 emissions for the period 2010 2030 subsequently the effects of energy and climate policies on these parameters are quantified about 60 of new basic chemical production capacity is projected to be placed in non oecd regions by 2030 due to low energy prices while global production increases by 80 between 2010 and 2030 the oecd s production capacity share decreases from 40 to 20 and global emissions increase by 50 energy pricing and climate policies are found to reduce 2030 co2 emissions by 5 15 relative to the baseline developments by increasing bpt implementation maximum bpt implementation results in a 25 reduction further emission reductions require measures beyond energy efficient technologies the model is useful to estimate general trends related to basic chemicals production but improved data from the chemical sector is required to expand the analysis to additional technologies and chemicals

macroeconomic effects of efficiency policies for energy intensive industries the case of the uk climate change agreements 2000 2010 abstract this paper reports a study modeling the uk climate change agreements ccas and related energy efficiency policies for energy intensive industrial sectors bottom up estimates of the effects of these policies are introduced into the energy demand equations of a top down dynamic econometric model of the uk economy with fifty industrial sectors mdm e3 this allowed estimation of the effects of the reduced energy use for the outputs from the sectors i e the reductions in unit costs of the energy intensive industries on the demand for their outputs both in the uk and in the export markets the model is solved as a counterfactual 2000 2005 and as a projection 2005 2010 in a series of scenarios to allow estimation of the effects of the policies on inflation and growth as well as on overall energy demand and co 2 emissions the system wide final energy reductions is estimated to be 4 2 mtoe or 2 6 of total final demand for energy by 2010 including a rebound effect of 19 with negligible effects on inflation and a slight increase in economic growth through improved international competitiveness

bridging trade theory and labour econometrics the effects of international migration this paper surveys current theoretical and empirical research on international migration with a particular emphasis on the links between trade theory and labour empirics

vertical mergers and product differentiation this paper presents an equilibrium theory of vertical mergers that incorporates strategic behaviors in the hotelling type location model this enables one to consider the relationship between downstream firms strategies for product differentiation and vertical integration i show that vertical integration enhances the degree of product differentiation of the integrated firm under some conditions partial integration arises in equilibrium which may increase the profit of the nonintegrated downstream firm the paper also discusses the welfare implications of vertical integration

trade blocs currency blocs and the reorientation of world trade in the 1930s we analyze the impact of commercial and financial policies on the reorientation of trade in the 1930s we report evidence that commercial policies attenuated prior connections between income growth and trade and that exchange rate instability marginally discouraged international trade in contrast the tendency toward regionalization commonly ascribed to the formation of trade and currency blocs was already evident to a considerable extent prior to the regional policy initiatives of the 1930s this reorientation is more properly attributed to ongoing historical forces such as commercial and financial links between countries forged over many years

immigrant links to the home country empirical implications for u s bilateral trade flows immigrants ties to their home countries can play a key role in fostering bilateral trade linkages immigrant ties include knowledge of home country markets language preferences and business contacts that have the potential to decrease trading transaction costs empirical results for the united states suggest that immigrant links have historically been important in increasing bilateral trade flows with immigrants home countries copyright 1994 by mit press

mix and match compatibility with vertical product dimensions this article considers a duopoly in which each firm produces two components of a system if the components are compatible consumers may mix and match the firms components the system components and consumer tastes are assumed to differ with regard to vertical characteristics in the model one firm may be the quality leader in one or both characteristics moreover a consumer s taste for the quality of one component may be perfectly correlated with or independent of his taste for the quality of the other component it is shown that in all cases the sum of each producer s component prices is weakly higher if the components are compatible the same is true of producer profits

trade diaspora and migration to new zealand this paper examines the hypotheses that a greater stock of migrants in new zealand from a particular country leads to more trade between that country and new zealand and a greater stock of new zealanders living overseas in a particular country leads to more trade between that country and new zealand it also examines the relationships between migration diaspora and tourism exports the literature suggests that migrants can stimulate trade by lowering transaction costs and by bringing with them preferences for goods produced in their home country our approach is to apply panel data techniques within the framework of a standard gravity model of trade to a dataset consisting of information on 233 countries in each of the 26 years between 1981 and 2006 we estimate a random effects panel sample selection model using correlated random effects our results indicate that migration does indeed stimulate trade in our benchmark specification merchandise exports from and imports to new zealand both have a statistically significant relationship with numbers of migrants in new zealand imports also have a statistically significant relationship with numbers of new zealanders overseas our results also suggest that migration stimulates imports more than exports

product homogeneity as a prisoner s dilemma in a duopoly with r d abstract we prove that firms may decide to compete in undifferentiated products due to a prisoner s dilemma generated by externalities affecting r d in product innovation moreover the incentive to invest is higher under price competition than under quantity competition

modeling of industrial energy consumption an introduction and context industrial energy accounts for roughly one third of total global energy consumption and is expected to continue to use a similar share in the foreseeable future however this is one of the hardest end uses to analyze model and forecast the reasons for modeling industrial energy consumption are as varied as the ways in which energy is used in production processes this has led to the application of a broad set of emperical tools from several different disciplines in this article we provide an introduction and context for a compendium or survey of the methods used in this area this special issue of energy economics is designed to provide both newcomers and accomplished researchers with an overview of the current state of development in the are of industrial energy modeling

analysis of co2 emissions reduction potential in secondary production and semi fabrication of non ferrous metals industrial sector growth in developing countries requires the provision of alternatives to guarantee sustainable development improving energy efficiency and fuel switching are two measures to reduce co2 emissions in the industrial sector with natural gas and low carbon electricity as the most feasible options in the short term in this work a linear programming optimization model has been developed to study the potential of energy efficiency improvement and fuel substitution for co2 emissions reduction at national level in the non ferrous metals industry the energy resource end use device allocation problem in secondary metal production and semi fabrication has been modeled using this model the particular case of colombia where low carbon electricity is available has been studied by improving energy efficiency energy use and co2 emissions can be reduced significantly 73 and 72 respectively at negative costs further co2 emissions reductions up to 88 are possible with fuel switching to low carbon electricity increasing the costs for the energy system however cost reductions caused by energy efficiency improvement outweigh cost increments of fuel switching benefits achieved with fuel substitution using low carbon electricity can be lost if hydropower is not available in such a case efficient natural gas fired end use devices are preferable

modelling and forecasting the demand for natural gas in pakistan abstract this study examines both the short and long term dynamics of natural gas consumption in pakistan through an econometric model sector specific income price and cross price elasticities of natural gas demand are estimated over the period 1978 2011 the estimated income elasticities indicate that real gdp per capita exerts a larger impact on gas consumption as compared to its price the price and cross price elasticities are relatively low indicating consumers indifference in pakistan towards price escalation they neither decrease gas consumption nor try to explore less expensive substitutes for natural gas a validation of the estimated demand equations is performed showing high degree of accuracy through tracking the historical data in order to determine the future outlook of natural gas demand sectoral equations are simulated as baseline both moderate and extreme demand scenarios are projected for the period 2012 2020 ex post simulation resulting through baseline scenario suggests that the power sector is more likely to occupy top position in terms of natural gas consumption it is expected that the natural gas consumption would reach 734 062 mmcft by 2020 followed by the transport sector 238 943 mmcft industrial sector 541 869 mmcft residential sector 304 821 mmcft and the commercial sector 72 784 mmcft furthermore simulation results based on moderate and extreme scenarios reveal that a deliberate increase in natural gas prices reduces per capita natural gas consumption significantly over the forecast time horizon 2012 2020 the findings of this study have significant implications with respect to energy conservation and economic development particularly price and income elasticities have practical relevance for appropriate pricing and income policies additionally forecast results can provide useful support for designing an appropriate infrastructure and investment plan with reference to gas market in future

ethnic networks and trade intensive versus extensive margins abstract ethnic networks have been associated with increased international trade although studies have not differentiated between entry into foreign markets and trade expansion we find that ethnic networks increase trade on the intensive margin but not on the extensive margin

the characteristics of energy efficiency measures a neglected dimension abstract the diffusion of cost effective energy efficiency measures eems in firms is often surprisingly slow this phenomenon is usually attributed to a variety of barriers which have been the focus of numerous studies over the last two decades however many studies treat eems homogenously and assume they have few inherent differences apart from their profitability we argue that complementing such analyses by considering the characteristics of eems in a structured manner can enhance the understanding of eem adoption for this purpose we suggest a classification scheme for eems in industry which aims to provide a better understanding of their adoption by industrial firms and to assist in selecting and designing energy efficiency policies the suggested classification scheme is derived from the literature on the adoption of eems and the related fields including the diffusion of innovations eco innovations and advanced manufacturing technology our proposed scheme includes 12 characteristics based on the relative advantage the technical and the information context of the eem applying this classification scheme to six example eems demonstrates that it can help to systematically explain why certain eems diffuse faster than others furthermore it provides a basis for identifying policies able to increase the rate of adoption

assessing the impacts of preferential procurement on low carbon building abstract the significance of global warming is shaping building procurement with much of the effort aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions through a preferential bidding mechanism however only a limited number of studies have quantitatively estimated the potential impact of bid preference on the emission reduction from building construction the aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of how bid discounts change owners procurement costs and the magnitudes of emission mitigation a two stage optimization model is designed to help the owner determine the discount rate that would automatically control the emission of the awarded contract within a desired level the goal is for bidders to regard emission reduction efforts as an investment with returns coming in the form of an increased chance of winning the bid our results imply that for the building retrofit project studied herein a discount rate of 0 6 is suggested for every percentage of emission reduction this discount level reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 28 2 while raising procurement costs by 3 7 relative to a non preference mechanism the increased procurement costs can be partially compensated under existing cap and trade scheme the results show that the choice of discount significantly alters bidders efforts on emission mitigation and emission control cost can be minimized with the proposed optimization algorithm

models of technology diffusion abstract the literature on new technology diffusion is vast and it spills over many conventional disciplinary boundaries this paper surveys the literature by focusing on alternative explanations of the dominant stylized fact that the usage of new technologies over time typically follows an s curve the most commonly found model which is used to account for this model is the so called epidemic model which builds on the premise that what limits the speed of usage is the lack of information available about the new technology how to use it and what it does the leading alternate model is often called the probit model which follows from the premise that different firms with different goals and abilities are likely to want to adopt the new technology at different times in this model diffusion occurs as firms of different types gradually adopt it there are actually many ways to generate an s curve and the third class of models which we examine are models of density dependence popularized by population ecologists in these models the twin forces of legitimation and competition help to establish new technologies and then ultimately limit their take up finally we look at models in which the initial choice between different variants of the new technology affect the subsequent diffusion speed of the chosen technology such models often rely on information cascades which drive herd like adoption behaviour when a particular variant is finally selected

a review of optimal energy policy instruments on industrial energy efficiency programs rebound effects and government policies abstract industrial energy efficiency programs ieeps are defined as one of the most popular government policies that aim to reduce energy consumption in industrial energy intensive sectors in this paper we review and classify the most important academic studies that have addressed the environmental and economic aspects of ieeps using a systematic review the classification of energy policy instruments has been developed based on an analytical approach we discuss also the outputs benefits and barriers of ieeps besides a comprehensive argument about the restrictive policies on the rebound effects made after the implementation of these programs the results disclose that china usa and sweden are the most addressed countries on ieeps and their applications in this regard incentive energy policies e g voluntary agreements and subsidies have been applied more than others in the last decade furthermore most of the reviewed studies emphasize energy price reform as an effective practical policy while a few analytical methods can be seen to help policy makers determine the optimal levels of decision variables finally according to the state of the art analysis the authors provide some novel recommendations to improve the performance of ieeps using some restrictive policies on the negative impacts of rebound effects

triggers and barriers to energy efficiency measures in the ceramic cement and lime sectors evaluating and understanding the interplay of barriers to the diffusion of energy efficiency measures is highly relevant because if policies are effective in overcoming these barriers co2 emissions can be decreased at low cost the study aims to understand how managers make decisions to invest in energy efficiency how perceived barriers affect these decisions and how policy can overcome these barriers we apply neo classical economic theory as well as insights from transaction cost economics and behavioural economics to understand why hurdle rates even when omitted costs and risk are taken into account are higher than the weighted average cost of capital we find that internal capital budgeting rules and the effort of studying technical feasibility and profitability are relevant to understanding the efficiency gap the results indicate that the voluntary agreement and the emission trading scheme are complementary addressing different barriers in different contexts

from local to global competition abstract we introduce a framework that has known models of oligopolistic competition with differentiated products the circle the logit and the ces as limit cases this integrative approach incorporates both localized and global competition as well as price sensitive individual demands it is used to explain the impact of major changes over the last two centuries reductions in transport costs increased taste for variety population growth and use of technologies with greater returns to scale we work out the properties of an extended chamberlinian model with applications both in industrial organization and economic geography

cultural distance and the us immigrant trade link using data from the world and the european values surveys we calculate cultural distances between the us and 54 immigrant home countries and examine the influences of cultural distance and immigrant populations on us imports from and exports to immigrants home countries during the years 1997 2004 our study indicates that for both us imports and exports the trade enhancing effect of immigrants partially offsets the trade inhibiting effect of cultural distance further decomposing our measure of cultural distance into two component dimensions and revisiting the immigrant trade relationship we find significant variation in the extent to which immigrants counter the trade inhibiting influences of the underlying dimensions of culture for both us imports and exports our findings have the implication that by countering the trade inhibiting influences of cultural differences between their home and host countries immigrants exert pro development effects

the impact of increased efficiency in the industrial use of energy a computable general equilibrium analysis for the united kingdom the conventional wisdom is that improving energy efficiency will lower energy use however there is an extensive debate in the energy economics policy literature concerning rebound effects these occur because an improvement in energy efficiency produces a fall in the effective price of energy services the response of the economic system to this price fall at least partially offsets the expected beneficial impact of the energy efficiency gain in this paper we use an economy energy environment computable general equilibrium cge model for the uk to measure the impact of a 5 across the board improvement in the efficiency of energy use in all production sectors we identify rebound effects of the order of 30 50 but no backfire no increase in energy use however these results are sensitive to the assumed structure of the labour market key production elasticities the time period under consideration and the mechanism through which increased government revenues are recycled back to the economy

the energy efficiency gap what does it mean abstract as renewed attention has been given by policy makers to energy conservation issues it has frequently been asserted that an energy efficiency gap exists between actual and optimal energy use the critical questions is how to define the optimal level of energy efficiency this paper seeks to disentangle some confusing strands of argument that are frequently brought to bear on this question by identifying the major conceptual issues that determine the set of feasible answers we identify five separate and distinct notions of optimality the economists economic potential the technologists economic potential hypothetical potential the narrow social optimum and the true social optimum each of these has associated with it a corresponding definition of the energy efficiency gap our analysis demonstrates that necessary preconditions for identifying the right measure of the energy efficiency gap include understanding and disentangling market failure and non market failure explanations for the gradual diffusion of energy efficient technologies

save production a bottom up energy model for dutch industry and agriculture a new version of the model save production simulates the development of energy use in the dutch industry and agriculture including combined heat and power generation the model disaggregates national energy consumption into fuel types industrial sectors energy functions and energy technologies simulation is based on microeconomic investment behavior examples of model application show results on the penetration of combined heat and power in relation to policy instruments such as co2 prices electricity price support and investment subsidies policies that discriminate on co2 emissions result in a slightly more efficient heat and power generation tailored to the dutch situation save production is well equipped to generate outlooks for the dutch industrial and agricultural energy use and for analyzing the role of policies in detail its main strength lies in the middle term simulation of decision making on energy saving technologies and analysis of policy effects specific precautions are required when the model is used for analysis on the longer term for simulating extreme policies or for the analysis of extremely fluctuating energy prices

barriers to energy efficiency in industrial bottom up energy demand models a review the goal of this paper is to review bottom up models for industrial energy demand with a particular focus on their capability to model barriers to the adoption of energy efficient technologies the integration of barriers into the models is an important prerequisite for a more detailed and realistic modeling of policies for energy efficiency particularly with the emergence of more and more varying policy instruments it also becomes crucial for the models to take account of these policies as well as the barriers they address in a more realistic way our review revealed that despite the broadly evident existence of market failures and barriers for energy efficient technologies they are only partly and in a rather aggregated form considered in today s bottom up models the state of the art bottom up model is based on an explicit representation of the technology stock and considers the costs of energy efficiency options in detail but with regard to barriers most models only make use of an aggregated approach like an adjusted discount rate while some models do not even consider technology costs and energy prices but instead use exogenous technology diffusion rates other more advanced models took first steps towards considering barriers in more detail the latter allows differentiation between multiple parameters that influence technology adoption still even in the most advanced models only a few of the observed barriers are explicitly considered at the same time new approaches to considering barriers like uncertainty or the slow spread of information are being developed in other disciplines we conclude the paper by summarizing promising ways to improve representation of barriers in bottom up models

gravity models a reformulation and an application to discriminatory trade arrangements gravity models are used to estimate trade flows from 162 countries into 11 major importing countries for 1976 counting the ec as one the main theories underlying gravity models are reviewed and a new gravity model is derived from a linear expenditure system a major innovation of this model is that both tariffs and dummy variables for discriminatory arrangements are incorporated price variables are also explicitly included in the model the tariff and the dummy variables are found to be statistically significant and this indicates that previous gravity model studies which used dummies to estimate the trade benefits of preferential tariffs may not have accurately estimated the effects of the preferences the price variables generally are also found to be statistically significant which casts doubt on the homogeneous goods assumption underlying the purchasing power parity hypothesis some significant differences in the estimates were found when separate equations were regressed for the eec and the us