deviations from purchasing power parity in the long run this paper demonstrates that deviations from purchasing power parity reveal a remarkable and possibly startling consistency with martingale behavior during both fixed and flexible rate periods for a wide variety of countries and in both monthly and annual data since this pattern appears to be much more general than one would expect on the basis of models founded on international commodity arbitrage the paper proposes an alternative explanation which instead relies on financial arbitrage in bonds as the underlying mechanism this paper will demonstrate that deviations from purchasing power parity ppp reveal a remarkable and possibly startling consistency with martingale behavior during both fixed and flexible exchange rate periods for a wide variety of countries and in both monthly and annual data this pattern appears to be much more general than one would expect on the basis of models founded on international commodity arbitrage the paper therefore proposes an alternative explanation which does not presuppose free trade in goods but which instead relies on financial arbitrage in bonds as the underlying mechanism the major implication of the theory and the results is that ppp is as likely to be violated in the long as in the short run as an empirical matter deviations from ppp can be observed for most currencies at any instant see kravis et al 21 stockman 37 and genberg 15 among others these deviations are typically both cumulative and persistent the real exchange rate can remain on either side of parity for lengthy but variable time intervals of a year or more as a consequence the current consensus shared

regional variations in us consumer response to price changes in home heating fuels the northeast and the south 1987 regional variations in us consumer response to price changes in home heating fuels the northeast and the south applied economics vol 19 no 9 pp 1261 1268

energy demand in ghana a disaggregated analysis this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of energy demand in ghana by estimating demand functions for key disaggregated energy components including gasoline diesel liquefied petroleum gas lpg kerosene biomass residual fuel oil rfo and electricity our results show that energy prices income urbanization and economic structure are significant demand drivers of the different energy types in ghana with varying estimated elasticities further there is evidence of high degree of inter fuel substitution in energy demand in ghana particularly from gasoline diesel and kerosene towards lpg consumption we recommend among different policy options a customization of energy price subsidization policies especially on lpg to reduce the unintended beneficiary dilemma or spillover effect of current government policy other policies such as intensification of energy conservation programs and market entry of independent power trading companies to enhance energy service delivery through competition are also discussed

global warming and energy demand list of tables list of figures list of contributors preface 1 global warming and energy elasticities terry barker paul ekins and nick johnstonepart 1 estimating long term energy elasticities 2 alternative approaches to estimating long run energy demand elasticities an application to asian developing countries ron smith and m hashem pesaran 3 a survey of international energy elasticities neil manning and jago atkinson 4 long run demand elasticities for gasoline thomas sterner and mikael franzen 5 responses of energy demand in uk manufacturing to the energy price increases of 1973 and 1979 80 alan ingham 6 elasticities for oecd aggregate final energy demand lakis vouyoukas 7 modelling uk energy demand derek hodgson and keith millerpart ii energy the economy and greenhouse gas abatement 8 endogenous technological progress in fossil fuel demand laurence boone stephen hall david kemball cook and clare smith 9 uk energy price elasticities and their implications for long term co2 abatement terry barker 10 price elasticity and market structure overcoming obstacles to ensure energy efficiency tim jackson 11 rethinking the use of energy elasticities stefan p schleicher 12 revisiting the costs of co2 abatement paul ekins 13 asymmetrical price elasticities of energy demand michael grubb14 conclusions terry barker paul ekins and nick johnstone bibliography index

the collapse of purchasing power parities during the 1970 s one of the striking facts concerning the relationship beiveen prices and exchange rates during the 1970 s has been the dismal performance of the predictions of the simple versions of the purchasing power parity doctrine ppp that doctrine in its absolute version states that the equilibrium exchange rate between domestic and foreign currencies equals the ratio of domestic to foreign price levels the relative version of the doctrine relates equilibrium changes in exchange rates to changes in the ratio of domestic to foreign prices during the 1970 s short run changes in exchange rates bore little relationship to short run differentials in national inflation rates and frequently divergences from purchasing power parities have been cumulative this paper reviews and analyzes the empirical record of exchange rates and prices during the 1970 s and the analysis is based on the experience of the dollar pound the dollar frecch franc and the dollar dm exchange rates section 2 presents the evidence on ppp during the 1970 s and contrasts it with the evidence from the 1920 s a period during which the doctrine held up reasonably well this analysis is relevant for assessing whether the flexible exchange rate system was successful in providing national economies with an added degree of insulation from foreign shocks and whether it provided policymakers with an added instrument for the conduct of macroeconomic policy the evidence regarding devia tions from purchasing power parities is also relevant for determining whether there is a case for managed float section 3 attempts to explain what went wrong with

modelling aggregate domestic electricity demand in ghana an autoregressive distributed lag bounds cointegration approach in spite of the varying supply boosting efforts made by various governments to deal with the existing demand supply gap in the electricity sector the incessant growth in aggregate domestic electricity demand has made these efforts futile as an objective this paper attempts to identify the factors responsible for the historical growth trends in aggregate domestic electricity demand quantifying their effects both in the short run and long run periods using the ardl bounds cointegration approach and the sample period 1975 to 2005 in the long run real per capita gdp industry efficiency structural changes in the economy and degree of urbanisation are identified as the main driving force behind the historical growth trend in aggregate domestic electricity demand however in the short run real per capita gdp industry efficiency and degree of urbanisation are the main drivers of aggregate domestic electricity demand industry efficiency is the only factor that drives aggregate domestic electricity demand downwards however the negative efficiency effect is insufficient to have outweighed the positive income output and demographic effects hence the continual growth in aggregate domestic electricity demand as a policy option we recommend that appropriate electricity efficiency standards be implemented at the industry level

energy gdp relationship and capital intensity in ldcs abstract this study provides an updated estimate of the gdp elasticity of energy consumption for ldcs it uses a production function approach in determining this elasticity energy consumption is explained in terms of economic activity capital intensity and structure of economy the elasticity is found to be less than unitary this suggests that the earlier estimates for ldcs were biased

purchasing power parity in the short and long run a reappraisal of the post 1973 evidence in this paper an attempt is made to separate the short run and long run aspects of the purchasing power parity ppp relationship using the techniques of band spectral regression and cointegration for eight industrialized countries the long run ppp is first tested for all the eight countries with reference to their nominal bilateral exchange rates vis a visthe us dollar for five european currencies the analysis is repeated with respect to the deutschmark with a separate consideration of the post ems period in the concluding sections possible reasons for ppp deviations are examined

influencing factors on electricity demand in chinese nonmetallic mineral products industry a quantile perspective abstract chinese nonmetallic mineral products industry is one of the largest electricity consumer in china and has a large impact on overall electricity consumption in china this paper examines the impact of economic variables on the demand for electricity in chinese nonmetallic mineral products industry where economic growth sectoral value added per worker sectoral r d intensity and energy price were utilized to analyze sectoral electricity consumption with an application of quantile model the paper s estimates unveiled the varying effects of economic variables across the spectrum of sectoral electricity consumption where the coefficient of economic growth was positive and significant across all quantiles while sectoral value added per worker had both positive and negative significant coefficients an increase in income level and sectoral value added per worker will increase the electricity consumed by the industry however the latter will also enhance a decreasing trend in few regions across china and did not influence high energy efficiency but rather enhanced the production of additional outputs while sectoral r d intensity and energy price will ensure a substantial decrease in sectoral electricity consumption with the latter having a greater impact increase in investment for sectoral r d intensity will boost technological advancement and is recommended as a cornerstone to ensuring decline in sectoral energy consumption that will buttress sectoral value added per worker coupled with a robust energy price

testing purchasing power parity in a multivariate cointegrating framework this paper examines a bilateral ppp purchasing power parity relationship between australia and the 11 major trading countries by means of two alternative econometric techniques a multivariate cointegrating framework and a band spectral regression it is acknowledged that there is no strong evidence that classical ppp holds in all cases however the generalized version of ppp holds in all cases and provides a better explanation of the long run relations between exchange rates and relative prices the use of different price indices i e cpi and wpi lead to different estimates and hence different policy implications

the evolution of price elasticity of electricity demand in south africa a kalman filter application abstract in south africa the electricity mismatch of supply and demand has been of major concern additional to past problems the 2008 electricity crisis made the solution crucial after its damaging consequences to the economy the disagreement on the need and consequences of the continuous electricity price hikes worsens the situation to contribute to the recent electricity debate this paper proposes a time varying price elasticity of demand for electricity the sensitivity of electricity consumption to price fluctuations changes throughout the years the main purpose of this study is the estimation of the price elasticity of electricity in south africa during the period 1980 2005 by employing an advanced econometric technique the kalman filter apart from the decreasing effect of electricity prices to consumption 71 8 in the 1990s and 94 5 in the 2000s in average our results conclude to an important finding the higher the prices for example in the 1980s the higher the sensitivity of consumers to price fluctuations thus further increases of the electricity prices may lead to changes in the behaviour of electricity consumers focusing their efforts on improving their efficiency levels by introducing demand side management techniques or even turning to other sources of cheaper energy

credibility and policy convergence in a two party system with rational voters the traditional approach to modeling political parties behavior based upon the contribution of anthony downs 1957 assumes that the parties unique objective is to win elections thus they maximize their popularity the crucial implication of this assumption for a two party system is that if the two parties have the same information about voters preferences full convergence of policies results from electoral competition this is the crucial implication of the median voter theorem more generally it may be argued that different parties are motivated differently because they represent different constituencies parties may not care only about winning elections per se but also about the quality of the policies resulting from an election in this case the candidates of the two parties view winning an election not only as a goal per se but also as a means of implementing a better policy for their respective constituencies this paper shows that electoral competitions imply dynamic inconsistency if the voters are modeled as rational and forwardlooking agents and parties do not care exclusively about being elected but also about which policy to implement once elected the dynamic inconsistency arises as follows the parties have an incentive to announce convergent platforms to increase their chances of election however if the elected party is not committed to its electoral platform it has an incentive to follow its most preferred policy rather than the policy announced in its platform if voters are rational they account for this incentive thus in general in a one shot electoral game the only timeconsistent equilibrium is one in which no convergence is possible the two parties follow their most preferred policies and the voters rationally expect this outcome full convergence of parties platforms results only as a limiting case when the parties are completely indifferent with respect to the quality of the policies resulting from the election thus these results differ from the existing literature on ideologically motivated politicians for instance donald wittman 1977 1983 randall calvert 1985 which implicitly assumes the possibility of binding commitments to electoral platforms complete or partial policy convergence can be the outcome of political competition if the interaction between the parties and the voters is modeled as an infinitely repeated game in fact if the candidates have concave objective functions the welfare maximizing policy rule implies a complete convergence of parties policies however this cooperative and agreed upon policy may or may not be sustainable as a subgame perfect equilibrium depending on parameter values in particular it depends on the discount rates of the two parties the degree of polarization of their preferences and the relative popu graduate school of industrial administration carnegie mellon university pittsburgh pa 15213 and national bureau of economic research cambridge ma 02138 this paper is based upon a chapter of my unpublished doctoral dissertation at harvard university i am greatly indebted to jeffrey sachs for directing my attention toward these issues and for many conversations i also wish to thank andrew abel dilip abreu olivier blanchard ramon caminal andrew caplin alex cukierman morris fiorina benjamin friedman herschel grossman howard rosenthal and the referees for very useful comments the responsibilitv af anv n mtnkieis af calrirp nfnlv mine the result of policy convergence in a two party system is more general than the median voter theorem for discussions of convergence results not at the median see john ledyard 1984 peter coughlin 1984 coughlin and shmuel nitzan 1981 melvin hinich 1977 for earlier work on spatial competition see richard mckelvey 1975 hinich ledyard and peter ordeshook 1972 1973 and the references quoted therein the present paper focuses on the result of convergence rather than on the median voter theorem per se

electricity demand in kazakhstan properties of electricity demand in transition economies have not been sufficiently well researched mostly due to data limitations however information on the properties of electricity demand is necessary for policy makers to evaluate effects of price changes on different consumers and obtain demand forecasts for capacity planning this study estimates kazakhstan s aggregate demand for electricity as well as electricity demand in the industrial service and residential sectors using regional data firstly our results show that price elasticity of demand in all sectors is low this fact suggests that there is considerable room for price increases necessary to finance generation and distribution system upgrading secondly we find that income elasticity of demand in the aggregate and all sectoral models is less than unity of the three sectors electricity demand in the residential sector has the lowest income elasticity this result indicates that policy initiatives to secure affordability of electricity consumption to lower income residential consumers may be required finally our forecast shows that electricity demand may grow at either 3 or 5 per year depending on rates of economic growth and government policy regarding price increases and promotion of efficiency we find that planned supply increases would be sufficient to cover growing demand only if real electricity prices start to increase toward long run cost recovery levels and policy measures are implemented to maintain the current high growth of electricity efficiency

long and short run elasticities of residential electricity consumption in china a partial adjustment model with panel data abstractwhile it has stabilized in developed world the per capita residential electricity consumption rec in developing countries such as china is growing very rapidly and this trend is very likely to continue built upon a provincial level panel data we employ a partial adjustment model to investigate the future trend of rec in china and factors that affect it we estimate the income and price short term and long term elasticities for urban and rural china respectively and compare the results with rec studies in other countries or regions the findings provide useful information to understand how the rec would grow in china as household income increases and how effective that price could be as an intervention tool

purchasing power parity as a long run relation dickey fuller and stock watson tests of purchasing power parity ppp as a long run proposition are provided within the cointegration framework proposed by granger since different countries use different weights to construct price indices the traditional constraint that the coefficients on the price indices should be unity in the log linear ppp relation is relaxed the absence of a general ppp relation cannot be rejected at most a ppp relation is indicated in five out of fifteen country pairs that are examined even if a long run ppp relation exists it is not found to be useful in predicting future nominal exchange rates which is consistent with efficient speculative markets

estimates of electricity saving potential in chinese nonferrous metals industry the paper analyzes the electricity saving potential of nonferrous metals industry in china the cointegration method is applied to estimate electricity intensity of chinese nonferrous metals industry in an effort to predict future electricity saving potential the results show that there is a long run equilibrium between electricity intensity and factors such as r d intensity industrial electricity price enterprise scale and labor productivity by means of scenario analysis we evaluate different possible measures that might be adopted to narrow down the electricity efficiency gap between nonferrous metals industry in china and that of japan the results indicate that more active electricity conservation policies are needed in order to reduce the electricity intensity of chinese nonferrous metals industry we also find that the electricity efficiency gap could be significantly narrowed by 2020 if proper electricity conservation policy is adopted finally based on the results of the scenario analysis future policy priorities are suggested

application of ramsey model in transition economy a russian case study this case study uses the ramsey model to analyze whether the current electricity prices charged by the natural monopoly novosibirskenergo in a major industrial region of the russian federation are socially optimal our estimates of demand elasticities for two major groups of consumers namely households and industrial users show that prices are not socially optimal a decrease in price for industrial users and an increase in price for households would bring the prices closer to socially optimal

modelling electricity demand in ghana revisited the role of policy regime changes as policy regime changes demand elasticities are unlikely to be constant since individuals change how they form their expectations and this will change the estimated decision rules in this paper the time varying nature of electricity demand elasticities prior to and post the economic reform period in ghana is analysed using the fm ols three different sample periods pre reform post reform and full period was used in the analysis the result from the full sample period revealed that in the long run electricity demand is significantly affected by industry efficiency industry value added and real per capita gdp urbanization rate however has no significant effect the pre reform estimate showed lower income output and urbanization elasticities but higher industry energy efficiency elasticity relative to the post reform period this suggests that technological change in the pre reform period has been energy saving whilst technological change in the post reform period has been energy consuming the result further showed evidence of changing structure of the economy from the more energy intensive sector to the less energy intensive sector after the reform government should renew her effort in promoting energy saving technologies in the industrial sector and adjust the industrial structure to encourage the expansion of low energy intensive industries or high technology efficient industries

evaluation of electricity saving potential in china s chemical industry based on cointegration new huadu business school ministry of education foundation 10jzd0018 10gbj013 basic research universities special foundation 2010221051 national social science foundation 09zd050

household energy elasticities and policy implications for pakistan abstract this study estimates fuel expenditure and price elasticities of household fuels in pakistan the burning of biomass is harmful to health and the environment and may cause preventable morbidity and mortality it is important to investigate how households fuel choices are linked to prices so that governments can consider appropriate steps to enhance the consumption of clean fuels using three pooled cross sectional surveys from pakistan and applying the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids model we found that all fuel types except natural gas were price inelastic at the national level and for urban households in rural areas natural gas and lpg were found to be more price elastic compared to urban areas simple policy simulations based on our results suggest that in order to reduce indoor air pollution by encouraging the adoption of clean fuels lpg and piped natural gas governments should subsidies clean fuels rather than imposing taxes on solid fuels moreover in the case of pakistan a subsidy for lpg should be preferred over a subsidy for piped natural gas as it produces a more cost effective reduction in solid fuel use

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

how much do electricity tariff increases in ukraine hurt the poor abstract increasing the electricity tariffs for private consumers to cost covering levels has been a very sensitive issue for all transition countries the likely negative social consequences are the central argument why the necessary tariff corrections have not yet been implemented in ukraine by the political decision makers since official data is not available there is insufficient knowledge regarding the electricity consumption behaviour of private households this makes it difficult to counter the official arguments with hard evidence a survey was carried out by the authors giving a more detailed picture basic data of the survey was used in evaluating the impact of possible tariff increases on the household expenditures of different income groups using both the compensating cv and the equivalent variation ev methods the findings confirm that an electricity tariff increase up to the level which would cover officially measured costs as defined by the ukrainian electricity regulatory authority would not cause severe social problems however further increases up to a level which would cover the true costs i e up to a level comparable to the average oecd level should only be realised in steps

electricity demand and conservation potential in the chinese nonmetallic mineral products industry newhuadu business school research fund ministry of education foundation 10jzd0018 10jbg013 china sustainable energy program g 1103 13921 national social science foundation 09zd050

purchasing power parity abstract this paper examines the purchasing power parity henceforth ppp using historical data and the cointegration approach the results indicate that the exchange rate is cointegrated with the wholesale price index wpi ratio but not with the consumer price index cpi ratio the cointegrating vector is close to 0 1 for the cpi based real exchange rates however we cannot reject the random walk hypothesis the findings caution us on the use of general price indexes that give a large weight to nontraded goods and are therefore subject to long run deviations from ppp

does the real exchange rate follow a random walk the pacific basin perspective abstract in this paper we present evidence that dispels the view that ppp has broken down during the 1970s and 1980s evidence from unit root tests of the real exchange rate indicate that ppp held as a long run equilibrium condition for eight pacific basin countries over the period 1974 to 1987 in contrast we find the nominal exchange rates to be non stationary additional evidence however shows that strong trend components bind the nominal exchange rates of that set of countries together jel f31

energy demand until 2010 in ukraine abstract the economic development and environmental soundness of ukraine is hampered and even threatened today by an outdated energy system which delivers energy to the customers at high internal and external costs painful changes are necessary to adapt this system to the requirements of a market economy and international competition realistic projections of future energy consumption may help to clarify the amount of necessary changes and counter official projections which often belong to the realm of utopia in this context the german institute for economic research diw has been commissioned by the german advisory group on economic reform in ukraine with an evaluation of energy projections for ukraine in 1998 in this article i present an updated version of this study to get a feeling for the growth potential of energy consumption in ukraine an international comparison of specific energy consumption is made some rough scenarios of energy demand in ukraine until 2010 are also sketched in scenario i assumptions were made concerning gdp growth in each sector income elasticity of energy consumption price elasticity of energy consumption and effects of technical progress in scenario ii we assumed the development of specific energy consumption in eastern germany may provide a suitable guideline for ukraine each approach is applied to a case with low and a case with high economic growth the results of international comparisons are ambiguous for ukraine energy consumption per gdp unit is extremely high in ukraine even in comparison to russia and other transition countries to this result contribute technical inefficiencies but also structural factors high share of basic industry as well as the persistent economic crisis energy consumption per capita in ukraine is relatively high in relation to gdp per capita electricity consumption per capita in contrast nearly corresponds to the low average income in ukraine the results of our scenario calculations indicate that in contrast to official projections energy consumption in 2010 will probably be lower than in 1995 even with high economic growth in view of the slow growth prospect of overall energy demand it will not be necessary to expand coal production and electricity generation with nuclear energy in order to reduce energy imports this conclusion would even be strengthened if the government stimulated energy efficiency improvements by special programmes that are not taken into account in our scenarios

partisan cycles in congressional elections and the macroeconomy in the postwar united states the president s party has always done worse in the midterm congressional elections than in the previous congressional election republican administrations exhibit below average and democratic administrations above average economic growth in the first half of each term whereas in the latter halves the two see equal growth our rational expectations model is consistent with these two regularities in presidential elections voters choose between two polarized candidates they then use midterm elections to counterbalance the president s policies by strengthening the opposition in congress since presidents of different parties are associated with different policies our model predicts a spurious correlation between the state of the economy and elections our predictions contrast with those of retrospective voting models in which voters reward the incumbent if the economy is doing well before the election our model performs empirically at least as well as and often better than alternative models

econometric methods and purchasing power parity short and long run ppp this paper defines the different versions of the purchasing power parity and establishes the existing relationships between them in the light of econometric techniques monthly and annual data for real exchange rates are studied through a variance ratio test unlike other authors it is found that there is not explosive behaviour in the real exchange rate when monthly data are used besides stationarity is easily accepted using annual data these results allow to reconcile the two main versions of the purchasing power parity and also explain why trade imbalances are persistent but not permanent

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

presidential elections and federal reserve policy an empirical test traditional macro economic models of federal reserve fed behavior typically assume that the fed enjoys a well defined objective function based on social welfare and generally predict counter cyclical monetary policy the increasing observation of procyclical monetary policy has led many researchers to investigate new models of fed behavior several recent papers imply that procyclical fed behavior is due to a lack of political accountability friedman 7 toma 23 and shughart and tollison 21 all attribute considerable bureaucratic discretion to the fed and seek to explain monetary policy by examining typical bureaucratic objectives other papers such as pierce 19 20 weintraub 26 and kane 10 11 argue that the fed operates in an arena filled with political constraints that cause sub optimal monetary policy but these constraints are not modeled explicitly one possible political constraint on fed behavior is the incumbent president s desire for re election in the political business cycle pbc literature presidential re election opportunities are enhanced by the production of a precise set of inflation and unemployment outcomes leading up to the election thus to the extent that presidents desire cyclical macro economic outcomes there will be executive pressure on the fed to create or accommodate such outcomes the effect this pressure will have on fed policy is ultimately an empirical question but most models deal with it by assumption traditional macro modeling assumes a zero effect while the pbc models implicitly assume that a favorable election cycle is a primary goal of all economic policymakers this paper examines presidential influence on the federal reserve by testing for an election cycle in money growth the major result is the identification of a regular 16 quarter cycle in money growth corresponding with presidential elections this cyclical effect is found to be stable over time and significant under a wide range of model specifications further when the cyclical component of money growth is used to simulate a simple macro model it produces a classic political business cycle in inflation and real output growth

the ecological fallacy revisited aggregate versus individual level findings on economics and elections and sociotropic voting several aggregate level studies have found a relationship between macroeconomic conditions and election outcomes operating in intuitively plausible directions more recent survey based studies however have been unable to detect any comparable relationship operating at the individual voter level this persistent discrepancy is puzzling one recently proposed explanation for it is that voters actually behave in an altruistic or sociotropic fashion responding to economic events only as they affect the general welfare rather than in terms of self interested pocketbook considerations it is argued here that the discrepancies between the macro and micro level studies are a statistical artifact arising from the fact that observable changes in individual welfare actually consist of two unobservable components a government induced and politically relevant component and an exogenous component caused by life cycle and other politically irrelevant factors it is shown that because of this individual level cross sectional estimates of the effects of welfare changes on voting are badly biased and are essentially unrelated to the true values of the behavioral parameters of interest they will generally be considerable underestimates and may even be of the wrong sign an aggregate level time series analysis on the other hand will often yield reasonably good if somewhat attenuated estimates of the underlying individual level effects of interest thus in this case individual behavior is best investigated with aggregate rather than individual level data it is also shown that the evidence for sociotropic voting is artifactual in the sense that the various findings and evidence which ostensibly show sociotropic behavior are all perfectly compatible with the null hypothesis of self interested pocketbook voting

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