weak separability and the estimation of elasticities in multistage demand systems the necessary conditions for multistage budgeting to be at least approximately justified are reviewed and the plausibility of these assumptions i e weak separability and low variability of price indices with utility level are discussed using no further assumptions simple relationships between expenditure and price elasticities in different budgeting levels are derived these results are applied to a three stage model for swedish food consumption and it is shown that the assumptions are not inappropriate restricting the analysis to the last stage of a multistage budgeting process is also shown to lead to considerable errors which could well have policy consequences

financial technology shocks and the case of the missing m2 m2 growth was unusually weak in the early 1990s when its velocity soared although m2 growth subsequently recovered its velocity plateaued at a high level giving rise to a case of missing money these swings in m2 growth have accompanied opposite swings in bond mutual fund inflows m2 growth is better tracked and the missing m2 problem is resolved when money models are modified to account for shifts in bond mutual fund costs this approach avoids the capital gains and portfolio substitution problems posed by adding bond or equity funds to m2 while capturing the substitution effects relevant to money demand

euro currency risk and the geography of debt flows to peripheral emu abstract the pattern of debt flows to peripheral european monetary union members seems puzzling they are mostly indirect and channeled through the large countries of the emu we examine to what extent the introduction of the euro and the elimination of the intra area currency risk can explain this puzzle we develop a three country dsge framework with endogenous portfolio choice and two currencies in the equilibrium the core members of the emu emerge as the main group of lenders to the peripheral emu outside lenders are pushed out of the periphery debt markets because of currency risk the model generates a pattern of debt flows consistent with the data despite the absence of any exogenous frictions or market segmentations

myths and facts of the utility death spiral abstract as the electricity industry is changing worldwide the swift expansion of basic forms of distributed generation dg particularly photovoltaic deployment threatens the current utility business models that during the transitional stages may challenge the reliability of electricity systems and societal welfare these findings are matters of major concern to policy makers as the shift towards more decentralized power systems must be sustainable and although this brings great opportunities it also pauses important challenges the transition calls for policy and regulation attention for some researchers dg development should be accompanied with design changes to distribution tariffs the addition of connection charge and modifications to net metering while for others certain of these measures could discourage dg investments in this context and given multiple uncertainties the authors propose a system dynamics model to examine the effect of the diffusion of photovoltaic technology on the revenues of utilities and customers the paper concludes that for the colombian case it is possible under certain conditions to attain a balance between social welfare and the aversion of the utility death spiral through systemic interventions

does the expectations trap render the natural rate model invalid in the disinflationary zone this chapter raises some questions about the epistemological status of the theory underpinning the original phillips curve formulation and the correspondence between the empirical data and the textbook theoretical representations of the natural rate expectations augmented phillips n reap curve model this is no antiquarian investigation since these curves have dominated applied macroeconomics for over three decades

regional distribution effects of different electricity network tariff designs with a distributed generation structure the case of germany abstract the growing share of distributed generation and the corresponding need for grid extensions are anticipated to considerably influence electricity grid tariffs in the future depending on the regulatory framework and demand structure of the respective country the necessary expansion measures being taken are disparately affecting different regions with the underlying public support for the energy system transformation taking place across europe crucial to its success mechanisms to facilitate a cost reflective and non discriminatory cost distribution should be investigated based on a classification of critical factors responsible for regional discrepancies we model and estimate residential customers tariffs in germany and their regional distributional disparities while assessing various reform measures the findings show that the overall tariff rates in germany and the already existing regional disparities are poised to increase substantially by 2025 a tariff corridor and deep first connection charges considerably limit tariffs and increase distributional equity amongst regions a generation tariff alters the distribution and reduces the highest tariffs an energy based tariff that neglects the impact of prosumers further aggravates the regional distributional disparities this paper gives insights into the challenges of cost allocation within electricity grids and intends to help to design an adequate and fair cost allocation mechanism

spillover effects of distribution grid tariffs in the internal electricity market an argument for harmonization abstract in many countries distribution grid tariffs are being reformed to adapt to the new realities of an electricity system with distributed energy resources in europe legislative proposals have been made to harmonize these reforms across country borders many stakeholders have argued that distribution tariffs are a local affair while the european institutions argued that there can be spillovers to other countries which could justify a more harmonized approach in this paper we quantify these spillovers in a simplified numerical example to give insight and an order of magnitude we look at different scenarios and find that the spillovers can be both negative and positive to be able to quantify these effects we developed a long run market equilibrium model that captures the wholesale market effects of distribution grid tariffs the problem is formulated as a non cooperative game involving consumers generating companies and distribution system operators in a stylized electricity market

solar feed in tariffs examining fair and reasonable retail rates using cost avoidance estimates abstract growing solar photovoltaic pv electricity systems in geographically diverse regions presents a complex policy problem for governments during 2013 16 the queensland government in australia examined establishing a fair and reasonable retail feed in tariff fit policy noting it regulates state retail electricity consumption prices a combined cost avoidance and stakeholder analysis was applied to show that determination of a fair and reasonable fit for all stakeholders while aspirational is difficult to achieve typically agreement on a fair tariff rate will depend on stakeholders relative position in energy supply chains service providers retailers suppliers customers advocates and interpretations of fairness that can be shaped by competition in the supply area also increases in financial benefits to pv customers might be considered unreasonable by non pv customers and retailers that experience increases in electricity prices and operating costs importantly the application of a retail fit in regional and isolated areas requires careful energy policy design taking account of network losses remote and isolated customer metering cost effective network control technologies and diesel generator operating limits the study also observed that shifting funding of fit schemes from electricity distributors to competitive retailers will likely have negative consequences for retail fit offerings and pv customer servicing

towards a cost causation based tariff for distribution networks with dg this paper decomposes the effects of the transition from an average cost distribution tariff to a cost causation based distribution tariff in terms of time and location that uses nodal prices to recover losses and an extent of use method to recover fixed network costs based on use at coincident peak our decomposition is designed so that the effects of using coincident peak and location for fixed network charges as well as using marginal losses under constraints recovering the exact amount of losses and recovering exactly the cost of network service in total can be isolated and analyzed separately we apply our tariff transition and decomposition method to an example network with data from uruguay to isolate the various effects with and without a distributed generation dg resource we show moving to coincident peak charges and to fully charging for marginal losses while rebating the merchandising surplus through the fixed charges have the greatest effects on changes in distribution tariff charges dg provides countervailing cost changes to distribution tariffs for loads through loss reductions and the implicit creation of new network capacity for which it is paid the interaction of all these effects may lead to outcomes that are counter intuitive which further supports the need to decompose the tariff changes to fully understand the reasons for the direction and magnitude of changes in tariff charges in the transition to tariffs based more on cost causation

a comparison of nonparametric tests of weak separability for annual and quarterly data on consumption leisure and money among the most fundamental assumptions made in economics are utility maximization and the separability of the arguments in the representative consumer s utility function these assumptions are important for theoretical and empirical applications of economics in this article we present results from nonparametric tests of these assumptions of consumer behavior we find that utility maximization generally obtains with either annual or quarterly per capita data on consumption goods leisure and relatively liquid monetary assets annual data on consumption goods leisure and all monetary assets are consistent with utility maximization there is some evidence in support of using partial adjustment models when estimating quarterly data models of the demand for monetary assets further annual data on consumption goods and leisure and on liquid monetary assets meet the necessary and sufficient conditions for weak separability these results support the notion of a monetary aggregate more broadly based than cu

fiscal deficits output growth and inflation targets in ghana abstract inflation appears to be the macro problem for which no antidote has been found under the economic recovery programme it is possible that either a wrong diagnosis has been made of the problem or that certain factors within the economy are preventing inflation from staying within target levels using an error correction model ecm the paper estimates an inflation equation for ghana the convenience of this model is in the fact that all the data series exhibit an autoregressive scheme of order one that is they are i 1 series in such an instance the granger engle theorem shows that the ecm provides the most efficient model further the ecm unveils some of the short run dynamics which are missing in other estimation techniques the results of the econometric regression show that inflation in ghana either in the long run or short run is influenced more by output volatility than by monetary factors an examination is made of the consistency of fiscal deficit the hypothesis is that an unsustainable fiscal policy would make government miss some macroeconomic targets it is shown that in 1985 and 1989 fiscal policy was consistent inflation was well within target in 1985 for 1986 1988 the government did not maintain consistent fiscal deficits and inflation in those years was well above targets it is recommended that to control inflation in ghana more attention should be paid to supply factors further government should pursue consistent fiscal policies

peak shifting and cross class subsidization the impacts of solar pv on changes in electricity costs abstract the expansion of distributed solar necessitates additional research into the impacts on both utilities and their customers in this paper we use new jersey solar data pjm market data and demand profiles from a pjm utility to investigate rate and bill impacts of large scale solar penetration in addition to the subsidization of solar adopters by non participants we highlight the channels through which cross subsidization of rate classes can arise in practice the results of our study indicate that the fear of a utility death spiral may be exaggerated significant solar can be incorporated with only a 2 increase in non participant bills at high levels of penetration distributed solar has the potential to alter the system peak hour which affects the allocation of costs across rate classes as the peak hour shifts to the evening when solar production diminishes residential customers face higher distribution costs policy makers and utilities need to be aware of these challenges in designing the next generation of rates that are better aligned with cost causality

residential energy efficiency and distributed generation natural partners or competition abstract residential energy efficiency and distributed generation seem to be natural partners in our journey towards a more sustainable energy future a growing range of energy efficient consumer technologies and extraordinary declines in photovoltaics system prices has seen household electricity demand fall whilst a growing proportion of the remaining load is provided by household self generation australia is a particularly interesting example of these developments with around 15 of households now possessing a pv system while per capita household demand has also fallen markedly however existing retail electricity tariffs and regulatory arrangements can create mixed incentives for households contemplating both pv and energy efficiency options and for their network service providers this is certainly the case in australia with net metering arrangements that value self consumption of pv far more than pv exports to the grid there are also complex benefits for the electricity network created by these household energy resources that can be significant in this paper we use real household load and pv data from sydney households to model the potential implications of existing electricity tariff arrangements on the financial attractiveness of pv and energy efficiency we model these options separately and in combination for both households implementing these options and their network service providers our results highlight how inappropriate tariffs may well adversely impact on the value that the combination of energy efficiency and pv offers not only to households but also to their network service providers and suggest ways that such impacts might be ameliorated by acknowledging the benefits that these resources can offer to the electricity network

photovoltaic electricity production in brazil a stochastic economic viability analysis for small systems in the face of net metering and tax incentives abstract currently in addition to the search for sustainable development there is increased pressure for a change in consumption and production of energy patterns in brazil in this scenario net metering is an important mechanism fostering dissemination of small photovoltaic pv solar systems as complementary support to net metering a tax exemption is currently being offered in some brazilian states thus the objective of the present study is to analyze the impact of tax exemption on the circulation of goods and services and the returns and risks of the pv microgeneration project in four cities located in different regions of brazil belem petrolina uberaba and uruguaiana the analysis is performed using the monte carlo simulation mcs wherein uncertainties related to the financial and environmental variables are considered the results of the stochastic economic viability analysis allowed us to conclude that the exemption of tax on circulation of goods and services icms is fundamental to make pv microgeneration viable in brazil in the cities analyzed pv microgeneration presented economic unfeasibility to the investor when the icms is charged when considering the icms exemption policy the cities of petrolina and belem obtained high probabilities of viability in relation to the risk analysis pv microgeneration obtained the best results in petrolina both in terms of the condition of collection and exemption of icms there is high potential for harness solar throughout the brazilian territory however due to the current evolution stage and the productive chain of the brazilian pv industry high costs limit the expansion of this clean energy generation technology the findings of this study could assist policymakers in evaluating this incentive program highlighting that this tax exemption directly meets one of the objectives for which the icms was created which is to encourage the development of productive sectors such as pv industry

a dynamic asymptotically ideal model of money demand abstract we estimate a dynamic asymptotically ideal model of a system of money demand equations this specification allows incomplete portfolio adjustment we base our policy conclusions on morishima elasticities because as blackorby and russell 1989 show the allen uzawa elasticities can give misleading results we find that cash assets savings deposits and small time deposits are all substitutes for each other these results imply that monetary authorities should target a relatively broad monetary aggregate that includes these assets if policy is to have predictable effects on the economy

on the efficiency of connection charges part ii integration of distributed energy resources this two part paper addresses the design of retail electricity tariffs for distribution systems with distributed energy resources ders part i presents a framework to optimize ex ante two part tariffs for a regulated retailer who faces stochastic wholesale prices on the one hand and stochastic demand on the other in part ii the integration of ders is addressed by analyzing their effect on the optimal two part tariff and the induced welfare gains two der integration models are considered a decentralized model involving behind the meter ders and a centralized model with retailer integrated ders it is shown that ders integrated under either model can achieve the same social welfare and that net metering is optimal the retail prices for both models are equal and reflect the expected wholesale prices the connection charges differ and are affected by the retailer s fixed costs and the statistical dependencies between wholesale prices and behind the meter ders these charges are higher under the decentralized model an empirical analysis is presented to estimate the impact of der on welfare distribution and cross subsidies it shows that with the prevailing net metering tariffs consumer welfare decreases with the level of der integration issues of cross subsidy and practical drawbacks of decentralized integration are also discussed

the trade off interpretation of phillips s dynamic stabilization exercise this paper which examines phillips s famous curve is based on phillips s private papers and the london school of economics methodology measurement and testing seminar records sources previously thought to be lost these sources plus phillips s theoretical work suggest that the equilibrium menu of choice is a misinterpretation of phillips s dynamic stabilization exercise phillips had a clearly articulated role for inflationary expectations in his model and had no toleration for the notion that ongoing inflation could purchase sustainable reductions in the rate of unemployment evidence is cited which indicates that milton friedman was profoundly influenced by phillips s analysis of inflationary expectations

the information content of monetary aggregates in the u k abstract this paper presents some results evaluating the information content of several monetary aggregates formed as simple sums or as divisia quantity indices the former tend to dominate the latter there is considerable support for the new broader official monetary aggregate psl2

a semi nonparametric approach to the demand for uk monetary assets we estimate an asymptotically ideal model of the demand for uk personal sector monetary assets we use data that are consistent with utility maximizing behaviour and find that uk monetary assets are generally substitutes in use the estimated elasticities of substitution during the 1980s and the early 1990s indicate that a relatively broad monetary aggregate should be used in economic studies the results also suggest that any policy based on interest or user cost elasticities of substitution between financial assets should be based on the morishima elasticities as the allen uzawa calculation can give misleading results

risky monetary aggregates for the uk and us abstract we extend the scope of monetary aggregation beyond capital certain assets that make up central bank data sets and identify groups of assets that form monetary aggregates composed of both capital certain and risky capital uncertain assets we construct monetary aggregates for the us and uk using a superlative index and relax a key assumption of the consumption capital asset pricing model ccapm a one year planning horizon by using forecasted returns on risky assets our new risky monetary aggregates perform well in var tests we recommended exploring risky assets as providers of liquidity services in future research on this topic

monetary integration and currency substitution in the ems the case for a european monetary aggregate abstract this paper examines the phenomenon of cross currency substitution and the validity of monetary aggregation within the european monetary system using non parametric methods which exploit the relationship between intergroup substitution and separability the separability property is tested using the methodology developed by varian the nonparametric approach to demand analysis econometrica 50 945 974 1982 nonparametric tests of consumer behaviour review of economic studies 51 99 110 1983 and is violated in the case of most european countries suggesting that the hypothesis of zero currency substitution which forms the basis of national monetary aggregation should be rejected the results do however validate the use of monetary aggregates for the ems as a whole and i use a standard parametric demand for money approach to compare the performance of an ems divisia index with that of simple sum aggregates during the 1980s and 1990s

non parametric tests of consumer behaviour the neoclassical model of consumer behaviour postulates that a consumer s choice behaviour can be described as deriving from utility maximization subject to a budget constraint one is then naturally led to ask what this model implies about observed behaviour this question has been addressed from two quite distinct approaches the first approach originating in the work of slutsky 1915 and antonelli 1886 derives necessary and sufficient conditions involving the derivatives of the demand functions the second approach originating in the work of samuelson 1938 1947 1948 derives algebraic conditions on the demand functions implied by maximizing behaviour

mixed integer programming revealed preference tests of utility maximization and weak separability of consumption leisure and money swofford and whitney 1987 1988 1994 investigated the validity of two key assumptions underlying representative agent models of macroeconomics these assumptions are utility maximization and weak separability using mixed integer programming we check revealed preference conditions for these assumptions we find that m1 money defined by friedman and schwartz 1963 and a broad aggregate are weakly separable we find that consumption goods and leisure and nondurables and services are weakly separable we find that m2 m3 and mzm are not weakly separable finally we find three categories of consumption durables nondurables and services do not form an aggregate

hidden financial implications of the net energy metering practice in an isolated power system critical review and policy insights abstract this paper provides useful insights regarding the financial implications of the currently applied net energy metering nem practice in cyprus through analyzing the implemented policy under a the customers perspective and b the utility electricity authority of cyprus perspective these two perspectives are known in the scientific literature as the participant cost test and the utility cost test respectively within the paper the financial analysis from the customers perspective it embraces the impact resulting from a series of factors influencing the viability of net metered pv systems investments furthermore the analysis from the utility s perspective relates to the expected costs and benefits that eac may experience due to the current nem rules and applied charges finally the key findings pertaining to the current nem policy s hidden financial and policy implications are critically discussed this discussion is performed to facilitate a more diligent nem policy that will allow further penetration of roof top pv systems through well informed and transparent decisions

analysis of reflectivity predictability of electricity network tariff structures for household consumers distribution network operators charge household consumers with a network tariff so they can recover their network investment and operational costs with the transition towards a sustainable energy system the household load is changing through the introduction of photovoltaics and electric vehicles the tariff structures which are currently employed in the eu are either capacity and or energy consumption based in light of the changes in the household load the question whether these tariff structures are the most suitable merits renewed attention in this work the cost reflectivity of various tariff structures has been computed based on a distribution network planning approach next to this the predictability of a network tariff i e how much change would a household experience in network charges in two consecutive years has also been computed to gain insight into how well users will be able to react to the tariff the results show that a peak load based network tariffs score best on the reflectivity while having an acceptable level of predictability the switch from an energy consumption based network tariff which is now most often applied towards a peak load based network tariff should therefore be considered

squaring the sunny circle on balancing distributive justice of power grid costs and incentives for solar prosumers abstract solar prosumers are about to revolutionize the power sector utilities are challenged in recovering the costs of distribution grids as parts of their revenue basis decreases through self consumption adjusting the grid tariff sets off a reinforcing feedback loop that increases the attractiveness of solar investments but also leads to a distribution effect between solar prosumers and conventional consumers the question is how to recover distribution grid costs equitable without hampering the diffusion of solar power can the two criteria be fulfilled at the same time or is do we aim for squaring a circle to address this question i present a system dynamics simulation model designed to understand the interactions and assess these competing goals the occurring distribution effect under the volumetric grid tariff with net purchase and sale appears to be rather limited simulation experiments reveal that grid tariff designs strongly influence investments for solar power a capacity tariff can reduce deviations from the cost causation principle of solar prosumers and incentivizes investments in decentralized storage solutions to reduce peak demand nevertheless also the capacity tariff causes a distribution effect

company sector money demand new evidence on the existence of a stable long run relationship for the united kingdom the u k departure from the european exchange rate mechanism has created an urgent need for new indicators of monetary policy stance traditional simple sum monetary aggregates have proven unreliable particularly in the face of the financial innovations of the 1980s micro theory suggests that inappropriate aggregation over heterogeneous assets and holders may be to blame the present paper tests for weak separability of asset groupings for the u k company sector divisia weighted aggregates are constructed for the resulting narrow and broad groupings it is shown that stable long run relationships corresponding to money demand equations exist for these aggregates arbitrary dummies representing financial innovation are not required in contrast to some other work in this area copyright 1994 by ohio state university press

long run incremental cost pricing based on unused capacity this paper proposes a novel approach for providing long run incremental cost lric pricing in network charges the proposed approach makes use of the unused capacity of an exiting network to reflect the cost of advancing or deferring future investment consequent upon the addition of generation or load at each study node on a distribution network compared with existing approaches to lric pricing the proposed approach produces forward looking charges that reflect both the extent of the network needed to service the generation or load and the degree to which that network is utilized the efficacy of the proposed lric approach has been validated by a comparison with the established investment cost related pricing icrp method used for deriving transmission charges in great brain gb this paper draws on work undertaken in projects for western power distribution and ofgem office of gas and electricity markets u k however the views expressed in this paper are those of the authors

future proof tariff design recovering sunk grid costs in a world where consumers are pushing back abstract traditional analysis of distribution network tariff design assumes a lack of alternatives to grid connection for the fulfilment of consumers electricity needs this is radically changing with breakthroughs in two technologies 1 photovoltaics pv enable domestic and commercial consumers to self produce energy 2 batteries allow consumers and self producers to gain control over their grid energy and capacity parameters contributing to the state of the art the grid cost recovery problem for the distribution system operator dso is modelled as a non cooperative game between consumers in this game the availability and costs of the two named technologies strategically interact with tariff structures four states of the world for user s access to technologies are distinguished and three tariff structures are evaluated the assessed distribution network tariff structures are energy volumetric charges with net metering energy volumetric charges for both injection and withdrawal and capacity based charges results show that in a state of the world with new technology choices for grid users both efficiency and equity issues can arise when distribution network charges are ill designed

a non parametric analysis of personal sector decisions on consumption liquid assets and leisure this paper uses the non parametric techniques developed by varian i982 i983 and afriat i967 1973 from the theory of revealed preference see samuelson 1947 to address a number of questions of interest to those who model the determination of consumption liquid assets and leisure hours 1 the primary assumption underlying much work in this area whether it deals with highly aggregated categories such as the consumption of non durables or relatively disaggregated categories such as the consumption of energy products or food is that demand functions for consumer goods are consistent with the hypothesis that they are derived from the maximisation of a well behaved utility function subject to a relevant budget constraint the absence of liquid assets or leisure from such studies involves the implicit assumption of weak separability between consumption goods and these other goods the parametric approach then assumes a particular functional form for either the utility function indirect utility function or cost function and estimates the parameters that best describe the data however as varian i983 points out when it comes to testing hypotheses in such a framework it is always a joint hypothesis comprising both the restrictions and the choice of functional form which is being tested 2 to avoid this problem varian developed the nonparametric revealed preference approach to provide algebraic conditions which are imposed by maximising behaviour on a set of data with a finite number of observations this non parametric approach is exploited here in several ways there have been a number of studies using a parametric approach at a fairly disaggregated level to the determinants of consumers expenditure see for example deaton i974 anderson and blundell i982 and ray i984 for applications using

a model of monetary policy shocks for financial crises and normal conditions in their classic 1999 paper monetary policy shocks what have we learned and to what end christiano eichenbaum and evans cee investigate one of the most widely used methods for identifying monetary policy shocks of its time unfortunately their approach is no longer viable at least not in its original form a major problem stems from the recent behavior of two key variables in their model the fed funds rate and non borrowed reserves we develop a new identification scheme that remedies these diculties but maintains the basic cee framework our empirical specification is motivated by a standard new keynesian dsge model augmented by a simple financial structure the model provides theoretical support for variables we use in place of certain variables that were used in the classic var approach outlined in cee one significant innovation is our use of divisia m4 the broadest monetary aggregate currently available for the united states as the policy indicator variable we obtain four major empirical results that support the use of a properly measured broad monetary aggregate as the policy variable first policy shocks have significant eects on output and on the price level even when an interest rate is included in our model contradicting the new keynesian argument that monetary aggregates are redundant second we develop a model that is not subject to the output price or liquidity puzzles common to this literature contradicting the view that using the interest rate as the policy indicator generally yields more reasonable responses than a monetary aggregate third during normal conditions policy shocks from our divisia based model have similar eects on variables to those found in the fed funds model of monetary policy and where there are dierences our model with divisia m4 obtains results that are more consistent with standard economic theory fourth our preferred specification produces plausible responses to a monetary policy shock in samples that include or exclude the recent financial crisis

the economic effect of electricity net metering with solar pv consequences for network cost recovery cross subsidies and policy objectives abstract net metering is commonly known as a practice by which owners of distributed generation dg units may offset their electricity consumption from the grid with local generation the increasing number of prosumers consumers that both produce and consume electricity with solar photovoltaic pv generation combined with net metering results in reduced incomes for many network utilities worldwide consequently this pushes utilities to increase charges per kw h in order to recover costs for non pv owners this could result into inequality issues due to the fact that also non pv owners have to pay higher chargers for their electricity consumed to make up for netted costs of pv owners in order to provide insight in those inequality issues caused by net metering this study presents the effects on cross subsidies cost recovery and policy objectives evolving from different applied netmetering and tariff designs for a residential consumer eventually this paper provides recommendations regarding tariffs and metering that will result in more explicit incentives for pv instead of the current implicit incentives which are present to pv owners due to net metering

the optimal level of monetary aggregation in this paper i have three objectives 1 to describe the aggregation theoretic procedure for selecting the optimal monetary aggregates 2 to survey the available empirical evidence for information on the optimal aggregates and 3 to describe the procedures that should be followed to complete a redefinition of the monetary aggregates although all of the federal reserve board s current official aggregates are rejected as targets some newer aggregates are found to be substantially preferable to the official aggregates the board s staff recently completed the official redefinition of its monetary aggregates in a manner largely unrelated to aggregation and index number theory my own research in recent years has sought to remedy that shortcoming except for monetary aggregates most of the data provided by governmental agencies are constructed in accordance with aggregation and index number theory since aggregation theory can be applied to monetary aggregation 1 i constructed new monetary aggregates that are consistent with the economic theory 2 recently the empiri

government and inflation competing views on the relationship between government and inflation arise from competing models of inflation neo keynesian models predict that governments can manipulate aggregate demand by suitable combinations of monetary and fiscal policies but that the effects are asymmetrical starting from a state of full employment the short term effects of a rise in demand are mainly in a rise in the inflation rate and only slightly in a rise in output while the shortterm effects of a fall in demand are mainly in a fall in output and only slightly in a fall in inflation throughout this paper i call this the asymmetry it can also be expressed in terms of a short term phillips curve relating real national income to price inflation which is much steeper above than below full employment this short term phillips curve shifts with changes in the core inflation rate defined as the inflation rate ruling when there are neither demand nor supply side shock effects on the price level the core rate may depend on expected future inflation as long as these expectations themselves depend on past inflation rates as in eckstein or it may depend on inertias as in tobin where a concern over relatives makes current wage bargains closely related to past wage bargains the core rate shifts only slowly because it depends on backward looking behavior arthur okun s posthumously published book contributed greatly to the development of the micro underpinnings of this model i have also discussed them in some detail elsewhere 1981 in the new classical model markets clear as if they were perfectly competitive actual income differs from potential income only if errors are made in predicting the rate of inflation which causes firms and or workers to misperceive changes in money prices and wages as changes in relative prices and wages expectations of inflation are rational and hence forward looking if the government adopts appropriate policies to raise or lower the inflation rate this leads immediately to a revision of inflationary expectations to which the actual inflation rate quickly responds thus the asymmetry is absent increases and decreases in aggregate demand have their main effects on increasing or decreasing the inflation rate even in the short term the third theory traditional monetarism is the least explicitly modelled of the three friedman s statement of its theoretical underpinnings was an is lm model closed by a perfectly inelastic aggregate supply curve as although most economists would accept this as the long run as curve provided the long run is long enough agreement on the shape of the monetarist shortterm as curve is less obvious some would appear to accept the virtually inelastic as curve over this period while others such as phillip cagan 1979 and david laidler 1981 would appear to favor the asymmetry monetarism has meant different things at different times perhaps its most enduring central core is the rejection of policy activism and the associated k percent rule for monetary expansion furthermore many monetarists believe that restrictive monetary policy can be advocated as the major anti inflationary tool for governments having threeto five year political time horizons that is they believe in only a short lived asymmetry at most

money and velocity during financial crises from the great depression to the great recession abstract this study models the demand for a broad monetary aggregate m2 from the great depression through the great recession key to the model is the interaction between a measure of time variation in economic agents perceived financial risk and an index of the cost of portfolio adjustment the finding of a useful money demand relationship suggests that skepticism regarding the indicator role of a broad liquid money aggregate as a policy guide may be exaggerated further our model provides some guidance for policymakers who face the challenge of unwinding large balance sheets as risk premia return to normal and velocity adjusts

solving the price puzzle with an alternative indicator of monetary policy we identify the effects of monetary policy shocks on macroeconomic variables in vars using the divisia m4 measure of money as the policy indicator variable we obtain theoretically sensible responses whether or not a commodity price index is included thus we eliminate the well known empirical puzzles from the var by a novel choice in a policy variable rather than the usual attachment of an ad hoc variable

nonparametric tests of utility maximization and weak separability for consumption leisure and money some of the most fundamental assumptions of economics are utility maximization and weak separability of the arguments in the represen tative consumer s utility function this paper contains results from nonparametric tests of these assumptions about consumer behavior the authors find that quarterly per capita data on consumption goods le isure and monetary assets are consistent with utility maximization further consumption goods and leisure meet necessary and sufficient conditions for weak separability additionally one grouping of relat ively liquid monetary assets meets the necessary conditions for weak separability they also test and find no evidence of homothetic prefe rences copyright 1987 by mit press

the effects of tax increases on negotiated wage increases in the canadian private sector the major objective of this study is to estimate the short run inflationary supply side effects of increases in sales tax rates and income tax rates on canadian negotiated wage rates empirical results are based on an econometric analysis of 867 cola wage contracts and 1662 non cola wage contracts signed during the 1979 to 1992 period in the canadian private sector no statistical evidence is found to show that the substantial increases in the average rate of income tax in canada during this period led to larger negotiated wage increases on the other hand it is found that union workers were able to negotiate wage increases to offset part of the increase in consumer prices attributable to increases in sales tax rates given a 1 increase in the cpi directly attributable to sales tax increases non cola contracts provided a 0 25 wage increase and cola contracts provided a 0 75 wage increase the 6 4 increase in the canadian consumer price index directly attributable to sales tax increases during the

the translog utility function and the demand for money in the united states in recent years considerable effort has been directed towards establishing the nature of the relationship between money and nearmonies but with mixed success the approaches vary from multi interest rate single equation studies to the careful simultaneous equations studies summarized and amended by feige and pearce 1977 and extended recently by donovan 1978 offenbacher 1979 and barnett 1980 the empirical results also vary with numerous studies favoring only one interest rate see the surveys in fisher 1978 1983 some claiming that a variety of entities are close substitutes for money e g chetty 1969 and others showing that weak substitution or even complementarity may be the result of the measurement of elasticities of substitution between money and a number of other assets e g feige and pearce 1977 offenbacher 1979 and barnett 1980 the debate seems to have overshadowed a second and equally intriguing issue which centers on the establishment of an acceptable definition of money the basic idea of this study is to take an approach that takes account of the different degrees of moneyness possessed by the various monetary assets this paper produces quantitative estimates of the degree of substitutability of other monetary assets for money in the context of a flexible functional form model with a

evaluating the effect of technology transformation on the electricity utility industry abstract the technology shift from fossil fuelled systems to renewable energies has been promoted by governments with the purpose of decarbonising the power industry however rapid technology progress has prompted disruptive changes that transformed market structures incumbent electricity utilities particularly those based on fossil fuel plant are shifting from their stable and predictable situation to confront challenges from those that offer alternative energy services in this new environment the industry will benefit from mid to long term sector foresight the paper studies the potential impact of renewable energy sources res on electricity systems specifically on the generation and distribution businesses for this purpose a fairly detailed and integrated supply and demand based system dynamics model has been built to quantify the extent of their potential impact the model disaggregates the household sector which may generate a significant part of its electricity using rooftop solar energy this is illustrated by examining a utility engaged in the generation and distribution businesses in the colombian electricity market through simulation runs this paper concludes that subject to policy and all other things remaining equal solar rooftop generation is a major threat for utilities while the generation business is most affected in the short term the distribution business is the one most impacted in the long term and jointly they may induce the utility death spiral

designing more cost reflective electricity network tariffs with demand charges abstract there is growing policy and regulatory interest in better aligning electricity tariffs with the cost of providing network services to customers to provide a better price signal for economically efficient use of the network and reduce cross subsidies between different customers given that network costs are significantly driven by peak capacity requirements many proposals for more cost reflective tariffs include a demand capacity component however there are many complexities in the implementation of such tariffs this paper first presents a method to visually assess how cost reflective a particular demand charge network tariffs is we apply it to a typical demand charge network tariff proposal within the australian national electricity market and actual consumption data of 3876 sydney households and find it to have low cost reflectivity in terms of aligning customer bills with their contribution towards network peak demand such misalignment has potentially significant adverse impacts on the economic efficiency of such tariffs an issue that does not appear to have received sufficient policy attention we then use this assessment method to demonstrate how a demand charge tariff structure can be adjusted to make it significantly more cost reflective this method can be applied to any tariff that includes a capacity based component

the composition and construction of monetary aggregates an economic monetary aggregate is composed from a set of monetary goods that are at least weakly separable from other goods in the optimizing agent s utility function we construct such an aggregate using a divisia index number we demonstrate that through the middle of the 1980s forecasts of the inflation rate based on our economic monetary aggregate are superior to forecasts based on the simple sum monetary aggregates m1 or m2

are risky assets substitutes for monetary assets i introduction financial innovation over the past couple of decades has enhanced the liquidity of many financial assets particularly noncapital certain risky assets further financial assets previously not regarded as monetary assets such as mutual funds and particularly money market mutual funds now provide monetary services such as liquidity and transactions services l given the increased liquidity of such funds the question arises as to whether risky assets are substitutes for capital certain monetary assets if noncapital certain assets are indeed substitutes for capital certain assets and are also being used for transactions purposes then agents may be treating risky assets as money although this issue has been addressed in the united states in the context of the addition of bond funds to m2 by for example duca 1995 no such research has yet been conducted in the united kingdom including risky assets in the analysis contradicts the work of ando and shell 1975 spencer 1986 appendix i pp 184 93 and spencer 1994 broadly they argue that since some nonrisky assets provide monetary services and probability also liquidity individuals would not hold risky assets for these purposes 2 in contrast hicks 1935 states that falling transaction costs and rising wealth encourages individuals to increase the proportion of risky assets in portfolio holdings most studies generally assume that risky assets fail to provide significant monetary services and for example have been excluded from the asset demand analysis of barr and cuthbertson 1991a drake fleissig and swofford 1997 and money demand studies such as taylor 1987 belongia and chrystal 1991 drake and chrystal 1994 and drake 1996 alternatively barr and cuthbertson 1991b use only risky assets in their asset demand system analysis the degree of substitution between risky assets and capital certain assets is an empirical issue while noncapital certain risky assets mutual funds and other financial assets may well be becoming closer substitutes for what people are using as money they are in no way perfect substitutes for the highly liquid cash assets to evaluate the role of noncapital certain assets we construct a noncapital certain risky divisia aggregate consisting of equities government bonds and unit trusts the divisia index allows for less than perfect substitution between assets and weights component assets according to their differing degrees of moneyness which may vary over time due to many factors for example financial innovation see barnett 1980 this methodology has been widely applied to monetary aggregation and money demand studies in a number of countries as in belongia 1996 drake 1996 drake and chrystal 1997 and anderson jones and nesmith 1997 to determine whether risky assets are substitutes for capital certain assets we use two other divisia aggregates constructed from traditional measures of money the first of these is an aggregate of highly liquid zero yield cash assets given that the component assets all have zero own rates of return however divisia aggregation is equivalent in this case to simple summation the second aggregate is a divisia aggregate of interest bearing capital certain assets including risky assets complicates the analysis because the degree of risk aversion will affect the estimates of substitution between capital certain and noncapital certain assets thus we also analyze how different degrees of risk aversion affect the results the substitution relationship between assets is estimated from an asymptotically ideal model aim the choice of an aim is in line with the recommendation of barnett fisher and serletis 1992 that flexible systems of demand equations should be used that allow for nonlinear optimizing behavior by economic agents furthermore this paper can be seen as an extension of the recent application of this model to u