regulation profitability and diffusion of photovoltaic grid connected systems a comparative analysis of germany and spain abstract although both germany and spain were pioneers in the support and adoption of photovoltaics pv through feed in tariffs fits germany is the world s leading country in terms of installed pv capacity per capita and remains on a path of pv growth while the spanish pv market is virtually paralysed we analyse the divergent performance in both countries by reviewing the evolution of fits and by analysing the profitability of different types of installations for the period 2004 2014 while in germany the policies profitability and diffusion of pv were relatively stable over time in spain erratic policy changes and the distortionary effect of the solar orchard ownership structure caused a diffusion bubble june 2007 september 2008 and a subsequent profitability bubble 2009 2011 these bubbles led to the collapse of the support system in 2012 revealing the difficulty inherent in designing innovation and diffusion policies in the context of high uncertainty and rapid technological change

the ir relevance of real wage rigidity in the new keynesian model with search frictions we explore the role of real wage dynamics in a new keynesian business cycle model with search and matching frictions in the labor market both job creation and destruction are endogenous we show that the model generates counterfactual inflation and labor market dynamics in particular it fails to generate a beveridge curve vacancies and unemployment are positively correlated introducing real wage rigidity leads to a negative correlation and increases the magnitude of labor market flows to more realistic values however inflation dynamics are only weakly affected by real wage rigidity this is because of the presence of labor market frictions which generate long run employment relationships the measure of real marginal cost that is relevant for inflation dynamics via the phillips curve contains a dynamic component that does not necessarily move with real wages

levelized cost of electricity lcoe of renewable energies and required subsidies in china newhuadu business school research fund china sustainable energy program g 1305 18257 national social science foundation of china 12zd059 ministry of education 10 jbg 013

germany s solar cell promotion dark clouds on the horizon abstract this article demonstrates that the large feed in tariffs currently guaranteed for solar electricity in germany constitute a subsidization regime that threatens to reach a level comparable to that of german hard coal production a notoriously outstanding example of misguided political intervention yet as a consequence of the coexistence of the german renewable energy sources act eeg and the eu emissions trading scheme ets the increased use of renewable energy technologies does not imply any additional emission reductions beyond those already achieved by ets alone similarly disappointing is the net employment balance which is likely to be negative if one takes into account the opportunity cost of this form of solar photovoltaic pv support along the lines of the international energy agency iea 2007 energy policies of iea countries germany 2007 review international energy agency oecd paris p 77 we recommend the immediate and drastic reduction of the magnitude of the feed in tariffs granted for solar based electricity ultimately producing electricity on this basis is among the most expensive greenhouse gas abatement options

lessons from photovoltaic policies in china for future development abstract the paper first provides an overview of the current status of pv industry development in china including the penetration speed the market segments and the value chain further it reviews the experience of governmental interventions composed of the legal framework market incentives and manufacturing policies for lessons learning after the renewable energy law took effect in 2006 pv penetration was accelerated capital subsidies and feed in tariffs which were still in a trial stage public bidding and the cooperation among relevant ministries played important roles a series of public rd the budget and the organization of public pv r d were insufficient finally we propose some recommendations on improving policy interventions

global trading versus linking architectures for international emissions trading abstract international emissions trading is widely seen as an indispensable policy pillar of climate change mitigation stern n 2007 the economics of climate change the stern review cambridge university press new york this article analyzes five different types of trading architectures classified into two top down unfccc driven and three bottom up driven by individual countries or regions approaches the two types of approaches are characterized by a trade off between environmental effectiveness and political feasibility respectively whereas their relative cost effectiveness depends on implementation details bottom up architectures constitute imperfect substitutes for top down architectures in terms of environmental effectiveness and thus remain mere fallback options however especially the formal linking architecture can act as complement in terms of cost effectiveness

life cycle equilibrium unemployment this paper extends the job creation job destruction approach to the labor market to take into account a deterministic finite horizon as hirings and separations depend on the time over which investment costs can be recouped the life cycle setting implies age differentiated labor market flows while search by the unemployed falls with age the separation rate is rather u shaped over the life cycle worker heterogeneity in the context of undirected search implies an intergenerational externality which is not eliminated by the hosios condition we show that age specific policies are required to attain the first best allocation

four themes in fertility research this study is concerned with four main themes that have been combined to describe u s fertility trends since 1920 these themes are identified as a time adjustment mechanism income the wifes labor force activities and some intergenerational factor in order to obtain an unambiguous picture each theme will be represented by only one variable after selecting the variables and estimating a model an examination of the changing role these variables have had in explaining changes in fertility the total fertility rate throughout much of this century will be made finally the implications these themes have for future fertility will be examined the authors conclude that in interpreting historical u s fertility rates the results seem to indicate that much of the early decline in u s fertility was due to falling infant mortality after the second world war fertility rose sharply as the age structure variable declined and income rose eventually both womens labor force participation rates and the age structure variable rose and consequently fertility fell they also suggest that the age structure variable may cause a temporary upward swing in fertility in the near future excerpt

global land use implications of first and second generation biofuel targets recently an active debate has emerged around greenhouse gas emissions due to indirect land use change iluc of expanding agricultural areas dedicated to biofuel production in this paper we provide a detailed analysis of the iluc effect and further address the issues of deforestation irrigation water use and crop price increases due to expanding biofuel acreage we use globiom an economic partial equilibrium model of the global forest agriculture and biomass sectors with a bottom up representation of agricultural and forestry management practices the results indicate that second generation biofuel production fed by wood from sustainably managed existing forests would lead to a negative iluc factor meaning that overall emissions are 27 lower compared to the no biofuel scenario by 2030 the iluc factor of first generation biofuels global expansion is generally positive requiring some 25 years to be paid back by the ghg savings from the substitution of biofuels for conventional fuels second generation biofuels perform better also with respect to the other investigated criteria on the condition that they are not sourced from dedicated plantations directly competing for agricultural land if so then efficient first generation systems are preferable since no clear technology champion for all situations exists we would recommend targeting policy instruments directly at the positive and negative effects of biofuel production rather than at the production itself

the macrodynamics of sorting between workers and firms we develop an equilibrium model of on the job search with ex ante heterogeneous workers and firms aggregate uncertainty and vacancy creation the model produces rich dynamics in which the distributions of unemployed workers vacancies and worker firm matches evolve stochastically over time we prove that the surplus function which fully characterises the match value and the mobility decision of workers does not depend on these distributions we estimate the model on us labour market data from 1951 2007 and predict the fit for 2008 12 we use the model to measure the cyclicality of mismatch between workers and jobs

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

a developing asia emission trading scheme asia ets abstract this paper provides a model assessment of the role of developing asia in the context of climate change policies we diagnose the potential response of asian economies to the imposition of various climate policies showing that if we were to equally price carbon across the world roughly half of the abatement would occur in developing asia we show that such autarkic measures would be consistent with the policy targets put forward by the major economies forum but would not necessarily be equitable we thus propose a fragmented cap and trade scheme with a specific regional market for developing asia the asian emission trading scheme asia ets we assess the role of the asia ets on the macro economy and international transfers vis a vis the standard case of global trading our results indicate that creating two large trading markets would result in small global efficiency losses while at the same time generating more reasonable regional incentives and transfers

separations sorting and cyclical unemployment abstract this paper establishes a new fact about the compositional changes in the pool of unemployed over the us business cycle using microdata from the current population survey for the years 1962 2012 it documents that in recessions the pool of unemployed shifts toward workers with high wages in their previous job and that these shifts are driven by the high cyclicality of separations for high wage workers the paper finds that standard theories of wage setting and unemployment have difficulty in explaining these patterns and evaluates a number of alternative theories that do better in accounting for the new fact jel e24 e32 j31 j63 j64

feed in tariff and tradable green certificate in oligopoly abstract feed in tariff fit and tradable green certificate tgc schemes are studied in a formal model and numerical example using the uk data we find that if the markets were perfectly competitive then feed in tariff and the certificate price would be the same however when the markets are imperfect they are generally different while both the tariff and certificate price fluctuate around the difference between the costs of green and black energy the tariff deviates more from the cost difference than the certificate price the supplies of both black and green energy under fit are higher than tgc obviously as a result of subsidies a troubling outcome is that the total energy supply increases under fit as the renewables quota increases which can negate other measures to mitigate climate changes such as demand management finally using the data from the uk market we find that social welfare under tgc is consistently higher than fit for a wide range of values of the parameters

the cyclicality of separation and job finding rates this paper uses cps gross flow data to analyze the business cycle dynamics of separation and job finding rates and to quantify their contributions to overall unemployment variability cyclical changes in the separation rate are negatively correlated with changes in productivity and move contemporaneously with them while the job finding rate is positively correlated with and tends to lag productivity contemporaneous fluctuations in the separation rate explain between 40 and 50 percent of fluctuations in unemployment depending on how the data are detrended this figure becomes larger when dynamic interactions between the separation and job finding rates are considered

policies and legislation driving taiwan s development of renewable energy abstract under the current wave of international responses to the growing threat of climate change taiwan cannot afford to step back from its goal of advancing its renewable energy strengthening its energy self sufficiency and energy security this paper will first analyze the high level dependency structure of taiwan s energy demands then we will explore taiwan current situation in terms of renewable energy development furthermore from an overview of the course of changes and development in taiwan s energy policy highlight the commitment to and aims of taiwan s renewable energy development made by the government at the annual national energy conference fourth we shall analyse technological r d incentives taxes market reforms and other related policy tools fifth in light of public announcements and budgets set in recent years for taiwan s renewable energy research plan highlight main strategies being given impetus by the government sixth the author will discuss the implications of recent significant legal reforms to the development of renewable energy in taiwan and from the correlating aspects of industrial structures and energy consumption take the first steps in emphasizing the urgent need for adjustments to be made to taiwan s industrial structure finally this paper will conclude by examining current policies legislation and strategies which are in place to promote this area in taiwan and discuss the potential competitiveness and future scenarios which the development of renewable energy could mean for taiwan

on the job search and the wage distribution the article structually estimates an on the job search model of job separations given each employer pays observably equivalent workers the same but wages are dispersed across employers an employer s separation flow is the sum of an exogenous outflow unrelated to the wage and a job to job flow that decreases with the employer s wage using data from the danish integrated database for labour market research the empirical results imply as predicted by theory that search effort declines with the wage furthermore the estimates explain the employment effect defined as the horizontal difference between the distribution of wages earned and the wage offer distribution

competitive auction mechanisms for the promotion renewable energy technologies the case of the 50 mw photovoltaics projects in cyprus abstract there are a range of policy frameworks and support mechanisms to promote the penetration of renewable energy technologies into the energy mix assembled by the governments and regulatory bodies around the world the three dominant and most common support schemes that have also been implemented within the eu and proven successful in the past include the competitive auctions the feed in tariff scheme fit and tradable green certificates tgcs this study reviews the use of the competitive auction mechanism for the promotion of power generation from renewable energy technologies the process of the specific policy instrument as well as its pros and cons are introduced successful and failed case studies from countries that have already incorporated this mechanism into their renewable energy technologies development policies are also presented among these cases is the cyprus auction procurement for the licensing of 50 mw of photovoltaic power plants conducted in january 2013 which is thoroughly elaborated in this paper the timeline of the bids is presented and the auction winner strategy is tracked and examined a discussion is also presented on the feasibility of the awarded projects eventually the entire auction procurement procedure is evaluated to expose the defects of the mechanism and to offer some recommendations for the viability of the process

employer search training and vacancy duration we develop a model of optimal employer search strategy when information about match quality is endogenous the model is tested using four data sets two of which have not previously been used as theory predicts we find that when filling positions requiring more training employers search more intensively and extensively employers also search more extensively when hiring workers with more education and with prior experience these findings provide strong evidence of systematic variation in search strategies based on the characteristics of the positions and job applicants factors that influence employer search also affect the duration of a vacancy

the effect of tax transfer policies on fertility in canada 1921 88 this paper estimates the effect on fertility of the personal tax exemption for children child tax credit family allowances and maternity leave benefits in canada using time series data from 1921 to 1988 it is found that the exemption child tax credit and family allowances all have significant and positive effects on fertility the results are robust to a variety of specifications including first differencing while the three tax transfer programs seem to be very distinct the null hypothesis that they have no differential effects on fertility can hardly be rejected all the results also hold for the cumulative effect of the three tax transfer programs the estimates predict that a large increase in the value of the tax transfer programs would be needed to increase fertility to the replacement level

analysis of the policy effects of downstream feed in tariff on china s solar photovoltaic industry abstract the chinese government initiated the feed in tariff fit policy for downstream power generation in august 2013 the effectiveness of the downstream fit policy has attracted the attention of academia and government using the quarterly data of listed solar pv companies between 2009 and 2015 this paper provides an empirical analysis regarding the effects of the downstream fit policy we find that 1 the fit policy has significantly enhanced the inventory turnover of listed pv firms and improved their profitability 2 the fit policy has significant effects on the inventory turnover of midstream companies and mixed industry chain companies mainly engaged in downstream operations 3 fit policy is more favorable towards increasing the inventory turnover of private enterprises our results indicate that the fit policy can have substantial effects on the sustainable development of china s solar photovoltaic industry

solar feed in tariffs in a post grid parity world the role of risk investor diversity and business models over the past decade feed in tariffs have spurred significant deployment of solar photovoltaics in germany and other countries with recent cost trends several countries are approaching retail grid parity some policymakers conclude that now is the time to remove feed in tariffs as grid parity creates a self sustaining market where economically rational investors will invest even in the absence of government incentives recent experience in key european solar markets however shows that with the advent of grid parity and the reduction of feed in tariffs investment in new solar capacity has decreased rather than increased making it questionable whether low carbon energy policy targets will be reached we conduct a cross case study analysis of three pv markets germany italy and switzerland to investigate the role of feed in tariffs for the near and post grid parity stages of diffusion accounting for investor diversity and distinguishing between implications for revenue based and savings based business models we find that recent market trends are strongly driven by increased levels of risk especially policy risk and exposure to revenue risk we therefore suggest that relatively frugal but stable policy environments may be conducive to further growth of investment in photovoltaics and minimize cost to society

accounting for the u s earnings and wealth inequality we show that a theory of earnings and wealth inequality based on the optimal choices of ex ante identical households that face uninsured idiosyncratic shocks to their endowments of efficiency labor units accounts for the u s earnings and wealth inequality almost exactly

tenure experience human capital and wages a tractable equilibrium search model of wage dynamics we develop and estimate an equilibrium job search model of worker careers allowing for human capital accumulation employer heterogeneity and individual level shocks wage growth is decomposed into contributions of human capital and job search within and between jobs human capital accumulation is largest for highly educated workers the contribution from job search to wage growth both within and between job declines over the fi rst ten years of a career the job shopping phase of a working life after which workers settle into high quality jobs using outside o ffers to generate gradual wage increases thus reaping the bene fits from competition between employers

how feed in remuneration design shapes residential pv prosumer paradigms as part of their clean technology and decarbonization strategies numerous countries have introduced feed in remuneration fir schemes to spur the deployment of solar photovoltaics pv however in the light of rising retail electricity prices and falling costs for rooftop solar installations in recent years policy makers and regulators face the difficult task of deciding when and how these schemes should be amended or phased out to understand how such actions might shape the role of residential solar and the resulting economics in a changing electricity system we study how the design of fir schemes affects optimal pv system sizes to illustrate our approach we draw on empirical data on the fir policies of net metering and feed in tariffs from california and germany between 2005 and 2016 using a techno economic model and a conceptual framework we show that fir design and its interplay with retail electricity prices and pv system costs jointly determine whether residential pv installations are economic how they are sized and which prosumer paradigms they spur our analysis holds numerous implications for policy makers and advisors responsible for redesigning or adapting existing fir mechanisms as well as for the stakeholders of an emerging ecosystem based on residential solar pv

adaptation of feed in tariff for remote mini grids tanzania as an illustrative case abstract following the successful feed in tariffs fits system worldwide few countries have implemented fits explicitly tailored for off grid or mini grid systems this study takes an integrated approach to examine the feasibility of an off grid feed in tariff off fit for existing and new remote mini grids in tanzania using a combination of geographical analysis technical economic and institutional assessments based on detailed modelling of two community off grid cases i pv diesel and ii mini hydro we identify least cost rural electrification options that make solar and mini hydro energy competitive with diesel generators and potential effect of the support scheme on rural electrification plans in the first case we illustrate where the off fit complements diesel generation of an existing mini grid pv diesel in the second case mini hydro we illustrate conditions where the off fit policy brings mini hydro generation to non electrified communities and sells renewable electricity directly to new customers currently tanzania has standardized power purchase spp rates which target generators connected to the national grid and distribution systems of mini grids or isolated grids we found for the off fit tariff the total amount needed to support the same number of customers by solar and hydro mini grids versus diesel would be of 31 5 million us or a premium of 0 11 us kwh to the present current spps tariff of 0 24 us kwh for pv we also found that a technology specific fit tariff would be most suitable to attract national and international investors by providing a rate of return that compensates the risk of the investment the overall support is comparable to the 36 million us that the government currently subsidizes and allocates to diesel mini grids in country and this shows the potential for a long term renewable energy strategy for mini grid areas

when households go solar determinants of uptake of a photovoltaic scheme and policy insights abstract the need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels has resulted in escalating interest in renewable energy generation yet few countries have seriously tested household potential to produce energy from pv panels propelled by mandatory eu targets for renewable energy and constrained with limited territory the government of malta launched a subsidy scheme with a view to encouraging pv installation by households the scheme reached the desired adoption levels within a very short period of time the study takes an entire country dimension to assess the determinants of household investment in pv panels a unique dataset is specifically constructed for this study we find that the prevalence of younger households higher incomes dwelling ownership and unshared roof space results in higher rates of uptake neither higher educational levels nor the participation in other environmental schemes recycling contribute any explanatory power to uptake of pv panels pro government sentiment captured by voting outcomes significantly and positively influences the take up of the grant and installation of pv panels we conclude by identifying some pointers for policy makers interested in harvesting the potential of households

design of an economically efficient feed in tariff structure for renewable energy development abstract evidence suggests albeit tentatively that feed in tariffs fits are more effective than alternative support schemes in promoting renewable energy technologies rets fits provide long term financial stability for investors in rets which at the prevailing market price of electricity are not currently cost efficient enough to compete with traditional fossil fuel technologies on the other hand if not properly designed fits can be economically inefficient as is widely regarded to have been the case under the public utility regulatory policies act of 1978 purpa under purpa too high a guaranteed price led to the creation of so called purpa machines poorly performing generating units that could survive financially only because of heavy subsidies that came at the expense of retail customers similarly because of their adverse impacts on retail electricity rates german fits have been subject to increasing political pressure from utilities and customers in this paper we propose an innovative two part fit consisting of both a capacity payment and a market based energy payment which can be used to meet the renewables policy goals of regulators our two part tariff design draws on the strengths of traditional fits relies on market mechanisms is easy to implement and avoids the problems caused by distorting wholesale energy markets through above market energy payments the approach is modeled on forward capacity market designs that have been recently implemented by several regional transmission organizations in the usa to address needs for new generating capacity to ensure system reliability

the future of the feed in tariff fit scheme in europe the case of photovoltaics abstract the key objective of this study is the examination of the regulatory and policy framework of the feed in tariff fit scheme specifically its effect on both the electricity pricing as well as the local and european renewable energy sources res market and accordingly the definition of its feasibility as a scheme for the further development and promotion of renewable energy technologies rets this work discusses the fit scheme implementation for photovoltaics pvs in four case study countries denmark germany cyprus and spain a model describing the conditions under which a fit scheme is led to collapse is also introduced and a parametric analysis towards revealing the sensitivity of the different parameters affecting it is delivered the study concludes with significant policy implications that should be considered for future implementation of the scheme for the prevention of the collapse of the scheme the tariff s value ought to be determined by each country s government based on a set of influencing factors including the operational capital and investment costs of each ret the standard cost of renewable energy re generation and the avoidance cost which would be regularly reviewed depending on the excess of the annual capacity

envisaging feed in tariffs for solar photovoltaic electricity european lessons for canada abstract while it is widely agreed that support schemes need to be put in place to promote the use of renewable electricity there is less consensus as to what are the best kinds of strategies to use what is attracting increasing attention in canada is a system of renewable portfolio standards in this all power suppliers are under an obligation to ensure that a certain percentage of the electricity they generate is from renewable resources they can either generate that electricity themselves or purchase green certificates from those who have used renewables to generate electricity recent experience from europe however suggests that a whole hearted commitment to this single strategy could be premature and potentially damaging for the development of all kinds of renewable electricity in canada solar photovoltaics included on the other side of the atlantic ocean the use of so called feed in tariffs that is an obligation for utilities to purchase at a set price the electricity generated by any renewable energy resource is widely credited with accelerating the development of renewable electricity in many countries the purpose of this article is to reflect upon this european experience with feed in tariffs to stimulate discussions regarding what promise they might hold for the development of solar photovoltaic electricity in canada the article is divided into three main sections in the first section policies to promote renewable electricity presently in place in different parts of canada are reviewed attention is then focused more specifically in the second section of this article upon feed in tariffs after defining and describing this alternative system experiences in the countries of the european union are reviewed the main strengths and weaknesses of feed in tariffs in the european experience are also examined the focus then moves back to canada in the third section of the article in this a system of feed in tariffs is proposed for the province of ontario in order to provide just one example of the kind of support that could be forthcoming

downscaling heterogeneous household outcomes in dynamic cge models for energy economic analysis abstract downscaling methods for dynamic computable general equilibrium models are developed and analyzed the methods produce outcomes for a variety of different household types by downscaling the aggregate quantities from an economic growth model with a representative household this approach uses household survey data and long term population projections for different household types to compare the performance of the downscaling methods vs a general equilibrium model with multiple household groups under a variety of conditions including demographic change technological change and a carbon tax both recursive dynamic and forward looking downscaling methods produce results that approximate well a multiple household model run the recursive dynamic downscaling method is applied to an illustrative example estimating impacts of a carbon tax on aggregate co 2 emissions and the energy demand of different household groups for a middle of the road development scenario

the impact of government subsidies and enterprises r d investment a panel data study from renewable energy in china in this research we aim to understand the influence of government subsidies on enterprises research and development r d investment behavior particularly in china s renewable energy sector we are also interested in examining how the attributes of enterprise ownership act as a moderating variable for the relationship between government subsidies and r d investment behavior three classical panel data analysis models including the pooled ordinary least squares ols model the fixed effect model and the random effect model are employed we find that government subsidies have a significant crowding out influence on enterprises r d investment behavior and that the influence is further moderated by the attributes of enterprise ownership moreover a panel threshold regression model is used to demonstrate how the influence of government subsidies on enterprises r d investment behavior will change when government subsidies increase two thresholds 0 6 and 10 1 are identified we recommend that relevant government departments should motivate enterprise r d investment behavioral intention by increasing subsidies within a certain range different attributes of enterprise ownership should also be considered as part of policy reform and re structuring relating to government subsidies

limited trading of emissions permits as a climate cooperation mechanism us china and eu china examples abstract recent multilateral climate negotiations have underlined the importance of international cooperation and the need for support from developed to developing countries to address climate change this raises the question of whether carbon market linkages could be used as a cooperation mechanism policy discussions surrounding such linkages have indicated that should they operate a limit would be set on the amount of carbon permits that could be imported by developed regions from developing countries this paper analyzes the impact of limited carbon trading between an ets in the eu or the us and a carbon market covering chinese electricity and energy intensive sectors using a global economy wide model we find that the limit results in different carbon prices between china and europe or the us although the impact on low carbon technologies in china is moderate global emission reductions are deeper than in the absence of international trading due to reduced carbon leakage if china captures the rents associated with limited permit trading we show that it is possible to find a limit threshold that makes both regions better off relative to carbon markets operating in isolation

extensive search intensive search and hiring costs new evidence on employer hiring activity this paper presents recent evidence on employer search to fill a position a 1982 employer survey sponsored by the national institute of education and the national center for research in vocational education provides the basis for analyzing employer search and hiring costs the paper examines the effects of such factors as employer size dismissal costs unionization on the job training adjustment costs capital and labor market conditions on intensive employer search extensive employer search and hiring costs intensive employer search is measured by the average number of hours the employer spends recruiting screening and interviewing per applicant extensive search is measured by the number of applicants seen per applicant interviewed and the number interviewed per employment

what should i be when i grow up occupations and unemployment over the life cycle abstract why is unemployment higher for younger individuals we address this question in a frictional model of the labor market that features learning about occupational fit in order to learn the occupation in which they are most productive workers sample occupations over their careers because young workers are more likely to be in matches that represent a poor occupational fit they spend more time in transition between occupations through this mechanism our model can replicate the observed age differences in unemployment which as in the data are due to differences in job separation rates

renewable energy policy and electricity market reforms in china the article examines the potential effectiveness of the renewable energy policy in china and its regulatory law framework it frames the option of renewable energy technology within the background of the long lasting electricity problems that china has faced including serious supply shortages reliance on coal and severe environmental contamination its dual administrative and ownership system based on state and privately owned industry is discussed together with the market reform measures adopted in the sector current renewable energy policy is analysed and the scope of the 2005 renewable energy promotion law is investigated this is conducted within the context of the electricity sector reform that china adopted and its effects upon the prospects of encouraging as well as expanding the development of renewable energy this study draws upon primary information collected from interviews with stakeholders on the policy adequacy and identifies three main types of shortcomings that have interfered with a more successful expansion of renewable energy in china

the doping effect of italian feed in tariffs on the pv market abstract in less than six years italy has become one of the leading markets for pv power plants and one of the countries in the world with the largest number of installations and installed peak power such a quick and large growth is due to a series of feed in tariff schemes that have been uncapped until 2012 as a matter of fact any size or any number of pv power plants could be installed during a period of three years since the feed in tariffs are not paid by national taxes but are charged on the electricity bills italian energy users are now due to pay each year a surcharge of 9 billion euros on their energy bills this paper aims at discussing this development by highlighting the benefits but also some significant drawbacks that the application of uncontrolled feed in tariffs has produced

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

building a composite help wanted index abstract this paper builds a measure of vacancy posting over 1951 2009 that captures the behavior of total print and online help wanted advertising and can be used for time series analysis of the us labor market

the merit order effect a detailed analysis of the price effect of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices in germany the german feed in support of electricity generation from renewable energy sources has led to high growth rates of the supported technologies critics state that the costs for consumers are too high an important aspect to be considered in the discussion is the price effect created by renewable electricity generation this paper seeks to analyse the impact of privileged renewable electricity generation on the electricity market in germany the central aspect to be analysed is the impact of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices the results generated by an agent based simulation platform indicate that the financial volume of the price reduction is considerable in the short run this gives rise to a distributional effect which creates savings for the demand side by reducing generator profits in the case of the year 2006 the volume of the merit order effect exceeds the volume of the net support payments for renewable electricity generation which have to be paid by consumers

unemployment fluctuations over the life cycle abstract in this paper we show that i the volatility of worker flows increases with age in us cps data and ii a search and matching model with life cycle features endogenous separation and search effort is well suited to explain this fact with a shorter horizon on the labor market older workers outside options become less responsive to new employment opportunities thereby making their wages less sensitive to the business cycle their job finding and separation rates are then more volatile along the business cycle the horizon effect cannot explain the significant differences between prime age and young workers as both age groups are far away from retirement a lower bargaining power on the youth labor market brings the model closer to the data

profitability analysis of grid connected photovoltaic facilities for household electricity self sufficiency abstract spain exhibits a high level of energy dependence and has significant solar energy resources these two facts have given rise to the prominence that renewable energy particularly solar photovoltaic technology has enjoyed in recent years supported by a favorable regulatory framework currently the spanish government is providing new ways in energy policy to enhance and accelerate the development of low power photovoltaic generation facilities for self consumption by introducing energy policies for feed in payments of surplus electricity such facilities are an example of distributed electrical generation with important benefits for the environment and the rest of the electrical system because when properly managed they can help improve the system s stability and reduce overall losses by analyzing household demand and solar photovoltaic energy resources the profitability of such facilities is considered in this article taking into account the technical and economic impact of storage systems and proposing models for feed in payments of surplus electricity in an attempt to assess whether this method of electricity generation versus the method of conventionally supplied power from a grid at a regulated tariff can rival each other economically in terms of parity

distance to retirement and older workers employment the case for delaying the retirement age this paper presents empirical evidence and a theoretical foundation in favor of the view that the retirement age decision affects older workers employment prior to retirement to the extent that there are search frictions on the labor market the return on jobs is determined by their expected duration the time to retirement is then key to understanding older workers employment countries with a retirement age of 60 are indeed characterized by lower employment rates for workers aged 55 59 based on the french labor force survey we show that the likelihood of employment is significantly affected by the distance to retirement in addition to age and other relevant variables we then extend mccall s job search model by explicitly integrating life cycle features with the retirement decision using simulations we show that the distance effect in interaction with the generosity of unemployment benefits and the depressed demand for older workers explains the low rate of employment just before the eligibility age for the social security pension finally we show that implementing actuarially fair schemes not only extends the retirement age but also encourages a more intensive job search by older unemployed workers jel j22 j26 h55

overall review of renewable energy subsidy policies in china contradictions of intentions and effects abstract china is vast abundant and particularly plentiful in energy sources due to which it has obtained remarkable achievements on economy however its energy structure is too simple to support the sustainable development of economy as coal still contributes to the majority of energy consumption in china as a consequence renewable energy law was enacted in 2005 and chinese government announced a series of policies to boom renewable energy industry subsidy policy is one of the major forms of these policies this paper aims to present these subsidy policies and to analyze their effects according to relative data in energy industry 2005 2013 to find out the deficiencies and enlighten possible policy improvements the original intentions and abstracts of 5 different levels of subsidy related policies are summarized and the effects in reality are attentively analyzed it can be concluded that subsidy policies have different short term effect on different renewable energies and they all show some negative effect to a certain extent 6 core problems are summarized in this paper and remedy strategies are suggested

financial assessment of government subsidy policy on photovoltaic systems for industrial users a case study in taiwan due to taiwan s limited energy resources the development of solar photovoltaic pv in taiwan has become one of the most important solutions for meeting future energy supply needs and ensuring environmental protection a huge amount of researches about renewable energy sources has emerged recently in response to these issues however the amount of researches considering the effects of various influential parameters on the efficiency and performance of pv systems remains small and is still limited to some specific parts of pv systems in particular researches considering thoughtfully the influence of government subsidies on pv financial assessment are still in development this paper proposes an approach to analyze the benefit of installing a pv system under the impact of government financial subsidies focusing especially on feed in tariff fit and tax abatement policies for industrial users in taiwan in addition a method for selecting the most appropriate policies is proposed for the government through the analysis of both user demand and the government s pv installation capacity target

unemployment and business cycles we develop and estimate a general equilibrium search and matching model that accounts for key business cycle properties of macroeconomic aggregates including labor market variables in sharp contrast to leading new keynesian models we do not impose wage inertia instead we derive wage inertia from our specification of how firms and workers negotiate wages our model outperforms a variant of the standard new keynesian calvo sticky wage model according to our estimated model there is a critical interaction between the degree of price stickiness monetary policy and the duration of an increase in unemployment benefits

economic welfare and environmental impact of feed in tariff policy a case study in iran following a particular attention given to environmental issues over the last few decades establishing proper developmental policies to increase electricity production from renewable energy re has not only been an important issue but also a challenge for many countries feed in tariff fit policy is one of the tools that is being used to facilitate the development of re this research evaluated the economic welfare and environmental impact of this policy on iran s economy therefore after developing an economic energy environmental e3 type of hybrid general equilibrium model the effect of fit policy was examined under different scenarios in order to find an optimal condition in which 10 of electrical energy could be produced from renewable resources the comparison between the results showed that the application of subsidies to re and the way the government finances these subsidies can affect the results of fit policy meanwhile regardless of the role considered for the impact of environmental factors our policies under the scenario of technology neutral is the most efficient as it has less impact on the decline of gdp of different sectors and also has less financial cost for government

an assessment of the greek incentives scheme for photovoltaics abstract after two years of elaboration a new legislation was enacted in 2006 in greece providing an appealing feed in tariff fit scheme for photovoltaics pvs the response of the market was immediate with more than 7947 licenses having been submitted in less than 2 years time the effectiveness however of an incentives scheme cannot be judged solely by the response of prospective investors aim of this paper is to present and discuss a quantitative assessment of this newly introduced fit law in greece with respect to its attractiveness to investors its effectiveness towards launching a new market its cost efficiency and its ability to lift non economic barriers that led to significant delays in the diffusion of res over the last 10 years

the unemployment volatility puzzle is wage stickiness the answer i discuss the failure of the canonical search and matching model to match the cyclical volatility in the job finding rate i show that job creation in the model is influenced by wages in new matches i summarize microeconometric evidence and find that wages in new matches are volatile and consistent with the model s key predictions therefore explanations of the unemployment volatility puzzle have to preserve the cyclical volatility of wages i discuss a modification of the model based on fixed matching costs that can increase cyclical unemployment volatility and is consistent with wage flexibility in new matches

the phillips and beveridge curves revisited abstract this paper extends the labor market search model to account for monopolist intermediate good firms who face price adjustment costs we show quantitatively that embedding monetary shocks in this framework allows to mimic the phillips and beveridge curves

unemployment participation and worker flows over the life cycle we estimate and report life cycle transition probabilities between employment unemployment and inactivity for male workers using current population survey monthly files we assess the relative importance of each probability in explaining the life cycle profiles of participation and unemployment rates using a novel decomposition method a key robust finding is that most differences in participation and unemployment over the life cycle can be attributed to the probability of leaving employment and the probability of transiting from inactivity to unemployment while transitions from unemployment to employment the job finding probability play secondary roles we then show that a simple life cycle extension of a three state labor search model with leisure shocks can qualitatively replicate the empirical unemployment and participation life cycle profiles without introducing age or worker heterogeneity in market abilities we conclude that models that seek to explain life cycle work patterns should not ignore transitions to and from inactivity

the effect of the feed in system policy on renewable energy investments evidence from the eu countries abstract we study the effect of the feed in system fis policy on wind and solar photovoltaic energy investments in the european union eu over the time period between 1992 and 2015 considering the heterogeneity of the policies and market conditions across the eu countries we develop a fis subsidy performance indicator that distinguishes feed in tariff fit from feed in premium fip and considers other important aspects of each of these contracts such as the duration tariff price energy spot price and production costs as well as the market conditions we conclude that the mere existence of the fis policy does not necessarily enhance renewable energy investments it depends on the type of the fis contract and its features and may vary across the different sources of renewable energy some of our findings are new to the literature and can have important implications in the development of new public investment incentives to promote renewable energy

pv sector in the european union countries clusters and efficiency abstract european union eu due to several challenges that exist nowadays has changed its energy policy in order to fulfill international commitments concerning greenhouse gas emission and to assure safety in supply and stable prices eu has been a leader in renewable energy in many eu countries solar energy is a possible and very viable option together with wind energy photovoltaic energy is the new support core of a low carbon eu economy in what concerns electricity production in this work clusters of countries were generated based on the energy produced by pv systems and the share of energy from pv systems in the total electricity produced by renewable sources this work also analyzed the production of energy from the photovoltaic sector in eu and compared it with the existing potential for this type of energy roughly half of the eu countries are producing energy within the limits of what is expected considering the irradiation on optimally inclined plane however some of them could improve the ratio between energy production and installed power considering the leader countries in energy production from photovoltaic czech republic and spain are the countries that exceed what it is expected

determining commercially viable two way and one way contract for difference strike prices and revenue receipts abstract in this article we investigate the role that a contract for difference cfd might play in increasing investment in renewable energy in australia two cfd schemes are investigated two way and one way cfd a financial model is developed that determines commercially viable cfd strike prices account is taken of revenue from wholesale electricity market and renewable energy certificate sales capital and operational costs of the project including distribution of funds to holders of equity and debt are also included findings based on analysis of the solar array located at the university of queensland gatton campus in australia is presented employing a typical meteorological year framework the major finding was that government will prefer a two way cfd scheme and single axis tracking solar pv array technology in contrast project proponents will strongly prefer a one way cfd design

business cycles and labor market search the quantitative implications of labor market search for economic fluctuations are evaluated in the context of a real business cycle model incorporating labor market search into the model is found to improve its empirical performance along several dimensions in particular hours now fluctuate substantially more than wages and the contemporaneous correlation between hours and productivity falls in addition the model replicates the observation that output growth displays positive autocorrelation at short horizons overall the empirical results suggest that the labor market search environment embodies a quantitatively important propagation mechanism copyright 1996 by american economic association

feed in tariff design for domestic scale grid connected pv systems using high resolution household electricity demand data abstract the advent of large samples of smart metering data allows policymakers to design feed in tariffs which are more targeted and efficient this paper presents a methodology which uses these data to design fits for domestic scale grid connected pv systems in ireland a sample of 2551 household electricity demand data collected at 1 2 hourly intervals electricity output from a 2 82 kwp pv system over the same time interval as well as pv system costs and electricity tariffs were used to determine the required fit to make it worthwhile for the households to invest in the pv system the methodology shows that it is possible to design single multiple and continuous fits continuous fits are the most efficient and result in no overcompensation to the housholder while single and multiple fits are less efficient since they result in different levels of overcompensation in the pv case study considered it was shown that the use of three fits 0 3170 0 3315 and 0 3475 kw h resulted in a 59 6 reduction in overcompensation compared to a single fit of 0 3475 kw h assuming immediate and complete uptake of the technology this would result in npv savings of over 597 m to the irish government over a 25 year lifetime

the solar photovoltaic feed in tariff scheme in new south wales australia solar photovoltaic pv electricity systems are part of australia s energy supply matrix in the case of new south wales nsw the state government has had to deal with a complex policy problem in order to play its role in the federal small scale renewable energy scheme the nsw government initiated the 7 year solar bonus scheme in 2010 however in attempting to maximise community investment in small scale solar pv systems it relied on faulty financial modelling that applied a generous feed in tariff fit and underestimated the level of investor participation and installed capacity consequently the scheme has resulted in very high public costs that will require policy changes that bring investors and energy retailers into conflict and unpopular electricity retail price adjustments this paper uses a structured case and stakeholder analysis to critically analyse the fit policy while also highlighting important lessons for policymakers engaging in fit design

two questions about european unemployment a general equilibrium search model makes layoff costs affect the aggregate unemployment rate in ways that depend on equilibrium proportions of frictional and structural unemployment that in turn depend on the generosity of government unemployment benefits and skill losses among newly displaced workers the model explains how before the 1970s lower flows into unemployment gave europe lower unemployment rates than the united states and also how after 1980 higher durations have kept unemployment rates in europe persistently higher than in the united states these outcomes arise from the way europe s higher firing costs and more generous unemployment compensation make its unemployment rate respond to bigger skill losses among newly displaced workers those bigger skill losses also explain why u s workers have experienced more earnings volatility since 1980 and why especially among older workers hazard rates of gaining employment in europe now fall sharply with increases in the duration of unemployment

the analysis on photovoltaic electricity generation status potential and policies of the leading countries in solar energy abstract energy which is the main agenda of our world is crucially important for the people many countries frequently held meetings and discussions with energy agenda these countries are working to balance the energy demand and supply for finding the solution are researched researches should be attempted to present a more efficient way to use energy as well as renewable energy resources effectively photovoltaic energy power systems take place as the most dominant source among renewable energy technologies the most important reason is that it is unlimited and clean energy of the solar power systems many studies show that photovoltaic power systems will have an important share in the electricity of the future in this study to generate electricity from solar energy using photovoltaic systems have a leading position in some european countries united states of america china and japan s current status and future policies will be analyzed in various comments were made

is green energy expensive empirical evidence from the spanish electricity market abstract renewable energy promotion and its cost are at the heart of the energy policy debate in many countries the question from an economic perspective is how expensive the promotion of renewable sources through price based incentive schemes is this paper addresses this issue empirically we analyze the spanish electricity market during the period 2008 2012 where renewable energy production rose by 57 to determine how expensive it was we first measure the savings due to the spot price reduction driven by the merit order effect and second we compute the amount paid as incentives to green energy by the electricity system the difference between the two is the net cost of green energy to the electricity markets we present aggregate results for renewable sources as a whole as well as individual results for each technology we show that at the initial stages when renewable capacity was low green energy promotion paid for itself 2008 2009 however from 2010 on when renewable production reached a relatively high level it started to impose a positive net cost on the system finally we found substantial differences among technologies wind energy implied the lowest net cost while solar photovoltaic was the most expensive

labor market volatility in matching models with endogenous separations the business cycle behavior of a matching model with endogenous separations is studied in this paper we show that whether aggregate productivity shocks have a larger effect on the vacancy unemployment ratio than in a model with exogenous separations depends on whether worker productivity stochastically increases with tenure the difference in the response is quantitatively small however we also show that the cleansing effect introduced by allowing for endogenous separations can help in reconciling the model with observed fluctuations in the unemployment rate but not with those in the vacancy rate

comparing the feed in tariff incentives for renewable electricity in ontario and germany the development of feed in tariff fit programs to support green electricity in ontario the green energy and green economy act of 2009 and germany the erneuerbare energien gesetz of 2000 is compared the two policies are highly comparable offering similar rates for most renewable electricity technologies major differences between the policies include the level of differentiation found in the german policy as well as the use of a price degression strategy for fit rates in germany compared to an escalation strategy in ontario the german renewable electricity portfolio is relatively balanced compared to ontario where wind power dominates the portfolio at the federal level canada does not yet have a policy similar to the european directive on renewable energy and this lack may impact decisions taken by manufacturers of renewable technologies who consider establishing operations in the province ontario s green energy and green economy act could be benefit from lessons in the german system especially with regard to degression of feed in tariff rates over time which could significantly reduce payments to producers over the course of a contract and in turn encourage greater competitiveness among renewable power providers in the future

worker search effort as an amplification mechanism abstract it is well known that the diamond mortensen pissarides model exhibits a strong trade off between cyclical unemployment fluctuations and the size of rents to employment introducing endogenous job search effort reduces the strength of the trade off while bringing the model closer to the data ignoring worker search effort leads to a large upward bias in the elasticity of matches with respect to vacancies merging the american time use survey and the current population survey new evidence in support of procyclical search effort is presented average search effort of the unemployed is subject to cyclical composition biases

combining feed in tariffs and net metering schemes to balance development in adoption of photovoltaic energy comparative economic assessment and policy implications for european countries abstract in the last fifteen years europe has been involved in the major development of photovoltaic pv solar energy the kyoto protocol requirements and the european union eu directives to promote the use of renewable energy sources res together with environmental policies introduced for the development and use of alternative energies have generated a large number of market opportunities for this sector differences in the application of energy policies have caused significant imbalances in electricity systems and distortion of electricity prices the main concern of governments is to define the support schemes to be used and how to combine them in the most profitable manner the aim of this paper is to provide a comparative cost effectiveness assessment using feed in tariffs fit and net metering nm schemes in some representative eu countries the authors have developed an economic model to evaluate the profitability of pv projects combining these support schemes results show not only the circumstances under which solar energy is economically profitable but also the kind of pv systems locations minimum levels of tariff prices and specific combination of support schemes that should be promoted

financial measures for promoting residential rooftop photovoltaics under a feed in tariff framework in thailand abstract a feed in tariff fit framework has been implemented in thailand since 2007 to encourage and stimulate the development of renewable energy as a result the capacity of solar photovoltaics pvs has increased significantly and has reached 1902 mw nevertheless the installation of pvs on rooftops in the residential sector accounts for only a minute percentage 0 003 of the total capacity of installed pvs in this paper a feasibility analysis of grid connected solar pv rooftops for households under the present feed in tariff framework was performed the results demonstrate that the current feed in tariff is not sufficient to promote investment in pv rooftops in the residential sector under the current market situation moreover in order to support the current framework additional supportive measures including 1 an appropriate feed in tariff rate 2 personal income tax exemptions 3 carbon trading and 4 low interest rate loans were proposed and their effects were evaluated the low interest rate loan appears to be the best measure for promoting and stimulating investment in residential scale pv rooftops without additional subsidy the leverage effect of debt with different debt portions loan terms and interest rates was investigated to suggest a suitable policy

simultaneous equations analysis of fertility in the u s a comment comments on a study by conger and campbell which postulated a 6 equation dynamic model including a fertility equation estimated by 2 stage least squares on the basis of aggregate data for the u s the authors present a table with 3 sets of estimates for each of the 6 structural equations specified in the earlier study 2 stage least squares estimates obtained for 1946 70 and 1946 76 and the estimates obtained by conger and campbell are indicated the authors report that they were unable to obtain the results reported by the latter their estimates were quite different and did not seem to support the conclusions offered in the earlier study estimates for the longer period were substantially different from those for the shorter the authors believe that the conger campbell data also do not support the conger campbell conclusions each point is discussed with reference to the table the equations are used to evaluate fertility female participation infant mortality income education and medical expenditure

subsidy policy and the enlargement of choice abstract development is the enlargement of people s choices optimal subsidy policy is intended to create the right incentives for each of the value chain participants this paper contends that the interest subsidy offered by the indian federal ministry of new and renewable energy for solar thermal systems through mainstream banking channels is superior in intent and outcome compared to the capital subsidy as currently offered for solar pv systems routed through government controlled delivery channels the interest subsidy enhances innovation improves service delivery and expands the range of product available to consumers enjoying a wide range of endowments thus leading to more inclusive development the simple monopoly model developed by atkinson atkinson ab capabilities exclusion and the supply of goods in basu k pattanaik p suzumura k editor choice welfare and development oxford university press 1995 is applied to the context of solar home systems to demonstrate price reduction and choice expansion in a liberalized market facilitated by an interest subsidy scheme

on the job search and precautionary savings in this paper i develop and estimate a model of on the job search in which risk averse workers choose search effort and can borrow or save using a single risk free asset i derive the implications for optimal savings behavior in this environment and relate this to the frictions that characterize the endogenous earnings process implied by on the job search savings behavior depends in a very intuitive way on the rate at which offers are received the rate at which jobs are destroyed and a worker s current rank in the wage distribution the implication is that workers who are identical in terms of preferences and opportunities have substantially different savings behavior depending on their history and current position in the wage distribution the mechanism that generates the substantial differences in savings behavior in the model is the dynamic of the wage ladder resulting from the search process there is an important asymmetry between the incremental wage increases generated by onthe job search climbing the ladder and the drop in income associated with job loss falling off the ladder the behavior of workers in low paying jobs is primarily governed by the expectation of wage growth while the behavior of workers near the top of the distribution is driven by the possibility of job loss the distributions of earnings wealth and consumption implied by the model suitably aggregated align reasonably well with the data with the notable exception of implying substantially less concentration of wealth among the richest one percent of the population in this paper i develop and estimate a model of on the job search in which risk averse workers choose search effort and can borrow or save using a single risk free asset i derive the implications for optimal savings behavior in this environment and relate this to the frictions that characterize the endogenous earnings process implied by on the job search savings behavior depends in a very intuitive way on the rate at which offers are received the rate at which jobs are destroyed and a worker s current rank in the wage distribution the implication is that workers at different point in the wage distribution have substantially different savings behavior resulting in wealth dispersion that is much greater than earnings dispersion the mechanism that generates the high degree of wealth dispersion in the model is the dynamic of the wage ladder resulting from the search process there is an important asymmetry between the incremental wage increases generated by on the job search climbing the ladder and the drop in income associated with job loss falling off the ladder this feature of the model generates differential savings behavior at different points in the earnings distribution the behavior of workers in low paying jobs is primarily governed by the expectation of wage growth while the behavior of workers near the top of the distribution is primarily driven by the possibility of job loss the wage growth expected by low wage workers combined with the fact that their earnings are not much higher than unemployment benefits causes them to dissave as a worker s wage increases the incentive to save increases the potential for wage growth declines and it becomes increasingly important to insure against the large income reduction associated with job loss the fact that high wage and low wage workers have such different savings behavior leads to a wealth distribution that is much more unequal 1