perspectives of gatekeepers in the kenyan food industry towards genetically modified food abstract attitudes and perceptions of stakeholders are crucial in the acceptability of gm foods past research focussed on consumers but paid little attention to the food industry and its gatekeepers especially in africa therefore a survey was conducted covering 39 respondents from the milling industry and supermarkets the main processors and distributors of maize products in seven urban centres of kenya respondents mostly from senior management were well educated and had a good knowledge of biotechnology their major sources of information were the media for the supermarkets and brochures and the food industry for the milling companies respondents generally appreciated the benefits of biotechnology but had concerns about the environment although few people considered gm food harmful to human or animal health most respondents found traceability of gm products important but would prefer not to label them because of the costs and possible negative consumer reactions respondents were largely non committal on the use of gm products in their companies preferring to decide on a case by case basis the few negative responses mostly from the milling industry were affected by high risk and low benefit perceptions most respondents do not like the idea of labelling gm food better communication between research and the food industry is now needed and more research on the labelling of gm products

defining the rebound effect abstract this paper gives rigorous definitions of the rebound effect not only in the well described single commodity case khazzoom 1980 the energy journal 1 4 21 40 but also for a multiple commodity case it is shown that the familiar laws for the single case do not hold for the multiple case the paper describes the state of the art of empirical estimation of the rebound effect with special focus on the estimates done for the netherlands we conclude that according to every definition empirical evidence shows that the re is probably small between 0 and 15

ingredients of famine analysis availability and entitlements famines often take place in situations of moderate to good food availability without any significant decline of food supply per head the paper presents an alternative approach to famines which does not concentrate on availability but on people s ability to command food through legal means available in the society including the use of production possibilities trade opportunities entitlements vis a vis the state etc the approach is explained focusing on exchange entitlement mappings fluctuations in which can lead to big shifts in the intergroup distribution of food command the approach is then applied to the bengal famine of 1943 the ethiopian famine in wollo in 1973 and the bangladesh famine in 1974 and some general conclusions are drawn about the nature and classes of famines

co2 emissions from china s power sector at the provincial level consumption versus production perspectives abstract the chinese electricity sector plays an important role in domestic co2 mitigation efforts due to its large contribution to overall emissions however primary energy resources used for electricity generation are not evenly distributed across the country such a supply and demand mismatch in reality results in large parts of electricity to be transferred from economically less developed provinces in the west to economic growth centres in the east a literature review shows that the emissions embodied in electricity transfer within china have not been explicitly studied although in fact they cause a shift of environmental pollution away from economically well off provinces to resource rich and less developed provinces therefore it is critical for policy makers to address this issue under such a circumstance a bottom up model is developed to calculate direct co2 emissions embodied in electricity export and import between chinese provinces it helps quantifying emissions from the power sector associated with both production and consumption perspectives and sheds lights on the environmental impact of regional supply and demand mismatch in china results show that the difference between consumption and production based co2 emissions from electricity sector in some provinces were higher than the total co2 emissions from electricity sector in netherlands in the case of beijing or as high as the total co2 emission from france s electricity sector in the case of guangdong based upon chinese realities policy implications and suggestions are made such as how to set up appropriate emission reduction targets for electricity sector at provincial level and the inclusion of consumption emissions in designing china s cap and trade mechanism the methodology and findings may be useful for investigation of embodied emissions throughout various regions of the world

using latent variable approach to estimate china s economy wide energy rebound effect over 1954 2010 the energy rebound effect has been a significant issue in china which is undergoing economic transition since it reflects the effectiveness of energy saving policy relying on improved energy efficiency based on the ipat equation and brookes explanation of the rebound effect this paper develops an alternative estimation model of the rebound effect by using the estimation model and latent variable approach which is achieved through a time varying coefficient state space model we estimate china s economy wide energy rebound effect over 1954 2010 the results show that the rebound effect evidently exists in china as a result of the annual average of 39 73 over 1954 2010 before and after the implementation of china s reform and opening up policy in 1978 the rebound effects are 47 24 and 37 32 with a strong fluctuation and a circuitously downward trend respectively indicating that a stable political environment and the development of market economy system facilitate the effectiveness of energy saving policy although the energy saving effect of improving energy efficiency has been partly realised there remains a large energy saving potential in china

differentiated effects of diversified technological sources on china s electricity consumption evidence from the perspective of rebound effect abstract technological progress is an effective way to improve electricity efficiency due to the existence of the rebound effect it is of great significance to optimize the technical power saving policy by examining the rebound effect caused by different technological progress paths based on the panel data of electricity industry in 30 provinces of china from 1997 to 2013 this paper systematically examines the rebound effects of electricity consumption under the two sources of technological progress namely independent innovation and technology import then it discusses the impact of coal electricity linkage policy the empirical results are as follows 1 without considering rebound effect independent innovation significantly promotes electricity conservation while the effects of technology import is not obvious 2 when considering the rebound effect electricity price declining driven by independent innovation is not conducive to electricity saving while electricity price declining driven by technology import has an electricity saving effect 3 the coal electricity linkage policy that began in 2004 not only reduced the rebound effect by increasing the flexibility of electricity prices to a certain extent and improved the electricity saving effect of independent innovation but also reduced the electricity saving effect of technology import

the domestic determinants of us food aid policy abstract this study presents empirical analysis of us food aid flows as evidence of the strong and stable relationship between commodity producer interests and policy makers during a 35 yr period whereas most foreign aid research centers on the distribution of aid among recipient countries this study focuses on the determinants of the supply of food aid made available by the donor country i conduct time series regression analysis of total us food aid shipments as well as separate analyses of two key commodities wheat and rice several key findings emerge 1 there is a consistent relationship between commodity producer interests and us food aid policy 2 there is a strong relationship between commodity stocks and food aid shipments especially during the years when stocks were the greatest 3 us food aid policy making is highly incremental these findings taken together with the lack of a strong relationship between grain production in poor countries and us food aid shipments belie official rhetoric emphasizing the growing humanitarian objectives of the program over time in the case of rice i find a strong relationship between aid flows and us involvement in the vietnam war

environmental efficiency analysis of power industry in china based on an entropy sbm model chinese national natural science fund 71073040 710201139 71273075 humanities and social science fund of the ministry of education 09yjc790061

the effects of electricity reforms on productivity and efficiency of china s fossil fired power plants an empirical analysis abstract this paper investigates the effects of electricity reforms on productivity and efficiency of china s generation plants based on the third industrial census data and the first economic census data partial factor productivity pfp analysis indicates that the productivity improvements in labor and capital inputs associated with the reforms are approximately 26 and 45 respectively the effect of the reforms on fuel expense is weakly significant but there is evidence of significant productivity improvement in fuel usage further total factor productivity tfp analysis shows that the efficiency gain from the reforms is still significant when the substitution effect of labor and capital inputs are considered though the magnitude is much lower than that of the pfp analysis the effect of the reforms on technical efficiency becomes weakly significant when fuel expense is further included in tfp analysis but a significant positive effect is expected if fuel input is measured in physical quantity

the rebound effect for heavy industry empirical evidence from china abstract energy efficiency improvement will reduce the effective price of energy services and hence at least partially mitigate original expected energy conservation therefore the magnitude of rebound effect is important for the design and timing of an effective energy conservation policy under the framework of translog cost share equations we estimates the direct rebound effect for heavy industry in china for the first time by conducting an empirical research on the relationship between the direct rebound effect and the ease with which energy services can substitute for other inputs additionally asymmetric price responses are specified in the model for the rebound effect estimation empirical results in our paper indicate that the rebound effect for heavy industry in china is about 74 3 this reveals that energy efficiency improvement can save energy to a certain degree since the rebound effect is less than 100 back fire but most of the expected reduction in heavy industry energy consumption is mitigated these findings prove that energy pricing reforms and energy taxes should be further implemented to achieve effective energy conservation in china s 12th five years plan

measurement of energy rebound effect in households evidence from residential electricity consumption in beijing china abstract energy efficiency improvement policies have special significance for carbon emissions reduction and the mitigation of the effects of climate change however the energy rebound effect caused by technological progress will indirectly increase energy consumption the magnitude of the rebound effect largely determines the effectiveness of energy efficiency in mitigating energy consumption this study reviews the main theory behind estimated methods of energy rebound effect measurement focuses on constructing a double logarithm energy demand model and an error correction model of the asymmetric demand responses of electricity price changes to empirically analyse the direct rebound effect on residential electricity use in beijing it integrates consumer s demand theory with the embodied electricity of household spending from a seven sector environmental energy input output e i o analysis to estimate the indirect rebound effect the three income elasticity weight change and proportional re spending scenario simulation results show that residential electricity use in beijing exhibits a partial rebound effect and the long term direct and indirect rebound effects are 46 to 56 and the short term direct rebound effect is 24 to 37 finally the direct and indirect energy rebound effect for various income groups needs further research an appropriate policy mix should be adopted to mitigate effectively the rebound effect in china s current lower energy price and lower energy efficiency market

feeding the famine american food aid and the gmo debate in southern africa abstract the inclusion of genetically modified maize in food aid shipments to southern africa during the 2002 food crisis rekindled debates over agricultural biotechnology as the region edged ever closer to famine putting the lives to some 14 million africans at risk corporate pundits government officials and biotech s critics debated the health and environmental dangers posed by the new technology by situating the decision to send genetically modified maize to southern africa in the context of us european debates over agricultural biotechnology it becomes clear that the promotion of biotechnology has nothing to do with ending hunger in the region indeed american food aid shipments to southern africa have little to do with the famine at all instead i argue that us food aid policy following the 2002 crisis was intended to promote the adoption of biotech crops in southern africa expanding the market access and control of transnational corporations and undermining local smallholder production thereby fostering greater food insecurity on the continent

the impact of china s differential electricity pricing policy on power sector co2 emissions abstract this article investigates the impact of china s differential electricity pricing policy on power sector co 2 emissions using the logarithmic mean divisia index method the differential pricing policy intended to reduce energy intensity in manufacturing is being implemented in eight electricity intensive industries the study finds that during 2004 2009 the policy accounted for a drop of roughly 115 twh in electricity use which amounted to a reduction of 82 million tons of co 2 emissions the policy has been most effective in reducing electricity use in the nonferrous metal smelting and rolling industry and least effective in the ferrous metal smelting and rolling industry because the differential pricing policy has had significantly different effects across industries improving the policy s design and implementation going forward will require a more detailed understanding and analysis of how it can be better tailored to individual industries

estimating the rebound effect in us manufacturing energy consumption abstract the energy price shocks of the 1970s are usually assumed to have increased the search for new energy saving technologies where eventual gains in energy efficiencies will reduce the real per unit price of energy services and hence the consumption of energy will rise and partially offset the initial reduction in the usage of energy sources this is the rebound effect which is estimated for the us manufacturing sector using time series data applying the dynamic ols method dols when allowing for asymmetric price effects the rebound effect is found to be approximately 24 for the us manufacturing sector

consumer perceived risk model for the introduction of genetically modified food in spain abstract since the last part of the 20th century the search for new forms of cultivation and food has basically centred on the application of biotechnology giving rise to gm foods consumer acceptance is conditioned by the risk that they perceive from introducing food into their consumption habits processed through technology that they hardly understand besides information is insufficient in the consumer ambit and moreover it is influenced by ideological and ethical determining factors the factors were analysed that influence this consumer perceived risk through a structural equation model this study was conducted in spain concretely in the province of alicante located in the southeast of this country the main conclusion from this research is that the introduction of gm food into agro food markets should be accompanied by adequate policies to guarantee consumer safety these actions would allow a decrease in consumer perceived risk by taking special care of the information provided concretely relating to health for the most influential factor in consumer perceived risk from these foods is concern about health

re spending rebound a macro level assessment for oecd countries and emerging economies abstract it is well known that energy conservation can lead to rebound effects that partly offset the original energy savings one particular rebound mechanism is re spending of money savings associated with energy savings on energy intensive goods or services we calculate the average magnitude of this re spending rebound for different fuels and countries and for both energy and carbon co2 emissions we find that emerging economies neglected in past studies typically have larger rebounds than oecd countries since such economies play an increasingly important role in the global economy the re spending rebound is a growing concern the re spending effect is generally larger for gasoline than for natural gas and electricity paradoxically stronger financial incentives to conserve energy tend to increase the rebound this suggests that with climate regulation and peak oil the re spending rebound may become more important we discuss the policy implications of our findings

a view from the macro side rebound backfire and khazzoom brookes abstract this paper attempts to delineate a few key insights extracted from theoretical macroeconomic considerations of the rebound issue the goal has been to reduce these thoughts to a clear set of assertions that if true would be useful points of reference in the ongoing discussion despite their non empirical nature

the precautionary principle and the law of unintended consequences abstract the purpose of this paper is to explore within a political economy framework the application of the precautionary principle to food and agricultural policy the paper reviews the precautionary principle in general but also raises issues associated with unintended consequences arising from it in addition the paper provides a general model of political economy that includes both precaution and consequences discusses issues related to precaution and irreversibility and illustrates how unintended consequences can affect welfare

energy savings potential in china s industrial sector from the perspectives of factor price distortion and allocative inefficiency abstract china s industrial energy consumption accounted for 70 82 of national and 14 12 of world energy usage in 2011 in the context of energy scarcity and environmental pollution the industrial sector in china faces unsustainable growth problems by adopting the stochastic frontier analysis sfa framework this paper analyzes the factor allocative efficiency of china s industrial sector and estimates the energy savings potential from the perspective of allocative inefficiency this paper focuses on three issues the first is examining the factor allocative inefficiency of china s industrial sector the second is measuring factor price distortion by the shadow price model the third is estimating the energy savings potential in china s industrial sector during 2001 2009 major conclusions are thus drawn first factor prices of capital labor and energy are distorted in china due to government regulations moreover energy price is relatively low compared to capital price while is relatively high compared to labor price second the industry wide energy savings potential resulted from energy allocative inefficiency was about 9 71 during 2001 2009 the downward trend of energy savings potential implies the increasing energy allocative efficiency in china s industrial sector third a transparent and reasonable pricing mechanism is conducive to improving energy allocative efficiency

direct rebound effect on urban residential electricity use an empirical study in china abstract though improving energy efficiency is an important approach to decrease the energy consumption the rebound effect caused by technology progress negatively affects the effectiveness of energy efficiency policies this paper empirically investigates direct rebound effect of urban residential electricity use in china using china s 30 provincial government panel data from1996 to 2010 we build a co integration equation and a panel error correction model to analyze the direct rebound effect the results indicate that an obvious rebound effect in the chinese urban residential electricity consumption does exist specifically the long term rebound effect is 0 74 while the short term rebound effect is 0 72 therefore the rebound effect significantly impairs functions of energy efficiency policies for this reason chinese government should take the rebound effect into consideration when formulating energy policies

understanding technological progress and input price as drivers of energy demand in manufacturing industries in india abstract this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of energy demand behaviour of seven energy intensive manufacturing industries and the aggregate manufacturing sector in india during 1973 74 to 2011 12 the policy perform achieve and trade pat has mandated energy efficiency targets for these manufacturing industries in india we focus on two major drivers of energy demand technological progress and energy price productivity growth accounting and estimation of parametric cost function using annual survey of industry data bring out important implications regarding the role of these two drivers results suggest that these industries experienced technological progress over the study period 1973 74 to 2011 12 with significant energy saving bias during 1998 99 to 2011 12 increase in energy price has led to reduction in energy demand and augmented technological progress in most of the industries energy and material inputs are mostly substitutes during 1998 99 to 2011 12 productivity growth of energy input was induced by both technological progress and increase in energy price estimates of inter factor substitution suggest that price induced reduction in energy demand can be a capital intensive process in case of some industries rebound effect has never taken back full gains of energy efficiency policies in the context of these industries

the effectiveness of energy efficiency improvement in a developing country rebound effect of residential electricity use in south korea abstract the government of south korea considers an energy efficiency improvement policy an effective economic measure for climate change like many other governments but it is unaware of any rebound effect the unexpected result of energy efficiency improvement so the rebound effect of residential electricity use in south korea was estimated using two different scales in this paper at the macro level the rebound effect was estimated indirectly by using price elasticity and at the micro level the rebound effect of individual home appliances was estimated directly by using a non linear relationship between energy efficiency and energy use at the macro level the long and short term results of rebound effect were estimated at 30 and 38 respectively also at the micro level the rebound effect of air conditioners was 57 70 while refrigerators showed only a composite of rebound and income effects finally there was no backfire effect and efficiency improvement brought energy reduction in conclusion these suggest that rebound effect is an important factor that the government of south korea must consider when planning its energy efficiency improvement policy

analysis of technological progress and input prices on electricity consumption evidence from china abstract this paper establishes a translog cost function model with productivity growth equations to study the influence of technological progress and price changes on electricity production factors and consumption within a unified analytic framework regression is applied to the panel data for seven regions in china during the period 1997 to 2013 the functions of production costs on factor substitution are analyzed based on the regression the influence of electricity price and technological progress on electricity productivity and the rebound effect of electricity are discussed electricity price can significantly and positively influence electricity productivity expressed by the total value of output consumed by unit electricity however the stimulation of technological progress is not notable the rebound effect of electricity computed based on an electricity price breakdown showed that values of the rebound effect in southwestern china and central china were higher than 100 while annual average values of the rebound effect in northeastern china and southern china were 60 39 and 81 47 respectively the area with the lowest annual average value for the rebound effect was northwestern china at 14 96

procyclical multifactor productivity tests of the current theories this paper conducts various tests of four hypotheses to account for procycical multifactor productivity the hypotheses include imperfect competition increasing returns to scale labor hoarding and thick market externalities the test results provide strong evidence for imperfect competition and increasing returns and weak evidence for labor hoarding and thick market externalities however the markup and returns to scale parameter estimates are much smaller than those noted in previous research this difference results from the use here of gross output and intermediate inputs as opposed to the use in previous research of value added and primary inputs

estimating energy augmenting technological change in developing country industries assumptions regarding the magnitude and direction of energy related technological change have long been recognized as critical determinants of the outputs and policy conclusions derived from integrated assessment models particularly in the case of developing countries however empirical analysis of technological change has lagged behind simulation modeling this paper presents estimates of sectoral productivity trends and energy augmenting technological change for several energy intensive industries in india and south korea and for comparison the united states the key findings are substantial heterogeneity among both industries and countries and a number of cases of declining energy efficiency the results are subject to certain technical qualifications both in regards to the methodology and to the direct comparison to integrated assessment parameterizations nevertheless they highlight the importance of closer attention to the empirical basis for common modeling assumptions

the impacts of energy prices on energy intensity evidence from china in this paper we present a review of the deregulation of energy prices in china between 1985 and 2004 and assess the impacts of changes in energy prices on aggregate energy intensity and coal oil electricity intensity we used time series data to provide estimates of energy price elasticities empirical results showed that 1 the own price elasticities of coal oil and aggregate energy were negative in periods both before and after 1995 implying that higher relative prices of different energy types lead to the decrease in coal oil and aggregate energy intensities however the positive own price elasticity of electricity after 1995 probably indicates that the price effect was weaker than other factors such as income effect and population effect 2 the impacts of energy prices were asymmetric over time 3 sectoral adjustment also drove the decrease in aggregate energy intensity although raising energy prices to boost efficiency of energy use seems to be an effective policy tool other policy implications concerned with energy prices such as energy supply security and fuel poverty must also be considered