the emergence of the biodiesel industry in brazil current figures and future prospects abstract the aim of the present paper is to characterize and analyze the emergence of the biodiesel industry in brazil and provide an assessment of the extent to which the goals established by the national biodiesel production and usage program have been reached in relation to the goal of including biodiesel within the brazilian energy matrix the program can be seen to be responding dynamically and ahead of schedule in 2010 the b5 blend was already part of the diesel consumed in brazil with 81 of the biodiesel coming from soybean oil and 14 from beef tallow by contrast the plans to diversify the feedstocks used to produce biodiesel and improve production in the poorest regions of brazil have failed to prosper regarding the goal of fostering social inclusion by encouraging the participation of family based farming this has been partially achieved finally the goal of cost efficiently producing biodiesel is far from being achieved the economic feasibility of the production and use of biodiesel in brazil can be questioned since it is still strongly supported by tax incentives and production and marketing subsidies

what went wrong with the recent reforms in the southern cone this paper describes and interprets the outcome of the reform packages in chile argentina and uruguay during 1974 83 it is shown that all three countries experienced initial success with the rescue operation from the severe macroeconomic disequilibrium at the inception of the reforms the paper then discusses the areas in which the reforms were successful and why the countries experienced boom bust cycles resulting in large increases in external indebtedness and internal financial crises the paper attributes the failure of the reforms to a combination of policy inconsistencies implementation difficulties and market frictions jointly these factors generated a sustained appreciation of the real exchange rate and a large spread between the cost of dollar denominated and peso denominated loans in turn the appreciation and interest rate difference created protracted opportunities for arbitrage that distracted firms from the business of production

social construction of the environment and smallholder farmers participation in low carbon agro industrial crop production contracts in the philippines abstract several studies have suggested that socio economic factors and production site characteristics are primary determinants of farmers participation in low carbon agro industrial biofuels and oil palm production contracts in the philippines many smallholder farmers have expressed their intent to participate in intensive production of biofuel crops and oil palm with state and private organizations others have resisted or remained indifferent this study looks into smallholders social construction of the environment and how this may influence their decisions to participate in such production contracts the study is based on a survey of 462 respondents in eight communities in the province of palawan using regression analysis it illustrates how smallholders sense of place and environmental worldviews together with demographic and socio economic variables play significant roles in their decisions to enter into new biofuels jatropha and oil palm production contracts environmental worldviews are significant when there are strong negative perceptions attached to a particular crop production contract as in the case of oil palm

forecast of biofuel production and consumption in top co2 emitting countries using a novel grey model abstract mounting environmental concerns have given rise to an increasing focus on renewable energies like biofuels in 2018 three countries china the united states and india together emitted almost half 50 3 of the world s co2 emissions billion metric tons the current study aims to forecast biofuels production consumption and self sufficiency in these top co2 emitting countries using a novel grey forecasting model the study improves on an existing grey forecasting model by optimizing the model architecture data accumulation operation and background value generation the proposed forecasting model egm 1 1 is a generalized form of the even form of the grey forecasting model and its relative performance turned out to be generally superior to that of the original model the comparative analyses of the proposed model with two forecasting models revealed that the new model s forecast accuracy is generally better than those of others the study finds achieving self sufficiency in both biofuels fuel ethanol and biodiesel would remain a challenge for china while the united states and india would maintain their self sufficiency in ethanol and biodiesel respectively at least till 2028 the study also argues that biofuel is more likely to be a complementary fuel rather than an alternative fuel the study helps us understand how in the next decade the landscapes of biofuel production and consumption are changing and concludes with significant policy implications

commercial bank offices and the mobilisation of private savings in selected sub saharan african countries the mobilisation of domestic savings has remained a thriving issue in discussions of ways and means of harnessing resources for development in africa this work attempts to examine the role of a deliberate policy of extending offices of banks to the rural areas in savings mobilisation efforts using ordinary least squares methods data from five african countries that have pursued this policy in recent times are examined to see if there is any significant relationship between the savings rate and their population per bank office ratio our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the extension of branch offices of banks to rural areas could help attenuate the poor savings performance in most african economies

unbundling the biofuel promise querying the ability of liquid biofuels to deliver on socio economic policy expectations abstract while excitement around biofuels initially focused on finding a clean and secure alternative to fossil fuels many other expectations have subsequently been attached to the biofuel boom biofuels are not only expected to mitigate climate change or foster domestic energy security but also to generate employment provide opportunities to smallholders and support decentralized energy systems this paper interrogates the expectations attached to biofuels we begin by examining how policies in consumer and producer countries articulate a series of expectations for biofuels that are bundled with the promise of cleaner energy using the rationales behind these expectations to derive criteria for success we then review evidence from the published literature on biofuel outcomes against these criteria to assess whether the most prevalent assumptions have been met we find that policy expectations for biofuels are often expressed in narrow terms failing to capture important potential impacts for example focusing on new jobs in the formal sector rather than job quality or whether employment offsets livelihood costs associated with biofuel investments some expectations have proven elusive irrespective of the metrics employed for example using biofuels to improve energy access in remote rural areas the paper concludes by discussing implications for policy and practice

brazilian biofuels and social exclusion established and concentrated ethanol versus emerging and dispersed biodiesel increasing interest in biofuels trade between developed and developing countries has spurred worldwide discussions on issues such as subsidies and the food for fuel crisis one issue missing in recent discourse is the pressure exerted on developing countries to adopt large scale mechanized farming practices to increase economic efficiencies such approaches often exclude small scale farmers from participating in the emerging biofuels market thus exacerbating poverty and social exclusion drawing on both qualitative and technical data we discuss such pressures using brazilian ethanol and biodiesel production pressure from international markets to become more economically efficient may contribute towards the erosion of recent schemes to encourage social benefits for small farmers in biodiesel production we conclude with trade and policy implications

the argentine stabilization plan of december 20th abstract in this paper an analytical model is developed to incorporate the essential characteristics of the stabilization plan implemented in argentina in january 1979 the model is based upon a set of simplifying assumptions that only approximate the complexity of the real world it is assumed that the expectations of inflation and the degree of excess demand or supply in the non traded goods market are the main intermediate determinants of the rate of inflation in that market the rate of change of prices of traded goods being determined by the external inflation together with the rate of devaluation treating thus the external rate of inflation as exogenous the only instrument available for influencing the rate of inflation in the long run is the rate of devaluation since the model assumes a fixed exchange rate regime the money supply is endogenous and hence unsuitable as an instrument of economic policy

a firm level chronicle of financial crises in the southern cone abstract this paper chronicles the recent emergence of financial crises in the southern cone countries of south america relying on firm level panel data major changes in the macro and regulatory environments are linked to changes in firms earnings streams and financial structures for each country a boom phase a squeeze phase and a bust phase are identified it is argued that the proximate cause of this pattern was wild fluctuation in the expected real return on financial assets though no formal model is developed it is suggested that these swings were due to the system of incentives created by rapid banking sector deregulation cum exchange rate based stabilization policies

the influence of the 2019 nobel prize winners on agricultural economics abstract the work of banerjee duflo and kremer has had positive effects on the study of agricultural economics in developing countries well beyond the rapid expansion of the application of randomized controlled trials to the field there are two primary ways their work has been influential first the two papers by duflo kremer and robinson the first on returns to fertilizer 2008 and the second on its adoption 2011 have catalyzed substantial thinking about behavioral constraints to agricultural input use second the work of all three laureates to measure and even define peer effects both in theory and in application to education and health contexts has had important spillovers into agricultural economics the latter will be useful in considering the most effective ways to disseminate information to smallholders

stabilization dynamics and backward looking contracts abstract exchange rate based stabilizations often result in an initial output expansion one explanation for this phenomenon has been that in the presence of inflation inertia a reduction in the nominal interest rate causes the domestic real interest rate to fall thus increasing aggregate demand this paper reexamines this issue in the context of an intertemporal optimizing model in contrast to previous results the analysis shows that if the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is smaller than the elasticity of substitution between traded and home goods a permanent reduction in the rate of devaluation leads to a fall in aggregate demand

credibility and the dynamics of disinflation in open economies a note on the southern cone experiments abstract when people lack confidence in the ability of politicians to carry out a newly announced disinflationary policy disinflation becomes more difficult to achieve numerous writers have emphasized the importance of policy consistency for establishing credibility this essay suggests in addition that policies with a quicker disinflationary impact become more credible sooner and thus have a better chance of succeeding with that proposition in mind the objective is to examine and compare the initial impacts of alternative disinflationary strategies in an open economy with capital mobility using evidence from the southern cone experience with preannounced exchange rates for illustrative purposes

outlook on biofuels in future studies a systematic literature review abstract foresight methods are useful for long range planning such as strategic energy management energy policy and renewable and sustainable energy planning to manage uncertainties futures studies may affect the anticipation and speculation of future and emerging technologies in this paper biofuels futures are explored based on a critical evaluation of the literature to draw the state of the art for the future oriented biofuel research a six fold typology mapping from two main futures studies methodologies is used i descriptive scenarios forecasts and statistical scenarios as descriptive methods ii roadmaps visions and backcasts as prescriptive methods the expectations embodied in the literature are then explored through deriving research challenges about the future of biofuels 1 the main motives and driving forces in a biofuel era 2 the main obstacles or difficulties confronting a biofuel era 3 the plausibility and importance of each of different scenarios 4 key technological breakthroughs for the bioeconomy 5 details about development maturity and flourish 6 biofuel era s significant achievement the literature explains a wide range of plausible futures from centralized systems related to technological breakthroughs to decentralized systems based on small scale renewable fundamental technological elements are uncovered and a plausible biofuel economy is drawn along with the necessary pathway to reach it the review shows a general agreement that a biofuel economy would develop gradually and a prompt shift to biofuels would require powerful governmental support coupled with significant disruptions such as changes in environmental principles of countries technology breakthroughs higher oil prices and urgency of climate change

peru s return toward an open economy macroeconomic complications and structural questions abstract the peruvian program of stabilization and liberalization initiated in august 1990 has been more extreme than those in mexico in the 1980s or in chile in the pinochet period it has involved exceptionally high costs potentially constructive changes are interacting with each other in ways adverse for recovery of production employment and exports it could worsen the country s persisting strains of poverty and violence or could on the contrary help answer them depending on how liberalization is pursued comparisons with other liberalization programs especially with the two different versions used in chile point to alternatives that might be helpful for peru and for the design of such programs in other countries

scaling up biofuels a critical look at expectations performance and governance this editorial is the introduction to a special issue of scaling up biofuels a critical look at expectations performance and governance which assesses biofuels contribution to sustainability governance and upscaling the issue aims to contribute to a more informed evidence based policy debate on the role of bioenergy for sustainable development it comprises six review papers that share a solutions oriented and policy focused approach towards the assessment of sustainability bioenergy production and consumption is not evaluated as an isolated industry or additionality instead it is assessed as an inherent component of the broader social ecological system and history of which it forms a part synthesizing available empirical evidence on performance and contextualizing the evidence in view of expectations and bioenergy governance in and over time the papers address the role of biofuels for climate mitigation their ability to deliver on socio economic policy expectations the actual performance in view of risk anticipation and mitigation the role of state policy considering sector development and sustainability and the ability of certification schemes to deliver on market conversion and quality the synthesis paper draws on the empirical findings to develop a set of sustainability conditions sine qua nons that have to be considered in processes of policy making and upscaling

reply to commentary on the special issue scaling up biofuels a critical look at expectations performance and governance abstract the special issue scaling up bioenergy identifies major policy expectations attached to biofuels production worldwide and it provides systematic reviews of actual biofuel performance and governance in these areas papers address the extent to which policy expectations related to climate change mitigation energy security rural livelihoods and risk mitigation have been achieved and the effectiveness of public and private governance in advancing sector sustainability building on these findings the synthesis paper asks what next for countries wishing to advance national biofuel programmes as one option for the necessary divestment from fossil fuels among other sine qua nons the special issue highlights the urgent need to downscale global energy demand and to stop treating biofuels as an isolated sector goldemberg et al 2018 query several aspects of our approach from research design data collection to our recommendation to apply the precautionary principle in research as well as policy making unfortunately goldemberg et al 2018 incorrectly portray our main argument moreover they claim bias in our approach and mistakes in our empirical evidence however without bringing forward an evenhanded critique of research philosophy methodology or referencing different empirical literature we fully stand behind our research philosophy and findings presented

tariffs terms of trade unemployment and the real exchange rate the less developed countries ldcs have been subjected to major exogenous shocks and drastic domestic policy changes in recent years these shocks include changes in the terms of trade and or a policy shift away from the pervasive protectionism of the previous decades the implementation of trade liberalization programs is likely to follow in many more developing countries a large body of theoretical and empirical literature has developed which attempts to analyze the consequences of these changes utilizing models which explicitly incorporate the main structural and institutional characteristics of the ldc economies the behavior of the real exchange rate defined in various ways but most commonly as the relative price of tradeables to non tradeables has been identified as being of central analytical and policy importance while the literature on this subject recognizes the key link between the real exchange rate and domestic wages the analytical models used generally suffer from serious limitations in terms of their characterization of the labor markets the models used in the literature can be categorized into two groups a flex price models that give rise to full employment and b models that assume full or partial wage rigidity thereby generating some form of unemployment conventional wisdom suggests that a rise in import tariffs or an improvement in the terms of trade would always lead to an appreciation of the real exchange rate however it is shown by clague 3 and edwards and van wijnbergen 11 that the above result does not necessarily hold in more general models however these analyses were restricted to models with flexible wages wage rigidity is often ascribed to the existence of some form of wage indexation or other forms of government inter

the impact of biofuels on commodity food prices assessment of findings for years agriculture has provided most of the fuel for vehicular transportation concerns about availability of fuels balance of trade and climate change led to the introduction of biofuel programs in the united states brazil europeanunion eu andothercountries the impacts of these programs and the relationship between the food and fuel markets have become major topics of economic research this paper summarizes the main findings of alternative lines of research on the relationship between the food and fuel markets and identifies gaps and quandaries that warrant further research this is not meant to be a complete survey and it emphasizes several of our studies within the broader literature the paper distinguishes between two bodies of literature one on the relationship between food and fuel prices and another on the impact of the introduction of biofuel on commodity food prices while biofuel prices do not seem to affect food commodity prices we explain why the introduction of biofuel does moreover biofuelshavenotbeenthemostdominant contributor to the recent food price inflation and different biofuels have different impacts

who benefits from energy policy incentives the case of jatropha adoption by smallholders in mexico understanding the distribution of policy incentives is important in evaluating the impact of promotion programmes this study investigates the allocation of economic subsidies to jatropha cultivation by using adoption models at both the community and household levels in chiapas at the community level we compared socioeconomic and environmental variables of the communities that adopted jatropha to non adopters at the household level 420 farm households were surveyed to analyse both the determinants of adoption and the extent of adoption i e hectares dedicated to jatropha the variables determining adoption were analysed at both levels using generalised linear models the extent of jatropha adoption was assessed using ordinary least squares multiple regression quantitative data was complemented with key stakeholder interviews and focus groups results show that subsidies tend to be allocated to larger better connected communities which have access to better services within adopter communities the subsidy is distributed among households that have more resources better risk coping strategies better access to information more experience with similar technologies and whose attitude towards risk is positive this study provides lessons that can be useful for the introduction of new energy crops to better reach the target group and ultimately achieve the aims of energy promotion strategies

development of biofuels in south africa challenges and opportunities abstract biofuels have a potential to extend and diversify south africa s energy supply thus reducing dependence on imported fuels and pollution levels despite several biofuel policies and mandates biofuel development in south africa has stalled in the legislative process and no large scale commercial biofuel project has materialized yet developing biofuels especially using food grains is a big challenge to the government of south africa due to issues related to food security commodity prices economic and social concerns and impacts of land use changes on the environment the production cost of feedstock and employment creation opportunities from agricultural production play a vital role in selecting suitable feedstock for the region since considerable investment and infrastructure will be required for continued supply of feedstock and efficient biomass conversion technologies rigorous research and comprehensive studies are required to identify feedstock and technologies best suited for the successful establishment of biofuel industry in south africa

do no harm risk perceptions in national bioenergy policies and actual mitigation performance this paper investigates how risks are anticipated in national bioenergy policies and in which way related expectations that harms can be prevented or mitigated have actually been met the paper draws on the national biofuel policies of ten countries and the eu selected to represent a diverse sample of regions producers and consumers and pioneers and latecomers it proceeds in two steps firstly it identifies three risk categories most frequently mentioned across the investigated national policies secondly it conducts a systematic review of available empirical research about biofuels effects in these risk categories findings are discussed regarding the empirical conditions under which related expectations to do no harm have materialized or failed and concerning the challenges of risks perception and management in actual policies we observe issues of crop selection and inadequate sectoral governance of biofuels but also challenges of large scale modes of intensive production effective risk mitigation was often the result of risk adverse choices by contract farmers engaged in biofuels production national policy documents have insufficiently conceptualized do no harm concepts and strategies in place to address these performance issues while remaining silent on the particular risk governance and accountability framework that keeps track of actual developments commitments and responsibilities

sine qua nons of sustainable biofuels distilling implications of under performance for national biofuel programs biofuels have been promoted worldwide under the assumption that they can support several strategic policy goals while mitigating associated risks drawing on published evidence on performance contributing papers to this special section question assumptions commonly attributed to biofuels their carbon neutrality their positive effect on rural livelihoods and policymakers ability to effectively govern for sustainability this paper takes these findings as its starting point and asks what next for countries wishing to advance biofuels as one option for the necessary divestment from fossil fuels deriving recommendations for national biofuel programs from past performance is no easy task context complexity power dynamics and scaling pose significant challenges to achieving policy aims we are nevertheless able to distill a set of sine qua nons indispensables for sustainable biofuel governance from the evidence and change management literatures they are put forward not as recipes for success but minimum conditions and best bet approaches requiring testing deliberation and refinement perhaps the most fundamental sine qua non is to pursue options that downscale global demand as current levels of global energy consumption if only in the transport sector cannot be met by biomass derived agrofuels in a way that meets social and environmental sustainability goals

a review of social sustainability considerations among eu approved voluntary schemes for biofuels with implications for rural livelihoods the rapid expansion of biofuel production and consumption has raised concerns over the social and environmental sustainability of biofuel feedstock production processing and trade the european union eu has thus balanced its commitment to biofuels as one option for meeting its renewable energy targets with sustainability criteria for economic operators supplying biofuels to member states seven voluntary eu sustainability schemes were approved in july 2011 as a means to verify compliance while mandated sustainability criteria have a strong environmental focus a number of these voluntary schemes have social sustainability as a significant component of the requirements put forward for achieving certification as several of these voluntary schemes are incipient thereby limiting evidence on their effectiveness in practice this analysis is based on a comparative analysis of the substantive content or scope of these schemes and the likely procedural effectiveness of the same findings show that while some schemes have considerable coverage of social sustainability concerns poor coverage of some critical issues the presence of schemes lacking any social sustainability requirements and gaps in procedural rules are likely to undermine the likelihood that social sustainability is achieved through these schemes or the eu sustainability policies lending credibility to them