oil price volatility and stock price fluctuations in an emerging market evidence from south korea abstract how important are oil price fluctuations and oil price volatility on equity market performance what are the policy implications if volatility turns out to be significant we assess this issue in an economics finance nexus for korea using a vec model including interest rates economic activity real stock returns real oil prices and oil price volatility our main aim is to capture the effects of crude oil prices on the korean economy thoroughly covering the period of the asian financial crisis of 1997 which heavily affected the country and the oil price hikes in the early 1990s after the gulf war south korea was the country most hit by the financial crisis together with indonesia and thailand results indicate the dominance of oil price volatility on real stock returns and emphasize how this has increased over time oil price volatility can have profound effect on the time horizon of investment and firms need adjust their risk management procedures accordingly this increase in dependency has been found in other net oil importing emerging equity markets we test the relationship between oil price movements and economic activity by using modern time series techniques in a cointegrating framework we expand the standard error correction model by examining the dynamics of out of sample causality through the generalized variance decomposition and impulse response function techniques the evidence from persistence profiles also gives important guidelines based on how fast the entire system adjusts back to equilibrium in addition we find the cointegrating relationship to be stable and find that the linear error correction model to be more favorable than an asymmetric 2 period markov switching model

consumer environmental concern and green product purchase in malaysia structural effects of consumption values this study examines the effects of consumption values i e functional value social value emotional value conditional value and epistemic value on malaysian consumers environmental concern as expressed in their purchase of green products it also investigates the differences between three usage groups light average and heavy users and the signi cant factors that promote those differences the study applies a quantitative method in which a structured self administered questionnaire is used data is analysed using the structural equation modelling sem technique via the analysis of moment structure amos computer programme version 21 and one way analysis of variance anova using the statistical package for social sciences spss computer programme version 21 empirical results confirm that social value has the paramount impact on consumers environmental concern as expressed by their purchase of green products and that epistemic value and functional value quality rank behind functional value price emotional value and conditional value have no significant effects statistically significant differences were observed when comparing the light users with average users and with heavy users p 0 05 the findings of this study introduce a new momentum for the preceding discoveries on consumer environmental concern as shown in the purchase of green products which is inadequately covered in the malaysian context they also provide important information for companies and encourage them to place more emphasis on social value epistemic value and functional value quality in their manufacturing in order both to boost environmental concern among consumers in their purchasing decision making and to produce green goods that will be readily liked by consumers

the investor specific price of renewable energy project risk a choice experiment with incumbent utilities and institutional investors abstract renewable energy investments in germany have recently soared trebling the output of wind and solar power generation in only ten years while incumbent utilities have lagged behind in terms of investment new entrants have significantly contributed to this growth existing literature has primarily focused on explaining the lethargy of incumbents former investments although there is a growing need to investigate recent investment drivers to secure the necessary power plant capacity at a moderate cost from incumbents and new entrants alike to close this gap a choice experiment involving 1 659 investment choices by 52 european professional investors was conducted in significant contrast to the case with altruistic investors this survey underlines the importance of using financial incentives to attract professional investors given full exposure to electricity price risk incumbent utilities would facilitate projects at a 3 04 risk premium whereas institutional investors demand 6 61 generally incumbent utilities and institutional investors are equally attracted by low risk projects however when risk increases institutional investors are more hesitant to become involved while incumbent utilities confidently navigate these higher risk projects

financial incentives to mobilise local citizens as investors in low carbon technologies a systematic literature review abstract mobilising greater levels of private finance through local citizen investment in low carbon technologies can help bridge the capital shortfall to meeting climate objectives while also building societal support for the low carbon transition within this context we undertake a systematic review of literature assessing the impact of technology specific economic and financial incentives promoting greater levels of investment in low carbon technologies from local citizen investors both individuals and community groups we focus in particular on the impact of feed in tariffs compared to quota schemes grants tax incentives and soft loans the analysis suggests that local citizen investors do not necessarily act in an economically rational manner in response to these incentives it underscores the importance of understanding the preferences of target demographics the local context as well as the characteristics of the technologies in question and suggests interventions should be considered as part of wider policy packages while identifying challenges to be overcome through instrument design we find that feed in tariffs grants and tax incentives can be successful in mobilising greater levels of investment from local citizen investors but that soft loans tend to be less effective as a stand alone instrument the review identifies areas meriting further exploration in this emerging field of research

demand side management potentials for mitigating energy poverty in south africa abstract south africa is severally posited to be africa s most industrialized nation with an economy heavily reliant on energy with depleted electricity reserve margin which led to massive load shedding and rationing of electricity in 2008 eskom has stepped up the construction of additional power plants to cover for growing supply deficits emerging trends however favour demand side management dsm initiatives as alternatives to building additional supply capacity due to environmental and economic constraints this research evaluates the electricity per capita for 2007 2011 and 2016 on provincial basis assuming 100 and 36 8 residential sector consumption of generated electricity to show declining electricity per capita values a scenario simulation for 100 50 and 30 household participation of cloth washers and cloth dryers optimal dispatch is then modelled to show the enormous dsm potentials in terms of electricity cost reduction and supply flexibility a modified genetic algorithm mga is used in the dispatch of participating loads on the medupi power plant which has been modelled to operate with carbon capture and sequestration ccs technology dsm potentials of 6938 34 mw 3469 18 mw and 2081 51 mw are computed for 100 50 and 30 household participation for cloth washers and cloth dryers

difficulty is critical the importance of social factors in modeling diffusion of green products and practices abstract despite the very positive as measured by market surveys attitude towards eco innovations and sustainability in general the actual market penetration of green products and practices generally falls behind the expectations in this paper we argue that considering difficulty of engagement as used in the campbell paradigm is of critical importance when modeling diffusion of eco innovations such a notion of difficulty possesses three desired properties i parsimony it is represented by a single value ii interpretability it can be regarded as an estimator of the otherwise complex notion of behavioral cost and iii applicability it can be easily measured through market surveys in an extensive simulation and analytical study involving empirically measured difficulty and an agent based model spanned on different social network structures we show that innovation adoption may exhibit abrupt changes in market penetration as a result of even small changes in difficulty the latter may be of particular interest to policy makers who have to make strategic decisions when introducing socially but not necessarily individually desired products and practices like dynamic or green electricity tariffs

the influence factors on choice behavior regarding green products based on the theory of consumption values abstract this study applies the theory of consumption values to determine the influence factors on consumer choice behavior regarding green products and examines whether there are significant differences in consumption values and choice behavior between consumers with different outlooks on environmental concerns one way analysis of variance and multiple regression is used to assess data collected by a questionnaire survey the results indicate that consumers with high environmental concern support green products more and show greater readiness to choose them this study concludes that the main influence factors on consumer choice behavior regarding green products include psychological benefit desire for knowledge novelty seeking and specific conditions and do not include functional values price and quality this study contributes to preliminary but vital insights in effective promotion of green products

determining factors of curtailment and purchasing energy related behaviours changing people s behaviour in relation to energy consumption will be one of the most important challenges in the near future we analyzed the determinants behind individuals decisions to adopt curtailment behaviour or to purchase energy saving products using data from 213 university students we explored the influence of personal capabilities and moral norms along with trust in information on energy saving actions provided by different entities on two energy saving behaviours the results of the statistical model emphasise how personal norms and trust in information provided by private companies on the one hand and family and friends on the other strongly influence the adoption of energy saving actions and curtailment behaviours the paper reveals the pivotal role of private companies in developing the market demand for energy saving products by providing credible and scientifically based information on environmental performance the paper also contributes to strengthening the reliability of value belief norm theory and emphasizes the role of trust in information as a contextual factor that influences the adoption of a pro environmental behaviour

does gender inequality affect household green consumption behaviour in china abstract in this paper we examine whether gender inequality affects a household s decision to adopt green consumption behaviour in china building upon the literature that claims women tend to be more environmentally friendly than men we hypothesise that households in which women play a stronger role adopt greener consumption lifestyles based on a nationwide survey our empirical results show that households in counties with greater gender inequality use less energy efficient electric products and are less willing to save energy the results are robust to a number of variations in our empirical models social and economic factors are included to further explore the mechanisms underlying households decisions our findings provide new insights into green development from a micro level bottom up perspective they are relevant for policy makers because they indicate that promoting gender equality can have a favourable impact on green development

causes consequences and cures of myopic loss aversion an experimental investigation we examine in an experiment the causes consequences and possible cures of myopic loss aversion mla for investment behaviour under risk we find that both investment horizons and feedback frequency contribute almost equally to the effects of mla longer investment horizons and less frequent feedback lead to higher investments however when given the choice subjects prefer on average shorter investment horizons and more frequent feedback exploiting the status quo bias by setting a long investment horizon or low feedback frequency as a default turns out to be a successful behavioural intervention that increases investment levels

energy consumption and gdp causality relationship in g 7 countries and emerging markets abstract the causality relationship between energy consumption and income is a well studied topic in energy economics this paper studies the time series properties of energy consumption and gdp and reexamines the causality relationship between the two series in the top 10 emerging markets excluding china due to lack of data and g 7 countries we discover bi directional causality in argentina causality running from gdp to energy consumption in italy and korea and from energy consumption to gdp in turkey france germany and japan hence energy conservation may harm economic growth in the last four countries

reasons for household food waste with special attention to packaging the amount of food waste needs to be reduced in order to sustain the world s limited resources and secure enough food to all humans packaging plays an important role in reducing food waste the kn

innovative activity over the business cycle this paper examines cyclical patterns of innovative activity in the united kingdom over the period 1948 83 innovative activity turns out to have many of the properties of a random walk but does show a tendency to cluster during booms there is clear evidence of a long term secular relation between the level of innovative activity and the level of economic activity although this may have changed in the 1980s finally the data provide no reason for thinking that these clusters of innovation cause cyclic variations in economic activity but variations in economic activity do granger cause changes in innovative activity copyright 1995 by royal economic society

rewarding performance by promotion to a different job abstract use of promotions rather than performance related pay to provide incentives can be justified if performance is non verifiable information this does not explain why promotion is to a different job rather than simply a better paid job the effectiveness of tournaments is undermined however if unsuccessful workers are equally suited to higher paid jobs and can engage in bribery or other influence activity a promotion based reward structure with pay tied to jobs can be made immune to such activity if misallocations of employees to jobs are costly to the firm

social diffusion of energy related practices and representations patterns and policies in portugal and belgium the authors thank the fundacao para a ciencia e tecnologia portugal for the support under the grant mit pt ses sues 0037 2008 the interviews in wallonia were realised during an international project funded in 2008 2011 by intelligent energy europe ideal epbd improving dwellings by enhancing actions on labelling for the energy per formance in buildings directive grant iee 07 600 si2 499426 whereas the present analysis in terms of social diffusion was realised after the completion of that project

household energy use applying behavioural economics to understand consumer decision making and behaviour household energy conservation has emerged as a major challenge and opportunity for researchers practitioners and policymakers consumers also seem to be gaining greater awareness of the value and need for sustainable energy practices particularly amid growing public concerns over greenhouse gas emissions and climate change yet even with adequate knowledge of how to save energy and a professed desire to do so many consumers still fail to take noticeable steps towards energy efficiency and conservation there is often a sizeable discrepancy between peoples self reported knowledge values attitudes and intentions and their observable behaviour examples include the well known knowledge action gap and value action gap but neither is household energy consumption driven primarily by financial incentives and the rational pursuit of material interests in fact people sometimes respond in unexpected and undesirable ways to rewards and sanctions intended to shift consumers cost benefit calculus in favour of sustainable behaviours why is this so why is household energy consumption and conservation difficult to predict from either core values or material interests by drawing on critical insights from behavioural economics and psychology we illuminate the key cognitive biases and motivational factors that may explain why energy related behaviour so often fails to align with either the personal values or material interests of consumers understanding these psychological phenomena can make household and community responses to public policy interventions less surprising and in parallel can help us design more cost effective and mass scalable behavioural solutions to encourage renewable and sustainable energy use among consumers

behavioral innovations the missing capital in sustainable development abstract many scholars argue that environmental issues can be addressed through technological innovation a proposal which echoes a lasting debate between environmental and ecological economics about the substitution rate between natural and manufactured capital in addition to these two established types of capital this paper introduces the idea of behavioral capital we define behavioral capital as the latent potential of behavioral change to affect improvement in environmental quality our contribution argues that technological and traditional regulatory innovations serve as insufficient tools for addressing modern environmental issues and ensuring sustainable development without discarding these solutions we contend that because human behavior is a significant contributor to environmental problems it should be regarded as a key component of continued solutions we suggest that the dual interest theory can serve as an integrative framework for behavioral innovations related to environmental issues in suggesting this we assume that behavioral innovations can both overcome some of the limitations of technological innovations and offer new solutions our main insight is to suggest that some depletion of natural capital but not all can be offset by behavioral changes without decreasing or even increasing subjective well being

understanding household energy use decision making and behaviour in guinea conakry by applying behavioural economics abstract for decades generalized frauds have left the electrical sector of guinea with an entirely defective financial scheme as a developing nation guinea s electricity consumption has been relatively low for a long time although it has been increasing recently due to increasing power generation the growth in power capacity is due to the construction of two new dams kaleta dam 240 mw which is already operational and souapiti dam 550 mw which is still under construction taking into account that the country has so far been without electricity there is a need to assess and predict consumer behaviour before the full completion of these projects the aim of this study is to make the household and community reactions to public policy interventions less surprising however even sufficient knowledge of how to conserve energy and a stated desire to do so many consumers still fail to take perceptible measures to increase energy efficiency and conservation why is this so by focusing on crucial insights from behavioural economics and psychology we highlight the incentive factors the basic cognitive biases and the psychological phenomena that cause this disconnect understanding these factors can help us to design sustainable energy use among consumers in guinea conakry

public sector debt dynamics the persistence and sources of shocks to debt in 10 eu countries this paper characterises the time series properties of debt gdp ratios in ten eu countries over the period 1982 2009 it establishes that shocks to debt ratios persist and measures the size and source of the permanent effects of shocks as they evolve over time the analysis shows that debt dynamics in the eu10 are complicated involving important inter country interactions and protracted adjustment periods of the order of ten years we find evidence of asymmetries in the effects of different forms of fiscal consolidation with unanticipated reductions in government spending having a more permanent effect than unanticipated increases in government revenue unanticipated business cycle fluctuations also have important long term effects on the ratio

gender and competition at a young age gender gaps may be observed in a variety of economic and social environments one of the possible determining factors is that men are more competitive than women and so when the competitiveness of the environment increases the performance of men increases relative to that of women we test this hypothesis in a field study conducted with 9 year old children running on a track they first run alone and then in pairs over a short distance with different gender composition of the pairs the results support the hypothesis that performance in competition varies according to gender when children ran alone there was no difference in performance in competition boys but not girls improved their performance this finding relates to the discussion regarding single sex schools the outcomes of examinations in a mixed sex school can show a gender gap in favor of boys even when this gap does not reflect actual abilities girls who are as talented as boys will end up performing worse just because they are not as competitive and will not achieve as high scores in examinations as boys

testing for unit roots in panel data are wages on different bargaining levels cointegrated theoritical considerations suggest that spillover forces equalize wages for similar jobs thus it is expected that firm wages are cointegrated with the corresponding wage rates on an industrial level in this paper we apply various unit root tests to a panel of wage data we show that the familiar techniques can be adopted to this type of data allowing for unobserved heterogeneity and common time effects our results suggest that firm and industry wages both possess a unit root in the autoregressive representation however ther is only weak evidence for a cointegration realtionship

oil and the macroeconomy since world war ii all but one of the u s recessions since world war ii have been preceded typically with a lag of around three fourths of a year by a dramatic increase in the price of crude petroleum this does not mean that oil shocks caused these recessions evidence is presented however that even over the period 1948 72 this correlation is statistically significant and nonspurious supporting the proposition that oil shocks were a contributing factor in at least some of the u s recessions prior to 1972 by extension energy price increases may account for much of post opec macroeconomic performance

energy saving in swedish households the relative importance of environmental attitudes the objectives for energy saving in the housing sector set by recent swedish energy and climate policies are quite demanding this article uses nation wide swedish survey data from 2004 to 2007 to explore the potential for achieving those targets earlier findings that socio economic characteristics such as age housing type and income are strongly linked to higher propensities to save on heating and hot water usage are confirmed by ordered logistic regression models however general environmental attitudes are also found to play a crucial role when assessing the relative importance of socioeconomic factors and environmental attitudes the effect on energy saving is generally greater for the former than the latter in addition important interaction effects are identified in relative terms the effect of environmental attitudes is clearly stronger among households in apartment blocks than among those in detached housing and stronger among households with higher income than among those with lower income we end by discussing the implications for the selection and targeting of policy measures to tap the energy savings potential in the population

recent experiences with tariffs for saving electricity in households abstract financial incentives or disincentives in the form of electricity tariffs can be used to encourage energy efficiency in this paper two simple tariffs aimed at residential consumers are reviewed progressive tariffs pts which penalise high consumption of electricity and electricity saving feed in tariffs esfits which provide incentives to reduce consumption of electricity the effectiveness of these tariffs is quantified and compared using the price elasticity for pt and an incentive elasticity for esfit the results indicate that pts are more effective in mobilising electricity saving than esfits and confirm biases in human decision making here loss aversion while further research is necessary we propose a tariff which would motivate consumers to reduce their consumption by offering both an incentive for reaching an energy saving goal and a disincentive for failing to reach this goal the flexibility of such a tariff makes it a promising solution suitable for application in countries with a comparatively high household income and liberalised retail electricity market

policy options for the split incentive increasing energy efficiency for low income renters the split incentive problem concerns the lack of appropriate incentives to implement energy efficiency measures in particular low income tenants face a phenomenon of energy poverty in which they allocate significantly more of their household income to energy expenditures than other renters this problem is substantial affecting 1 89 of all united states energy use if effectively addressed it would create a range of savings between 4 and 11 billion dollars per year for many of the nation s poorest residents we argue that a carefully designed program of incentives for participants including landlords in conjunction with a unique type of utility managed on bill financing mechanism has significant potential to solve many of the complications we focus on three kinds of split incentives five concerns inherent to addressing split incentive problems scale endurance incentives savings political disfavor and provide a detailed policy proposal designed to surpass those problems with a particular focus on low income tenants in a u s context

an investigation of the rationality of consumer valuations of multiple health risks after developing a conceptual analysis of consumer valuation of multiple risks we explore both economic and cognitive hypotheses regarding individual risk taking using a sample of over 1 500 consumers our study ascertains risk dollar tradeoffs for the risks associated with using an insecticide and a toilet bowl cleaner we observe the expected positive valuation of risk reductions and find empirical support for a diminishing in the valuation of risk reduction as the extent of the risk reduction increases we also find evidence of certainty premiums for the total elimination of one risk but no strong evidence of additional certainty premiums for the elimination of multiple risks strong reference risk effects are evident as increases in risk were valued much more greatly than were decreases

exploring the role of households hurdle rates and demand elasticities in meeting danish energy savings target abstract the eu s energy efficiency directive eed sets a binding target for energy savings in eu member states the eed further requires member states to perform ex ante evaluations of energy efficiency policies implemented to achieve these savings however ex ante evaluation of energy efficiency policies is difficult as it requires detailed modelling of end users investment and energy demand behaviour this paper details the danish interact modelling approach for ex ante evaluation of energy efficiency policies directed at residential heating interact integrates the energy system model times dk into a computable general equilibrium framework the paper explores the potential for meeting denmark s eed target through a policy induced increase in households investments in energy efficiency retrofits the paper considers the effect of energy efficiency policies on households investment behaviour by applying different levels of hurdle rates on households investments in energy efficiency retrofits the paper shows that reducing the hurdle rate from 25 to 4 could meet more than a third of danish energy saving requirements for the period 2021 2030 this result includes a direct rebound effect of 31 finally the paper demonstrates that reducing the hurdle below 10 has a substantial negative impact on households disposable income making such policy less viable from a policy perspective

consumer rationality and the status quo received microeconomic theory presumes rational consumers maximize utility over all commodity bundles recent analysis however suggests that a consumer s status quo may limit economic rationality bias consumer decisions and induce serious errors in survey based valuations of public and private goods using regression and choice theoretic frameworks we investigate the existence of status quo effects in the consumer valuation of a particular unpriced product the reliability of residential electrical service such valuations have become important in electric utility resource planning and rate making we find substantial status quo effects which must be addressed in welfare comparisons regarding electric service reliability

gender differences in competitiveness and risk taking comparing children in colombia and sweden we explore gender differences in preferences for competition and risk among children aged 912 in colombia and sweden two countries differing in gender equality according to macro indices we include four types of tasks that vary in gender stereotyping when looking at competitiveness running skipping rope math and word search we find that boys and girls are equally competitive in all tasks and all measures in colombia unlike the consistent results in colombia the results in sweden are mixed with some indication of girls being more competitive than boys in some tasks in terms of performance change whereas boys are more likely to choose to compete in general boys in both countries are more risk taking than girls with a smaller gender gap in sweden

the long run impact of foreign shocks to the austrian economy an analysis at a sectoral level this paper investigates the long run impact of foreign shocks on the austrian economy which is an example of a small open economy with a fixed echange rate regime the analysis is done in a multisectoral vector autoregression framework foreign shocks involve inovations in gnp of european oecd countries oil prices effective echange rate and interest rates sectoral responses appear to be very different in particular shocks to european oecd gnp have a high long run impact on sectoral output especially in export dependent sectors this supports the hypothesis of export led growth

do women shy away from competition do men compete too much we examine whether men and women of the same ability differ in their selection into a competitive environment participants in a laboratory experiment solve a real task first under a noncompetitive piece rate and then a competitive tournament incentive scheme although there are no gender differences in performance men select the tournament twice as much as women when choosing their compensation scheme for the next performance while 73 percent of the men select the tournament only 35 percent of the women make this choice this gender gap in tournament entry is not explained by performance and factors such as risk and feedback aversion only playa negligible role instead the tournament entry gap is driven by men being more overconfident and by gender differences in preferences for performing in a competition the result is that women shy away from competition and men embrace it

sectoral shocks and business cycles a disaggregated analysis of output fluctuations in the uk in this paper we first show that it is possible to modify linear real business cycle models to allow for disaggregate industry specific factors in the generation of macroeconomic fluctuations we then try to determine the relative importance of aggregate and sectoral shocks by doing principal components analysis on the residuals from a var of output growth rates in 19 uk industrial sectors we find that a significant percentage of the innovations in sectoral output growths can be accounted for by a single unobserved component however since the model only sets an upper bound to the explanatory power of aggregate impulses the importance of using sectoral data to extract additional information to bear on the analysis of economic fluctuations is confirmed by our findings

overlapping marathons what happens to female pace when men catch up we exploit a highly competitive environment in which elite female athletes are exposed to the presence of men but without being in direct competition with them specifically we use variation in how fast the fastest man runs in the new york city marathon to identify the potential influence of men on female performance while holding constant female runners marginal incentives to perform our results suggest that as the men overtake the female runners the performance of female runners declines differentially across ability with the largest declines concentrated among lower ability runners

beyond ecolabels what green marketing can learn from conventional marketing ecolabels have emerged as one of the main tools of green marketing although a great deal of effort has been invested in making them more effective and efficient the market share of ecolabelled products is still low partly because they have been addressed mainly to green consumers in a theoretical exposition of marketing theory we find that green marketing could learn from conventional marketing in discovering other means than labelling to promote green products examples include addressing a wider range of consumers working with the positioning strategies of price place and promotion and actively engaging in market creation

decision making over time and under uncertainty a common approach this paper considers a number of parallels between risky and intertemporal choice we begin by demonstrating a one to one correspondence between the behavioral violations of the respective normative theories for the two domains i e expected utility and discounted utility models we argue that such violations or preference reversals are broadly consistent with three propositions about the weight that an attribute receives in both types of multiattribute choice specifically it appears that 1 if we add a constant to all values of an attribute then that attribute becomes less important 2 if we proportionately increase all values of an attribute or if we change the sign of an attribute from positive to negative then that attribute becomes more important the generality of these propositions as well as the constraints they would impose on separable representations of multiattribute preferences is discussed

norms and economic motivation in the swedish green electricity market abstract the purpose of this paper is to provide an econometric analysis of the most important determinants of swedish households choice to pay a price premium for green electricity we draw on recent developments in the literature on integrating norm motivated behavior into neoclassical consumer theory and assume that individuals have a preference for keeping a self image as a morally responsible person consumer behavior in the green market place will then be heavily determined by how purchases of different goods affect this self image the analysis is based on postal survey responses from 655 swedish households which are analyzed within a binary choice econometric framework the results indicate that the impact of choosing green on the household budget largely influences the choice between green and brown electricity as does the degree of perceived personal responsibility for the issue and the felt ability to affect the outcome in a positive way we find limited support for the notion that perceptions about others behavior in general affect individual moral norms and ultimately expressed behavior but this is also complemented by the influence of explicit social influence the difficulty in observing others purchases makes it however difficult to distinguish between social and moral norms in the case of green electricity

scrutinizing the direct rebound effect for french households using quantile regression and data from an original survey abstract this article develops a quantile regression model to measure the magnitude of the direct rebound effect for residential electricity demand based on micro level data from an original survey of a representative sample of 2356 french households we explore the rebound effect for different groups of residents traditionally debate has focused on decreased prices for energy services due to efficiency improvements and their effects on energy demand the methodological innovation provided by this paper is that it implements two theoretical estimation strategies i energy efficiency elasticity of the demand for energy services and ii price elasticity of the demand for energy services our findings reject the hypothesis of a backfire effect in the context of residential electricity use specifically based on energy efficiency elasticity we provide evidence of a rebound effect of between 72 and 86 but with substantial heterogeneity among consumption quantiles our results show that the direct rebound effect has critical relevance for energy efficiency policy in the face of energy invisibility in france

segmentation analysis of residential water electricity demand for customized demand side management programs with increasing water and energy use in the residential sector due to population growth urbanization and climate change demand side management dsm is essential to complement supply side interventions to meet future demands and reduce costs this paper explores how customer segmentation analysis can support customized water and electricity dsm we contribute a three phase customer segmentation analysis of over 1000 residential accounts in the los angeles county southern california to explore the heterogeneity of residential water electricity demand profiles and provide insights for coordinated water energy dsm results show that on the one hand daily water and electricity consumption are correlated thus groups of high consumers can be targeted with coordinated water electricity dsm interventions on the other hand the absence of a relevant causal nexus between water and electricity daily load shapes suggests that dsm actions for water should be differentiated from those for electricity finally both objective e g presence of swimming pool and subjective psychographic features e g conservation attitude are found to be relevant potential drivers of water electricity demands based on these findings we propose recommendations for designing a portfolio of mixed customized water electricity dsm interventions to foster conservation or peak shifting objectives

not irrational but habitual the importance of behavioural lock in in energy consumption abstract a substantial body of literature has shown that our behaviour is often guided by habits the existence of habits not fully conscious forms of behaviour is important as it contradicts rational choice theory their presence thus calls for the setting of new instruments as they make it unlikely that consumers be capable of exercising control over their energy consumption in reaction to given incentives this is further increased in the evolutionary perspective where the current carbon based socio technical system constrains and shapes consumers choices through structural forces habits being potentially counterintentional they may explain the efficiency paradox in energy as well as the continued increase of energy consumption despite the rising environmental awareness among the population policies aiming at reducing energy consumption should thus specifically address the performance context of habits for instance targeting new residents has proven to be more effective given that their preceding habits have been disturbed the results of our empirical analysis confirm this idea by showing how a change of context makes people more receptive to a proposed measure our analysis of the role played by habits also suggests that individuals do not consider the need to change existing habits as an obstacle even though this is contradicted implicitly in the answers they provided to open questions this unconsciousness is one of the most delicate features of habits and it should thus be accounted for when designing measures given the other characteristics of habits the joint use of feedbacks and commitment strategies appears promising

the missing link between corporate social responsibility and consumer trust the case of fair trade products this paper investigates the link between the consumer perception that a company is socially oriented and the consumer intention to buy products marketed by that company we suggest that this link exists when at least two conditions prevail 1 the products sold by that company comply with ethical and social requirements 2 the company has an acknowledged commitment to protect consumer rights and interests to test these hypotheses we conducted a survey among the clients of retail chains offering fair trade products the results show that socially oriented companies can successfully leverage their reputation to market products with high symbolic values

identifying electricity saving potential in rural china empirical evidence from a household survey in recent years there has been a fast growing body of literature examining energy saving potential in relation to electricity however empirical studies focusing on non western nations are limited to fill this gap this study intends to examine the electricity saving potential of rural households in china using a unique data set from the china residential electricity consumption survey crecs in collaboration with the china general social survey cgss conducted nationwide at the household level in rural china we use a stochastic frontier model which allows us to decompose residential electricity consumption into the minimum necessary amount of consumption based on physical characteristics e g house size house age number of televisions or refrigerators and estimate the consumption slack i e the amount of electricity consumption that could be saved which depends on various factors we find that rural households in china are generally efficient in electricity saving and the saving potential is affected by fast information feedback and social demographic characteristics instead of by the averaged electricity price or energy efficiency labelling signals in addition we find no evidence of regional heterogeneity on electricity saving potential for rural households policy implications are derived

are output fluctuations transitory according to the conventional view of the business cycle fluctuations in output represent temporary deviations from trend the purpose of this paper is to question this conventional view if fluctuations in output are dominated by temporary deviations from the natural rate of output then an unexpected change in output today should not substantially change one s forecast of output in say five or ten years our examination of quarterly postwar united states data leads us to be skeptical about this implication the data suggest that an unexpected change in real gnp of 1 percent should change one s forecast by over 1 percent over a long horizon

ensuring effectiveness of information to influence household behaviour abstract the behaviour of household members has a significant impact on the resulting energy consumption of a household studies show that within the same buildings with the same installations energy consumption can be reduced by an average of 37 by a more economical behaviour there exists therefore a large potential to reduce the demand by influencing behaviour the question remains how this potential can be addressed vito conducted in collaboration with the catholic university of louvain la neuve the serec project this project investigated the socio economic factors influencing residential energy consumption furthermore in the larger framework different tools have been developed several were tested and evaluated in a number of dwellings in this research they address both energy consumption for heating as well as electricity consumption the tools are completely different but all were designed to help make householders aware of their energy related behaviour and to provide recommendations on energy saving measures for each case potential changes in habits were followed up the observed range is quite large as full scale audits of every dwelling were performed as general comparisons of annual consumption were made to gain more insight into the effectiveness of the tools several families participated in in depth sociological interviews the overall results show the strengths and weaknesses of the different tools more generally the results reveal some of the key properties of recommendations that are necessary to ensure effectiveness for behavioural change

motivating non ratepaying households with feedback and social nudges a cautionary tale abstract behavioral interventions have been shown to be valuable instruments in reducing energy use among ratepaying customers but their effect on non ratepayers has received less attention this study uses a randomized controlled trial research design to examine the effect of feedback and a social nudge in the form of peer comparison on energy consumption of non ratepaying households the study setting is a university family housing complex and findings are based on hourly observations of energy use by 62 households over thirteen weeks our results suggest that neither feedback or peer comparison is an effective instrument to reduce energy use of non ratepaying households and may even increase energy consumption in some contexts we find heterogeneous effects among households that are low and high users of energy in the pre treatment period with high users increasing energy consumption in response to feedback thus caution is needed in applying behavioral interventions when financial incentives to reinforce intended effects are absent

persistence of shocks and their sources in a multisectoral model of uk output growth this paper develops a multisectoral framework for the measurement of persistence of shocks to sectoral and aggregate output and provides a decomposition of the contribution of shocks from different sources to the overall persistence measure the framework is applied to u k output data distinguishing four types of macroeconomic shocks innovations in money supply growth stock returns exchange rates and oil prices among the macro shocks exchange rate shocks have the largest persistence effects on aggregate output through their effects on manufacturing sectors the contribution of the identified macro shocks to total persistence was small however compared to that of sector specific shocks copyright 1992 by royal economic society

an empirical investigation of green purchase behaviour among the young generation due to an increasing awareness in environmental impact consumers are more sensitive towards green products when making their purchasing decisions the young generation who represents the future of our society seems to have a different attitude and belief which enables them to reflect on their choice of green products this research empirically examines the influence of ecological affect and ecological knowledge on the green purchasing behaviour of the young generation a survey was administered to young consumers between the age of 18 and 30 structural equation modelling was applied to test the hypotheses the analysis result confirms that the ecological effect and knowledge are significant in determining young consumers green involvement as well as their actual purchase

examining green consumerism motivational drivers does premium price and demographics matter to green purchasing environmental deterioration caused by consumers non sustainable consumption pattern is putting a strain on the environment and is hindering sustainable development in order to impede this effect and promote a more sustainable economy one solution is to reduce or shift consumption from conventional products to green products the unfortunate reality indicates that inadequate information on how to promote consumers green behavioral intention is slowing the growth of green markets such inadequacy appears as a prevailing obstacle facing firms while developing segments and communicating strategies for effectively promoting green products the mentioned impact is more prevailing and most experienced in countries like malaysia hence consumers behavioral intentions must be better understood in order to strengthen knowledge about fostering green purchases this study aims to determine the motivational factors that influence green purchasing intention and simultaneously assess the moderator roles of the premium price and demographic characteristics given that consumers degree of greenness varies a survey was administered and a total of 405 usable questionnaires were obtained structural equation modeling sem was applied to test the hypotheses results indicate that environmental attitude eco label and cultural value man nature orientation significantly influence the green purchase intention the result also indicates that the premium price has no moderating effect denying its role as one of the main barriers for consumers to walk their talk as it has previously been reported by studies and opinion polls in addition the findings revealed that education level and gender have a significant positive moderation effect this suggests that green purchase intentions motivational factors are greater among highly educated individuals especially with female consumers in particular this study contributes to the understanding of the main factors that motivate consumers intention to purchase green products in malaysia it also offers insights and discusses implementations for manufacturers marketers and policy makers concerned with the drivers that motivate consumers green purchasing intentions which require different marketing plan and strategy than conventional products

testing for aggregation bias in linear models this paper discusses alternative methods of testing for aggregation bias and proposes direct tests of the discrepancy of the macroparameters from the average of the corresponding microparameters and derives tests of aggregation bias in the general case where the parameters of interest may possibly be nonlinear functions of the microparameters the paper also develops a durbin hausman type misspecification test of the disaggregate model these tests are then applied to disaggregate and aggregate specifications of employment functions for the u k economy disaggregated by forty industries copyright 1990 by royal economic society

a comparative study of theoretical behaviour change models predicting empirical evidence for residential energy conservation behaviours abstract as the role of consumer behaviour becomes more integral to energy production and consumption systems models of behavioural decision making are becoming increasingly important two models are compared the planned behaviour theory and the value belief norm theory using a six stage methodology the results show that the first is better suited to understanding consumer energy efficiency behaviours the second is preferred for behaviours related to the voluntary green power market the factors causing the differences are identified the differentiation is important for energy policy makers and business strategists aiming to leverage consumer demand

residential electricity consumption behavior influencing factors related theories and intervention strategies abstract the proportion of residential electricity consumption in the total energy consumption has increased rapidly in the past decades all over the world it is becoming increasingly important to promote household energy conservation for the sustainable development of a country in the case of resource constraints this paper reviews and evaluates the existing research works which are related to the residential electricity consumption behavior particular attention is given to the following aspects 1 factors influencing residential electricity consumption in social psychology 2 theories of social psychology in understanding residential electricity consumption behavior 3 different interventions aiming at encouraging households to reduce electricity consumption finally we discuss the challenges and opportunities of research on residential electricity consumption behavior in the big data era

towards trust in regulation moving to a public value regulation abstract the uk government has committed itself to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions the challenge of successfully achieving a transition to a sustainable energy system in the context of the uk s largely privately owned energy industry rests on the ability of policy makers to encourage and enable the necessary changes or innovation at all levels of the energy system this paper argues that the uk s current dominant political paradigm or framework the regulatory state paradigm rsp and within it the role of the economic regulator ofgem acts as a fundamental block to this challenge the current economic regulatory system is based on trust in the market or on predicted albeit theoretical known outcomes to expand our regulatory system to one which can deliver a sustainable energy system requires innovation in a certain direction as opposed to any innovation that is the antithesis of the current process of regulation trust is required that ofgem the economic regulator will develop rules and incentives which deliver an agreed sustainable energy goal which is trusted to be the right goal this requires ofgem moving away from ex ante regulation to a type of regulation where all costs benefits and outcomes cannot be known beforehand and where they cannot necessarily be quantifiable this has very provisionally been called public value regulation pvr

energy consumption cultural background and payment structure in order to reduce the ecological footprint of households and mitigate anthropogenic climate change policy makers need to understand which incentives drive household energy consumption economists tend to rely solely on financial instruments but these might have unintended consequences on energy consumption through non economic channels according to what we call the hackett lutzenhiser hypothesis the relation between households cultural background and their energy consumption differs under different payment structures the electricity consumption of households in the netherlands is categorized according to two different payment structures unit metered where households pay for their private electricity consumption and master metered where electricity costs are lump sum included in the rent our findings show that the range of variation in electricity consumption across cultural backgrounds is lower among unit metered than among master metered households in line with the hackett lutzenhiser hypothesis the policy implication is that consumers preferences cannot be simply taken as given as is customary in standard economic models but interact with the structure of financial incentives taxes and subsidies or fixed and flexible rates in energy bills not only change relative prices but may also interact with people s preferences

trust and the transformation of energy systems the author looks at diverse concepts and roles of trust in the challenge of decarbonising energy systems drawing on 25 years of personal experience in the fields of energy and environmental policy research the paper focuses on three issues public trust in science institutional trust in making technology choices and the idea that high trust societies are more sustainable than those exhibiting low trust while trust is a key concept in understanding the public acceptability of technology choices it is only one of a suite of interrelated concepts that must be addressed which also includes liability consent and fairness furthermore rational distrust among competing institutional world views may be critical in understanding the role of social capital in socioeconomic and technological development thus the concept of trust has become a portmanteau carrying a diverse range of ideas and conditions for sustainable energy systems the paper concludes with three emphases for decision makers first the issue is the energy system not particular generating technologies second the energy system must be recognized to be as much a social system as it is a technical one third the system requires incorporation of the minimum level of diversity of engineering technologies and social actors to be sustainable

does environmental information overcome practice compartmentalisation and change consumers behaviours this paper questions the long held paradigm of consumers rationality as well as its corresponding policy tool the supply of information theoretical considerations as well as empirical evidence from a research on residential energy consumption in belgium show that both environmental information namely on climate change and customised advice to save energy at home are neither just taken in as such by consumers nor translated into corresponding practices in consumerist societies practice compartmentalisation and moods are indeed normalised mechanisms for not adopting green lifestyles that would threaten social normality as defined in valued networks c 2007 published by elsevier ltd

the gender of opponents explaining gender differences in performance and risk taking abstract analyzing 8169 contestants over 32 years of the us game show jeopardy we find that women compete more aggressively become marginally more competitive and take on more risk when paired against men specifically a woman is more likely to win a jeopardy episode and within the show to respond to a clue once responding she is also marginally more likely to respond correctly potentially most surprising even the sizeable gender gap in risk taking analyzing daily double wagering decisions disappears once a woman competes in an otherwise all male field of competitors men on the other hand wager significantly less when paired against women only but the gender of opponents does not affect their competitive performance otherwise our rich sample allows us to control for a host of potentially confounding factors and player fixed effects thereby eliminating potential biases from unobservable individual characteristics our findings are consistent with an explanation that emphasizes an adaptation to social norms applied to gender

china s carbon emissions from urban and rural households during 1992 2007 in china rapid economic growth has stimulated fast urban expansion and rural household income and consumption expenditure in current paper an input output method is used to determine the impact of china s increased urban and rural household consumption on carbon emissions the results shows that the direct and indirect co 2 emission from household consumption accounted for more than 40 of total carbon emissions from primary energy utilization in china in 1992 2007 the population increase expansion of urbanization and the increase of household consumption per capita all contribute to an increase of indirect carbon emissions while carbon intensity decline mitigates the growth of carbon emissions therefore at the domestic level household consumption is of great significance for co 2 emission which could be mitigated through changing the composition of goods and services consumed by households and switching to consumption pattern of less carbon intensive products the government must consider the substantial contribution of household consumption to carbon emissions when china is encouraging consumption in order to address the current global financial crisis c 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

gender competitiveness and career choices gender differences in competitiveness have been hypothesized as a potential explanation for gender differences in education and labor market outcomes we examine the predictive power of a standard laboratory experimental measure of competitiveness for the later important choice of academic track of secondary school students in the netherlands although boys and girls display similar levels of academic ability boys choose substantially more prestigious academic tracks where more prestigious tracks are more math and science intensive our experimental measure shows that boys are also substantially more competitive than girls we find that competitiveness is strongly positively correlated with choosing more prestigious academic tracks even conditional on academic ability most important we find that the gender difference in competitiveness accounts for a substantial portion about 20 of the gender difference in track choice

energy consumption carbon emissions and economic growth in china abstract this paper investigates the existence and direction of granger causality between economic growth energy consumption and carbon emissions in china applying a multivariate model of economic growth energy use carbon emissions capital and urban population empirical results for china over the period 1960 2007 suggest a unidirectional granger causality running from gdp to energy consumption and a unidirectional granger causality running from energy consumption to carbon emissions in the long run evidence shows that neither carbon emissions nor energy consumption leads economic growth therefore the government of china can purse conservative energy policy and carbon emissions reduction policy in the long run without impeding economic growth

promoting household energy conservation in low income households through tailored interventions in grahamstown south africa abstract there is consensus among researchers and policy makers that households are major consumers of energy which results in serious environmental and financial costs however low income households in particular are often energy insecure and spend a substantial proportion of their income on energy expenditure therefore promoting household energy conservation is considered one of the key pathways to achieving sustainability in both environmental and financial terms this study examines the effectiveness of intervention strategies designed to promote energy conservation using data gathered among low income households in grahamstown south africa a total of 103 households participated in the experimental study energy conservation strategies including print media interactive face to face discussions and feedback were variably applied to different households the results show that the interventions were more effective in promoting energy conservation when applied conjointly rather than separately these results suggest that promoting pro environmental behaviour even among low income households is a possibility further household energy reduction had significant relationships with participants self reported actions and personal values but not with demographic characteristics this study provides useful insights into the complex interplay of personal and situational factors that shape household energy consumption the study underscores the important role that household driven programmes could play in promoting sustainable energy use with support from local municipal government

persistence in foreign exchange rates abstract this study examines the long run behavior of seven daily nominal exchange rates using univariate and multivariate persistence measures our results indicate that for some currencies the long run behavior deviates from that of a pure random walk in certain periods the multivariate estimates reflect the effect of both the ems exchange rate mechanism and increased post louvre accord coordinated intervention a large portion of the effect of a shock in one currency on another currency s long run value can be attributed to contemporaneous effects on the other currencies

the devil is in the details household electricity saving behavior and the role of information abstract the purpose of this paper is to analyze swedish households willingness to increase their daily efforts to save electricity the analysis builds on a broad theoretical framework which embraces both economic and norm based motivations in explaining household behavior the paper pays particular attention to the role of information about the availability of different behavioral changes that can be undertaken at the household level the empirical results are based on a postal survey that was sent out to 1200 swedish households and the econometric analysis is carried out within a so called ordered probit framework our results indicate that costs environmental attitudes and social interactions are all important determinants of electricity saving activities within swedish households we tested the hypothesis that information about available savings measures that is presented in a more concrete and specific way is more likely to affect stated behavior than is more general information and the data collected support this notion the paper ends by discussing some implications of these results for the design of future informative policy measures in the energy efficiency field

the impact of the menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptives on competitiveness we examine whether competitiveness in women is influenced by biological factors female participants in a laboratory experiment solve a simple arithmetics task first under a piece rate and then under a competitive tournament scheme participants can then choose which compensation scheme to apply in a third round we find that the likelihood of selecting into the competitive environment varies strongly and significantly over the menstrual cycle and with the intake of hormonal contraceptives the observed patterns are consistent with a negative impact of the sex hormone progesterone on competitiveness we show that the effect of the menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptives on competitiveness is due neither to an impact on performance nor to an impact on risk aversion or overconfidence

the cyclical component of u s economic activity quarterly data on industrial production and deflated gross national product in the united states from 1947 through 1985 are decomposed into independent nonstationary trend and stationary cycle components using kalman filtering and smoothing techniques estimates of the model parameters imply that at least half of the quarterly innovation in u s economic activity can be attributed to a stationary cyclical component that persists over periods of time as long as five years this finding is inconsistent with the hypothesis that most of the apparent variation in u s economic activity can be attributed to a nonstationary trend component

public praise vs private pay effects of rewards on energy conservation in the workplace any solution to rising levels of co2 depends on human behavior one common approach to changing human behavior is rewarding desired behavior because financial incentives often have side effects that diminish efficacy we predict that social rewards are more effective because they invoke adherence to descriptive and injunctive social norms we investigated this by measuring electricity use for 13 weeks at a dutch firm each week employees were rewarded for conserving energy they either received monetary rewards 0 5 or social rewards grade points with a descriptive comment rewards were either private or public in both the short and long term public rewards outperformed private rewards and social rewards outperformed monetary rewards this suggests that private monetary rewards although popular may be ineffective instead public social rewards may be a more promising approach to stimulating energy conservation we argue that this approach should be considered more frequently by policy makers

long and short term dynamic causal transmission amongst international stock markets abstract this paper investigates the dynamic causal linkages amongst nine major international stock price indexes in order to gauge the causal transmission patterns we employ very recent methods of i vector error correction modeling and ii level var modeling with possibly integrated and cointegrated processes advocated by i toda and phillips econometrica 61 1993 1367 and ii toda and yamamoto j econometrics 66 1995 225 respectively the paper illustrates how such methods may be appropriately augmented in a compatible fashion to unearth previously unfounded linkage properties inherent amongst a system of stock price indexes in particular we demonstrate that previous research by using ordinary difference vars ignored an important component of linkages displayed purely over the long run this untapped evidence essentially provides robust and very useful information to international financial analysts and investors at a substantive level results of this study tend to support the contention offered by several studies in the literature of significant interdependencies between the established oecd and the asian markets and also the leadership of the us and uk markets over the short and long run the levels var however illustrate the japanese market s influence as an additional long run leader findings seem to be plausible given that these three markets us uk and japan have consistently contributed over 75 of global stock market capitalization over the major part of the sample under consideration at a methodological level this analysis also provides a primer for the wealth of applied financial econometric research focusing on dynamic causal inference which involve systems containing possibly integrated and cointegrated processes

estimating energy conservation patterns of greek households abstract this paper develops an empirical model to investigate the main determinants of household energy conservation patterns in greece employing cross section data in the empirical analysis household energy conserving choices models are employed using a discrete and a latent trait variable respectively as a dependent variable the results show that socio economic variables such as consumers income and family size are suitable to explain differences towards energy conservation preferences in addition the results suggest that electricity expenditures and age of the respondent are negatively associated with the number of energy conserving actions that a consumer is willing to adopt finally other variables such as environmental information feedback and consciousness of energy problems are characteristics of the energy saver consumer by evaluating consumer s decision making process with regards to energy conservation measures we are able to formulate and propose an effective energy conservation framework for greece an energy policy framework is among the main prerequisites not only to achieve sustainable development but also to maintain consumers quality of life

scenario analysis of energy saving and co2 emissions reduction potentials to ratchet up japanese mitigation target in 2030 in the residential sector abstract this paper assesses to what extent co 2 emissions from electricity in the residential sector can be further reduced in japan beyond its post 2020 mitigation target known as intended nationally determined contribution indc the paper examines the reduction potential of electricity demand and co 2 emissions in the residential sector by conducting a scenario analysis electricity consumption scenarios are set up using a time series regression model and used to forecast the electricity consumption patterns to 2030 the scenario analysis also includes scenarios that reduce electricity consumption through enhanced energy efficiency and energy saving measures the obtained results show that japan can reduce electricity consumption and co 2 emissions in the residential sector in 2030 more than the japanese post 2020 mitigation target indicates at the maximum the electricity consumption could be reduced by 35 twh which contributes to 55 4 mtco 2 of emissions reduction in 2030 compared to 2013 if the voluntarily targeted co 2 intensity of electricity is achieved the result implies that japan has the potential to ratchet up post 2020 mitigation targets discussed under the paris agreement of the united nations framework convention on climate change unfccc

effects of customized consumption feedback on energy efficient behaviour in low income households abstract smart metering and various consumption feedback systems can be used as applicable technology to encourage end use energy efficiency in the residential sector many studies have demonstrated the positive influence of socially contextualized feedback on the energy consumption of households but not many such studies dealt with the specifics of low income households this paper evaluates the effect of customized consumption feedback and other information interactions on energy behaviour patterns and energy savings in low income households the experimentation process was accompanied by an interactive awareness campaign with the emphasis being on a proper understanding of the consumption feedback and other complementary energy services provided to low income households the feedback actions were customized to tackle the recognised needs of each specific target household considering both the social aspects and the typology of the dwelling the results clearly confirmed the importance of customized information and efficiency indicators for specific household groups with a potential to increase knowledge and develop awareness with respect to established habits and their relevance to energy behaviour

assessment of reasonably achievable ghg emission reduction target in lithuanian households abstract lithuania has developed several important climate change mitigation policy documents however there are no attempts in lithuania to develop local climate change mitigation policies or to decentralize climate change mitigation policy the aim of the paper is to analyse climate change mitigation policies in households the paper presents the framework for the assessment of reasonably achievable ghg emission reduction raer potential in households based on behavioral changes related to energy consumption the paper presents the results of empirical application of developed framework in lithuanian households community based social marketing approach was implemented and ghg emission reduction potential was assessed in focus groups of kaunas region county during preparation of sustainable development strategy and long term strategic development plan for kaunas region county

international evidence on the persistence of economic fluctuations abstract this paper presents new evidence on the persistence of fluctuations in real gnp we estimate two measures of persistence nonparametrically using post war quarterly data from canada france germany italy japan the united kingdom and the united states we compare these estimates with monte carlo results from various ar 2 processes for six out of seven countries the point estimates indicate that a 1 shock to output should change the long run unvariate forecast of output by well over 1 low order arma models yield similar conclusions finally we examine the persistence in relative outputs of different countries

performance in competitive environments gender differences even though the provision of equal opportunities for men and women has been a priority in many countries large gender differences prevail in competitive high ranking positions suggested explanations include discrimination and differences in preferences and human capital in this paper we present experimental evidence in support of an additional factor women may be less effective than men in competitive environments even if they are able to perform similarly in non competitive environments in a laboratory experiment we observe as we increase the competitiveness of the environment a significant increase in performance for men but not for women this results in a significant gender gap in performance in tournaments while there is no gap when participants are paid according to piece rate this effect is stronger when women have to compete against men than in single sex competitive environments this suggests that women may be able to perform in competitive environments per se

energy conservation nudges and environmentalist ideology evidence from a randomized residential electricity field experiment nudges are being widely promoted to encourage energy conservation we show that while the electricity conservation nudge of providing feedback to households on own and peers home electricity usage works with liberals it can backfire with conservatives our regression estimates predict that a democratic household that pays for electricity from renewable sources that donates to environmental groups and that lives in a liberal neighborhood reduces its consumption by 3 percent in response to this nudge a republican household that does not pay for electricity from renewable sources and that does not donate to environmental groups increases its consumption by 1 percent

explaining the energy efficiency gap expected utility theory versus cumulative prospect theory abstract energy efficiency is one of the key factors in mitigating the impact of climate change and preserving non renewable resources although environmental and economic justifications for energy efficiency investments are compelling there is a gap between the observable and some notion of optimized energy consumption the so called energy efficiency gap behavioral biases in individual decision making have been resonated by environmental research to explain this gap to analyze the influence of behavioral biases on decisions upon energy efficiency investments quantitatively we compare expected utility theory with cumulative prospect theory on basis of a real world example we illustrate how the extent of the gap is influenced by behavioral biases such as loss aversion probability weighting and framing our findings indicate that cumulative prospect theory offers possible explanations for many barriers discussed in literature for example the size of the gap rises with increased risk and investment costs because behavioral biases are systematic and pervasive our insights constitute a valuable quantitative basis for environmental policy measures such as customer focused and quantitatively backed public awareness campaigns financial incentives or energy savings insurances in this vein this paper may contribute to an accelerated adaption of energy efficiency measures by the broader public

energy saving and energy efficiency concepts for policy making departing from the concept of rational use of energy the paper outlines the microeconomics of end use energy saving as a result of frugality or efficiency measures frugality refers to the behaviour that is aimed at energy conservation and with efficiency we refer to the technical ratio between energy input and output services that can be modified with technical improvements e g technology substitution changing behaviour from one side and technology from the other are key issues for public energy policy in this paper we attempt to identify the effects of parameters that determine energy saving behaviour with the use of the microeconomic theory the role of these parameters is crucial and can determine the outcome of energy efficiency policies therefore policymakers should properly address them when designing policies