imperfect competition and the keynesian cross abstract this paper presents a simple general equilibrium model in which the only non walrasian feature is imperfect competition in the goods market the model is shown to exhibit various keynesian characteristics in particular as competition in the goods market becomes less perfect the fiscal policy multipliers approach the values implied by the textbook keynesian cross

fuel poverty in the uk is there a difference between rural and urban areas abstract fuel poverty is a significant policy issue an argument often made is that rural households are more likely to be fuel poor due to the nature of rural housing stock and the more limited choice of energy sources in rural areas this paper uses panel data to compare the level and dynamics of fuel poverty in rural and urban areas of the uk in addition to descriptive analysis discrete hazard models of fuel poverty exit and re entry are estimated and used to assess the influence of housing and personal characteristics on the time spent in fuel poverty the results indicate that on average the experience of fuel poverty in urban areas is longer with a higher probability of fuel poverty persistence however on average the rural fuel poor appear more vulnerable to energy price increases while living in private accommodation or a flat increases their probability of remaining fuel poor relative to their urban counterparts these results indicate policy effectiveness may differ across rural and urban space however they also emphasise the limits of spatial targeting monitoring the dynamics of fuel poverty is important for ensuring that policy targets are effective and reaching those most in need

building synergies between climate change mitigation and energy poverty alleviation abstract even though energy poverty alleviation and climate change mitigation are inextricably linked policy goals they have remained as relatively disconnected fields of research inquiry and policy development acknowledging this gap this paper explores the mainstream academic and policy literatures to provide a taxonomy of interactions and identify synergies and trade offs between them the most important trade off identified is the potential increase in energy poverty levels as a result of strong climate change action if the internalisation of the external costs of carbon emissions is not offset by efficiency gains the most significant synergy was found in deep energy efficiency in buildings the paper argues that neither of the two problems deep reductions in ghg emissions by mid century and energy poverty eradication is likely to be solved fully on their own merit while joining the two policy goals may provide a very solid case for deep efficiency improvements thus the paper calls for a strong integration of these two policy goals plus other key related benefits like energy security or employment in order to provide sufficient policy motivation to mobilise a wide scale implementation of deep energy efficiency standards

objective vs subjective fuel poverty and self assessed health abstract identification of fuel poverty and its impact on individuals is a growing social issue classifying households using subjective measures of fuel poverty yields different results than when objective measures are used moreover there are assessment related difficulties in establishing the effects on health and wellbeing which hinders policy design to tackle this problem in this paper we propose a latent class ordered probit model to control for subjectivity when analysing the influence of fuel poverty on self reported health this methodology is applied to a sample of 25 000 individuals in 11 000 households for the 2011 2014 period in spain where 5 1 million people 11 of the population could not afford to heat their homes to an adequate temperature in 2014 the results show that poor housing conditions low income material deprivation and fuel poverty have a negative impact on health we also find that the effect of objective fuel poverty and other poverty related factors on health are stronger when we control for unobserved heterogeneity among individuals since objective measures alone may not fully capture the adverse effect of fuel poverty on health we advocate policy approaches that combine both objective and subjective measures and its application by policymakers

energy affordability in the eu the risks of metric driven policies abstract this paper provides a pan eu mapping of energy affordability using energy expenditure shares large variations in energy expenditure shares are identified with the shares being significantly higher in new member states than the eu15 first these variations indicate that a single expenditure based pan eu fuel poverty metric is problematic there is a trade off between a metric identifying households in most need within individual member states and one identifying households in a similar position across member states second household level data from the uk france and the republic of ireland are used to simulate the impact of policy interventions involving energy expenditure reductions or income increases on the recorded rate of fuel poverty these simulations highlight that emphasising high level fuel poverty metrics may distort policymakers choices towards improving the picture of fuel poverty rather than maximising welfare improvements robust impact assessments identifying the fuel poverty interventions which deliver the greatest welfare increases for a given cost offer a better means of policy evaluation

measuring fuel poverty in france which households are the most fuel vulnerable fuel poverty is a growing concern in france following the hike in energy prices that started in 2004 the problem of energy affordability for low income households entered the political debate with the grenelle de l environnement in 2007 according to the standard uk definition 10 ratio 3 8 million households were subject to fuel poverty in france in 2006 we question the way fuel poverty is currently measured and compare the impact of alternative measurement approaches on the extent and composition of fuel poverty in france then we identify and characterize vulnerable households that are not ordinarily poor but can be pushed into poverty because of their fuel bills a logit a clog log and a mixed effect logit model are used to analyze which factors influence the probability of vulnerable households to fall into poverty the study indicates that the proportion of fuel poor people and their characteristics differ significantly depending on the fuel poverty measure chosen the econometric results show that the probability of falling into poverty is higher for those who are retired living alone rent their home use an individual boiler for heating cook with butane or propane and have poor roof insulation current french fuel poverty reduction policies appear to be inappropriate given our conclusions

monopolistic competition as a foundation for keynesian macroeconomic models a general equilibrium macroeconomic model based on monopolistic competition is presented the model exhibits a traditional multiplier in the short run but due to free entry the multiplier disappears in the long run by construction all agents are fully rational the keynesian results are a consequence of the assumption of monopolistic competition which creates a divergence between optimal private behavior and optimal social behavior

measuring energy poverty in greece a comprehensive research in the field of energy poverty is undertaken in this paper in an attempt to highlight the great vulnerability of greek households on energy poverty in the middle of a severe economic crisis till now greek energy policy has been considered insufficient to tackle energy poverty issues as focusing mainly on short term rather than permanent solutions a primary survey has been conducted recording objective data of energy expenses as well as subjective perceptions about housing conditions the findings showed that under the objective expenditure based method 58 of greek households are energy poor among households under the poverty threshold the energy poverty rate exceeds 90 existing and new subjective indicators shed light on other aspects of energy poverty such as the level of thermal comfort at home damp problems detected restriction of other essential needs in order to manage energy payments etc some interesting conclusions are also drawn by exploring the relationship between various indicators it appears that households considered energy poor are not identical when examined by objective and subjective indicators however different indicators complement each other by capturing different aspects of the problem and provide a broader overview of the issue

a new approach to measuring the rebound effect associated to energy efficiency improvements an application to the us residential energy demand this paper brings attention to the fact that the energy demand frontier model introduced by filippini and hunt 2011 2012 is closely connected to the measurement of the so called rebound effect associated with improvements in energy efficiency in particular we show that their model implicitly imposes a zero rebound effect which contradicts most of the available empirical evidence on this issue we relax this restrictive assumption through the modelling of a rebound effect function that mitigates or intensifies the effect of an efficiency improvement on energy consumption we illustrate our model with an empirical application that aims to estimate a us frontier residential aggregate energy demand function using panel data for 48 states over the period 1995 to 2011 average values of the rebound effect in the range of 56 80 are found therefore policymakers should be aware that most of the expected energy reduction from efficiency improvements may not be achieved

quantifying the prevalence of fuel poverty across the european union abstract the literature and policy base for fuel poverty in the uk and ireland is well established and there is a growing body of single country studies beyond these two eu member states for example brunner et al 2012 dubois 2012 robine et al 2008 however on a european level the last analysis of fuel poverty was conducted in 2004 prior to the enlargement of the eu using survey data this paper presents an updated overview of the prevalence of european fuel poverty in the context of the accession of numerous former social states and rising fuel prices analysis reveals the phenomenon of fuel poverty is occurring across the eu with particularly high levels of fuel poverty found in eastern and southern european states it is argued that there are both eu and national policy frameworks in place that address climate change and these could be used as a starting point for countries to address fuel poverty through improved domestic energy efficiency measures this paper reflects research undertaken in 2011 supported by eaga charitable trust within the umbrella of work examining issues of poverty and social exclusion across the eu which has enabled access to the eu silc dataset

objective and subjective measures of fuel poverty as energy prices continue to rise to reflect the real cost of carbon the numbers of households in fuel poverty is increasing rapidly this paper uses a unique data set to explore one alternative measure of fuel poverty based on whether consumers feel able to afford their energy similar to one introduced by the government a few years ago we explore the links between an expenditure based and our subjective measure of fuel poverty and compare these differences with those between official measures amongst low income households 28 spent more than a tenth of their income on energy in the home and so would be likely to qualify as fuel poor under the most usual definition but only 16 felt unable to afford sufficient energy to keep their homes warm amongst this group who felt they had difficulty in affording sufficient energy less than half were expenditure fuel poor the paper argues that reintroduction of a self reported measure by the government would be a valuable aid to policy development

coping with low incomes and cold homes abstract this paper presents findings from a study of low income households in great britain which explored households strategies for coping both with limited financial resources in the winter months when demand for domestic energy increases and in some cases with cold homes the study combined a national survey of 699 households with an income below 60 per cent of national median income with in depth interviews with a subsample of 50 households the primary strategy adopted by low income households to cope with financial constraint was to reduce spending including spending on essentials such as food and fuel and thereby keep up with core financial commitments while spending on food was usually reduced by cutting the range and quality of food purchased spending on energy was usually reduced by cutting consumption sixty three per cent of low income households had cut their energy consumption in the previous winter and 47 per cent had experienced cold homes improvements to the thermal performance of homes reduced but did not eliminate the risk of going cold as any heating cost could be a burden to households on the lowest incomes householders attitudes were central to their coping strategies with most expressing a determination to get by come what may

from targeting to implementation the role of identification of fuel poor households this paper proposes to evaluate the efficiency of fuel poverty policies by looking at them as a three step process these steps are policy targeting identification of households and implementation of measures each of these steps are costly and can face feasibility problems this is particularly true in the case of fuel poverty policies because of the multidimensional aspect of fuel poverty therefore public policies in that field are necessarily imperfect and this should be taken into account in the analysis of policies this three step framework is applied to the french fuel poverty policy which has been developed in 2010 as its practical modalities of implementation are still under discussion we mainly discuss the choices made in terms of targeting and highlight the role of identification of fuel poor households as a key factor for the success of that policy the general idea behind this discussion is that the efficiency of such policies has to be viewed in a comprehensive way which includes the three policy steps

analysis of energy poverty intensity from the perspective of the regional administration empirical evidence from households in southern europe abstract the current economic situation has increased the number of households in europe experiencing restrictions and or limitations of affordability of energy services demonstrating the urgent need to intervene in those extreme cases in which households suffer the daily consequences of what is internationally defined as energy poverty in such a context this paper presents the results obtained in a case study characterising a sample of 615 households with demonstrated energy poverty in the region of aragon spain in parallel the intensity of energy poverty in the studied cases is examined by measuring the percentage of energy expenditures with respect to income in the households that suffer it and a descriptive analysis of the main determinants of energy poverty in the homes studied is presented as well as the policy implication at regional level

definitions of fuel poverty implications for policy abstract this paper outlines why the definition of fuel poverty is important in policy formulation and describes how the government s current definitions evolved from the original concept it discusses the determination of income and fuel costs and the possibilities for a relative and common european measure it examines problems inherent in assessing fuel costs as a percentage of income and puts forward the arguments for a budget standard approach the paper illustrates how the size of the problem depends on the definition and chosen threshold and suggests advantages for a rating scale it illustrates how the income composition and thresholds also govern the distribution of the target populations and the relative importance of the main causal factors and examines the consequent policy implications it explores the definition of vulnerable households and the importance of severity and questions whether the uk fuel poverty strategy is targeted at households least able to afford their fuel costs as the name implies or primarily those at risk from excess winter and summer mortality and morbidity finally after examining the role of supplementary indicators it looks at the opportunities for changing the definition and comments on the government review of the definition and targets

energy affordability and the benefits system in italy abstract in this paper we discuss a number of ways to define and measure the affordability of energy consumption and we examine the emergence of energy poverty in italy in the period from 1998 to 2011 the paper examines the eligibility criteria for claiming the benefits available to support energy consumption for vulnerable families and it identifies the potential beneficiaries the study assesses the appropriateness of the eligibility criteria by comparing the population targeted by the policy with the population actually facing affordability problems a simulation exercise using the hypothetical scenario most likely to result in energy benefits being made available shows that regardless of the affordability index adopted the provision of state energy benefits has little impact on fuel poverty

international emissions trading good or bad abstract using a non cooperative climate policy game applied in the literature we find that an agreement with international emissions trading leads to increased emissions and reduced efficiency

contrasting approaches to fuel poverty in new zealand we contrast two measures of fuel poverty in new zealand the first is based on estimated expenditure of over 10 of household income on fuel the second is self reported deprivation of fuel because of an inability to afford it households denoted as fuel poor on the two measures are mostly different and the findings suggest that research is needed to investigate if different households make different trade offs between expenditure on fuel and other necessities

the dynamically extended keynesian cross and the welfare improving fiscal policy abstract we construct a dynamic keynesian cross the dynamic extension allows for seigniorage on government financing in lieu of lump sum taxation because seigniorage imposes no tax burden expansionary fiscal policy improves welfare even if wasteful

imperfect competition the keynesian cross and optimal fiscal policy abstract this note analyzes a simple keynesian macro model with imperfect competition and demonstrates that the optimal fiscal policy is a complete shutdown taxes and government purchases should both be zero if the model is extended slightly then welfare improving policies may exist however the benefits are generated in part by the public goods nature of government purchases and not just by the multiplier process it appears that the multiplier alone is not sufficient to justify the use of fiscal policy