inequality of opportunity in energy consumption in china abstract this paper proposes an empirical implementation of the concept of inequality of opportunity in energy consumption expenditure and applies this to data from chinese general social survey cgss we examine the role played by circumstances beyond the control of individuals for instance gender hukou status family background and region of birth in generating inequality in energy consumption expenditure in china this study shows that the relative share of inequality of opportunity ior in energy consumption expenditure in china is 10 02 for the entire sample ior turns out to be larger for the older cohort peaking at 14 40 for the 1955 64 cohort a shapley value decomposition presents that hukou status and region of birth are the two largest contributors to inequality of opportunity across birth cohorts a heterogeneity analysis further shows that more disadvantaged groups for instance female individuals born in the west of rural china with worse family backgrounds are facing more unequal opportunities in energy consumption in china these results suggest that energy policies focused on zero discrimination in opportunities should be encouraged

spatial sustainability trade and indicators an evaluation of the ecological footprint the search for frameworks and indicators of sustainable development has taken a prominent place in this journal however some specific aspects have received little or no attention notably the spatial dimension and the role of international trade in indicator development moreover many sustainable development indicators comprise implicit valuations weighting schemes and policy objectives which are insufficiently recognised as such this contribution tries to highlight these issues by means of a review of a recently proposed indicator for ecological economic analysis namely the ecological footprint that has been developed by wackernagel and rees its concept and calculation procedure are criticised on a number of points and it is concluded that the ecological footprint is not the comprehensive and transparent planning tool as is often assumed in explaining our position we will argue that spatial sustainability and regional sustainable development have not been precisely discussed so far neither in the literature on trade and environment nor in that on sustainable development we will defend the view that trade can contribute positively and negatively to environmental unsustainability consequently indicators and models are needed that allow for analysing interactions and trade offs between such opposite effects 1999 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

technological change and the rebound effect in the stirpat model a critical view abstract technological change is key to understand the explanatory variables behind environmental impacts in the context of the stirpat stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology model an adequate representation and analysis of the significance of the technology variable t in the stirpat model becomes crucial even more if one aims to better understand underlying processes such as the environmental rebound effect e re a critical review of the application of the stirpat model has been conducted to understand the diversity and value of the variables scopes assumptions statistical approaches and the environmental impacts commonly studied the findings highlight that despite the multiple applications and the high potential of the stirpat model inconclusive results and or knowledge gaps remain notably 1 a geographical imbalance in the scope of studies 2 the almost exclusive focus on carbon emissions 3 a lack of agreement on the choice of data additional explanatory variables and regression models 4 a lack of consensus on how to approximate t and 5 a lack of explicit analyses of the e re our findings are useful to both policymakers and academics for method design further research and policy evaluation

energy consumption and urban sprawl evidence for the spanish case residential electricity consumption constitutes one of the largest sources of spanish final energy demand to improve electricity savings policies oriented towards efficiency in residential consumption such as replacement of appliances or the construction of nearly zero energy buildings have been suggested and implemented however the potential relevance of urban structural characteristics such as the increase in detached houses in sprawling residential areas has not often been considered the aim of this research is to analyse the relevance of living in a detached house located in a dispersed urban area to household electricity consumption thus an electricity consumption model is estimated by using household socioeconomic variables and including urban characteristics as its determinants such us the level of urban agglomeration or whether families live in detached sprawling homes the model is estimated by using 2014 household budget survey hbs microdata and applying ordinary least squares ols as well as quantile regressions qr as econometric procedures endogeneity problems are corrected by means of instrumental variables the results confirm that living in a detached house significantly increases electricity consumption whereas urban agglomerations have the opposite effect sprawl is occurring rapidly in spanish cities and according to our results it could constitute a relevant source of increase in electricity demand in the following years

perceptual and structural barriers to investing in natural capital economics from an ecological footprint perspective this paper argues that perceptual distortions and prevailing economic rationality far from encouraging investment in natural capital actually accelerate the depletion of natural capital stocks moreover conventional monetary analyses cannot detect the problem this paper therefore makes the case for direct biophysical measurement of relevant stocks and flows and uses for this purpose the ecological footprint concept to develop the argument the paper elaborates the natural capital concept and asserts the need of investing in natural capital to compensate for net losses it shows how the ecological footprint can be used as a biophysical measure for such capital and applies this concept as an analytical tool for examining the barriers to investing in natural capital it picks four issues from a rough taxonomy of barriers and discusses them from an ecological footprint perspective it shows why marginal prices cannot reflect ecological necessities how interregional risk pooling encourages resource liquidation how present terms of trade undermine both local and global ecological stability and how efficiency strategies may actually accelerate resource throughput affirming the necessity of biophysical approaches for exploring the sustainability implications of basic ecological and thermodynamic principles it draws lessons for current development

indirect carbon emissions in household consumption evidence from the urban and rural area in china abstract resident energy consumption can be divided into direct and indirect parts and the indirect part is often considered to be much more important than direct part by some scholars in this paper on the basis of consumer lifestyle approach cla and the estimation of net primary productivity npp energy ecological footprint eef of indirect energy consumption is calculated using statistical data of chinese urban and rural areas from 1999 to 2010 and then improved stirpat stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology model is used to empirically study the influences of urbanization level economic level engel coefficient energy intensity and industry structure on indirect energy consumption given the consideration of potential multicollinearity the model is estimated using partial least square pls regression the results indicate that for urban residents the eef of indirect energy use is on the rise it is positively influenced by urbanization level per capita income and the ratio of tertiary industry but negatively influenced by engel coefficient and energy intensity for rural residents the eef is declining it is positively influenced by engel coefficient energy intensity and tertiary industry proportion while negatively influenced by urbanization level and per capita income combining these empirical findings and china s specific circumstances some policy recommendations are made

analyzing the impact factors of energy related co2 emissions in china what can spatial panel regressions tell us abstract china produces a huge amount of co2 emissions that need to be reduced to comply with international commitments identifying the driving factors is critical for achieving mitigation targets and transiting toward a low carbon economy in china this study is one of the first few attempts to apply panel data and spatial econometrics models to analyze the spatial dependence of province level co2 emission intensity and the economic drivers of such emissions first we conducted a systematical review of the development of spatial econometrics second we generated a panel data set about energy and socioeconomic development of 30 provinces and municipalities in china from 2005 to 2012 next we chose the most appropriate model to explain the predominant factors of energy related co2 emissions based on a series of tests of the spatial econometrics models the results suggested that technology improvement adjustment of industrial and energy structures and environmentally friendly behaviors and patterns of consumption of habitants play an important role in co2 emissions mitigation the results also revealed that co2 emissions had strong spatial spillover effects which indicate that policies adopted in one province will affect policy making in neighboring provinces implying that provinces need take combined action to balance climate change mitigation and economic policy goals

how does energy consumption affect china s urbanization new evidence from dynamic threshold panel models abstract energy consumption may play different roles at different stages of urbanization and economic growth given china s rapid economic development and urbanization process this study tries to explore the possible nonlinear relationship between energy consumption and urbanization in china against the background of promoting new type urbanization the level of china s urbanization is evaluated comprehensively using the entropy method a newly developed dynamic threshold panel model is employed to examine the nexus of energy consumption and comprehensive urbanization with full consideration of heterogeneous characteristics the panel data vector autoregression or pvar model is also used to estimate the direct effects of various energy consumption patterns on the urbanization the empirical results indicate that the nexus of energy consumption and urbanization is indeed nonlinear and that energy consumption is conducive to promote china s urbanization at the current stage of development however the positive effect decreases when there is an increase in energy consumption intensity and energy consumption scale whereas the effect increases with the promotion of energy consumption structure

the effect of new type urbanization on energy consumption in china a spatial econometric analysis abstract china s urbanization is rapidly proceeding while bringing marked impact on the energy consumption this paper contributes to current literature by using an improved spatial econometric model stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stirpat to investigate the effect of urbanization on energy consumption for china s regions the impact of urbanization is further disaggregated into direct and indirect impacts from the perspective of spatial econometrics results show that if the urbanization level increases by 1 0 energy consumption levels will correspondingly decrease by 0 089 the spatial spillover effect on adjacent areas is positive a 1 0 increase in one specific area s urbanization level leads to a 0 136 increase in an adjacent area s energy consumption it is suggested that it is essential to devote major efforts to energy conservation in the process of improving the new type urbanization in particular disaggregating china s targets for controlling energy consumption into smaller targets for different regions will contribute to controlling the growth of energy consumption

applying quantile regression and shapley decomposition to analyzing the determinants of household embedded carbon emissions evidence from urban china abstract as co2 emissions differ in households with different characteristics mitigation policies still address the contributions of these characteristics and their effects on specific households using a representative resident survey in urban china this paper compares how household characteristics differ in their associations with household embedded carbon emissions heces at different levels by quantile regression then this paper analyzes the contributions of these characteristics by shapley decomposition the findings include the following i household income is the most important contributor to the difference of heces and its positive effect increases as heces rise ii the use of wealth has different effects on heces because household housing ownership and deposits contribute little to heces but the positive effects of household car ownership contribute 25 8 iii young people and children will emit more heces than adults the employed emit more than persons who are unemployed or retired iv education increases heces overall but mainly at the low quantiles the negative effect of the marriage increases as heces rise v income car ownership marital status size and constitution of households with high heces should be addressed to reduce the inequality of heces indeed education on the low carbon concept is another way forward

diagnostics before prescription few branches of economics have wielded as much infl uence on the world ew branches of economics have wielded as much infl uence on the world of policy as development economics virtually every major development of policy as development economics virtually every major development strategy of the last 50 years is associated with some pioneering research that strategy of the last 50 years is associated with some pioneering research that provided its intellectual underpinnings consider some of the key milestones the provided its intellectual underpinnings consider some of the key milestones the dominant import substitution policies of the 1950s and 1960s were the practical dominant import substitution policies of the 1950s and 1960s were the practical realization of the ideas of prebisch 1959 and singer 1964 and were based on the realization of the ideas of prebisch 1959 and singer 1964 and were based on the famous prebisch singer thesis on the declining terms of trade for primary products famous prebisch singer thesis on the declining terms of trade for primary products and the dynamic benefi ts of manufacturing the emphasis on development planand the dynamic benefi ts of manufacturing the emphasis on development planning in those same decades was greatly infl uenced by rosenstein rodan s 1943 ning in those same decades was greatly infl uenced by rosenstein rodan s 1943 big push framework with its stress on increasing returns to scale and the need big push framework with its stress on increasing returns to scale and the need to kick start growth through large scale investments and the planning model of to kick start growth through large scale investments and the planning model of mahalanobis 1955 which argued that economic development could be accelermahalanobis 1955 which argued that economic development could be accelerated by government encouragement of heavy industry ated by government encouragement of heavy industry when such models were discarded in the 1980s in favor of more outwardwhen such models were discarded in the 1980s in favor of more outwardand market oriented strategies it was in no small measure because of the research and market oriented strategies it was in no small measure because of the research published during the 1970s by balassa 1971 bhagwati 1978 krueger 1978 published during the 1970s by balassa 1971 bhagwati 1978 krueger 1978 and little scitovsky and scott 1970 the washington consensus of the 1990s and little scitovsky and scott 1970 the washington consensus of the 1990s despite its appellation represented the common views of a group of despite its appellation represented the common views of a group of latin american technocrats and policymakers many of whom had trained at top economics departtechnocrats and policymakers many of whom had trained at top economics departments in the united states the infl uential human development reports of the

theories of poverty traps and anti poverty policies in this paper we provide a conceptual overview of alternative mechanisms leading to poverty traps at the individual level making a distinction between those that are due to external frictions e g market failure and those that are due to behavior under extreme scarcity in the absence of any frictions we develop a common theoretical framework to examine alternative scenarios characterizing conditions under which poverty traps in the sense of multiple stable steady states arise as opposed to possibly conditional convergence to a unique steady state we apply this framework to discuss the relative merits of alternative anti poverty policies such as unconditional and conditional cash transfers and direct interventions aimed at improving market access to the poor or improving public service delivery jel codes d13 d23 o12 o15

indirect carbon emissions of urban households in china patterns determinants and inequality abstract the urban household sector is considered to be an essential source of climate change in order to obtain detailed information concerning the description of household consumption activities this paper combined consumer lifestyle approach and input output analysis to estimate indirect carbon emissions of urban household from 2002 to 2012 besides we further analysed the driving forces and inequality of indirect carbon emissions the results showed that the total indirect carbon emissions during the study period increased rapidly rising from 894 08 mtco2 to 1957 03 mtco2 more than 58 of carbon emissions were from 40 of the high income population the highest income group 10 of total urban households deduced 21 of urban indirect carbon emissions the per capita carbon emissions of different households showed a remarkable disparity and the per capita carbon emissions of high income groups decreased from 2011 to 2012 the effective mitigation efforts should focus on reducing carbon intensity and shifting consumption structure for high inequality consumption activities caused by rich households rich urban households should consume less goods and services from this consumption activities for high inequality consumption activities caused by low income households the redistribution of income from rich to poor and low carbon intensity lifestyles may be better options to reduce carbon emissions and inequalities of urban households

a machine learning analysis of the relationship among iron and steel industries air pollution and economic growth in china abstract the aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship among iron and steel industries air pollution and economic growth in china using monthly time series from 2000 to 2017 we adopt a long short term memory lstm approach the empirical results show that the relationship between economic growth and steel production is very strong in the first stage furthermore in our model we can see that the reduction of polluting emissions is linked to the principle of sustainable development in particular this phenomenon lies in the economic growth model responsible for the future generation

impacts of urbanization on renewable energy consumption in china abstract in this paper we used the logarithmic mean divisia index method to investigate the impact of urbanization on renewable energy consumption growth recg the growth in renewable energy consumption is attributed to the urbanization effect energy mix effect energy intensity effect economic effect and population effect recg can be roughly divided into the slow growth stage the fluctuant growth stage and the accelerated growth stage the results showed that the energy mix effect economic effect and population effect positively affected recg however a significantly negative relationship was found between energy intensity and recg furthermore the contribution of urbanization differed in recg stages and urbanization contributed more to the total energy consumption growth than to recg this study would thus provide policymakers with insights about the link between urbanization and renewable energy consumption

reform without losers an interpretation of china s dual track approach to transition this paper develops a simple model to analyze the dual track approach to market liberalization as a mechanism for implementing efficient pareto improving economic reform that is reform achieving efficiency without creating losers the approach based on the continued enforcement of the existing plan while simultaneously liberalizing the market can be understood as a method for making implicit lump sum transfers to compensate potential losers of the reform the model highlights the critical roles of enforcement of the plan for achieving pareto improvement and full liberalization of the market track for achieving efficiency we examine how the dual track approach has worked in product and labor market liberalization in china

development paradigm failures over time the international development community has advocated various development paradigms but countries following these paradigms have often performed poorly we provide an explanation for this poor performance in our model the political leader of a developing country chooses a policy and whether to implement it in an honest or corrupt manner these choices affect domestic production and aid inflows production is high when productive capacity is high and when the policy is appropriate in the country specific circumstances and implemented honestly aid inflows are high when the policy is close to the paradigm in equilibrium countries with low productive capacity and high corruption resulting from weak political institutions follow the paradigm more closely hence our model suggests that development paradigms have a tendency to fail because they are primarily followed by countries that would fail anyway we provide empirical evidence in support of the main assumptions and results

second best institutions the focus of reforms in the developing world has moved from getting prices right to getting institutions right this reflects the recognition that markets are unlikely to work well in the absence of a predictable and legitimate set of rules that support economic activity and dis pense its fruits governance reforms have become the buzzword for bilateral donors and multilateral institutions in much the same way that liberalization privatization and stabiliza tion were the mantras of the 1980s but what kind of institutions should reform ers strive to build it is easier to list the func tions that good institutions perform than it is to describe the shape they should take desirable institutions provide security of property rights enforce contracts stimulate entrepreneurship foster integration in the world economy maintain macroeconomic stability manage risk taking by financial intermediaries supply social insurance and safety nets and enhance voice and account ability but as the variety of institutional forms that prevail in the advanced countries themselves suggests richard freeman 2000 peter hall and david soskice 2001 each one of these ends can be achieved in a large number of different ways rodrik 2007a

footprints on the earth the environmental consequences of modernity growing evidence demonstrating clear threats to the sustainability of the ecosystems supporting human societies has given rise to a variety of sociological theories of human environment interactions these environmental impact theories fall into three general perspectives human ecology modernization and political economy these theories however have not been empirically tested in a common analytic framework here a framework that relies on ecological principles is adopted and modified using a revised stochastic formulation of that framework and the most comprehensive measure of environmental impact to date the ecological footprint the factors driving the environmental impacts of societies are assessed the overall findings support the claims of human ecologists partially support the claims of political economists and contradict the claims of modernization theorists basic material conditions such as population economic production urbanization and geographical factors all affect the environment and explain the vast majority of cross national variation in environmental impact factors derived from neo liberal modernization theory such as political freedom civil liberties and state environmentalism have no effect on impacts taken together these findings suggest societies cannot be sanguine about achieving sustainability via a continuation of current trends in economic growth and institutional change authors

the carbon footprint of greek households 1995 2012 abstract the goal of this paper is twofold i to investigate the carbon footprint of greek households throughout the period 1995 2012 in order to identify the main socio economic factors that affect ghg emissions and ii to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented policies to tackle climate change in this a consumption based emissions inventory approach is applied the analysis is based on an environmentally extended input output model including direct co2 emissions from households indirect co2 emissions from electricity consumption and indirect co2 emissions from energy used in the production of goods and services purchased by households domestic or imported statistical analysis and appropriate regression models were developed in order to identify the main factors influencing the carbon footprint of greek households the results indicate that the observed trends during the period 1995 2008 can be attributed to the effect of high economic growth this trend is partially counterbalanced by favorable weather conditions and the implementation of greenhouse mitigation policies and measures mainly in the supply side since 2008 the shrinking household income is the dominant driver in addition the effectiveness of energy conservation policies and measures in place is rather low while the effect of imports is limited

disagreement and learning about reforms when it comes to economic reforms in developing countries many economists agree on broad objectives broad objectives however can be pursued in different ways and policy experimentation is often indispensable for learning which alternative works locally we propose a theoretical model to study this societal learning process the model explores the role of disagreeing beliefs about what works it suggests that such disagreement can stall the societal learning process and cause economic stagnation although everyone knows that growth promoting reforms do exist our analysis is motivated by the observation of a negative relationship between disagreement and economic growth among poorer countries

entrepreneur passion and preparedness in business plan presentations a persuasion analysis of venture capitalists funding decisions we investigated the extent to which venture capitalists vcs perceptions of entrepreneurial passion influence the vcs investment decisions we defined entrepreneurial passion as an entreprene

better statistics better economic policies abstract more and more economic transactions leave a digital footprint this trend opens unprecedented opportunities for improving economic statistics and underpins demands to give statistical agencies far reaching access to private sector data we analyze the consequences of better economic statistics in a political agency framework that includes fundamental uncertainty about the impact of potentially welfare enhancing reforms we demonstrate that improvements in economic statistics can inhibit rather than stimulate reform attempts with better statistics the government is less likely to receive the benefit of the doubt if the numbers suggest its past reforms are failing reforms therefore come with a higher risk of electoral losses implying that the government has stronger incentives to preserve the status quo we identify political environments that are particularly vulnerable to this mechanism and contribute to the debate on private sector data access

emerging strategies in the venture capital industry abstract this article reports a study of the future direction of the venture capital industry by examining the basic strategies and strategic assumptions of a broad sample of venture capital firms there are three main sets of results first the once homogeneous venture capital industry is rapidly dividing into several different strategic groups members of these groups are increasingly distinguishing themselves from other groups on four basic dimensions followed by member firms 1 financial resources equity capital comes from a greater variety of sources five major sources resulting in fundamentally different demands on the mission of the receiving venture capital firm 2 staff resources the way venture capital firms use staff resources particularly regarding investee management assistance is becoming increasingly varied across different groups some firms provide fewer than 2 days per year while others provide up to 450 man days per year per client 3 venture stages while the overall industry retains a primary interest in stage 1 2 and 3 investment specific firms vary considerably in the distribution of investment emphasis across these three stages 4 use of financial resources firms in the industry are becoming increasingly differentiated in the size of minimum investments they make 100 m to 1000 m and in their role as a direct investor versus a broker for institutional funds practicing venture capitalists should make use of this first set of findings in two ways first they may find it useful to compare their firm s orientation along these four strategic dimensions with those of the firm s that comprised this study second they may seek to use these four strategic dimensions as a basis on which they might examine clarify and or redefine the marketing strategy pursued by their firm a second set of results identified three goals and priorities of venture capital firms that have neither changed over time nor across increasingly different strategic groups annualized after tax return on investments of between 25 and 40 remain the most common objective across all firms a 5 to 6 year investment time horizon and a major emphasis on the quality of the management team in evaluating new deals were universal priorities across diverse venture capital firms a third finding in this study was that venture capital firms profess greater certainty about the future direction of the venture capital industry than the direction of their firm the most notable example of this is a strong sense that industry wide rates of return are headed downward yet few senior partners expect their firm to experience this decline practicing venture capitalists may be interested to peruse these results to see what trends are predicted within the venture capital industry by this subsample of that industry second they should consider the finding that industry wide rates of return are headed downward in light of the first two sets of findings to develop their own opinion about the future performance of different strategic groups within the industry it is important to note that the sample of venture capital firms on which this study was based did not include most of the larger older funds some of these funds would be characterized as industry leaders pace setters and innovators the sample provides a solid representation of the broad middle of the venture capital industry and newer entrants into the industry while larger older funds are under represented their impact on future trends and strategies in the industry is captured to some extent in the set of questions about future direction of the venture capital industry finally the emerging strategic groups in the venture capital industry that were identified by this study may be useful information for investors as well as users of venture capital for investors the opportunity to participate in venture capital activity should become more clearly understood and varied basically this study should help investors differentiate the strategic posture of different venture capital firms and funds on four factors rather than simply industry geographic considerations for users of venture capital the results of this study suggest a possibility for multiple options that are both more accessible and more catered to specific needs users of venture capital should find a clearer basis on which to differentiate venture capital firms in terms of venture stage priorities staff utilization orientations sources and uses of financial resources this should make for more informed shopping among different venture capital sources and provide a basis on which to shop for the most compatible firm

impacts of household income change on co2 emissions an empirical analysis of china abstract sustained increase in chinese household income has exerted positive impact on the consumption of goods and services this paper aims to analyze the unequal impacts of household consumption across different income households on the whole co2 emissions by utilizing a semi closed input output model and hypothetical extraction method the semi closed input output model moves household consumption activities into the intermediate use along with dividing urban and rural households to several groups by their income levels and the hypothetical extraction method hem is used to estimate the reductions of co2 emissions relative to total emissions after extracting the consumption of each household group the results show that 1 the impact on co2 emissions generated by urban households consumption are 1 8 times as much as that of rural ones 2 excluding consumption of higher income households from the economy would cause greater co2 emission reductions than lower ones specifically urban highest income households have the most relative reductions of co2 emissions which are 12 2 in 2007 and 13 8 in 2012 while for rural highest income households are 5 1 in 2007 and 5 1 in 2012 and urban and rural highest income households are respectively 3 8 and 1 8 times on the relative reductions of the lowest income ones 3 the relative reductions of household co2 emissions from food sectors is the most while from residence sectors is the least based on the above conclusions this paper puts forward consumption based policy implications

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

ecological footprint accounting for energy and resource in china resource consumption of the chinese society from 1981 to 2001 is represented by ecological footprint ef as an aggregate indicator the debate advances and implications of ef are investigated in detail ef intensity is also provided to depict the resource consumption level corresponding to unit economic output the results show that the ef per capita always exceeded the biocapacity and the ef intensity increased steadily over the study period in addition sectoral analysis for each ef component is also conducted the appropriation in the global ecological sense of chinese society with the second largest energy consumption in the world is therefore quantified and evaluated