distributional modeling and short term forecasting of electricity prices by generalized additive models for location scale and shape abstract in the context of the liberalized and deregulated electricity markets price forecasting has become increasingly important for energy company s plans and market strategies within the class of the time series models that are used to perform price forecasting the subclasses of methods based on stochastic time series and causal models commonly provide point forecasts whereas the corresponding uncertainty is quantified by approximate or simulation based confidence intervals aiming to improve the uncertainty assessment this study introduces the generalized additive models for location scale and shape gamlss to model the dynamically varying distribution of prices the gamlss allow fitting a variety of distributions whose parameters change according to covariates via a number of linear and nonlinear relationships in this way price periodicities trends and abrupt changes characterizing both the position parameter linked to the expected value of prices and the scale and shape parameters related to price volatility skewness and kurtosis can be explicitly incorporated in the model setup relying on the past behavior of the prices and exogenous variables the gamlss enable the short term one day ahead forecast of the entire distribution of prices the approach was tested on two datasets from the widely studied california power exchange calpx market and the less mature italian power exchange ipex calpx data allow comparing the gamlss forecasting performance with published results obtained by different models the study points out that the gamlss framework can be a flexible alternative to several linear and nonlinear stochastic models

cost sharing arrangements under sharecropping moral hazard incentive flexibility and risk this paper explains the rationale and describes the characteristics of cost sharing arrangements in rural developing economies focusing on the risk and incentive properties of alternative cost contracts and on their flexibility their ability to adapt to environmental changes it is shown that where labor inputs are difficult to monitor the rule that cost shares and output shares be equalized will not hold and is not constrained pareto efficient and that cost sharing contracts have a decided advantage over contracts which specify the level of inputs whenever there are asymmetries of information regarding production technology between the landlord and the tenant

a theory of interlinked rural transactions this paper argues that the interlinking of labor output and credit contracts often observed in rural economies can be regarded as an attempt to improve allocative efficiency in the face of moral hazard it advances an economic explanation of the phenomenon which is rooted in the view that prevalent modes of transaction of which interlinked contracts are an example are shaped by technological considerations interlinking is shown to be an efficient economic response to unequally distributed information arising from the uncertainty which characterizes subsistence agriculture all pareto efficient allocations require a combination of wage cum output sharing with consumption credit contracts the analytical framework set up to demonstrate the results is used to examine the response of the contractual parameters to changes in i the returns to alternative occupations available to tenant laborers ii the cost of credit to the village economy and iii the riskiness of cultivation the analysis concludes that public policy to alleviate rural poverty must recognize the relationships between technological considerations and modes of transaction in the absence of a complete set of markets

analysis of co2 emissions embodied in china s bilateral trade a non competitive import input output approach co2 emissions embodied in international trade are critical to the national carbon mitigation strategy studies estimating embodied co2 emissions in china often overestimate actual values this work calculates china s co2 emissions embodied in bilateral trade with the usa european union japan and other countries using a modified non competitive import input output method and latest data the results show that net co2 emissions embodied in china s trade in 2007 were only 400 million tons much lower than previous estimations accordingly china s co2 emission on the consumption side in 2007 dropped to 5 628 billion tons with the transfer part accounting for 6 6 of total co2 emissions calculated for the production side it is concluded that because co2 emissions embodied in trade are not as great as previously estimated china should place more emphases on energy saving and emission reduction on its own side instead of emission transfer to substantially mitigate co2 emissions

electricity price forecasting using sale and purchase curves the x model abstract our paper aims to model and forecast the electricity price by taking a completely new perspective on the data it will be the first approach which is able to combine the insights of market structure models with extensive and modern econometric analysis instead of directly modeling the electricity price as it is usually done in time series or data mining approaches we model and utilize its true source the sale and purchase curves of the electricity exchange we will refer to this new model as x model as almost every deregulated electricity price is simply the result of the intersection of the electricity supply and demand curve at a certain auction therefore we show an approach to deal with a tremendous amount of auction data using a subtle data processing technique as well as dimension reduction and lasso based estimation methods we incorporate not only several known features such as seasonal behavior or the impact of other processes like renewable energy but also completely new elaborated stylized facts of the bidding structure our model is able to capture the non linear behavior of the electricity price which is especially useful for predicting huge price spikes using simulation methods we show how to derive prediction intervals for probabilistic forecasting we describe and show the proposed methods for the day ahead epex spot price of germany and austria

on some recent explanations of why capital hires labor conventional microeconomics contains no explanation of why capital hires labor and not the reverse in view of some surprisingly positive results in the theoretical analysis of worker run enterprise systems recent contributions to the theory of the firm have attempted to explain the dominance of capitalist production relations in efficiency terms the present paper critically reviews works in this area by alchian and demsetz 1972 williamson 1975 1980 and jensen and meckling 1979 and contends that a convincing efficiency argument for the general superiority of capital owners over workers control of enterprises still is lacking

optimal embodied energy abatement strategy for beijing economy based on a three scale input output analysis abstract energy strategies in china s 11th and 12thzfive year plan failed to reduce the total energy consumption and misled the implementation of energy saving measures as they were focused towards the direct energy input as well as formulated based on incomplete energy consumption information therefore an optimal energy abatement strategy built on comprehensive information on overall embodied energy consumption is in urgent need adopting the three scale input output analysis this study uses beijing as a case to depict a specific urban economy s overall energy consumption impacted by local direct energy use domestic and foreign trade the results show that energy embodied in domestic trade dominated beijing s energy consumption while local direct energy is accounting for less than 1 3 of beijing s total embodied energy consumption the quantity of energy embodied in imports far exceeds that embodied in exports making the city a net embodied energy importer and indicating that policies considering direct energy use only will cause energy leakage problem these findings suggest that the current measures such as displacing energy intensive sectors to other regions lead to local reduction but overall rise moreover analysis for five abatement scenarios average intensity share absolute share discriminatory absolute and discriminatory intensity was carried out to figure out the optimal abatement strategy for beijing due to less loss of potential output it is found that intensity share scenario is the optimal one among all the scenarios concerned analysis in this study suggests that each region should break limits of self centered perceptions and multi scale governance for more appropriate responsibility assignment is recommended for overall energy abatement

the firm size farm size and transaction costs the case of hazelnut farms in turkey this study analyzes the effects of transaction costs on the size of hazelnut farms in turkey the study finds that higher land slope and higher variance of rain as transaction cost increasing natural effects lead to smaller hazelnut land holdings high slope and weather variation can increase the costs of monitoring the laborers make moving inputs or output up and down harder limit the use of machinery and reduce contractual performance of labor contracts for farm production functions land is a complex input with measurable interactions with nature contrary to common production theory approaches that take natural properties of land as given the study develops a production function that incorporates natural properties such as slope and rain variance the study utilizes two separate data sets for the estimations the first data set explores the characteristics of hazelnut farmers while the second one analyzes the regional characteristics of hazelnut farms

the firm as a nexus of treaties part 1 knowledge its acquisition sharing and or asymmetry the participatory generation of information rents and the theory of the firm masahiko aoki common knowledge and the co ordination of economic activities jacques cremer profit sharing information and employment matti pohjola part 2 vertical integration and the strategic management of the enterprise what is vertical integration michael h riordan vertical integration transaction costs and learning by using kurt lundgren the firm as a nexus of internal and external contracts torger reve part 3 issues of labour organization the viability of worker ownership an economic perspective on the political structure of the firm henry hansmann intellectual skill and the role of employees as constituent members of large firms in contemporary japan kazuo koike the implicit contract for corporate law firm associates ex post opportunism and ex ante bonding robert h mooking part 4 finance and the political structure of the firm capital structure as a mechanism of control a comparison of financial systems erik berglof long term contracts in financial markets hakan lindgren the principle of external accountability in competitive markets herbert gintis union militancy and plant designs kar ove moene can transaction cost economics explain trade associations marc schneiberg and j rogers hollingsworth

williamson s the economic institutions of capitalism there can be no doubt this book is a major contribution perhaps the volume is best characterized as a systematic theoretical examination of those portions of society s economic activities that the market mechanism does not automatically run to perfection but here such activities are not simply listed as market failures and forgotten rather they are treated appropriately as normal and widespread economic phenomena whose anatomy urgently requires examination and understanding vertical integration is an archtypical example if the unaided market mechanism did everything perfectly firms would rarely be able to enhance efficiency by integrating vertically it would usually be optimal for intermediate goods to be bought from independent suppliers on the free market i have more than once enjoyed teasing businesspersons bent on defending the vertical integration of their firms by suggesting that they are soviet central planners at heart and that when push comes to shove they have little use for the market mechanism in practice of course the truth generally lies somewhat in between for any given firm there is presumably an optimal degree of vertical integration determined by the requirements of economy in production and economy in the governance process or as williamson puts it of economizing in transactions costs the point is that a variety of institutions and behavior patterns really make sense primarily in terms of their relative efficacy in dealing with transactions costs that renders each in turn best in different circumstances decentralized and hierarchical organization of firms the vast variety of contractual forms franchising tie ins and many others these are the sorts of institutions to which williamson s analysis is devoted it should be said at once that i can find no major point of disagreement with his analysis on the contrary i enthusiastically accept the substance of all his central conclusions this extends also to williamson s characterization of the contestability literature and its relation to his own analysis which i believe he has done completely correctly as will be spelled out presently i have only two substantive reservations about the book the first is a slight tendency by the author to overstatement of claims for the new analysis a manifestation of enthusiasm which is no doubt commendable in a pioneer and in any event i know i am hardly in a

why are capitalists the bosses this paper addresses the question why does capital typically hire labor rather than the other way around it models a situation in which a capitalist owner of money capital can choose between lending out his capital for production and using it to set up production under his own supervision it is demonstrated that the moral hazard of potential borrowers on account of limited liability provides the capitalist with the incentive to become a firm owner supervising hired labor the capitalist s choice is endogenized in terms of his opportunity cost of time it is argued that moral hazard with respect to the use of borrowed capital is an important determinant of the social hierarchy in the workplace copyright 1989 by royal economic society

short and mid term forecasting of baseload electricity prices in the u k the impact of intra day price relationships and market fundamentals in this paper we investigate whether considering the fine structure of half hourly electricity prices the market closing prices of fundamentals natural gas coal and rm co 2 and the system wide demand can lead to significantly more accurate short and mid term forecasts of apx u k baseload prices we evaluate the predictive accuracy of a number of univariate and multivariate time series models over a three year out of sample forecasting period and compare it against that of a benchmark autoregressive model we find that in the short term up to a few business days ahead a disaggregated model which independently predicts the intra day prices and then takes their average to yield baseload price forecasts is the best performer however in the mid term factor models which explore the correlation structure of intra day prices lead to significantly as measured by the diebold mariano test better baseload price forecasts at the same time we observe that the inclusion of fundamental variables especially natural gas prices in the short term and coal prices in the mid term provides significant gains the rm co 2 prices on the other hand generally do not improve the price forecasts at all at least in the time period considered in this study april 2009 december 2013

agency costs and the agricultural firm in the last decade there has been a major rekindling of interest among economists in the form of institutions used to organize resources for production and distribution jensen 1983 distinguishes two agency literatures that share the comparative institutions perspective introduced by coase 1937 1960 principal agency theory e g stiglitz 1975 harris and raviv 1978 shavell 1979 h61mstrom 1979 lewis 1980 provides a mathematical formulation of contractual choice and has been primarily directed to the trade off between risksharing and incentives against labor shirking positive agency theory pioneered by coase 1937 resurrected by alchian and demsetz 1972 and currently represented for example by fama and jensen 1983a is nonmathematical and places relatively more emphasis on explaining actual patterns that characterize industrial organization in agriculture the theory of organizational form has centered largely around tenure choice the theory of tenure choice has an illustrious history in the economics literature e g smith 1922 marshall 1920 heady 1955 day 1967 cheung 1969 rao 1971 stiglitz 1974 reid 1976 newbery and stiglitz 1979 binswanger and rosenzweig 1984 in recent years alternative tenancy arrangements are commonly viewed as types of employment contracts e g newbery and stiglitz 1979 braverman and stiglitz 1975 harris and raviv 1978 shavell 1979 hw1mstrom 1979 lewis 1980 in an innovative departure from the view of tenancy as an employment contract eswaran and kotwal 1985 have modelled share tenancy as a partnership between a landowner who specializes in decision making and a tenant who specializes in labor supervision more generally questions of tenure choice employment contracts manag ment systems and farm size can all be usefully viewed as aspects of agricultural organization the purpose of the present paper i to elucidate this view and to investigate tenure choice as a part of the general study of the nature and causes of the agricultural firm the paper is organized to highlight the inductive approach employed section 2 classiies agricultural firms according to the degree of specialization and who gets the residual payment the classification is combined with previously documented patterns of tenure choice in order to posit a preliminary hypothesi about the relationship between the econo ic environment and the nature of the agricultural firm section 3 uses a principalagency framework to construct a theory of the hypothesized relationship between the degree of separation between labor and management nd l nd quality section 4 provides an illustrative statistical verification of the hypothesis based on a sample of philippine sugarcane f rms section 5 summarizes the paper and discusses two implications of the transaction cost approach for institutional design

where have all the funds gone multiregional input output analysis of the european agricultural fund for rural development abstract the new european agricultural fund for rural development eafrd was purposely established to contribute to the promotion of sustainable rural development throughout the eu community this paper addresses the sustainability of the eafrd from a triple bottom line perspective in a multiregional input output model this framework allows us to study both the trade relations within the eu target regions and also the relations of the eu with some other regions in the world additionally the model allows us to determine the losses leakages or gains boosts and feedbacks of a wide range of effects on the other hand this framework allows a simultaneous consideration of socioeconomic and environmental fund effects to identify their causes and flows and to clarify and reallocate benefits and responsibilities across levels and regions the estimation of direct and indirect impact effects in an eu country clarifies the following a how the leakages to other regions generate a final economic impact that redistributes the prior fund distribution b how relevant the countries participation in global production chains are and c how the potential existence of an ecological unequal exchange is assessed the main data originate from the wiod database and the european network for rural development

efficient modeling and forecasting of electricity spot prices abstract the increasing importance of renewable energy especially solar and wind power has led to new forces in the formation of electricity prices hence this paper introduces an econometric model for the hourly time series of electricity prices of the european power exchange epex which incorporates specific features like renewable energy the model consists of several sophisticated and established approaches and can be regarded as a periodic var tarch with wind power solar power and load as influences on the time series it is able to map the distinct and well known features of electricity prices in germany an efficient iteratively reweighted lasso approach is used for the estimation moreover it is shown that several existing models are outperformed by the procedure developed in this paper

the nature of the agricultural firm abstract models explaining the choice between rent wage and share contracts in agriculture abstract from the large variations within the classes of rent share and owner managed forms of organization regarding the extent to which a specific form accommodates specialization between labor and management as a result modern explanations of agricultural organizations are misleadingly dependent on risk aversion or the assumption that landowners have an absolute advantage in production decisions viewing the agricultural firm as a constitution instead of as a nexus of contracts facilitates an agency explanation of alternative organizational forms and their amenability to specialization

long term relationships governed by short term contracts this paper studies the effects of contract duration on the incentive to invest in a relationship when its parties are rational and have perfect information and contracts are complete ex cept that short term contracts specify only current period actions t hen short term contracting distorts investment decisions only when t he efficient plan involves mainly sunk cost investment and the relati onship plays a consumption smoothing role there is a general but no t universal tendency to underinvest copyright 1988 by american economic association

contractual structure in agriculture abstract this paper develops a generalized double sided moral hazard model of contract choice in agricultural production with mutual monitoring of each other by the landlord and the tiller who generally have different levels of farming efficiency and are risk averse using this model we formally prove that the optimal contract maximizes the output net of the risk bearing and agency costs of both the parties and carry out a simulation exercise which helps explain many of the tenancy related issues the difference in the farming efficiency of the two sides often ignored in previous analysis turns out to be the principal determinant of the contract offered to a tiller

economic energy and greenhouse emissions impacts of some consumer choice technology and government outlay options abstract the impacts of selected spending options in the australian economy are determined in terms of energy consumption greenhouse gas emissions and a range of economic parameters six case studies of one current practice and one alternative environmentally motivated spending option are carried out describing consumer choices technologies and government outlays the assessment method is based on input output theory and as such enables both the direct and indirect effects of spending to be quantified in general the results indicate that pro environmental objectives such as reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are compatible with broad socio economic benefits such as increases in employment and income and reductions in imports

the impact of renewable energies on eex day ahead electricity prices in this paper we analyze the impact of renewable energies wind and photovoltaic on the formation of day ahead electricity prices at eex we give an overview of the policy decisions concerning the promotion of renewable energy sources in germany and discuss their consequences on day ahead prices an analysis of electricity spot prices reveals that the introduction of renewable energies enhances extreme price changes in the frame of a dynamic fundamental model we show that there has been a continuous electricity price adaption process to market fundamentals furthermore the fundamental drivers of prices differ among hours with different load profiles our results imply that renewable energies decrease market spot prices and have implications on the traditional fuel mix for electricity production however the prices for the final consumers increased overall because they must pay in addition the feed in tariffs for the promotion of renewable energy

the market value of variable renewables the effect of solar wind power variability on their relative price this paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the market value of variable renewable energy vre the inherent variability of wind speeds and solar radiation affects the price that vre generators receive on the market market value during windy and sunny times the additional electricity supply reduces the prices because the drop is larger with more installed capacity the market value of vre falls with higher penetration rate this study aims to develop a better understanding on how the market value with penetration and how policies and prices affect the market value quantitative evidence is derived from a review of published studies regression analysis of market data and the calibrated model of the european electricity market emma we find the value of wind power to fall from 110 of the average power price to 50 80 as wind penetration increases from zero to 30 of total electricity consumption for solar power similarly low value levels are reached already at 15 penetration hence competitive large scale renewable deployment will be more difficult to accomplish than as many anticipate

carbon water and land use accounting consumption vs production perspectives abstract the traditional approach of accounting of environmental pressure in the kyoto protocols follows the production based accounting which attributes all environmental pressures generated from production activities within a country boundary to that country total environmental pressure however the major flaws of this approach is that it does not take into account the environmental pressures embodied in imports and so build stimulus for shifting of environmental pressures abroad an alternative approach to include environmental pressures associated with imports to the country and subtract export related environmental pressures is the consumption based approach or footprint approach this approach has been widely considered as an alternative way to more adequately allot responsibilities between the emitters and final consumers this study compares and discusses the concepts of both approaches showing the results of an empirical analysis and going into the application of the two different perspectives in worldwide environmental policies this paper presents the results of an analysis of the carbon water and land footprints of the worldwide from 1995 to 2009 and compares the outcomes for the two approaches for four world regions i e eu oecd bric and row the analysis is based on a multi region input output mrio model to assess these environmental pressures the proposed model uses the world input output database wiod covering 35 sectors and 41 countries the results show that during the entire study period the carbon emissions land use and water use for the eu and oecd regions are higher in the consumer approach than in the producer approach the results further indicate that for the bric and rest of the world row regions the carbon emission land and water use are higher in the producer approach than in the consumer approach

probabilistic mid and long term electricity price forecasting abstract the liberalization of electricity markets and the development of renewable energy sources has led to new challenges for decision makers these challenges are accompanied by an increasing uncertainty about future electricity price movements the increasing amount of papers which aim to model and predict electricity prices for a short period of time provided new opportunities for market participants however the electricity price literature seem to be very scarce on the issue of medium to long term price forecasting which is mandatory for investment and political decisions our paper closes this gap by introducing a new approach to simulate electricity prices with hourly resolution for several months up to three years considering the uncertainty of future events we are able to provide probabilistic forecasts which are able to detect probabilities for price spikes even in the long run as market we decided to use the epex day ahead electricity market for germany and austria our model extends the x model which mainly utilizes the sale and purchase curve for electricity day ahead auctions by applying our procedure we are able to give probabilities for the due to the eeg practical relevant event of six consecutive hours of negative prices we find that using the supply and demand curve based model in the long run yields realistic patterns for the time series of electricity prices and leads to promising results considering common error measures

why capital hires labor a bargaining perspective organizational forms often serve as vehicles for the appropriation of quasi rent capitalist firms typically emerge when production requires noncontractible investments in specific physical assets because worker control would divert quasi rents away from ass et owners ex post conversely labor managed firms tend to emerge in niches requiring specialized human capital but general purpose physi cal assets a key result is that capitalist firms can persist in competitive markets even when labor managed firms would yield a larg er total surplus copyright 1993 by american economic association

a microeconomic mechanism for economic growth this paper constructs a dynamic general equilibrium model in which economic growth is explained by the evolution of the division of labor the relationships among the accumulation of human capital the evolution of the division of labor endogenous comparative advantage trade dependence the market structure and economic growth are investigated

implicit contracts a survey 7mplicit contracts resolve the distribution of uncertainty and utilization of specific human capital between risk averse workers and less risk averse firms incomplete contracts are required to yield involuntary layoffs in contract markets otherwise contracts are efficient and pareto optimal by construction there is a close relation between contract theory and neoclassical labor market theory contracts smooth consumption but increase the volatility of labor supply and labor utilization to demand disturbances because contractural insurance eliminates the income effects of socially diversifiable risks this result is similar to the intertemporal substitution hypothesis however the price mechanism in a contract is substantially different contracts embody a nonlinear two part pricing scheme the lump sum part allocates the income consumption consequences of risks and the marginal pricing part allocates production and labor utilization this implicit pricing mechanism is in all respects flexible though the observed average hourly wage combines both parts and may give the outward appearanceof rigidity furthermore the observed average wage rate in a contract does not reflect marginal conditions necessary for structural econometric estimation indivisibilities appear necessary to account for the split between work sharing and layoffs contracts with private information are also considered in the nonlinear pricing context this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

uncertainty entrepreneurship and sharecropping in india this study attempts to explain the coexistence of different farm lease arrangements in terms of the varying significance of entrepreneurial functions in india crop sharing arrangements are common in areas of relative economic certainty with very little scope for decision making for example for product and factor substitution and where the entrepreneurial profit is low fixed cash rents are common in situations of high uncertainty where the scope for decision making is significant or where the crops are highly profitable efficiency considerations predominate in areas of sharecropping favoring a smaller farm size whereas under high uncertainty large size is favored for reducing risk

an analysis of co2 emissions in italy through the macro multiplier mm approach abstract the issue of policy design into the environmental economic literature is becoming a crucial point especially for the relevance of its implication on international agreements for climate change and for the definition of climate actions against ghgs emissions the identification of economic drivers accountable for the co2 emissions which represent the major part of ghgs emissions represents a central topic on literature using input output analysis the paper proposes a methodological innovation on the study of suitable policy instrument against the raise of co2emissions which is based on the approach of the macro multipliers mm that leads with the recognition of the impact of all those industries responsible for co2 emissions from the policy perspective the relevance of industries responsible for co2 emissions is also analysed in this approach in which we introduce the target efficiency index and the control effectiveness index across industries as part of final demand vector each commodity has its own relevance or effectiveness in pursuing the attainment of the target vector on the other hand as part of the target vectors each industry emission has its own efficiency in being conveniently modified by changing the policy control vector the results deriving from the mm approach demonstrate the possibility to overcome the limits of the linkages analysis in particular the set of information deriving from the target efficiency and the control effectiveness indices for industries allows designing environmental policies in a framework where economic aggregates are defined in value and physical units using the input output table this study investigates the impacts of industries activities on co2 emission using the mm approach for the italian economy

management response to the demands of global fresh fruit markets rewarding harvesters with financial incentives abstract competition in global fresh fruit markets is now much more intense than a decade ago producers and exporters face an increasing number of quality requirements and regulations that are costly and challenge established practices paying harvesters by the amount they harvest and trying to control quality with sanctions based on a field study this article discusses how lemon producers in northern argentina are responding to these challenges why some have responded only by introducing non contractual innovations while others by rewarding harvesters for careful performance to insure fruit quality the findings elucidate arguments about the instrumentality of transaction costs on the choice of both managerial practices and forms of remunerating labourers it also illustrates that added quality demands of foreign markets eased the task of harvesters but had a varying effect on labourers income

tenancy choice in a competitive framework with transactions costs the choice between wage labor and sharecrop contracts is analyzed in a model that avoids both the pitfalls of previous models inefficiency of sharecropping and indeterminacy by introducing transactions costs with appropriate nonlinearities plantation data from the american south provide empirical support for the hypothesized nonlinearity in transactions costs and simultaneous determination of direct supervision and contractual choice