contagion as a wealth effect financial contagion is described as a wealth effect in a continuous time model with two risky assets and three types of traders noise traders trade randomly in one market long term investors provide liquidity using a linear rule based on fundamentals convergence traders with logarithmic utility trade optimally in both markets asset price dynamics are endogenously determined numerically as functions of endogenous wealth and exogenous noise when convergence traders lose money they liquidate positions in both markets this creates contagion in that returns become more volatile and more correlated contagion reduces benefits from portfolio diversification and raises issues for risk management during the f inancial panic associated with the default of the russian government in august 1998 and the subsequent collapse of the hedge fund long term capital management numerous hedge funds banks and securities firms tried simultaneously to reduce exposures to a variety of financial instruments such as russian bonds brazilian stocks u s mortgages spreads between on therun and off the run government securities and spreads between swaps and u s treasuries although the fundamental values of these positions would appear to have little correlation during this financial crisis the asset prices in these markets exhibited the following common empirical pattern 1 financial intermediaries suffered losses as prices moved against their positions 2 market depth and liquidity decreased simultaneously in several markets 3 the volatility of prices increased simultaneously in several markets and

financial contagion and the wealth effect an experimental study abstract we design a laboratory experiment to test the importance of wealth as a channel for financial contagion across markets with unrelated fundamentals in a sequential global game we analyze the decisions of a group of investors that hold assets in two markets we consider two treatments that vary the level of diversification of these assets across markets in both treatments we find evidence of financial contagion when investors have completely diversified portfolios we provide evidence of contagion due to a wealth effect for certain ranges of fundamentals we show that a decrease in wealth from the investment in the first market makes withdrawals more likely in the second thereby increasing the probability of a crisis when portfolio diversification is small then social imitation is relevant in explaining contagion

financial contagion in the laboratory does network structure matter we explore the role of interbank network structure and premature liquidation costs for the likelihood of financial contagions in a laboratory experiment we consider complete versus incomplete networks of banks linked together by interbank deposits and we further vary premature liquidation costs subjects play the role of depositors deciding whether or not to withdraw funds from their interconnected bank we find that when liquidation costs are high a complete network structure is significantly less vulnerable to financial contagions than an incomplete network structure however when liquidation costs are low network structure is less important for the frequency of financial contagions

using stochastic frontier analysis to measure the impact of weather on the efficiency of electricity distribution businesses in developing economies abstract this paper analyses the influence of weather variables on the efficiency of electricity distribution companies in argentina brazil chile and peru covering 82 firms which represent more than 90 percent of the distribution market of energy delivered for the period 1998 2008 stochastic frontier analysis sfa is applied using a translog input distance function two different approaches are evaluated weather in the production function and weather in the inefficiency term the efficacy of one over the other is determined using nested models weather data are collected from meteorological stations 429 and nasa 3423 coordinates a geographic information system gis is used for locating the firms service areas and their weather conditions a combination of cost only and cost quality models is proposed for cost only models the results suggest that on average there is a significant increase in measured efficiency when weather is incorporated in the production function under the cost quality models on average the effect of weather is much lower this suggests that firms have internalised the effects of weather and have adapted their networks to the environment in which they operate a company level analysis indicates that across models a significant number of companies are affected by weather regulators are advised to make proper adjustments of efficiency scores when specific firms face important efficiency changes due to weather

financial contagion in the laboratory the cross market rebalancing channel abstract we present the results of the first experimental study of financial markets contagion we develop a model of financial contagion amenable to be tested in the laboratory in the model contagion happens because of cross market rebalancing a channel for transmission of shocks across markets first studied by kodres and pritsker 2002 theory predicts that because of portfolio rebalancing a negative shock in one market transmits itself to the others as investors adjust their portfolio allocations the theory is supported by the experimental results the price observed in the laboratory is close to that predicted by theory and strong contagion effects are observed the results are robust across different market structures moreover as theory predicts lower asymmetric information in a developed financial market increases the contagion effects in emerging markets

persistent and transient productive inefficiency in a regulated industry electricity distribution the productive efficiency of a firm can be decomposed into two parts one persistent and one transient this distinction seems to be appealing for regulators during the last decades public utilities such as water and electricity have witnessed a wave of regulatory reforms aimed at improving efficiency through incentive regulation most of these regulation schemes use benchmarking namely measuring companies efficiency and rewarding them accordingly focusing on electricity distribution we sketch a theoretical model to show that an imperfectly informed regulator may not disentangle the two parts of the cost efficiency therefore the regulator may fail to set optimal efficiency targets which also undermines quality we then provide evidence on the presence of persistent and transient efficiency using data on 28 new zealand electricity distribution companies between 2000 and 2011 first we estimate a total cost function by means of traditional stochastic frontier models for panel data these come up with an estimation of the persistent part or the transient part of the cost efficiency finally we use the more recent generalized true random effects model that allows for the simultaneous estimation of both transient and persistent efficiency we also find some evidence that persistent efficiency is associated to higher quality and wrong efficiency targets are associated to lower quality compliance

contagion of self fulfilling financial crises due to diversification of investment portfolios abstract we look at two countries that have independent fundamentals but share the same group of investors each country might face a self fulfilling crisis agents withdrawing their investments fearing that others will a crisis in one country reduces agents wealth this makes them more averse to the strategic risk associated with the unknown behavior of other agents in the second country increasing their incentive to withdraw their investments consequently the probability of a crisis there increases this generates a positive correlation between the returns in the two countries since diversification affects returns in our model its welfare implications are non trivial

conscientious vs ambivalent consumers do concerns about energy availability and climate change influence consumer behaviour abstract energy availability and climate change are interrelated concerns with economic components they need to be addressed by policy makers and they require changes in energy consumption this study examines whether concerns about energy availability and climate change influence consumer behaviour policy perceptions and beliefs about future energy consumption this question is investigated by analysing data from the eurobarometer 75 4 a comprehensive survey of citizens from all countries of the european union that was conducted in june 2011 n 26 840 the regression results show that people concerned about climate change were significantly more likely to take action to mitigate climate change and to be more favourably disposed towards energy policies and future changes in energy consumption than people who were not concerned about climate change on the other hand people who were concerned about energy availability undertook fewer actions and neither supported energy policies nor believed in future changes in energy consumption this surprising finding raises questions regarding the adequate communication of energy availability and policies to the public in the european union

the economics of new nuclear power plants in liberalized electricity markets abstract even after fukushima the nuclear debate is strong in many countries with the discussion of its economics being a significant part of it however most of the estimates are based on a levelized cost methodology which presents several shortcomings particularly when applied to liberalized electricity markets our paper provides results based on a different methodology by which we determine the break even investment cost for nuclear power plants to be competitive with other electricity generation technologies our results show that the cost competitiveness of nuclear power plants is questionable and that public support of some sort would be needed if new nuclear power plants are to be built in liberalized markets

photovoltaic electricity production in brazil a stochastic economic viability analysis for small systems in the face of net metering and tax incentives abstract currently in addition to the search for sustainable development there is increased pressure for a change in consumption and production of energy patterns in brazil in this scenario net metering is an important mechanism fostering dissemination of small photovoltaic pv solar systems as complementary support to net metering a tax exemption is currently being offered in some brazilian states thus the objective of the present study is to analyze the impact of tax exemption on the circulation of goods and services and the returns and risks of the pv microgeneration project in four cities located in different regions of brazil belem petrolina uberaba and uruguaiana the analysis is performed using the monte carlo simulation mcs wherein uncertainties related to the financial and environmental variables are considered the results of the stochastic economic viability analysis allowed us to conclude that the exemption of tax on circulation of goods and services icms is fundamental to make pv microgeneration viable in brazil in the cities analyzed pv microgeneration presented economic unfeasibility to the investor when the icms is charged when considering the icms exemption policy the cities of petrolina and belem obtained high probabilities of viability in relation to the risk analysis pv microgeneration obtained the best results in petrolina both in terms of the condition of collection and exemption of icms there is high potential for harness solar throughout the brazilian territory however due to the current evolution stage and the productive chain of the brazilian pv industry high costs limit the expansion of this clean energy generation technology the findings of this study could assist policymakers in evaluating this incentive program highlighting that this tax exemption directly meets one of the objectives for which the icms was created which is to encourage the development of productive sectors such as pv industry

asymmetric price movements and borrowing constraints a rational expectations equilibrium model of crises contagion and confusion this study proposes a rational expectations equilibrium model of crises and contagion in an economy with information asymmetry and borrowing constraints consistent with empirical observations the model finds 1 crises can be caused by small shocks to fundamentals 2 market return distributions are asymmetric and 3 correlations among asset returns tend to increase during crashes the model also predicts 1 crises and contagion are likely to occur after small shocks in the intermediate price region 2 the skewness of asset price distributions increases with information asymmetry and borrowing constraints and 3 crises can spread through investor borrowing constraints

sustainability assessment of electricity generation technologies using weighted multi criteria decision analysis abstract solving the issue of environmental degradation due to the expansion of the world s energy demand requires a balanced approach the aim of this paper is to comprehensively rank a large number of electricity generation technologies based on their compatibility with the sustainable development of the industry the study is based on a set of 10 sustainability indicators which provide a life cycle analysis of the plants the technologies are ranked using a weighted sum multi attribute utility method the indicator weights were established through a survey of 62 academics from the fields of energy and environmental science our results show that large hydroelectric projects are the most sustainable technology type followed by small hydro onshore wind and solar photovoltaic we argue that political leaders should have a more structured and strategic approach in implementing sustainable energy policies and this type of research can provide arguments to support such decisions

economies of scale in norwegian electricity distribution a quantile regression approach in this article we investigate scale economies in norwegian electricity distribution companies using a quantile regression approach to the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to apply this estimation technique when analysing scale economies we estimate the cost elasticities of the two output components network length and number of customers to calculate returns to scale our results show large potential of scale economies particularly for the smallest companies we also find that returns to scale is increasing over time these findings have important implications for policymakers when they are deciding the structure of the industry in the future

assessing the impact of framing on the comparative favourability of nuclear power as an electricity generating option in the uk in 2007 the uk government s public consultation on the future of nuclear power courted much criticism three studies were conducted to assess whether key arguments used by government within this consultation might have influenced public opinion about the technology participants first read a passage of text that made salient certain positive climate change mitigation increased energy security or negative nuclear waste aspects of the nuclear debate participants then completed a task that required them to create an electricity mix for the uk by varying the contributions made by each of five energy sources coal gas nuclear renewables and electric import study 1 seemed to indicate that pitching the debate in terms of climate change mitigation was effective in increasing endorsement of nuclear power the results of studies 2 and 3 however contested this conclusion suggesting that these arguments were having little direct impact upon participants preferences for nuclear power the results of these studies hold implications for uk energy policy and attitude assessment and can contribute to the understanding of how the arguments used by government in the 2007 consultation might have influenced public opinion

efficiency and performance in gas distribution evidence from brazil this article analyses the current state of the gas distribution industry in brazil by identifying the main factors that determine its efficiency in order to test the performance of the industry we have calculated the firms technical efficiency during the period 2001 2009 we analyse whether some economic and technological factors as consumer density load factor or regulation among others have affected the performance of this industry we show that companies serving markets with different customer characteristics diversification have reached higher levels of efficiency and evolved faster moreover the private ownership and price cap regulation are more efficient in relation to public ownership and cost of service regulation these findings are important to support the improvement of the regulation of gas distribution in the brazilian states

exploring public perceptions of energy security risks in the uk along with climate change and affordability concerns about energy security are key drivers behind proposals for major energy system change in the uk and numerous other countries unlike climate change we know very little about how the public thinks and feels about this aspect of sustainability and energy policy beyond engaging critically with conceptual and theoretical discussions empirical data from two surveys cardiff postal survey n 520 online uk survey n 499 using a ten item energy security scale are presented and discussed here we show that aspects of energy security are certainly of concern to the uk public with particularly high concern around dependence on fossil fuels imports and relatively lower expressed concern for actual disruption of energy supply however public concerns around energy security are only emerging and likely to change depending on the context in which it is discussed e g in comparison to climate change in addition findings from public interviews are used to further contextualise the survey findings showing unfamiliarity among the uk public with regards to the term energy security we discuss implications and further work that would be useful for understanding public perceptions in more depth

efficiency and productivity of french ski resorts abstract this paper analyses french ski resorts productivity with the luenberger productivity indicator lpi based on the directional distance function it permits the calculation of a productivity indicator that is decomposed into technical efficiency change and technological change the conclusions are that productivity decreased for the majority of french ski resorts which is almost always explained by technological change finally the mixed results do not establish a clear relationship between the ski resorts size and productivity therefore the kruskal wallis test is used to statistically verify this relationship managerial implications are derived from this study

efficient power generating portfolio in brazil conciliating cost emissions and risk the main purpose of this paper is to assess efficiency of the brazilian electricity generation mix proposed in the 2020 decennial plan for energy expansion dpee 2020 it evaluates estimated costs risks and co2 emissions following the mean variance portfolio theory the efficiency frontier is estimated for three co2 prices scenarios no co2 prices low co2 price and high co2 price the planned portfolio in brazil presented in the dpee 2020 is relatively close to the efficient frontier however there is still room for risk mitigation by diversifying the energy portfolio as there is currently no co2 price in brazil the tendency is that diversification increases fossil fuel share in the energy mix but the introduction of a co2 price can be an option to promote renewables this type of large general market framework can contribute to reduce market uncertainties by reducing the level of government s discretionary activism

an experiment on the causes of bank run contagions abstract to understand the mechanisms behind bank run contagions we conduct bank run experiments in a modified diamond dybvig setup with two banks left and right the banks liquidity levels are either linked or independent left bank depositors see their bank s liquidity level before deciding right bank depositors only see left bank withdrawals before deciding we find that left bank depositors actions significantly affect right bank depositors behavior even when liquidities are independent furthermore a panic may be a one way street an increase in left bank withdrawals can cause a panic run on the right bank but a decrease does not calm depositors

nuclear power climate change and energy security exploring british public attitudes public attitudes towards nuclear power in the uk have historically been deeply divided but as concern about climate change and energy security has exerted an increasing influence on british energy policy nuclear power has been reframed as a low carbon technology previous research has suggested that a significant proportion of people may reluctantly accept nuclear power as a means of addressing the greater threat of climate change drawing on the results of a national british survey n 1822 the current study found that attitudes towards nuclear remain divided with only a minority expressing unconditional acceptance in general people who expressed greater concern about climate change and energy security and possessed higher environmental values were less likely to favour nuclear power however when nuclear power was given an explicit reluctant acceptance framing allowing people to express their dislike for nuclear power alongside their conditional support concerns about climate change and energy security became positive predictors of support for nuclear power these findings suggest that concern about climate change and energy security will only increase acceptance of nuclear power under limited circumstances specifically once other preferred options have been exhausted

bank runs as coordination failures an experimental study we use experimental methods to investigate what factors contribute to breakdowns in coordination among a bank s depositors subjects in our experiment decide whether to leave their money deposited in a bank or withdraw it early a bank run occurs when there are too many early withdrawals we explore the effects of adding uncertainty about fundamental withdrawal demand and of changing the number of opportunities subjects have to withdraw our results show that i bank runs are rare when fundamental withdrawal demand is known but occur frequently when it is stochastic and ii subjects are more likely to withdraw when given multiple opportunities to do so than when presented with a single decision for the multiple opportunity case we evaluate individual withdrawal decisions according to a set of simple cutoff rules we find that the cutoff rule corresponding to the payoff dominant equilibrium of the game which involves bayesian updating of probabilities explains subject behavior better than other rules

bank run psychology abstract banks are inherently susceptible to panics and bank runs due to the problem of maturity mismatch resulting in both a stable equilibrium in which the bank survives and an unstable equilibrium in which a bank run occurs understanding equilibrium selection in this setting is extremely important for safeguarding financial stability in this paper one new potential factor that determines whether a bank runs gets triggered or not is experimentally studied namely the psychological state of the depositor prior to participating in an experimental bank run game subjects are either induced with fear sadness or happiness using an autobiographical emotion induction task the findings suggest that the presence of background fear significantly increases the likelihood of withdrawal and a subsequent bank run in addition women are shown to be significantly more likely to withdraw then men but only in the fear induction treatment

measuring strategic uncertainty in coordination games this paper proposes a method to measure strategic uncertainty by eliciting certainty equivalents analogous to measuring risk attitudes in lotteries we apply this method by conducting experiments on a class of one shot coordination games with strategic complementarities and choices between simple lotteries and sure payoff alternatives both framed in a similar way despite the multiplicity of equilibria in the coordination games aggregate behaviour is fairly predictable the pure or mixed nash equilibria cannot describe subjects behaviour we present two global games with private information about monetary payoffs and about risk aversion while previous literature treats the parameters of a global game as given we estimate them and show that both models describe observed behaviour well the global game selection for vanishing noise of private signals offers a good recommendation for actual players given the observed distribution of actions we also deduce subjective beliefs and compare them with objective probabilities

in the name of energy security the struggle over the exportation of israeli natural gas the aim of this study is to place the notion of energy security under critical scrutiny by unpacking how different actors manipulate the term through the mobilization of existential language as a prism for creating securitization discourse through an examination of an israeli inter ministerial committee charged with developing national policy regarding newly discovered natural gas reserves off the coast of israel the study finds that the concept of energy security is open for manipulation and various interpretations while some actors stress environmental acceptability and independency as pillars of energy security others prioritized supply reliability and geopolitical benefits associated with gas exportation each definition of energy security was also found to be anchored in different ideologies goals policies and legitimizing factors the coupling of energy with securitization rhetoric was ultimately determined as working against cooperative efforts as committee conflicts intensified and suggested institutional measures became disproportional

efficiency in new zealand sheep and beef farming the impacts of regulatory reform in this study we consider the impacts of dramatic regulatory reform during the 1980s on the efficiency of farms in new zealand using unbalanced panel data a translog distance function representing the multiple output and input technology and incorporating nonneutral regulatory impacts is used for the analysis determinants of technical inefficiency including a regulatory variable a time term and a debt equity ratio are also incorporated in a one step model estimated by maximum likelihood stochastic production frontier methods we find evidence of regulatory induced changes in output composition toward beef and deer and away from wool and especially lamb but little associated technical inefficiency these patterns motivated investment in complementary capital land and beef deer livestock inputs firms that were more flexible in their adaptation toward these new mixes adjusted to regulatory changes with less upheaval so any existing inefficiency appears linked to debt equity levels

an overview of incentive policies for the expansion of renewable energy generation in electricity power systems and the brazilian experience abstract energy production from renewable sources is already a reality in many countries and with that different strategies for incentivizing investments in renewable energy generation have been proposed and used over the years in this study long term policies that have been applied in several countries such as feed in tariffs shares with commercialization of certificates auctions and net metering are overviewed and discussed the main advantages and disadvantages of these incentive strategies are emphasized focusing on applications some of these strategies that have already been applied in brazil are analyzed in greater depth emphasizing the potentialities and fragilities of these mechanisms observed within the country even though it is a country that stands out in relation to other latin american countries regarding electricity generation from non hydro renewable sources brazil still faces barriers that prevent a utilization compatible with its potential moreover the trend for renewable sources such as wind and solar power is to represent an energy capacity reserve to cover hydrological risks and also to contribute to a distributed generation spread through electricity distribution networks

understanding the nuclear controversy an application of cultural theory abstract the need for a secure and sustainable energy future has become firmly entrenched on the global political agenda governments worldwide are seeking solutions that will ensure security of their energy supplies while reducing carbon emissions in the fight against climate change advocates of nuclear power have reframed the technology as the most reliable cost effective and immediate solution to both of these policy problems and predicted the emergence of a nuclear renaissance however there is little evidence to date that suggests a nuclear renaissance has actually taken place public opinion polling demonstrates that many remain unconvinced of the need for nuclear power this paper uses cultural theory as a heuristic to understand why the arguments for a nuclear renaissance have been largely unsuccessful it argues that the failure of nuclear advocates to engage with a wider cross section of world views has prevented the controversy surrounding nuclear power from being resolved and the nuclear renaissance from becoming a reality in doing so this paper builds upon a growing recognition of the contribution that social science research can make to understanding public acceptance of energy policy choices

public attitudes regarding large scale solar energy development in the u s abstract using data collected from both a national sample as well as an oversample in u s southwest we examine public attitudes toward the construction of utility scale solar facilities in the u s as well as development in one s own county our multivariate analyses assess demographic and socio psychological factors as well as context in terms of proximity of proposed project by considering the effect of predictors for respondents living in the southwest versus those from a national sample we find that the predictors and impact of the predictors related to support and opposition to solar development vary in terms of psychological and physical distance overall for respondents living in the u s southwest we find that environmentalism belief that developers receive too many incentives and trust in project developers to be significantly related to support and opposition to solar development in general when southwest respondents consider large scale solar development in their county the influence of these variables changes so that property value race and age only yield influence differential effects occur for respondents of our national sample we believe our findings to be relevant for those outside the u s due to the considerable growth pv solar has experienced in the last decade especially in china japan germany and the u s

informational channels of financial contagion two main classes of channels are studied as informational sources of financial contagion one is a fundamental channel that is based on real and financial links between economies and the second is a social learning channel that arises when agents base their decisions on noisy observations about the actions of others in foreign markets using global games i present a two country model of financial contagion in which both channels can operate and i test its predictions experimentally the experimental results show that subjects do not extract information optimally which leads to two systematic biases that affect these channels directly base rate neglect leads subjects to underweight their prior and thus weakens the fundamental channel an overreaction bias strengthens the social learning channel since subjects rely on information about the behavior of others even when this information is irrelevant these results have significant welfare effects rooted in the specific way in which these biases alter behavior

electric power distribution economies of scale mergers and restructuring electricity distribution is generally viewed as a natural monopoly and therefore as having the least potential for the kinds of reforms that have swept the electric power sector in many countries mergers among distribution companies and efforts at retail competition have nonetheless altered the operation of the distribution stage this research into us electric utilities uses a much larger and less selective data base than previously available to examine the scale properties of distribution with respect to output distance and customer numbers and for different functions within distribution it finds significant economies at low output levels holding system size and customer density constant but the cost gradient is otherwise modest it also finds that geographic size and customer numbers are quite important and that economies are significantly stronger for the infrastructure or wires business than for the marketing function performed by distribution utilities these results lend credence to effort

firm size and productivity evidence from the electricity distribution industry in brazil in this paper we apply stochastic frontier analysis through a distance function to investigate the impact of firm size on productivity development in electricity distribution we use a sample of seventeen brazilian firms from 1998 to 2005 and decompose productivity into technical efficiency scale efficiency and technical change moreover a further step is to decompose the technical change measurement into several components the results indicate that firm size is important for industry s productivity and therefore a key aspect to consider when making decisions that affect the market structure in the electricity distribution industry

carbon reduction scenarios for 2050 an explorative analysis of public preferences this paper presents an analysis of public preferences for a low carbon future uk and compares them with three future scenarios proposed by the uk government based on data from 10 983 self selected participants who engaged in the uk department of energy and climate change my2050 online simulation participants expressed a stronger preference for demand side options than for supply side ones they also chose fuel switching to electricity and technical energy efficiency measures above more behaviour focused options renewable energy options wind solar marine and hydro were preferred to other low carbon supply options nuclear power carbon capture and storage with offshore wind power more popular than onshore nuclear power was the least popular generation option acceptability of the government s three proposed scenarios was tested by comparing these scenarios with the research findings greatest support was suggested for the two scenarios emphasising business greenness home energy efficiency electrification of home heating and travel behaviour the lowest level of support was demonstrated for the scenario based on significant growth in nuclear power with minimal increases in energy efficiency despite issues regarding the representivity of the sampled respondents the work demonstrates the possibility of using outputs from the tool to assess publically preferred pathways

measuring the efficiency of grid companies in china a bootstrapping non parametric meta frontier approach abstract the unbundling policy reform of power industry has become a worldwide trend since 1980s there are quite many studies focusing on the efficiency changes of transmission and distribution sectors in european and latin american countries while few reports on china s issues have been found this paper employs a nonparametric frontier estimation combined with meta frontier and bootstrapping method to measure the productive efficiency and changes in the decomposition index for china s 31 grid companies from 2004 to 2013 in addition it further employs tobit regression model to analyze the influences of relevant policies and heterogeneity factors such as natural conditions and economic development the results indicate that the grouping approach extends the application of non parametric data envelopment analysis which may decrease the assumption of homogeneity for the decision making units and provide better efficiency estimates by increasing the credibility of the evaluation results overall productive efficiency increased during the whole study period with technology progress the main contributor to this improvement efficiency trends fluctuated with changes in economic development and power supply situation and the economics and customer density had positive effects on productive efficiency while the influence of clean power proportion is negative

sustainability performance for brazilian electricity power industry an assessment integrating social economic and environmental issues the increased pressure on companies to address sustainability issues has resulted in the development of several voluntary corporate sustainability integration approaches the array of existing approaches is large and overwhelming resulting in companies not understanding what corporate sustainability really means for their businesses considering environmental economic and social issues this paper aims at assessing the performance of the brazilian electricity power industry in terms of its sustainability performance an analysis of global reporting initiative gri indicators for the energy sector lead to an assessment of its sustainability performance by applying data envelopment analysis dea specified with a directional distance function ddf five scenarios were created i flexible weights ii triple bottom line iii social issues iv economic issues and v environmental issues with considering i flexibility weights almost all companies are efficient we also found a significant difference when we compared i with the other four scenarios ii iii iv and v taking into account the triple bottom line scenario ii the results indicate that companies were less efficient when compared with the flexible weights scenario i taking into account the last three scenarios iii iv and v only four companies were considered as providing top benchmarks in sustainability performance

inefficiency persistence and heterogeneity in colombian electricity utilities abstract the electricity reform in colombia has exhibited gains in terms of reliability but its effects on firm efficiency and service quality have not been clear previous studies evaluating the performance of distribution companies after the reform have not found evidence of improvements although large differences in efficiency have been found among firms this suggests high inefficiency persistence and heterogeneity in the colombian distribution sector in this paper we propose an extension of dynamic stochastic frontier models that accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in the inefficiency persistence and in the technology the model incorporates total expenses service quality and energy losses in an efficiency analysis of colombian distributors over fifteen years after the reform we identify the presence of high inefficiency persistence in the sector and important differences between firms in particular rural companies and firms with small customers present low persistence and evidence the largest gains in efficiency during the period however increases in efficiency are only manifested during thelast five years when the main improvements in service quality and energy losses are presented overall inefficiency persistence customer density and consumption density are found to be important criteria to be considered for regulatory purposes

misery loves company social regret and social interaction effects in choices under risk and uncertainty abstract extensive field evidence shows individuals decisions in settings involving uncertainty depend on their peers decisions one hypothesized cause of peer group effects is social interaction effects an individual s utility from an action is enhanced by others taking the same action we employ a series of controlled laboratory experiments to study the causes of peer effects in choice under uncertainty we find strong peer group effects in the laboratory our design allows us to rule out social learning social norms group affiliation and complementarities as possible causes for the observed peer group effects leaving social interaction effects as the likely cause we use a combination of theory and empirical analysis to show that preferences including social regret are more consistent with the data than preferences including a taste for conformity we observe spillover effects as observing another s choice of one risky gamble makes all risky gambles more likely to be chosen

panic bank runs we provide experimental evidence that panic bank runs occur in the absence of problems with fundamentals and coordination failures among depositors the two main culprits identified in the literature depositors withdraw when they observe that others do so even when theoretically they should not our findings suggest that panic also manifests itself in the beliefs of depositors who overestimate the probability that a bank run is underway loss aversion has a predictive power on panic behavior while risk or ambiguity aversion do not

why do emerging economies borrow short term the authors argue that emerging economies borrow short term due to the high risk premium charged by international capital markets on long term debt they first present a model where the debt maturity structure is the outcome of a risk sharing problem between the government and bondholders by issuing long term debt the government lowers the probability of a liquidity crisis transferring risk to bondholders in equilibrium this risk is reflected in a higher risk premium and borrowing cost therefore the government faces a tradeoff between safer long term borrowing and cheaper short term debt second the authors construct a new database of sovereign bond prices and issuance they show that emerging economies pay a positive term premium a higher risk premium on long term bonds than on short term bonds during crises the term premium increases with issuance shifting toward shorter maturities this suggests that changes in bondholders risk aversion are important to understand emerging market crises

relative efficiency measurement and prospects for yardstick competition in brazilian electricity distribution abstract the paper considers the non parametric methodology of data envelopment analysis dea in the context of efficiency measurement for brazilian electricity distribution in 1997 98 indicating the existence of firms operating substantially below the efficiency frontier the potential and difficulties associated with the implementation of yardstick competition schemes are then discussed stressing in particular the role of relative efficiency scores obtained from the dea approach

on the effects of deposit insurance and observability on bank runs an experimental study we study the effects of deposit insurance and observability of previous actions on the emergence of bank runs by means of a controlled laboratory experiment we consider three depositors in the line of a bank who decide between withdrawing or keeping their money deposited we have three treatments with different levels of deposit insurance which reflect the losses a depositor may incur in the case of a bank run we find that different levels of deposit insurance and the possibility of observing other depositors actions affect the likelihood of bank runs when decisions are not observable higher levels of deposit insurance decrease the probability of bank runs when decisions are observable this need not to be the case these results suggest that i observability might be considered as a partial substitute of deposit insurance and ii the optimal deposit insurance should take into account the degree of observability

the precarious consensus on the importance of energy security contrasting views between swiss energy users and experts abstract consented visions of a secure energy system are a driving force for energy policies and projects but while there used to exist a fairly uniform understanding of energy security in recent years competing visions have emerged examples include autarchic regional energy systems and highly integrated international ones each of these follows its own energy security logic this paper explores linkages between individuals understanding of energy security and their preferences for different energy visions comparing energy users and experts it draws from two consecutive studies in switzerland the first is a series of 12 qualitative interviews among energy system experts who reveal a strong preference for an integrated energy system that is based on high quality infrastructure this stands in contrast to the countries predominant paradigm of independence which is not only present in the public discourse but also in national energy policies the second study is an online survey that finds differences between energy users n 194 and experts n 98 understanding of energy security experts tend to see energy security primarily as the absence of supply disruptions whereas energy users tend to take a long term perspective and to include additional aspects in their considerations such as environmental concerns thus the societal consensus on the importance of energy security is a precarious one conflicts about the meaning of energy security can strip the concept of its power to be a building block of societal energy visions decision makers in policy and the energy sector therefore need to be aware that a shared understanding of energy security cannot be taken for granted they should also recognize energy security as a strong argument for promoting renewables however it will not suffice to refer to a specific renewable project as beneficial for energy security conveying its benefits from an energy security perspective requires knowledge of key actors understandings of this complex concept

the evolution and main determinants of productivity in brazilian electricity distribution 1998 2005 an empirical analysis abstract this paper estimates changes in the productivity of the brazilian electricity distribution sector using data envelopment analysis dea on a panel of 18 firms from 1998 to 2005 the study decomposes the productivity change of these distribution firms in terms of technical efficiency scale efficiency and technical progress this exercise aims to help the understanding of the main determinants of the evolution of productivity focusing its relationship with the restructuring process implemented in the 1990s tfp index records a yearly positive growth rate of 1 3 in the whole period under analysis for all firms technical change was the main component behind this evolution with an average growth of 2 1 per year while technical efficiency presented a yearly negative performance of 0 8 the results prove that in general terms the incentives generated in the reform process do not seem to have led the firms to behave in a more efficient manner

citizens preferences on nuclear and renewable energy sources evidence from turkey abstract based on data from a face to face survey of 2422 residents from urban turkey this paper presents an analysis of citizens preferences in turkey on nuclear and renewable energy sources findings indicate that opposition to nuclear power was strong and only a small number of respondents endorsed it by listing it in their top two choices conversely almost two thirds of the sample endorsed investment in renewable energy sources such as wind and solar and only a small minority was opposed to it econometric analyses revealed that knowledge of the climate change problem was a common factor that explained endorsement of both nuclear and renewables yet high levels of concern for the environment and a negative perception regarding its future differentiated the endorsers of renewables from those of nuclear energy endorsers of nuclear energy were found to be males who were knowledgeable about climate change and engaged in environmental issues but less concerned about the environment and optimistic about its future nuclear opponents on the other hand were found to be concerned about the environment pessimistic about its future and not fully relying on technology