a globally flexible almost ideal demand system the almost ideal demand system is combined with the fourier expenditure system subject to the assumption that preferences are of the price independent generalized logarithmic class the resulting demand system has the desirable features of each of its components aggregate demand equations are consistent with preferences of a representative consumer and consistent estimates of elasticities are obtained for all observed prices application of the new demand system to u s consumption of meats and fish reveals that it fits the data well and that the restriction to the usual specification is rejected

human capital and institutional determinants of information technology compensation modeling multilevel and cross level interactions compensation is critical in attracting and retaining information technology it professionals however there has been very little research on it compensation juxtaposing theories of compensation that focus on human capital endowments and labor market segmentation we hypothesize multilevel and cross level determinants of compensation we use hierarchical linear modeling to analyze archival salary data for 1 576 it professionals across 39 institutions results indicate that compensation is directly determined by human capital endowments of education and experience institutional differentials do not directly drive compensation but instead moderate the relationship of human capital endowments to compensation large institutions pay more than small institutions to it professionals with more education while small institutions pay more than large institutions to it professionals with less education not for profit institutions pay more than for profits to it professionals with more or it specific education further information intensive institutions pay more than non information intensive institutions to it professionals with more or it specific education we interpret these results in the context of institutional rigidity core competencies and labor shortages in the it labor market

fuel demand elasticities for energy and environmental policies indian sample survey evidence india has been running large scale interventions in the energy sector over the last decades still there is a dearth of reliable and readily available price and income elasticities of demand to base these on especially for domestic use of traditional fuels this study uses the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids using micro data of more than 100 000 households sampled across india the la aids model is expanded by specifying the intercept as a linear function of household characteristics marshallian and hicksian price and expenditure elasticities of demand for four main fuels are estimated for both urban and rural areas by different income groups these can be used to evaluate recent and current energy policies the results can also be used for energy projections and carbon dioxide simulations given different growth rates for different segments of the indian population

the energy ladder theoretical myth or empirical truth results from a meta analysis abstract modern fuels are an important enabler of social and economic development still over 2 billion people rely on traditional biomass for their daily energy needs to overcome the negative effects of traditional energy on human health and the environment and to enhance the livelihood conditions of the poor a transition towards cleaner and more efficient forms of energy is needed understanding household fuel choice and fuel switching behaviour is of vital importance in search for policies to support such a transition process this paper adds to the existing energy transition literature in two ways first we provide a novel conceptual framework to analyze the decision environment underlying energy and fuel choices second we apply this framework in a meta analysis of existing choice models investigating energy switching and stacking behaviour in urban and rural areas in developing countries the meta analysis shows that socio economic household characteristics appear to receive most attention so far in identifying groups of fuel users while relatively little information is available on the impact of the external decision context on household energy choices

bayesian estimation of a censored linear almost ideal demand system food demand in pakistan a censored linear almost ideal demand system for food is estimated with a bayesian markov chain monte carlo procedure using a sample of urban households from pakistan all own price elasticities but one are found to be negative and all total food expenditure elasticities are found to be positive with a high posterior probability there is a mix of gross complements and substitutes among the food products while net substitution is the predominant pattern household characteristics play a role in food expenditures and regional differences exist these demand elasticities can inform policy deliberations by the national government and international organizations welfare policy and market analyses require estimation of a complete system of demand equations often from household survey data unlike aggregate time series which are often not conducive to precise estimation of crossprice effects due largely to collinearity of prices cross sectional data offer an important advantage in deriving better elasticity estimates detailed demographic characteristics collected in cross sectional surveys allow accommodation of heterogeneous preferences and the typically large sample also provides the degrees of freedom to estimate a large and disaggregate demand system the use of microdata however is often complicated by censoring in the dependent variables this censored data feature most notable in demand estimation at the disaggregate level needs to be accommodated in order to obtain consistent parameter and elasticity estimates deaton 1986 p 1809 noted that the issue of zero observations is one of the most pressing panagiotis kasteridis is postdoctoral research associate and steven t yen is a professor at the university of tennessee cheng fang is an economist at the global information and early warning service food and agriculture organization fao of the united nations research was supported in part by usda s cooperative agreements nos 58 5000 7 0123 and 43 3aem 2 80063 the authors benefited from constructive comments by two anonymous reviewers and a blueprint for the monte carlo simulation by editor jeffrey h dorfman the article reflects the views of the authors not necessarily those of the usda or fao or its member

zero expenditures and the estimation of engel curves over the brief interview periods typical of budget surveys such as the u k family expenditure survey households recorded expenditures are liable to be misleading indicators of their underlying consumption most starkly a household may not be observed to purchase commodities that it nevertheless consumes this paper considers the implications of such measurement errors for the estimation of demand systems and derives a consistent estimator for the special case of linear engel curves

forests fuelwood and livelihoods energy transition patterns in eastern indonesia the central thesis of the energy ladder model is a unidirectional transition from primitive to advance fuel with increased affluence of households although now largely discredited this assumption remains a foundation of laissez faire policies that anticipate energy transition resulting spontaneous forest recovery with economic development our results suggest that such policies can undermine broader policy objectives and actually worsen forest conditions in rural indonesia based on a case study of forest margin communities in eastern indonesia we demonstrate that fuel subsidy reform did little to reduce rural household demand for fuelwood while dramatically increasing fuelwood demand for processing agricultural products our results show how household decisions related to fuel sources are affected by non economic considerations and external factors such as opportunities to sell fuelwood we argue that policy interventions that encourage energy transition of households do not necessarily improve forest conditions as household fuelwood use may be a symptom rather than a driver of deforestation and forest degradation thus policies to improve forest conditions should focus more on addressing the market environment of forest margin communities providing energy alternatives to small industries that are often the larger consumers of fuelwood

energy justice for all rethinking sustainable development goal 7 through struggles over traditional energy practices in sierra leone abstract with sustainable development goal 7 the united nations has declared its ambition to ensure access to modern energy for all by 2030 aside from broad appeals to differentiated responsibilities and greener technologies however the goal leaves significant procedural questions unaddressed this paper argues that the basic orientation of this approach is problematic undermining possibilities for progress toward energy justice and equitable development first in framing the issue of global energy distribution in broad techno managerial terms it obscures how particular geographies of energy poverty have been shaped by critical political economic influences second in privileging modern forms of energy and focusing on an end state of universal adoption over a broader goal of eliminating energy poverty the approach of sdg7 presents tangible hazards to many of those it seeks to benefit using a case study of sierra leonean rural cooking energy policy we demonstrate how the underlying mentality of sdg7 feeds into existing discourses that marginalise producers and users of traditional energy sources threatening important livelihoods with such evidence we argue that for justice in energy policy to be realised holistically there is a need to question how our knowledge of energy problems have emerged to avoid epistemologically autarchic policy positions

information technology effects on firm performance as measured by tobin s q despite increasing anecdotal evidence that information technology it assets contribute to firm performance and future growth potential of firms the empirical results relating it investments to firm performance measures have been equivocal however the bulk of the studies have relied exclusively on accounting based measures of firm performance which largely tend to ignore it s contribution to performance dimensions such as strategic flexibility and intangible value in this paper we use tobin s q a financial market based measure of firm performance and examine the association between it investments and firm q values after controlling for a variety of industry factors and firm specific variables the results based on data from 1988 1993 indicate that in all of the five years the inclusion of the it expenditure variable in the model increased the variance explained in q significantly the results also showed that for all five years it investments had a significantly positive association with tobin s q value our results are consistent with the notion that it contributes to a firm s future performance potential which a forward looking measure such as the q is better able to capture

evaluating prior beliefs in a demand system the case of meat demand in canada an almost ideal demand system for meats is estimated using canadian data a bayesian approach is used to impose inequality restrictions on substitution elasticities via monte carlo integration and importance sampling in order to conform with prior beliefs about curvature and monotonicity restrictions and substitution relationships results are more consistent with the concavity and monotonicity restrictions from demand theory than with the added restriction that all meats are substitutes

quality quantity and spatial variation of price this paper develops and implements a method for estimating price elasticities of demand using cross sectional household survey data geographically clustered households report unit values which when corrected for quality effects and for measurement error indicate the underlying spatial variation in prices and can be matched to variation in demand patterns a simple model of quality choice is proposed while the correction for measurement error exploits the clustered design of such surveys data from a 1979 household survey from the ivory coast are used to estimate price elasticities for beef meat fish cereals and starches copyright 1988 by american economic association

demand systems estimation with microdata a censored regression approach demand systems estimation increasingly makes use of household level microdata mainly to measure the effects of demographic variables data based on these household expenditure surveys present a major estimation problem for any given household many of the goods have zero consumption implying a censored dependent variable techniques which do not take this censored dependent variable into account will yield biased results we utilize a censored regression approach that is computationally simple consistent and asymptotically efficient the results are then presented and compared with those obtained using an uncensored technique

skilled immigration and the employment structures of u s firms we study the impact of skilled immigrants on the employment structures of us firms using matched employer employee data unlike most previous work we use the firm as the lens of analysis to account for greater heterogeneity and the fact that many skilled immigrant admissions are driven by firms themselves e g the h 1b visa ols and iv specifications show rising overall employment of skilled workers with increased skilled immigrant employment by the firm employment expansion is greater for young natives than for their older counterparts the departure rates for older workers relative to younger workers appear highest for those in stem occupations

the impact of the 1962 repatriates from algeria on the french labor market this paper uses census data to examine the impact on the french labor market of the 900 000 people repatriated from algeria in 1962 repatriates settled in regions culturally and climatically simil

evaluating the relative strength of product specific factors in fuel switching and stove choice decisions in ethiopia a discrete choice model of household preferences for clean cooking alternatives switching from conventional stoves to modern clean safe and efficient stoves will improve health and social welfare for the 2 7 billion people worldwide that lack reliable access to modern energy services in this paper we critically review some key theoretical dimensions of household consumer behaviour in switching from traditional biomass cooking stoves to modern efficient stoves and fuels we then describe the results of empirical research investigating the determinants of stove choice focusing on the relative strength of product specific factors across three wealth groups a stated preference survey and discrete choice model were developed to understand household decision making associated with cooking stove choice in addis ababa ethiopia the study found that with the exception of price and usage cost factors for the high wealth group the product specific factors that were investigated significantly affect stove and fuel choices the relative strength of factors was assessed in terms of marginal willingness to pay and provides some evidence that consumer preference for higher quality fuels and stoves tends to increase with increasing wealth

from linear fuel switching to multiple cooking strategies a critique and alternative to the energy ladder model abstract promoting sustainable development requires evaluating the technical and policy options that will facilitate the adoption and use of energy efficient and less polluting cooking stoves and practices the transition from traditional to modern fuels and devices has been explained by the energy ladder model that suggests that with increasing affluence a progression is expected from traditional biomass fuels to more advanced and less polluting fuels in this paper we evaluate the energy ladder model utilizing data from a four year 1992 96 case study of a village in mexico and from a large scale survey from four states of mexico we show that an alternate multiple fuel model of stove and fuel management based on the observed pattern of household accumulation of energy options rather than the simple progression depicted in the traditional energy ladder scenario more accurately depicts cooking fuel use patterns in rural households the multiple fuel model integrates four factors demonstrated to be essential in household decision making under conditions of resource scarcity or uncertainty a economics of fuel and stove type and access conditions to fuels b technical characteristics of cookstoves and cooking practices c cultural preferences and d health impacts this model also allows better estimates of the expected fuelwood demand and indoor air pollution in rural households

food consumption in mexico demographic and economic effects abstract disaggregated demand analysis is beginning to receive increased importance in food policies for developing countries using household data from the mexican expenditure survey we estimate the income and demographic effects on expenditures for nine aggregate food categories in addition we use a probit model to explore the effect of these variables on the purchase decision for five high protein supplying goods the results indicate that demographic variables as well as income have important effects in determining food expenditures we analyse these effects and indicate the role they might play in food policy programmes such as pronal

maintaining and testing separability in demand systems we derive a general elasticity representation of the necessary and sufficient conditions for direct weak separability of the utility function parametric restrictions required to implement the separability conditions are presented for three common demand systems the almost ideal translog and rotterdam our empirical application uses the rotterdam model to test a few separable structures within a complete u s demand system emphasizing food commodities results based on size corrected likelihood ratio tests provide support for commonly used separability assumptions about food and meat demand

preferences for domestic fuel analysis with socio economic factors and rankings in kolkata india abstract the choice of domestic fuel is a matter of great concern for households and policy makers in india this paper investigates the demand for domestic fuels when households face four choices fuelwood coal kerosene and lpg the study is based on a survey of 500 households in kolkata india the demand estimates are conducted using a two stage process where the first stage investigates choice and the second the quantity used determinants of fuel demand are identified and their relative importance shown extending the study the paper also analyses the choice of the main cooking fuel in terms of the households stated rankings of six fuels for five attributes the policy discussion indicates that subsidies have less potential to reduce polluting fuels such as coal and fuelwood due to weak cross price elasticities while increased availability of lpg and potentially also increased awareness of indoor air pollution have greater prospect

regional labor markets and the determinants of wage inequality from 1972 to 1990 the united states experienced the largest increase in wage inequality of any developed country the spread in log wages between the 90th and 10th percentiles of the male wage distribution increased by about 60 points and inequality increased within virtually every demographic or skill category of the labor force see chinhui juhn et al 1993 various explanations have been offered including changes in the relative demand for skill intensive goods international trade immigration of less skilled workers and increased labor force participation of women yet attempts to quantify the relative importance of these factors have not met with much success this leaves skill biased technical change as the residual claimant that rationalizes the data this paper uses regional differences in the evolution of wage inequality to provide new evidence on the determinants of relative wages using a model of factor demand in geographic markets i isolate contributions of i changing skill ratios in the labor force ii increased participation of women iii technical change and iv changes in the industrial composition of labor demand the data indicate that changing skill ratios and women s labor supply have affected the wages of low skilled men in the west the data indicate that increased immigration of less skilled hispanic and asian workers has adversely affected the wages of natives causing a greater increase in inequality there than in any other region of the country i modeling wage inequality in regional markets

factors underlying rural household energy transition a case study of china abstract this paper identifies factors underlying the energy transition of rural households in china based on province level panel data for years of 1991 2014 it indicates that there exists the energy stacking process of rural household energy transition characterized by the significant consumption inertia effects of traditional biomass energy tbe traditional commercial energy tce and advanced commercial energy ace respectively the insignificant substitution effect of tce and ace for tbe and the significant partial substitution of ace for tce with regard to the factors underlying rural household energy transition 1 per capita disposal income is negatively correlated with tbe tce and ace consumption 2 the number of motorcycles is positively correlated with tce and ace consumption 3 the number of firewood saving stoves and the price for ace are positively correlated with tbe consumption 4 household size and the number of motorcycles and the number of appliances are positively correlated with ace consumption 5 education level is positively correlated with tbe but negatively with tce consumption 6 the number of rural energy management institutions is positively correlated with tbe but negatively correlated ace consumption therefore some policy implications are discussed

what impedes efficient adoption of products evidence from randomized sales offers for fuel efficient cookstoves in uganda consumers failure to adopt products with health and wellbeing benefits apparently far greater than their costs has consistentlychallenged the widespread use of health improving technologies a sales offer combining free trial time payments and the option of returning the product can overcome barriers such as liquidityconstraints and poor information about benefits and usability we tested this sales offer and alternatives in an experiment with a fuel efficient charcoal stove in urban uganda and a fuel efficient wood stove in rural uganda this offer dramatically increased uptake in urban kampala from 4 to 46 and in rural mbarara from 5 to 57

disaggregated household meat demand with censored data previous research on meat demand has generally used highly aggregated data across time products and consumers however meat products across species are likely stronger substitutes than some products from the same species further demand for specific meat products would be expected to respond differently to market information about food safety or other events this study uses monthly consumer panel data collected between 1992 and 2000 to estimate a disaggregated meat product demand system the use of the expectations maximization algorithm is introduced to estimate a demand system that adjusts for the econometric problem of censored data resulting from purchased shares of some products by individuals often being equal to zero results indicate that certain individual meat products have noticeably different own price elasticities than existing aggregate meat product estimates of their respective species some individual meat products have stronger substitutes across species than within species e g be

household energy transition in sahelian cities an analysis of the failure of 30 years of energy policies in bamako mali abstract in west africa household energy transition has so far mainly been synonymous with the conversion from woodfuel to lpg this paper analyses the failure of 30 years of household energy transition policies in mali by combining two major frameworks multi level perspective mlp and social practice theory spt based on empirical field studies undertaken in bamako since 1985 and on literature review two historical narratives are presented one focusing on the dynamics of the dominant woodfuel regime and the other on changes in cooking practices the mlp analysis showed that all elements seemed aligned for destabilization of the dominant regime yet the woodfuel regime has resisted and is maintained the spt analysis showed that the stability of cooking eating and fuel purchasing practices did not converge towards and even opposed the transition to lpg this paper shows that the mlp and spt frameworks offer complementary perspectives for understanding transitions in developing countries it concludes that the definition and implementation of energy policies need to integrate an analysis of daily practices and should consider that energy transition is not synonymous with the replacement of one fuel by another but with new opportunities to diversify ways of cooking

food demand in mexico an application of the amemiya tobin approach to the estimation of a censored food system the modeling of micro level food demand patterns requires not only allowing for household heterogeneity but also addressing the problem of censoring in this article we present a variation of the amemiya tobin framework for estimating a censored demand system that allows for household heterogeneity the unique aspect of our approach is the use of a procedure that ensures the adding up of both latent and observed expenditure shares and also imposes expenditure share nonnegativity this system is applied to an analysis of food demand based on a random sample of urban mexican households

global disaggregation of information intensive services information intensive services are being globally disaggregated as corporations respond to the pressures of increasing global competition and take advantage of the opportunities made available by the progress of information technology and the emerging global work force in order to globally disaggregate services corporations must decide whether or not to carry out a service activity within the organization and where to locate it within or outside the geographic boundary of the home base country this paper analyzes the opportunities and challenges of global disaggregation of information intensive services specifically the paper proposes a taxonomy of disaggregation and develops a theoretical framework that identifies the criteria and guidelines for successfully selecting service activities to be globally disaggregated

estimating a demand system with nonnegativity constraints mexican meat demand a new information based approach for estimating systems of many equations with nonnegativity constraints is presented this approach called generalized maximum entropy gme is more practical and

tax mix corners and other kinks abstractthis paper models the local tax mix determination process in the presence of statewide fiscal limitations the decentralized government finance archetype and shows how excess sensitivity of local public spending to grants the conventionally and somewhat misleadingly termed flypaper effect arises in the constrained tax mix irrespective of whether lower or upper limits bind and how it cannot in general be taken as a symptom of local government overspending an empirical application to italian province panel data provides consistent evidence of the role of corner solutions produced by two sided tax limits in explaining the sensitivity of local public expenditures to grants

regression toward mediocrity in economic stature this paper provides estimates of the correlation in lifetime earnings between fathers and sons intergenerational data from the national longitudinal survey are used earlier studies conducted for the united states report elasticities of children s earnings with respect to parent s earnings of 0 2 or less suggesting extensive integenerational mobility these estimates however are biased downward by error contaminated measures of lifetime economic status estimates presented in this paper correct for the problem of measurement error and find the intergenerational correlation in income to be on the order of 0 4 this suggests considerably less intergenerational mobility than previously believed jel j62

immigration from poor to wealthy countries experience of the united states the u s experience with immigration from poor countries is examined using the results of two projects carried out by the national bureau of economic research questions considered include what determines the supply of immigrants how such immigrants fare in the u s job market and how this immigration affects the prospects of native born workers annotation

household energy demand in kenya an application of the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids abstract this paper estimates price and fuel expenditure elasticities of demand by applying the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids to 3665 households sampled across kenya in 2009 the results indicate that motor spirit premium msp automotive gas oil ago and lubricants are price elastic while fuel wood kerosene charcoal liquefied petroleum gas lpg and electricity are price inelastic kerosene is income elastic while fuel wood charcoal lpg electricity msp and ago are income inelastic the results also reveal fuel stack behaviour that is multiple fuel use among the households main policy implications of the results include increasing the penetration of alternative fuels as well as provision of more fiscal incentives to increase usage of cleaner fuels this not withstanding however the household income should be increased beyond a certain point for the household to completely shift and use a new fuel

overuse of wood based bioenergy in selected sub saharan africa countries review of unconstructive challenges and suggestions excessive wood consumption for energy and over dependence on fossil fuel based energy are fundamental issues of importance regarding the destruction of environmental sanity in this respect international communities are seeking to explore opportunities on how to encourage aggressive deployment of technologies for clean and sustainable development and possibly renewable the kyoto protocol on climate change meeting in 1997 with about 160 countries in attendance has been used as one of the platform of discourse on carbon emissions reduction strategies advocated strategies agreed include increase in renewable energy consumption via modern techniques massive deployment of renewable energy systems on a global scale will ensure a reasonable displacement of oil based energy production which is the main source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in sub saharan africa limited access to modern energy in the region has stepped up reliance on bioenergy consumption in form of wood fuel and charcoal resulting to attendant effects on human health environment and the biodiversity in general in view of the foregoing this study presents a review on the current situations of unconstructive effects in the overuse of fuel wood and its charcoal derivative for energy consumption in three selected sub saharan african countries nigeria ghana and uganda in conclusion suggestions on how to confront the challenges associated with the over exploitation conditions of fuel wood in the region are put forward the suggestions could be part of the pursuit to increase electricity availability reliability and security with lower level of emissions in the region

reassessing the energy ladder household energy use in maun botswana abstract in the context of sub saharan africa s rapid urbanization improved insight into urban energy use is increasingly important based on the predictions of energy transition theory a regional shift from biomass to modern fuels has long been expected to occur in tandem with urban growth however trends observed in the region s towns and cities have often not followed such patterns and fuelwood continues to be important in most areas this paper examines the practical relevance of transition theory using a recent case study conducted by the authors in maun botswana and results previously reported in the literature it finds that despite the long term link between socio economic development and increased modern fuel consumption at the national scale the notion of transition does not accurately reflect ongoing energy use patterns at lower levels of aggregation this is chiefly because its model of household fuel switching largely dismisses the importance of active and strategic decision making by urban consumers and their responsiveness to structural factors such as relative fuel prices as the botswana case illustrates this weakness can significantly distort expectations and policies around urban fuelwood use

modeling choice of fuelwood source among rural households in malawi a multinomial probit analysis abstract this paper addresses two questions what determines household s choice of fuelwood source and what are the environmental consequences of fuelwood collection choices we address these questions by estimating the multinomial probit model using survey data for households surrounding chimaliro and liwonde forest reserves in malawi after controlling for heterogeneity among households we find strong substitution opportunities across fuelwood collection sources attributes of the fuelwood sources size and species composition and distance to the sources are the most important determinants of fuelwood choice further results show that customary managed forests generate environmental benefits by reducing pressure on both plantation forests and forest reserves these findings support the need to strengthen community based institutions to manage local forest resources

rural residential energy transition and energy consumption intensity in china abstract this paper examines the impact of residential energy transition on residential energy consumption per capita recpc and identifies the underlying drivers in rural china based on province level panel data for years 1991 2014 in rural china it is shown that energy transition from traditional biomass energy tbe to traditional commercial energy tce significantly decreases recpc while energy transition from tbe or tce to advanced commercial energy ace significantly increases recpc as is revealed by the energy stacking model per capita income has a significantly negative impact on recpc and the impact of lagged recpc is opposite due to the regulation of energy price there exists price distortion in china s rural energy market and the price mechanism functions poorly besides factors including juvenile dependency ratio and education level significantly reduce recpc therefore it is vital to integrate rural energy into national energy strategic system facilitate energy transition process and introduce the market system reform of rural energy and continue to improve the education level of rural residents in rural china

joint production and consumption in traditional households fuelwood and crop residues in two districts in nepal forest conversion by agricultural households is the leading cause of deforestation yet we know little about agricultural household use of forest and tree products this article measures household production of and demand for fuelwood and fuel substitutes in two districts in nepal women play a larger role in collection in the district dependant on production from common forestlands men and agricultural capital are more important inputs in the district dependant on production from private lands the article also measures demand elasticities for fuelwood combustible agricultural residues and improved stoves a technological substitute each by household income group all price and income demand elasticities are less than one the substitution elasticities between residues and fuelwood are less than one residues are more important substitutes for low income households and improved stoves are more important substitutes for high income households

welfare implications of community forest plantations in developing countries the orissa social forestry project community forest plantations are a common intervention in developing countries we use household and remote sensing data from orissa india to estimate welfare effects of community forest plantations in terms of the value of decreased collection times plantations afford users a selection model accounting for possible jointness in site location and productivity is used to estimate collection production functions for different household labor categories in natural and community forests two measures of an opportunity cost of time are used to determine welfare effects of time saved due to community forests we find access to community forests is important to marginal productivity of different labor categories but to different degrees highlighting the need to disaggregate household data when analyzing these interventions we also find substantial welfare improvements from time savings for many households and villages

female labor force participation and household dependence on biomass energy evidence from national longitudinal data this research received financial support from the food policy institute at the australian national university

immigrants and human capital investment why do immigrants invest more in human capital than the native born and how do investment patterns vary by type of immigrant summarizing our previous research we approach this question theoretically and empirically excerpt

stoves or sugar willingness to adopt improved cookstoves in malawi malawi has set a target of adoption of two million improved cookstoves ics by 2020 meeting this objective requires knowledge about determinants of adoption particularly in rural areas where the cost of traditional cooking technologies and fuels are non monetary and where people have limited capacity to purchase an ics we conducted a discrete choice experiment with 383 households in rural malawi asking them if they would chose a locally made ics or a package of sugar and salt of roughly equal value six months later we assessed adoption and stove use patterns sixty six percent of households chose the ics we find that having a larger share of crop residues in household fuel supply awareness of the environmental impacts of woodfuel reliance time the primary cook devotes to collecting fuelwood and peer effects at the village level increase the odds of choosing the ics having a large labor supply for fuelwood collection and experience with a non traditional cooking technology decreased the odds of choosing the ics in a rapid assessment six months after stoves were distributed we found 80 of households were still using the ics but not exclusively our findings suggest considerable potential for wide scale adoption of ics in malawi

modeling energy and development an evaluation of models and concepts most global energy models are developed by institutes from developed countries focusing primarily on issues that are important in industrialized countries evaluation of the results for asia of the ipcc sres models shows that broad concepts of energy and development the energy ladder and the environmental kuznets curve can be observed in the results of the models however improvements can be made in modeling the issues that underlie these concepts like traditional fuels electrification economic structural change income distribution and informal economies given the rapidly growing importance of energy trajectories of developing countries for global sustainability the challenge for the future is to develop energy models that include all these aspects of energy and development

woodland deforestation by charcoal supply to dar es salaam abstract a dynamic model of deforestation around dar es salaam is constructed linking marginal production cost and demand for charcoal the exploited area forms a wedge which expands inland as net price of charcoal increases wood is primarily harvested at the edge of the wedge simulations show that under reasonable assumptions charcoal price increases from 1800 to 1958 tsh bag in 10 years supply area from 3416 to 6886 km2 and harvest from 2 05 to 2 66 mill m3 year increment of woody biomass within the wedge will supply little charcoal for many years because woodland density does not affect production costs therefore reduced demand for charcoal and shift to other forms of energy are the factors controlling deforestation

socio economic determinants of charcoal expenditures in tanzania evidence from panel data abstract compared to firewood charcoal is a relatively clean and convenient fuel nevertheless the mass production of charcoal can contribute substantially to deforestation rendering it imperative to regulate charcoal use this article uses nationally representative panel data on tanzania conducted in 2008 and 2010 to examine how charcoal expenditures change over time within any given household the focus of the analysis will be on identifying certain socio economic factors that affect charcoal use at the household level the framing of the analysis on variation in time within each household addresses the omitted variable bias that often undermines inference from comparisons across different households we find that while charcoal expenditures increase with household income the rise in charcoal use with income is relatively gradual household size is unrelated to charcoal expenditures but urban rural differences in fuel choice are large even though we include household fixed effects in all specifications in this regard policymakers and urban planners need to pay particular attention to the role of urbanization in predicting trends in charcoal expenditures in developing countries like tanzania

household energy elasticities and policy implications for pakistan abstract this study estimates fuel expenditure and price elasticities of household fuels in pakistan the burning of biomass is harmful to health and the environment and may cause preventable morbidity and mortality it is important to investigate how households fuel choices are linked to prices so that governments can consider appropriate steps to enhance the consumption of clean fuels using three pooled cross sectional surveys from pakistan and applying the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids model we found that all fuel types except natural gas were price inelastic at the national level and for urban households in rural areas natural gas and lpg were found to be more price elastic compared to urban areas simple policy simulations based on our results suggest that in order to reduce indoor air pollution by encouraging the adoption of clean fuels lpg and piped natural gas governments should subsidies clean fuels rather than imposing taxes on solid fuels moreover in the case of pakistan a subsidy for lpg should be preferred over a subsidy for piped natural gas as it produces a more cost effective reduction in solid fuel use

modeling the pattern of structural change in u s meat demand the hypothesis of structural change in u s meat demand is tested in a four meat almost ideal demand system with parameters following a gradual switching regression model the results support the notion that structural change partly explains the observed u s meat consumption patterns structural change is biased against beef neutral for pork in favor of chicken and fish and it does not affect estimated elasticities the estimated path of structural change implies a rapid transition to a new regime in the mid 1970s although a smooth path cannot be ruled out

the forbidden fuel charcoal urban woodfuel demand and supply dynamics community forest management and woodfuel policy in malawi abstract this article examines woodfuel policy challenges and opportunities in malawi two decades after woodfuel crisis narratives and counter narratives a nuanced examination of woodfuel supply demand use and markets illuminated options to turn stagnant policies based on charcoal bans and fuel substitution into proactive realistic ones acknowledging woodfuel dominance and its socio economic importance findings revealed growing spatially differentiated woodfuel deficits in southern and central malawi and around blantyre zomba and lilongwe cities poverty limited electricity access reliability and generation exacerbated by tariff subsidies and complex fuel allocation decisions restricted energy ladder transitions from woodfuels to electricity producing an enduring urban energy mix dominated by charcoal thereby increasing wood consumption diverse socio political interests prevented lifting of the charcoal ban despite progressive forest laws despite implementation challenges lessons already learnt efficiency and poverty reduction arguments limited government capacity growing illegal production of charcoal in forest reserves and its staying power make targeted community based forest management cbfm approaches more practical for regulated commercial production of woodfuels than the status quo new differentiated policies should include commercial woodfuel production and licensing for revenue and ecological sustainability under cbfm or concessions within and outside selected reserves an enterprise based approaches for poverty reduction smallholder private tree growing woodfuel energy conserving technologies improved electricity supply and agricultural productivity

the impact of mass migration on the israeli labor market mass migration from the former soviet union increased the israeli population by 12 in the first half of the 1990s this exodus was precipitated by the lifting of emigration restrictions in an unstable ussr and by the open immigration policy of israel toward soviet jews who faced more restrictive entry policies elsewhere i use this natural experiment to study the impact of immigration on the labor market outcomes of native israelis ols yields significant reductions in wages and small reductions in employment however ols is biased if the distribution of immigrants across occupations in israel was not exogenous to relative wage and employment conditions i instrument for the entry of russians into an occupation in israel using information on their former occupations in the ussr there is a significant positive correlation between the former presence of the immigrants in an occupation in the ussr and their presence in that occupation in israel but the previous occupational choices of russians abroad were independent of israeli wage and employment growth subsequent to their migration iv estimates indicate that immigration did not have an adverse impact on native israeli labor market outcomes

foot and mouth disease and the mexican cattle industry the objective of this article is to analyze the domestic and international effects of a hypothetical foot and mouth disease fmd outbreak in the mexican cattle industry a discrete time dynamic optimization model of the mexican cattle sector is specified and linked to domestic and international markets economic consequences of fmd outbreaks are simulated over time and under different scenarios specific findings and general policy recommendations are provided the study reports a range of outbreaks from localized to large scale and suggests that changes in economic surplus due to fmd range from a positive net gain of 0 89 to 1 6 billion to a net loss of about 67 billion depending on the specific mitigation strategy and outbreak scenario

why are companies offshoring innovation the emerging global race for talent this paper empirically studies determinants of decision by companies to offshore innovation activities it uses survey data from the international offshoring research network project to estimate the impact of managerial intentionality past experience and environmental factors on the probability of offshoring innovation projects the results show that the emerging shortage of highly skilled science and engineering talent in the us and more generally the need to access qualified personnel are important explanatory factors for offshoring innovation decisions moreover contrary to drivers of many other functions labor arbitrage is less important than other forms of cost savings the paper concludes with a discussion of the changing dynamics underlying offshoring of innovation activities suggesting that companies are entering a global race for talent

effect of fuelwood scarcity and socio economic factors on household bio based energy use and energy substitution in rural ethiopia abstract in ethiopia biomass is predominantly utilized for household energy needs often using inefficient rudimentary stoves which cause adverse environmental and welfare effects this paper examined the contribution of biomass resources to rural household energy use and energy substitution the analysis applied the ordinary least square in the final stage estimation of fuelwood and overall biomass energy consumption by using predicted shadow prices the paper used tobit model to estimate charcoal and agricultural fuel consumption due to the presence of censoring an increase in fuelwood shadow price was associated with reduced household fuelwood consumption with price elasticity of 0 38 the cross price elasticity between fuelwood and agricultural fuels revealed no evidence of energy substitution which conforms to the findings of previous studies household access to electricity was associated with lower household biomass energy utilization but kerosene was not fuelwood substitute household energy use conformed to the fuel stacking or multiple fuel use concept but households preferred modern energy options as welfare increased in areas where modern energy is available this suggests that there is a promising prospect for fuel transition but access to modern energy and economic growth have key roles the findings suggest that a concerted policy effort is required that would help diversify rural livelihoods improve living standards and encourage economic growth encourage inter fuel substitution through improved modern energy access and afforestation to increase biomass supply

people flows in globalization the policy debate over globalization in the past decade has largely bypassed the international mobility of labor restrict trade and cries of protectionism resound suggest linking labor standards to trade and it s protectionism in disguise limit capital flows and the international monetary fund is on your back but restrict people flows that s just an accepted exercise of national sovereignty during the last few decades when most countries reduced barriers to trade in goods and services and liberalized financial capital markets most also sought to limit immigration in this essay i examine what we know about the causes and consequences of immigration i argue that people flows are fundamental to creating a global economy and that the interplay among immigration capital and trade is essential to understanding the way globalization affects economies i consider ways to reduce barriers to immigration that could improve the well being of workers around the world

self selection and the earnings of immigrants this paper analyzes the way in which the earnings of the immigrant population may be expected to differ from the earnings of the native population because of the endogeneity of the decision to migrate the empirical study shows that differences in the u s earnings of immigrants with the same measured skills but from different home countries are attributable to variations in political and economic conditions in the countries of origin at the time of migration excerpt

you can t take it with you immigrant assimilation and the portability of human capital the national origin of an individual s human capital is a crucial determinant of its value education and labor market experience acquired abroad are significantly less valued than human capital obtained domestically this difference can fully explain the earnings disadvantage of immigrants relative to comparable natives in israel variation in the return to foreign schooling across origin countries may reflect differences in its quality and compatibility with the host labor market the return to foreign experience is generally insignificant acquiring additional education following immigration appears to confer a compound benefit by raising the return to education acquired abroad

statistical models for zero expenditures in household budgets household budget surveys are an important source of data on consumer s expenditure not just for individual consumers but also for estimating national aggregates however it is a widespread finding that for certain commodities most notably tobacco and alcohol the estimate from the household survey falls short of the known consumption total calculated with some confidence from data on production imports exports and excise duties for example in the british family expenditure survey with which we shall largely be concerned total tobacco expenditure was underestimated in 1976 by 21 percent see kemsley redpath and holmes 1980 p 51 much of this understatement together with that on alcohol is thought to occur because of the design of the survey which excludes many persons amongst whom consumption of such items is thought to be atypically high e g prisoners hoteliers and their residents merchant seamen even so the possibility remains that some of the understatement is due to various types of misreporting by households included in the survey in this paper we consider a model in which the standard tobit specification tobin 1958 is supplemented by the operation of a simple binary censor the tobit model is essentially a linear regression model in which non positive observations of the dependent variable are replaced by zero we take this specification as our starting point but add a second censoring process that randomly replaces a fraction of the observations generated by the tobit model bv zeroes the combined model can serve as a representation of several types of

are foreign it workers cheaper u s visa policies and compensation of information technology professionals the use of h 1b and other work visas to hire foreign information technology it professionals in the united states has attracted significant controversy and policy debates on one hand hiring high skill foreign it professionals on work visas can be advantageous for u s firms and the overall economy on the other hand high skill immigration can adversely impact the wages of foreign and american it professionals this study uses data on skills and compensation of more than 50 000 it professionals in the united states over the period 2000 2005 to study patterns in compensation of foreign and american it professionals to inform these debates contrary to the popular belief that foreign workers are a cheap source of labor for u s firms we find that after controlling for their human capital attributes foreign it professionals those without u s citizenship and those with h 1b or other work visas earn a salary premium when compared with it professionals with u s citizenship the salary premiums for non u s citizens and for those on work visas fluctuate in response to supply shocks created by the annual caps on new h 1b visas setting lower and fully utilized annual caps results in higher salary premiums for non u s citizens and those with work visas we discuss implications of this study for crafting informed visa and immigration related policies by the u s government for staffing practices of firms and for human capital investments by it professionals

application of an almost ideal demand system aids to ethiopian rural residential energy use panel data evidence abstract it is well known that poor rural households in low income economies are reliant on traditional fuels to meet basic domestic energy needs but little is known about the specific underlying socio economic drivers of residential fuel choices in ethiopia i used the linear approximation almost ideal demand system laaids with normalized prices to compute expenditure elasticity and a multinomial logit model mlm to examine household fuel use the laaids model result showed that expenditure was elastic for modern fuels but inelastic for traditional fuels regression results from the mlm indicated that fuel choice behaviour of rural households could be more accurately described as fuel stacking behaviour as opposed to the energy ladder hypothesis in rural areas household fuel choice may be constrained by limited access to commercial fuels and efficient cook stoves supply dependency and affordability consumer preferences and a web of other intricate factors rural households had less incentive for fuel switching due to underlying factors and the availability of fuel wood without direct financial cost with continued deforestation and receding forests households are expected to develop inter fuel substitution and switching behaviour conditional on access to modern energy technologies

testing restrictions on a model of japanese meat demand tests for quasi separability net substitutability and perfect substitutability are developed and implemented on an almost ideal demand system model of the japanese meat sector the data set satisfies both symmetry and homogeneity there is evidence of net complimentarity between chicken and dairy beef and chicken and pork the tests indicate that japanese wagyu beef is considered a separate commodity to both imported beef and dairy beef the results also indicate that fish can be treated as separable in the japanese meat demand system

food consumption dynamics a nonparametric approach using maximum entropy estimation we model dynamic consumer choice in a stochastic optimal control framework and show conditions under which observable market share data possess the markov property using 30 years of annual aggregate milk consumption data differentiated by fat content maximum entropy is used to estimate nonstationary transition probabilities showing how consumer tastes and preferences have changed over time the maximum entropy approach allows for the estimation of a 4 4 transition probability matrix for each year of the sample results suggest that skim milk was an absorbing state over most of the sample but that the trend toward skim milk has decelerated and possibly reversed itself since 1998 our approach provides a useful complement to existing parametric approaches to demand analysis when data are limited or the problem is ill posed

technological innovation and dispersion environmental benefits and the adoption of improved biomass cookstoves in tigrai northern ethiopia this paper empirically analyzes adoption and fuel savings efficiency of improved biomass cookstove technology using survey data from a cross section of 200 farm households from the highlands of tigrai northern ethiopia results indicate that these farm households are willing to adopt improved biomass cookstove innovations if this leads to economic savings moreover results suggest significant positive environmental externalities on a per household basis we found that adopters collect about 70 kg less wood and about 20 kg less dung each month the adoption of improved biomass cookstoves reduces harvest pressure on local forest stands assuming an average of 120 metric tons of biomass per ha we find the potential reduction in deforestation amounts to some 1400 ha per year an important saving further the reduced use of dung as a fuel has a positive impact on soil productivity in agriculture

the labor market impact of high skill immigration the rapid growth in the number of foreign students enrolled in american universities has transformed the higher education system particularly at the graduate level many of these newly minted doctorates remain in the united states after receiving their doctoral degrees so that the foreign student influx can have a significant impact in the labor market for high skill workers using data drawn from the survey of earned doctorates and the survey of doctoral recipients the study shows that a foreign student influx into a particular doctoral field at a particular time had a significant and adverse effect on the earnings of doctorates in that field who graduated at roughly the same time a 10 percent immigration induced increase in the supply of doctorates lowers the wage of competing workers by about 3 percent this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

the economics of immigration this literature review concerns the impact of immigration on the economy of the host country focusing on the experience of the united states the emphasis is on the period from the 1970s to the 1990s the author shows that research earlier in this period generally concluded that the economic effects of immigration were positive but that more recent research on later migrations have generally concluded that immigration may be having an adverse effect on the earnings of native unskilled workers and be placing an increased burden on welfare programs the importance of such economic analysis for the formulation of appropriate migration policies is stressed

woodfuels livelihoods and policy interventions changing perspectives in the 1970s it appeared that fuelwood use was growing rapidly and this could have major adverse impacts on the resource and poor users by the mid 1980s revised assessments indicated that there was less of a problem than had been foreseen and much less of a need for forestry interventions to maintain supplies as a result many of the latter were sharply scaled back additional information and analysis that has become available since the 1980s support the view that there is no need for large scale interventions devoted just to provision of fuelwood however declining access to supplies or markets can raise significant problems in some areas and for particular categories of user growing urban demand for charcoal can also cause local problems in particular in africa the potentials for appropriate forms of intervention are discussed

a sample selection approach to censored demand systems the multivariate sample selection model is extended to a nonlinear equation system with partial selection and applied to household meat consumption in china elasticity estimates differ from those obtained from conventional maximum likelihood and tobit estimates chinese meat products are gross complements while net substitution also exists in some cases the use of micro survey data has been popular in estimating consumer demand equations important features of microdata include censored dependent variables estimation procedures for censored consumer demand systems include the primal kuhn tucker approach of wales and woodland 1983 dual virtualprice approach of lee and pitt 1986 and the tobit system amemiya 1974 estimated by generalized maximum entropy golan perloff and shen 2001 and maximum simulated likelihood dong gould and kaiser 2004 yen lin and smallwood 2003 procedures less efficient alternatives include the quasi maximum likelihood estimator yen lin and smallwood 2003 the generalized method of moments estimator meyerhoefer ranney and sahn 2005 and a number of two step estimators heien and wessells 1990 perali and chavas 2000 shonkwiler and yen 1999 yen 2005 recently proposed a maximum likelihood ml procedure for the multivariate sample selection model mssm an extension of the bivariate sample selection model heckman 1979 which had motivated the procedures of heien and wessells 1990 and shonkwiler and yen 1999 the mssm was developed in the context of linear equations and in addition is not strictly applicable for a partially selective equation system viz

consumer welfare and climate change in greenland abstract this manuscript aims to assess the potential impact of climate change on consumer welfare in greenland an arctic economy that has been historically affected by climate variation three proxies for climate change i annual mass change anomaly of the ice cap ii annual temperature anomalies and iii annual heating degree days anomalies are used to test the hypothesis that climate is a potential determinant of consumer expenditure the quadratic almost ideal demand system in its original specification is used to test this hypothesis the empirical analysis supported by granger causality tests shows that the annual mass change anomaly of the ice cap is a statistically and economically significant determinant of consumption of non durable goods in greenland a counterfactual analysis predicts that climate change could have decreased the wealth of consumers with an aggregate cumulative social welfare loss of 2010 us 21 63 million between 2003 and 2017

immigration and wages evidence from the 1980s this paper presents new evidence on the effects of immigration based on changes in the distributions of wages in 24 major u s cities during the 1980s we concentrate on measuring the effects of immigration at the lower tail of the wage distribution in particular we ask whether recent declines in the real earnings of the least skilled workers in the u s economy are related to immigration our empirical analysis reveals large differences across cities in the relative growth rates of wages for low and high paid workers nevertheless these differences bear little or no relation to the size of immigrant inflows excerpt

the impact of the household decision environment on fuel choice behavior abstract consumer preferences for fuels and alternative cookstove technologies in kenya are examined focusing on household internal and external determinants driving choice behavior in a choice experiment the potential for a transition towards cleaner and more efficient fuels and technologies is assessed by zooming in on three fuel stove combinations we find substantial demand and positive willingness to pay for the fuel stove combinations in three locations representing different decision environments demand is significantly higher in the peri urban and the resource abundant rural location than in the resource scarce rural location the presence of better developed consumer markets for fuels in these locations functions as an important driver for cookstove adoption although charcoal and ethanol stoves are preferred over improved firewood stoves continued firewood usage is expected energy switching behavior cannot be substantiated instead energy stacking is more likely where charcoal and ethanol add to and extend a household s energy portfolio

the effect of marketing messages and payment over time on willingness to pay for fuel efficient cookstoves abstract smoke from inefficient biomass cookstoves contributes to global climate change and kills approximately four million people per year cooking technologies such as manufactured fuel efficient cookstoves that mitigate the negative effects of traditional cookstoves exist but adoption rates are low the international development community debates whether this low adoption of fuel efficient cookstoves is due to a lack of adequate product information or due to household financial constraints we ran vickery second price auctions in rural uganda to elicit willingness to pay for fuel efficient cookstoves comparing the effect of informational marketing messages and time payments on willingness to pay a randomized trial tested the following marketing messages this stove can improve health this stove can save time and money and both messages combined none of the messages consistently increased willingness to pay in a second experiment we compared willingness to pay for two different contracts one with payment due within a week and one with equal installment payments over 4 weeks consistent with household financial constraints time payments raised willingness to pay by 40

what do we learn about consumer demand patterns from micro data the aim of this paper is to assess the importance of using micro level data in the econometric analysis of consumer demand to do this we utilize a time series of repeated cross sections covering some 4 000 households in each of 15 years employing a number of different aggregation procedures we conclude that aggregate data alone are unlikely to produce reliable estimates of structural price and income coefficients however once certain aggregation factors as well as trend and seasonal components are included an aggregate model is not necessarily outperformed across all demand equations in terms of forecasting ability jel d12 c52 c31 the purpose of this paper is to develop a complete consumer demand system based on a time series of individual household data and to use it to measure the biases introduced into the study of consumer de mand behavior when aggregate data are used in place of the appropriate microeco nomic data we assess the suitability of ag gregate data through the impact on income and price elasticities and by evaluating the ability of both micro and aggregate based models to forecast aggregate consumer de mand the biases introduced by the use of aggregate data depend upon the way that household characteristics interact with in come and price effects and on departures of demand systems from linearity we explore the structure of microeconomic demand sys tems and the role of household characteris tics in the behavior of consumer demand both for the light this may shed on the pattern of future demands and for the im plications this behavior has for issues of aggregation consumer demand patterns typically found in micro data sets vary considerably across households with different household characteristics and with different levels of income we model this variability by making intercept and slope parameters in the budget share equations of our demand sys tem depend on household characteristics and by allowing for nonlinear total log expenditure terms in fact in theory consistent demand systems it is total ex penditure rather than disposable income that is allocated across goods we find that this general framework leads to a well specified data coherent demand system which is a quadratic extension of the popu lar almost ideal model of angus s deaton and john muellbauer 1980 the micro level estimates are shown to be sensitive to the treatment of endogeneity of total expen diture and to the specification of interaction terms with household characteristics in ad dition this specification is also shown to possess many attractive features for the evaluation of aggregate models

producing woodfuel for urban centers in the democratic republic of congo a path out of poverty for rural households woodfuel is a renewable energy source with good potential for climate change mitigation in the democratic republic of congo drc the sector employs over 300 000 people for the supply of kinshasa alone but the benefits to the poor are often unknown this paper analyzes the contribution of commercial woodfuel production to livelihoods and poverty reduction in the drc woodfuel revenues especially those of charcoal contribute substantially to producers household income ranging from 12 for fuelwood producers around kisangani to 75 for charcoal producers around kinshasa it supports basic needs and investments in other livelihood activities for 82 of charcoal producers and 65 of fuelwood producers which helps to reduce poverty the contribution of woodfuel commercialization to poverty reduction should be part of energy and forestry policies

rural household energy use and its determinants in china how important are influences of payment for ecosystem services vs other factors abstract fuelwood is an essential environmental good for livelihood in rural china heavy reliance on fuelwood is associated with numerous negative externalities due to decades of rapid economic growth in china we hypothesize that the increase in rural household income would reduce reliance on fuelwood using data from a survey of 481 households conducted in 2014 we examined the effects of two payments for ecosystem services programs the conversion of cropland to forest program ccfp and the ecological welfare forest program ewfp on energy use along with other factors we found that the ccfp did not significantly affect fuel choice nor the quantity of fuelwood used but households with more forestland in ewfp were less likely to adopt modern fuels and likely to use more fuelwood household per capita annual income was the main factor promoting adoption of modern fuels while household size was the most important factor determining the quantity of fuelwood used per capita overall the gradually increasing adoption of modern fuels has thus far not resulted in any significant abandonment of fuelwood fuelwood remains the dominant fuel across all income groups suggesting that households in the study area are in the early stages of the energy transition

assessing the potential demand for biofuel by combining economics and psychology a focus on proximity applied to jatropha oil in africa abstract bio energy demand is known to be influenced by geographical origin and social equity this paper aims to highlight the influence of the proximity between biomass production and energy consumption on the demand for alternative bio fuels in the context of burkina faso we explore potential demand for jatropha oil jatropha curcas as a diesel substitute among engine owners survey data are based on a between groups design one group of respondents experiencing a local supply chain while the other a global one results show that proximity has a significant effect on potential demand itself and on the formation and strength of beliefs regarding jatropha oil in a local supply chain context the demand is superior and seems to be guided more by a certain economic and technical rationality conversely the prospect of a jatropha oil produced outside the village restrains demand and this latter is more determined by contextual factors and social interaction our analysis confirms that demand does not only depend on technical and economic factors such as price but also on the integration of the biomass production and processing in the socioeconomic life of local rural populations understanding demand construction and assessing underlying beliefs are key success factors for bio energy projects