climate mitigation under an uncertain technology future a tiam world analysis abstract this paper explores the impacts of long term technology and climate uncertainties on the optimal evolution of the world energy system stochastic programming with the tiam world model is used for a parametric analysis of hedging strategies varying the probabilities associated to each of two contrasted technology outlooks the parametric analysis constitutes an original supplement to the computation of hedging strategies by identifying technologies that are robust under a broad range of probabilities of the two technology outlooks natural gas appears to be one of the most appealing robust options in an uncertain technological context especially in china given its relatively low emissions and the low capital cost of associated technologies natural gas and some other options are in fact considered as super hedging actions penetrating more in the hedging solution than in any of the deterministic scenarios nuclear power and ccs use are less robust they depend much more on either the level of the climate target or the probabilities of the technology outlooks the analysis also shows that technological uncertainty has a greater impact under milder climate targets than under more severe ones future research might consider a larger set of possible technology outlooks as well as specific analyses focused on key characteristics of low carbon technologies

wage changes and intrafirm job mobility over the business cycle two case studies despite the many reasons to expect sluggish wage adjustment recent evidence suggests that real wages are quite procyclical growing more rapidly during economic expansions than during recessions and that this wage procyclicality pertains even to workers who stay with the same employer one possible explanation for these findings is the old hypothesis that a portion of firms cyclical adjustment of labor costs is achieved not by changing the wages paid in particular jobs but by changing the quality of labor assigned to those jobs the authors analysis of interwar personnel data from the ford motor company and the a m byers company supports that hypothesis the authors recognize that case studies of only two firms cannot be definitive but they conclude that cyclicality in workers job assignments deserves further attention

inventories rational expectations and the business cycle abstract the simplest macroeconomic models in which markets clear instantaneously and expectations are rational preclude the existence of business cycles that is of serially correlated deviations of output from trend this paper studies one of several mechanisms that can be used to make these so called new classical models produce business cycles the mechanism is the gradual adjustment of inventory stocks two macroeconomic models of inventory holdings are formulated both imply first that current output should be a decreasing function of the stock of inventories and second that inventories once perturbed from equilibrium levels should adjust only gradually these two features are then embedded into an otherwise standard macroeconomic model in which markets clear instantaneously and expectations are rational two principal conclusions are reached first disturbances such as unanticipated changes in money will set in motion serially correlated deviations of output from trend second if desired inventories are sensitive to the real interest rate then even fully anticipated changes in money can affect real variables

reservation wages and the cost of unemployment this paper studies direct evidence on reservation wages reported in great britain in 1982 to assess 1 whether such asking prices are high and 2 whether variations in these reservation wages are related to differences in measures of the subjective and objective costs of unemployment a majority overall and for various subgroups reports reservation wages no higher than own past wages adjusted for earnings growth but there is nonetheless considerable dispersion in the ratio of reservation to past wages reservation wages are somewhat related to measures of the differential cost of unemployment most clearly for men although the independent role of benefits is often imprecisely measured however exactly which of these costs matter differs significantly according to whether the separation from last employment was voluntary or involuntary copyright 1989 by the london school of economics and political science

investments holdup and the form of market contracts the authors analyze incomplete contracts to induce efficient investment with exogenous switching costs fixed price contracts are efficient generate some rigidity in prices are renegotiated intermittently by possibly small amounts and when inflation is positive generate asymmetric responses to shocks all consistent with evidence on prices and wages with two sided specific investments efficiency requires prices to have sufficient escalator clauses to avoid renegotiation as observed in many long term contracts a third case with one sided specific investments can generate take or pay contracts and explain why firms sometimes pay for specific investments that appear to benefit employees directly

the real wage cyclicality of newly hired and incumbent workers in germany several recent macroeconomic models assume that real wages are rigid the wage rigidity of newly hired workers assumes a crucial role in these models as the decision of whether to open a vacancy is primarily influenced by real hiring wages this article analyses the cyclical behaviour of real wages in germany it considers recent concerns that not controlling for cyclical job up and downgrading leads to biased results the results indicate that wages are not rigid neither for all workers nor for newly hired workers but instead respond considerably to business cycle conditions

low carbon and clean energy scenarios for india analysis of targets approach abstract low carbon energy technologies are of increasing importance to india for reducing emissions and diversifying its energy supply mix using gcam an integrated assessment model this paper analyzes a targets approach for pushing solar wind and nuclear technologies in the indian electricity generation sector from 2005 to 2095 targets for these technologies have been constructed on the basis of indian government documents policy announcements and expert opinions different targets have been set for the reference scenario and the carbon price scenario in the reference scenario wind and nuclear technologies exceed respective targets in the long run without any subsidy push while solar energy requires subsidy push throughout the century in order to meet its high targets in the short run nuclear energy also requires significant subsidy including a much higher initial subsidy relative to solar power which is a result of its higher targets under a carbon price scenario the carbon price drives the penetration of these technologies still subsidy is required especially in the short run when the carbon price is low we also found that pushing solar wind and nuclear technologies leads to a decrease in share of ccs under the carbon price scenario and biomass under both the reference and carbon price scenarios this is because low carbon technologies compete among themselves and substitute each other thereby enhancing the need for subsidy or carbon price highlighting that proposed targets are not set at efficient levels in light of contemporary debate on external costs of nuclear energy we also assess the sensitivity of the results to nuclear technology cost we find that higher cost significantly decreases the share of nuclear power under both the reference and carbon price scenarios

cyclical quality adjustment in the labor market 1 introductionthe u s unemployment rate fell to very low levels during the 1990s even more impressively the unemployment rate for minorities and less educated individuals fell disproportionately convergence of relative unemployment rates in expansions and divergence in recessions has been a feature of the u s economy over the last 30 years there are many possible reasons for this feature for example if the costs of hiring and firing less skilled labor are low one would expect these individuals to have very procyclical employment in this paper i explore an alternative model when there is an excess supply of labor high skilled people take jobs that would normally be occupied by less skilled people in expansions the process reverses with less skilled workers getting access to jobs that they would normally not attain i refer to this process as cyclical quality adjustment reder 1955 p 834 was one of the first to discuss how hiring standards adjust to business cycle conditions quality variations in labor markets arise through upgrading and downgrading of members of the labor force relative to the jobs they are to fill when applicants become scarce employers tend to lower the minimum standards upon which they insist as a condition for hiring a worker to fill a particular job and vice versa when applicants become plentiful since then many papers have developed this idea theoretically and many economic commentators appear to share this view of the labor market for example the economic report of the president states that a strong labor market is particularly important to less advantaged groups in the labor market such as workers with less education younger workers racial and ethnic minorities and immigrants when employers find it hard to fill vacancies they are more willing to hire and train workers whom they might pass over when they have fewer openings and an abundance of applicants council of economic advisors 1999 p 103 likewise the expansion during the 1990s spawned many newspaper articles about the improvement in the types of jobs available to less skilled applicants however there is little systematic empirical work about changes in job assignment in the united states over the business cycle the empirical work in this paper seeks to redress this situation cyclical assignment changes are important for many reasons as mentioned earlier job upgrading is a potential explanation for the greater cyclical variation of employment experienced by less skilled workers it is well known that the unemployment rates of less skilled individuals and minorities are more countercyclical relative to more skilled individuals clark and summers 1981 kydland 1984 keane and prasad 1993 hoynes 1999 the standard explanation for this effect is that low ability workers are more likely to be laid off in downturns because training and hiring costs are lower for these workers no commensurate attention has been paid to the issue of how the decision of who to hire changes over the business cycle however assignment models present a natural explanation for the greater procyclicality of employment of the less skilled both the adjustment cost hypothesis and the upgrading hypothesis imply that less skilled workers will have more procyclical employment empirically they are distinguishable because the upgrading explanation implies that jobs obtained by comparable workers should vary systematically over the cycle the adjustment cost hypothesis relates to the composition of those whose jobs are terminated second these mechanisms suggest a reason why wages are particularly procyclical for job changers recent studies using panel data have indicated that the wages of job starters are much more procyclical than the wages of workers who do not change jobs researchers have suggested various explanations for this result beaudry and dinardo 1991 and macleod and malcomson 1993 present contracting models in which the wages of job starters depend on the state of the labor market when they join the firm

why are the wages of job changers so procyclical evidence on wage cyclicality shows job changers have more procyclical wages than job stayers previous work argued this arises because workers gain greater access to jobs in sectors such as manufacturing that offer high wages this article argues that workers who switch jobs in booms enter temporary jobs with unemployment risk and are merely compensated for subsequent losses i demonstrate that the two explanations can be distinguished using the relationship between unemployment insurance and wage cyclicality among job changers the evidence supports the compensation hypothesis that is that job changers might not experience real gains from higher paying jobs in booms

demographic differences in cyclical employment variation demographic differences in patterns of employment variation over the business cycle are examined in this paper three primary conclusions emerge first both participation and unemployment must be considered in any analysis of cyclical changes in the labor market second young people bear a disproportionate share of cyclical employment variation third failure to consider participation has led to undue pessimism about the effect of aggregate demand policy on high unemployment groups if participation did not surge reduction in overall unemployment to its 1969 level would reduce the unemployment of almost all demographic groups to very low levels

matching workers and jobs cyclical fluctuations in match quality using national longitudinal survey of youth data on tenure and wages this article analyzes the extent to which the level of job mismatching varies over the business cycle and how it is dealt with by the labor market i find significant cyclical variation in job match quality and an internalization of the variation by the labor market through wages mismatching occurs more during recessions but is primarily captured in starting wages the evidence suggests the cyclical phenomenon is one of general mismatching rather than an increased number of stopgap jobs during recessions

real wages over the business cycle evidence from panel data one topic on which keynes did not disagree with classical economists was the cyclical behavior of real wages keynes 1936 as well as various classical writers predicted that real wages should move countercyclically quoting the general theory p 17 in general an increase in employment can only occur through the accompaniment of a decline in real wages thus i am not disputing this vital fact which the classical economists have rightly asserted as indefeasible this prediction is based on the premise of competition and a given short run capital stock increases in employment then correspond to more intensive use of capital and through diminishing product lower real wages for this reason evidence by dunlop 1938 and tarshis 1939 that real wages move procyclically was viewed as paradoxical both dunlop and tarshis based their findings on an observed positive correlation between real and money wages which given the procyclical movement of money wages implies a positive correlation between

business cycle models aggregation and real wage cyclicality a substantial literature has developed to estimate the true cyclicality of real wages that is composition bias free two major issues are addressed in this article aggregation of heterogeneous workers and potential bias in the measurement of the labor input a general analysis of the biases is presented and alternative approaches in the literature are nested in a single framework estimates based on an efficiency units concept that avoids the usual aggregation problems are presented composition bias underestimates the usual parameters of interest unless both the price and the quantity of the labor input are adjusted appropriately

long term effects of a recession at labor market entry in japan and the united states abstract we examine effects of entering the labor market during a recession on subsequent employment and earnings for japanese and american men using comparable household labor force surveys we find persistent negative effects of the unemployment rate at graduation for less educated japanese men in contrast to temporary effects for less educated american men the school based hiring system and the dismissal regulation prolong the initial loss of employment opportunities for less educated japanese men the effect on earnings for more educated groups is also stronger in japan although the difference between the two countries is smaller than for less educated groups

the cyclical and secular behaviour of the labour input comparing efficiency units and hours worked summary a monthly labour input series designed to correct for the fact that all hours worked are not of the same quality is constructed and its properties compared with unadjusted hours worked this efficiency units series is constructed from bls data on hours worked and earnings by age and sex the cyclical fluctuations displayed by the efficiency units series are smaller on average than those displayed by hours worked although the difference is not large however the secular behaviour of the series is quite different hours worked per capita displays a significant positive trend while efficiency units per capita does not

a study of bank efficiency taking into account risk preferences abstract i use the stochastic cost frontier approach to investigate efficiency of banks operating in the third federal reserve district accounting for the quality and riskiness of bank output in addition to the mean and mode of the conditional distribution of the one sided error term i calculate confidence intervals for the inefficiency measures based on the conditional distribution the results indicate that third district banks are operating at cost efficient output levels and product mixes but are not efficiently using their inputs the second part of the article relates the inefficiency measures to several correlates

the dynamic effects of aggregate demand and supply disturbances we interpret fluctuations in gnp and unemployment as due to two types of disturbances disturbances that have a permanent effect on output and disturbances that do not we interpret the first as supply disturbances the second as demand disturbances demand disturbances have a hump shaped mirror image effect on output and unemployment the effect of supply disturbances on output increases steadily over time peaking after two years and reaching a plateau after five years

an econometric analysis of reservation wages this paper describes an analysis of survey data on unemployed people who reported their asking wage and the wage they expected to earn we show that if agents behavior is described by the standard optimal job search model one can use these data to deduce structural parameters rather than estimate them and we report our deductions from two surveys 1 of british unemployed people

job matching and job competition are lower educated workers at the back of job queues abstract during the cyclical downturn of the 1980s unemployment in the netherlands increased substantially with unemployment rates of lower educated workers increasing more than those of higher educated workers a possible explanation of this phenomenon is job competition between workers with different levels of education another explanation of the diverging unemployment rates is that employers dismiss replaceable lower educated workers before irreplaceable higher educated workers in this paper we scrutinize the job competition explanation our results show that there only is job competition between unemployed workers with an academic and a higher vocational education there is no job competition at lower levels of education

wage flexibility in regional labour markets evidence from italy and germany ammermuller a lucifora c origo f and zwick t wage flexibility in regional labour markets evidence from italy and germany regional studies this paper investigates the functioning of regional labour markets in italy and germany for different employee groups and regions it derives theoretical hypotheses on group specific correlations between regional unemployment and individual wages distinguishing between regions using micro data matched to local unemployment rates wage equations are specified and empirically tested for italy no evidence is found in favour of a relationship between wages and local unemployment in germany results appear to be sensitive to model specification and type of employees in both countries the reaction of wages to local unemployment varies significantly along the wage distribution being more sensitive around median quantiles ammermuller a lucifora c origo f et zwick t la flexibilite des salaires dans les marches du travail regionaux des preuves provenant de

cyclical variations in wage differentials and unemployment this paper attempts to reformulate in a general equilibrium framework reder s model which explains cyclical variations in wage differentials and their general tendencies to narrow specifically i focus on the three aspects of his model the microeconomic behavior of a firm under imperfect information about labor quality the mechanism of the economy creating unemployment and the interaction between wage differentials and unemployment i also explore its implications for the macroeconomic issues on the characteristics of current unemployment and the question of why aggregate employment fluctuates

the effect of implicit contracts on the movement of wages over the business cycle evidence from micro data in this paper we address the question of whether wages are affected by labor market conditions in a manner more consistent with a contract approach than with a standard spot market model from a simple implicit contract model we derive implications about the links between wages and past labor market conditions using individual data from the current population survey and the panel study of income dynamics we find that an implicit contract model with costless mobility describes these links better than either a simple spot market model or an implicit contract model with costly mobility

assessment of copenhagen pledges with long term implications abstract this study first evaluates the pledges under the copenhagen accord using the dne21 model our estimates for the 2020 pledges fall collectively within the range of 46 700 49 100 mt co 2 eq our study also finds the efforts arising from the current 2020 pledges have wide ranging implications in terms of mitigation costs and types of actions based on this analysis we seek to place the copenhagen pledges in a long term context putting focus on costs and feasibility we set up a carbon prices convergence scenario assuming that all countries start from the copenhagen commitments and gradually undertake their own individual efforts in accordance with the convergence of carbon prices toward a uniform price in 2050 despite soaring carbon prices in most countries total costs as share of gdp show modest increase ranging mostly between 0 and 0 4 we also find that there does not seem to be much difference in the degree of burden between developed and major developing countries under this scenario since the challenge of climate change will require significant reductions in ghg emissions in the coming decades we need to make long lasting efforts getting on the right track toward the ultimate goal of stabilizing ghgs

economic analysis of a low carbon path to 2050 a case for china india and japan abstract this article studies the economic implications that different global ghg emission mitigation policies may have in the major asian economies namely china india and japan the analysis covers the period 2010 2050 and is performed by means of a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model gem e3 four scenarios are investigated the three standard ame scenarios and a fourth scenario with a ghg emission reduction path compatible with the 2 c target reducing global ghg emissions in 2050 by 50 relative to 2005 the scenarios are compared with the already adopted and announced policies of the respective countries in the context of the copenhagen pledges for 2020 and their long term objectives in 2050 we further discuss the role of energy efficiency measures and zero carbon power technologies in order to reach the long term 2 c target we find that postponing significant emission reductions may not accrue an economic benefit over time whereas it may increase some risks by possibly overstretching the reliance on zero carbon technologies

the performance of universal banks evidence from switzerland abstract this paper examines the performance of swiss banks from 1996 to 1999 using a broad definition of bank output we find evidence of large relative cost and profit inefficiencies in swiss banks a more narrow definition that focuses on only traditional activities leads to efficiency estimates that are even lower we also find evidence of economies of scale for small and mid size banks but little evidence that significant scale economies remain for the very largest banks finally evidence on scope economies is weak for the largest banks that are involved in a wide variety of financial activities taken together these results suggest few obvious benefits from the trend toward larger universal banks in switzerland

the role of china in mitigating climate change abstract we explore short and long term implications of several energy scenarios of china s role in efforts to mitigate global climate risk the focus is on the impacts on china s energy system and gdp growth and on global climate indicators such as greenhouse gas concentrations radiative forcing and global temperature change we employ the mit integrated global system model igsm framework and its economic component the mit emissions prediction and policy analysis eppa model we demonstrate that china s commitments for 2020 made during the un climate meetings in copenhagen and cancun are reachable at very modest cost alternative actions by china in the next 10 years do not yield any substantial changes in ghg concentrations or temperature due to inertia in the climate system consideration of the longer term climate implications of the copenhagen type of commitments requires an assumption about policies after 2020 and the effects differ drastically depending on the case meeting a 2 c target is problematic unless radical ghg emission reductions are assumed in the short term participation or non participation of china in global climate architecture can lead by 2100 to a 200 280 ppm difference in atmospheric ghg concentration which can result in a 1 1 c to 1 3 c change by the end of the century we conclude that it is essential to engage china in ghg emissions mitigation policies and alternative actions lead to substantial differences in climate energy and economic outcomes potential channels for engaging china can be air pollution control and involvement in sectoral trading with established emissions trading systems in developed countries

inter industry mobility and the cyclical upgrading of labor we investigate whether a market clearing model is consistent with industry employment and wage patterns related to the cyclical upgrading of labor we demonstrate that roy s 1951 market clearing

the effects of macroeconomic conditions at graduation on overeducation this article shows that unfavorable economic conditions at graduation decrease the likelihood of a good job worker match over a worker s subsequent career mismatch is quantified in terms of overeducation by both industry and occupation the german socio economic panel and region level unemployment rates from 1994 to 2012 are used instrumental variables estimates account for endogenous graduation timing a single percentage point increase in regional unemployment causes an increase in the probability of overeducation of 1 6 1 7 percentage points for university graduates effects for technical tertiary education and apprenticeship graduates are smaller labor market entry conditions affect workers for up to 9 years after graduation jel j23 j22 e32 i23

interpreting panel data on job tenure tenure responses in the panel study of income dynamics psid and the national longitudinal surveys are often inconsistent with calendar time these inconsistencies pose special problems in the psid because job changes cannot be identified directly so researchers must infer them from error ridden tenure data we use alternative rules for partitioning psid data into jobs and then estimate several wage and mobility models to assess the sensitivity of parameter estimates to the partitioning method we also assess the importance of replacing raw tenure data with imputed measures that are internally consistent

a traditional interpretation of macroeconomic fluctuations under the traditional interpretation of macroeconomic fluctuations aggregate demand shocks move output and prices in the same direction while aggregate supply shocks move output and prices in opposite directions this paper examines the joint behavior of u s output unemployment prices wages and nominal money and asks whether it is consistent with this interpretation the answer is a qualified yes

baseline projections of energy and emissions in asia this paper analyzes the projected development of energy systems in the asia region in the hypothetical absence of future carbon policies baseline scenarios prepared by participating teams in the asia modeling exercise are used to generate a comprehensive assessment of the key drivers of co2 emissions for the next several decades especially for china and india we find a very wide range of projected emissions paths across the models and identify per capita income and energy intensity as the two major factors responsible for the variation while the range of assumptions for growth in the former is roughly consistent with historical experience in other asian economies models foresee faster reductions in the latter with respect to those observed in neighboring countries at similar stages of economic development on the other hand there is a considerable agreement on the evolution of the energy technology mix which is assumed to continue to be dominated by fossil fuels in the foreseeable future

cost effective subsidy incentives for room air conditioners in china an analysis based on a mcfadden type discrete choice model abstract based on a mcfadden type conditional logit cl discrete choice model this paper estimates the most economic subsidy level mesl for room air conditioners racs in china that minimizes the net cost of subsidy per unit of electricity saved the analysis reveals that given the current price and efficiency spectrum of racs in the chinese market as well as the electricity price and cooling demand of chinese households the mesl for racs in china should be around 60 which is much higher than the current subsidy level of 5 15 a sensitivity analysis suggests that the high mesl 60 is mainly a consequence of relatively low electricity price and household cooling demand in the country if china s household cooling demand increases further and its electricity price were to rise to a higher level the mesl for racs could possibly drop to about 5 15 as household cooling demand varies among chinese cities in different climatic zones and at different levels of economic development the rac subsidy incentives should be region specific with necessary modifications the method for analysis proposed in this paper can also be applied to other household appliances to prioritize the types of appliances requiring subsidies

business cycles unemployment insurance and the calibration of matching models this paper theoretically and empirically documents a puzzle that arises when an rbc economy with a job matching function is used to model unemployment the standard model can generate sufficiently large cyclical fluctuations in unemployment or a sufficiently small response of unemployment to labor market policies but it cannot do both variable search and separation finite ui benefit duration efficiency wages and capital all fail to resolve this puzzle however either sticky wages or match specific productivity shocks can improve the model s performance by making the firm s flow of surplus more procyclical which makes hiring more procyclical too

the global economic crisis and the effect of immigrant workers on native born employment in europe the debate regarding the economic effects of employing immigrants has attracted renewed interest in european countries since the economic crisis we provide an approximation of the labour market effects of immigrant workers in four european countries during the global economic crisis after briefly analysing native and foreign born worker conditions for the most recent period our analysis focuses on the correlation between the stock of immigrant workers and the number of native labour market workers across several segments of the labour market using a simple model approach using eurostat and lfs labour force survey data we estimate a structural dynamic model using the generalised method of moments gmm to examine adjustment dynamics in the labour market and labour market segment and worker educational levels countries of origin and genders overall the empirical results suggest that immigrant labour force effects on native born worker employment rates have been persistent and but weak throughout the business cycle these effects are globally positive and immigrant origins do not appear to change the nature of their impact we offer some explanations for these findings related to dual labour markets and to differences in levels of substitution among native and immigrant workers

business cycles and compositional variation in u s unemployment in this article we study u s unemployment dynamics using grouped unemployment data from the current population survey over the period 1968 1992 we estimate a model that traces variation in these unemployment data both over time and between demographic groups back to the underlying variation in the inflow and the outflow in turn we model the outflow as a transition process in which we allow the exit probabilities to depend on calendar time duration and demographic group we use the estimation results to provide a decomposition of aggregate u s unemployment dynamics in various incidence and duration components

contracts job experience and cyclical labor market adjustments longitudinal estimates of the variability of individual wages hours and weeks worked over the course of changing demand states are provided for all workers generally and for workers of varied levels of job experience emphasis is placed on that part of job experience represented as years on current job a commonly used proxy for the magnitude of firm specific skills interpretation of resulting estimates in the context of the labor market contracting literature is attempted generally significant procyclical patterns are found for real weekly wages weekly hours and weeks worked the extent of weekly wage variability is much greater than is generally suggested in the literature furthermore workers with greater tenure exhibit greater cyclical wage and hours variability and less weeks variability finally empirical distinctions are drawn separately for white collar and blue collar as well as union and nonunion workers

mexican immigrant employment outcomes over the business cycle the united states is beginning to emerge from the deepest downturn the country has experienced since the great depression as of october 2009 the number of unemployed persons had risen by 8 2 million since the great recession began in december 2007 all demographic groups have experienced job losses but some groups have been more adversely affected than others repeating the pattern of most previous downturns the recession s impact has been worst for low education and minority workers one group that has been particularly hard hit is mexican immigrants data from the current population survey indicate that between the first quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2009 the unemployment rate among mexican immigrants rose from 4 2 percent to 11 3 percent and their employment rate dropped by 5 percentage points in contrast during that period the unemployment rate among non hispanic white natives rose from 3 7 percent to 7 8 percent and their employment rate fell by 2 6 percentage points mexican immigrants tend to be particularly vulnerable to economic downturns because of their relatively low skill levels they make up one fourth of all workers who do not have a high school diploma or equivalent and over one half of workers who have completed at most eighth grade when the economy slows employers look to shed their least productive employees first employers tend to invest less in training low skilled workers and therefore have less

comparing model results to national climate policy goals results from the asia modeling exercise abstract while the world has yet to adopt a single unified policy to limit climate change many countries and regions have adopted energy and climate policies that have implications for global emissions in this paper we discuss a few key policies and how they are included in a set of 23 energy and integrated assessment models that participated in the asia modeling exercise we also compare results from these models for a small set of stylized scenarios to the pledges made as part of the copenhagen accord and the goals stated by the major economies forum we find that the targets outlined by the united states the european union japan and korea require significant policy action in most of the models analyzed for most of the models in the study however the goals outlined by india are met without any climate policy the stringency of climate policy required to meet china s copenhagen pledges varies across models and accounting methodologies

why are wages cyclical in the 1970 s this article investigates cyclicality in real wages between 1969 and 1982 using panel study of income dynamics data there is little evidence that movements in and out of the labor market induced aggregate wage cyclicality during these years however cyclicality in the movement of workers between heterogeneous labor market sectors affected aggregate wage cyclicality while sector location is important sector selectivity is not correlated with wages yet even within sectors cyclicality is present in real wages over this time period and is the result of cyclicality in overall wage levels as well as in the coefficients associated with particular worker characteristics

the benefit from reduced energy import bills and the importance of energy prices in ghg reduction scenarios abstract the poles energy model has been used to assess asia s role in combating climate change and the benefits it stands to gain this paper focuses on the role of major asian economies in the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the benefits to their economies from reduced energy import bills the costs of reaching ambitious emission reduction targets are offset by significant ancillary benefits such as reduced energy import bills lower energy prices account for a share of the import bill reductions

decomposing the impact of alternative technology sets on future carbon emissions growth abstract what are the drivers of future global carbon dioxide co 2 emissions growth and how would the availability of key energy supply technologies change their relative importance in this paper we apply a novel index number decomposition technique to the results of a multi region multi sector computable general equilibrium model to quantify the influence of five factors on the growth of future carbon emissions 1 growth in global economic activity 2 shifts in the regional composition of gross world product 3 shifts in the sectoral composition of regions gdp 4 changes in sectors energy output ratios and 5 changes in the co 2 intensity of energy sources we elucidate how the relative importance of these factors changes in response to the imposition of a global carbon tax and alternative assumptions about the future availability of key energy supply technologies rising global economic activity and shifts in regional composition put upward pressure on emissions while changes in energy and emission intensity and the sectoral output mix have attenuating effects a global emission tax that increases over time slows economic expansion and shifts the fuel mix with the most pronounced impacts on china india and russia limited availability of carbon capture and storage nuclear and hydroelectric generation all lead to upward shifts in the long run marginal abatement cost curve causing some countries to choose to pay the tax rather than abate

an analysis of company choice preference to carbon tax policy in china abstract this paper summarizes an analysis of choice preferences of chinese companies to the design options of carbon tax policy the data were collected from 201 companies with around half of them based in the western shanxi province and the other half from the eastern jiangsu province modeling analysis of the discrete choice dataset confirms the statistically significant relationships between the company s preferences to carbon tax policy with the policy attributes including tax rate tax relief measures and the revenue utilization from the viewpoint of chinese businesses the option of carbon tax policy with tax rate at 10 30 yuan t co 2 allowing tax relief to energy intensive sectors using the revenues specific for climate change and starting as early as the 13th five year plan period 2016 2020 would be preferable and realistic the results of this research may be referred for the discussions and development of carbon tax policy in china

heterogeneous workers and occupations inequality unemployment and crowding out this article attempts to determine the factors behind the cyclical behavior of the skill premium using the current population survey outgoing rotation group the premium is found uncorrelated with contemporaneous output and lags the business cycle to account for this observation the article develops a framework that features search frictions agents are either high or low educated and firms post two types of vacancies the complex which can be matched with the high educated and the simple which can be matched with the high and the low educated on the job search for a complex occupation is undertaken by the high educated in simple occupations an aggregate technological shock induces firms to increase their posting of simple and complex vacancies as complex vacancies are more costly to create than simple ones the increase in the former lags that of the latter as the number of complex vacancies increases with a lag on the job search intensity increases on the expense of the hours of work of the high educated in simple occupations on the other hand the total hours of the high educated in complex occupations increases this lagged cyclical increase in the labor input of the high educated in complex occupations causes the skill premium to increase with a lag as well

real wages and the business cycle the objectives of this review are threefold 1 to characterize the empirical literature on the cyclical behavior of real wages 2 to identify the sources of the differences in results across studies and 3 to enumerate key factors that determine the cyclicality of real wages given a host of measurement and methodological issues drawing firm conclusions is difficult but several generalizations can be made the estimated cyclicality of real wages depends crucially on the time period of analysis and the choice of whether to examine the production or the consumption wage composition effects play an important but complicated role as well

affordability of energy cost increases for korean companies due to market based climate policies a survey study by sector this paper estimates the affordability of energy cost increases for energy intensive companies due to the introduction of market based climate policies in korea data were collected from 62 respondents from iron steel cement and petrochemical industries over 90 of which are under control of the target management scheme an ongoing mandatory system limiting the greenhouse gases ghg emissions of large energy consuming entities the affordable energy cost increase was estimated using the multiple bounded discrete choice mbdc format results of which show that a mean energy cost increase of 2 6 is acceptable for all the entities sampled companies from the three sectors had similar affordability with an average acceptable energy cost increase of 2 5e2 8 the affordable policy induced energy cost in creases equate to carbon prices of 2500e4000 krw t co2 about 2 3e3 5 usd t co2 for the companies surveyed econometric analysis confirmed a strong correlation between energy price level and company ownership with cost affordability with a view to developing carbon tax policy and a domestic ghg emissions trading scheme in korea this research provides a basis from an industrial perspective for carbon pricing

x efficiency and scale economies in policing a comparative study using the distribution free approach and dea this study uses both parametric and nonparametric techniques to analyse scale economies and relative efficiency levels in policing in england and wales both techniques suggest the presence of significant scale effects in policing and considerable divergence in relative efficiency levels across police forces

in search of a stylised fact do real wages exhibit a consistent pattern of cyclical variability the paper surveys the studies on the cyclical behaviour of real wages published from the twenties onwards the traditional simple neoclassical model of the labour market suggests that real wages tend to move countercyclically however from a theoretical viewpoint there are few reasons to expect this behaviour once the simple model is extended to account for imperfect competition uncertainty lagged responses or contracting between firms and workers empirical studies give different answers to the problem the contributions reviewed in the paper are arranged roughly in a chronological order the interwar period the postwar pre econometric studies the econometric work using aggregate data the evidence produced on the basis of longitudinal data the analyses of the shock responsiveness of real wages and finally the most recent papers attempting a reconciliation of the somewhat conflicting evidence derived from aggregate and panel data

real business cycles in this paper we demonstrate how certain very ordinary economic principles lead maximizing individuals to choose consumption production plans that display many of the characteristics commonly associated with business cycles our explanation is entirely consistent with i rational expectations ii complete current information iii stable preferences iv no technological change v no long lived commodities vi no frictions or adjustment costs vii no government viii no money and ix no serial dependence in the stochastic elements of the environment we also provide a completely worked out example of the type of artificial economy we have in mind the time series properties of the example exhibit some major features of observed business cycles although this type of model may not be capable of explaining all of the regularities in actual business cycles we believe that it provides a useful well defined benchmark for assessing the relative importance of factors e g monetary disturbances

operational efficiency in banking an international comparison reply to the comment abstract to avoid problems associated with jensen s inequality we use a corrected inefficiency measure to compare the estimate of inefficiency obtained using the distribution free df method with the estimate obtained using the stochastic cost frontier scf the results of the paper are unchanged the df method yields measures of inefficiency that are significantly higher than measures obtained using the scf