defining the rebound effect abstract this paper gives rigorous definitions of the rebound effect not only in the well described single commodity case khazzoom 1980 the energy journal 1 4 21 40 but also for a multiple commodity case it is shown that the familiar laws for the single case do not hold for the multiple case the paper describes the state of the art of empirical estimation of the rebound effect with special focus on the estimates done for the netherlands we conclude that according to every definition empirical evidence shows that the re is probably small between 0 and 15

circular economy at the micro level a dynamic view of incumbents struggles and challenges in the textile industry the circular economy ce has received considerable attention as an approach that promises to reconcile ecological systems and economic growth in spite of its increased popularity little is known about the implementation struggles of incumbent firms across industrial sectors furthermore although the notion of circular production systems is at the intersection of different research areas such as sustainable product design sustainable supply chains and reverse logistics knowledge on how these concepts combine to ease or impede firms transition towards circularity is scarce to shed light on these gaps i used multiple case studies from cradle to cradle certified companies in the textile industry in europe by employing qualitative research i identified a set of factors along the textile value chain from product design to take back and reprocessing that are crucial in expediting or delaying a firm s aspirations to develop a circular product the main contribution of this paper is the dynamic understanding of how certain collaborative supplier buyer innovation factors i e supply chain position power balance and a shared vision coupled with complex aspects in product design namely in basic materials architecture and functionality combine to determine the output speed and quantity of circular products to be sold taken back and ultimately regenerated

direct rebound effect of residential gas demand empirical evidence from france abstract energy policymakers are increasingly concerned about energy efficiency improvements as such improvements are considered to be a key strategy in reducing energy demand in the residential sector however energy efficiency investments may not yield the expected energy savings due to the rebound effect concept which leads to lower savings than expected when energy efficiency increases using the standard ols regression and autoregressive distributed lag cointegration ardl approach this paper provides estimates of the magnitude of the rebound effect for residential gas consumption in france using 1983 2015 annual time series data the methodology is based on estimates of the gas demand elasticity with respect to service price the empirical findings indicate that the variables used in the model are cointegrated and suggest the presence of an obvious rebound effect in residential gas use more specifically estimates of the direct rebound effect in residential gas demand are approximately 53 in the short run and approximately 60 in the long run our findings reject the hypothesis of a backfire effect regarding residential gas use in france and hence suggest incorporating carbon taxation energy efficiency and alternative energy in the formulation of an energy saving policy to facilitate the transition towards a low carbon economy in france

energy conservation more effective with rebound policy this article sketches the problem of indirect energy use effects also known as rebound of energy conservation there is widespread support for energy conservation especially when it is voluntary as this seems a cheap way to realize environmental and energy climate goals however this overlooks the phenomenon of rebound the topic of energy rebound has mainly attracted attention from energy analysts but has been surprisingly neglected in environmental economics even though economists generally are concerned with indirect or economy wide impacts of technical change and policies this paper presents definitions and interpretations of energy and environmental rebound as well as four fundamental reasons for the existence of the rebound phenomenon it further offers the most complete list of rebound pathways or mechanisms available in the literature in addition it discusses empirical estimates of rebound and addresses the implications of uncertainties and difficulties in assessing rebound suggestions are offered for strategies and public policies to contain rebound it is advised that rebound evaluation is an essential part of environmental policy and project assessments as opposed to earlier studies this paper stresses the relevance of the distinction between energy conservation resulting from autonomous demand changes and from efficiency improvements in technology equipment in addition it argues that rebound is especially relevant for developing countries

evidence of direct and indirect rebound effect in households in eu 27 countries abstract this research estimates the direct and indirect rebound effect of energy efficiency in households for the eu 27 countries the first twenty seven member states of the european union a hybrid methodology that combines econometric estimates environmental extended input output analysis and re spending models has been developed although most of the economies present values below 100 there are seven countries situated above this critical threshold by weighting individual estimates by gdp an average value for the overall eu 27 economy has been found between 73 62 and 81 16 these results suggest that the energy policy at the european level should be rethought if efficiency measures pursue reducing energy consumption and tackling climate change

assessing the rebound effect using a natural experiment setting evidence from the private transportation sector in israel subsidizing energy efficient technologies is considered by energy and environmental organizations to be one of the most effective policies for decreasing energy consumption in the transportation sector such policies are becoming ever more popular and have been implemented in a considerable number of countries in recent years because these policies promote energy efficient cars with lower usage costs they may rebound and increase the distances traveled by households that have switched to energy efficient cars from an econometric perspective a subsidization policy can be used as a valid instrument to identify the households choice of energy efficiency levels of the cars they own this identification in turn can be utilized to account for endogeneity in the estimation of a rebound effect the present study uses a natural experiment setting of such a policy implemented in israel in 2009 the empirical results indicate a fairly large average rebound effect of 40 the results also indicate that while the policy indeed encouraged the purchase of energy efficient cars households that bought a new or used car during the surveyed period did not generate a rebound effect of a different magnitude compared with other households that did not we discuss the implications of our findings

how do scholars approach the circular economy a systematic literature review abstract circular economy ce aims to overcome the take make dispose linear pattern of production and consumption proposing a circular system in which the value of products materials and resources is maintained in the economy as long as possible in recent years there has been a proliferation of scholars publications on the topic this study presents the results of a systematic literature review exploring the state of the art of academic research on ce the paper examines the ce body of literature with a systematic approach to provide an exhaustive analysis of the phenomenon with rigorous and reproducible research criteria the revisited material consists of 565 articles collected through the web of science and scopus databases and has been evaluated using specific structural dimensions to group literature into analytical categories starting from being a concept studied in connection with industrial ecology ce has slowly acquired its independent role in academic research framed mainly into environmental sustainability related studies as a result of policies implementation academic production is mainly concentrated in china and europe employing tools and methods for modelling processes and supporting decision making for ce implementation e g life cycle assessment and material flow analysis ce studies follow three main lines of action the first aims to change the social and economic dynamics at macro and administrative level the second to support firms in circular processes implementation at micro level to spread new forms of consumption and product design the third developed at meso level discusses industrial symbiosis experiences ce is associated with a variety of concepts and waste management emerges as the most relevant sub sector ce is also strongly connected with the concept of sustainability proposing ways to operationalize its implementation at the environmental and economic level while scholars only marginally consider social and institutional implications the most explored practices are those related to cleaner production aiming at reducing environmental impact and waste production along the life cycle of a product and optimizing the performance and efficiency of processes conversely studies on ce may devote greater attention to strategies for social and institutional changes able to transform the upstream process of production and consumption considering business model strategies scholars mainly focus on studying closing material loops strategy while slowing the loops which requires a radical change of consumption and production patterns is only marginally included with respect to ce implementation this study s findings highlight ce as an evolving concept that still requires development to consolidate its definition boundaries principles and associated practices

empirical evidence in the analysis of the environmental and energy policies of a series of industrialised nations during the period 1960 1997 using widely employed macroeconomic indicators this article underlines the main implications of the interrelations between the energy problem and that of environmental pollution using the most widely used macroeconomic indicators in the field of policy analysis in fact carbon dioxide co2 emission intensity and energy intensity trends may be used to highlight the most important features of economic development over a given time scale in a variety of different countries the empirical analysis proposed here covering a time span of some 40 years in a number of the most highly industrialised nations seems to be useful if we are to understand the main similarities and differences in the interaction between the energy choices made by different countries and their respective environmental effects moreover by using ppps it has been possible to propose a more detailed cross country analysis for the different international situations

white certificate schemes economic analysis and interactions with the eu ets this paper examines the economic environmental and distributional impacts of an idealised tradable white certificate twc scheme and shows how the impacts are modified when the scheme operates in parallel with the eu emissions trading scheme eu ets it uses simple graphical techniques to assess whether a twc scheme will increase decrease or have an ambiguous effect on electricity demand wholesale and retail electricity prices carbon emissions and investment in energy efficiency paying particular attention to the interpretation of additionality

rationalizing child support decisions the authors provide a framework within which the child support compliance decisions of noncustodial fathers and the child support awards set by institutional agents can be coherently interpreted the model of child support transfers is able to capture qualitatively the features of the monthly payment distribution estimated parental decision rules are used to infer the implicit weights given by institutional agents to the postdivorce welfare of parents and children the authors find that the weight attached to the combined welfare of the custodial mother and child is significantly less than the weight given to the father s welfare in most sample cases copyright 1995 by american economic association

energy rebound effect in china s industry an aggregate and disaggregate analysis abstract considering the crucial role of industrial sectors in energy conservation this paper investigates the impact of output growth on energy consumption in china s industrial sectors with an index decomposition model and the energy rebound effect in the industrial sectors with a panel data model using the annual data during 1994 2012 the empirical results indicate that first industrial output growth is proved to be the major factor in promoting industrial energy consumption while energy intensity reduction and structure shifts across industrial sub sectors play the dominant roles in slowing down industrial energy consumption second there does exist energy rebound effect in china s aggregate industry which ranges from 20 to 76 during 1995 2012 or 39 on average in particular the energy rebound effect in manufacturing is relatively smaller during the sample period i e 28 on average finally the energy rebound effect in both china s aggregate industry and manufacturing exhibit an overall decreasing trend over time

a statistical model for multiparty electoral data we propose an internally consistent and comprehensive statistical model for analyzing multiparty district level aggregate election data this model can be used to explain or predict how the geographic distribution of electoral results depends upon economic conditions neighborhood ethnic compositions campaign spending and other features of the election campaign or characteristics of the aggregate areas we also provide several new graphical representations for help in data exploration model evaluation and substantive interpretation although the model applies more generally we use it to help resolve an important controversy over the size of and trend in the electoral advantage of incumbency in great britain contrary to previous analyses which are all based on measures now known to be biased we demonstrate that the incumbency advantage is small but politically meaningful we also find that it differs substantially across the parties about half a percent for the conservatives 1 for the labor party and 3 for the liberal party and its successors also contrary to previous research we show that these effects have not grown in recent years finally we are able to estimate from which party each party s incumbency advantage is predominantly drawn

a comprehensive review of the evolving and cumulative nature of eco innovation in the chemical industry different bodies of literature have attempted to explain what factors and events drive industries throughout processes of environmental change the latter is a gradual historical process of evolution from lower to higher degrees of development based on concepts derived from evolutionary economics greening technological progress and resource based view of the firm this article informs the sustainability transitions literature by providing an account of the evolution in the chemical industry s striving for the design use and production of environmentally sound chemical processes and products based upon eco innovation a conceptual model was elaborated depicting five stages of environmental change in the chemical industry in the period 1901 2030 the authors empirically tested this model by conducting a longitudinal computer aided content analysis of 255 documents addressing different environmental and innovation aspects in this industry in the same period of time the results of this article advance our modern understanding of the different stages of evolution of the chemical industry in terms of environmental change consistent with the conceptual model hitherto presented the findings of this article highlight a number cumulative of factors that enabled the evolution of the chemical industry throughout time supporting eco innovation highlighting the intertwined nature of regulation innovation and technological change it is plausible that the future development of this industry might be shaped by the policy driven paradigms of sustainability and resource efficiency 2015 the authors

the rebound effect on road freight transport empirical evidence from portugal abstract because a large proportion of total operating costs for transportation companies goes towards energy a reduction in energy operating costs brought about by an increase in fleet fuel efficiency or an increase in operational efficiency results in a change in the relative cost of road freight transportation this fact could result in an increase in the demand for such services if this is true the result would be an increase in total fuel consumption consequently that part of the energy savings obtained through the increased energy efficiency would be lost the existence of a rebound effect is especially important in the road freight transportation sector and is crucial for the definition of a national energy policy in this study data from the road freight transportation sector in portugal for the years of 1987 through 2006 was analyzed it was determined that an increase in energy efficiency did not cause a backfire but did cause a total direct rebound effect of 24 1 in addition fleet operators were more inclined to adopt operational efficiencies than technological fuel efficiencies as a means of increasing the total operational efficiency

what drives the reversal of the gender education gap evidence from germany we study the mechanisms that are associated with the gender education gap and its reversal in germany we focus on three outcomes graduation from upper secondary school any tertiary education and tertiary degree neither individual and family background nor labour market characteristics appear to be strongly associated with the gender education gap there is some evidence that the gender gap in upper secondary education reflects the rising share of single parent households which impacts boys attainment more than girls the gender education gap in tertiary education is correlated with the development of class sizes and social norms

the public private divide in household behavior how far into home can energy guidance reach abstract environmental problems in the energy system often originate from everyday activities and choices everyday activities in the home are part of the private sphere that can be contested in relation to energy policies this article discusses the public private divide in energy policies and how swedish municipal energy consultants understand the divide by analyzing the actions of energy consultants and their efforts to influence households as well as how households perceive this guidance i will discuss the public private discourse in relation to energy policy and how this discourse can be a restriction for the energy consultants to reach their full potential the consultants found it problematic to discuss behavioral issues because they did not know how to relate to people s everyday life activities without intruding on private and personal matters for the households tailored information and feedback was not perceived as the consultant trespassing in the private sphere instead the householders highlight the possibilities of such mapping lessoned learned from sweden is that state subsidies to local energy consultants is a good way to reach households but that they need to develop their methods and use more tailored information

an empirical study of direct rebound effect for passenger transport in urban china transport sector accounts for about 8 of total energy consumption in china and this share will likely increase in the visible future improving energy efficiency has been considered as a major way for reducing transport energy use whereas its effectiveness might be affected by the rebound effect this paper estimates the direct rebound effect for passenger transport in urban china by using the linear approximation of the almost ideal demand system model and simulation analysis our empirical results reveal the existence of direct rebound effect for passenger transport in urban china a majority of the expected reduction in transport energy consumption from efficiency improvement could be offset due to the existence of rebound effect we have further investigated the relationship between the magnitude of direct rebound effect and households expenditure it was found that the direct rebound effect for passenger transport tends to decline with the increase of per capita household consumption expenditure

energy efficiency and rebound effects an econometric analysis of energy demand in the commercial building sector it is widely recognized that the adoption of energy saving innovations can induce an increase in the usage of the corresponding technologies and thus can possibly increase energy consumption among other concerns is that uncertainties regarding the magnitude of this rebound effect can deter policy makers from promoting energy efficiency this paper analyzes the rebound effects of the adoption of energy efficient technologies in commercial buildings based upon a structural model of technology adoption and subsequent energy demand at the building level the empirical results are that energy efficiency can reduce electricity use by about 35 and natural gas consumption by about 50

the circular economy swings and roundabouts abstract in the last few decades the circular economy has increasingly been advertised as an economic model that can replace the current linear economy whilst addressing the issues of environmental deterioration social equity and long term economic growth with the explicit suggestion that it can serve as a tool for sustainable development however despite the individual prominence of the circular economy and sustainable development in the academic and wider literature the exact relationship between the two concepts has neither been thoroughly defined nor explored the consequent result is various inconsistencies occurring across the literature regarding how the circular economy can serve as a tool for sustainable development and an incomplete understanding of how its long term effects differ from those of the linear economy a literature review was conducted to interpret the current conceptual relationship between the circular economy and sustainable development the review highlights numerous challenges concerning conceptual definition economic growth and implementation that inhibit the use of the circular economy as a tool for sustainable development in its current form the review concludes by providing suggestions for how research concerning the circular economy should proceed if it is to provide a potential approach for achieving sustainable development

an empirical analysis of joint residential electricity efficiency gains within and across end uses implications for demand side management to better understand the observed performance of demand side approaches on residential electricity use we develop and apply a mixed regression model of electricity consumption that includes marginal joint technical change for multiple residential electricity end uses air conditioning appliances devices and electric vehicles results indicate that the relative technical state of a home can significantly influence the performance of demand side interventions particularly the presence of a programmable thermostat within air conditioning we generally find that enough consistent technical improvement is needed to realize energy savings which could be due to engineering building performance or a declining marginal rebound effect as householders become thermally comfortable results indicate that homeowners do not leverage efficiency gains for appliance services but demonstrate mixed results when considering the expansion of electricity services householders may rebound into device loads albeit such results are not statistically significant however results indicate that householders do not leverage efficiency gains for electric vehicles these results demonstrate that the net effect of technological change in households is relative to a home s baseline technical efficiency and the degree to which homeowners seek new and existing energy services challenging empirical assessments that do not control for the technical state of multiple end uses

on addressing the dual and embedded nature of business and the route towards corporate sustainability abstract this article argues for greater attention to be paid to the dual and embedded nature of business we propose that a more inclusive systemic perspective is needed for the challenge of speeding up the application of inclusive corporate sustainability the key question is how an on going upward dynamic of transformative learning cycles can be achieved in practice the current practice of implementing sustainability management systems identifying key performance indicators reporting on sustainability policies and outcomes has a strong focus on the physical dynamics in companies and in the good cases in their value chain in many cases the three dimensions of issues time and place are only addressed partially we argue that the academic community needs to pay greater retro and prospective attention to the social intervention dynamics introducing checks on the assumed effects of social interventions in order to achieve a more balanced and inclusive corporate sustainability we need to link levels of the achievement of corporate sustainability goals more strongly with self assessment of the social dynamics in firms and their societal system

cradle to cradle design creating healthy emissions a strategy for eco effective product and system design eco effectiveness and cradle to cradle design present an alternative design and production concept to the strategies of zero emission and ecoefficiency where eco efficiency and zero emission seek to reduce the unintended negative consequences of processes of production and consumption eco effectiveness is a positive agenda for the conception and production of goods and services that incorporate social economic and environmental benefit enabling triple top line growth eco effectiveness moves beyond zero emission approaches by focusing on the development of products and industrial systems that maintain or enhance the quality and productivity of materials through subsequent life cycles the concept of eco effectiveness also addresses the major shortcomings of eco efficiency approaches their inability to address the necessity for fundamental redesign of material flows their inherent antagonism towards long term economic growth and innovation and their insufficiency in addressing toxicity issues a central component of the eco effectiveness concept cradle to cradle design provides a practical design framework for creating products and industrial systems in a positive relationship with ecological health and abundance and long term economic growth against this background the transition to eco effective industrial systems is a five step process beginning with an elimination of undesirable substances and ultimately calling for a reinvention of products by reconsidering how they may optimally fulfill the need or needs for which they are actually intended while simultaneously being supportive of ecological and social systems this process necessitates the creation of an eco effective system of nutrient management to coordinate the material flows amongst actors in the product system the concept of intelligent materials pooling illustrates how such a system might take shape in reality 2006 published by elsevier ltd

sustainability in mining minerals and energy new processes pathways and human interactions for a cautiously optimistic future the supply of minerals and energy is critical to global society however this supply is associated with social and environmental impacts leading to concerns of generational and intergenerational equity in light of these concerns a call for papers for a special volume on the mining industry was issued with the view that such academic work could assist in reducing the negative impacts associated with this industry this paper introduces the special volume the sustainability agenda of the minerals and energy supply and demand network an integrative analysis of ecological ethical economic and technological dimensions the special volume contains 84 articles divided into several themes sustainability accounting and reporting corporate social responsibility future mining challenges integrative frameworks for sustainability management aspects mining in a developing context and new frontiers in the oil and gas industry the special volume also includes two letters on contemporary issues with commentaries on these from experts in the fields viz community conflict and land rehabilitation insights obtained across these themes are summarized and recommendations are made of what is needed to build upon the findings of this special volume a research agenda is proposed for the future from the gaps and synergies identified the overall contribution of this special volume is that it renews the debate on the sustainability challenges for the mining industry and provides transdisciplinary insights into resolving some of these challenges

divorce risk wages and working wives a quantitative life cycle analysis of female labour force participation this article develops a quantitative life cycle model to study the increase in married women s labour force participation lfp we calibrate the model to match key life cycle statistics for the 1935 cohort and use it to assess the changed environment faced by the 1955 cohort we find that a higher divorce probability and changes in wage structure are each able to explain a large proportion of the lfp increase higher divorce risk increases lfp not because the latter contributes to higher marital assets or greater labour market experience however instead it is the result of conflicting spousal preferences towards the adjustment of marital consumption in the face of increased divorce risk the dramatic increase in the second half of the twentieth century in married women s labour force participation lfp has given rise to a large and growing literature that explores the roles of the multiple forces that led to this evolution some explanations have emphasised technological change in the household greenwood et al 2005 or in medical contraceptive technology goldin and katz 2002 albanesi and olivetti 2009a b knowles 2007 other explanations have emphasised changes in the wage

transforming the linear insurance business model to a closed loop insurance model a case study of nordic non life insurers businesses are expected to become engines for positive change and mounting evidence indicates that corporate sustainability is a success factor for businesses around the globe in this context the business as usual approach to running businesses with negative environmental consequences is not an option industrial ecology and sustainable business models offer solutions on how this transformation can take place however transformation of non manufacturing industries in this respect has not been covered in the literature the aim of this paper is therefore is to use scientific and industry literature and interview data from the nordic non life insurance sector to propose closed loop insurance models the new models allow insurance leaders to move away from running the insurance business in an old fashioned linear way and thus gain a better understanding of how the business contributes to sustainable development the transformation of insurers business models is an example of how business models of non manufacturing industries can be reinvented to support sustainable economic growth by utilizing ideas from industrial ecology the new business models proposed place insurance business models within the overall research in industrial ecology thereby filling an evident gap in the literature by showing that the closed loop concept applies to non manufacturers

increased ecoefficiency and gross rebound effect evidence from usa and six european countries 1960 2002 despite increased efficiency in the use of natural resources the use of these resources continues to increase in most societies this paper examines the discrepancy between the potential decrease of use of natural resources as an effect of increased efficiency and actual use during the period 1960 2002 this difference was found to grow faster in the usa than the mean for six west european countries possible reasons for this difference between the two regions are analysed to reduce the anthropogenic flows of energy and material and the consequent deleterious effects on the biosphere it will become necessary to adapt consumption to degree of efficiency in the use of natural resources based on the comparison between the two regions some economic aspects of this issue are discussed

the effects of factor market distortion and technical innovation on china s electricity consumption abstract this study integrates neoclassical economics and institutional theory to examine the relationship between market factor distortion technical innovation and china s electricity consumption using business data from china 2008 2014 first we provide evidence that factor market distortion promotes electricity consumption of industrial enterprises in china secondly we divide technical innovation into traditional technical innovation and green innovation finding that the level of technical innovation has an inverted u shaped effect on the electricity consumption of industrial enterprises further we also provide evidence that factor market distortion amplifies the inverted u shaped effect of the technical innovation plot the results show that accelerating the reform of the market and promoting green innovation should be regarded as important strategies for national energy saving and emission reduction

institutional incentives in circular economy transition the case of material use in the dutch textile industry the aim of this paper is to gain insight into how requirements for transitioning to circular economy creates new organizational forms in inter firm collaborations and ultimately how they stimulate the emergence of new institutions enhancing sustainability two strands of literature one on circular economy and one on institutional analysis provide the theoretical background for this research currently a clearly formulated and unified theory on the institutions of circular economy is lacking therefore this research compares and contrasts empirical evidence from cases derived from the textile industry in the netherlands and concepts derived from institutional analysis and literature on circular economy to inductively build a cohesive conceptual framework using information from cases we identified two pathways to transition into circular economy and to manage circular material flows we define these pathways status quo arrangements sq when firms focus on optimizing up cycling technologies and infrastructure in their circular relations and collaborations and product as service arrangements pas to indicate a focus on providing products in service contracts chain coordination contracting and financial mechanisms were identified as key organizational elements for creating new pathways to transition into circular materials flows however in analyzing these elements we also highlight differences between sq and pas arrangements sq arrangements may have implications at the level of formal rules for example by creating a new industry standards for up cycled fabrics pas arrangements may have wider implications for example by reshaping ownership in service contracts and creating cascading activities moving ownership to the supply chain will result in increased responsibility for materials and will create an incentive for improving quality of products including their environmental performance this is expected to generate positive socio environmental impacts at a system level as well moreover pas arrangements may have bottom up effects at a formal institutional level resulting in alteration and creation of formal rules for example in terms of new approaches to the ownership of materials

a new approach to measuring the rebound effect associated to energy efficiency improvements an application to the us residential energy demand this paper brings attention to the fact that the energy demand frontier model introduced by filippini and hunt 2011 2012 is closely connected to the measurement of the so called rebound effect associated with improvements in energy efficiency in particular we show that their model implicitly imposes a zero rebound effect which contradicts most of the available empirical evidence on this issue we relax this restrictive assumption through the modelling of a rebound effect function that mitigates or intensifies the effect of an efficiency improvement on energy consumption we illustrate our model with an empirical application that aims to estimate a us frontier residential aggregate energy demand function using panel data for 48 states over the period 1995 to 2011 average values of the rebound effect in the range of 56 80 are found therefore policymakers should be aware that most of the expected energy reduction from efficiency improvements may not be achieved

the impacts of removing energy subsidies on economy wide rebound effects in china an input output analysis abstract facing with the increasing contradiction of economic growth energy scarcity and environmental deterioration energy conservation and emissions abatement have been ambitious targets for the chinese government improving energy efficiency through technological advancement is a primary measure to achieve these targets however the existence of energy rebound effects may completely or partially offset energy savings associated with technological advancement this paper adopted a modified input output model to estimate the economy wide energy rebound effects across china s economic sectors with the consideration of energy subsidies the empirical results show that the aggregate rebound effect of china is about 1 9 in 2007 2010 thus technological advancement significantly restrains energy consumption increasing removing energy subsidies will cause the aggregate rebound effect declines to 1 53 specifically removing subsidies for coal and nature gas can reduce the rebound effects signifcantly while removing the subsidies for oil products has a small impact on rebound effect the existence of rebound effects implies that technological advancement should be cooperated with energy price reform so as to achieve the energy saving target in addition the government should consider the diversity of economic sectors and energy types when design the reform schedule

the rebound effect microeconomic definitions limitations and extensions abstract the rebound effect results in part from an increased consumption of energy services following an improvement in the technical efficiency of delivering those services this increased consumption offsets the energy savings that may otherwise be achieved if the rebound effect is sufficiently large it may undermine the rationale for policy measures to encourage energy efficiency the nature and magnitude of the rebound effect is the focus of long running dispute with energy economics this paper brings together previous theoretical work to provide a rigorous definition of the rebound effect to clarify key conceptual issues and to highlight the potential consequences of various assumptions for empirical estimates of the effect the focus is on the direct rebound effect for a single energy service indirect and economy wide rebound effects are not discussed beginning with khazzoom s original definition of the rebound effect we expose the limitations of three simplifying assumptions on which this definition is based first we argue that capital costs form an important part of the total cost of providing energy services and that empirical studies that estimate rebound effects from variations in energy prices are prone to bias second we argue that energy efficiency should be treated as an endogenous variable and that empirical estimates of the rebound effect may need to apply a simultaneous equation model to capture the joint determination of key variables third we explore the implications of the opportunity costs of time in the production of energy services and highlight the consequences for energy use of improved time efficiency the influence of time costs on the rebound effect and the existence of a parallel rebound effect with respect to time each of these considerations serves to highlight the difficulties in obtaining reliable estimates of the rebound effect and the different factors that need to be controlled for we discuss the implications of these findings for econometric studies and argue that several existing studies may overestimate the magnitude of the effect

international spillover and rebound effects from increased energy efficiency in germany the pollution energy leakage literature raises the concern that policies implemented in one country such as a carbon tax or tight energy restrictions might simply result in the reallocation of energy use to other countries this paper addresses these concerns in the context of policies to increase energy efficiency rather than direct action to reduce energy use using a global cge simulation model we extend the analyses of economy wide rebound from the national focus of previous studies to incorporate international spill over effects from trade in goods and services our focus is to investigate whether these effects have the potential to increase or reduce the overall global rebound of local energy efficiency improvements in the case we consider increased energy efficiency in german production generates changes in comparative advantage that produce negative leakage effects thereby actually rendering global rebound less than national rebound

estimating the rebound effect in us manufacturing energy consumption abstract the energy price shocks of the 1970s are usually assumed to have increased the search for new energy saving technologies where eventual gains in energy efficiencies will reduce the real per unit price of energy services and hence the consumption of energy will rise and partially offset the initial reduction in the usage of energy sources this is the rebound effect which is estimated for the us manufacturing sector using time series data applying the dynamic ols method dols when allowing for asymmetric price effects the rebound effect is found to be approximately 24 for the us manufacturing sector

decomposition analysis of debt s impact on china s energy consumption abstract debt can influence the energy consumption of private sectors and public agencies by changing their fiscal budget constraints from 1996 to 2016 china has had rapid debt growth and become the second largest borrower in the world additionally china has been the largest energy consumer since 2009 the impact of debt growth on its energy consumption however is not much addressed in the literature using an extended lmdi model we investigate the impact of china s debt on its energy consumption from 1996 to 2016 in a new way the results show that 1 among the closed set of debt related factors and other conventional variables studied private debt per capita makes the strongest contribution to china s energy consumption and population has a moderate impact on the growth of energy consumption 2 energy efficiency improvement output efficiency of government debt debt structure adjustment and increased tertiary industry share are mitigating forces of energy consumption these results provide a new holistic perspective for the chinese government to formulate synergistic policies of risk control and pollution control

the open eco innovation mode an empirical investigation of eleven european countries this paper deals with the open innovation mode in the environmental realm and investigates the effects that knowledge sourcing has on the environmental innovations eis of firms using the community innovation survey cis 2006 2008 we refer to the firm s probability of both introducing an ei and extending the number of ei typologies adopted we estimate the impact of the depth and breadth of knowledge sourcing in addition we test for the moderating role of the firm s absorptive capacity knowledge sourcing has a positive impact on both types of ei performance however a broad sourcing strategy reveals a threshold above which the propensity to introduce an ei diminishes cognitive constraints in processing knowledge inputs that are too diverse may explain this result absorptive capacity generally helps firms to turn broadly sourced external knowledge into ei however internal innovation capabilities and knowledge socialization mechanisms seem to diminish the ei impact of knowledge sourced through deep external interactions the possibility of mismatches between the management of internal and external knowledge and of problems in distributing the decision makers attention between the two may explain this result

towards a consensus on the circular economy abstract the growing importance of the concept of the circular economy as a way to attain sustainable development has encouraged scholars to propose different ways to understand it given the large number of studies done on the circular economy their differing approaches and their multiple applications this paper attempts to propose a consensus view of the basic notions of the circular economy framework and highlight its relationship with eco innovation to that end this study carried out a systematic literature review that resulted in four main outputs a knowledge map of the circular economy an analysis of the main notions of the concept principles and determinants of a circular economy finally this study brings to light some remarkable examples of eco innovations developed for implementation in the circular economy

theoretical foundations and empirical evaluations of partisan fairness in district based democracies we clarify the theoretical foundations of partisan fairness standards for district based democratic electoral systems including essential assumptions and definitions not previously recognized formalized or in some cases even discussed we also offer extensive empirical evidence for assumptions with observable implications we cover partisan symmetry the most commonly accepted fairness standard and other perspectives throughout we follow a fundamental principle of statistical inference too often ignored in this literature defining the quantity of interest separately so its measures can be proven wrong evaluated and improved this enables us to prove which of the many newly proposed fairness measures are statistically appropriate and which are biased limited or not measures of the theoretical quantity they seek to estimate at all because real world redistricting and gerrymandering involve complicated politics with numerous participants and conflicting goals measures biased for partisan fairness sometimes still provide useful descriptions of other aspects of electoral systems

the ict electronics question structural change and the rebound effect abstract ict and related electronic appliances consumed 4 of global electrical energy in 2007 growing to 4 7 in 2012 with projections of continued increase in coming decades this is despite an average annual increase in energy efficiency of about 30 in ict electronics throughout the last 5 decades mainstream studies of energy related rebound effects have yet to produce a conceptual framework that adequately encapsulates a unique feature of ict electronics its tendency to induce changes in social practice and socio technical structures this study attempts to fill this gap surveying rebound effect literature it builds on studies which explore transformational change caused by energy efficiency increases it identifies structural changes in business education the military and households caused by energy efficiency increases in ict electronics which lead to a proliferation of ict electronic devices and consequently increased energy consumption it shows the cause and effect logic between energy efficiency and energy consumption in ict electronics and tentatively estimates rebound effects ranging between 115 and 161 in eight diverse empirical examples the history of ict electronics shows that energy efficiency increases inevitably lead to increases in energy consumption hence firm controls on co 2 e emission allowances may offer the best hope of curbing energy consumption and co 2 e emissions in this sector

examining the multiple impacts of technological progress on co2 emissions in china a panel quantile regression approach abstract whilst a plethora of literature has viewed technological progress as one of the critical influencing factors in relation to energy consumption and co2 emissions little effort has been made to identify the sectoral differences in the relationship between technological progress and co2 emissions thereby this paper remedies the inadequacies in the extant literature by empirically investigating the impact of technological progress on co2 emissions specifically taking into account its heterogeneous effect in various economic sectors this paper first decomposes the effect of technological progress as taking place in heavy industry in light industry in construction industry and in service industry a panel quantile regression approach and a balanced city panel data model are then applied covering the period 2001 2013 in china the empirical results show that technological progress in heavy industry and light industry surprisingly facilitates a higher level of co2 emissions despite its prominent contribution to energy efficiency improvement meanwhile as distinct from the effect it shows in the heavy and light industries technological progress in construction and service industries exerts a negative effect on co2 emissions additionally this paper further discovers that the strength of the multiple impacts of technological progress also varies with the level of emitters by studying the heterogeneous effect brought about by technological progress in different economic sectors and emitters this paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between co2 emissions and technological progress

unemployment marriage and divorce in this paper we examine whether the business cycle plays a role in marriage and divorce we use data on spain since the differences between recession and expansion periods across regions are quite pronounced in that country we find that the unemployment rate is negatively associated with the marriage rate pointing to a pro cyclical evolution of marriage however the response of the divorce rate to the business cycle is mixed results show the existence of different patterns depending on geography divorce rates in coastal regions are pro cyclical while in inland regions divorces react to unemployment in a counter cyclical way

direct rebound effect on urban residential electricity use an empirical study in china abstract though improving energy efficiency is an important approach to decrease the energy consumption the rebound effect caused by technology progress negatively affects the effectiveness of energy efficiency policies this paper empirically investigates direct rebound effect of urban residential electricity use in china using china s 30 provincial government panel data from1996 to 2010 we build a co integration equation and a panel error correction model to analyze the direct rebound effect the results indicate that an obvious rebound effect in the chinese urban residential electricity consumption does exist specifically the long term rebound effect is 0 74 while the short term rebound effect is 0 72 therefore the rebound effect significantly impairs functions of energy efficiency policies for this reason chinese government should take the rebound effect into consideration when formulating energy policies

the rebound effect an evolutionary perspective the rebound effect presents a major flaw in to energy conservation policies that aim to reduce energy consumption through energy efficiency development economics and energy related disciplines have thus far developed tools to measure such a phenomenon this paper attempts to explain this seeming paradox using a thermodynamic evolutionary theoretical framework in addition to the traditional economic approach we here propose that evolutionary systems such as biological or even economic systems may rearrange themselves in a more complex fashion under the pressure of an increasing flux of energy driven by the higher conversion rate of greater efficiency higher complexity due to a greater energy density rate counteracts the positive effects of energy efficiency we investigated this hypothesis in the context of the road freight transport system and the productive structure the qualitative analysis in this paper further substantiated by figures provides a link between the dynamics of production patterns and the effect of efficiency in the light of the macro economic effects of increased energy demand the analysis departs from a rigorous investigation of the actual energy efficiency evolution in the road freight transport system to develop through a survey of the subsequent worldwide economic revolution in the production system it is then shown how outsourcing the key feature of globalization can be identified as the main source of traffic density growth finally four paradigms are used to stress how the shift in the production system must be considered a leap in structural complexity that consequently serves to increase the frequency of components interactions

unilateral divorce the decreasing gender gap and married women s labor force participation married women s labor force participation lfp increased dramatically in the united states between the 1940 and 1960 cohort the two cohorts lived under different divorce regimes unilateral divorce rather than mutual consent the 1960 cohort also had a lower gender wage gap we use a quantitative dynamic life cycle model of endogenous marital status calibrated to key statistics for the 1940 cohort to study the effects of these two changes we find that both drivers combined are able to account for over 50 percent of the increase in married women s lfp and also generate large movements in marriage and divorce rates

how organizational and global factors condition the effects of energy efficiency on co2 emission rebounds among the world s power plants the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change ipcc the international energy agency iea and several nations suggest that energy efficiency is an effective strategy for reducing energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions skeptics contend that because efficiency lowers the price of energy and energy services it may actually increase demand for them causing total emissions to rise while both sides of this debate have researched the magnitude of these so called rebound effects among end use consumers researchers have paid less attention to the conditions under which direct rebounds cause co2 emissions to rise among industrial producers in particular researchers have yet to explore how organizational and global factors might condition the effects of efficiency on emissions among power plants the world s most concentrated sources of anthropogenic greenhouse gases here we use a unique dataset containing nearly every fossil fuel power plant in the world to determine whether the impact of efficiency on emissions varies by plants age size and location in global economic and normative systems findings reveal that each of these factors has a significant interaction with efficiency and thus shapes environmentally destructive rebound effects

socially optimal districting a theoretical and empirical exploration this paper investigates the problem of optimal districting in the context of a simple model of legislative elections in the model districting matters because it determines the seat vote curve which describes the relationship between seats and votes the paperrst characterizes the optimal seat vote curve and shows that under a weak condition there exist districtings that generate this ideal relationship the paper then develops an empirical methodology for computing seat vote curves and measuring the welfare gains from implementing optimal districting this is applied to analyze the districting plans used to elect u s state legislators during the 1990s

beyond the median voter preferences district heterogeneity and political representation despite the centrality of the median voter prediction in political economy models overwhelming empirical evidence shows that legislators regularly take positions that diverge significantly from the preferences of the median voter in their districts however all these empirical studies to date lack the necessary data to directly measure the preferences of the median voter we utilize a unique data set consisting of individual level voting data that allows us to construct direct measures of voter preferences we find that legislators are most constrained by the preferences of the median voter in homogeneous districts

quantifying the relationship of resilience and eco efficiency in complex adaptive energy systems the concepts of efficiency and resilience are important in complex adaptive systems efficiency and resilience have been compared in complex systems but the data and materials have mainly been derived from natural ecosystems the actual environmental impacts of this comparison with data and materials from human economic systems is an important research theme for ecological economics furthermore efficiency defined as eco efficiency is missing from resilience research this paper studies resilience and eco efficiency in societal energy systems eco efficiency is defined as energy produced per co2 emissions and incineration ash generated for resilience we use the diversity of fuel types in energy systems in particular the evenness of fuels in each fuel type category empirical materials from the district heating energy system of southern lapland in finland encompassing six municipalities are presented what if scenarios show that in general diversity and eco efficiency seem to support each other i e there is a correlation this is different from food web studies in ecology where the material flows are primarily biomass in human energy systems lithosphere derived materials are used alongside biomass in our case study fossil coal oil as well as peat which is a semi fossil fuel the difference might also be explained due to the role of technology in human economic systems for policy and business strategy implications it is important to study the case system with two interdependent system boundaries the subsystem level of the capital city rovaniemi and the larger six municipality regional system to which rovaniemi belongs policy planning and business strategy development would gain if the actors involved would approach the system with enlarged spatial and temporal system boundaries long term strategic thinking and inter municipality cooperation may help the region to mitigate the risks related to the development of the district heating energy system

reform of refined oil product pricing mechanism and energy rebound effect for passenger transportation in china new huadu business school research fund china sustainable energy program of the energy foundation g 1203 15828 national social science foundation of china 12zd059 ministry of education 10gbj013

economy wide rebound effects for non energetic raw materials material efficiency is increasingly being seen as a means to save resources and achieve greater security of supply whether these aims can be achieved to the desired extent depends among other things on the presence of rebound effects this article estimates economy wide rebound effects for non energetic raw materials in the context of a set of material efficiency projects carried out in germany under the assumption that the efficiency technologies developed in these projects are scaled up to the national level input output analysis is used to calculate changed material requirements and corresponding rebound effects reduced material flows in monetary terms together with economic data are aggregated to an economy wide impulse which can cause re increases in the demand for the considered raw materials depending on the project specific framework conditions and subject to the modeling assumptions our estimates suggest that individual materials display a wide range of rebound effects ranging from close to zero to low double digit percentages these results point towards the conclusion that economy wide rebound effects do not make these efficiency measures obsolete however they also suggest that rebound effects should not be ignored in the assessment of the role of efficiency in future resource consumption

structural constraints on partisan bias under the efficient gerrymander partisan bias occurs when the translation of the popular vote into legislative seats differs between competing parties this paper contains a theoretical and empirical analysis of the consequences of an efficient gerrymander for the partisan bias of an electoral system under partisan apportionment bias is shown to depend on some structural features of the electoral environment namely the size of the voting population and the number of single member districts within a political jurisdiction a statistical analysis reveals the predicted relationships in data on congressional elections across states in the 1950 1984 period this paper highlights the importance of some measurable features of the electoral environment for determining bias and provides an indirect test of partisan gerrymandering in congressional apportionment processes

the economy wide rebound effect from improved energy efficiency in swedish industries a general equilibrium analysis the objective of this paper is to analyse the rebound effect from increased efficiency in industrial energy use in sweden energy efficiency improvements can have significant micro and macroeconom

the effectiveness of energy efficiency improvement in a developing country rebound effect of residential electricity use in south korea abstract the government of south korea considers an energy efficiency improvement policy an effective economic measure for climate change like many other governments but it is unaware of any rebound effect the unexpected result of energy efficiency improvement so the rebound effect of residential electricity use in south korea was estimated using two different scales in this paper at the macro level the rebound effect was estimated indirectly by using price elasticity and at the micro level the rebound effect of individual home appliances was estimated directly by using a non linear relationship between energy efficiency and energy use at the macro level the long and short term results of rebound effect were estimated at 30 and 38 respectively also at the micro level the rebound effect of air conditioners was 57 70 while refrigerators showed only a composite of rebound and income effects finally there was no backfire effect and efficiency improvement brought energy reduction in conclusion these suggest that rebound effect is an important factor that the government of south korea must consider when planning its energy efficiency improvement policy

representation through legislative redistricting a stochastic model this paper builds a stochastic model of the processes that give rise to observed patterns of representation and bias in congressional and state legislative elections the analysis demonstrates that partisan swing and incumbency voting concepts from the congressional elections literature have determinate effects on representation and bias concepts from the redistricting literature the model shows precisely how incumbency and increased variability of partisan swing reduce the responsiveness of the electoral system and how partisan swing affects whether the system is biased toward one party or the other incumbency and other causes of unresponsive representation also reduce the effect of partisan swing on current levels of partisan bias by relaxing the restrictive portions of the widely applied uniform partisan swing assumption the theoretical analysis leads directly to an empirical model enabling one more reliably to estimate responsiveness and bias from a single year of electoral data applying this to data from seven elections in each of six states the paper demonstrates that redistricting has effects in predicted directions in the short run partisan gerrymandering biases the system in favor of the party in control and by freeing up seats held by opposition party incumbents increases the system s responsiveness bipartisan controlled redistricting appears to reduce bias somewhat and dramatically to reduce responsiveness nonpartisan redistricting processes substantially increase responsiveness but do not have as clear an effect on bias however after only two elections prima facie evidence for redistricting effects evaporate in most states finally across every state and type of redistricting process responsiveness declined significantly over the course of the decade this is clear evidence that the phenomenon of vanishing marginals recognized first in the u s congress literature also applies to these different types of state legislative assemblies it also strongly suggests that redistricting could not account for this pattern

sustainability as it pertains to minerals and energy supply and demand a new interpretative perspective for assessing progress this paper addresses the pressing research gap that demands an overarching framework to assess the progress of mining minerals and energy supply and demand networks towards sustainable development the framework proposes a hierarchy from sustainable development which begins at the global scale to operating sustainably which begins at the level of unit operations the two concepts overlap in the middle with a focus upon regional economies guidance is provided to assess the performance of both dynamic dimensions sustainable development is assessed in terms of equity and operating sustainably is assessed in terms of the changing states of maturity of the activities being monitored the papers from this special volume were the input sample to assess the extent to which these performance dimensions were being addressed in analysing the progress towards sustainable development it was found that papers were mainly focussed on equity within supply countries but they provided little attention to the other three equity conditions proposed demand met at a reasonable price future needs met and profitable transfer agents the transition towards operating sustainably was promising with results that revealed progress along the proposed four stage maturity journey which includes 1 solely profit maximising 2 efficiency focussed 3 integrating by connecting and 4 adaptable resilient a comprehensive definition for operating sustainably is proposed for discussion and refinement it is suggested that the definition proposed can be used for selecting appropriate indicators for measuring and documenting progress

analyzing co2 emissions from passenger cars in europe a dynamic panel data approach abstract road transport accounts for 92 per cent of co2 emissions from all transport services and car transport makes the largest contribution to the total we examine the dynamic relationship between car co2 emissions in western european union countries eu 13 with the dieselization of the passenger vehicle fleet technological progress fuel efficiency mobility indicator economic activity and motorization rate we take advantage of a panel data set of 13 eu countries between 1990 and 2015 and estimate a dynamic panel data dpd model using alternative econometric methods this approach allows us to estimate the effect on car co2 emissions of induced indirect channels involving the reaction of economic agents to changes in aforementioned explanatory variables we provide evidence that co2 emissions have been benefited from global technological progress and changes in average fuel efficiency while increases of economic activity motorization rate and the dieselization process hold positive and significant relationship with car co2 emissions these results are consistent with alternative model specifications and econometric methods

occupant behaviour as a fourth driver of fuel poverty aka warmth energy deprivation a conceptual framework for occupant behaviour as a driver of fuel poverty is presented comprising housing and use of the home heating and energy arrangements and thermal comfort household structure and dynamics health and well being household finances and social activity and relations this framework informs longitudinal analysis of movements into and out of fuel poverty among households in deprived communities in glasgow household surveys across ten years yielded a longitudinal sample of 3297 cases where initial and subsequent fuel poverty status was recorded using an experiential measure a third of households changed their fuel poverty status over time 18 moving out of fuel poverty and 16 moving in factors strongly associated with movements into fuel poverty included being a single parent or 2 27 experiencing a mental health problem or 2 74 and remaining out of work or 1 89 movement out of fuel poverty was less likely among those with infrequent family contact or 0 55 and who moved home or 0 66 home improvements had no effect upon the experience of fuel poverty it is argued that the policy problem should be considered one of warmth and energy deprivation accompanied by a broader interpretation of vulnerability to as well as from fuel poverty

the role of policy labels keywords and framing in transitioning waste policy abstract the last decade has seen a new wave of ambitious policies in order to address the mounting ecological damage caused by high levels of consumerism and the depletion of resources to manufacture short life cycle products in this paper zero waste and sustainable materials management are examined as prominent labels of an evolving waste policy discourse towards waste prevention and reduction and material cycles using discourse analysis key documents are comparatively assessed presenting the origins of these two concepts and how they entered the waste policy domain the different framing tactics and governance models are then presented the findings demonstrate that the different discourse paradigms around the concept of waste and materials influences what policy initiatives measurement tools and outcomes are pursued although zero waste and sustainable materials management are gaining popularity as indicators of shifting waste policy towards sustainable production and consumption policy particularly with increasing discussion and application of circular economy governance models in europe and china a distinction still exists between the conceptualisation and implementation within and across the two concepts it is in this transition towards a circular economy that it is valuable to review the role of policy labels keywords and framing context in waste policy and the ability of enhanced waste management to assist in the development of more sustainable and environmentally acceptable economic and social behaviour models

a unified method of evaluating electoral systems and redistricting plans we derive a unified statistical method with which one can produce substantially improved definitions and estimates of almost any feature of two party electoral systems that can be defined based on district vote shares our single method enables one to calculate more efficient estimates with more trustworthy assessments of their uncertainty than each of the separate multifarious existing measures of partisan bias electoral responsiveness seats votes curves expected or predicted vote in each district in a legislature the probability that a given party will win the seat in each district the proportion of incumbents or others who will lose their seats the proportion of women or minority candidates to be elected the incumbency advantage and other causal effects the likely effects on the electoral system and district votes of proposed electoral reforms such as term limitations campaign spending limits and drawing majority minority districts and numerous others to illustrate we estimate the partisan bias and electoral responsiveness of the u s house of representatives since 1900 and evaluate the fairness of competing redistricting plans for the 1992 ohio state legislature

gender gap in peer to peer lending evidence from china abstract this paper documents and analyzes the gender gap in the online credit market using data from renrendai a leading peer to peer lending platform in china we show that lending to female borrowers is associated with better loan performance including a lower probability of default a higher expected profit and a lower expected loss than for their male peers however despite the higher creditworthiness we don t find any measurable gender impact on funding success rate meaning that female borrowers have to compensate lenders by providing higher profitability to achieve a similar funding probability these evidences indicate the existence of a gender gap that discriminate against female borrowers further analysis implies that this gender gap is independent of the amount of information disclosed by borrowers

estimating broad brush rebound effects for household energy consumption in the eu 28 countries and norway some policy implications of odyssee data abstract currently there is a strong policy commitment in european union eu and organisation for economic co operation and development oecd countries to increase the energy efficiency of residential buildings and it is widely assumed that this will naturally and automatically reduce domestic energy consumption however other factors such as fuel prices wages attitudes and lifestyles also influence energy consumption this paper calculates broad brush rebound effects based on changes in energy efficiency and energy consumption in each of the 28 eu countries plus norway for the years 2000 2011 in doing so it tests how well the assumption of energy efficiency leading to energy reduction stands up to scrutiny in these lands it uses the eu s odyssee database for efficiency and consumption figures and a commonly employed econometric definition of the rebound effect as an energy efficiency elasticity most older eu lands show rebound effects in the expected range of 0 50 however the range for newer eu countries is 100 550 suggesting that energy efficiency increases are not a good predictor of energy consumption a more in depth look at one country germany suggests these results underestimate the rebound effect significantly this also identifies research needs for specific energy consumption determinants in each country to find more precisely what is driving consumption levels

using the concept of yield to assess the sustainability of different tourist types abstract sustainability assessments have become important tools for decision makers this research assesses the sustainability of different types of tourists in new zealand by using the concept of yield and by developing yield indicators in the areas of financial public sector and sustainable yield the concept and indicators have been developed in cooperation with the new zealand tourism sector and therefore provide a sector driven approach to implement a sustainability assessment the analysis shows that there are numerous trade offs between indicators when attempting to define the ideal visitor type coach tourists for example are the largest spenders and generate the greatest value added in tourism on a per day basis but they contribute less to the financial sustainability of tourism when the costs of capital are accounted for coach tourists are highly concentrated in a few key destinations and at the same time produce substantial amounts of co2 emissions due to their air travel component in contrast backpacker and camping tourists provide greater financial yield and are more dispersed but they are also the greatest user of publicly provided tourist attractions and therefore come at a higher cost to government than other tourist types camping tourists are also contributing considerably to co2 emissions the yield analysis proposed in this paper could be a valuable tool for complex policy decision making and identifying strategies that lead to high yield tourism

power to change analysis of household participation in a renewable energy and energy efficiency programme in central australia the australian government funded a national solar city program 2008 2013 to support communities to increase adoption of energy efficiency measures and renewable energy technology one community was alice springs a town with about 9000 households in the geographic centre of australia the programme offered a package of support free energy audits discounts for the purchase of renewable energy technology and energy efficiency measures and ongoing information households that adopted solar hot water and photovoltaic systems reduced their electricity usage immediately after adoption by 10 and 34 respectively and this was maintained in the long term a small rebound effect of 15 was observed in the photovoltaic adopters it was observed that on average households that adopted only energy efficiency measures did not have a significant reduction in their electricity usage over the long term however consistent with expectations this study did show that there was a significant correlation between the number of energy efficiency measures adopted and the greatest household reduction in electricity usage these contrary results indicate that there are additional factors involved the connection between the effective use of measures coincident behavioural change or increased energy awareness and greater energy reduction is discussed

optimal gerrymandering sometimes pack but never crack standard intuitions for optimal gerrymandering involve concentrating one s extreme opponents in unwinnable districts packing and spreading one s supporters evenly over winnable districts cracking these intuitions come from models with either no uncertainty about voter preferences or only two voter types in contrast we characterize the solution to a problem in which a gerrymanderer observes a noisy signal of voter preferences from a continu ous distribution and creates n districts of equal size to maximize the expected number of districts she wins under mild regularity conditions we show that cracking is never optimal one s most ardent supporters should be grouped together moreover for sufficiently precise signals the optimal solution involves creating a district that matches extreme republicans with extreme democrats and then continuing to match toward the center of the signal distribution jel d72

energy saving and energy efficiency concepts for policy making departing from the concept of rational use of energy the paper outlines the microeconomics of end use energy saving as a result of frugality or efficiency measures frugality refers to the behaviour that is aimed at energy conservation and with efficiency we refer to the technical ratio between energy input and output services that can be modified with technical improvements e g technology substitution changing behaviour from one side and technology from the other are key issues for public energy policy in this paper we attempt to identify the effects of parameters that determine energy saving behaviour with the use of the microeconomic theory the role of these parameters is crucial and can determine the outcome of energy efficiency policies therefore policymakers should properly address them when designing policies

the sufficiency strategy would rich world frugality lower environmental impact abstract one alleged weapon against unsustainable environmental impact is for the wealthy to consume less this sufficiency strategy is to complement the efficiency strategy of lowering ratios of resource inputs to economic outputs the former would reduce the affluence factor in i pat the latter the technology factor that the latter strategy suffers from a consumption rebound is widely recognized this paper identifies a similar rebound when the affluence factor is autonomously lowered the lower initial demand lowers prices which in turn stimulates new demand by others the strategy moreover addresses only the rich raising questions of its theoretical maximum efficacy its proponents usually conflate frugality with the north south dichotomy and intra generational with inter generational equity moreover there are difficulties with the supporting arguments that frugality is good for one s own sake as well as for the environment and that the rich should lead the way to living more lightly personal behaviour change is furthermore not a substitute for international political efforts finally since all changes in right side factors of the i pat equation change other right side factors such indirect attacks on impact should be abandoned in favor of supply and emissions quotas