factor demand technical change and inter fuel substitution in africa abstract the translog production function has been widely used in applied production analysis due to its flexibility and superiority over other functional forms this study develops a translog production function for a group of african countries the random effects model is estimated using generalized least squares estimator the main findings are first output in africa is driven by a more intensive use of petroleum and electricity and to a lesser extent capital labor and coal relative to technological progress second african production technology exhibits increasing returns to scale suggesting a path towards market entry barriers third technical change is scale biased and factor augmenting albeit very slow fourth all energy inputs are substitutes indicating africa s potential to proportionally switch towards cleaner fuels without adversely affecting economic growth finally and perhaps more generally the study reinforces the assertion that imposing restrictions like homotheticity homogeneity or separability on the production technology is unrealistic and should rather be a testable hypothesis within any applied analysis in view of the documented findings relevant implications for africa are discussed

energy consumption and economic growth in south africa reexamined a nonparametric testing apporach this paper is an effort to investigate claims concerning granger causality relationship from energy consumption to economic growth in south africa we adopt a nonparametric bootstrap method to reassess evidence supporting granger causality and unravel findings of long run unidirectional causality running from energy consumption to economic growth this implies that energy conservation policies will negatively impact economic growth in south africa in addition the results of this study have implications on co2 emissions in south africa given that coal accounts for about 72 of energy this suggests that energy use would have a long run effect of raising the country s co2 emission levels hence there might be a need to develop a more balanced energy structure which will include higher share of renewable energy a further monte carlo experiment performed reveals that asymptotic granger causality test suffers size distortion problem for south african data these findings provide support for use of a bootstrap methodology and also imply that the results presented in this study are likely to be more reliable

electricity supply security and the future role of renewable energy sources in brazil abstract hydropower is the backbone of the brazilian electricity generation sector even though the use of this resource is advantaged in terms of greenhouse gas emissions last years severe droughts have exposed the country s huge dependency on hydroelectricity brazil s electricity supply system has shown to be vulnerable to electricity shortages and has demanded significant overhaul in order to address its challenges the present paper provides a comprehensive review of the current status of the brazilian electricity sector and discusses diversification of electricity generation mix as a strategy to improve electricity supply security in the country an overview of the main features of the energy sources applied in brazil is also presented through a review of the latest available generation data the central section of this work is a discussion of the main causes of the current crisis and the future role of renewable energy sources in a 10 year perspective

optimizing the level of renewable electric r d expenditures using real options analysis abstract one of the primary objectives of the united states federal non hydro renewable electric r d program is to promote the development of technologies that have the potential to provide consumers with stable and secure energy supplies in order to quantify the benefits provided by continued federal renewable electric r d this paper uses real option pricing techniques to estimate the value of renewable electric technologies in the face of uncertain fossil fuel prices within the real options analysis framework the current value of expected future supply from renewable electric technologies net of federal r d expenditures is estimated to be 30 6 billion of this value 86 can be attributed to past federal r d efforts and 14 can be attributed to future federal r d efforts assuming continued federal r d funding at 300 million yr in addition real options analysis shows that the value of renewable electric technologies increases as current and future r d funding levels increase this indicates that the current level of federal renewable electric r d funding is sub optimal

estimates of inter fuel substitution possibilities in chinese chemical industry abstract the chemical sector is a key driver of china s remarkable growth record and accounts for about 10 of the country s gdp this has made the industry energy intensive and consequently a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions ghg and other pollutants this study has attempted to investigate the potential for inter fuel substitution between coal oil natural gas and electricity in chinese chemical sector by employing a translog production and cost function ridge regression procedure was adopted to estimate the parameters of the function estimation results show that all energy inputs are substitutes in addition the study produces evidence that the significant role of coal in the chinese chemical fuel mix converges over time albeit slowly these results suggest that price based policies coupled with capital subsidy programs can be adopted to redirect technology use towards cleaner energy sources like electricity and natural gas hence retaining the ability to fuel the chemical sector while also mitigating ghg emissions notwithstanding one must understand that the extent to which substituting electricity for coal will be effective depends on the extent to which coal or oil is used in generating electricity the findings of this study provide general insights and underscore the importance of chinese government policies that focus on installed capacity of renewable electricity energy intensity targets as well as merger of enterprises

a large scale linear complementarity model of the north american natural gas market abstract the north american natural gas market has seen significant changes recently due to deregulation and restructuring for example third party marketers can contract for transportation and purchase of gas to sell to end users while the intent was a more competitive market the potential for market power exists we analyze this market using a linear complementarity equilibrium model including producers storage and peak gas operators third party marketers and four end use sectors the marketers are depicted as nash cournot players determining supply to meet end use consumption all other players are in perfect competition results based on national petroleum council scenarios are presented

causal independence between energy consumption and economic growth in liberia evidence from a non parametric bootstrapped causality test abstract this contribution investigates causal interdependence between energy consumption and economic growth in liberia and proposes application of a bootstrap methodology to better reflect causality employment is incorporated as additional variable the study demonstrates evidence of distinct bidirectional granger causality between energy consumption and economic growth additionally the results show that employment in liberia granger causes economic growth and apply irrespective of the short run or long run evidence from a monte carlo experiment reveals that the asymptotic granger causality test suffers size distortion problem for liberian data suggesting that the bootstrap technique employed in this study is more appropriate given the empirical results implications are that energy expansion policies like energy subsidy or low energy tariff for instance would be necessary to cope with demand exerted as a result of economic growth in liberia furthermore liberia might have the performance of its employment generation on the economy partly determined by adequate energy therefore it seems fully justified that a quick shift towards energy production based on clean energy sources may significantly slow down economic growth in liberia hence the government s target to implement a long term strategy to make liberia a carbon neutral country and eventually less carbon dependent by 2050 is understandable

a real options valuation of chinese wind energy technologies for power generation do benefits from the feed in tariffs outweigh costs abstract in order to assess the viability of wind energy projects in china this paper takes a real options approach by accounting for flexibility over deployment of the technology in response to a stochastic non renewable energy cost the difference between the latter and the r d enhanced cost of renewable energy operation may be thought of as a benefit from using wind on the other hand the chinese government provides feed in tariffs to encourage further adoption of wind which should be included as a cost this work thus shows that there is substantial options value to china s wind energy program which is bolstered if the cost of carbon dioxide emissions is internalized moreover by varying the rate of feed in tariffs the model may be used to show plausible ranges for the feed in tariffs which could be a useful policy insight furthermore the study hypothesizes that with the likelihood of renewable energy to replace non renewable energy wind power in china can potentially reduce co2 emissions by approximately 6 4 by 2020 comparing to the 2005 level and highlights the significant role of wind power in china s emission targets and energy security this is a relevant paper especially given the importance of a sustainable energy transition for china more generally using the real options approach from a policy perspective could provide insights about the viability of renewable energy programs and robustness of feed in tariffs rates

renewable energy policy evaluation using real option model the case of taiwan abstract this study presents a policy benefit evaluation model that integrates cost efficiency curve information on renewable power generation technologies into real options analysis roa methods the proposed model evaluates quantitatively the policy value provided by developing renewable energy re in the face of uncertain fossil fuel prices and re policy related factors the economic intuition underlying the policy making process is elucidated while empirical analysis illustrates the option value embedded in the current development policy in taiwan for wind power in addition to revealing the benefits that re development provides when considering real options analytical results indicate that roa is a highly effective means of quantifying how policy planning uncertainty including managerial flexibility influences re development in addition to assessing the policy value of current re development policy this study also compares policy values in terms of internalized external costs and varying feed in tariff fit simulation results demonstrate that the re development policy with internalized co2 emission costs is appropriate policy planning from sustainability point of view furthermore relationship between varying fit and policy values can be shown quantitatively and appropriate fit level could be determined accordingly

exploring the green total factor productivity of china s metallurgical industry under carbon tax a perspective on factor substitution abstract the characteristics of high emissions and high energy consumption in metallurgical industry have brought great challenges to the green and low carbon transition in china as a low carbon economic instrument carbon tax is generally considered to be an effective way to reduce co2 emissions through raising energy cost but whether it will promote the green total factor productivity gtfp of china s metallurgical industry is still unanswered under this background this paper uses provincial panel data over years 2000 2015 to investigate the impact of carbon taxation on gtfp of metallurgical industry from the perspective of inter fuel and inter factor substitution the lock in mechanism is also incorporated in the three stage estimation model to better reflect the asymmetric price response of factors and fuels the results reveal that the slow marketization process of energy price and the rigid demand for energy in china s metallurgical industry hinder the substitution effect of energy the implementation of carbon tax has limited effect on energy saving and co2 reduction in the metallurgical industry of china and levying a carbon tax has a negative effect on gtfp during the research period therefore the government should not achieve co2 reduction targets at the expense of green economic growth gtfp is suggested to be considered in future assessment criteria in the process of transforming to low carbon economy

refined oil import subsidies removal in ghana a triple win abstract in this study claims and counterclaims that fossil fuel subsidies removal yields benefits in terms of budget deficits energy efficiency and mitigation are assessed in order to do this a global computable general equilibrium cge model has been estimated to evaluate the impact of subsidies removal on imported refined oil in ghana on prices carbon dioxide co 2 emissions households demand firm s production and real gdp the simulation experiment points to evidence that subsidy removal raises prices increases the rate of co 2 emissions reduces households demand reduces aggregate output and affects various sectors differently the increased rate of co 2 emissions due to the removal of subsidies is indicative of the existence of the so called green paradox these results underscore the fact that a removal of subsidies on fossil fuels may win in some regards but fail in others a general implication from the applied model therefore is one which supports the assertion that removal of subsidies on fossil fuels removal on energy should be implemented along with policies aimed at stimulating economic activities and reducing the level of co 2 emissions especially where there is evidence of the green paradox

estimates of energy subsidies in china and impact of energy subsidy reform abstract for a transitional economy such as china some energy subsidies are reasonable and sometimes even necessary for achieving social goals however with rising energy prices and environmental concerns we see conflicts emerging between energy subsidies energy demand supply fundamentals and climate change considerations energy subsidies have important implications for sustainable development through their effects on energy use efficiency and the choice of fuel source this paper applies the price gap approach to estimate china s energy subsidies results indicate that china s energy subsidies amounted to cny 356 73 billion in 2007 equivalent to 1 43 of gdp subsidies for oil products consumption are the largest followed by subsidies for the electricity and coal sectors furthermore a cge model is used to analyze the economic impacts of energy subsidy reforms our findings show that removing energy subsidies will result in a significant fall in energy demand and emissions but will have negative impacts on macroeconomic variables we conclude that offsetting policies could be adopted such that certain shares of these subsidies are reallocated to support other sustainable development measures which could lead to reducing energy intensity and favoring the environment

modeling energy technology choices which investment analysis tools are appropriate abstract a variety of tools from modern investment theory appear to hold promise for unraveling observed energy technology investment behavior that often appears anomalous when analyzed using traditional investment analysis methods this paper reviews the assumptions and important insights of the investment theories most commonly suggested as candidates for explaining the apparent energy technology investment paradox the applicability of each theory is considered in the light of important aspects of energy technology investment problems such as sunk costs uncertainty and imperfect information the theories addressed include the capital asset pricing model the arbitrage pricing theory and the theory of irreversible investment enhanced net present value methods are also considered the relevance of the capital asset pricing model and the arbitrage pricing theory given the special characteristics of energy technology investment decisions appears limited to the value of the theories conceptual insights in contrast the theory of irreversible investment and enhanced net present value are found to provide more useful modeling and analysis methods each capable of providing important insights into the energy technology investment paradox

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

optimal carbon taxes for china and implications for power generation welfare and the environment abstract china is expected to constitute about half of the world s emissions between 2010 and 2040 as concerns about climate change intensify the chinese government is poised to commit to a low carbon economy these conditions make china a suitable case in which to study how emission policies impact on energy supply welfare and the environment to achieve this purpose we incorporate abatement technologies into the gtap computable general equilibrium model and show that optimal taxes range between 0 03 for services and 2 02 for manufacturing in most cases simulated tax rates are by far higher than pollution taxes stipulated in the new chinese environmental tax law furthermore despite a decline in output of many sectors including the electricity sector overall welfare gains exist from introducing carbon taxes moreover these taxes reduce environmental pollution by approximately 62 5 in general carbon taxes are insufficient for mitigation in china and due to a coal dominant energy structure implementing these taxes leads to a decline in power generation hence the chinese aggressive investment strategy for renewable electricity technologies as stipulated in its 13th five year plan is understandable

a mixed complementarity based equilibrium model of natural gas markets we present a new multiseasonal multiyear natural gas market equilibrium model based on the concept of a competitive equilibrium involving the market participants producers storage reservoir operators peak gas operators pipeline operators marketers and consumers the first three classes are depicted as price takers consistent with perfect competition the pipeline operations are described with regulated tariffs but also involve congestion pricing as a mechanism to allocate scarce pipeline capacity the marketers are price takers in all markets except in sales to consumers in which they compete as nash cournot players finally consumers are described by demand curves for each of the four sectors residential commercial industrial and electric power we show that the equilibrium model is an instance of a mixed nonlinear complementarity problem ncp and provide sufficient detail not generally seen in previous complementarity models of natural gas the ncp formulation is derived from considering the karush kuhn tucker optimality conditions of the optimization problems faced by these participants under mild conditions we show that this ncp has a solution and under additional reasonable conditions we show that the market prices are unique we also validate the model on a representative sample network with nine market participants and three seasons using four scenarios

electricity auctions in south america towards convergence of system adequacy and res e support regulatory reforms of the electricity industry in south america have always been prompted by the need of attracting enough investment to cover the fast paced demand growth in order to achieve this goal the countries in the region which in the eighties and early nineties opted for market oriented schemes have rebuilt in the last decade their regulatory frameworks around long term auctioning these new mechanisms initially implemented to attract investment in any sort of conventional generation technology so as to ensure the system adequacy are increasingly being also used to bring in non conventional renewable energy resources these schemes have been until now run in parallel but the steep learning curve of renewable energy sources for electricity res e technologies is apparently opening the door to the implementation of new tendering procedures open to all kinds of generation technologies in this article we review the auction mechanisms for new generation implemented in south america we argue that although the first impression might lead to the conclusion that conventional and res e technologies are in some cases close and even ostensibly competing in the same auctions the fact is that the full convergence is still far to happen as the rules and products applied to the different technologies differ significantly

the convergence of economic systems and the m form abstract this paper draws together two areas of economic theory williamson s transactional analysis of the capitalist corporation and the role of technology in comparative economic systems it considers the m form as an organizational innovation under capitalism central planning and self management and comes to the conclusion that this new technology does not seem to have promoted the convergence of economic systems rather the m form s experience suggests that new technology has an impact consistent with ambivalence theory which sees new technologies as being adapted to suit the status quo

photovoltaic energy systems with battery storage for residential areas an economic analysis abstract the global energy market is characterized by the strong growth of photovoltaic pv energy this renewable source contributes to sustainable development and is a strategic player in the electricity market the profitability of pv systems is determined by incentive tariffs in developing markets and by the share of self consumption in developed markets this paper aims to evaluate i the profitability of pv systems in the residential sector without subsidies and ii the profitability of energy storage in a mature market italy in this way it is possible to define the economic results of integrated pv battery systems and the indicator used is the net present value furthermore a sensitivity analysis is conducted on the critical variables the mathematical model proposed in this paper defines the break even point of the increase of self consumption at which residential pv battery systems become economically viable in a mature market energy storage systems are useful only when the relationship between supply and demand permits them to induce a significant increase of energy self consumption

the impact of chinese carbon emission trading scheme ets on low carbon energy lce investment china is planning to introduce emission trading scheme ets to decrease co2 emission as low carbon energy lce will play a pivotal role in reducing co2 emissions our paper is to assess the extent and the conditions under which a carbon ets can deliver lce investment in china we chose wind technology as a case study and a real option based model was built to explore the impact of a number of variables and design features on investment decisions e g carbon and electricity price carbon market risk carbon price floor and ceiling and on grid ratio we compute critical values of these variables and features and explore trade offs among them according to our work a carbon ets has a significant effect on wind power plant investment although it cannot support investment in wind power on its own carbon price stabilization mechanisms such as carbon price floor can significantly improve the effect of carbon ets but the critical floor to support investment is still much higher than the carbon price in china pilot etss our results show that other policy measures will be needed to promote low carbon energy development in china

the evaluation of feed in tariff regulation of turkey for onshore wind energy based on the economic analysis abstract renewable energy sources have become popular with the technological developments the increase in the price of fossil fuels and the environmental concerns these factors have also prompted turkey to utilize her rich renewable energy sources to meet her increasing electricity demand which is around 7 annually therefore the renewable energy law was enacted in 2005 to incentivize the utilization of domestic renewable sources with feed in tariffs in this study onshore wind energy potential of turkey is analyzed to find out whether these regulations and incentives will help the utilization of onshore wind energy potential to that end some background information about technology and cost of onshore wind power plants the wind energy potential of turkey and the current regulatory framework related to wind energy are explained then a model is set up to conduct economic analysis by calculating npv for the base case scenario and under the uncertain environment the results show that an onshore wind energy potential of about 13 gw having a wind speed of 7 5 m s or higher can be utilized profitably with the current feed in tariff as the wind capacity of more than 100 gw cannot be utilized economically

a stochastic version of a stackelberg nash cournot equilibrium model we consider a stochastic version of the stackelberg nash cournot model proposed by murphy et al 1983 ln the first stage the leader chooses and announces his production level taking into account the reaction of the followers the decision of the leader is taken when market demand is uncertain in the second stage the followers knowing the leader s output react to this level according to the cournot assumption at this stage demand is known we study the extension of the murphy et al model and give a numerical illustration of this model using the european gas market

output and substitution elasticities of energy and implications for renewable energy expansion in the ecowas region abstract this study estimates output and substitution elasticities of renewable energy and nonrenewable energy for the economic community of west african states ecowas and discusses implications for expanding the former the results show that nonrenewable energy promises greater benefits for ecowas economic transition with output elasticities averaging between 0 052 0 579 and 0 055 to 0 223 for nonrenewable energy and renewable energy respectively overall estimated technological progress is low 0 5 to 2 6 the bulk coming from input efficiency substitution elasticities 0 02 0 94 suggest potential for switching towards renewable energy notwithstanding scale economics and sitting problems inherent in renewable power generation challenge the opportunities for energy substitution a sustainable policy solution therefore appears to be one favoring scaled and efficient electricity generation from fossil energy in the short run with a gradual switch towards renewable power in the long run in general the applied model provides insights that energy efficiency enhances sustainable growth by propelling technological advancement especially when technical change is scale biased and factor augmenting the study also provides insights that impacts of exogenous shocks to inputs are temporary and hence do not jeopardize efforts aimed at scaling output through increased and efficient use of labor capital and energy especially nonrenewable energy

wind energy in brazil from the power sector s expansion crisis model to the favorable environment since the 1970s demands arising from the impacts of the power sector on the natural environment were added to studies regarding the strategic power sector and its impact on the economic and financial crises thus the development of alternative technologies reflected the new institutional guidelines and overcame the technological paradigms that were based on increasing installed capacities consequently multiple debates that consider the energy use potential of each region and its contributions to sustainable development occurred this paper presents the information that is necessary for understanding the relationships of the development model that was founded based on waste and the expanding technologies that exploit natural resources actions that are aimed at developing renewable energy resources are structured based on the instability of the technological maintenance paradigm and are guaranteed by expanding technologies that were used prior to 1970 in addition we evaluated the current institutional arrangements that are used to promote wind energy in this case greater attention was given to the european experience because europe provides multiple examples of successful legal frameworks that promote wind energy in addition europe is a benchmark for emerging market countries such as brazil

can african countries efficiently build their economies on renewable energy abstract the translog production model is estimated to provide insights on the effectiveness of renewable energy for africa the analysis shows that capital labor renewable energy and nonrenewable energy drive output in african countries with renewable energy being a higher driver of growth than the conventional fossil fuels over the sample period this finding is reflective of the fact that renewable sources like wind hydro and solar account for a greater share of power generation in most african countries output elasticities computed for both energy types reaffirm the results and suggest that eastern and central african countries are more renewable energy dependent than the other three regions in addition technological progress is driven mainly by the efficiency with which various factors and energy inputs are used while africa has great potential of facing out conventional fossil energy the discussion provided in this study suggests that such transition is limited in practice due to issues of scale economics and sitting problems

examining market power in the european natural gas market in this paper we develop a mixed complementarity equilibrium model for the european natural gas market this model has producers as cournot players with conjectured supply functions relative to their rivals as such these producers can withhold production to increase downstream prices for greater profits the other players are taken to be perfectly competitive and are combined with extensive pipeline seasonal and other data reflecting the current state of the market four market scenarios are run to analyze the extent of market power by these producers as well as the importance of pipeline and storage capacity

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

renewable energy investments under different support schemes a real options approach abstract this paper adopts a real options approach to analyze investment timing and capacity choice for renewable energy projects under different support schemes the main purpose is to examine investment behavior under the most extensively employed support schemes namely feed in tariffs and renewable energy certificate trading we consider both multiple sources of uncertainty under each support scheme and uncertainty with respect to any change of support scheme and we obtain both analytical when possible and numerical solutions in a nordic case study based on wind power we find that the feed in tariff encourages earlier investment nevertheless as investment has been undertaken renewable energy certificate trading creates incentives for larger projects in our baseline scenario and taking the fixed feed in tariff as a base the revenue required to trigger investments is 61 higher with renewable certificates at the same time investment capacity is 61 higher

the economic effect of electricity net metering with solar pv consequences for network cost recovery cross subsidies and policy objectives abstract net metering is commonly known as a practice by which owners of distributed generation dg units may offset their electricity consumption from the grid with local generation the increasing number of prosumers consumers that both produce and consume electricity with solar photovoltaic pv generation combined with net metering results in reduced incomes for many network utilities worldwide consequently this pushes utilities to increase charges per kw h in order to recover costs for non pv owners this could result into inequality issues due to the fact that also non pv owners have to pay higher chargers for their electricity consumed to make up for netted costs of pv owners in order to provide insight in those inequality issues caused by net metering this study presents the effects on cross subsidies cost recovery and policy objectives evolving from different applied netmetering and tariff designs for a residential consumer eventually this paper provides recommendations regarding tariffs and metering that will result in more explicit incentives for pv instead of the current implicit incentives which are present to pv owners due to net metering

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

optimal emission taxes for full internalization of environmental externalities abstract the present study proposes a set of optimal emissions fees that could be used to reduce the damages caused by industrial pollution the approach we use allows for the setting of pollution taxes at their economically appropriate level in particular tax rates are computed for china india and 19 sub saharan african countries all other world regions are grouped according to income level such as low income lower middle income upper middle income and high income economies our results show that constructed optimal pollution taxes range as high as 2 9 per 1 dollar of output for heavy manufacturing in the high income countries and as low as 0 01 in the service sectors of the low income countries these results show that a full internalization of the damages in each sector calls for raising the tax rates in some sectors and lowering them in others

renewable energy technology diffusion an analysis of photovoltaic system support schemes in medellin colombia abstract colombia s electricity mix is dominated by hydropower which constitutes over 65 percent of the installed capacity the country has important potential for introducing solar photovoltaic sources into its electricity generation mix given its high average annual insolation however there is a lack of incentives and support schemes for alternative renewable energy technologies this paper analyzes the diffusion of a photovoltaic system in colombia with a focus on medellin colombia s second largest city a diffusion model is constructed based on the classic bass diffusion theory where the adoption rate is a function of awareness raising campaigning and social interaction the model incorporates both subsidy and feed in tariff policies policy implementation scenarios and the effects of policy mixes are analyzed results show that a 50 percent subsidy for investment together with a usd 0 30 kwh feed in tariff rate jointly provide the highest marginal increase in diffusion rate however given the cheapness of the country s current hydroelectric resources photovoltaic system diffusion might remain a challenge for both the government and private sectors for the foreseeable future

equilibria in an asymmetric duopoly facing a security constraint abstract we consider an asymmetric duopoly producing a homogeneous commodity and facing a competitive demand our model incorporates two asymmetries the first one is relative to the performance indices indeed we assume that one of the player maximizes its profit and the second one being eager to earn hard currencies maximizes its revenue the second asymmetry involves a security or diversification constraint which states that the second player is not allowed to sell more than a certain proportion of the quantity sold by its rival this game is an abstraction of the european natural gas market during the eighties cournot and stackelberg equilibria are characterized and compared an assessment of the impact on consumers and producers of the security constraint is also made

oil price fluctuation volatility spillover and the ghanaian equity market implication for portfolio management and hedging effectiveness abstract this study attempts to contribute to the literature on stock markets and energy prices by examining the dynamic volatility and volatility transmission between oil and ghanaian stock market returns in a multivariate setting using the recently developed var garch var agarch and dcc garch frameworks in turn the models results are used to compute and analyze the optimal weights and hedge ratios for oil stock portfolio holdings for comparison purposes and to put the paper more in the perspective of west africa the nigerian stock market is also included in the analysis our findings point to the existence of significant volatility spillover and interdependence between oil and the two stock market returns while spillover effects are stronger for nigeria the transmission of volatility is much more apparent from oil to stock than from stock to oil in the case of ghana also the study demonstrates evidence of short term predictability in oil and stock price changes through time and reveals that conditional volatility changes more rapidly as result of substantial effects of past volatility rather than past news shocks for all market returns moreover we show that there is a slightly more effective hedge in the two stock markets under the dcc garch framework our preferred model compared to the other two models although hedging effectiveness is much greater for ghana on the whole our findings for optimal hedge ratios are consistent with other studies and particularly the view that oil assets should be an integral part of a diversified portfolio of stocks and suggest that a better understanding of volatility links is crucial for portfolio management in the presence of oil price risk finally the existence of multivariate asymmetric effects and dynamic conditional correlations as revealed by the var agarch and dcc garch models make it clear that the assumptions of symmetric effects and constant conditional correlations are not supported empirically

internal organization and economic performance an empirical analysis of the profitability of principal firms business historians have long been aware that organizational innovations have had remarkable productivity ramifications a h cole has asserted that if changes in business procedures and practices were patentable the contributions of business change to the economic growth of the nation would be as widely recognized as the influence of mechanical inventions 9 pp 61 62 some economists have come to recognize the role of organizational innovation kenneth arrow noting that truly among man s innovations the use of organization to accomplish his ends is among both his greatest and earliest 2 p 2441 oliver williamson 271 has further championed the study of organizational innovation doing much to provide the theoretical underpinnings necessary to bring the topic into the corpus of economic theory furthermore richard caves has observed that both corporate strategy and organizational structure influence the economic performance of the firm and the market in which it sells 6 p 641 however structural parameters are absent from the neoclassical theory of production which masquerades as the economic theory of the firm developments in the theory of the firm are unlikely to accommodate organizational structure considerations until connections between structure and performance have been demonstrated empirically the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between a particular kind of decentralized and divisionalized internal hierarchical structure what oliver williamson has called the m form innovation 27 ch 81 and firm profitability in essence the methodology involves examining the differential performance between the m form innovator in an industry and its principal rival application of two non parametric statistical tests the sign test and the wilcoxon matched pairs signed ranks test is supportive of the hypothesis that the m form structure is associated with superior firm

wind power generation an impact analysis of incentive strategies for cleaner energy provision in brazil brazil has adopted various strategies to encourage alternative renewable energy sources in pursuit of cleaner and sustainable energy production to this end strategies should support the reduction of the financial risk for potential investors in the renewable energy market therefore this study aims to analyze the impact of incentive strategies on the financial risk of wind power generation projects in brazil in different marketing environments from a quantitative approach using monte carlo simulation in three scenarios we evaluate the impact of funding from the national development bank and participation in the clean development mechanism in the financial returns of the investor in a regulated contracting environment and free contracting environment measured by the net present value we conduct a statistical analysis to find out if there were statistically significant differences in investor risk in each scenario the main results of the study are as follows the wind speed the selling price of energy and disbursement for the investment have the most significant impact on the financial return the project viability probability is greater than 85 in all scenarios regardless of the marketing environment the regulated market is less risky for the producer than the free market since there is a statistically significant difference in net present value variances for all scenarios in the regulated contracting environment funding is critical to reducing risk and carbon credit trading is not a suitable policy for providing financial security to renewable energy producers thus we conclude that in brazil the contracting of projects from auctions in the regulated contracting environment with the support of the national development bank has been important for neutralizing the producer s financial risks

delving into liberia s energy economy technical change inter factor and inter fuel substitution abstract the industrial energy mix of liberia is dominated by petroleum products this has generated serious environmental problems contributing immensely to co 2 emissions and other pollutants in the country this study has attempted to investigate the potential for inter factor and inter fuel substitution between capital labor petroleum and electricity in liberia by employing a translog production and cost function approach ridge regression procedure has been adopted to estimate the parameters of the function due to multicollinearity in the data estimation results show that all inputs are substitutes these suggest that price based policies coupled with capital subsidy programs can be adopted to redirect technology use towards cleaner energy sources like electricity hence retaining the ability to fuel the economy while also mitigating greenhouse gas ghg emissions substitution between energy and labor and energy and capital implies that removal of price ceilings on energy in liberia would tend to reduce energy use and increase capital and labor intensiveness notwithstanding the study seems to show no evidence of convergence in relative technological progress of the four inputs implying that petroleum will continue to play a dominant role in the energy consumption mix of liberian industry while labor investment will continue to outweigh capital inputs finally the findings of this study provide general insights and underscore the importance of policies that focus on installed capacity of renewable electricity energy intensity targets as well as merger of enterprises

the analysis on photovoltaic electricity generation status potential and policies of the leading countries in solar energy abstract energy which is the main agenda of our world is crucially important for the people many countries frequently held meetings and discussions with energy agenda these countries are working to balance the energy demand and supply for finding the solution are researched researches should be attempted to present a more efficient way to use energy as well as renewable energy resources effectively photovoltaic energy power systems take place as the most dominant source among renewable energy technologies the most important reason is that it is unlimited and clean energy of the solar power systems many studies show that photovoltaic power systems will have an important share in the electricity of the future in this study to generate electricity from solar energy using photovoltaic systems have a leading position in some european countries united states of america china and japan s current status and future policies will be analyzed in various comments were made

renewable energy technologies as beacon of cleaner production a real options valuation analysis for liberia abstract the importance of energy consumption for growth and development calls for improved decision support for a sustainable energy transition given africa s dependence on fossil fuels the economic and environmental savings from research development and deployment of renewable energy technologies may be substantial although the benefits of renewable energy technologies research development funding may appear to be low assuming immediate deployment the uncertainty in the non renewable energy price and the flexibility over timing makes research development program more appealing this study develops different scenarios in order to quantify benefits provided by research development funding for renewable power generation in liberia by using real options pricing approach to estimate the value of renewable energy technologies while taking into account the uncertainty of fossil fuel prices and learning by doing in renewable energy technologies the optimal solution shows that renewable energy technologies are economically attractive especially when external costs are internalized however annual research development funding is low and should be raised significantly in order to guarantee the highest possible investment incentives with minimal expenditures the study also hypothesizes that with the likelihood of renewable energy to replace non renewable energy renewable power use in liberia can potentially reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 13 9 by 2015 compared to the 2008 levels the key insight provided by the real options analysis in this study is that while renewable energy may have inherent limitations such as seasonality of supply low energy content and capacity factor issues they still hold a significant amount of value which can only be detected when externalities are internalized thus underscoring the need for external costs related policies

hierarchies and markets abstract whereas previous empirical studies have found performance gains from the adoption of multidivisional organization in u s and u k companies this paper reports a reduction in profitability for german m form firms for several years following reorganization with no sign of an eventual positive gain these results emerge from a cross section analysis of 48 among the top 100 german companies we suggest the constrasting results may flow from certain legal and institutional features not present in the u s and u k attenuating potential gains and enlarging short run transactions costs these include the role of the banks the relative concentration of shareholdings and the dual system of company boards

diffusion of the m form structure in the u k rate of imitation inter firm and inter industry differences abstract this paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of the diffusion of the multidivisional form structure among a sample of large u k quoted companies it is shown that the diffusion process resembles that reported for complex capital embodied innovations in the literature in cross sectional analyses the determinants of the delay in adoption are examined it is found that size diversification and less clearly merger intensity are significantly positively related to the speed of imitation in confirmation on the m form hypothesis inter industry differences are not generally found to be important apart from a manufacturing service distinction

economic analysis of pv systems on buildings in sicilian farms abstract the photovoltaic sector in italy in recent years has experienced a rapid growth also in the primary sector thanks to substantial incentives guaranteed by energy policies simultaneous reduction of investment costs and tax benefits in order to better understand the growth of the pv industry in italian primary sector the aim of this paper has been to evaluate the economic convenience of four pv systems on farm buildings located in four different farms of the north western coast of sicily and realized during the second and fourth italian feed in schemes for each feed in scheme it has been considered a pv plant that sells the electricity to the grid and another in which the energy generated is consumed entirely by the farm the results show a clear convenience to the realization of investments both with the current market conditions and at the variation of the feed in tariff or the investment costs

examining the financial performance of micro generation wind projects and the subsidy effect of feed in tariffs for urban locations in the united kingdom abstract this paper seeks to evaluate the effect of the upcoming 2010 uk feed in tariff uk fit on decentralised small wind energy installations at the household and building level in urban locations it is projected that the uk fit will stimulate an unprecedented surge in building mounted turbine installation the tariff amount must stimulate incentive but mitigate the likelihood of distortions in the competitive electricity market to analyse these issues measured energy output from sites in the warwick wind trials project wwtp is converted into revenue in a net present value npv framework for assessing commercial purchases of small wind systems variances in project variables are examined through npv simulations using monte carlo analysis to capture permutations of small wind project performance in the uk with and without the uk fit our research concludes that the proposed tariff amount of 30 5 p kwh will not significantly boost the economic attractiveness of mildly selective wwtp based sites in the uk furthermore the fixed tariff rate kwh generated could cause inefficiencies applied across uneven wind resource distribution the results of this study suggest further examination of policy related to micro generation in particular decentralised small wind projects

the use of real options approach in energy sector investments abstract energy shortage global warming and climate change led to an increase in the use of alternative sources of energy with renewable energy sources res playing a fundamental role in this new energetic paradigm however the investment costs often constitute a major barrier to their spread use moreover the overall benefits of renewable energy technologies are often not well understood and consequently they are often evaluated to be not as cost effective as traditional technologies from the moment that the energy sector started a deregulation process with a high level of competitiveness and associated increased market uncertainty traditional project evaluation techniques alone became insufficient to properly deal with these additional risk and uncertainty factors the diffusion of the renewable energy technologies is also affected by this feature the way investors evaluate their investments call now for the use of more sophisticated evaluation techniques real options approach can deal with these issues and as so began to be considered and applied for the energy sector decision aid this approach it is now extensively widespread in evaluating investment projects in the energy sector a large set of applications in almost all fields of energy decision making from electricity generation technologies appraisal to policy evaluation is available in the literature however the use of this technique in the field of res is still limited and worth to be analysed this paper addresses this issue a review of the current state of the art in the application of real options approach to investments in non renewable energy sources and res is presented giving perspectives for further research in this field

valuing chinese feed in tariffs program for solar power generation a real options analysis newhuadu business school research fund china sustainable energy program g 1305 18257 national social science foundation of china 12zd059 ministry of education 10gbj013

the renewable energy market in brazil current status and potential abstract renewable energy offers a range of options with which to meet the growing demand for energy particularly in the context of the pursuit especially in developing countries of economic development which takes into account social and environmental issues brazil has abundant natural sources of renewable energy such as wind and solar power hydraulic energy small hydroelectric plants ethanol and bio diesel these sources form part of the brazilian strategy aimed at satisfying the demand for 6300 mw of fresh capacity per year arising out of projected economic growth of 5 1 per year over the next 10 years renewable energy sources currently provide 47 2 of the internal supply of primary energy in brazil brazil has been pursuing a strategy of maintaining its renewable energy matrix and developing and providing incentives for further low carbon initiatives in this study we set out an overview of the renewable energy options available in brazil their current status the main positive results obtained to date and future potential we describe the market for renewable energy in brazil and examine specific public policies aimed at overcoming barriers to this market thereby promoting its consolidation and expansion

opportunities and challenges for renewable energy policy in china renewable energy is the inevitable choice for sustainable economic growth for the harmonious coexistence of human and environment as well as for the sustainable development government support is the key and initial power for developing renewable energy in this article an overall review has been conducted on renewable energy development policy including laws and regulations economic encouragement technical research and development industrialized support and government model projects etc in china on this basis a systematic analysis has been conducted on the disadvantages of renewable energy development policy on the point of long term effective system for renewable energy development a series of policy advice has been offered such as strengthening the policy coordination enhancing regional policy innovation echoing with clean development mechanism implementing process management constructing market investment and financing system it is expected that the above advices could be helpful to ever improvement of renewable energy development policy c 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved