an evaluation of technical progress and energy rebound effects in china s iron steel industry abstract as a pillar industry in china the iron steel sector have under through rapid growth and technical progress for decades however energy polices aiming at energy savings may not be as good as expected due to the existence of rebound effects the motivation of the paper is to analysis the nexus between technical progress and energy rebound effects based on a three input trans log cost function model we first estimate the share equation and the corresponding price elasticity for each input factor then the rebound effect in china s iron steel industry over 1985 2015 is evaluated through decomposing the energy prices empirical results show that 1 the price elasticities of input factors are negative 2 energy capital and energy labor show substitute relationships 3 the average energy rebound effect in the isi is as high as 73 88 4 the energy rebound effect shows a downward trend before the 11th five year period and then an upward trend after that therefore policies proposals of lowering the rebound effect should be placed not only on technical progress but also on energy price reform by reducing energy subsidies and thus accelerating energy price marketization so as to promote energy substitution reduce energy rebound effect and produce further economic and environmental benefits

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

survey evidence on the willingness of u s consumers to pay for automotive fuel economy abstract prospect theory holds that human beings faced with a risky bet will tend to value potential losses about twice as much as potential gains previous research has demonstrated that prospect theory could be sufficient to explain an energy paradox in the market for automotive fuel economy this paper analyzes data from questions added to four commercial multi client surveys of 1000 u s households each in 2004 2011 2012 and 2013 households were asked about willingness to pay for future fuel savings as well as the annual fuel savings necessary to justify a given upfront payment payback periods inferred from household responses are generally consistent over time and across different formulations of questions mean calculated payback periods are about 3 years but there is substantial dispersion among individual responses the calculated payback periods do not appear to be correlated with the attributes of respondents respondents were able to quantitatively describe their uncertainty about both vehicle fuel economy and future fuel prices simulation of loss averse behavior based on respondents stated uncertainty illustrates how loss aversion could lead consumers to substantially undervalue future fuel savings relative to their expected value

the symbiotic rebound effect in the circular economy abstract the circular economy has emerged as an important approach in addressing how society can use its resources more efficiently theoretical advancements in the circular economy have yielded benefits for both practice and policymaking however if the eco efficiency of resource use is to be improved then certain challenges that face the circular economy must be resolved one of these challenges concerns the rebound effect by investigating resource flow with a circular rather than linear system as well as within a producer producer rather than producer consumer type of relationship we identify a rebound effect that we term symbiotic rebound we differentiate it from other forms of rebound effect on the basis of its main driver opportunity costs drive a higher than expected use of resources in a circular economy rather than the usual driver of demand as found in other types of rebound in identifying describing and illustrating a symbiotic rebound effect we make two contributions first to the rebound literature and second to theory development on the circular economy

quantifying the risk to crude oil imports in china an improved portfolio approach abstract china s rapid economic development caused a sharp increase in crude oil demand in 2011 china imported 254 million tons of crude oil in total with its dependence on imported oil reaching 56 5 this paper carries out a quantitative study on the risk of china s crude oil imports by establishing an assessment model which has two primary characteristics first the model not only uses portfolio theory to assess the risk to china s crude oil imports taking into consideration the effect of the diversified sources of imports but also introduces a correlation coefficient which considers the risks associated with importing oil from oversea sources second the correlation between import prices and global oil prices is analyzed with respect to each exporting country the ease of doing business index grading system is introduced in order to represent the risk weight for each exporting country because of these improvements the model provides operable methods for studying how global oil prices import volumes the diversification index and the political and economic situation of the exporting countries affects china s crude oil import risks as well as offers a method for implementing optimal crude oil import strategies it is concluded that china s crude oil import risks associated with the middle east are not as precarious as researchers traditionally reported among countries in the middle east there exist obvious disparities and differences affecting the kinds and types of risks involved therefore these risks should be treated piecemeal when performing an overall assessment of crude oil import risks in china it should also be noted that with respect to the middle east there is still room for china to optimize the mix of source countries in order to reduce risks china should raise the volume of imports coming from low risk countries as well as add new low risk exporting countries to its importing portfolio

oil supply risk and affecting parameters associated with oil supplementation and disruption abstract the fossil fuel energy carriers significantly affect the energy security the oil security has turned to one of the main political agenda by considering the two world s oil crises in this study an index of oil supply vulnerability has been developed to compare the world s top fifteen oil importing south asian countries the index includes comprehensive set of indicators like imported oil over gdp ratio market liquidity gdp per capita geopolitical risk diversification the ratio of oil importation over consumption transportation risk oil price volatility and us volatility two popular techniques composite indicator ci and the principal component analysis pca were used to combine all the aforesaid indicators although numerous techniques have been used to assess the oil vulnerability index for example dea like models and markowitz theory of portfolio none of them incorporated the principal component analysis and composite indicator together to develop an oil vulnerability index results shows that the south asian countries have highest economic supply and overall oil vulnerability risk whereas the second group countries belgium thailand spain netherlands japan korea india and china are in a relatively less risky as compared to south asian countries contrary to this third group of countries are canada singapore uk and france italy germany and us are considered as a least vulnerable country

regional energy rebound effect the impact of economy wide and sector level energy efficiency improvement in georgia usa abstract rebound effect is defined as the lost part of ceteris paribus energy savings from improvements on energy efficiency in this paper we investigate economy wide energy rebound effects by developing a computable general equilibrium cge model for georgia usa the model adopts a highly disaggregated sector profile and highlights the substitution possibilities between different energy sources in the production structure these two features allow us to better characterize the change in energy use in face of an efficiency shock and to explore in detail how a sector level shock propagates throughout the economic structure to generate aggregate impacts we find that with economy wide energy efficiency improvement on the production side economy wide rebound is moderate energy price levels fall very slightly yet sectors respond to these changing prices quite differently in terms of local production and demand energy efficiency improvements in particular sectors epicenters induce quite different economy wide impacts in general we expect large rebound if the epicenter sector is an energy production sector a direct upstream downstream sector of energy production sectors a transportation sector or a sector with high production elasticity our analysis offers valuable insights for policy makers aiming to achieve energy conservation through increasing energy efficiency

china s co2 emission structure for 1957 2017 through transitions in economic and environmental policies abstract this paper provides an insight into the structure of co 2 emissions in china through transitions in economic and environmental policies for the period of 1957 2017 by using input output and network analysis with newly compiled environmentally extended historical input output tables of china these tables which include firm level industry level and macro level statistical data are the first environmentally extended input output tables covering the years in the early stage of the people s republic of china the results present the following two main findings the first is due to the stable economic structure associated with the independent economic policy china s emission structure has been stable for more than 60 years heavy industry has contributed about 80 of co 2 emissions since the 1950s on a second account although the emission structure was stable stricter environmental controls and regulations led to a decrease of the growth rate of co 2 emissions after 2010 against this background as a policy choice of china instead of carbon leakage that could break up the stable economic structure balanced technology upgrading across all sectors induced by stricter environmental controls is a realistic way for china to achieve increased energy efficiency emission mitigation and economic development so that the country can keep the promise of reducing co 2 emissions after they peak around 2030

does predicted rebound depend on distinguishing between energy and energy services pour analyser le role des services energetiques et des combustibles dans l effet de relance de la consommation d energie liee a des actions d amelioration de l efficacite energetique plusieurs approches sont utilisees et comparees celle de cobb douglas celle de leontief et celle de la croissance equilibree

energy conservation investment do consumers discount the future correctly we argue that the apparently high discount rates attributed to investors making energy conservation investments are not irrational or the result of some market failure rather they may result from an investor recognizing that many conservation investments entail substantial sunk costs in the presence of these costs and uncertainty over future conservation savings consumers should use a higher hurdle rate for investment than if there were no uncertainty simulations suggest that the hurdle rate should be about four times greater than the standard rate an implication of our model is that tax subsidies for the purchase of conservation capital are likely to be ineffective we discuss alternative policy approaches which are more likely to increase energy efficient investment namely mandatory efficiency standards and energy taxes

evaluating china s natural gas supply security based on ecological network analysis abstract growing role of natural gas as an effective policy choice has kindled the discussions surrounding the security of its supplies in the policy circles of the chinese government this study tries to evaluate china s natural gas supply security and employs a system oriented modelling approach namely ecological network analysis ena to integrate all the critical compartments of china s natural gas supply system several ena indicators are constructed which disclose that domestic natural gas production contributes significantly to china s natural gas supply system in comparison with all the external natural gas suppliers in addition the variations in a system stability indicator suggest that diversification of external natural gas suppliers has a positive influence on china s natural gas supply security furthermore the results revealed that china s natural gas supply security policy is orchestrated on following features 1 to increase the investment in the upstream natural gas production sector to boost its domestic production in order to reduce its import requirements and 2 to diversify the external natural gas supplies by sources and routes to reduce the level of the economic and supply disruption related risks

comparison of china s oil import risk results based on portfolio theory and a diversification index approach in recent years the international oil price has fluctuated violently bringing about huge risk for the international oil trade in fact the risk of crude oil and petroleum product imports is different because of the different import origins and prices which import risk is lower for china from the perspective of oil supply security how should china portfolio crude oil and petroleum product imports to minimize its oil import risk using portfolio theory and a diversification index approach this paper compares and analyzes the supply price and transport risks of crude oil and petroleum product imports our results show that the following 1 specific risk diversification risk and marine transport risk of china s petroleum product imports are lower than that of crude oil imports 2 the average rate of return of china s petroleum product imports is higher than that of crude oil imports moreover the average import price variance of petroleum product imports is lower than that of crude oil imports thus the systematic risk price risk of petroleum products is lower too therefore from the perspective of oil supply security china should increase petroleum product imports to decrease its oil import risk

evaluating energy security in the asia pacific region a novel methodological approach this paper establishes an energy security assessment instrument based on a new and expanded conceptualisation of energy security the instrument is a systematic interrogative tool for evaluating energy security of individual states or regions it consists of eleven broad energy security dimensions associated with the current global energy system these energy security dimensions take into account numerous quantitative and qualitative attributes of each country s energy security and policy and include both traditional energy security concerns and many new factors such as environmental socio cultural and technological another dimension largely absent from previous analyses is the existence of and the issues addressed in energy security policy in each country this instrument serves as an assessment system with which to evaluate energy security in the asia pacific region the existing studies on energy security in the asia pacific region suffer from serious limitations no study to date examines regional energy security policies by adopting a more comprehensive energy security definition as a starting point most studies also focus on a single country or issue even if they examine energy security in major regional economies they lack critical comparative analysis the instrument is valuable as it may be utilised to draw a comprehensive map of regional energy security situation which can also include comparative analysis of energy security characteristics across the asia pacific region ultimately it may be utilised to set up a framework for improved regional energy cooperation with the aim of providing regional leaders with a blueprint for improving regional energy security and policy

evidence on the validity of cross sectional and longitudinal labor market data this article investigates error properties of survey reports of labor market variables we use the panel study of income dynamics psid validation study a two wave panel survey of workers employed by a large firm that shared its detailed payroll records individuals reports of annual earnings are fairly accurate errors are negatively related to true earnings reducing bias due to measurement error when earnings are used as an independent variable biases are moderately larger for changes in earnings earnings per hour are less reliably reported than annual earnings biases in estimating earnings functions are relatively small but those in labor supply functions may be important

the rebound effect for heavy industry empirical evidence from china abstract energy efficiency improvement will reduce the effective price of energy services and hence at least partially mitigate original expected energy conservation therefore the magnitude of rebound effect is important for the design and timing of an effective energy conservation policy under the framework of translog cost share equations we estimates the direct rebound effect for heavy industry in china for the first time by conducting an empirical research on the relationship between the direct rebound effect and the ease with which energy services can substitute for other inputs additionally asymmetric price responses are specified in the model for the rebound effect estimation empirical results in our paper indicate that the rebound effect for heavy industry in china is about 74 3 this reveals that energy efficiency improvement can save energy to a certain degree since the rebound effect is less than 100 back fire but most of the expected reduction in heavy industry energy consumption is mitigated these findings prove that energy pricing reforms and energy taxes should be further implemented to achieve effective energy conservation in china s 12th five years plan

jevons paradox revisited the evidence for backfire from improved energy efficiency beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed

racial differences in patterns of wealth accumulation making use of psid data for 1984 1989 and 1994 we examine race differences in patterns of asset accumulation our results indicate as expected that inheritances raise the rate of wealth accumulation of whites relative to that of african americans but while whites devote a greater share of their income to saving racial differences in saving rates are not significant once we control for income though our results may be period specific we also do not find evidence that the rate of return to capital is greater for whites than for african americans simulations suggest that african americans would have gained significant ground relative to whites during the period if they had inherited similar amounts saved at the same rate had comparable income levels and more speculatively had portfolios closer in composition to those of whites

decoupling waste generation from economic growth a cge analysis of the swedish case abstract over the past decades we have seen the quantities of solid waste increase in close relation to economic growth to tackle this problem of continuing waste growth the eu has on its agenda that waste generation should decouple from economic growth within the eu in the future sweden also has stated a target of non increasing future waste quantities the strength of the policy measures needed to attain this target is here illustrated by comparing the waste intensity outcomes in a decoupling scenario and a baseline scenario of the swedish economy 2006 2030 a computable general equilibrium cge model is used for linking waste generation to firms material input firms production and households consumption when projecting future quantities of hazardous and non hazardous waste in sweden we show that to offset the effect of economic growth on waste generation in the decoupling scenario the intensities of material related wastes must decrease at a yearly rate that is about twice the historically estimated reduction rate used in the baseline scenario the reduction in the intensities of waste related to firms production and households consumption must also be substantial compared to historical estimates

empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect a review beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

energy efficiency rebound effects and the environmental kuznets curve technological change is one factor used to justify the existence of an environmental kuznets curve and technological improvements have been argued to be a key factor in mitigating the impacts of economic growth on environmental quality in this paper we use a cge model of the scottish economy to consider the factors influencing the impacts of one form of technological change improvements in energy efficiency on absolute levels of co2 emissions on the carbon intensity of the economy co2 emissions relative to real gdp and the per capita ekc relationship these factors include the elasticity of substitution between energy and non energy inputs responses in the labour market and the structure of the economy our results demonstrate the key role played by the general equilibrium price elasticity of demand for energy and the relative influence of different factors on this parameter

the price and income elasticity of china s natural gas demand a multi sectoral perspective abstract natural gas as a clean low carbon energy will play an important role in the world s low carbon energy transformation in this paper research on the elasticity of natural gas demand is surveyed and it is found that the price and income elasticities of natural gas demand in different sectors are distinctive in particular this paper constructs an autoregressive distribution lag model to study the elasticity of natural gas demand in various sectors of china the results show that except for the residents sector the long run price elasticity of natural gas demand in other sectors is greater than 0 which is contrary to the estimates of developed countries the demand for natural gas is complementary to coal in industrial and power generation sectors which is also different from developed countries the elasticity of natural gas demand in residents sector is lack in price elasticity but abundant in income elasticity which is similar to the developed countries the results also shows that natural gas and oil are substitutes for each other in the transportation sector and natural gas and coal are substitutes for each other in service sector

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

indicators of security of natural gas supply in asia natural gas has become an increasingly valuable resource and a global commodity the demand for it has significantly increased japan korea and taiwan heavily rely on liquefied natural gas lng imports for their gas supplies from malaysia brunei indonesia australia and the middle east on the other hand countries like thailand and singapore import gas via trans border pipelines gas supply interruptions volatile gas prices transportation and distribution bottlenecks and a growing reliance on imports over longer distances have renewed interest on gas security in asia this paper examines the relative vulnerability to natural gas supply disruptions of seven gas importing countries in asia for year 2008 based on four indicators of security of gas supply a composite gas supply security index is estimated as an overall indication of gas vulnerability for our sample countries the results demonstrate that there are differences in the values of the overall indicator of gas vulnerability among countries and the assessment is useful in developing an effective strategy of natural gas supply security in countries in the asian region

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

retrospective reporting of household wealth evidence from the 1983 1989 survey of consumer finances one way to obtain panel like information on household wealth is to ask households about changes in their asset holdings yet the reliability of retrospective data is unclear considering the potential for recall error this article examines the reliability of retrospective reporting using data from the 1983 1989 survey of consumer finances we find substantial inconsistencies between reported net investments in assets with measured changes in holdings inconsistencies are less severe for salient transactions like home sales and more severe for aggregated items like financial assets

negative rebound and disinvestment effects in response to an improvement in energy efficiency in the uk economy this paper uses a computable general equilibrium cge framework to investigate the conditions under which rebound effects may occur in response to increases in energy efficiency in the uk national economy previous work for the uk has suggested that rebound effects will occur even where key elasticities of substitution in production are set close to zero the research reported in this paper involves carrying out a systematic sensitivity analysis where relative price sensitivity is gradually introduced into the system focusing specifically on elasticities of substitution in production and trade parameters in order to determine conditions under which rebound effects become a likely outcome the main result is that while there is positive pressure for rebound effects even where direct and indirect demands for energy are very price inelastic this may be partially or wholly offset by negative income competitiveness and disinvestment effects which also occur in response to falling energy prices the occurrence of disinvestment effects is of particular interest these occur where falling energy prices reduce profitability in domestic energy supply sectors leading to a contraction in capital stock in these sectors which may in turn lead to rebound effects that are smaller in the long run than in the short run a result that runs contrary to the predictions of previous theoretical work in this area

a view from the macro side rebound backfire and khazzoom brookes abstract this paper attempts to delineate a few key insights extracted from theoretical macroeconomic considerations of the rebound issue the goal has been to reduce these thoughts to a clear set of assertions that if true would be useful points of reference in the ongoing discussion despite their non empirical nature

heterogeneity in the rebound effect further evidence for germany rebound effects measure the behaviorally induced offset in the reduction of energy consumption following efficiency improvements using both panel estimation and quantile regression methods on household travel diary data collected in germany between 1997 and 2009 this study investigates the heterogeneity of the rebound effect in private transport with the average rebound effect being in the range of 57 to 62 our results are in line with a recent german study by frondel peters and vance 2008 but are substantially larger than those obtained from other studies furthermore our quantile regression results indicate that the magnitude of estimated fuel price elasticities from which rebound effects can be derived depends inversely on the household s driving intensity households with low vehicle mileage exhibit fuel price elasticities and hence rebound effects that are significantly larger than those for households with high vehicle mileage

on the rebound feedback between energy intensities and energy uses in iea countries abstract the interaction or feedback between energy efficiencies or energy intensities and energy use has long been the topic of debate some have argued that energy efficiency improvements by reducing energy intensities and therefore lowering the cost of energy services would lead to rebound effects offsetting much or all of any initial savings in energy in this paper we analyse historical data on energy use efficiency and pricing in different sectors to try and identify rebounds for the period of our data since about 1970 we show that key measures of activity car use manufacturing output and structure house area etc have changed little in response to changes in energy prices or efficiency instead continuing their long term evolution relative to gdp or other driving factors while our analysis cannot disentangle more macro level economic feedbacks in a detailed way we show indirectly that such effects also appear to have been small over the 1970s and 1980s overall our analysis of disaggregated sectoral and subsectoral energy use and activity trends in a variety of iea economies suggests that any feedback effect is small compared to both the effects on energy use of changes in energy intensities and overall economic growth we conclude that most of the improvements in energy efficiencies led to reductions in energy intensities observed in the 1970s and 1980s weighted by 1990 activity levels intensities were roughly 15 20 lower in 1994 5 than in 1973 which in turn meant real savings of energy energy demand in iea countries is roughly this much below what it would have been for the same gdp had these savings not occurred rebounds may have taken back some of the overall savings but most remain even after the fall of oil prices in 1986 any boost to gdp as a result of these savings could not have been sufficient to increase energy demand enough to significantly alter these conclusions that the savings remained after the fall in oil prices supports the notion that net savings restrained energy growth relative to gdp in some formulations arise from technological progress even if energy prices do not increase how far this effect can reach however is a matter of considerable debate

forecasting natural gas supply in china production peak and import trends china s natural gas consumption has increased rapidly in recent years making china a net gas importer as a nonrenewable energy the gas resource is exhaustible based on the forecast of this article china s gas production peak is likely to approach in 2022 however china is currently in the industrialization and urbanization stage and its natural gas consumption will persistently increase with china s gas production peak china will have to face a massive expansion in gas imports as the largest developing country china s massive imports of gas will have an effect on the international gas market in addition as china s natural gas price is still controlled by the government and has remained at a low level the massive imports of higher priced gas will exert great pressure on china s gas price reform

fuel conserving and using production functions abstract this article compares eight production cost functions used or potentially useful for exploring how energy efficiency gains affect energy consumption we show the practitioner s choice of function can inadvertently pre determine results and make recommendations as to which functions are flexible enough to prevent this we also show pre selected factor substitution elasticities can similarly pre determine results to aid the comparison we decompose the energy consumption rebound effect into intensity and output income effects which also delivers insight into the mechanisms of rebound we conclude by recommending practitioners restrict themselves to either the gallant fourier or the generalized leontief symmetric generalized barnett cost functions as being sufficiently rebound flexible the translog cost function may be suitable given certain conditions and a particular form of the ces solow function is a possible but problematic candidate along the way the article provides a general methodology for similarly examining any arbitrarily defined constant returns to scale production or cost function

an empirical analysis of the risk of crude oil imports in china using improved portfolio approach abstract this paper quantifies the diversification index of china s crude oil imports during the period 1996 2004 and explores the relationship between the monthly prices and brent crude oil cash prices accordingly we calculate the systematic and specific risks using portfolio theory of china s crude oil import over the period 1996 2004 because china s crude oil import increased rapidly since 1996 we improve upon the traditional portfolio theory and develop a risk index model of portfolio theory for crude oil imports in order to explore objectively the changes in china s crude oil import risks the results show that china s crude oil import risk is affected extensively by the fluctuation of international oil prices so the traditional portfolio theory is insufficient to measure china s crude oil import risk the improved portfolio theory risks index model reflects the effect of international oil prices diversification imports and geopolitics factors etc on crude oil import risk and changes in crude oil import risk therefore the risk index model of portfolio theory provides greater theoretical and methodological robustness as an indicator of china s crude oil import security than that offered from the application of traditional measures of dependence

do increases in energy efficiency improve environmental quality and sustainability governments world wide increasingly see energy efficiency as an important aspect of sustainability however there is a debate in the literature as to whether the impact of improved energy efficiency on reducing energy use might be partially or more than wholly offset through rebound and backfire effects this paper clarifies the theoretical conditions under which such effects would occur and explores their likely significance using a computable general equilibrium cge model of the scottish economy we find that for scotland a general improvement in energy efficiency in the production sectors of the economy initially produces rebound effects that eventually grow into backfire energy use ultimately increases in response to an efficiency gain and the ratio of gdp to co2 emissions falls the economic factors underpinning rebound effects are straightforward energy efficiency improvements result in an effective cut in energy prices which produces output substitution competitiveness and income effects that stimulate energy demands however the presence of strong rebound or even backfire does not mean that efficiency enhancing policies are irrelevant rather it suggests that such policies operating alone are insufficient to generate environmental improvements the implication is that a co ordinated portfolio of energy policies is required

china s energy security and its challenges towards 2035 abstract within the last twenty years china has become dependent on import of coal oil and natural gas especially oil is now an economic and a security concern by the chinese regime and key international stakeholders until 2035 china will account for one fourth of the global net growth in global gas consumption and more than half of the net growth in oil consumption the future demand cannot be covered by china s own conventional and unconventional sources pipelines from neighboring countries can cover more than half of the needed import of natural gas by 2030 but only 10 percent of the import demand of oil is secured so far even if china attempts to address its insufficient supply of oil by increased investments in overseas oil fields there is still a large gap furthermore the oil import will largely come from politically unstable countries and regions and the bulk of the supplies must be shipped through the potentially insecure hormuz and malacca straits the ongoing territorial disputes with neighboring countries regarding areas with gas and oil reserves in contested waters bear evidence to regional conflict potentials and china appears to engage more actively in energy diplomacy and regional cooperation

china s energy security perception and reality abstract china now the world s second largest economy is worried about energy security which underpins the core objectives of beijing and the political legitimacy of the communist party of china the purpose of this study is to explore certain popular myths about china s energy security the study consists of six parts after the introduction it formulates the obscure concept of energy security and attempts to contextualize it with chinese characteristics then it explicitly points out that the largest driver of oil demand by china as the world s factory is transport instead of industry next it explores the effectiveness of transnational pipelines as a measure of energy security and explains why they are less effective than many observers have previously assumed furthermore it investigates the global expansion of chinese national oil companies and questions their actual contribution to energy security a few concluding remarks then follow

the overseas acquisitions and equity oil shares of chinese national oil companies a threat to the west but a boost to china s energy security abstract this paper argues that both china and the western countries need to de politicize china s global quest for energy security the western politicians need to recognize that their rhetoric in relation to china s efforts to secure energy supplies overseas has done nothing but intensify china s fear that they might seek to deny china s access to the oil it needs for the development china needs to reconsider its stance of distrusting global oil markets and to recognize that the reliance on aggressive acquisitions of overseas oil fields and equity oil production has been of little help in strengthening its energy security given that china s energy security depends increasingly and deeply on the stability of global oil markets and reliable and growing oil supplies to the market china shares with other major oil importing countries profound common interests in maintaining and strengthening the stability of global oil markets and reducing the chance of potential disruptions to oil supply and the resulting damaging oil price shocks

economic analysis of brazilian policies for energy efficient electric motors brazil is leading several energy efficiency initiatives and has ambitious goals for 2030 according to the brazilian national energy plan 2030 one of the main initiatives is the minimum efficiency performance standards meps program for energy driven equipment and the electric motors appear as the most significant one 49 share of the total electricity consumption the meps levels set new grades for efficiency and then manufacturers and consumers have to conform to the new products and costs policy makers have to economically assess the effects of these meps in order to maintain the market stability since the benefits of this program come from future energy savings this cost effective analysis has to consider the parameters uncertainty and the results should reinforce the market players confidence thus the goal of this work is first to analyze the economic viability of the meps transitions in brazil considering the uncertainty of the parameters involved and then to estimate the effects of this program on the energy savings goals for 2030 at the end we also verify whether this investment in energy efficiency is competitive with other forms of investments in energy

exploring the driving factors of global lng trade flows using gravity modelling abstract taking into account the attributes of the liquefied natural gas lng trade and the space time characteristics of trade flows this paper identifies the multiple dimensional factors that influenced the global lng trade between 2004 and 2015 following an analysis of the data via the application of gravity models the empirical results of this study indicate that these influencing factors possess both general and regional characteristics in contrast to general trade the lng trade is mainly affected by the economic magnitude of the demand side regionally pipeline natural gas has a significant substitute effect on the lng trade within the global model though not within the asian model additionally the lng trade in asia is more sensitive to the influence of import prices and research and development investment than in the global model our subsample analyses show that the results are robustness across different periods finally this paper discusses pertinent policy implications for the lng trade especially as related to asia

prospects of pakistan china energy and economic corridor abstract china s seaborne foreign oil supply through the strait of malacca is facing challenges because of territorial disputes pirate attacks and geopolitics the pakistan china energy and economic corridor pceec offers the option of constructing an oil pipeline to bypass the strait of malacca this paper studied the prospects of the pceec in the context of the security of china s foreign oil supply chain we assessed all the existing and proposed oil supply routes from the middle east and africa to china s border in terms of supply timeframes costs energy consumption and ghg emissions we used weight based model to estimate the capex opex and per barrel levelized cost of a proposed oil pipeline in the pceec from economic time energy and environmental perspective our assessment suggested that the construction of an oil pipeline in the pceec would be compatible with the existing routes and offer the shortest time for transporting oil to china s border the pceec would offer numerous prospects for regional energy and economic connectivity for both countries and the region including social economic commercial and geopolitical benefits

energy efficiency as an instrument of regional development policy the impact of regional fiscal autonomy this paper analyses the system wide impact of increased household energy efficiency in a regional context using scotland as an example it shows that household energy efficiency improvements typic

how robust are estimates of the rebound effect of energy efficiency improvements a sensitivity analysis of consumer heterogeneity and elasticities abstract economy wide rebound effects may undermine climate policies relying on energy efficiency improvements however available rebound estimates diverge widely we illustrate the crucial role of model assumptions of household heterogeneity and elasticities a computable general equilibrium model of the austrian economy incorporates multiple household groups with heterogeneous preferences and analyzes how improving efficiency by 10 affects household fossil fuel consumption in the base model economy wide rebound is 65 different household groups show direct rebound of 8 12 thus economy wide rebound is mainly advanced by indirect rebound a sensitivity analysis using monte carlo simulation varies elasticities between household groups namely substitutability between material and energy goods and between different energy goods in 160 simulation runs the economy wide rebound emerges as rather robust by contrast direct rebound varies widely among household groups and attains 30 where reciprocal feedback between groups builds up in the base model a fossil fuel tax rate of 43 neutralizes the economy wide rebound when elasticities in 180 simulation runs are varied this tax rate spans from 15 to 80 thus rebound estimates and derived policy advice such as specific rates and numbers should be treated with great caution unless elasticity parameters are reliable and account for heterogeneous consumer preferences

the impact of increased efficiency in the industrial use of energy a computable general equilibrium analysis for the united kingdom the conventional wisdom is that improving energy efficiency will lower energy use however there is an extensive debate in the energy economics policy literature concerning rebound effects these occur because an improvement in energy efficiency produces a fall in the effective price of energy services the response of the economic system to this price fall at least partially offsets the expected beneficial impact of the energy efficiency gain in this paper we use an economy energy environment computable general equilibrium cge model for the uk to measure the impact of a 5 across the board improvement in the efficiency of energy use in all production sectors we identify rebound effects of the order of 30 50 but no backfire no increase in energy use however these results are sensitive to the assumed structure of the labour market key production elasticities the time period under consideration and the mechanism through which increased government revenues are recycled back to the economy

the greenhouse effect the fallacies in the energy efficiency solution abstract the view that widespread improvements in energy efficiency can by themselves do anything to halt the build up of greenhouse gases around the globe is fundamentally unsound it is based on the same fallacies that underlie the claim that energy savings from improving efficiency can substitute for new energy supply the paper by keepin and kats1 claiming that per tonne of coal not burned improvements in energy efficiency are more cost effective than substituting nuclear for coal fired power is therefore an irrelevancy as far as this debate is concerned reductions is energy intensity of output that are not damaging to the economy are associated with increases not decreases in energy demand at the macroeconomic level even within the boundaries of their own flawed approach their attempt2 to refute the critique of their thesis made by jones3 was little more than misdirected grape shot with no discernable connected thread of argument

the energy efficiency gap what does it mean abstract as renewed attention has been given by policy makers to energy conservation issues it has frequently been asserted that an energy efficiency gap exists between actual and optimal energy use the critical questions is how to define the optimal level of energy efficiency this paper seeks to disentangle some confusing strands of argument that are frequently brought to bear on this question by identifying the major conceptual issues that determine the set of feasible answers we identify five separate and distinct notions of optimality the economists economic potential the technologists economic potential hypothetical potential the narrow social optimum and the true social optimum each of these has associated with it a corresponding definition of the energy efficiency gap our analysis demonstrates that necessary preconditions for identifying the right measure of the energy efficiency gap include understanding and disentangling market failure and non market failure explanations for the gradual diffusion of energy efficient technologies

ownership of stocks and mutual funds a panel data analysis this paper analyzes the ownership dynamics of stocks and mutual funds using representative household panel data the dutch center savings survey 1993 1998 a bivariate dynamic binary choice model is introduced allowing for interactions between the two types of assets we find that unobserved heterogeneity and state dependence play a large role for both types of assets the positive relation between ownership of one type in one period and the other type in the next period is explained by correlated unobserved heterogeneity a negative state dependence effect of lagged ownership of stocks on ownership of mutual funds is found which can be explained by the costs of shifting funds across the two forms of stockholding

assessment of energy security in china based on ecological network analysis a perspective from the security of crude oil supply abstract energy security usually considers both the stability of energy supply and security of energy use and it is receiving increasing attention globally considering the strategic importance and sensitivity to international change of the crude oil supply we decided to examine china s energy security an original network model was established based on ecological network analysis to holistically evaluate the security of the crude oil supply in china using this model we found that the security of the crude oil supply in china generally increased from 2001 to 2010 the contribution of different compartments in the network to the overall energy security resembled a pyramid structure with supply sources at the bottom the consumption sector at the top and the refining and transfer sectors in the middle north and south america made the largest contribution to the security of the crude oil supply in china we provide suggestions to improve the security of the crude oil supply in china based on our results and further scenario analysis the original network model provides a new perspective for energy security assessment which can be used as a baseline to develop other models and policy

the impacts of carbon pricing on coastal megacities a cge analysis of singapore abstract pricing carbon is a widely used policy instrument for climate change mitigation quantitative analysis of carbon pricing are mainly conducted at the regional and national level rarely at the city level due to data availability as a representative of coastal megacities that are vulnerable to both climate change and climate policies singapore has announced to impose carbon tax on large direct emitters as a complementary mitigation option to technical measures a city level computable general equilibrium cge model is developed to simulate potential impacts of carbon pricing on the city including paying border carbon adjustment bca on exports or introducing a domestic carbon tax different sector coverages and carbon tax revenue recycling schemes are investigated for domestic carbon tax the simulation results show that a domestic carbon tax is a more cost effective option than paying bca given an identical carbon price at s 10 t co 2 gdp total exports and household consumption would decline less and average abatement cost is much smaller in the carbon tax scenarios compared to the bca scenario in terms of absolute emissions reduction a carbon tax that covers energy manufacturing and land transport sectors would be preferred making emissions around 2 7 lower than 2010 baseline level