leapfrog to the future energy scenarios and strategies for suriname to 2050 abstract this paper formulates energy strategies for suriname a conceptual model identifying relationships in the energy sector is conceived one of the striking characteristics is that various relationships inhibit significant uncertainty our contemporary age is characterized by more complex becoming relations decreasing predictability and increasing chaos simple extrapolation of past events is therefore futile since deviations from anticipated outcomes have significant impacts the scenario planning methodology has been used to deal with this uncertainty the most uncertain high impact driving forces that shape the future of the energy sector in suriname have been identified and are used to create energy scenarios to 2050 next robust strategies have been formulated which primarily focus on institutionalization renewable resources cost reflecting tariffs decentralization of energy supply and energy efficiency and savings leading indicators have been identified that identify towards which scenario the present develops and hence which set of strategies need to be applied

energy security in asean a quantitative approach for sustainable energy policy abstract we investigate energy security of the association of southeast asian nations asean under the 4 a s framework the asean economic community aec agreement launched in 2015 renewed a regional focus on energy security and sustainability we employ an analytic framework to quantitatively assess progress in different categories including availability acceptability affordability and applicability key metrics include the documentation of co 2 emissions energy access measures and energy supply reserves from 2005 2010 we identify relevant energy indicators using high quality historical data from the iea and world bank we find that asean made little progress toward establishing energy security in the previous five year planning period 2005 2010 as it regressed in most categories except applicability therefore we suggest that increased development of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies would move asean in a positive direction toward achieving energy security and sustainable energy policy goals

productivity and efficiency with discrete variables and quadratic cost function abstract we propose an index of productivity based on a quadratic cost function and developed for discrete data including technical and allocative inefficiency jointly with technical change and returns to scale as determinants of total factor productivity this new index is applied to spanish stevedoring industry so as to identify the sources of change in the productivity of a multiproductive activity where some companies do not produce some of the outputs in this context the functional quadratic form and the productivity index proposed prove particularly useful

the public s willingness to pay for securing a reliable natural gas supply in korea with the increasing importance of natural gas ng in the energy mix the search for a reliable liquefied ng lng supply has received great attention along with energy security in korea however the current level of lng supply reliability in korea is much lower than that in other industrialized countries in order to improve the reliability of the lng supply diverse policy measures are required which come at an additional cost paid by society this study aims to investigate the public s willingness to pay wtp for improving the reliability of the lng supply by increasing the lng storage rate from the current level 11 to 20 to this end the contingent valuation cv method is applied by using national survey data of 1000 households in particular this study employs a one and one half bound oohb dichotomous choice model combined with a spike model to address the responses from the cv survey with zero wtp the annual mean wtp is estimated to be krw 9641 usd 8 68 per household expanding the value to the national population provides a value of krw 169 43 billion usd 152 55 million the results indicate that people are willing to shoulder the burden of safeguarding a reliable supply of lng

oil vulnerability index of oil importing countries abstract this paper assesses the relative oil vulnerability of 26 net oil importing countries for the year 2004 on the basis of various indicators the ratio of value of oil imports to gross domestic product gdp oil consumption per unit of gdp gdp per capita and oil share in total energy supply ratio of domestic reserves to oil consumption exposure to geopolitical oil market concentration risks as measured by net oil import dependence diversification of supply sources political risk in oil supplying countries and market liquidity the approach using the principal component technique has been adopted to combine these individual indicators into a composite index of oil vulnerability such an index captures the relative sensitivity of various economies towards developments of the international oil market with a higher index indicating higher vulnerability the results show that there are considerable differences in the values of individual indicators of oil vulnerability and overall oil vulnerability index among the countries both inter and intraregional

accounting for the utilisation of geothermal energy resources within the genuine progress indicator a methodological review abstract the genuine progress indicator gpi was initiated to mainly reflect strong rather than weak sustainability principles and embrace a fisherian understanding of income and capital prior to this review neither existing calculation methodologies nor academic reviews of the gpi had considered the possibility that geothermal energy resources might not deliver sustainable yields although geothermal energy is renewable in the sense of the earth s almost ubiquitous capacity to store heat the resources are frequently utilised at a rate that is unsustainable pressure recovery and fluid heat recharge periods typically endure for several decades or more whenever geothermal resources are utilised unsustainably this paper contends that the gpi should deduct monetary costs for the excess depletion this approach would maintain the gpi s methodological correctness as a measure of sustainable economic welfare in current time terms failure to do so is affirmative of the weak sustainability paradigm inferring that overexploited energy resources can be either fully replaced or partially substituted when their yields begin to diminish this paper sets out a new method for calculating gpi cost deductions for the unsustainable utilisation of geothermal energy resources the outlined approach synthesises existing academic theory concerning geothermal production modes and levelised energy cost calculations

energy security and renewable energy deployment in the eu liaisons dangereuses or virtuous circle abstract a large body of literature estimates the effect of energy security drivers on renewable energy deployment using import dependence as a proxy for energy security which is an approach that ignores the potential effect of other energy security strategies such as the diversification of energy sources using panel data for the energy sector across 21 eu member states we investigate the effect of different energy security concepts on the development of renewable energies we compare the results of applying different energy security indicators including the ones used in eu energy policymaking unlike previous studies this study reports a long term relationship between energy security and renewable deployment our findings suggest that the relationship between energy security policies and renewable energy sources res deployment is far from straightforward and depends on the chosen energy security strategy which is usually linked to different energy security conceptualizations our primary findings confirm i that res deployment is a consequence of a combination of energy security strategies including environmental concerns rather than being solely caused by a shift towards more sustainable energy policies and ii that among the different energy security strategies the diversification of energy sources through renewable energy deployment is a more coherent strategy than using res to reduce dependency

quantifying the supplier portfolio diversity of embodied energy strategic implications for strengthening energy resilience this paper investigates energy resilience of countries by quantifying the supplier diversification of both direct and embodied energy import in particular we quantify two approaches to diversify a country s supplier portfolio by lowering the dependency on each supplier portfolio diversification and by having embodied energy suppliers that are different from its direct energy suppliers portfolio differentiation we examine possibilities for strategic utilization of embodied energy trade to compensate for low diversity of direct energy trade for three types of fossil resources coal oil and gas we find that the diversity of embodied energy import is much greater than that of direct energy import of the three energy resources coal enables countries to adopt portfolio diversification and portfolio differentiation more than gas and oil our results suggest embodied energy can be considered as a transfer of energy resources across national borders that can directly benefit from the diversity of the world energy production by skipping the limited diversity of the world energy export

efficiency outcomes of market concentration and managed care abstract the paper examines how hospital cost efficiency has reacted to extensive horizontal integrations of hospitals and rapid growth of managed care in the us health care industry cost efficiency is estimated by using panel data approaches to relax the assumptions for the hospital effects imposed in earlier studies the paper shows that higher managed care penetration over time is associated with greater hospital efficiency and higher market concentration is positively associated with efficiency when markets are highly competitive or highly concentrated

security justice and the energy crossroads assessing the implications of the nuclear phase out in germany abstract the nuclear melt down in fukushima resulted in diverging energy policy decisions across the world where germany decided to opt out of nuclear electricity production yet the government s decision making framework for energy policy decisions does not accurately reflect important drivers for the strategy change this paper presents the energy crossroads framework as a more comprehensive tool to analyse the drivers and impacts of the nuclear phase out 20 expert interviews were performed across business participants as well as policy makers in the national and international energy context results show that germany has adopted an environmental justice rather than energy security stance in their nuclear phase out policy with significant long term consequences

estimation of profit functions when profit is not maximum this paper deals with derivation and implications of profit functions when profit is not maximum due to the presence of either technical inefficiency or allocative inefficiency or both we show that input demand and output supply elasticities and returns to scale are in general affected by these inefficiencies we also show that the overall profit efficiency is not necessarily the product of technical and allocative efficiencies meaning that technical and allocative inefficiencies are not necessarily independent estimation techniques are developed for both cross sectional and panel data models working of the model is illustrated using a panel of 60 salmon farms copyright 2001 oxford university press

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

economic inefficiency in a revenue setting the norwegian whitefish fishery the main focus in the inefficiency literature is on suboptimal input use and how this causes increased costs due to technical and allocative inefficiency production or cost functions are then typ

sustainability assessment of electricity generation technologies using weighted multi criteria decision analysis abstract solving the issue of environmental degradation due to the expansion of the world s energy demand requires a balanced approach the aim of this paper is to comprehensively rank a large number of electricity generation technologies based on their compatibility with the sustainable development of the industry the study is based on a set of 10 sustainability indicators which provide a life cycle analysis of the plants the technologies are ranked using a weighted sum multi attribute utility method the indicator weights were established through a survey of 62 academics from the fields of energy and environmental science our results show that large hydroelectric projects are the most sustainable technology type followed by small hydro onshore wind and solar photovoltaic we argue that political leaders should have a more structured and strategic approach in implementing sustainable energy policies and this type of research can provide arguments to support such decisions

diversity and security in uk electricity generation the influence of low carbon objectives abstract we explore the relationship between low carbon objectives and the strategic security of electricity in the context of the uk electricity system we consider diversity of fuel source mix to represent one dimension of security robustness against interruptions of any one source and apply two different diversity indices to the range of electricity system scenarios produced by the uk government and independent researchers our results show that low carbon objectives are uniformly associated with greater long term diversity in uk electricity generation with reference to data on wind generation we also consider the impact of source variability on a second dimension of security the reliability of generation availability we conclude that this does not undermine our fundamental conclusion that low carbon scenarios are associated with greater strategic security of supply in uk electricity we discuss reasons for this result explore sensitivities and briefly discuss possible policy instruments associated with diversity and their limitations

ena based evaluation of energy supply security comparison between the chinese crude oil and natural gas supply systems abstract energy has become a scarce global strategic resource and energy supply security is receiving increasing attention a common evaluation platform is necessary to systematically understand the supply security levels of different energy sources and help make the national energy strategy ecological network analysis ena is thus regarded as a useful common tool to systematically simulate evaluate and compare the supply security for different energy sources when considering the fact that modern energy systems have formed a complex global energy network through extensive energy trading based on the established ena platform we evaluated and compared china s crude oil and natural gas supply security from 2000 to 2012 to this end we assessed the overall security level investigated the relationship among different compartments within the network system determined the system s structure and analyzed the system s properties it was found that the chinese crude oil supply security level was higher than that of the natural gas supply and that the crude oil supply system was more mature in terms of multiple properties suggestions are proposed to improve the chinese energy supply security based on further scenario analysis including increasing domestic energy production controlling energy consumption diversifying foreign supply sources and strengthening the strategic reserve the ena based common platform can be used for the systematic evaluation and improvement of energy supply security and further support national energy policymaking for both developed and developing countries both energy importers and exporters

resilience and electricity systems a comparative analysis electricity systems have generally evolved based on the natural resources available locally few metrics exist to compare the security of electricity supply of different countries despite the increasing likelihood of potential shocks to the power system like energy price increases and carbon price regulation this paper seeks to calculate a robust measure of national power system resilience by analysing each step in the process of transformation from raw energy to consumed electricity countries with sizeable deposits of mineral resources are used for comparison because of the need for electricity intensive metals processing we find that shifts in electricity intensive industry can be predicted based on countries power system resilience

a framework to evaluate security of supply in the electricity sector security of electricity supply soes has become a major concern for regulators and policymakers over the last decade however most work focusses either more generally on energy security or on a single fuel we develop a comprehensive but flexible framework to assess the soes for a single jurisdiction taking into the account the specificities of electricity this framework has two aims i provide a snapshot of the situation to understand current weaknesses and determine what actions are required ii capture the evolution over time to evaluate progress and identify potential problems before they materialise the framework based on an extensive literature review consists of twelve dimensions that are critical for soes we develop metrics that capture the state and evolution of each dimension this framework is intended to be a management information tool for all stakeholders aimed at organising data and structuring its analysis to enable monitoring the evolution of the soes while also functioning as an early warning system by flagging potential future problems

obstacles in energy security an analysis of congressional and presidential framing in the united states despite decades of policymaking the u s has only recently made significant strides in becoming a more energy secure nation with a focus on the executive and legislative branches this paper investigates two possible political obstacles to achieve this policy goal the first question it asks is whether or not the two branches have been defining energy security in the same way as the concept itself has no universal definition it is possible that the branches have been focusing on different aspects of the term results from a content analysis of presidential speeches and congressional hearings suggest that no such division has occurred the subsequent question asks whether or not the two branches in tandem are providing the foundation for sound policy results suggest that congress and presidents have defined and discussed energy security in a generally balanced comprehensive and internally non conflictual way what policy emerges from these discussions should be the subject of future research

energy security and improvements in the function of diversity indices taiwan energy supply structure case study abstract facing the risk and uncertainty inherent in social and economic development many countries have adopted an energy supply diversification strategy in their energy security policy to control the energy import risk and cost to ensure that sufficient energy can be obtained at an affordable price level diversification helps the energy system respond to external changes and shocks diversification can also lessen the vulnerability of a single energy source to supply shocks and the market power of various energy supply sources this study develops the diversity reliability index and co vary diversity reliability index based on the hirschman herfindahl and shannon wiener indices investigates the contribution of different energy sources to the energy system and analyzes the covariance between various energies and their impacts on energy security to determine the impact of energy diversity in reducing the risk of energy supply shortages and cost fluctuations

energy security in china a quantitative analysis and policy implications abstract this study aims to examine how china s energy security has changed over 30 years of reform and the opening period it constructs a 4 as quantitative evaluation framework the availability of energy resources the applicability of technology the acceptability by society and the affordability of energy resources the quantitative results show that china s energy security was at its best during the sixth fyp period 1981 1985 but then deteriorated until it hit higher levels between 1995 and 2005 however it was still lower than the level reached during the sixth fyp period during the eleventh fyp period 2006 2010 the energy security situation deteriorated again differences in policy priority over the study period appear to affect the country s energy security status this study suggests that china needs to develop renewable energy resources on a large scale and pay more attention to emissions control to reverse the downward trend in energy security

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

estimation of output and input technical efficiency using a flexible functional form and panel data the farrell 1957 concept of technical efficiency can be measured in two ways denoted output and input technical efficiency the empirical literature does not distinguish between the two measures and confusion exists regarding the required restrictions on technology for the specification of either measure with panel data the authors show how both types of efficiency when treated as fixed effects are to be specified in the context of a translog cost system technical efficiency enters the share equations only in the output case when homotheticity is not imposed the authors estimate their cost systems using panel data on u s airlines copyright 1994 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

technology and efficiency in a panel of italian dairy farms an sgm restricted cost function approach this article employs a short term specification of the symmetric generalised mcfadden sgm cost function capable of accommodating quasi fixed factors and variable returns temporary equilibrium and scale economies are investigated while maintaining the consistency of the estimated model with microeconomic theory and approximation properties it also makes use of a two step procedure to estimate first the technology parameters and then time varying efficiency at farm level no distributional assumptions are required on efficiency as we consider a fixed effect model a balanced panel of italian dairy farms during the years from 1980 to 1992 serves as the case study the results suggest a rigid productive structure during the pre and post quota period moreover italian milk producers are found to exhibit considerable excess capacity and rather low input technical efficiency

security of supply and retail competition in the european gas market some model based insights in this paper we analyze the impact of uncertain disruptions in gas supply upon gas retailer contracting behavior and consequent price and welfare implications in a gas market characterized by long term gas contracts using a static cournot model in order to most realistically describe the economical situation our representation divides the market into two stages the upstream market that links by means of long term contracts producers in exporting countries russia algeria etc to local retailers who bring gas to the consuming countries to satisfy local demands in the downstream market disruption costs are modeled using short run demand functions first we mathematically develop a general model and write the associated kkt conditions then we propose some case studies under iso elasticity assumptions for the long short run inverse demand curves in order to predict qualitatively and quantitatively the impacts of supply disruptions on western european gas trade in the second part we study in detail the german gas market of the 1980s to explain the supply choices of the german retailer and we derive interesting conclusions and insights concerning the amounts and prices of natural gas brought to the market the last part of the paper is dedicated to a study of the bulgarian gas market which is greatly dependent on the russian gas supplies and hence very sensitive to interruption risks some interesting conclusions are derived concerning the necessity to economically regulate the market by means of gas amounts control if the disruption probability is high enough

econometric estimation of technical and environmental efficiency an application to dutch dairy farms in this article we estimate the technical and environmental efficiency of a panel of dutch dairy farms nitrogen surplus arising from the application of excessive amounts of manure and chemical fertilizer is treated as an environmentally detrimental input a stochastic translog production frontier is specified to estimate the output oriented technical efficiency environmental efficiency is estimated as the input oriented technical efficiency of a single input the nitrogen surplus of each farm the mean output oriented technical efficiency is rather high 0 894 but the mean input oriented environmental efficiency is only 0 441 intensive dairy farms are both technically and environmentally more efficient than extensive farms

energy savings potential in china s industrial sector from the perspectives of factor price distortion and allocative inefficiency abstract china s industrial energy consumption accounted for 70 82 of national and 14 12 of world energy usage in 2011 in the context of energy scarcity and environmental pollution the industrial sector in china faces unsustainable growth problems by adopting the stochastic frontier analysis sfa framework this paper analyzes the factor allocative efficiency of china s industrial sector and estimates the energy savings potential from the perspective of allocative inefficiency this paper focuses on three issues the first is examining the factor allocative inefficiency of china s industrial sector the second is measuring factor price distortion by the shadow price model the third is estimating the energy savings potential in china s industrial sector during 2001 2009 major conclusions are thus drawn first factor prices of capital labor and energy are distorted in china due to government regulations moreover energy price is relatively low compared to capital price while is relatively high compared to labor price second the industry wide energy savings potential resulted from energy allocative inefficiency was about 9 71 during 2001 2009 the downward trend of energy savings potential implies the increasing energy allocative efficiency in china s industrial sector third a transparent and reasonable pricing mechanism is conducive to improving energy allocative efficiency

a reexamination of returns to scale density and technical progress in u s airlines the logic of protecting u s airlines from competition was initially founded on the belief that substantial economies of scale existed in the industry and that consumers would benefit through among other things regulation of fares regulation of service network and restrictions on entry and exit from the industry however studies 1 7 8 12 have undermined the faith in economic regulation by showing that economies of scale were minimal and competition would promote efficiency in a recent study caves christensen and tretheway 5 estimated returns to scale rts and returns to density rtd for u s airlines based on a panel dataset for 1970 1981 containing trunk and local service airlines they estimated rtd and rts from a translog cost function for airline services like many other applied economists working with translog cost functions they found that the neoclassical curvature or regularity conditions on the cost function are not satisified in almost half of the observations 105 out of 208 in general concavity property is satisfied in the neighborhood of the sample mean if it is chosen as the point of approximation for the cost function but not at points further from the mean recently diewert and wales 6 suggested alternative flexible functional forms which are globally concave in input prices if the concavity property is satisfied at only one point thus if the concavity property is violated imposition of it at a single point will make the function globally concave without destroying flexibility use of such functional forms can avoid violation of regularity conditions of the cost function at extreme points the objective of this paper is to estimate a model of airline costs along the lines of caves christensen and tretheway 5 however we extend their results in several ways first we consider a modest generalization of the symmetric generalized mcfadden sgm cost function developed by diewert and wales by including network and control variables in the airline cost function the sgm cost function is flexible and globally concave in input prices thus our estimates of parameters and measures of rts rtd and technical progress are based on a cost function which is globally concave second we estimate the system of input demand functions instead of the cost function and while estimating these input demand functions derived from the cost minimizing behavior of the airlines we incorporate firm and input specific effects these effects capture possible differences in production technologies among airlines third we intro

conceptual proposals for measuring the impact of international regimes on energy security abstract the paper proposes two concepts to assess the effect of international regimes on energy security existing indicators focus mainly on state level factors excluding international influences international relation scholars on the other hand see a clear connection between international regimes and stable energy relations international regimes stabilise energy relations by providing frameworks for negotiations defining controlling and sanctioning compliance and allowing the actors to engage in package deals the researcher needs to include these factors in a complete assessment of political energy security risks as first step the paper uses the effectiveness of control mechanisms as basis for such consideration it refers specifically to international arbitration as the most important control mechanism in international energy relations the simplest measurement option is the share of a county s energy imports covered by a certain regime the paper applies the oslo potsdam solution to account for outcome effectiveness it applies a variant of the international regimes data base protocol to account for effective regime structures in a last section the paper proposes some possible paths for future research

economic inefficiency and environmental impact an application to aquaculture production abstract in industries characterized by frequent innovation and high productivity growth substantial variation in produced quantity and input use may occur leading to increased costs an effect that has received little attention is that inefficiency can exacerbate environmental impacts this effect is particularly important if environmentally damaging inputs are overused in addition to increasing firms costs such inefficiency can also increase the environmental impact of the firm s activity this makes the degree of inefficiency in an industry an issue for environmental regulators in this paper we estimate technical and allocative efficiency for a sample of norwegian salmon farmers our results show that both technical and allocative inefficiency on average are significant in explaining the level and variation in farm costs and that the main environmental impact due to inefficiency from the norwegian salmon aquaculture industry has its origin in technical inefficiency

technical efficiency and farm size a conditional analysis the relationship between technical efficiency and size might be affected by farm heterogeneity we analyse this relationship conditional on a set of control variables these control variables are chosen using a production model where technical efficiency is introduced as a parameter as a result technical efficiency affects both the input demand and the output supply of a profit maximising producer the empirical application explores these issues using panel data of dairy farms in spain

technical efficiency of alternative farming systems the case of greek organic and conventional olive growing farms abstract olive growing is a major farming activity in greek agriculture this paper analyzes empirically the technical efficiency of organic and conventional olive growing farms using a stochastic production frontier methodology and a translog functional specification findings indicate that the organic olive growing farms examined exhibit a higher degree of technical efficiency relative to their production frontier than do conventional olive growing farms reasons may include lower profit margins and restrictions on inputs permitted thus forcing organic farmers to be more cautious with input use however both input and output oriented technical efficiency scores are still relatively low for both types of olive farming thus there is considerable scope for cost reducing and farm income improvement in both farming modes this could prove crucial for the long run viability and the future course of the sector

assessment of the actual sustainability of nuclear fission power this paper uses 19 criteria to assess whether nuclear fission power can be a part of sustainable development this yes or no qualitative evaluation is due prior to ongoing marketability assessment and promotion of nuclear power by for example the iaea the iea and the uk government the criteria are classified into five groups planet results demonstrate that the incompatibility of nuclear expansion with electricity efficiency and full renewable power deployment largely overshadows the carbon free steam generation of nuclear fission prosperity analyses show that including rolled off costs and risks would raise bills to heights difficult to quantify due to doubts long term invisibility and irreversibility risks may be catastrophic and are not insurable while weaponry proliferation adds a further dimension people analyses reveal that some nuclear power is affordable for present generations when many costs remain unpaid however developing countries cannot afford the capital costs and technology intensity and catastrophes wreak havoc on national economies singling out exposed communities losing their habitats politics assessments demonstrate that nuclear technocracy dominates the scene in many countries the technocrats heavily influence policy makers the media and celebrities speaking out in favor of nuclear we identify the need for an independent global agency and for independent national nuclear regulatory institutions to safeguard the public interest

testing scale efficiency in dea models a bootstrapping approach this paper presents a method for estimation and test of firm specific scale efficiency using data envelopment analysis dea the use of a simple bootstrap algorithm is proposed to perform firm specific inference for scale efficiency an empirical application using swedish hospital data is provided it is found that about 40 of the departments were scale efficient according to the original results however for about one third of those departments the hypothesis of scale efficiency could be rejected

uncertainty persistence and heterogeneity a panel data perspective the purpose of this paper is to review newly developed identification and estimation tools that are relevant for the analysis of dynamic dependence structures of income risk i present an application to nonlinear permanent transitory models of household income using data from the panel study of income dynamics psid but the empirical approach is more generally applicable household income processes are of interest because the size of shocks the nature of their persistence and crosshousehold heterogeneity are all important to understand how income inequality varies with age and cohort and how it translates into consumption inequality i argue that going from an econometrics of autocovariances to an econometrics of flexible distributions is feasible and has the potential to reveal richer aspects of risk for example nonlinear persistence of unusual shocks jel c23 d31 d12

indicators for energy security the concept of energy security is widely used yet there is no consensus on its precise interpretation in this research we have provided an overview of available indicators for long term security of supply sos we distinguished four dimensions of energy security that relate to the availability accessibility affordability and acceptability of energy and classified indicators for energy security according to this taxonomy there is no one ideal indicator as the notion of energy security is highly context dependent rather applying multiple indicators leads to a broader understanding incorporating these indicators in model based scenario analysis showed accelerated depletion of currently known fossil resources due to increasing global demand coupled with increasing spatial discrepancy between consumption and production international trade in energy carriers is projected to have increased by 142 in 2050 compared to 2008 oil production is projected to become increasingly concentrated in a few countries up to 2030 after which production from other regions diversifies the market under stringent climate policies this diversification may not occur due to reduced demand for oil possible benefits of climate policy include increased fuel diversity and slower depletion of fossil resources

long term diversification paths and energy transitions in europe the concentration of the energy mixes of eight european countries is measured latecomers historically enjoyed lower levels of concentration in their energy mixes early comers followed an inverted u path of concentration latecomers a u path a time effect and size effect explains the different patterns small energy consuming countries will be able to do faster transitions

vulnerability of the economy to the potential disturbances of energy supply a logic based model with application to the case of china the disturbances of energy supply that may result from both external and domestic events create a significant threat for national economy due to potential impacts on the productivity employment and overall economic growth building scenarios of the economy s vulnerability to these disturbances is delicate because of the significant number of interrelated factors that should be taken into consideration in this paper a logic based model lbm is developed which allows for defining exploring and assessing the determinants and the indicators of the economy s vulnerability related to the energy supply disturbances within a coherent scenarios assessment framework the proposed model is illustrated with the case of china after developing the general framework three particular scenarios are investigated based on the case study the performance and limitations of the model are analyzed and its ability to evaluate national energy policies is discussed finally some recommendations for further improvements are made

energy planning and modern portfolio theory a review abstract modern portfolio theory mpt stands as a widely accepted methodology to meet the challenges associated with the definition of energy planning for a particular territory or region energy planning is thus framed as an investment selection problem mpt is characterized by having a wider capacity and conceptual richness than the other previously used methodologies such as the individual least cost alternative the portfolio approach is based on solving for an objective function that seeks to minimize either the cost or the risk of the portfolio subject to different constraints considering that real electricity generation assets can be defined in terms of cost or return and economic risk for each alternative technology the relevant portfolios are the result of solving the optimization model to determine the efficient cost risk frontier the work presented here consists of an exhaustive review of the literature in relation to the application of mpt methodology to the field of energy planning and electricity production a new classification is proposed from a financial perspective of the selection of investments from the preceding studies it delves deeper into the explanation of the limits to the methodology and into the concept of risk which is key from both a financial and an energy perspective the main methodological contributions found in the literature are examined that are aimed at improving the capacity of the model and adjusting it to the reality of the electricity market finally conclusions are provided from the works analyzed in terms of renewable technologies and the policy implications derived from them in most studies a preference has been shown for the inclusion of renewable technologies in the efficient portfolios however in order to implement the decision to increase the share of renewable technologies greater flexibility in the interconnection capacity between states and in storage capacity is needed

economic efficiency and frontier techniques abstract most of the literature related to the measurement of economic efficiency has based its analysis either on parametric or on non parametric frontier methods the choice of estimation method has been an issue of debate with some researchers preferring the parametric and others the non parametric approach the aim of this paper is to provide a critical and detailed review of both core frontier methods in our opinion no approach is strictly preferable to any other moreover a careful consideration of their main advantages and disadvantages of the data set utilized and of the intrinsic characteristics of the framework under analysis will help us in the correct implementation of these techniques recent developments in frontier techniques and economic efficiency measurement such as bayesian techniques bootstrapping duality theory and the analysis of sampling asymptotic properties are also considered in this paper

technical and allocative inefficiencies and factor elasticities of substitution an analysis of energy waste in iran s manufacturing ignoring technical and allocative inefficiencies or embedding one of them alone in a system of input demands may result in biased elasticities we consider a comprehensive model including technical inefficiency in input and output forms and allocative inefficiency and apply it to panel data from iran s manufacturing sector the results show that the presence of both inefficiencies affects the computed elasticities of demand and substitution moreover in spite of current waste of energy in iran s manufacturing the elimination of environmental constraints will prompt the manufacturing firms to increase the utilization of energy relative to both capital and labor

elasticity of substitution and technical efficiency evidence from the us electricity generation abstractthe implications of national or regional energy policies for technical efficiency and environmental outcomes in electricity generation depend on fossil fuel input substitution this study u