carbon dioxide emissions and governance a nonparametric analysis for the g 20 this paper applies nonparametric estimators to examine countries carbon dioxide co2 emissions and governance relationship by using data for the time period 1996 2010 of the twenty largest economies group of twenty g 20 the dynamics of the considered relationship are analyzed six governance measures are included in our analysis voice and accountability political stability and absence of violence government effectiveness regulatory quality rule of law and control of corruption as have been defined in world governance indicators from the world bank the empirical findings reveal a nonmonotonic relationship between countries co2 emissions and the examined governance measures in addition and with respect to the environmental policy makers a significant difference on the number of governance measures influencing countries carbon dioxide emissions which is subject to countries specific regional and development variations is recorded finally the carbon dioxide emissions governance relationship is highly nonlinear and appears that countries higher governance quality does not always result to lower carbon dioxide emission levels

the symmetry between controlling pollution by price and controlling it by quantity under ideally competitive conditions both controlling pollution by price using a combined charge subsidy scheme and controlling it by quantity using a marketable permit scheme can achieve short and long run efficiency and also political acceptability provided that both schemes embody the same degree of environmental ownership the resulting full symmetry between control by price and control by quantity a symmetry overlooked in the literature because of the entry exit assumptions automatically made for most subsidy schemes allows a useful practical choice to be made between the two control systems

effluent regulation and long run optimality a regulator faced with free entry of firms is concerned not only with the implications of public policy for the discharges from a representative firm but also with the total pollution observed at the long run market equilibrium the regulator must take into account not only the effects of regulations upon the net marginal returns of the firm but must also consider the total profit of the firm and incentives for entry and exit this paper shows that effluent charges and tradeable effluent permits lead to long run optimality with entry of small firms the difference between firm payments and environmental damages is interpreted as the rent accruing to the environmental resource this result applies only to the competitive case with small polluters the analysis presented here allows a comparison and clarification of the literature on small and large polluters in a multi input framework with social damages dependent upon total effluents effluent charges are shown here to result in socially optimal entry confirming an assertion of baumol and oates 2 p 179 fn 161 and the important result of schulze and d arge 15 by taking average as well as marginal damages into account the effluent charge results in optimal firm scale levels and the correct input mix at the free entry market equilibrium the firm subject to an effluent tax will operate above or below the private minimum efficient scale depending upon whether average external costs exceed or are less than marginal external costs since public policy to reduce effluents is often directed at reducing the effluentgenerating activity some policy recommendations include a tax on the final output of the polluting firm in some theoretical analyses a relation between the output of the firm and the effluent level is identified and a pigouvian output tax is applied this approach should not be followed by policymakers since an output tax does not provide firms with the correct incentives for either input substitution or market entry it is shown that while a lump sum transfer is needed to provide correct entry incentives when a pigouvian output tax is applied no such transfer is needed if the tax is correctly applied to effluents contrary to 5 even if optimal firm scale and i thank the referees for helpful suggestions the support of the national science foundation under grant ses 82 19121 is gratefully acknowledged any errors are my responsibility 103

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

the feasibility of the double dividend hypothesis in a democratic economy the two dividends in the double dividend hypothesis are assumed to be independent this assumption can be misleading when it comes to formulating policy i construct a model where the pollution tax rate is voted for by heterogeneous people in addition to the revenue recycling effect the equilibrium pollution tax rate depends on two opposite forces the tax cutting effect and the profit effect the two forces show that an instrument that exploits a greater revenue recycling effect can cause a more severe environmental deterioration thereby resulting in the infeasibility of the hypothesis the introduction of the interdependence between the two dividends can also mean that non revenue raising instruments are more efficient than revenue raising instruments

who should abate carbon emission we review the optimal pattern of carbon emission abatements across countries in a simple multi country world we model explicitly with the model in chichilnisky 4 the fact that the atmosphere is a public good within this framework we establish conditions for it to be necessary for optimality that the marginal cost of abatement be the same in all countries these condition are quite restrictive and amount to either ignoring distributional issues between countries or operating within a framework within which lump sum transfers can be made between countries these results have implications for the use of tradeable emission permits which as normally advocated will lead to the equalization of marginal abatement costs across countries the observation that the atmosphere is a public good implies that we may need to look at a lindahl equilibrium rather than a walrasian equilibrium in tradeable permits

international migration and income distribution in the philippines the author uses data on remittances from migrants to determine the effects of migration on household income and its distribution in the philippines i briefly describe the evolution of household income distribution using fies the family income and expenditure survey and the characteristics of households that receive income from migrants and those that do not i discuss the analytical framework that is used and outline the changes in incomes and inequality that emigration causes excerpt

international migrants remittances in the philippines after more than a decade of poor economic performance and political turmoil the philippines has experienced an increase in temporary and permanent international emigration with this has come a greater dependence on the remittances from these out migrants in 1991 more than 665 000 philippine nationals left the country 91 as contract workers nso 1992a to join a growing overseas community of more than 11 million families in the philippines 17 reported having received some sort of income from abroad in 1991 in total such income represented 8 of the country s household income nso 1992b despite the importance of these financial flows official statistics on remittances in the philippines are seriously underestimated and not clearly defined previous micro studies have also failed to use data representative of the whole country these weaknesses are overcome in this study by using previously little used microdata sets to reexamine remittances among the findings several stand out remittances are important because of their size and because of the large numbers of households relying on them more substantively multivariate analysis of the data suggests that length of stay abroad affects amounts remitted the analysis also shows that household location and regional labour market conditions influence the level of remittances the implications for policy are important unless we can influence some of these determinants permissive policies may have more success than coercive ones

carbon emission performance evaluation and allocation in chinese cities abstract this paper presents a dea approach with multiple abatement factors to evaluate co2 emission performance and allocate co2 emission quotas in chinese cities we first consider the difference of marginal abatement costs among cities and construct the non radial directional distance function with multiple abatement factors the total factor co2 emission performance index and its dynamic change index are then proposed to measure co2 emission performance considering equity and efficiency we develop a composite index by the hybrid method to allocate emissions quota which considers co2 emissions as well as co2 emission performance then we conduct an empirical study using inputs and outputs dataset of 71 chinese cities in 2005 2012 chinese cities have poor energy efficiency and still have high co2 emissions the eastern region outperforms the central region and the western region performs worst whereas the dynamic co2 emission performance of the central region has the largest increase the change of co2 emission performance is driven mainly by technological advances as for the co2 emission allocation the composite index method encourages cities to reduce emissions and enhance emission performance through carbon trading market it also motivates cities with high historical emissions to reduce their emissions by improving technology when they have poor co2 emission performance

coordinating climate and trade policies pareto efficiency and the role of border tax adjustments abstract this paper explores the role of trade instruments in globally efficient climate policies focusing on whether or not some form of border tax adjustment bta is warranted when carbon prices differ internationally the analysis shows that while there is no case for bta when all instruments can be freely deployed pareto efficiency does require a form of bta when carbon taxes in some countries are constrained its purpose then is to partly counteract the impact on emissions of inappropriate carbon pricing there or equivalently to undo the trade distortions such pricing creates the required form of bta is generally complex but a special case is identified in which it optimally has the simple structure envisaged in practical policy discussions it is also shown that the efficiency case for bta depends critically on whether climate policies are pursued by carbon taxation or by cap and trade

carbon dioxide emissions allocation a review carbon dioxide co2 emissions allocation plays a fundamental role in determining reduction responsibility at economy level or emission permits at firm level past decades have seen the development and applications of various methods for co2 emissions allocation this paper provides a literature review of co2 emissions allocation with emphasis on the evolution of allocation methods used it begins with a summary of the most popular allocation principles and criteria that lay a foundation for the development of allocation methods we then classify the existing allocation methods into four groups namely indicator optimization game theoretic and hybrid approaches the main features and findings of past studies are identified and summarized while the fairness principle prevails in earlier studies the efficiency principle has been found to receive increasing attention recently we also present a comparison of the empirical results based on ten popular indicator methods to show how indicator choice affects the allocation results issues related to selecting appropriate methods in co2 emissions allocation are finally discussed further research may be carried out to strike a balance between fairness and efficiency so that the allocation results become more widely acceptable and economically feasible

cutting the gordian knot in climate change policy ongoing conflict over the fair allocation of greenhouse gas emissions among nations is a significant impediment to progress in international climate change negotiations this article considers the strengths and weaknesses of a crucial argument within the allocation debate asserting the atmospheric capacity to absorb greenhouse gases should be distributed on an equal per capita basis while noting the argument s many appealing qualities the paper argues that the per capita perspective also encompasses important practical and ethical limitations besides potentially encouraging population growth and discriminating against those with greater but still legitimate energy needs early evidence suggests that the equal per capita idea may hinder progress in climate change talks by invoking a more absolutist and uncompromising rhetoric of rights alternative ideas of fairness such as the distinction between subsistence and luxury emissions or the common heritage of mankind idea offer a more flexible mix of egalitarian and other allocation principles that should be considered carefully even by those sympathetic to the equal per capita perspective

new directions in emissions trading the potential contribution of new institutional economics abstract once an arcane topic even among environmental economists emissions trading systems have substantially increased during this past decade in the usa moreover the implementation of these systems has necessitated increased involvement of professionals in many fields besides economics this paper reviews the practical experience of the six major types of emissions trading systems focusing on credit market development participation and results including transaction costs five more recent applications of emissions trading also are considered as well as the possibility of inter pollutant trading while inter pollutant trading has been successfully used for chlorofluorocarbons cfcs the applicability of this experience is probably very limited additionally it would be highly premature to attempt an evaluation of these newer emissions trading systems some of which have yet to be even partially implemented in order to improve these latter and future programs the paper considers the potential contribution of the new institutional economics nie to emissions trading the nie is used to develop theoretical insights and a series of predictions about the performance of a range of emissions trading systems

building a wave energy policy focusing on innovation manufacturing and deployment abstract the irish government has set a goal to make ireland a world leader for research development and deployment of ocean energy technologies ireland has a wave energy resource of 21 twh and an ambition is to achieve at least 500 mw installed generating capacity from ocean energy by 2020 this paper investigates what is required to move from ambition to delivery a successful wave energy strategy will require focused policies that will stimulate innovation to develop the technologies manufacturing to produce the devices and deployment to build the required wave power plants the paper draws on the successful policies in ireland that have stimulated each of these dimensions albeit for different sectors from 2004 to 2008 successful policies in ict and biotech innovation led to an increase in ireland s innovation index score from 0 48 to 0 53 the policy focus on food and pharmaceuticals manufacturing in ireland resulted in high levels of economic growth over the period 1998 2002 reaching 10 gdp growth levels per annum and full employment successful wind energy policies deployment has accelerated rapidly since 2003 and reached 1 2 gw installed capacity in 2009 representing 15 of ireland s total installed capacity the paper draws on appropriate elements of these policies to build a successful wave energy policy for ireland it also draws on the successful policies adopted in denmark for innovation manufacturing and deployment of wind energy the danish wind turbine manufacturers hold a world market share of approximately 40 the paper proposes establishing a wave energy strategy group to develop an action plan to deliver the 500 mw it also proposes a novel extension of corporate tax specifically for wave energy companies an initial 30 capital grant scheme for wave energy developers a grid code for wave energy devices and fast tracking of planning decisions through an amended approach to strategic infrastructure

the importance of revenue sharing for the local economic impacts of a renewable energy project a social accounting matrix approach allan g mcgregor p and swales k the importance of revenue sharing for the local economic impacts of a renewable energy project a social accounting matrix approach regional studies ambitious renewable energy targets are requiring investments in new renewable capacity in areas where acceptance could be affected by the potential economic benefits to the locality at the same time new renewable energy projects primarily for onshore wind capacity might offer a route by which peripheral economic development policies can be supported the economic impacts of these projects are difficult to quantify using input output techniques but can be more appropriately handled within a social accounting matrix sam framework a social accounting matrix for the shetland islands off the north coast of mainland scotland is used to evaluate the potential local economic and employment impacts of a large proposed onshore wind energy project sensitivity analysis reveals the relative importance of the level of commu

reducing conflicts between climate policy and energy policy in the us the important role of the states the absence of us national action on global climate change policy has prompted initiatives by the us congress cities states and regions toward what is likely to become a long term collaborative effort to harmonize national energy and climate policies this upward evolution in the face of a reluctant administration is historically consistent with the development of national legislation on other environmental and social issues in the us at the heart of this movement is the need to resolve conflicts between high intensity use of low cost fossil energy supplies and the dominating impact of carbon dioxide emissions on global climate change us states are among the largest carbon dioxide emitters in the world and play a critical role in supplying and transforming energy as well as consuming it for economic advantage state governments are also likely to have to shoulder some of the cost of potentially extensive climate damages and bear the brunt of the cost of implementing future federal mandates as a result many are taking proactive stances on the development of climate mitigation policy to prepare for accelerate and or guide national policy as us states show leadership on addressing greenhouse gas emissions they also play an important role in forging policies and measures that reduce economic conflict between energy and climate goals a number have launched or completed greenhouse gas mitigation plans and other major policies in the past few years that address these conflicts through 1 finding ways to reduce mitigation costs including the use of incentive based policy instruments 2 promoting an open and democratic policy process that includes major stakeholders 3 promoting equity across socioeconomic groups regions and generations and 4 promoting interregional cooperation the results are promising and suggest that the state arena for climate and energy policy is evolving quickly and constructively toward alternatives that reduce conflict regional efforts are also unfolding along with greater congressional attention to the lessons learned and commitments made by sub federal actions in the next few years many national energy and climate conflicts are likely to be tested and addressed by states among these pennsylvania is likely to be an important player due to its high profile of energy production and potential for leadership

revealing the political decision toward chinese carbon abatement based on equity and efficiency criteria abstract china s economic reform over the past 30 years has allowed the free market to drive economic development however government still plays a key role in the energy sector by allocating energy conservation and emissions abatement how does the government make an equity decision as a tradeoff to market efficiency this is an unanswered question the purpose of this paper is to illustrate the government s preference toward equity and efficiency using the provincial level co 2 intensity allocation data we investigate the political decision that the government made based on the equity and efficiency criteria we find that the equity index plays a more important role than the efficiency index in determining the co 2 intensity target in addition political factors such as social stability are found to be important factors

analyzing the functional dynamics of technological innovation systems a scheme of analysis various researchers and policy analysts have made empirical studies of innovation systems in order to understand their current structure and trace their dynamics however policy makers often experience difficulties in extracting practical guidelines from studies of this kind in this paper we operationalize our previous work on a functional approach to analyzing innovation system dynamics into a practical scheme of analysis for policy makers the scheme is based on previous literature and our own experience in developing and applying functional thinking it can be used by policy makers not only to identify the key policy issues but also to set policy goals

income distribution impacts of climate change mitigation policy in the susquehanna river basin economy we examine the cost side income distribution impacts of a carbon tax in the susquehanna river basin srb region of the united states utilizing a computable general equilibrium model we find the aggregate impacts of a 25 ton carbon tax on the srb economy are likely to be negative but modest an approximately one third of 1 reduction in gross regional product grp in the short run and double that amount in the long run however unlike many previous studies we find that the carbon tax is mildly progressive as measured by income bracket changes per capita equivalent variation and gini coefficient changes based on expenditure patterns the dominant factors affecting the distributional impacts are the pattern of output income and consumption impacts that affect lower income groups relatively less than higher income ones an increase in transfer payments favoring lower income groups and decreased corporate profits absorbed primarily by higher income groups

a real option analysis of investments in hydropower the case of norway abstract this paper presents a valuation study of hydropower investment opportunities in the norwegian context according to nve norwegian water resources and energy directorate the regulator there is a potential of 39 twh not yet developed generation in a normal year is approximately 120 twh by using the conceptual real option framework of dixit and pindyck 1994 investment under uncertainty princeton university press princeton nj one can estimate the value of investment opportunities to nok 11 million gwh eur 1 4 million gwh furthermore the optimal trigger price for initiating an investment based on electricity forward prices is calculated to nok 0 32 kwh eur 0 04 kwh the analysis shows consistency between real option theory and aggregate investment behaviour in norwegian hydropower

an optimization model for renewable energy generation and its application in china a perspective of maximum utilization in response to climate change china s power industry is undertaking the task of reducing carbon emissions renewable energy generation has become an important option for the government and state grid companies it is important to know the maximum possible capacities of renewable energy generation from its different sources in order to plan the construction of the power grid in the future in this paper several important factors affecting the development of renewable energy generation are identified through a review of the existing literature such as cost technical maturity and so on and analyzed combined with the learning curve model the technology diffusion model and expectations about future economic development in china a new model the renewable energy optimization model reom is developed to analyze the development of three renewable energy sources wind power solar power and biomass power from 2009 to 2020 results show that 1 the maximum installed capacities of wind power solar power and biomass power will reach 233321 26680 and 35506 mw in 2020 2 from 2009 to 2020 biomass power will develop rapidly at the early stage while wind power is developed massively at the final stage and solar power has relatively stable growth 3 due to the added capacity in the early periods the unit investment cost of solar power shows a large decline which is good for its following scale development 4 the investment ratio constraint has a large effect on the development of wind power while the constraint of on grid proportion of renewable energy generation has a significant effect on the development of wind power and solar power the results have important policy implications for long term energy planning in developing countries such as china and india

remittances and financial inclusion evidence from el salvador this paper investigates the impact of remittances on financial inclusion this is an important issue given recent studies showing that financial inclusion can have significant beneficial effects on households using household level survey data for el salvador the authors examine the impact of remittances on households use of savings and credit instruments from formal financial institutions they find that although remittances have a positive impact on financial inclusion by promoting the use of deposit accounts they do not have a significant and robust effect on the demand for and use of credit from formal institutions if anything by relaxing credit constraints remittances might reduce the need for external financing from financial institutions while at the same time increasing the demand for savings instruments

who should abate carbon emissions an international viewpoint abstract we review the optimal pattern of carbon emission abatements across countries in a simple multi country world we model explicitly with the model in chichilnisky 1993b the fact that the atmosphere is a public good within this framework we establish conditions for it to be necessary for optimality that the marginal cost of abatement be the same in all countries these conditions are quite restrictive and amount to either ignoring distributional issues between countries or operating within a framework within which lump sum transfers can be made between countries these results have implications for the use of tradeable emission permits which as normally advocated will lead to the equalization of marginal abatement costs across countries the observation that the atmosphere is a public good implies that we may need to look at a lindahl equilibrium rather than a walrasian equilibrium in tradeable permits

international equity and differentiation in global warming policy ne of the major obstacles to reaching a comprehensive agreement on global warming is the setting of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for individual countries long standing tensions between industrialized and developing countries have raised the issue of equity in burden sharing moreover individual industrialized nations have pleaded special circumstances and have sought differentiation in their obligations this paper analyzes alternative rules for distributing tradable carbon dioxide emissions permits a non linear programming model which distinguishes between allocation based and outcome based rules is used to analyze the relative welfare outcomes the model is applied to the world body of nations and yields several important policy implications

global environmental risks the need to manage climate risks is not a new it has shaped social institutions for many centuries in medieval england a peasant farmer s land was broken into many widely dispersed parcels economic historians interpret this as a way of hedging climate risk see references in bromley 9 land in different locations would be affected differently by droughts floods and frosts by spreading land holdings over different locations as well as by organizing agricultural cooperatives and buying insurance farmers have managed climate risk for many centuries

the need for improved financial reporting of a developing country energy utility abstract some consideration has been given to regulatory and institutional reforms to facilitate sustainable development in electricity usage in papua new guinea but little attention has been paid to bringing about full compliance of financial reporting expectations of the country s main energy utility examining documentary evidence of the audit reports of the auditor general s office of papua new guinea this study considers the financial reporting compliance of png power for the period 2007 2013 and the means by which compliant reporting may be improved the results of the study reveal that the financial statements of png power are late and receive disclaimers of opinion from the auditor general s office which suggest that png power s stakeholders are not receiving accurate and reliable financial information to make informed decisions about sustainable development of electricity usage and planning in papua new guinea the study reveals that it would take little resources to improve png power s reporting which in turn could enhance national energy policy decision making and energy utility accountability

optimal dynamic carbon taxes in a climate economy model with distortionary fiscal policy how should carbon be taxed as a part of fiscal policy the literature on optimal carbon pricing often abstracts from other taxes however when governments raise revenues with distortionary taxes carbon levies have fiscal impacts while they raise revenues directly they may shrink the bases of other taxes e g by decreasing employment this article theoretically characterizes and then quantifies optimal carbon taxes in a dynamic general equilibrium climate economy model with distortionary fiscal policy first this article establishes a novel theoretical relationship between the optimal taxation of carbon and of capital income this link arises because carbon emissions destroy natural capital they accumulate in the atmosphere and decrease future output consequently this article shows how the standard logic against capital income taxes extends to distortions on environmental capital investments second this article characterizes optimal climate policy in sub optimal fiscal settings where income taxes are constrained to remain at their observed levels third this article presents a detailed calibration that builds on the seminal dice approach but adds features essential for a setting with distortionary taxes such as a differentiation between climate change production impacts e g on agriculture and direct utility impacts e g on biodiversity existence value the central quantitative finding is that optimal carbon tax schedules are 8 24 lower when there are distortionary taxes compared to the setting with lump sum taxes considered in the literature

the us market for so2 permits policy implications of the low price and trading volume abstract the price of so2 permits and the volume of trading under the us acid rain program have been lower than expected this can be explained by the creation and distribution of more permits than were initially authorized by the sale of permits by high cost abaters who are subject to more stringent local emission constraints or who have irreversibly invested in high cost abatement technologies and by the deregulation of the natural gas and railroad industries which in combination with incentives for cost cutting under the new market approach to so2 control has lowered marginal costs of abatement curves and made them more uniform across powerplants the low price of permits and low trading volume are evidence that market approaches to pollution control can be more cost effective than command and control regulations the effect of public policies and technological changes on the allowance market are usefully examined in the context of an ideal market in which the equilibrium price of allowances equals the marginal cost of abatement of individual powerplants using recent data from coggins and swinton 1996 we are able to explain the current price of permits with some accuracy

the allocation of co2 emissions as a claims problem abstract in the context of multilateral negotiations on climate change this paper proposes to use the claims approach as a reasonable and practicable alternative in order to allocate the admissible co2 emissions per region the proposed methodology entails analyze the application of a broad group of theoretical solutions through the establishment of equity and stability criteria to this regard the empirical analyzing combines several co2 world endowments from meinshausen et al 2009 together with claims forecasts associated with the rcp representative concentration pathways scenarios the results obtained indicate that the constrained equal awards and minimal solutions are clearly equity sensitive given that the co2 emission reduction imposed by the constrained equal awards solution on asia and the oecd are very important and considering the better balance between equity and proportionality associated with the min solution it could be that this latter solution would be the most practicable and acceptable

equity efficiency trade off in china s energy capping policy abstract as a part of the transition to a sustainable economy china has set a cap on primary energy consumption for the first time of 5 0 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent by 2020 however there is a debate on the cap feasibility and failure to adequately address the underlying equity efficiency trade off which hampers achievement this paper identifies some key challenges ahead including the coal dominant energy mix declining financial support inconsistent central local goals rising costs of energy saving measures and quality of energy statistical data by quantifying the preference of each providence toward equity based or efficiency based allocation schemes the great disparity among provinces is revealed and the equity efficiency trade off relationship is confirmed developing regions primarily located in central and western areas tend to favor equity based disaggregating schemes contrarily developed coastal provinces strongly favor efficiency based schemes the present national disaggregation schemes are mainly based on historical energy consumption but disregard the provincial development gap and efficiency factors we conclude that this ambitious goal is likely within reach but increased efforts and flexible instruments are needed

costs of reducing global carbon emissions po rojecting the costs of reducing carbon emissions is extremely important and exceedingly difficult such projections are an integral component of cost benefit analyses of alternative policies for example for the global climate policy analysis described by william nordhaus in this symposium moreover the nature of the climate change problem dictates that costs be incurred long before benefits can be realized or accurately measured consequently the political spotlight predictably focuses on the cost estimates whenever specific policy options are contemplated projecting the costs of reducing carbon emissions is difficult because many assumptions must be made about how the world will evolve over a very long period of time with and without a control program typically some of these assumptions like population growth are taken from outside sources other factors like the response of energy demand to changes in economic output or energy prices are the result of modeling the behavior of economic actors in response to exogenous stimuli considerable uncertainty exists about both the exogenous factors and the best way to model the behavioral responses the global nature of the climate change problem adds yet another complication to the cost analysis scientists have concluded that it is the global concentration of carbon in the atmosphere that influences climate moreover since carbon in the atmosphere gets mixed more or less uniformly emissions anywhere change concentrations everywhere but with a long lead time current global carbon emissions are estimated to be only about 4 percent of the stock of co2 in the atmosphere attributable to human activity and about

are remittances a substitute for credit carrying the financial burden of health shocks in national and transnational households summary this paper tests for the assumption that remittances are a substitute for credit by comparing the response to health related shocks among national and transnational households using mexican household panel data while the occurrence of serious health shocks that required hospital treatment doubled the average debt burden of exposed households compared to the control group households with nuclear family members a parent child or spouse in the us did not increase their debts due to health shocks this finding is consistent with the view that remittances respond to households demand for financing emergencies and make them less reliant on debt financing

reducing conflict in global warming policy the potential of equity as a unifying principle abstract international agreement on global warming mitigation is likely to prove difficult efficiency based policies will result in disparate costs and benefits among nations and thus hinder cooperation this paper suggests that consideration be given to an equitable sharing of the economic impacts of global warming policy acknowledging that there is no universally held concept of equity the policy implications of several alternatives are explored because there is considerable variation in these implications it will be important for decision makers to clarify their preferred concepts of equity during the course of their negotiations on policies to address global warming

understanding social acceptance of electricity generation sources abstract social acceptability is a determinant factor in the failure or success of the government s decisions about which electricity generation sources will satisfy the growing demand for energy the main goal of this study was to validate a causal trust acceptability model for electricity generation sources in the model social acceptance of an energy source is directly caused by perceived risk and benefit and also by social trust in regulatory agencies both directly and indirectly through perceived risk and benefit results from a web based survey of chilean university students demonstrated that data for energy sources that are controversial in chilean society fossil fuels hydro and nuclear power fit the hypothesized model whereas data for non conventional renewable energy sources solar wind geothermal and tidal did not perceived benefit had the greatest total effect on acceptability thus emerging as a key predictive factor of social acceptability of controversial electricity generation sources further implications for regulatory agencies are discussed

economic and socio economic assessment methods for ocean renewable energy public and private perspectives this paper provides a comprehensive review of the current state of the art of the economics and socio economics of ocean renewable energy ore the many ways in which the viability and impacts of an ore project are assessed and an analysis of the current weaknesses issues or inappropriateness of the metrics and methodologies used in their definition and presentation the outcomes of this paper are anticipated to benefit the ore and wider renewable sector as a whole the review revealed that for the most part the current study of economics and socio economics of ore remain separate and discrete areas of research the economic methods utilised appear to be comprehensive but are limited to project or private investor level the methods identified for socioeconomic assessment fall between traditional and now routine environmental assessment approaches and more novel holistic approaches such as ecosystem services and life cycle assessment the novel section of the paper explored the connectivity between the economics and socio economics of ore in relation to project developments and policy planning a visualisation method was created of concentric rings intersected by related axis of economic socio economic and environment and enabled the examination of the benefits arising from the connectivity between the two spheres the concept of sustainable development process and the integration of environmental assessment for ore was also explored and how it responds to differing stakeholder aspirations and interpretations the analysis revealed that there was a divergence between public and private economic and socioeconomic assessments for ore environmental assessment is primarily a public responsibility but with significant inputs from the private developer involved while economic assessments are conducted primarily by the developer and or investor at their own behest however the two spheres of economic and socio economic for ore are highly connected and synergistic and must be examined in a holistic manner

remittances and social spending remittances are a significant source of foreign exchange for developing economies i argue that remittances due to their compensation and insurance functions will increase the general income level and economic security of recipients thereby reducing their perceived income risk over time this will dampen demand from recipients for government taxation and social insurance therefore i expect increases in income remitted to an economy to result in reduced levels of social welfare transfers at the macro level this dynamic can help us to understand spending patterns in developing democracies and the absence of demand for social security transfers in countries with high levels of inequality and economic insecurity i test this argument with a sample of 18 latin american states over the period 1990 to 2009 and subject the central causal mechanism to a battery of statistical tests the results of these tests provide strong support for this argument