the inflation tax in a real business cycle model money is incorporated into a real business cycle model using a cash in advance constraint the model economy is used to analyze whether the business cycle is different in high inflation and low inflation economies and to analyze the impact of variability in the growth rate of money in addition the welfare cost of the inflation tax is measured and the steady state properties of high and low inflation economies are compared

monetary policy in a dual currency environment we develop a small open economy general equilibrium model with sticky prices and partial dollarization a situation where both domestic and foreign currencies coexist we derive a tractable representation of the model in terms of domestic inflation and the output gap in which a trade off which depends on the degree of dollarization arises endogenously due to the presence of foreign interest rate shocks we use this framework to show analytically how higher degrees of dollarization induce larger volatilities of the output gap and inflation thus hampering a central bank s effectiveness to stabilize the economy our impulse response functions show that the transmission of such shocks has a positive negative effect on inflation and negative positive effect on the output gap when money aggregates and consumption are complements substitutes

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

market barriers to energy efficiency abstract discussions of energy policy in an environmentally constrained world often focus on the use of tax instruments to internalize the external effects of energy utilization or achieve specified reductions in energy use in the most cost effective manner a substantial literature suggests however that significant opportunities exist to reduce energy utilization by implementing technologies that are cost effective under prevailing economic conditions but that are not fully implemented by existing market institutions this paper examines the theory of the market for energy using equipment showing that problems of imperfect information and transaction costs may bias rational consumers to purchase devices that use more energy than those that would be selected by a well informed social planner guided by the criterion of economic efficiency consumers must base their purchase decisions on observed prices and expectations of post purchase equipment performance if it is difficult or costly for individuals to form accurate and precise expectations the level of energy efficiency achieved by competitive markets will vary from the socially efficient outcome such market barriers suggest a role for regulatory intervention to improve market performance at prevailing energy prices

global warming and energy demand list of tables list of figures list of contributors preface 1 global warming and energy elasticities terry barker paul ekins and nick johnstonepart 1 estimating long term energy elasticities 2 alternative approaches to estimating long run energy demand elasticities an application to asian developing countries ron smith and m hashem pesaran 3 a survey of international energy elasticities neil manning and jago atkinson 4 long run demand elasticities for gasoline thomas sterner and mikael franzen 5 responses of energy demand in uk manufacturing to the energy price increases of 1973 and 1979 80 alan ingham 6 elasticities for oecd aggregate final energy demand lakis vouyoukas 7 modelling uk energy demand derek hodgson and keith millerpart ii energy the economy and greenhouse gas abatement 8 endogenous technological progress in fossil fuel demand laurence boone stephen hall david kemball cook and clare smith 9 uk energy price elasticities and their implications for long term co2 abatement terry barker 10 price elasticity and market structure overcoming obstacles to ensure energy efficiency tim jackson 11 rethinking the use of energy elasticities stefan p schleicher 12 revisiting the costs of co2 abatement paul ekins 13 asymmetrical price elasticities of energy demand michael grubb14 conclusions terry barker paul ekins and nick johnstone bibliography index

the imperfect price reversibility of non transport oil demand in the oecd abstract this paper examines the price reversibility of oecd non transport oil demand and its components residual heavy fuel oil non transport distillates and other non transport oil products our purpose is to determine the extent to which the reductions in demand following the oil price increases of the 1970s have been and will be reversed by the price cuts of the 1980s the analysis is based on an econometric model which utilizes price decomposition methods to measure separately the effects of price increases and price decreases these methods allow empirical testing of irreversibility and hysteresis and should be applicable in other areas of economics where asymmetry of response or persistence of effect are evident based on the statistical evidence we reject the conventional specification of demand being perfectly price reversible we conclude that the response to the price cuts of the 1980s has been significantly smaller than to the price increases of the 1970s demand has followed a ratchet process price increases reduced demand substantially when demanders conserved and switched away from oil but price cuts did not reverse this process completely if at all this has important implications for projections of oil demand especially under low price assumptions the oecd s dependency on oil will not increase as much as some analysts may have feared there is however another aspect of imperfect price reversibility the possibilities of adjusting to future price rises may not be as great as they have been in the past the easiest and least costly demand savings have already been made and oil has been replaced by other energy sources in many uses what s done is done

the impact of improved mileage on gasoline consumption a simple two equation model is presented of the short run derived demand for gasoline that incorporates both the effect of price and income on attained fuel efficiency and at the same time the effect of price income and attained fuel efficiency on miles traveled the results of this effort have provided 1 further evidence regarding the price and income elasticities of gasoline demand and more importantly 2 the first reported estimate of the short run mileage elasticity of gasoline demand these findings are important in determining appropriate and effective policies for reducing gasoline consumption in that they influence the relative effectiveness of such policies as excise taxes versus fuel efficiency standards 9 references 3 tables

capital market imperfections and the theory of optimum currency areas this paper studies how within and cross country capital market imperfections affect the welfare effects of forming a currency union the analysis considers a bank only world where intermediaries compete in cournot fashion and monitoring and state verification are costly the first part determines the credit market equilibrium and the optimal number of banks prior to joining the union the second part discusses the benefits from joining a currency union a competition effect is identified and related to the added monitoring costs that banks may incur when operating outside their home country through an argument akin to the brander krugman reciprocal dumping model of bilateral trade however in our framework whether joining a union raises welfare of the home country is ambiguous it depends on the relative strength of investment creation and intermediation diversion effects

liquidity effects monetary policy and the business cycle this paper presents a flexible price quantitative general equilibrium model with the property that a positive money supply shock drives the nominal interest rate down and aggregate employment output and the real wage up these implications are broadly consistent with postwar u s data the two key features of the model that are responsible for its properties are 1 money shocks have a heterogeneous impact on agents and 2 ex post inflexibilities in production give rise to a very low short run interest elasticity of money demand in our model the extent of the drop in the interest rate after a positive money supply shock depends on the degree to which production is ex post inflexible given sufficient ex post inflexibility the model conforms well with the view widely held within the u s federal system that the short run interest rate elasticity for total reserves is very close to zero copyright 1995 by ohio state university press

gasoline demand revisited an international meta analysis of elasticities meta analysis is used to determine if there are factors that systematically affect price and income elasticity estimates in studies of gasoline demand four econometric models are estimated using long run and short run price and income elasticity estimates from previous studies as the dependent variables explanatory variables include functional form lag structure time span national setting estimation technique and other features of the model structure elasticity estimates are found to be sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of some measure of vehicle ownership static models appear to overestimate short run elasticities underestimate long run price elasticities but pick up the full long run income responsiveness there is variation in the elasticity of demand across countries especially in the short run and gasoline demand appears to be getting more price elastic and less income elastic over time

a barrier option framework for corporate security valuation abstract this paper proposes a framework for corporate security valuation based on path dependent barrier option models instead of the commonly used path independent approach we argue that path dependency is an intrinsic and fundamental characteristic of corporate securities because equity can be knocked out whenever a legally binding barrier is breached a direct implication of this framework is that equity will be priced as a down and out call option we provide empirical validation of the barrier model by showing that implied barriers are statistically and economically significant for a large cross section of industrial firms additional robustness tests confirm that barriers remain significant over a wide range of input variable estimates and finally we apply the barrier option framework to bankruptcy prediction and find that implied failure probabilities dominate z scores in most cases

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

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

the linkage between life insurer spread behaviour and credit swap transaction policyholder protection analysis the paper develops a contingent claim model to evaluate the equity of a life insurer when the insurer could act as a protection buyer or a protection seller in a credit swap transaction market the

living up to expectations estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for uk households this study estimates the combined direct and indirect rebound effects from various types of energy efficiency improvement by uk households in contrast to most studies of this topic we base our estimates on cross price elasticities and therefore capture both the income and substitution effects of energy efficiency improvements our approach involves estimating a household demand model to obtain price and expenditure elasticities of different goods and services utilising a multiregional input output model to estimate the ghg emission intensities of those goods and services combining the two to estimate direct and indirect rebound effects and decomposing those effects to reveal the relative contribution of different mechanisms and commodities we estimate that the total rebound effects are 41 for measures that improve the efficiency of domestic gas use 48 for electricity use and 78 for vehicle fuel use the primary source of this rebound is increased consumption of the cheaper energy service i e direct rebound and this is primarily driven by substitution effects our results suggest that the neglect of substitution effects may have led prior research to underestimate the total rebound effect however we provide a number of caveats to this conclusion as well as indicating priorities for future research

self selection bias in the evaluation of voluntary energy conservation programs while voluntary energy conservation programs have been extensively promoted by electric utilities and public utility commissions their effectiveness has been insufficiently critiqued this paper contributes to the growing evaluation of such programs by measuring the net energy savings directly attributable to an actual set of programs the analysis explicitly corrects for the self selection bias that can arise in program evaluation the correction is found to be important traditional evaluation methods are subject to considerable bias correcting for this bias the amount of program induced energy savings is found to be considerably less than traditionally believed copyright 1988 by mit press

energy consumption for space heating a discrete continuous approach energy demand for space heating is estimated using a discrete continuous choice model which focuses on the relationship between the choice of heating equipment and energy consumption the model is estimated on norwegian micro data and the two stages of the model are estimated simultaneously the capital cost and the operating cost of the heating systems are both found to have a significant impact on the choice of heating system furthermore the results show that household characteristics are important variables in residential energy models energy price elasticities and income elasticities are also estimated

does the secondary life insurance market threaten dynamic insurance there is a vast theoretical literature on dynamic contracts which has received very little empirical attention exceptions are pierre andr chiappori bernard salanie and julie valentin 1999 and hendel and lizzeri 2003 this paper describes how a recent development in the life insurance market further illustrates the usefulness and power of the dynamic risk sharing learning model originally proposed by milton harris and bengt holmstr m 1982 life settlements are a recent innovation in the life insurance markets secondary markets for life insurance policies started in large scale in the late 1980s in response to the aids epi demic terminally ill policyholders exchanged their coverage for liquidity provided by a third party a viatical firm in the late 1990s a mar ket for nonterminal settlements emerged creat ing a secondary market for long term policies a policy holder with a life expectancy not exceed ing 15 years can sell the policy to intermediaries who continue to pay the premiums in exchange for becoming the beneficiaries 1 although esti mates differ the amount of settled insurance has been growing rapidly from approximately 2 billion in face amounts in 2002 to a recent estimate by conning research and consulting 2007 suggesting settlements as high as 6 1 billion in 2006 settlements generate a health contingent liquidation value for life insurance policies this is an innovation in life insurance term policies typically offer no liquidation value and cash value policies offer surrender values that are independent of health status they reflect average mortality in the pool the gap between surrender values and actuarial value of existing policies which can be quite large is the target of the settlement industry 2 currently the settle ment industry targets the stock of long standing policies that were issued before the emergence of this market life insurance companies are now beginning however to react by modifying contracts

liquidity loanable funds and real activity abstract this paper develops a general equilibrium model of two traditional explanations of the monetary black box linking money and real activity the liquidity effect and the loanable funds effect these effects are modeled with a monetary production economy in which central bank injections of cash are funnelled into the economy through the credit market since only borrowers have direct access to the newly injected cash monetary injections cause nominal interest rates to fall if firms are borrowers then monetary injections also increase current and future real activity

household adjustment to gasoline price change an analysis using 9 years of us survey data this paper examines the dynamics and composition of household adjustment to changes in the real price of gasoline using a panel of us households by decomposing the demand for gasoline into the demand for vehicle miles traveled and the demand for household composite miles per gallon we are able to add rich detail to the description of how households respond to gasoline price changes while obtaining total price elasticity estimates well within the range found in the literature we find that consumers initially respond to a price rise with a much larger decrease in consumption than would be indicated by the total elasticity in addition households respond to price changes by adjusting vehicle miles traveled more than composite miles per gallon in the year after a price change

a neoclassical model of the phillips curve relation this paper integrates the modern theory of unemployment with a limited participation model of money and asks whether such a framework can produce correlations like those associated with the phillips curve as well as realistic labor market dynamics the model incorporates both monetary and real shocks the response of the economy to monetary policy shocks is consistent with recent evidence about the impact of these shocks on the economy

bank capital regulation in a barrier option framework abstract the barrier options theory of corporate security valuation is applied to the contingent claims of a regulated bank the regulator insurer of a bank owns a down and in call option on the bank assets which can be balanced against the expected coverage cost raising the regulatory barrier critical asset level triggering bank closure leads to a transfer of wealth from stockholders to the insurer and reduces stockholder incentives to increase asset risk empirical tests on a sample of 152 one bank holding companies show that regulatory barriers are priced in the stock market and are inversely related to tier 1 leverage ratios

technological efficiency and the demand for energy road transport this paper reconsiders how far fuel efficiency induced by technological progress and presumably by high energy prices affects energy demand this investigation is motivated by one of the most important phenomenon of recent energy demand developments apparent asymmetry with respect to energy prices

renewable energy sources their global potential for the first half of the 21st century at a global level an integrated approach abstract the risk of human induced climate change and the volatility of world oil markets make non fossil fuel options important this paper investigates the potential for wind solar pv and biomass wsb to deliver energy the focus is on land opportunities and constraints and on production costs as a function of resource availability and depletion and of innovation dynamics the context is provided by the ipcc sres scenarios as simulated with the image 2 2 model we explicitly consider several sources of uncertainty aspects of the food vs energy trade off and the effects of interaction between the three options through their claims on land we show that potential production concepts are strongly dependent on the chosen land use scenario and should therefore be used with an indication of the underlying assumptions our results indicate a potential for liquid biofuels in the order of 75 300 ej year 1 and for electricity from wsb options at production costs below 10 kwh 1 of 200 300 pwh year 1 theoretically future electricity demand can be amply met from wsb sources in most regions by 2050 below 10 kwh 1 but major uncertainties are the degree to which land is actually available and the rate and extent at which specific investment costs can be reduced in some regions competition for land among the three wsb options may significantly reduce the total potential as estimated from simple addition which is another source of uncertainty

solar energy markets economics and policies abstract solar energy has experienced phenomenal growth in recent years due to both technological improvements resulting in cost reductions and government policies supportive of renewable energy development and utilization this study analyzes the technical economic and policy aspects of solar energy development and deployment while the cost of solar energy has declined rapidly in the recent past it still remains much higher than the cost of conventional energy technologies like other renewable energy technologies solar energy benefits from fiscal and regulatory incentives including tax credits and exemptions feed in tariff preferential interest rates renewable portfolio standards and voluntary green power programs in many countries the emerging carbon credit markets are expected to provide additional incentives to solar energy deployment however the scale of incentives provided by the existing carbon market instruments such as the clean development mechanism of the kyoto protocol is limited despite the huge technical potential the development and large scale deployment of solar energy technologies world wide still has to overcome a number of technical financial regulatory and institutional barriers the continuation of policy supports might be necessary for several decades to maintain and enhance the growth of solar energy in both developed and developing countries

consumer attitudes towards domestic solar power systems the success of the uk policy to reduce carbon emissions is partly dependent on the ability to persuade householders to become more energy efficient and to encourage installation of domestic solar systems solar power is an innovation in the uk but the current policy of stimulating the market with grants is not resulting in widespread adoption this case study using householders in central england investigates householder attitudes towards characteristics of solar systems and identifies some of the barriers to adoption the study utilises diffusion of innovations theory to identify attitudes towards system attributes and isolates the characteristics that are preventing a pragmatic early majority from adopting the technology a group of early adopters and a group of assumed early majority adopters of solar power were surveyed and the results show that overall although the early majority demonstrate a positive perception of the environmental characteristics of solar power its financial economic and aesthetic characteristics are limiting adoption differences exist between the two groups showing support for the concept of a chasm between adopter categories after moore crossing the chasm marketing and selling high tech products to mainstream customers second ed harper perennial new york however if consumers cannot identify the relative advantage of solar power over their current sources of power which is supplied readily and cheaply through a mains system it is unlikely that adoption will follow recommendations concerning the marketing and development of solar products are identified

durable goods and residential demand for energy and water evidence from a field trial this article describes a household production model in which energy efficient durable goods cost less to operate so households may use them more the model is estimated using household level data from a field trial in which participants received high efficiency clothes washers free of charge the estimation strategy exploits this quasi random replacement of washers to derive precise estimates of the household production technology and a demand function for clothes washing during the field trial households increased clothes washing on average by 5 6 after receiving a high efficiency washer implying a price elasticity of 06 the complete model is used to evaluate the cost effectiveness of recent changes in minimum efficiency standards for clothes washers

exploring the consumer decision process in the adoption of solar energy systems this study examines residential solar energy systems within an adoption and diffusion of innovations framework the findings indicate considerable differences between adopters and nonadopters on many measures multivariate nominal scale analysis is used to develop classification models based on both attribute perceptions of solar energy systems and demographic characteristics

residential energy efficient technology adoption energy conservation knowledge and attitudes an analysis of european countries abstract relationships between measures of household energy use behavior and household characteristics are estimated using a unique dataset of approximately 5000 households in 10 eu countries and norway family age composition patterns are found to have a distinct impact on household energy use behavior households with young children are more likely to adopt energy efficient technologies and energy conservation practices and place primary importance on energy savings for environmental reasons by contrast households with a high share of elderly members place more importance on financial savings and have lower levels of technology adoption energy conservation practice use and knowledge about household energy use education levels also matter with higher levels associated with energy efficient technology adoption and energy conservation practice use similarly university education increases the stated importance of energy savings for greenhouse gas reductions and decreases the stated importance for financial reasons education impacts also vary greatly across survey countries and there is some evidence of an eastern western european divide with respect to attitudes towards energy savings these cross country differences highlight the need to balance a common eu energy efficiency policy framework with flexibility for country specific policies to address unique constraints to energy efficient technology and conservation practice adoption

consistent multi level energy efficiency indicators and their policy implications in order to cope with the global warming issue most of the asia pacific economic cooperation apec economies have made energy conservation policy a top priority in terms of their energy policies the energy efficiency indicators included in the present paper focus on the micro foundation aspects there are basically two types of energy efficiency indicators namely the economic thermodynamic energy efficiency indicators that use real gdp as the denominator and the physical thermodynamic energy efficiency indicators that are based on the output volume index while the common definitions and consistent methodology used in the present paper fulfill the iea pyramid eei concept the new methodology in this paper compares the decomposition effects between upstream and downstream industries when aggregating efficiency changes these decomposition effects can thereby provide valuable explanations for the energy conservation policy needed by energy policy and government administrators

the rebound effect some empirical evidence from india abstract the present paper looks at the effect of technical efficiency gains on energy use in three sectors in india at varying levels of aggregation high positive rebound implies that efficient technology unless supplemented by appropriate pricing policy will not be successful in containing demand however the main purpose of the paper is to focus on the unique mechanism of rebound that may occur in developing countries with unmet demand

the costs of losing monetary independence the case of mexico this paper develops a two country monetary model calibrated to data from the united states and mexico to address the question of whether dollarization is welfare improving for the two countries our findings suggest that dollarization is not necessarily pareto superior to monetary independence for mexico there are two persuasive arguments that are often put foleth in support of the idea that many countries would benefit from the adoption of the u s dollar as their national cultency one is the standard argument often made in favor of a common currency that it promotes economic and financial integration and reduces tleansaction costs the other argument is that dollarization would solve the credibility and commitment problem and impose monetary discipline the idea is that many countries particularly in latin america have long histories of high inflation and a record of breaking promises to pursue monetary policies that lead to low inflation taking monetary policy out of the hands of domestic central banks is one way to addleess this issue thus one of the conjectured benefits of adopting the u s dollar hinges on the prospect that this would eliminate an inflationary bias among the participating countries these benefits have to be balanced against the costs associated with the loss of monetary independence that eithele dollarization or a cultency area necessarily implies this loss of monetary independence means that the country can no longer use the instruments of monetary policy to adjust to internal or external shocks these considerations suggest two main questions that should be addressed in thinking about the proposal to adopt the u s dollar in mexico first is the higher inflation rate in mexico necessarily the result of the lack of monetaley discipline ole it can be justified by some principle of optimality in the conduct of monetary policy second is the welfare loss from not being able to use monetary policy to react optimally to shocks quantitatively important

investigating the real situation of greek solar water heating market solar thermal applications have been acknowledged among the leading alternative solutions endeavouring to face the uncontrollable oil price variations the gradual depletion of fossil fuel reserves and the chain environmental consequences caused by its excessive usage almost 30 years after the initial emergence of the commercial domestic solar water heating system dswhs in the european market the corresponding technology is qualified as quite mature on top of this the european commission expects that 100 000 000 m2 of solar collectors are to be installed in europe by the year 2010 to facilitate durable and environment friendly heat in this context the greek dswhss market is highly developed worldwide having a great experience in this major energy market segment the present study is devoted to an extensive evaluation of the local dswhss market including a discerning analysis of its time variation taking seriously into account the corresponding annual replacement rate accordingly the crucial techno economic reasons limiting the dswhss penetration in the local heat production market are summarized and elaborated subsequently the national policy measures aiming to support the dswhss in the course of time are cited in comparison with those applied in other european countries next the financial attractiveness of a dswhs for greek citizens is examined in the local socio economic environment the present work is integrated by reciting the prospects and mustering certain proposals that if applied could stimulate the local market as a general comment the outlook for penetration of new dswhss in the local market is rather grim as the current techno economic situation of solar heat cannot compete with oil and natural gas heat production unless the remarkable social and environmental benefits of solar energy are seriously considered hence the greek state lacks stimulus to further dswhss installations being strongly in support of the imported natural gas as a result the future of domestic solar thermal market and the survival possibilities of the local manufacturers are at stake

assessing the impact of solar pv on domestic electricity consumption exploring the prospect of rebound effects abstract this study examines patterns of electricity use by households in sydney who have installed solar photovoltaic pv technology compared to those who have not in order to assess the impact of government solar incentive schemes and to identify whether conservation or rebound increased consumption effects are associated with rooftop pv findings have significance in determining whether a rebound effect needs to be factored into projected energy carbon savings from solar pv installation at issue is the robustness of carbon mitigation estimates included in future rounds of international climate change agreements as well as local forecasts of future electricity demand affecting the national grid analysis and modelling was undertaken on billing data for the period 2007 2014 on a representative sample of 4819 households the sample comprised three groups households who were early adopters and installed pv under a 60 c kwh gross feed in tariff scheme a group who installed under a 20 c kwh gross feed in scheme and a control group with no pv econometric modelling undertaken on energy consumption behaviour of households with versus without local renewable energy generation revealed that on a kwh basis the rebound effect is estimated to erode up to one fifth of the carbon benefit of renewable energy generated by solar pv

a time use perspective on the materials intensity of consumption abstract the ecological requirements to drastically increase the productivity of materials use call for improvements in the efficiency of consumption this eco efficiency discussion often takes a functional view on consumption noting that present consumption is inefficient and that it is not the products that the consumers want but the services that the products yield however contemporary consumption serves many needs that are not functional and universal but subjective and obscured from the producers this paper develops a time use approach towards consumption which makes allowance for the subjectivity of needs while still enabling the analysts to approach the concept of a sustainable lifestyle a distinctive premise of the analysis is that it assumes time and money not to be interchangeable and consumption to be limited by available consumption time instead of purchasing power this approach is demonstrated by linking the direct and the indirect energy use of finnish two person households to the data of a national time use survey the results are used to point out some of the potential time use rebound effects of such new eco efficient services that transfer activities from private households to the market actors

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

goal setting and self control abstract this paper addresses the role of non binding goals to attenuate time inconsistency present biased agents have linear reference dependent preferences and endogenously set a goal that is the reference point they face an infinite horizon optimal stopping problem in continuous time when there is sufficient commitment to expectation based goals goal setting attenuates the present biased agent s tendency to stop too early and may even lead an agent to wait longer than the first best in particular reference dependence is strictly worse for a time consistent agent notably none of the effects of goal setting require loss aversion

distributional effects of alternative vehicle pollution control policies abstract previous work shows that policies that subsidize new vehicles and tax size miles or gasoline efficiently reduce pollution less is known about their distributional effects this paper examines distributional effects by estimating the joint demand for vehicles and miles using the consumer expenditure survey greater price responsiveness among low income households enhances progressivity of gas or miles taxes across lower incomes and mitigates regressivity across upper incomes taxes on engine size or subsidies to new vehicles are significantly more regressive than gas or miles taxes