double dividend effectiveness of energy tax policies and the elasticity of substitution a cge appraisal there is a considerable body of literature that has studied whether or not an adequately designed tax swap whereby an ecotax is levied and some other tax is reduced while keeping government income constant may achieve a so called double dividend that is an increase in environmental quality and an increase in overall efficiency arguments in favor and against are abundant our position is that the issue should be empirically studied starting from an actual non optimal tax system structure and by way of checking the responsiveness of equilibria to revenue neutral tax regimes under alternate scenarios regarding technological substitution with the use of a cge model we find that the most critical elasticity for achieving a double dividend is the substitution elasticity between labor and capital whereas the elasticity that would generate the highest reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is the substitution elasticity among energy goods

the state and strategies of international adjustment all states are continuously in the process of adjusting to change in the political economy of international and national systems problems inherent in this adjustment process are a basic source of national behavior and international conflict the heuristic model presented in this paper provides systematic explanations for the strategic choices that states make in the adjustment process through the specification of the range of strategic options and of the formal interests of states new insights are gained concerning the articulation between national and international political economy empirical cases are drawn from the politics of energy adjustment in the 1970s

employment factors for wind and solar energy technologies a literature review abstract in this paper we present an up to date literature review on employment opportunities associated with the deployment of renewable energy technology we identified approximately 70 studies and data sources published over the past decade that report analysed or observed employment impacts of renewable energy growth these publications cover many different countries and several technology options and present widely varying results derived from distinct methodological approaches our first overall conclusion is that there is clear lack of authenticity of findings in this literature since recursive referencing abounds and relatively few studies yield truly original research when we omit non authentic analyses as well as those that aggregate results in a way that does not allow us to calculate employment factors defined as the number of jobs or amount of work generated per unit of electricity production capacity the total list of references is brought to 31 independent items of these only 14 references provide separate estimates of the employment factors for the stages of manufacturing and installation respectively as opposed to employment factors for these two activities combined a total of 23 items provide values for operation and maintenance o m employment factors we observe significant uncertainties in quoted figures for job creation both across and within publications

are green hopes too rosy employment and welfare impacts of renewable energy promotion in view of pressing unemployment problems policy makers across all parties jump on the prospects of renewable energy promotion as a job creation engine which can boost economic well being our analytical model shows that initial labor market rigidities in theory provide some scope for such a double dividend however the practical outcome of renewable energy promotion might be sobering our computable general equilibrium analysis of subsidized electricity production from renewable energy sources res e in germany suggests that the prospects for employment and welfare gains are quite limited and hinge crucially on the level of the subsidy rate and the financing mechanism if res e subsidies are financed by labor taxes welfare and employment effects are strictly negative for a broad range of subsidy rates the use of an electricity tax to fund res e subsidies generates minor benefits for small subsidy rates but these benefits quickly turn into significant losses as the subsidy rate exceeds some threshold value

the price of wealth business and state in labor remittance and oil economies this article contrasts the effects of state controlled oil revenues and privately controlled labor remittances on institutional development state capacity and businessgovernment relations in saudi arabia and the yemen arab republic these two countries represent extreme cases of dependence on external capital in deeply divided societies presided over by fragile emerging bureaucracies by tracing the two cases through a pattern of economic boom 1973 83 and recession 1983 87 the study demonstrates that the type volume and control of capital inflows decisively influence the relative development of the bureaucracy s extractive distributive and regulatory capacities and affect the ability of the state to respond to economic crisis in both cases external capital inflows precipitated the decline of extractive institutions however oil revenues and labor remittances had divergent effects on businessgovernment relations and this circumscribed the state s ability to implement austerity programs during the recession during the crisis the saudi government s efforts to cut subsidies to the private sector and to implement extractive policies were blocked by the state sponsored merchant class in contrast the yemeni government instituted a thoroughgoing austerity package that targeted the independent merchant class in both cases external capital inflows did not augment the efficacy of those that controlled them these paradoxical outcomes are explained by tracing the different effects of oil revenues and labor remittances on the distribution of economic opportunity in the public and private sectors and the resulting effects on the regional tribal and sectarian composition of the bureaucracy and the commercial class

the economic impact of the trans pacific partnership what have we learned from cge simulation the trans pacific partnership tpp trade agreement if were it to be successfully implemented would be one of the largest regional agreements ever seen it is the only exemplar to date of a mega regional fta for which negotiations have been successfully concluded and a landmark in evolving approaches to asia pacific integration as such quantitative assessments of its potential effects are of considerable interest one of the most widely used techniques for evaluating the economic impact of regional trading agreements is numerical simulation with computable general equilibrium or cge models there have now been a large number of papers written that use cge methods to analyse the potential economic impact of the tpp agreement under varying theoretical and policy assumptions in this paper we provide a synthesis of the key results that have emerged from the literature and introduce some new simulation results of our own to anchor the discussion

china and the trans pacific partnership a numerical simulation assessment of the effects involved the trans pacific partnership tpp is a new negotiation on cross border liberalisation of goods and service flows going beyond wto disciplines and focused on issues such as regulation and border controls this paper uses numerical simulation methods to assess the potential effects of a tpp agreement on china and also china s inclusion or exclusion on other countries we use a numerical 11 country global general equilibrium model with trade costs and inside money trade costs are calculated using a method based on gravity equations tpp barriers potentially removable are trade costs less tariffs simulation results reveal that china will be slightly hurt by tpp initiatives in welfare when china is out but the total production and export will be increased other non tpp countries will be mostly hurt in welfare but member countries will mostly gain if china takes part in tpp she will significantly gain and increase other tpp countries gain as well the comparison of tpp effects and global free trade effects show that the positive effects of global free trade are stronger than tpp effects japan s joining tpp would be beneficial to both herself and most of other tpp countries but which negative effects on china s welfare when out of tpp will increase further

the impact of clean energy investments on the greek economy an input output analysis 2010 2020 the aim of this paper is twofold first to calculate the green energy investments by industrial sector that greece would need in order to satisfy a number of energy and environmental targets adopted in the context of the european commission s energy and climate change package and second to calculate the macro economic impacts of these green investments on production and employment in the greek economy to this end the input output analysis has been exploited for estimating the direct indirect and induced macroeconomic effects associated with the implementation of selected energy conservation measures the promotion of renewable energy technologies etc our findings show that the required investments would reach the amount of 47 9 billion over the period 2010 2020 these investments will result in an average annual increase of the national product by 9 4 billion creating simultaneously 108 000 full time equivalent jobs for the entire period under consideration the employment generated per 1 million investment is relatively higher in energy saving projects in buildings and transport in comparison with the development of res in power generation sector

the demand for international regimes international regimes can be understood as results of rational behavior by the actors principally states that create them regimes are demanded in part because they facilitate the making of agreements by providing information and reducing transactions costs in world politics increased interdependence among issues greater issue density will lead to increased demand for regimes insofar as regimes succeed in providing high quality information through such processes as the construction of generally accepted norms or the development of transgovernmental relations they create demand for their own continuance even if the structural conditions such as hegemony under which they were first supplied change analysis of the demand for international regimes thus helps us to understand lags between structural change and regime change as well as to assess the significance of transgovernmental policy networks several assertions of structural theory seem problematic in light of this analysis hegemony may not be a necessary condition for stable international regimes past patterns of institutionalized cooperation may be able to compensate to some extent for increasing fragmentation of power

cutting across doctrines positive adjustment in japan japan s economy keeps changing too fast its economic policies are too active and independent and its domestic structures seemingly deviate too much from western patterns to conform to theories that rely on general equilibrium in mature economies static economics including recent monetarist supply side and rational expectations models some aspects of dynamic and development economics and most of the neoliberal current in international relations theory are seriously challenged on the other hand the mercantilist paradigm theories focusing on the role of the state and analyses exclusively adopting the subsystemic level of international relations theory have substantial problems with the ample evidence of adaptation to external factors the dynamism and schumpeterian qualities of japanese private enterprises and the far reaching liberalization of japan s foreign exchange and foreign trade control regime as the only oecd member to have pursued anticipatory adjustment on the macrolevel and as the obvious model for the oecd category of positive adjustment japan presents a case of universal relevance it suggests propositions linking targets and instruments of quantitative and qualitative policies as well as processes of internalization of global factors and externalization of domestic factors it provides material for revising extending and integrating international relations theory and the theory of economic policy

the impact of doe building technology energy efficiency programs on u s employment income and investment abstract the u s department of energy s office of energy efficiency and renewable energy eere analyzes the macroeconomic impacts of its programs that are designed to increase the energy efficiency of the u s residential and commercial building stock the analysis is conducted using the impact of sector energy technologies imset model a special purpose 188 sector input output model of the u s economy designed specifically to evaluate the impacts of energy efficiency investments and saving for the analysis described in the paper imset was amended to provide estimates of sector by sector capital requirements and investment in the scenario of the fiscal year fy 2005 building technologies bt program the technologies and building practices being developed and promoted by the bt program have the potential to save about 2 9 10 15 btu in buildings by the year 2030 about 27 of the expected growth in building energy consumption by the year 2030 the analysis reported in the paper finds that by the year 2030 these savings have the potential to increase employment by up to 446 000 jobs increase wage income by 7 8 billion reduce needs for capital stock in the energy sector and closely related supporting industries by about 207 billion and the corresponding annual level of investment by 13 billion and create net capital savings that are available to grow the nation s future economy

the expansion of renewable energies and employment effects in germany the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy is a high priority of the european union as well of its member states the german government wants to increase the share of renewable energies from about 5 to 12 by 2010 to attain this goal the german government has introduced compulsory compensation schemes for electricity produced from renewable energy fed into the public grid this paper examines the economic impact of this policy employing an econometric model particular emphasis was given to employment effects in general we distinguish two effects 1 an expansive effect resulting from additional investments and 2 a contractive effect resulting from an increase in the production cost of power the first effect will dominate during the first years and lead to an increase in employment of approximately 33 000 new jobs however the contractive effect will offset these gains and lead to a slightly negative employment balance by 2010

how shifting investment towards low carbon sectors impacts employment three determinants under scrutiny abstract the threat of climate change requires redirecting investment towards low carbon sectors and this shift generates heated debates about its impact on employment many studies exist most of which use cge or input output io models however the economic mechanisms at play remain unclear this paper disentangles the channels of job creation and studies to what extent the results of simpler io models diverge from cge results using stylized models we show that a shift in investment creates jobs in io if it promotes sectors with a higher share of labour in value added lower wages or a lower import rate in cge the first two channels also yield job creation but there is no positive impact of targeting low imports sectors unless these do not export then we undertake a numerical analysis of two policies the installation of solar panels and weatherization in france both policies have a positive effect on employment in both models due to the high share of labour and low wages in these sectors io results provide a good approximation of cge results for solar 14 to 34 and are slightly higher for weatherization 22 to 87 our findings challenge the idea that renewables boost employment by reducing imports but they also suggest that a double dividend can be achieved by encouraging low carbon labour intensive sectors

renewable energy and employment in germany abstract the positive impacts of an increasing share of renewable energy on the mitigation of climate change as well as on the decrease of the dependency of energy imports are indisputable however one persistent problem for the german economy has been its high level of unemployment in the recent past therefore any policy strategy will be measured also by its net impact on the labor market the paper describes the results of a study that models this impact and is novel within three respects firstly an input output vector for the renewable energy sector was developed based on the results of more than 1000 interviews with an extensive questionnaire secondly gross and net effect of two different policy scenarios for germany until 2030 were calculated and thirdly the approach varies from earlier studies by its explicit modeling of export and foreign trade effects

strategic competition in the asian mega regionalism and optimal choices the strategic interactions of mega regional blocs such as the trans pacific partnership tpp the regional comprehensive economic partnership and even the one belt and one road obor in the asia pacific reflects the dual purposes of large countries as they seek not only the welfare gains from trade liberalisation but also the leadership in a trading bloc or the right to set the rules this paper designs two sequential network formation games a leadership game and a trade liberalisation game to model this phenomenon and predict the equilibrium result in the first game we show how the incorporation of leadership affects the choices among different trading structures specifically we show that the parallel trading blocs emerge as the equilibrium outcome only when there exists large loss from giving up leadership in the second game we describe how the globalisation is arrived and conduct numerical simulations to test our theoretical results the predictions of the game are supported by the real world data based on simulation results

how flexible are wages in response to local unemployment in south africa it is commonly claimed that the south african labor market is unusually inflexible owing to the strength of the country s unions and the system of centralized collective bargaining one sign of labor market inflexibility is low responsiveness of wages to local unemployment analyzing data from the south african living standards survey the authors find that the elasticity of wages with respect to local unemployment rates in south africa in 1993 was about 0 1 the similarity of this elasticity to that found in other countries including the united states and the united kingdom is surprising given south africa s national unemployment rate of over 30 the wage curve elasticity persists over a much wider range of unemployment rates in south africa than in oecd countries implying that unemployment in south africa can have a large impact on wages

china and trans pacific partnership agreement countries estimation of the virtual water trade of agricultural products abstract the trans pacific partnership agreement tppa is one of the most important multilateral free trade and investment agreements in recent years although as a major economic power in the asia pacific region china has yet to join the tppa existing research on china and tppa countries has mainly been conducted from political and economic perspectives this paper first reports the relationship between china and tppa countries from the perspective of virtual water trade of agricultural products and completes a diachronic analysis from 2001 to 2014 the results indicate that china was in virtual water trade surplus with tppa countries for agricultural products and that the surplus had an expansion trend the exported virtual water totalled 7 47 billion m 3 y whereas 63 45 billion m 3 y was embedded in imported products malaysia was the biggest virtual water surplus partner of china and japan was the biggest virtual water deficit partner additionally the proportion of the grey water footprint of agricultural products that china exported to tppa countries was about five times higher than that imported from tppa countries it reflected the difference of agricultural science and technology moreover the products structure of china s virtual water trade was not reasonable and was excessively focused on several products finally with respect to environmental and water allocation ethics tppa countries were classified into four types in terms of net import and water abundance mutual benefit countries australia canada new zealand the united states malaysia and chile unilateral benefit countries peru and brunei supported countries japan and singapore and double pressure countries mexico and vietnam with respect to the virtual water trade of agricultural products there is a close relationship between china and tppa countries the virtual water trade promotes the sustainability of water resources and the findings are conducive to the adjustment of trade structure to achieve optimal state of ecology economy and politics

how do the trans pacific economies affect the usa an industrial sector approach this paper studies how the trans pacific region affects the us economy in terms of business cycle transmission we use a large data set consisting of disaggregated sectoral industrial production indexes from selected countries in the region and employ a factor augmented vector autoregression favar approach to analyse the transmission of shocks in different industries we find that a positive output shock in the entire trans pacific region has positive effects on the majority of us manufacturing sectors we also find that sectoral shocks in five sectors of the trans pacific region have a large impact on the overall us economy three of the five sectors displayed strong same sector responses relative to the overall response suggesting that vertical production linkages might play a key role in the transmission of shocks our results highlight the importance of examining industrial sectors in studying the transmission of shocks in the trans pacific region

from competition to collaboration the challenge of commercial class aircraft manufacturing sectoral analyses reveal an emerging tension between a global market and an anarchic political system and oblige scholars to examine the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between states and markets this analysis of commercial class aircraft manufacturing a strategic industry demonstrates how corporate behavior affects political choices and vice versa it suggests that corporate and political policymaking is a messy process first policymakers must respond to multiple and often conflicting demands from both domestic and international constituencies second they are influenced by a number of variables including ideology interest group activity consequences of previous policies perceptions about their state s position in the international system and available knowledge about how to realize specific goals sets of competing variables which act as centripetal and centrifugal forces are identified and analyzed in terms of how they have impelled corporations to seek transnational production arrangements three prototypical structures of international production are delineated and the potential consequences for states and corporations participating in each model are discussed the key objectives of the article are to encourage the use of multivariate analyses to explain change in the international system and to provoke further debate about the appropriate policies to pursue to achieve global economic competitiveness across a number of industry sectors