applied general equilibrium models of taxation and international trade an introduction and survey we wish to acknowledge the help of three referees and of john pencavel on several earlier drafts as well as the assistance of the modelers whose work is referred to in the paper they corrected our lack of understanding of their work and provided many other helpful comments excellent research and bibliographical assistance have been provided by debbie fretz radwan shaban and janet stotsky helpful comments have been made by charles ballard michael boskin lans bovenberg sylvester damus harvey galper glenn harrison gordon lenjosek jack mutti serena ng t n srinivasan charles stuart and eric toder the authors also acknowledgefinancial support from the national bureau of economic research the national science foundation international business machines and the social sciences and humanities research council ottawa canada

rent dissipation through electricity prices of publicly owned utilities a public choice model is presented in order to explain the fact that publicly owned electricity utilities rarely price at marginal cost in practice it is shown that if i government revenues are raised through proportional taxes ii median income is less than mean income and iii the share of a consumer s spending on electricity decreases with income then the price resulting from a majority rule and universal voting is below marginal cost the determination of a fixed subscription fee is also considered empirical evidence of our results is obtained from pricing and consumption data for hydro qu6bec

systemic crises in hierarchical ecological economies human beings are both the slaves and the masters of the ecosystems in which they live this paper examines the interrelationship be tween economic decision making hierarchies and ecological hierarchies conditions under which dis continuous changes can occur are presented both for top down and bottom up causes appropriate institutional arrangements for minimizing ecological disruption are analyzed and depend on the nature of the relationship between the economic and eco logical hierarchies in some cases this will involve self managed economic units operating at the ap propriate level of the ecological hierarchy jel q20

modelling state energy consumption abstract econometric models can provide national and state policy makers with frameworks for evaluating past developments and formulating future energy policies this study models energy consumption in the residential commercial industrial and transport sectors of florida own cross price and scale elasticities are estimated for major energy types twenty year forecasts are presented to show how projected relative price changes can be expected to further alter final energy consumption and total primary energy consumption

price sensitivity of residential energy consumption in norway abstract the main aim of this paper is to test the stability of the results of a model which focus on the relationship between the choice of heating equipment and the residential energy consumption the results for the income and energy price variables are of special interest stability in the time dimension is tested by applying the model on micro data for each of the years 1993 1995 the parameter estimates are stable within a 95 confidence interval however the estimated impact of the energy price variable on energy consumption was considerably weaker in 1994 than in 1993 and 1995 the results for two different income groups in the pooled data set are also subject to stability testing the energy price sensitivity in residential energy consumption is found to be higher for high income households than for low income households

energy efficiency and rebound effects an econometric analysis of energy demand in the commercial building sector it is widely recognized that the adoption of energy saving innovations can induce an increase in the usage of the corresponding technologies and thus can possibly increase energy consumption among other concerns is that uncertainties regarding the magnitude of this rebound effect can deter policy makers from promoting energy efficiency this paper analyzes the rebound effects of the adoption of energy efficient technologies in commercial buildings based upon a structural model of technology adoption and subsequent energy demand at the building level the empirical results are that energy efficiency can reduce electricity use by about 35 and natural gas consumption by about 50

quebec residential electricity demand a microeconometric approach in this paper we use a micro approach to model quebec residential demand for electricity the model incorporates a joint continuous discrete decision framework which allows for interrelationships between decisions on electricity related durable holdings and those on usage in the spirit of recent studies which used a continuous discrete frame work the model parameters are estimated using a two stage approach at the first stage the decisions regarding space and water heating systems are modelled with a very flexible multinomial probit mnp framework then at the second stage the demand for electricity conditional on the chosen heating system is estimated using ordinary least squares and a correction is applied in order to eliminate a potential estimation bias the estimated short run and long run price and income elasticities have the correct signs and are rather small as is expected under such circumstances

residential energy demand an integrated two levels approach abstract previous studies of residential energy demand in canada have relied on the top down or two levels approach at the first level total energy demand measured in thermal units is made a function of its relative price real income and other explanatory variables at the second level energy market shares depend on energy sources relative prices the aggregate energy price is the link between the two levels the measurement of energy consumption in terms of energy equivalence introduces systematic biases in aggregate energy price and income elasticities in this paper we adopt the two levels approach but abandon measurement of energy use in terms of energy equivalence the presence of an explanatory variable other than energy sources prices in the energy unit cost function brings the integration of the two levels at the estimation stage wood is included as a separate fuel along with electricity oil and natural gas the model is applied to quebec residential sector the main results are as follows first quebec aggregate residential energy demand is found to be price and income inelastic second electricity and oil own price elasticities are less than one however they are above one for natural gas and wood third gross substitution prevails among the four energy sources and fourth the expansion of the national gas distribution network contributed to a lower aggregate energy price

determinants of residential space heating expenditures in germany abstract we first examine the determinants of household expenditures on space heating and hot water supply in germany a number of socio economic characteristics of households are included along with building characteristics our analysis covers information on more than 12 000 households in germany for the years 1998 and 2003 the analysis continues by investigating whether different kinds of households are affected differently by increases in energy prices households in owner occupied properties are less affected compared to those in rented accommodation this could be because owners are more likely to have installed energy efficient heating and hot water supply systems and landlords have less of an incentive to improve the conditions of their rented accommodations an energy policy targeting especially the latter group might benefit not only households in rented accommodation but might also increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well

the welfare impacts of an invasive species endogenous vs exogenous price models abstract the fixed prices models used to measure damages from invasive species typically overestimate financial impacts these fixed price assessments do not address key behavioral modifications that lower costs as people adapt by changing their mix of inputs and outputs given new economic circumstances using the invasive emerald ash borer agrilus planipennis in ohio as a motivating example we develop a computable general equilibrium model that accounts for these behavioral responses we estimate annual damages from the beetle to be about 70 million an order of magnitude less than the 400 900 million in damages estimated using a fixed price model damages are lower because people adapt through price and income adjustments that occur after ash trees are devastated from the emerald ash borer

economy and environment a theoretical essay on the interdependence of economic and environmental systems preface notation guide 1 introduction part i the physical economy environment system 2 closed physical systems a model 3 structure and time in the physical system 4 technological change and the environmental constraints to physical growth part ii the economic system 5 the price system 6 prices property and the environment 7 economic conflict and environmental change part iii environmental strategies in an evolutionary economy environment system 8 time uncertainty and external effects 9 the market solution 10 the stationary state 11 conclusions references index

the allocative cost of price ceilings in the u s residential market for natural gas a direct consequence of restricting the price of a good for which secondary markets do not exist is that in the presence of excess demand the good will not be allocated to the buyers who value it the most we demonstrate the empirical importance of this allocative cost for the u s residential market for natural gas which was subject to price ceilings during 1954 89 using a household level discrete continuous model of natural gas demand we estimate that the allocative cost in this market averaged 3 6 billion annually nearly tripling previous estimates of the net welfare loss to u s consumers

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

modelling the effects of immigration on regional economic performance and wage distribution a computable general equilibrium cge analysis of three european union regions pouliakas k roberts d balamou e and psaltopoulos d modelling the effects of immigration on regional economic performance and wage distribution a computable general equilibrium cge analysis of three european union regions regional studies the paper uses a regional computable general equilibrium cge model to analyse the effects of immigration on three small remote european union regions located within scotland uk greece and latvia two migration scenarios are assessed in the first total labour supply is affected in the second the importance of migratory flows by differential labour skill types is investigated the results indicate significant differences in the extent to which regional economies are affected by immigration they also suggest that remote regions are highly vulnerable to the out migration of skilled workers brain drain while the in migration of unskilled workers leads to widening wage inequality

understanding the spectrum of residential energy saving behaviours french evidence using disaggregated data analysing household energy saving behaviours is crucial to improve energy consumption predictions and energy policy making how should we quantitatively measure them what are their determinants this study explores the main factors influencing residential energy saving behaviours based on a bottom up multivariate statistical approach using data from the recent french phebus survey firstly we assess energy saving behaviours on a one dimension scale using irt secondly we use linear regression with an innovative variable selection method via adaptive lasso to tease out the effects of both macro and micro factors on the behavioural score the results highlight the impact of five main attributes incentivizing energy saving behaviours based on cross variable analyses energy price household income education level age of head of household and dwelling energy performance in addition our results suggest that the analysis of the inverted u shape impact of age enables the expansion of the energy consumption life cycle theory to energy saving behaviours abstract analysing household energy saving behaviours is crucial to improve energy consumption predictions and energy policy making how should we quantitatively measure them what are their determi nants this study explores the main factors influencing residential energy saving behaviours based on a bottom up multivariate statistical approach using data from the recent french phebus survey firstly we assess energy saving behaviours on a one dimension scale using irt secondly we use linear regression with an innovative variable selection method via adaptive lasso to tease out the effects of both macro and micro factors on the behavioural score the results highlight the impact of five main attributes incentivizing energy saving behaviours based on cross variable analyses energy price household income education level age of head of household and dwelling energy performance in addition our results suggest that the analysis of the inverted u shape impact of age enables the expansion of the energy consumption life cycle theory to energy saving behaviours

production and environmental resources a prelude to an evolutionary framework the paper advances a framework to study the evolution of technology and institutions it is based on two simple tenets first the quality and quantity of environmental resources are defined and constrained by the regime of technology and institutions second the character and extent of innovations are informed and limited by the regime as well the framework is contrasted with neoclassical and ecological economics while the framework assimilates ideas from both paradigms it departs from them by stressing the importance of the technological institutional regime tir the two views ignore in different ways the significance of tir 46 the neoclassical program conceives the flow of innovations as tir independent while the ecological agenda regards the fund of resources as tir independent 1 consequently both camps fail to provide an endogenous account of the observed punctuated character of the evolution of tir neoclassical economists maintain that as a resource depletes its price rises which induces switching to a cheaper one encourages exploration or spurs invention harold barnett and chandler morse 7 11 state that nature imposes particular scarcities not an inescapable general scarcity the responses to environmental resource limitation are supposedly singular activities stripped from any underpinning regime the neoclassical disregard of tir heuristically resembles the fable of marie antoinette s folly in response to the scarcity of bread at the eve of the french revolution she advised according to legend buying cake instead ecological economists offer a different view of resource limits 48 for herman daly 21 8 nature really does impose an inescapable general scarcity while neoclassical economists emphasize relative limitation scarcity pricing ecological economists stress malthusian general limitation for ecological economists substitution can solve relative allocation but cannot solve general limitation general limitation can be avoided only if economic activity proceeded within certain boundaries or as put by martin o connor 69 within appropriate cyclical structure of resource transformations under the motto sustainable development a low pace production activity supposedly enables a population to replicate indefinitely ecological economists conceive

electricity consumption in g7 countries a panel cointegration analysis of residential demand elasticities this article applies recently developed panel unit root and panel cointegration techniques to estimate the long run and short run income and price elasticities for residential demand for electricity in g7 countries the panel results indicate that in the long run residential demand for electricity is price elastic and income inelastic the study concludes that from an environmental perspective there is potential to use pricing policies in the g7 countries to curtail residential electricity demand and thus curb carbon emissions in the long run

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

disaggregate analysis of the demand for gasoline in this paper we adopt a disaggregate approach to modelling the components of gasoline demand gasoline demand in our model is viewed as the outcome of the fol lowing household decisions vehicle holdings number and type and vehicle usage non discretionary and discretionary usage modelling gasoline demand in this way correctly specifies gasoline as an input into the production of transportation services and allows for the interdependence between household decisions on vehicle holdings and usage moreover estimation of the components of gasoline demand allows policy makers to identify the means by which individuals will respond to policy changes this leads to more effective policies designed to reduce gasoline consumption we use this model to estimate price and fuel efficiency elasticities of vehicle usage and gasoline demand

a computable general equilibrium analysis of a property tax limitation initiative in idaho idaho voters rejected a property tax limitation initiative in 1996 before the election proponents claimed the decrease in revenues would be offset from the increase in economic activity we developed a computable general equilibrium model based on tradable and non tradable sectors to hypothesize the impact on idaho s public finances household income and economic growth with and without the initiative s tax policy the model predicts that each 3 reduction in property tax revenues would result in an overall 2 loss in state and local revenues the benefits are predicted to be 35 per low income household and 738 per high income household the federal government would receive 1 additional revenues from idaho r51 most economists who use computable general equilibrium cge models to analyze the impacts of tax reforms focus their attention on the national and multi regional level 3 waters holland and weber 1997 were the first ones to use a cge model to analyze the general equilibrium impacts of a property tax reduction oregon s measure 5 on a state s economy they compared the results of a two sector goods and services cge model to those of a fixed price input output model they concluded that cge models represent a significant advancement over fixed price input output models for estimating economy wide effects of a property tax reform in addition they demonstrated the ability of these models to incorporate after tax effects on the distribution of household income one shortcoming of the waters holland and weber approach is that the goods and services sectoring scheme used in the cge model is convenient but conceptually incorrect these categories are approximations of the theoretically correct distinction of tradable and non tradable sectors in this study we evaluate the potential impact of a 50 property tax reduction proposed in the one percent initiative on idaho s economy from a general equilibrium perspective we introduce a two sector tradable and non tradable cge model for the state of idaho we argue that our approach is more conceptually accurate and deductively coherent than the waters holland and weber approach in hypothesizing the direction and size of a tax policy shock on a regional economy the distinction between tradable and non tradable sectors is important conceptually both to understand a region s economic behavior and to measure the effects of a change in policy correctly the results provide testable hypotheses on the likely impact from a

demand for space heating in apartment blocks measuring effects of policy measures aiming at reducing energy consumption abstract panel data covering the period 1984 1995 on energy consumption and technical characteristics of apartment blocks from denmark are analysed in order to measure effects of policy measures aimed at reducing the consumption of energy for space heating results indicate that building regulations have been important in reducing energy consumption in new buildings furthermore conditional price responses are estimated to be relatively small or non existent indicating small short run effects of fuel taxes on energy consumption in apartment blocks finally a consultancy scheme implemented with the purpose of improving knowledge about the potential for energy savings is found to have had moderate effects

norwegian residential electricity demand a microeconomic assessment of the growth from 1976 to 1993 abstract the norwegian residential electricity consumption increased by an average of 3 annually during the period 1976 1993 political signals indicate that the growth in norwegian residential energy consumption should be reduced and that it may be necessary to increase energy taxes based on data for the sample of households from the annual consumer expenditure survey we study factors that are of importance explaining the growth in norwegian residential electricity demand during this period nearly half of the growth is due to an increase in the number of households while the rest reflects an increase in average consumption per household the increase in average consumption per household is due to an increasing number of households possessing electric household appliances such as dryers and dishwashers an increase in real disposable household income and in the floor space of dwellings

environmental regulation of households an empirical review of economic and psychological factors abstract the literature on sustainable consumption and environmental regulation of household behavior is dominated by conceptual and normative approaches as a result many suggestions lack a firm empirical basis to overcome this deficiency econometric studies in three areas of environmentally relevant activities of households are reviewed residential use of energy generation of solid waste and recycling and residential use of water next to price and income elasticities attention is devoted to individual socio economic features and psychological factors such as attitudes knowledge perceptions and values potential psychological determinants and related insights are further examined by discussing a range of representative and illustrative statistical psychological studies of environmental behavior one important general finding is that there are very few empirical studies that systematically combine socio economic and psychological determinants a range of insights for environmental policy is derived and research recommendations are offered

entropy law and exhaustion of natural resources is nicholas georgescu roegen s paradigm defensible abstract i examine whether the entropy law dictates absolute limits to growth i distinguish the entropy law proper diffusion without coherent work from its application the carnot cycle diffusion with coherent work while the entropy law pertains to mechanistic systems the carnot cycle is the result of purposeful agency since the economic process is carried out by purposeful agency to generate coherent work it is not governed by the entropy law rather it resembles the carnot cycle resources hence cannot be defined objectively a la the entropy law resources can only be defined relative to the purposeful agency thus the prognosticators of doom like georgescu roegen cannot be bolstered by the entropy law

economic impacts of a property tax limitation a computable general equilibrium analysis of oregon s measure 5 a state level computable general equilibrium cge model was used to investigate economic adjustment to a property tax limitation in oregon findings under two cge model variants are compared with results using a fixed price input output type model the analysis suggests that 1 total output and income increase under the limitation with high income households benefitting most and low income households least 2 even with income growth total state and local government tax revenues and spending shrink significantly 3 the limitation makes oregon s tax system slightly less progressive at the top of the income distribution but slightly more progressive at the bottom

the redistributive roles of unemployment insurance and the dynamics of voting abstract public unemployment insurance is analyzed as the majority voting equilibrium policy of a dynamic stochastic economy abstracting from incentive effects we focus on redistribution some results are because of the distribution of heterogeneous employment opportunities public insurance may be democratically chosen even if complete private markets exist and because of the dynamics even when agents are intrinsically homogeneous the equilibrium benefit level or duration benefit schedule deviates from what has been described as optimal in the literature the effects of differences in the average frequency or duration of unemployment on equilibrium taxes and benefits are investigated with some unanticipated results

households energy consumption and transition toward cleaner energy sources the paper investigates the factors influencing households energy choices and the drivers of switching toward cleaner energy we first present a theoretical framework to determine the factors that explain households energy consumption and highlight the motivations underlying their transition towards less polluting sources including their environmental preference using french household data from ademe we provide an econometric test of qualitative variables following studies by dubin and mcfadden 1984 our results show that income and prices are the main determinants of household energy consumption environmental considerations seem to influence the choice of energy sources more than consumption we also find evidence that income and relative capital cost are the most important variables for household energy switching

historical roots for ecological economics biophysical versus allocative approaches abstract a number of economists today are aware that the results of their science are more or less at variance with concrete fact and are alive to the necessity of perfecting it they go wrong rather in their choice of means to that end they try obstinately to get from their science alone the materials they know are needed for a closer approximation to fact whereas they should resort to other sciences and go into them thoroughly not just incidentally for their bearing on the given economic problem until economic science is much farther advanced economic principles are less important to the economists than the reciprocal bearings of the results of economics and the results of the other social sciences many economists are paying no attention to such interrelations for mastery of them is a long and fatiguing task requiring an extensive knowledge of facts whereas anyone with a little imagination a pen and a few reams of paper can relieve himself of a chat on principles pareto 1935 para 2022

estimating short and long term residential demand for electricity new evidence from sri lanka this study investigates the short run dynamics and long run equilibrium relationship between residential electricity demand and factors influencing demand per capita income price of electricity price of kerosene oil and price of liquefied petroleum gas using annual data for sri lanka for the period 1960 2007 the study uses unit root cointegration and error correction models the long run demand elasticities of income own price and price of kerosene oil substitute were estimated to be 0 78 0 62 and 0 14 respectively the short run elasticities for the same variables were estimated to be 032 0 16 and 0 10 respectively liquefied petroleum lp gas is a substitute for electricity only in the short run with an elasticity 0 09 the main findings of the paper support the following 1 increasing the price of electricity is not the most effective tool to reduce electricity consumption 2 existing subsidies on electricity consumption can be removed without reducing government revenue 3 the long run income elasticity of demand shows that any future increase in household incomes is likely to significantly increase the demand for electricity and 4 any power generation plans which consider only current per capita consumption and population growth should be revised taking into account the potential future income increases in order to avoid power shortages ill the country

the origins of american industrial success 1879 1940 the united states became the world s preeminent manufacturing nation at the turn of the twentieth century this study considers the bases for this success by examining the factor content of trade in manufactured goods surprisingly the most distinctive characteristic of u s manufacturing exports was intensity in nonreproducible natural resources furthermnore this relative intensity was increasing between 1880 and 1920 the study then asks whether resource abundance reflected geological endowment or greater exploitation of geological potential it was mainly the latter jel 042 recent thinking about american economic performance has been marked by alarm over the country s loss of its competitive edge most of this discussion is not rooted in an understanding of the historical origins of the economic leadership now thought to be in jeopardy modern economists tend to assume that the american advantage has been technological and

the capital account and regional balance of payments problems many regional issues can be expressed in terms of regional balance of payments accounts this framework in turn highlights a feature of regional economics to which little attention is paid inter regional capital flows it is the presumption that these flows accommodate demand which explains the apparent absence of regional balance of payments problems in fact if capital flows are not accommodating then regional balance of payments problems may be more serious than for countries with separate currencies since they require income adjustment having explained the balance of payments accounts in regional terms and the nature and significance of inter regional capital flows the paper concludes with a discussion of data requirements with particular reference to the scottish case

entropy structure and organisational change abstract the paper sets out a basis for rigorous thermodynamic characterisation of structural change and of organisational interdependencies between economic and environmental processes many attempts have been made to exploit entropy as a generic explanatory variable it has widely been proposed that entropy is a measure of the level of dis order of a system of how mixed up things are then as organisation is often thought synonymous with some notion of order it has been a small step to propose that increasing organisation is the converse of increasing entropy another suggestion has been that social system structure and change can be explained in terms of a tendency towards maximum entropy production the lotka principle of maximum energy dissipation all these notions must be rejected the putative entropy order connection has its inspiration in boltzmann s probabilistic interpretation of thermodynamic entropy as a measure of microscopic disorder this order principle is simply not applicable under conditions far from thermodynamic equilibrium prigogine conditions which prevail for all important economic and ecological processes under such conditions the relationship between entropy production and changes in structure or organisation is multi faceted and situation specific attempts to account for the specificity of societal activities in terms of a generic scalar measure of organisation or dissipation are largely after the fact and in no way do away with the need for analysis of institutional and ethical dimensions of human action in their own right when properly allied to institutional analysis however the far from equilibrium thermodynamics furnishes a rich impetus for a coevolutionary perspective in ecological economics with promise of incisive treatments of in particular issues of system environment codependency and of the time in determinacies of economy environmental change