fixed investment and economic growth new results on causality this study re examines the issue of causality between investment shares and economic growth a methodology is applied based on arellano and bond 1991 and holtz eakin newey and rosen 1988 to quinquennial panel data on growth and investment shares for the post war period and shows that contrary to previous results in the literature causality between fixed investment and growth runs in both directions investment shares granger cause growth rates and growth rates granger cause investment shares granger causality from investment shares to growth rates is found to be negative the result is in contrast with a capital fundamentalist view which sees fixed investment as the key to long run growth but is fully consistent with the predictions of solow type growth models

sustainability as opportunity this paper explores the relationship between sustainability concepts and contractarian principles of distributional fairness a commitment to equality of opportunity between contemporaries entails that life opportunities should be nondiminishing from generation to generation defining sustainability as nondeclining utility is analytically suggestive but practically problematic given the uncertainties that surround future preferences and technologies life opportunities may be sustained however by providing future generations with specific endowments of reproduced capital technological capacity natural resources and environmental quality in this setting capital resource substitutions are defensible only if there is compelling evidence that they would benefit both present and future generations

energy investment risk assessment for nations along china s belt road initiative abstract overseas energy investment as an effective way of securing energy supply is being favored by the world s leading energy consuming countries however energy investment has the potential high risk on multiple forms including political and regulatory risk currency liquidity and refinancing risk as well as resource risk and so on to effectively evaluate overseas energy investment risk this study proposed a new indicator system from six dimensions furthermore a fuzzy integrated evaluation model based on the entropy weight was constructed to rate the energy investment risk for 50 nations along china s belt road initiative the findings indicate that resource potential and chinese factors have become the main determinant of energy investment risk while environmental constraints and political risk should also be considered for investing decisions in conclusion saudi arabia united arab emirates pakistan kazakhstan and russia are the most ideal choices for china s energy investment balancing resource potential and investment environment

path dependency and input substitution implications for energy policy modelling in most policy oriented energy models the effectiveness of energy policy instruments crucially depends both on the values of the substitution elasticities between the various inputs and on the rates of technological progress in this paper we argue that due to the fixed cost nature of adjustments to relative price changes these technological parameters are affected by past developments failing to account for the role of history will result in biased parameter estimates and hence the implication for energy policy modelling is that the estimation period should be carefully selected we provide an empirical illustration using data for the netherlands

does foreign direct investment lead to lower co2 emissions evidence from a regional analysis in china abstract existing studies have been concerned with the relationship between foreign direct investment and co2 emissions in recent years however little attention has been paid to regional differences in china this paper investigates the impact of fdi on china s co2 emissions at the national and regional levels using provincial panel data from 1995 to 2010 the stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stirpat model was adopted the results suggest that fdi contributes to co2 emission reductions in china fdi s impact on co2 emissions decreases from the western region to the eastern and central regions our findings support the pollution halo hypothesis which claims that foreign firms can export greener technologies from developed to developing countries and conduct business in an environmentally friendly manner

do changes in the labour market take families out of poverty determinants of exiting poverty in brazilian metropolitan regions using survival models we test whether short term changes in the labour market affect poverty duration data are from the brazilian monthly employment survey such a monthly dataset permits more accurate estimations of events than using annual data but its panel follows households for a short period then methods that control for both right and left censoring should be used the results are as follows households with zero income are not those with the lowest chances of exiting changes in aggregate unemployment do not affect poverty duration and increasing wages in the informal sector has a negative effect on poverty duration

green r d for eco innovation and its impact on carbon emissions and firm performance abstract over the past four decades the results of the debates about the relationship between corporate environmental performance and corporate financial performance have remained inconclusive due to the lack of theoretical underpinning and availability of data this paper examines the impact of green research and development investment for eco innovation on environmental and financial performance the research is based on the resource based view and the natural resource based view which explicitly recognize the importance of resources and capabilities using a sample of japanese manufacturing firms during the period of 2001 2010 the study focuses on green research and development investment as a key proxy of eco innovation and carbon emissions in environmental performance our results show the presence of a negative relationship between green research and development and carbon emissions while green research and development is positively related to financial performance at the firm level our findings explicitly support that in order for firms to adopt a proactive environmental strategy to manage their environmental and financial performance to the best advantage they urgently need to organise unique resources and capabilities the findings of this study provide valuable insights and basis of scientific debate on how firms to engage unique organizational resources and capabilities for superior corporate environmental and financial performance

growing chinese coal use dramatic resource and environmental implications chinese coal consumption continues to rise as the country s economy and industry expand coal is particularly critical for china s fast growing power sector generating about 80 of electricity output notwithstanding the importance of coal and electricity many international forecasts today underestimate their rising use in china this paper acknowledges the current world financial crisis and assumes that chinese gdp growth to 2025 will not again approach double digit levels using the scenario analysis this paper demonstrates that even with conservative assumptions about chinese gdp growth and income elasticity of electric demand to 2025 the country will likely experience much higher coal demand and emit much greater volumes of carbon dioxide than forecast by various international energy agencies the paper also analyzes how china s domestic coal reserves may be threatened within two decades possibly affecting long term economic growth in china as well as world coal prices

study on carbon capture and storage ccs investment decision making based on real options for china s coal fired power plants in this paper a quadrinomial model based on the theory of real options is developed to evaluate the investment in carbon capture and storage ccs retrofitting for existing coal fired power plants in china uncertainties in carbon price fossil fuel price investment cost and government subsidy are considered an existing typical 600 mw supercritical pulverized coal fired scpc plant is taken as a case study to illustrate the proposed model and the effects of government subsidy under different scenarios on the critical carbon price to invest in ccs are analyzed the results indicate that the real options approach has an advantage over the application of traditional net present value npv method when handling uncertainty and government subsidy has significant effects on reducing critical carbon price for investment in ccs the critical carbon prices are 103 56 rmb ton with 100 subsidy and 217 95 rmb ton without subsidy while the current average carbon price is 85 2 rmb ton this means that the current trading environment is not positive enough to attract investment in ccs retrofitting these conclusions provide theoretical foundation for decision making of ccs investment and related policy making

enterprise investment local government intervention and coal overcapacity the case of china abstract long term management of china s coal overcapacity depends on the targeted policy guidance on industry production capacity expansion in the overcapacity formation process in this study coal enterprise and local government are treated as game participants and a three stage dynamic game model has been developed to depict the boosting effect of the game behavior of coal enterprise s and local government s capacity investments in different markets of supply and demand the results are shown in the following 1 local government has been the behind the scenes operator of over investment and redundant construction and its excessive interventions in coal industry investment have been the primary cause of overcapacity formation 2 when the market is in short supply coal enterprise s optimal behavior is to continuously increase the rate of investment growth until it reaches the threshold to obtain the maximum excess profits ultimately leading to overinvestment in the industry and 3 the key factors affecting the game abilities of coal enterprise and local government are the market s self regulation and the central government s supervision intensity although the chinese government a highly vertically oriented bureaucratic structure is implementing a mandatory de capacity policy to alleviate the intensity of excessive coal capacity it is not a long term regularization on the supply side reform

inventory investment and gdp characteristics in oecd countries abstract there are very few research studies on macroeconomic inventory behaviour of various countries it is clear that macro inventories are the results of a large number of individual microdecisions however we believe that it is worth analysing how inventories develop in the individual countries and why we can see different tendencies this paper is the newest piece in a series of studies on the above subject we use the oecd database to analyse inventory trends between 1987 and 2004 in nine of the most developed economies of the world annual inventory investment data are used and their connections with other components of gdp expenditure governmental and private consumption investment in fixed assets and foreign trade balance as well as the annual growth rate of gdp are examined by multi variable statistical analysis conclusions include the steadily decreasing tendency of inventory fluctuations the varying periods of higher and lower rates of inventory investments and the differences of main influencing factors by country

the effect of foreign direct investment and stock market growth on clean energy use across a panel of emerging market economies this study investigates the impact of both fdi inflows and stock market developments on clean energy use across 20 emerging market economies spanning the period 1991 2012 it accounts for cross sectional dependence and heterogeneity in the analysis and employs robust panel econometric techniques the empirical results on long run elasticities display that economic output fdi inflows and stock market developments have all a significant positive impact on clean energy consumption finally the results on heterogeneous panel non causality tests indicate the presence of unidirectional causality running from fdi to clean energy consumption in the short run for robustness purposes the paper also estimates long run elasticities for individual countries with the findings documenting that both fdi inflows and stock market developments have a considerable positive impact on clean energy uses the findings urge that both policy makers and governments in these emerging market economies should initiate effective public private partnership investments in clean energy projects by providing lucrative incentives which in turn will encourage both domestic and foreign investors to invest more in clean energy projects and eventually moving these economies towards sustainable economic growth

a theoretical approach to deliberative valuation aggregation by mutual consent in deliberative valuation a small group of selected persons explores the values that should guide collective decisions through a process of reasoned discourse proponents argue that deliberative techniques enhance the effectiveness and perceived legitimacy of policy making by facilitating public participation this paper outlines an approach to deliberative valuation that is grounded in democratic theory social psychology and cooperative game theory emphasizing applications to the monetary valuation of environmental services the analysis suggests that deliberative groups that employ consent based choice rules may aggregate individual values in a manner that systematically departs from the additive aggregation procedures of standard cost benefit analysis

environmental efficiency of land transportation in china a parallel slack based measure for regional and temporal analysis abstract as the second largest economic entity in the world china plays an important role in controlling global carbon dioxide co 2 emissions the land transportation sector including railway transportation and road transportation has been the most important source of emissions in china and the average co 2 emissions of land transportation were 529 31 million tons during the period 2009 2012 in this study a parallel slack based measure data envelopment analysis model is proposed which is used for evaluating the overall efficiency of the land transportation sector and individual efficiencies of the railway transportation and highway transportation subsectors at the same time considering co 2 emissions the empirical results lead to three conclusions a only anhui province is efficient each year during 2009 2012 b the environmental efficiency of the eastern area in china is the best followed by the central area with the western area being the worst c the performance of railway transportation is better than that of highway transportation these three conclusions lead to policy suggestions to promote highway transportation technological innovation and narrow the regional imbalances in land transportation this paper makes two main contributions the model advances improvements to methods used in the data envelopment analysis technique and also provides governments with a practical and yet easy to adopt perspective to implement land transportation performance measurement that aids in decision making

sustainable development in a post brundtland world not yet two decades after the publication of our common future the world s political and environmental landscape has changed significantly nonetheless we argue that the concept and practice of sustainable development sd as guiding institutional principle as concrete policy goal and as focus of political struggle remains salient in confronting the multiple challenges of this new global order yet how sd is conceptualized and practiced hinges crucially on the willingness of scholars and practitioners to embrace a plurality of epistemological and normative perspectives on sustainability the multiple interpretations and practices associated with the evolving concept of development and efforts to open up a continuum of local to global public spaces to debate and enact a politics of sustainability embracing pluralism provides a way out of the ideological and epistemological straightjackets that deter more cohesive and politically effective interpretations of sd using pluralism as a starting point for the analysis and normative construction of sustainable development we pay particular attention to how an amalgam of ideas from recent work in ecological economics political ecology and the development as freedom literature might advance the sd debate beyond its post brundtland quagmire enhanced levels of ecological degradation vast inequalities in economic opportunities both within and across societies and a fractured set of institutional arrangements for global environmental governance all represent seemingly insurmountable obstacles to a move towards sustainability while these obstacles are significant we suggest how they might be overcome through a reinvigorated set of notions and practices associated with sustainable development one that explicitly examines the linkages between sustainability policies and sustainability politics

an uncertainty analysis of subsidy for carbon capture and storage ccs retrofitting investment in china s coal power plants using a real options approach abstract carbon capture and storage ccs is an attractive option to help reduce china s carbon emission this paper analyzes the impacts of subsidy for electricity generation on ccs retrofitting investment and carbon abatement in china s coal power plants considering the coaction of carbon market and subsidy policy to this end this paper builds up a real option model considering carbon prices electricity prices and coal prices uncertainties for decision of ccs investment we consider two important aspects whether to invest and when to invest i e ccs investment s potential and timing some major findings include 1 the impacts of subsidy on ccs investment and carbon abatement are affected by carbon market conditions initial carbon price can determine the magnitude of subsidy s impacts while carbon prices uncertainty level can determine subsidy s marginal impacts 2 subsidy from 0 01 to 0 05 kwh can raise ccs investment potential by 9 66 39 18 shorten ccs investment period by 0 39 1 95 years and bring carbon abatement potential of 0 10 1 89 gtco 2 considering different carbon market conditions 3 with the benchmark carbon market and affordable subsidies triggered ccs investments in coal power plants have an economical efficient carbon abatement potential up to 20 of china s carbon emission in 2030

the poverty of money marxian insights for ecological economists abstract karl marx s philosophical political and sociological analysis of the workings of capitalism provides insights regarding the character of monetary value price and the role of the market that are relevant to ecological economists ecological economists are divided over the utility of pricing components of ecological systems and the potential role of the market in achieving ecologically sustainable societies in the marxian influenced socialist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries similar issues were raised by those preoccupied with organising state policy and manipulating the market to achieve social justice for example at particular points in the russian and cuban revolutionary processes the potential and limitations of monetary pricing and market exchange were debated in a heated and detailed way in as much as ecological economists hold certain interests in common it is worth reflecting on marx s view of the human role within nature and analysing the discussions and experiences of marxian experimenters in social transformation that relate specifically to exchange

green investment trends and determinants abstract this paper fills a gap in the macroeconomic literature on renewable sources of energy it offers a definition of green investment and analyzes the trends and determinants of this investment over the last decade for 35 advanced and emerging countries we use a new multi country historical dataset and find that green investment has become a key driver of the energy sector and that its rapid growth is now mostly driven by china our econometric results suggest that green investment is boosted by economic growth a sound financial system conducive to low interest rates and high fuel prices we also find that some policy interventions such as the introduction of carbon pricing schemes or feed in tariffs which require use of green energy have a positive and significant impact on green investment other interventions such as biofuel support do not appear to be associated with higher green investment

how emission certificate allocations distort fossil investments the german example despite political activities to foster a low carbon energy transition germany currently sees a considerable number of new coal power plants being added to its power mix there are several possible drivers for this dash for coal but it is widely accepted that windfall profits gained through free allocation of ets certificates play an important role yet the quantification of allocation related investment distortions has been limited to back of the envelope calculations and stylized models so far we close this gap with a numerical model integrating both germany s particular allocation rules and its specific power generation structure we find that technology specific new entrant provisions have substantially increased incentives to invest in hard coal plants red to natural gas at the time of the ets onset more precisely disproportionate windfall profits compared more than half the total capital costs of a hard coal plant moreover shorter periods of free allocations would not have turned investors favours towards the cleaner natural gas technology because of pre existing economic advantages for coal in contrast full auctioning of permits or a single best available technology benchmark would have made natural gas the predominant technology of choice

did investment become green in china evidence from a sectoral panel analysis from 2003 to 2012 under conditions of policy incentives and energy transition an investment is considered to become green if greater investment would support a reduction in the proportion of total energy consumption involving coal use however few empirical studies have attempted to investigate green investment in china at the sector level using panel data for 5 sectors in china between 2003 and 2012 we tested the relationships between investment and different factors including carbon dioxide co2 emission reduction policies and energy structure by building panel models for the national sample the results demonstrated that investment did not become green and mainly relied on gross domestic product gdp during the 2003 2012 period in china although investments in the industry sector and the commerce and services sector were weakened by the co2 emission regulations chinese climate policies had no effect on investment in the agriculture sector or the construction sector and had a positive effect on investment in the transportation sector moreover the proportion of total energy consumption involving coal use had no effect on investment in the construction sector or the commerce and services sector but had a negative effect on investments in the agriculture sector and the transportation sector investment in the industry sector showed strong viscosity to low price coal consumption finally we propose a series of policy implications based on the test results which may guide green investment

the causality between investment and economic growth abstract this paper tests for causality between investment and economic growth the results show that growth is predominantly caused by investment in machinery and equipment whereas investment in non residential buildings and structures is predominantly caused by economic growth