local acceptance of renewable energy a case study from southeast germany the european 20 20 20 goals as well as national targets for the next decade require a substantial increase in installed renewable capacity in germany while public support for such measures is high on an abstract level the situation in the local context is often very different here the impact of renewable energy might cause resistance empirical research shows that a community ownership model can have a positive effect on local acceptance our study explores whether such an effect can also be demonstrated in a community co ownership model the question is relevant since larger projects exceed the financial possibilities of most communities leaving them with only co ownership as an option the research design is based on a comparative case study utilizing a questionnaire based survey the results of the survey clearly show that a significant difference in local acceptance exists between the two cases the residents of zschadras where a community co ownership model exists are consistently more positive towards local renewable energy and also towards renewable energy in general the results provide evidence that the co ownership model is a means to reconcile local acceptance with an increased use of renewable energy in germany

optimal degree of public information dissemination financial markets and macroeconomic environments are often characterised by positive external ities in these environments transparency may reduce expected welfare public announcements serve as focal points for higher order beliefs and affect agentsbehaviour more than justified by their informational contents some scholars conclude that reducing public signalsprecision or entirely withholding information may improve welfare this article shows that public information should always be provided with maximum precision but under certain conditions not to all agents restricting the degree of publicity is a better suited instrument for preventing the negative welfare effects of public announcements than restrictions on their precision are there is a general presumption that higher central bank transparency in terms of information disclosure to a wider audience improves the effectiveness of monetary policy and is beneficial to markets as it reduces information asymmetries helps to assess risk better and arrive at more informed decisions thus enhancing market efficiency while practitioners in central banks and international institutions agree on the desirability of informative announcements and promote higher transparency on the ground that any information is valuable to markets recent academic literature distin guishes private and public information and argues that public announcements may destabilise markets and reduce efficiency by their effects on higher order beliefs if markets are characterised by positive externalities morris and shin 2002 henceforth m s have shown that noisy public announcements may be detrimental to welfare from an ex ante point of view they conclude that a commitment to withholding relevant information or deliberately reducing its precision may be welfare enhancing in this article we challenge this conclusion by distinguishing two components of transparency precision ofinformationanddegreeofpublicity the degreeof publicity is the proportion of agents who receive a signal using a stylised coordination game introduced by m s we show that information should always be provided to the market

when and how much to talk credibility and flexibility in monetary policy with private information abstract this paper analyzes the role of noisy or imprecise announcements in mitigating the basic credibility problem in monetary policy based on a model where the monetary authority s private information gives rise to an unavoidable trade off between flexibility and credibility the analysis finds that noisy announcements can serve as a meaningful form of communication to make that trade off more favorable however such talk is not cheap the analysis predicts that those central banks who can speak more precisely are those who are less likely to speak at all

a theory of ambiguity credibility and inflation under discretion and asymmetric information this paper develops a positive theory of credibility ambiguity and inflation under discretion and asymmetric information the monetary policymaker maximizes his own politically motivated objective function that is positively related to economic stimulation through monetary surprises and negatively related to monetary growth the relative importance he assigns to each target shifts stochastically through time his current preference trade off is known to him but not to the public when choosing the state contingent path of money growth for the present and the future the policymaker compares the benefits from current stimulation with the costs associated with higher future inflation expectations current monetary growth conveys information to the public about future money growth because there is persistence in the policymaker s objectives although expectations are rational information is imperfect because monetary control procedures are imprecise as a result the public cannot correctly distinguish persistent changes of emphasis on different policy objectives from transitory monetary control errors the public becomes aware of changes gradually by observing past monetary growth credibility is defined in terms of the speed with which the public recognizes changes in the objectives of the policymaker credibility is lower the noisier monetary control and the more stable the objectives of the policymaker looser monetary control and a higher degree of time preference on the part of the policymaker induce him to produce higher and more variable monetary growth when the policymaker is free to determine the accuracy of monetary control he does not always choose the most effective control available in spite of the fact that monetary surprises always have an expected value of zero the reason is that ambiguous control procedures enable the policymaker to generate positive surprises when he cares more than on average about economic stimulation he leaves the inevitable negative surprises for periods in which he cares more about inflation prevention this result provides an explanation for the fed s preference for ambiguity recently documented by goodfriend 1986 the policymaker is more likely to pick more ambiguous control procedures the more uncertain his objectives and the higher his time preference the paper also provides a theoretical underpinning for the well documented crosscountry positive correlation between the level and the variability of inflation

evaluating tourism s economic effects new and old approaches abstract techniques such as multiplier analysis and input output analysis are still very commonly used to make estimates of the economic impact of changes in tourism expenditure these techniques have serious limitations and as a result alternative techniques have been developed to address the problems computable general equilibrium cge models are now extensively used especially in australia the uk the us and canada to estimate economic impacts of a wide variety of changes and policies across most sectors cge techniques have been used in the tourism context but so far not extensively economic evaluation in tourism thus fails to achieve best practice the paper presents arguments in support of cge modelling as the preferred technique in analysing the economic impacts of tourism and discusses its potential to drive future research in this area that is more relevant to real world tourism destinations

optimal policy intervention and the social value of public information svensson 2006 argues that morris and shin s 2002 analysis is contrary to what is claimed actually pro transparency this paper re examines the issue but with an important modification to the original morris and shin framework recognizing that central banks impact on the economy not only indirectly via their public announcements but also directly through their policy actions we consider the social value of public information in the presence of active policy intervention our results strengthen morris and shin s conclusions considerably in particular we find that public disclosure of the central bank s information is always undesirable

explaining the diversity of motivations behind community renewable energy community based renewable energy initiatives may be important actors in the transition toward low carbon energy systems in turn stimulating investments in renewable energy production at the community level requires a better understanding of investors motives this paper aims to study the heterogeneity of motivations that drive individuals to participate in community renewable energy projects and the underlying explanatory factors behind this as well as the implications for their level of engagement in initiatives based on quantitative data from an original survey conducted with two renewable energy cooperatives in flanders the statistical analysis shows that cooperative members should not be considered as one homogeneous group several categories of members with different motives and levels of engagement can be distinguished this heterogeneity is explained by contrasts in terms of institutional settings spatial patterns and attitudes to the diffusion of institutional innovations regarding policy implications the findings suggest that this heterogeneity should be taken into account in designing more effective supporting policies to stimulate investments at the community level the activation of social norms is also shown to be a promising mechanism for triggering investment decisions although the implications of its interplay with economic incentives should be further explored

community renewable energy at a crossroads a think piece on degrowth technology and the democratization of the german energy system abstract degrowth activists and scholars have questioned society s current levels of material throughput and energy use the energy sector is at the core of any modern economy and germany serves as an international showcase for the transition of a large industrialized economy to a low carbon energy system diverse actors organizational models and technologies have contributed to the initiation of germany s energy transition through a wide range of community renewable energy projects the think piece investigates how far these diverse actors embrace the aims of the degrowth movement it also provides a critical account of on the ground realities through six hypotheses and contrasts them with claims made by the degrowth movement it is suggested that community renewable energy projects are at a crossroads while many projects have familiarized thousands of people with alternative economic models there is little evidence of a general change in attitudes towards technology consumption or equity in conclusion a major effort is needed to open initiatives to less affluent actors oppose recent trends of commodification and prevent community renewable energy projects from being engrossed by the dominant political and economic system

policy with dispersed information information regarding economic fundamentals is widely dispersed in society is only imperfectly aggregated through prices or other indicators of aggregate activity and cannot be centralized by the government or any other institution in this paper we seek to identify policies that can improve the decentralized use of such dispersed information without requiring the government to observe this information we show that this can be achieved by appropriately designing the contingency of taxation on ex post public information regarding the realized fundamentals and aggregate activity when information is common as in the ramsey literature or when agents have private information only about idiosyncratic shocks as in the mirrlees literature the contingency on fundamentals alone suffices for efficiency when instead agents have private information about aggregate shocks the contingency on aggregate activity is crucial an appropriate combination of the two contingencies permits the government to i dampen the impact of noise and hence reduce non fundamental volatility without also dampening the impact of fundamentals ii induce agents to internalize informational externalities and hence improve the speed of social learning iii restore a certain form of constrained efficiency in the decentralized use of information and iv guarantee that welfare increases with the provision of any additional information jel c72 d62 d82

let s do it ourselves individual motivations for investing in renewables at community level renewable energy communities have multiplied the last years in many countries even in contexts that the structural conditions are not favorable the paper analyses individual motivations for partaking in local renewable projects and generating energy jointly in an investment community in order to inform policy debates on how to support such communities to do so we applied a socio psychological approach for studying renewable energy communities in germany and the netherlands our results show that mainly gain such as decreasing energy costs and normative such as addressing climate change considerations played a role in the decision but in the background hedonic motivations were also present such as having fun and integrating in a community each of the groups examined emerged in already existing strong communities where trust was relatively high which seems to be an important condition for the realization of local energy projects consequently we argue that tailor made incentives addressing the different types of motivations can be more effective for the support and spread of renewable energy communities

the contribution of tourism to the economy of ireland in 1990 and 1995 abstract the paper describes how input output modelling methods have been used to estimate economic impacts of tourism expenditure in ireland and passenger fares during 1990 and 1995 measured as gnp employment government revenue and balance of payments credit full details of calculating 1990 impacts are shown in an appendix to the main text corresponding 1995 impacts are presented without background details these tourism impacts as shares of national aggregates are in the range 7 11 which is worthwhile per ir million receipts international tourism shows a higher gnp impact than aggregate exports of goods and services

distinguished lecture on economics in government what central bankers could learn from academics and vice versa academic writing about monetary policy has been useful to practical central bankers but more of certain aspects of the economists way of thinking could profitably be imported on the other hand academics could improve their analysis and make it more useful to policymakers if they would pay more attention to certain real world aspects of monetary policy the author draws on his experience at the federal reserve board to point out a number of specific lessons for each side

cheap talk and the fed a theory of imprecise policy announcments this paper examines the problem faced by the federal reserve in announcing its private information about its future policies because it would like to manipulate expectations and pursue a time inconsistent policy the fed cannot reveal its policy objectives precisely and credibly it can however communicate some information about its goals through the cheap talk mechanism of vincent crawford and joel sobel making announcements that are imprecise and only giving ranges within which these goals may lie copyright 1989 by american economic association

social impacts of community renewable energy projects findings from a woodfuel case study there is much current interest in the potential of community based renewable energy projects to contribute to transition towards low carbon energy systems as well as displacing fossil fuel consumption by increasing renewable energy generation projects are expected to have a range of social impacts which may result in additional positive sustainability outcomes these include potential to increase acceptance of renewable energy developments awareness of renewable and sustainable energy technologies and issues uptake of low carbon technologies and sustainable pro environmental behaviours to date however there has been little investigation of whether and how these impacts occur this paper presents results from qualitative research investigating the social impacts of a community woodfuel project as experienced by project participants and other local stakeholders findings show projects can raise awareness of renewable energy technologies and increase uptake of renewables overall the case study project successfully changed the local social context for development of woodfuel heating reducing risk for all involved in the future development of this sector particularly in the immediate locality there was some evidence of increased engagement with wider sustainability issues but this was limited to direct participants suggesting local projects need to be supported by wider systemic change to maximise impacts

responding to policy change new business models for renewable energy cooperatives barriers perceived by cooperatives members abstract renewable energy cooperatives recs in germany have received considerable attention in recent years their number having risen to nearly a thousand since 2004 this growth has resulted largely from germany s feed in tariff system recent changes in this policy however have made the previous rec business models mostly unprofitable so recs are looking for new business models our study aims at identifying those new models and characterizing the implementation barriers recs face to this end we interviewed rec members and management and observed rec annual general meetings we found three significant barriers first risk aversion on the part of both members and management second concerns about the environmental impacts or the ethics of certain models that while legal are not felt to align with the intentions of lawmakers finally the lack of competencies and time of the mostly unsalaried rec management these barriers could put the future of recs at risk and so threaten the contributions recs make to the german energy transition professionalization partnerships and other strategies can help mitigate this risk if recs are to continue to play an important role in the energy transition policy makers would be wise to consider measures to support their continued growth

community energy and social entrepreneurship addressing purpose organisation and embeddedness of renewable energy projects in many european countries renewable energy has evolved through decentralised and small scale forms of organisation these different initiatives are often denominated as community energy in both research and practice by examining community energy initiatives through a social entrepreneurship lens we develop an integrated approach for the analysis of small scale and bottom up energy initiatives our approach relies on three specific analytical dimensions the purpose of the initiative its form of organisation and ownership and its embeddedness into local community or wider social movements we apply this analytical framework to four case studies selected from a larger empirical study on newly emerged forms of organisation in the field of renewable energy across the european union drawing on our findings we characterise social enterprises in the energy sector as collectively owned organisations that combine renewable energy production with more overarching goals of environmental and social transformation and a specific quest for civic participation these initiatives show strong relationships with different social movements and even a potential to transcend the local scale we conclude that given similarities in the two areas of research provide fertile ground for mutual advancement both conceptually and empirically

a typology and assessment of multi sector regional economic impact models loveridge s 2004 a typology and assessment of multi sector regional economic impact models reg studies38 305 317 this paper provides a summary and critical review of the types of multi sector models with inter sectoral linkages commonly used to predict the total impact of an event plant opening closing or policy change on the regional economy the following model types are included economic base input output social accounting matrix integrated econometric input output and computable general equilibrium models appropriate uses of the various modelling approaches are presented along with some general operating principles and ethical considerations the paper concludes with directions for future research loveridge s 2004 une typologie et un bilan des modeles des impacts economiques regionaux multi sectoriels reg studies38 305 317 cet article cherche a faire le resume et la critique des typologies de modeles multi sectoriels qui ont des liens intersectoriels et dont on se sert frequemm

measuring the economic contribution of the international association conference market an irish case study conferences and meetings are a prerequisite in the modern global economy and can contribute substantially to national income and foreign exchange earnings this study assesses the economic contribution of the international association conference market to ireland and highlights key sectors that demonstrate strong multiplier effects primary conference expenditure estimates are combined with sector multipliers to determine direct indirect and induced effects across a range of monetary aggregates in ireland in 2007 total direct conference spending of 131 1 million generated 235 8 million in output 45 4 million in income 101 6 million in value added 52 0 million in imports and 9 3 million in product taxes key conference sectors are highlighted including hotels and restaurants renting services of machinery and equipment air transport and retail shopping findings also indicate the varying nature of derived economic effects over discrete time periods particularly in the post conference period overall the results demonstrate that the conference market contributed substantially to economic aggregates in ireland in 2007

what are community energy companies trying to accomplish an empirical investigation of investment motives in the german case community energy has become an increasingly important issue in academia and in energy policy circles worldwide citizens jointly investing in and operating renewable energy installations have played an essential role in countries such as germany or denmark building on and extending previous studies we collect survey data on investment motives for a stratified random sample of german community energy companies structural variables are selected using a socio ecological technical systems framework this study aims to identify differences within the community energy sector to better understand investment behaviour and the effects of policy changes despite the small sample coverage at the individual member level the preliminary results of this study suggest that first community energy forms a specific type of social investment and that second there are significant differences between community energy companies especially regarding the assessment of the return motive this motive plays a more prominent role in limited partnerships than in cooperatives and for community wind than for companies focusing on solar or biomass while these and other factors are highly interrelated our data indicate that the social setting and geographical and climatic conditions are the critical ones here these findings may guide further research

critical reflections on the economic impact assessment of a mega event the case of 2002 fifa world cup abstract sport tourism has received growing attention as a source of generating significant revenue and contributing major economic benefits to host cities regions and countries however current methods for assessing economic impact have had variable success in estimating tourist numbers and expenditure directly attributable to a sport tourism mega event this paper reports on the assessment of one such event the 2002 fifa world cup in south korea using an estimation method that excluded tourists whose travel was non event related the survey research conducted during the event established that 57 7 of total tourist arrivals during the period of the event could be classified as either directly and indirectly attracted by the world cup using this data it was calculated that the world cup generated an economic impact of us 1 35 billion of output sales us 307 million of income and us 713 million of value added for south korea the results also showed that foreign world cup tourists provided a much higher yield compared with foreign leisure tourists spending an estimated 1 8 times as much inclusion of the expenditure by non world cup tourists 42 3 in the calculations of impact would have resulted in a significant overestimation due to the further multiplication of the expanded figures by an input output model misleading the net economic impact of the event the use of survey data to distinguish event from non event tourists and their respective expenditure clearly illustrates some of the methodological pitfalls associated with forecasting that is simply based on generic tourist data furthermore the data generated by this assessment of net direct expenditure and economic impact using the input output analysis can be used as a comparison point for other mega sport events in terms of further research it is evident that existing models of impact assessment have not adequately conceptualized aversion and diversion effects and this begs the future inclusion of these concepts in economic impact forecasting for mega events

convention industry in south korea an economic impact analysis abstract objective of this study was to assess the economic impact of the convention industry in korea an input output model was used to investigate the economic impact of the convention industry in terms of output employment income value added and import considering multiplier effects rate of exchange earnings and substitution effect the convention industry was compared with other major export products according to results of this study estimated economic impact of the convention industry was reported to be very significant to the korean economy