defining the rebound effect abstract this paper gives rigorous definitions of the rebound effect not only in the well described single commodity case khazzoom 1980 the energy journal 1 4 21 40 but also for a multiple commodity case it is shown that the familiar laws for the single case do not hold for the multiple case the paper describes the state of the art of empirical estimation of the rebound effect with special focus on the estimates done for the netherlands we conclude that according to every definition empirical evidence shows that the re is probably small between 0 and 15

trade liberalization wage inequality and endogenously determined nontraded goods abstract we examine the boundary between traded and nontraded goods as a channel for trade to impact factor prices in a two country two factor continuum good model tariffs generate a range of nontraded goods a tariff reduction has a direct effect to expand a country s import set and an indirect effect through terms of trade to expand its export set we show that the export expansion can dominate the import expansion raising the relative demand for the factor intensively used in production the result is useful in explaining observed rising wage inequality in developing countries following trade liberalization

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

structural changes in brazil s industrial economy 1960 1980 abstract this paper examines the structural changes in brazil s economy which can be observed through various censuses and input output tables in the period 1960 to 1980 the paper shows how the country s economy became more vertically integrated in those years even though it has become more outward oriented since the early days of import substitution it also considers the relations between the distribution of income and economic structure both at present and in a possible future situation of redistribution

perceptual and structural barriers to investing in natural capital economics from an ecological footprint perspective this paper argues that perceptual distortions and prevailing economic rationality far from encouraging investment in natural capital actually accelerate the depletion of natural capital stocks moreover conventional monetary analyses cannot detect the problem this paper therefore makes the case for direct biophysical measurement of relevant stocks and flows and uses for this purpose the ecological footprint concept to develop the argument the paper elaborates the natural capital concept and asserts the need of investing in natural capital to compensate for net losses it shows how the ecological footprint can be used as a biophysical measure for such capital and applies this concept as an analytical tool for examining the barriers to investing in natural capital it picks four issues from a rough taxonomy of barriers and discusses them from an ecological footprint perspective it shows why marginal prices cannot reflect ecological necessities how interregional risk pooling encourages resource liquidation how present terms of trade undermine both local and global ecological stability and how efficiency strategies may actually accelerate resource throughput affirming the necessity of biophysical approaches for exploring the sustainability implications of basic ecological and thermodynamic principles it draws lessons for current development

retrospectives the coining of privatization and germany s national socialist party the concept of privatization attracted much attention in the late 1970s and early 1980s as margaret thatcher s privatization policies were implemented in the united kingdom my goal here is not to comment on the merits of privatization as a policy but rather to investigate the history of the term privatization in economics and to shed some light on the context in which the word was coined although the origin of the term is often attributed to a 1969 book by peter drucker i will show that this attribution is incorrect and that the terminology of privatization played an evolving role in german economic policy from the 1930s through the 1950s

electricity curtailment behaviors in greek households different behaviors different predictors abstract this paper argues that electricity curtailment behaviors i e frequent and or low cost or free energy saving behaviors in households are distinct from one another and they thus should be analyzed and promoted we test this claim with data from telephone interviews with greek households in the capital city of athens n 285 analyzing the impact of a number of demographical structural psychological based on the theory of planned behavior and moral based on norms activation predictors though hierarchical binary logistic regression modeling we find that that each electricity curtailment behavior depends on a different mix of predictors with age gender and perceived behavioral control being statistically significant for most behaviors overall the psychological and the demographical structural clusters of variables substantially contribute to the explained variance of electricity curtailment behaviors the moral cluster s contribution is not statistically significant since moral concerns are largely interwoven in the psychological constructs

trade liberalization and rising wage inequality in latin america reconciliation with hos theory abstract the paper puts forward the hypothesis that the transitory effects of trade liberalization on wage inequality can differ from the long run outcome in cases where the hos theory predicts a decline in wage inequality in the long run a temporary rise can nevertheless occur due to i the asymmetries in the speed of contraction in the import sector and expansion in other sectors and ii the capital skill complementarity in production the asymmetric contraction and expansion causes a transitory capital accumulation that boosts the relative and the real wage of skilled labor due to capital skill complementarity although the long run hos fundamentals are therefore dominated in the short run by the transient effects arising due to capital skill complementarity the observed rise in wage inequality is nonetheless consistent with the hos theory appropriately extended to a dynamic setting

openness and wage inequality in developing countries the latin american challenge to east asian conventional wisdom the experience of east asia in the 1960s and 1970s supports the theory that greater openness to trade tends to narrow the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers in developing countries in latin america since the mid 1980s however increased openness has widened wage differentials this conflict of evidence is probably not the result of differences between east asia and latin america instead the conflict is probably the result of differences between the 1960s and the 1980s specifically the entry of china into the world market and perhaps the advent of new technology biased against unskilled workers

what do we learn about consumer demand patterns from micro data the aim of this paper is to assess the importance of using micro level data in the econometric analysis of consumer demand to do this we utilize a time series of repeated cross sections covering some 4 000 households in each of 15 years employing a number of different aggregation procedures we conclude that aggregate data alone are unlikely to produce reliable estimates of structural price and income coefficients however once certain aggregation factors as well as trend and seasonal components are included an aggregate model is not necessarily outperformed across all demand equations in terms of forecasting ability jel d12 c52 c31 the purpose of this paper is to develop a complete consumer demand system based on a time series of individual household data and to use it to measure the biases introduced into the study of consumer de mand behavior when aggregate data are used in place of the appropriate microeco nomic data we assess the suitability of ag gregate data through the impact on income and price elasticities and by evaluating the ability of both micro and aggregate based models to forecast aggregate consumer de mand the biases introduced by the use of aggregate data depend upon the way that household characteristics interact with in come and price effects and on departures of demand systems from linearity we explore the structure of microeconomic demand sys tems and the role of household characteris tics in the behavior of consumer demand both for the light this may shed on the pattern of future demands and for the im plications this behavior has for issues of aggregation consumer demand patterns typically found in micro data sets vary considerably across households with different household characteristics and with different levels of income we model this variability by making intercept and slope parameters in the budget share equations of our demand sys tem depend on household characteristics and by allowing for nonlinear total log expenditure terms in fact in theory consistent demand systems it is total ex penditure rather than disposable income that is allocated across goods we find that this general framework leads to a well specified data coherent demand system which is a quadratic extension of the popu lar almost ideal model of angus s deaton and john muellbauer 1980 the micro level estimates are shown to be sensitive to the treatment of endogeneity of total expen diture and to the specification of interaction terms with household characteristics in ad dition this specification is also shown to possess many attractive features for the evaluation of aggregate models

three decades of industrialization this article reviews the experience of growth and industrialization in the postwar period in more than 100 economies drawing on time series data over a three decade period economies are classified according to their population size the share of primary or manufactured goods in their exports and the weight of exports in gross domestic product gdp the authors examine the composition of demand trade output manufacturing type and factor use overall and between sectors as they relate to income growth higher income growth and more marked transformation are found among the groups with large populations a predominance of manufactures in exports and a larger role of exports the authors also found that the patterns suggested by cross country analysis are robust when tested using the time series data now available although development experiences may vary over time and across countries there is sufficient uniformity within them for the main features of structural transformation to emerge as clear and consistent patterns of modern economic growth

the public private divide in household behavior how far into home can energy guidance reach abstract environmental problems in the energy system often originate from everyday activities and choices everyday activities in the home are part of the private sphere that can be contested in relation to energy policies this article discusses the public private divide in energy policies and how swedish municipal energy consultants understand the divide by analyzing the actions of energy consultants and their efforts to influence households as well as how households perceive this guidance i will discuss the public private discourse in relation to energy policy and how this discourse can be a restriction for the energy consultants to reach their full potential the consultants found it problematic to discuss behavioral issues because they did not know how to relate to people s everyday life activities without intruding on private and personal matters for the households tailored information and feedback was not perceived as the consultant trespassing in the private sphere instead the householders highlight the possibilities of such mapping lessoned learned from sweden is that state subsidies to local energy consultants is a good way to reach households but that they need to develop their methods and use more tailored information

exploring the role of households hurdle rates and demand elasticities in meeting danish energy savings target abstract the eu s energy efficiency directive eed sets a binding target for energy savings in eu member states the eed further requires member states to perform ex ante evaluations of energy efficiency policies implemented to achieve these savings however ex ante evaluation of energy efficiency policies is difficult as it requires detailed modelling of end users investment and energy demand behaviour this paper details the danish interact modelling approach for ex ante evaluation of energy efficiency policies directed at residential heating interact integrates the energy system model times dk into a computable general equilibrium framework the paper explores the potential for meeting denmark s eed target through a policy induced increase in households investments in energy efficiency retrofits the paper considers the effect of energy efficiency policies on households investment behaviour by applying different levels of hurdle rates on households investments in energy efficiency retrofits the paper shows that reducing the hurdle rate from 25 to 4 could meet more than a third of danish energy saving requirements for the period 2021 2030 this result includes a direct rebound effect of 31 finally the paper demonstrates that reducing the hurdle below 10 has a substantial negative impact on households disposable income making such policy less viable from a policy perspective

empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect a review beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the role of oligarchs in russian capitalism using a unique dataset we describe the degree of ownership concentration in russian economy and its role in shaping economic and political institutions in russia in particular we find that russian oligarchs do control a substantial part of the economy while the relative weight of their firms in russian economy is huge they do not seem to be excessively large by the standards of the global economy where most of them are operating the oligarchs seem to run their firms more efficiently than other russian owners controlling for industry region and size

trade openness and wage inequality evidence for malaysia this article examines the impact of trade openness on wage inequality in malaysia during the period 1984 1997 malaysia has operated a very open trade regime since the 1960s and has pursued aggressive import substitution and export supporting policies this development strategy is very different to that adopted in many other emerging economies where trade liberalisation has been associated with greater wage inequality the aim of the present study is to examine whether malaysia s more open approach to international trade has had a similar effect on wage inequality the results suggest in fact that this is not the case

an integrated supply demand model for the optimization of energy flow in the urban system this research aims to develop a bottom up integrated supply demand model to assess the optimal performance of urban energy systems to this end an optimization model founded on the principles of microeconomics was developed and deployed using mathematical programming in this model the urban energy system is treated as an economic actor in the market seeking to establish an effective energy system to improve its overall resource efficiency with minimum total cost of the system the model leads the system to achieve supply and demand energy commitments which include alternative energy and energy efficiency targets in this paper we apply the model to address the electricity deficiency in delhi india as a case study the results suggest that the saving at the end user level could reach about 220 gwh per annum in the near future through improving energy end use efficiency in the domestic sector besides this the installation of about 40 mw from waste to electricity plants and generating approximately 210 gwh electricity from the rooftop solar pv by 2030 could enable a sufficient surplus for the power supply sector to meet the city s electricity demand in the near future even though the system has some inherent limitations stemming from the assumptions of microeconomics and challenges related to data needs the model can help the local actors from governments to property owners to find the best solutions for their energy needs such a modeling framework could address an organization s sustainable performance at the urban level through the resource use optimization minimization of waste cleaner technologies and pollution limits which are used in achieving co benefits and a broad range of eco industrial development eid goals

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

estimating the rebound effect in us manufacturing energy consumption abstract the energy price shocks of the 1970s are usually assumed to have increased the search for new energy saving technologies where eventual gains in energy efficiencies will reduce the real per unit price of energy services and hence the consumption of energy will rise and partially offset the initial reduction in the usage of energy sources this is the rebound effect which is estimated for the us manufacturing sector using time series data applying the dynamic ols method dols when allowing for asymmetric price effects the rebound effect is found to be approximately 24 for the us manufacturing sector

energy efficiency rebounding to a sound analytical perspective abstract recent controversy suggests that energy efficiency policies used to reduce carbon emissions might actually increase overall energy consumption the result would be an unintended increase in carbon emissions this paper examines the underlying issues of this so called rebound effect from both a historical perspective and through the results of a recent macroeconomic analysis completed for the united states depending on the assumptions of income and price elasticities as well as the supply demand interactions within a macroeconomic model the rebound effect might reduce overall savings by about 2 3 compared to a pure engineering analysis in other words an economy wide cost effective engineering savings of 30 might turn out to be only a 29 savings from a macroeconomic perspective despite the impact of a rebound effect the net result of energy efficiency policies can be a highly positive one

socially relevant policy analysis structuralist computable general equilibrium models for the developing world economist lance taylor is an advocate of aggressive government management of developing economies the models described in this book are are easy to set up and manipulate on microcomputers and should dominate the development debate taylor s detailed discussion of structuralist coe models is followed by contributions that take up their application in specific countries this collection of work reviews the results of using cge models since the early 1970s with an emphasis on models that encompass broad structural factors such as distribution of income and wealth land tenancy relationships foreign trade production markets and control of the means of production that are fundamental to the behavior of developing economies chapters explain the macro constraints on india s economic growth and describe plan austral and other heterodox shocks describe the application of a structuralist model to nicaragua to mexican food consumption policies and to the food market in colombia they discuss a model with portfolio choice for thailand resource mobilization through administered prices and conflicting claims and dynamic inflationary mechanisms in india short run energyeconomy interactions in egypt policy options for growth and the alleviation of poverty in sri lanka currency devaluation in mexico and medium term growth projections for kuwait the book concludes with a manual for a structuralist macro model program lance taylor is professor of economics at mit

on the rebound feedback between energy intensities and energy uses in iea countries abstract the interaction or feedback between energy efficiencies or energy intensities and energy use has long been the topic of debate some have argued that energy efficiency improvements by reducing energy intensities and therefore lowering the cost of energy services would lead to rebound effects offsetting much or all of any initial savings in energy in this paper we analyse historical data on energy use efficiency and pricing in different sectors to try and identify rebounds for the period of our data since about 1970 we show that key measures of activity car use manufacturing output and structure house area etc have changed little in response to changes in energy prices or efficiency instead continuing their long term evolution relative to gdp or other driving factors while our analysis cannot disentangle more macro level economic feedbacks in a detailed way we show indirectly that such effects also appear to have been small over the 1970s and 1980s overall our analysis of disaggregated sectoral and subsectoral energy use and activity trends in a variety of iea economies suggests that any feedback effect is small compared to both the effects on energy use of changes in energy intensities and overall economic growth we conclude that most of the improvements in energy efficiencies led to reductions in energy intensities observed in the 1970s and 1980s weighted by 1990 activity levels intensities were roughly 15 20 lower in 1994 5 than in 1973 which in turn meant real savings of energy energy demand in iea countries is roughly this much below what it would have been for the same gdp had these savings not occurred rebounds may have taken back some of the overall savings but most remain even after the fall of oil prices in 1986 any boost to gdp as a result of these savings could not have been sufficient to increase energy demand enough to significantly alter these conclusions that the savings remained after the fall in oil prices supports the notion that net savings restrained energy growth relative to gdp in some formulations arise from technological progress even if energy prices do not increase how far this effect can reach however is a matter of considerable debate

linear and nonlinear causality between sectoral electricity consumption and economic growth evidence from taiwan this study investigates the linear and nonlinear causality between the total electricity consumption tec and real gross domestic production rgdp unlike previous literature we solve the undetermined relation between rgdp and electricity consumption by classifying tec into industrial sector consumption isc and residential sector consumption rsc as well as investigating how tec isc and rsc influence taiwan s rgdp by using the granger s linear causality test it is shown that i there is a bidirectional causality among tec isc and rgdp but a neutrality between rsc and rgdp with regard to the linear causality and ii there is still a bidirectional causality between tec and rgdp but a unidirectional causality between rsc and rgdp with regard to the nonlinear causality on the basis of i and ii we suggest that the electricity policy formulators loosen the restriction on isc and limit rsc in order to achieve the goal of economic growth

technological progress and sustainable development what about the rebound effect abstract sustainability concepts that rest on the idea of resource or energy efficiency improvements due to technological progress tend to overestimate the potential saving effects because they frequently ignore the behavioral responses evoked by technological improvements efficiency improvements also affect the demand for resources and energy and often an increase in efficiency by 1 will cause a reduction in resource use that is far below 1 or sometimes it can even cause an increase in resource use this phenomenon is commonly labeled the rebound effect which is well known among energy economists but never attracted much attention in ecological economics the paper starts with the traditional neoclassical analysis of the rebound effect in a partial equilibrium framework that concentrates on the demand of one particular energy service such as mobility or room temperature it also provides an overview of some of the main empirical studies based on this model that mostly confirm the existence of the rebound effect but are controversial about its actual importance however we have to go beyond the neoclassical single service model in order to take care of the variety of possible feedback affecting energy use the paper presents two important expansions of the single service model in order to show the potential relevance of the rebound effect to ecological economics first it is shown that in a multi services model it proves to be difficult to make general statements about the relevance of the rebound effect in this case the overall effect of an increase in energy efficiency on total energy use depends on the on the assumptions about the substitutability between the services considered and the direction of the income effect second the paper also tries to take care of the fact that changes in resource use or energy use are frequently just side effects of other forms of technological progress especially technological change of a time saving nature can have a large influence on energy use as many time saving devices for example faster modes of transport require an increase in energy consumption that is frequently reinforced by a rebound effect with respect to time this effect will be especially strong when wages are high and at the same time energy prices are low as is currently the case in most industrialized countries consequently the paper also provides a strong argument for the introduction of energy taxes

a multi criteria evaluation of policy instruments for climate change mitigation in the power generation sector of trinidad and tobago even as small island developing states sids like trinidad and tobago t t increase industrialization and grapple with the challenges of increased pollution few studies provide guidance to policy makers of such countries on appropriate policy measures and instruments that can be implemented to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions here we apply a multi criteria evaluation methodology to ascertain preferences for policy measures and instruments in the power generation sector four broad policy measures and twelve policy instruments are assessed on criteria of environmental performance feasibility of implementation and political acceptability this method proves useful in t t since typical to many sids the intensive data required by other policy assessment methods is unavailable results indicate little difference in preference among the four policy measures thereby indicating that a multi pronged approach on several policy fronts is required the most preferred policy instruments to operationalize measures included provision of subsidies for energy saving technologies creating an industry wide carbon trading scheme and implementing a feed in tariff to increase the use of renewable energy sources this study therefore provides specific insights for policy makers in trinidad and tobago while also providing power generation sector specific guidance to other rapidly industrializing small island developing states

energy saving in italy in the late 1990s which role for non monetary motivations abstract the paper studies the relationship between energy saving behaviour monetary drivers and non monetary motivations in italy in a period the end of the 1990s when the energy industry was not yet liberalized there were no energy saving incentive schemes and the environmental sensitivity and information were lower we consider as dependent variable the frequency with which individuals switch the light off when leaving a room as monetary drivers income and perceived energy costs while non monetary motives in our model are measured by proxies of pro environmental attitudes environmental information social pressure and pro social behaviours the analysis is based on probit and logit models estimated on a sample from the multipurpose household survey dataset conducted by the italian statistical office we find that individuals who were less concerned about environmental issues were also more attentive in energy saving behaviour suggesting together with results about income and perceived energy costs that monetary motivations were primary in driving this energy saving behaviour such findings are robust to the inclusion of variables accounting for pro social behaviours altruism by individuals who claim to be more concerned about broad environmental externalities may have adversely affected their propensity to optimize energy consumption

price effects of energy efficient technologies a study of residential demand for heating and cooling energy efficient appliances reduce the marginal price of the services they deliver this article shows empirically that such price reductions result in energy savings that are smaller than those engineering techniques generally project using econometric techniques with data from a unique utility experiment and a detailed engineering thermal load model we find that actual conservation is as much as 13 below engineering estimates for cooling and 8 12 below for heating customers who conserve electricity are also persistent their houses are comparatively warmer in summer and cooler in winter

energy efficiency policy evaluation by moving from techno economic towards whole society perspective on energy efficiency market abstract energy efficiency is recognised as a key strategy to tackle three energy related challenges climate change energy security and economic development at the least cost to the society in the recent years of the economic downturn it gained even more relevance in the developed countries as there is more than ever the need to decouple economic recovery and growth from energy consumption however despite this formal recognition energy efficiency remains the least understood and the most neglected feature of overall energy policy despite the substantial efforts made to develop sound energy efficiency policies the desired effects in terms of achieved energy savings are lacking the phenomenon is known as energy efficiency gap and its persistence was the main driver of this research the aim of the research was to examine the causes and propose solutions for bridging the gap therefore ideal policy making cycle is defined connecting design implementation and multiple criteria evaluation of policy instruments impacts in closed repetitive loop concept of energy efficiency market was introduced as a basis for policy making enabling better understanding of the overall environment where policy needs to be implemented paper deals with the concept of energy efficiency market it discusses the fundamental aim of energy efficiency policy to achieve market transformation towards more efficient products and services it presents market barriers that call for policy interventions but upgrades the list of usually addressed barriers with behavioural and societal aspects of energy efficiency related decisions established methodology for energy efficiency market assessment includes upgraded model of barriers to energy efficiency focus of this paper is how to establish a model of energy efficiency market and to upgrade exisitng model of barriers to energy efficiencies to describe the reality better as to be a basis for policy instruments design

the first privatisation selling soes and privatising public monopolies in fascist italy 1922 1925 italy s first fascist government applied a large scale privatisation policy between 1922 and 1925 the government privatised the state monopoly of match sale eliminated the state monopoly on life insurances sold most of the state owned telephone networks and services to private firms reprivatised the largest metal machinery producer and awarded concessions to private firms to build and operate motorways these interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatisation episodes in the western world while ideological considerations may have had a certain influence privatisation was used mainly as a political tool to build confidence among industrialists and to increase support for the government and the partito nazionale fascista privatisation also contributed to balancing the budget which was the core objective of fascist economic policy in its first phase

explaining the exchange rate pass through in different prices abstract this paper examines the performance of a variety of new open economy macroeconomic models in explaining the exchange rate pass through in a wide range of prices quantitative versions of different models are used to derive the dynamic response of various prices to an exchange rate shock predicted responses are compared with the evidence based on var models to examine how well different models fit the data the results show that the best fitting model incorporates a number of features highlighted by different strands of the literature sticky prices sticky wages distribution costs and a combination of local lcp and producer currency pricing pcp

goods prices and exchange rates what have we learned import prices typically change by a smaller proportion than the exchange rate between the exporting and importing country recent research indicates that common currency relative prices for similar goods exported to different markets are highly correlated with exchange rates between those markets this evidence suggests that incomplete pass through is a consequence of third degree price discrimination while distance matters for market segmentation borders have independent effects the source of the border effect has not been clearly identified furthermore there is little evidence yet to suggest substantial market power is implied by the observed price discrimination

rewarding energy savings rather than energy efficiency exploring the concept of a feed in tariff for energy savings abstract financial incentives are important for overcoming certain market barriers to improved energy efficiency and for the adoption of energy efficient technologies financial incentives are mainly focused on the introduction of specific technologies rather than behavioural change while the declared goal of financial support schemes very often is to save energy or reduce harmful emissions rather than to foster new technologies per se it is often encountered that such financial support for energy efficient technologies may not ensure real energy savings due to the rebound effect and various market barriers in the area of renewable energies it is common for financial support to be given to power producers for the verified production of renewable electricity in the form of a guaranteed financial incentive feed in tariff in the energy efficiency policy research little attention has been paid to the possible use of a feed in tariff in the form of a financial incentive based on the kwh saved by the end user this paper discusses the possible setup of a feed in tariff designed to reward energy savings

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

a review of optimal energy policy instruments on industrial energy efficiency programs rebound effects and government policies abstract industrial energy efficiency programs ieeps are defined as one of the most popular government policies that aim to reduce energy consumption in industrial energy intensive sectors in this paper we review and classify the most important academic studies that have addressed the environmental and economic aspects of ieeps using a systematic review the classification of energy policy instruments has been developed based on an analytical approach we discuss also the outputs benefits and barriers of ieeps besides a comprehensive argument about the restrictive policies on the rebound effects made after the implementation of these programs the results disclose that china usa and sweden are the most addressed countries on ieeps and their applications in this regard incentive energy policies e g voluntary agreements and subsidies have been applied more than others in the last decade furthermore most of the reviewed studies emphasize energy price reform as an effective practical policy while a few analytical methods can be seen to help policy makers determine the optimal levels of decision variables finally according to the state of the art analysis the authors provide some novel recommendations to improve the performance of ieeps using some restrictive policies on the negative impacts of rebound effects

russian retrospectives on reforms from yeltsin to putin the kamikaze crew of liberal reformers picked by former president boris yeltsin in the early 1990s succeeded in overturning the planned economy and the authoritarian political arrangements of seven decades of soviet communism however the resulting breakdown of political cohesion and the urgency of restoring stability prompted yeltsin to select vladimir putin as his successor the consolidating impetus under putin who was elected president in early 2000 has raised concerns about the continuation of economic and political reforms under his leadership in this essay nine russian interviewees look back on the reform issues under yeltsin and look ahead on the unfolding political economy scenario under putin they include three principle economic reformers under yeltsin three economic policy analysts and three banking professionals

the energy efficiency gap what does it mean abstract as renewed attention has been given by policy makers to energy conservation issues it has frequently been asserted that an energy efficiency gap exists between actual and optimal energy use the critical questions is how to define the optimal level of energy efficiency this paper seeks to disentangle some confusing strands of argument that are frequently brought to bear on this question by identifying the major conceptual issues that determine the set of feasible answers we identify five separate and distinct notions of optimality the economists economic potential the technologists economic potential hypothetical potential the narrow social optimum and the true social optimum each of these has associated with it a corresponding definition of the energy efficiency gap our analysis demonstrates that necessary preconditions for identifying the right measure of the energy efficiency gap include understanding and disentangling market failure and non market failure explanations for the gradual diffusion of energy efficient technologies

the mirage of exchange rate regimes for emerging market countries this paper argues that much of the debate on choosing an exchange rate regime misses the boat it begins by discussing the standard theory of choice between exchange rate regimes and then explores the weaknesses in this theory especially when it is applied to emerging market economies it then discusses a range of institutional traits that might predispose a country to favor either fixed or floating rates and then turns to the converse question of whether the choice of exchange rate regime may favor the development of certain desirable institutional traits the conclusion from the analysis is that the choice of exchange rate regime is likely to be of second order importance to the development of good fiscal financial and monetary institutions in producing macroeconomic success in emerging market countries this suggests that less attention should be focused on the general question whether a floating or a fixed exchange rate is preferable and more on these deeper institutional arrangements a focus on institutional reforms rather than on the exchange rate regime may encourage emerging market countries to be healthier and less prone to the crises that we have seen in recent years

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

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

the rebound effect for space heating empirical evidence from austria abstract the major focus of this paper is to investigate the magnitude of the rebound effect for space heating in austria different approaches are applied and compared the most important result of this investigation is that despite the fact that all approaches applied have their weaknesses and some results were not highly significant the final outcomes of the different approaches show quite good coincidence they provide evidence of a rebound effect between 20 and 30 the most important conclusions for energy policy makers are i standards with respect to building codes are very important tools to increase the thermal quality of new buildings ii due to prevailing low energy prices a triggering tool which may be rebates or loans has to be implemented to increase the efficiency of the building stock

the sufficiency strategy would rich world frugality lower environmental impact abstract one alleged weapon against unsustainable environmental impact is for the wealthy to consume less this sufficiency strategy is to complement the efficiency strategy of lowering ratios of resource inputs to economic outputs the former would reduce the affluence factor in i pat the latter the technology factor that the latter strategy suffers from a consumption rebound is widely recognized this paper identifies a similar rebound when the affluence factor is autonomously lowered the lower initial demand lowers prices which in turn stimulates new demand by others the strategy moreover addresses only the rich raising questions of its theoretical maximum efficacy its proponents usually conflate frugality with the north south dichotomy and intra generational with inter generational equity moreover there are difficulties with the supporting arguments that frugality is good for one s own sake as well as for the environment and that the rich should lead the way to living more lightly personal behaviour change is furthermore not a substitute for international political efforts finally since all changes in right side factors of the i pat equation change other right side factors such indirect attacks on impact should be abandoned in favor of supply and emissions quotas