prospective exploration of future renewable portfolio standard schemes in china via a multi sector cge model abstract the shortage of traditional energy sources and environmental pollution caused by the consumption of fossil fuels have become increasingly prominent and many countries regard the development of renewable energy as important for ensuring energy conservation and emission reductions in addition renewable portfolio standard is important for china to achieve energy transition the chinese government is actively promoting the construction of a renewable portfolio standard system considering different renewable energy development targets for renewable portfolio standards this paper establishes a dynamic computable general equilibrium cge model to research the impacts of achieving various policy targets the main simulation results are as follows promoting renewable sources would have a slightly negative impact on macroeconomics for each additional percentage point in the share of renewable energy generation in 2030 the loss of gdp would increase by approximately 9 11 billion rmb a renewable energy policy could be also conducive to carbon emission reduction and energy structure adjustment certainly the proportion of renewable energy in the total power generation should be approximately 34 to achieve the government target for non fossil fuels to account for approximately 20 of the primary energy consumption by 2030

a bibliometric analysis of research on carbon tax from 1989 to 2014 abstract as one of the most cost effective means of emission reduction carbon tax has attracted considerable attention from economists and international organizations and has led to a large number of related research using the bibliometric method this paper characterizes the carbon tax literature from 1989 to 2014 based on the network database platform of web of science the results indicate that the usa occupies a leading position in the carbon tax field the vrije university amsterdam massachusetts institute of technology and stanford university were the most productive research institutes energy policy 143 has been the most productive journal followed by energy economics 44 and energy 38 in general the cooperation of authors institutes and nations are continuing to strengthen however the growth rate at the author level was significantly higher than the others in addition the current key research areas in the carbon tax field based on co keyword analysis are as follows climate change and relevant policy carbon emissions trading socio economic effects of carbon tax renewable energy endogenous technological change and carbon capture and storage the results of this paper will help researchers grasp the current research in the carbon tax field but also provide a supporting role for future work

could a monetary base rule have prevented the great depression abstract this paper continues an ongoing investigation of the properties of a policy rule that specifies settings of the monetary base that are designed to keep nominal gnp growing smoothly at a noninflationary rate counterfactual historical simulations for 1923 1941 are conducted with the rule and a small model of nominal gnp determination estimated with u s quarterly data with residuals fed in as estimates of the behavioral shocks that occurred the simulation results indicate that nominal gnp would have been kept reasonably close to a steady three percent path over 1923 1941 if the rule had been in effect

economic policy and the great depression in a small open economy we use a standard new keynesian model of a small open economy extended to include a government sector to investigate the great depression in australia a calibrated model with a fixed exchange rate regime similar to the gold standard does well in replicating the dynamics of output during the interwar period we then ask to what extent shocks to the economy would have been moderated by adopting modern day policies we find that if policymakers had adopted a flexible exchange rate with a taylor rule policy that output fluctuations during the great depression would have been moderated by up to 25 changes in government fiscal policy would also have moderated output fluctuations but by a slightly smaller amount overall we find that improved policy could have reduced output fluctuations by almost 50

monetary policy and exchange rate volatility in a small open economy we lay out a small open economy version of the calvo sticky price model and show how the equilibrium dynamics can be reduced to a simple representation in domestic inflation and the output gap we use the resulting framework to analyse the macroeconomic implications of three alternative rulebased policy regimes for the small open economy domestic inflation and cpi based taylor rules and an exchange rate peg we show that a key difference among these regimes lies in the relative amount of exchange rate volatility that they entail we also discuss a special case for which domestic inflation targeting constitutes the optimal policy and where a simple second order approximation to the utility of the representative consumer can be derived and used to evaluate the welfare losses associated with the suboptimal rules

the economic and environmental impact of a carbon tax for scotland a computable general equilibrium analysis using a disaggregated energy economy environmental model we investigate the economic and environmental impact of a scottish specific carbon tax under three alternative assumptions about the use of the revenue raised by the tax revenues raised are not recycled within scotland revenues are used to increase general government expenditure or to reduce scottish income tax we find that by imposing a tax of 50 per tonne of co2 the 37 co2 reduction target is met with a very rapid adjustment in all three cases if the model incorporates forward looking behaviour however the adjustment is much slower if agents are myopic in addition the results of the model suggest that a carbon tax might simultaneously stimulate economic activity whilst reducing emissions and thus secure a double dividend but only for the case in which the revenue is recycled through income tax

real wage rigidities and the new keynesian model most central banks perceive a trade off between stabilizing inflation and stabilizing the gap between output and desired output however the standard new keynesian framework implies no such trade off in that framework stabilizing inflation is equivalent to stabilizing the welfare relevant output gap in this paper we argue that this property of the new keynesian framework which we call the divine coincidence is due to a special feature of the model the absence of nontrivial real imperfections we focus on one such real imperfection namely real wage rigidities when the baseline new keynesian model is extended to allow for real wage rigidities the divine coincidence disappears and central banks indeed face a trade off between stabilizing inflation and stabilizing the welfare relevant output gap we show that not only does the extended model have more realistic normative implications but it also has appealing positive properties in particular it provides a natural interpretation for the dynamic inflation unemployment relation found in the data

great expectations and the end of the depression what ended the great depression in the united states this paper suggests that the recovery was driven by a shift in expectations this shift was triggered by president franklin delano roosevelt s fdr policy actions on the monetary policy side roosevelt abolished the gold standard and announced an explicit policy objective of inflating the price level to pre depression levels on the fiscal policy side roosevelt expanded real and deficit spending which helped make his policy objective credible the key to the recovery was the successful management of expecta tions about future policy roosevelt s rise to power is modeled as a policy regime change as in thomas sargent 1983 and peter temin and barry wigmore 1990 this paper formalizes temin and wigmore s argu ment in a repeated game setting using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium dsge model and argues that the regime change can account for the recovery in the model a regime change means the elimination of certain policy dogmas that constrain the actions of the government the regime change generates an endogenous shift in expectations due to a coordination of mon etary and fiscal policy this coordination ended the great depression by engineering a shift in expectations from contractionary i e the private sector expected future economic contrac tion and deflation to expansionary i e the public expected future economic expansion and inflation the expectation of higher future inflation lowered real interest rates thus stimulating demand while the expectation of higher future income stimulated demand by raising permanent income

effects of carbon taxes in an economy with prior tax distortions an intertemporal general equilibrium analysis abstract this paper analyzes the costs of carbon taxes in a model that recognizes interactions between this tax and pre existing taxes first we examine the extent to which costs of a u s carbon tax are reduced when its revenues finance cuts in income taxes such use of revenues significantly reduces but does not eliminate the overall policy costs the positive overall costs reflect the carbon tax s focus on intermediate inputs and its relatively narrow base in comparison with income taxes we also examine the sensitivity of the carbon tax s costs to the level of pre existing taxes for any given use of revenues welfare costs rise significantly with pre existing tax rates indicating that models disregarding pre existing taxes may substantially understate the costs of new environmental tax initiatives

the importance of revenue sharing for the local economic impacts of a renewable energy project a social accounting matrix approach allan g mcgregor p and swales k the importance of revenue sharing for the local economic impacts of a renewable energy project a social accounting matrix approach regional studies ambitious renewable energy targets are requiring investments in new renewable capacity in areas where acceptance could be affected by the potential economic benefits to the locality at the same time new renewable energy projects primarily for onshore wind capacity might offer a route by which peripheral economic development policies can be supported the economic impacts of these projects are difficult to quantify using input output techniques but can be more appropriately handled within a social accounting matrix sam framework a social accounting matrix for the shetland islands off the north coast of mainland scotland is used to evaluate the potential local economic and employment impacts of a large proposed onshore wind energy project sensitivity analysis reveals the relative importance of the level of commu

additional precision provided by region specific data the identification of fuel use and pollution generation coefficients in the jersey economy turner k 2006 additional precision provided by region specific data the identification of fuel use and pollution generation coefficients in the jersey economy regional studies 40 347 364 a debate is currently ongoing in the uk regarding the need to collect and report data at the regional level one specific area of this debate is the extent to which region specific economic and environmental data are required to carry out analyses of devolved sustainability policy issues this paper uses the jersey economy as a case study to assess the added precision from using good quality region specific data compared with adjusted national uk data it is found that due to differences in polluting technology between jersey and the uk estimates based on national emissions intensities produce results that are misleading in terms of both absolute pollution levels and the relative contribution of different activities to total emissions in the economy while jersey may be regarded as atypical in many ways relative

foundations of decision analysis along the way this paper offers a personal perspective on the development of decision theory and related subjects during the past half century it first reviews six milestones in the foundations of decision analysis that are associated with frank p ramsey john von neumann and oskar morgenstern leonard j savage maurice allais and ward edwards west churchman and russell ackoff and kenneth arrow it then gives a personal account of further developments over the past 30 years in linear utility theory subjective probability and ambiguity nonlinear preference and utility stochastic dominance and inequality analysis multiattribute utility theory and the theory of social choice the paper could be viewed as a supplement to my extensive review of utility theory in management science some 20 years ago however it makes no claim of completeness since its main aim is to recall important debts and describe what it has been like to be a part of the development of decision analysis in the past few decades

age analysis of the impact of a carbon energy tax on the irish economy a computable general equilibrium model with specific detail in taxation and energy use is developed in this paper to quantify the impact of the implementation of energy taxation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in ireland benchmark data combining physical energy and emissions data and economic data in the form of a social accounting matrix sam had to be compiled from various data sources because energy and pollution accounts from the seea are not available for ireland we find that the reduction target for energy related co2 emissions in ireland of 25 8 compared to 1998 levels can be achieved with a carbon energy tax of 10 15 euros per tonne of co2 though fuel switching is important in meeting the target this result is more sensitive to the possibilities for producers to substitute away from energy use welfare would fall but only by small percentages production and consumption patterns would change more significantly with a shift in demand from fuels with a high emission factor to energy sources with a lower carbon intensity and from energy to other commodities this paper confirms that a carbon energy tax leads to greater emission reductions than an equivalent uniform energy tax the latter has a stronger negative impact on the less polluting energy sectors whereas the carbon tax greatly stimulates the use of renewable energy and reduces the use of peat and coal the new sam the model and the application to energy taxes contribute to a better informed debate on environmental policy in ireland

taking stock of the local impacts of community owned renewable energy a review and research agenda abstract a growing literature suggests that community owned renewable energy cre projects have the potential to deliver a range of environmental and local socio economic benefits there is relatively little empirical evidence to substantiate this with few systematic efforts to assess social and environmental impacts or to understand the context in which given impacts arise in this paper we review and conceptualise the local impacts commonly cited in the literature and dissect the empirical evidence currently available to support their occurrence having assessed the quality of evidence and pinpointed knowledge gaps we draw on methodological literature to identify approaches necessary to improve our understanding of the local impacts of cre and explore their patterns of occurrence we find a lack of robust survey and statistical evidence across all the seven impact categories identified of the impacts identified empowerment and access to affordable energy are found to be the least studied in addition several impacts are associated only with specific types of community energy projects we argue that the paucity of consistent evidence for direct impacts associated with the development processes and direct outcomes of projects suggests that the most substantial local impacts result from medium to long term indirect project outcomes and the investment of project revenues in the local community as such collective funding pools and negotiation processes around their distribution towards private versus public goods play a crucial role in determining transformative local impacts of cre

monetary policy for an open economy an alternative framework with optimizing agents and sticky prices the new open economy macroeconomics seeks to provide an improved basis for monetary and exchange rate policy through the construction of open economy models that feature rational expectations optimizing agents and slowly adjusting prices of goods this paper promotes an alternative approach for constructing such models by treating imports not as finished consumer goods but rather as raw material inputs to the home economy s productive process this treatment leads to a clean and simple theoretical structure that has some empirical attractions as well a particular small economy model is calibrated and its properties exhibited primarily by means of impulse response functions the preferred variant is shown to feature a pattern of correlations between exchange rate changes and inflation that is more realistic than provided by a more standard specification important recent events are interpreted in light of the alternative models

welfare maximization entices participation abstract we consider randomized public good mechanisms with optional participation preferences over lotteries are modeled using skew symmetric bilinear ssb utility functions a generalization of classic von neumann morgenstern utility functions we show that every welfare maximizing mechanism entices participation and that the converse holds under additional assumptions as a corollary we obtain a characterization of an attractive randomized voting rule that satisfies condorcet consistency and entices participation this stands in contrast to moulin s well known no show paradox j of econ theory 45 53 64 1988 which shows that no deterministic voting rule can satisfy both properties simultaneously

ex post analysis of economic impacts from wind power development in u s counties wind power development has surged in recent years in the united states policymakers and economic development practitioners to date have typically relied upon project level case studies or modeled input output estimates to assess the economic development impacts from wind power often focusing on potential local state wide or national employment or earnings impacts building on this literature we conduct an ex post econometric analysis of the county level economic development impacts of wind power installations from 2000 through 2008 in a large wind rich region in the country taking into account factors influencing wind turbine location we find an aggregate increase in county level personal income and employment of approximately 11 000 and 0 5 jobs per megawatt of wind power capacity installed over the sample period of 2000 to 2008 these estimates appear broadly consistent with modeled input output results and translate to a median increase in total county personal income and employment of 0 2 and 0 4 for counties with installed wind power over the same period

five facts about prices a reevaluation of menu cost models are price decreases 3 the frequency of price increases covaries strongly with inflation whereas the frequency of price decreases and the size of price increases and price decreases do not 4 the frequency of price change is highly seasonal it is highest in the first quarter and then declines 5 we find no evidence of upwardsloping hazard functions of price changes for individual products we show that the first second and third facts are consistent with a benchmark menu cost model whereas the fourth and fifth facts are not

dynamics of the trade balance and the terms of trade the j curve the authors provide a theoretical interpretation of two features of international data the countercyclical movements in net exports and the tendency for the trade balance to be negatively correlated with current and future movements in terms of trade but positively correlated with past movements they document the same properties in a two country stochastic growth model in which trade fluctuations reflect in large part the dynamics of capital formation the authors find that their general equilibrium perspective is essential the relation between the trade balance and the terms of trade depends critically on the source of fluctuations copyright 1994 by american economic association

an economic assessment of windfarm power generation in scotland including externalities abstract this paper uses cost benefit analysis to assess the economic feasibility of a large scale windfarm project taking into account positive and negative externalities of generation the issue of non use value i e a welfare change among those who will never visit the area and see the windfarm is addressed with reference to the study by bergmann et al 2006 valuing the attributes of renewable energy investments energy policy 34 1004 1014 which determined a social cost of 19 40 per household for the non use disamenity associated with a large scale windfarm in scotland this paper demonstrates the extent to which this estimate affects the economic feasibility of the project we find that for all but one of the 16 scenarios considered the project returns a positive net present value despite the inclusion of this non use value thus suggesting that in these cases the windfarm delivers a net welfare gain to society

energy taxation and the double dividend effect in taiwan s energy conservation policy an empirical study using a computable general equilibrium model abstract faced with pressure from greenhouse gas reductions and energy price hikes the taiwan government is in the process of developing an energy tax regime to reflect environmental external costs and effectively curb energy consumption as well as mitigate co2 emissions through an adequate pricing system this study utilizes a cge model to simulate and analyze the economic impacts of the draft energy tax bill and its complementary fiscal measures under the assumption of tax revenue neutrality the use of energy tax revenue generated for the purpose of reducing income tax is the best choice with double dividend effects since it will effectively stimulate domestic consumption and investment and consequently mitigate the negative impacts of the distortionary tax regime the double dividend effect is less significant however when the supplementary measures being used are for government expenditure nevertheless all supplementary measures have effectively reduced energy consumption which means they have delivered at least the first dividend in the sense of co2 emissions control it has been verified in this study that having adequate public finance policy measures is the key to realizing the double dividend effect

regional employment impacts of marine energy in the scottish economy a general equilibrium approach gilmartin m and allan g regional employment impacts of marine energy in the scottish economy a general equilibrium approach regional studies one aspect of the case for policy support for renewable energy developments is the wider economic benefits that are expected to be generated within scotland as with other regions of the uk there is a focus on encouraging domestically based renewable technologies this paper uses a regional computable general equilibrium framework to model the impact on the scottish economy of expenditures relating to marine energy installations the results illustrate the potential for considerable legacy effects after expenditures cease in identifying the specific sectoral expenditures with the largest impact on lifetime regional employment this approach offers important policy guidance

consequences of environmental tax reform for involuntary unemployment and welfare we investigate the welfare effects of environmental tax reform i e raising environmental taxes and using the proceeds to reduce distortionary taxes on labour the framework of analysis is a small open economy with involuntary unemployment due to a rigid consumer wage environmental tax reform boosts not only environmental quality but also employment if substitution between labour and resources is easy the production share of the fixed factor is large and the initial tax rates on resources and profits are small if the initial tax system is sub optimal with a negligible tax on resources profits rise as well

historic paths and future expectations the macroeconomic impacts of the offshore wind technologies in the uk abstract offshore wind power osw plays a key role within the uk strategy for a transition towards a low carbon economy offering vast potential for establishing a high tech manufacturing industry previous experiences in the onshore sector owp suggest the uk might fail in fully capturing these macroeconomic benefits in this work we investigate the history of uk renewable policies comparing its national strategy to those of other major osw export countries through the use of a numerical general equilibrium model we quantify the macroeconomic impacts under three scenarios a baseline which relies on previous estimates and foresee limited local content a contamination scenario where the uk content reaches the same levels of owp and a non myopic scenario where investors expect governmental support to decrease or disappear replicating a common path of past renewable policies we identify the uk as a fdi oriented country our results suggest that increasing the share of locally sourced capital goods in osp to owp level could generate larger income and employment effects in the uk economy we find that under forward looking investors the economic benefits are significantly lower than the case of myopic agents our results show an inherent conflict with stated purposes of uk policy for osw

did sunspot forces cause the great depression abstract we apply a dynamic general equilibrium model to the period of the u s great depression in particular we examine a modification of the real business cycle model in which the possibility of indeterminacy of equilibria arises in other words agents self fulfilling expectations can serve as a primary impulse behind fluctuations we find that the model driven only by these measured sunspot shocks can explain well the entire depression era that is the decline from 1929 to 1932 the subsequent slow recovery and the recession that occurred in 1937 1938

is there a case for community based equity participation in scottish on shore wind energy production gaps in evidence and research needs abstract this paper considers the potential rural development benefits of community ownership or co ownership or equity participation of on shore wind energy developments and argues for further research to assess the case for enhanced policy support for such ownership structures previous authors have argued that if communities are given a stake in renewables enterprises this will support the scottish government s community empowerment agenda increase economic activity in rural scotland and provide substantial benefits to rural communities others have argued that community ownership schemes may decrease community resistance to on shore wind developments and set beneficiary communities on a low carbon development pathway through stimulating energy citizenship however empirical evidence to support all of these claims remains limited focussing on scotland where the growth of on shore wind has been strong in recent years the paper reviews the current policy environment and governance context before reviewing evidence in relation to the various arguments for community ownership or shared equity in the case of on shore wind energy it identifies several areas where further research is urgently required to guide policy makers so as to ensure that both rural development objectives and renewable energy targets are met

the economics of distributed energy generation a literature review the uk electricity system is likely to face dramatic technical and institutional changes in the near future current uk energy policy focuses on the need for a clean affordable and secure energy supply decentralisation of the electricity system is recognised as one means of achieving efficient and renewable energy provision as well as addressing concerns over ageing electricity infrastructure and capacity constraints in this paper we provide a critical literature review of the economics of increased penetration of distributed energy generation we find that there exists a large volume of research considering the financial viability of individual distributed generation technologies and we are necessarily selective in our review of these studies given the wide variety of technologies that the definition of distributed generation encompasses however there are few studies that focus on the pure economics of individual or groups of distributed energy generators and even fewer still based on the economy wide aspects of distributed generation in view of this gap in the literature we provide suggestions for future research which are likely to be necessary in order adequately to inform public policy on distributed generation and its role in the future of uk energy supply

optimal environmental taxation in the presence of other taxes general equilibrium analyses this paper examines the optimal setting of environmental taxes in economies where other distortionary taxes are present we employ analytical and numerical models to explore the degree to which in a second best economy optimal environmental tax rates differ from the rates implied by the pigovian principle according to which the optimal tax rate equals the marginal environmental damages both models indicate contrary to what several analysts have suggested that the optimal tax rate on emissions of a given pollutant is generally less than the rate supported by the pigovian principle moreover the optimal rate is lower the larger are the distortions posed by ordinary taxes numerical results indicate that previous studies may have seriously overstated the size of the optimal carbon tax by disregarding pre existing taxes this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

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

greening regional development employment in low carbon and renewable energy activities abstractgreening regional development employment in low carbon and renewable energy activities regional studies the promotion of low carbon and renewable energy lc re activities has become an important element of development policy in many regional economies in practice defining and measuring these activities presents conceptual methodological and operational challenges this paper illustrates these difficulties using three recent estimates of lc re jobs for scotland it proposes that information on the lc re sector should be embedded in a set of input output accounts this would facilitate the planning implementation and monitoring of lc re based regional development policy

monetary policy in a low pass through environment in a dynamic new keynesian optimizing model we introduce incomplete exchange rate pass through on import prices three results stand out first unlike canonical models with perfect pass through which emphasize a type of isomorphism incomplete pass through renders the analysis of monetary policy of an open economy fundamentally different from the one of a closed economy second productivity driven deviations from the law of one price assume the interpretation of endogenous cost push shocks third the optimal commitment policy relative to discretion entails a smoothing of the deviations from the law of one price and requires more stable nominal and real exchange rates

understanding community benefit payments from renewable energy development abstract it is increasingly common for renewable energy projects to make financial or in kind payments to local communities these arrangements are variously described as benefits payments or compensation schemes similar approaches are now being recommended for other forms of development with potential to engender opposition from local communities e g nuclear power and fracking while such payments are common the level of payment the institutional frameworks involved and the nature of discourse varies greatly existing literature has sought to record rather than explain the diversity of arrangements to a large extent this diversity is rooted in the power dynamic between developer and community three uk case studies are used to highlight the diversity of arrangements meanings and power balances within benefits arrangements finally a typology is developed to illustrate the spectrum of potential arrangements this typology gives insight into why various arrangements emerge in response to their specific contexts

probabilistic social choice based on simple voting comparisons a social choice procedure is developed for selecting an alternative from a finite set on the basis of paired comparison voting ballot data are used to construct a lottery on the alternatives that is socially as preferred as every other lottery the constructed lottery is then used to select a winner an axiomatization of social preferences among lotteries that justifies the procedure is included the procedure will always select a consensus majority alternative when one exists and it will never select an alternative that is pareto dominated by another alternative

economic and socio economic assessment methods for ocean renewable energy public and private perspectives this paper provides a comprehensive review of the current state of the art of the economics and socio economics of ocean renewable energy ore the many ways in which the viability and impacts of an ore project are assessed and an analysis of the current weaknesses issues or inappropriateness of the metrics and methodologies used in their definition and presentation the outcomes of this paper are anticipated to benefit the ore and wider renewable sector as a whole the review revealed that for the most part the current study of economics and socio economics of ore remain separate and discrete areas of research the economic methods utilised appear to be comprehensive but are limited to project or private investor level the methods identified for socioeconomic assessment fall between traditional and now routine environmental assessment approaches and more novel holistic approaches such as ecosystem services and life cycle assessment the novel section of the paper explored the connectivity between the economics and socio economics of ore in relation to project developments and policy planning a visualisation method was created of concentric rings intersected by related axis of economic socio economic and environment and enabled the examination of the benefits arising from the connectivity between the two spheres the concept of sustainable development process and the integration of environmental assessment for ore was also explored and how it responds to differing stakeholder aspirations and interpretations the analysis revealed that there was a divergence between public and private economic and socioeconomic assessments for ore environmental assessment is primarily a public responsibility but with significant inputs from the private developer involved while economic assessments are conducted primarily by the developer and or investor at their own behest however the two spheres of economic and socio economic for ore are highly connected and synergistic and must be examined in a holistic manner

a review of the role and remit of the committee on climate change domestic action on climate change requires a combination of solutions in terms of institutions and policy instruments one way of achieving government carbon policy goals may be the creation of an independent body to advise on or set monitor policy this paper critically assesses the committee on climate change ccc which was created in 2008 as an independent body to help move the uk towards a low carbon economy we look at the motivation for its creation in particular we consider its ability to overcome a time inconsistency problem by comparing it to another independent body the monetary policy committee of the bank of england in practice the ccc appears to be the inverse of the monetary policy committee in that it advises on what the policy goal should be rather than being held responsible for achieving it the ccc incorporates both advisory and monitoring functions to inform government and achieve a credible carbon policy over a long time frame this is a similar framework to that adopted by stern 2006 but the ccc operates on a continuing basis and also incorporates a unique climate change monitoring function

estimating a wage curve for britain 1973 90 following a w phillips s 1958 original work on the united kingdom applied research on unemployment and wages has been dominated by the analysis of highly aggregated time series data sets however it has proved difficult with such methods to uncover statistically reliable models this paper adopts a different approach it uses macroeconomic data on 175 000 british workers from 1973 to 1990 to provide evidence for the existence of a negatively sloped relationship linking the level of pay to the local rate of unemployment the paper casts doubt on standard ideas in macroeconomics regional economics and labor economics copyright 1994 by royal economic society