patent protection in developing countries and global welfare wto obligations versus flexibilities abstract this paper develops a north south model to evaluate the south s incentive for patent protection when a northern firm s investment in quality enhancing research and development r d is affected by its patent policy the model is used to a evaluate the impact of requiring the south to fulfill its key wto obligation of instituting patent protection and b to address the role of two major flexibilities that wto members enjoy with respect to their patent policies the freedom to implement exhaustion policies of their choosing and the right to use compulsory licensing cl subject to certain stipulations two forces drive the model how much the firm invests in r d and whether or not selling in the south maximizes its global profit cl improves consumer access in the south and can even raise innovation and global welfare provided the south implements patent protection innovation and welfare are higher if the north follows national as opposed to international exhaustion however the south s incentive for patent protection is not necessarily stronger under national exhaustion not only is cl more likely to be used under international exhaustion the welfare gain resulting from its application is also higher relative to that under national exhaustion

the inequalities of public utility products in china from the perspective of the atkinson index abstract the chinese households make up approximately a quarter of the world s total compared with its size of population china s reserves of natural resources are relatively limited with the actual concerns about sustainable development in china we should pay more attention to the unequal distribution of energy which may result low efficiency and wasting of energy therefore how to best allocate the scarce public utility products pups for the household usage should be closely addressed in terms of equity and efficiency based on the micro household level data from crecs which investigated in 2013 in different scales city all over the country we measure the distribution of pups consumption quantitatively and evaluate the inequality of household income expenditures on electricity gas and water in the china s residential sector by using the atkinson index the results show that the atkinson index of households total pups consumption in medium scale city is equal to 0 0261 which is 83 0 higher than that of large scale city and 35 6 higher than that of small scale city it indicates that the inequalities of pups and income are greater in medium scale cities than in large scale and small scale cities considering the sustainability of pups we suggest further reform in china s public utility sectors the government should take more consideration on equality and efficiency of distribution and ensure that people have equal living standards especially for the low income households who serve as the main anchor for the sustainable development of china

pharmaceutical cost sharing systems and savings for healthcare systems from parallel trade this paper studies the consequences of parallel trade in a two country model it compares a coinsurance scheme consumers pay a percentage of the drug price and an indemnity insurance scheme reimbursement is independent of the drug price with respect to changes in copayments and public health expenditure in the destination country copayments for patients decrease to a larger extent under indemnity insurance whereas reductions in public health expenditure occur only under coinsurance in the source country copayments increase less under coinsurance whereas health expenditure is reduced more under indemnity insurance in both countries total expenditure under parallel trade is lower

retail price regulation and innovation reference pricing in the pharmaceutical industry our paper is a first attempt to evaluate the long run impact of reference pricing on pharmaceutical innovation health and expenditures the model is based on a dynamic game involving three types of agents pharmaceutical firms consumers and a regulatory entity pharmaceutical firms choose the level of research investment and its innovative content then negotiate introductory prices for new drugs with the regulator reference pricing affects negatively the intensity of research and it also modifies the types of innovations that are brought to the market deterring small innovations the model is calibrated with a small data on statins in france our results suggest that reference pricing typically generates a decline in health whereas discounted expenditures may decrease or increase depending on the degree of deterrence of cost reducing innovations

parallel imports price controls and innovation the impact of parallel trade on innovation in r d intensive industries such as pharmaceuticals is a hotly debated question in antitrust and ip policy the well known argument that parallel trade dampens innovation by undermining firms ability to price discriminate has been challenged by recent literature the argument is that with endogenous price controls parallel trade increases innovation by reducing governments incentives to set particularly low price caps in this paper we show that this result crucially depends on the degree of homogeneity of the trading countries the result only holds if consumers in poorer countries have a relatively similar demand for medication as consumers in richer countries instead when countries are relatively heterogeneous parallel trade dampens innovation and lowers welfare by exporting price cap regulation from poorer to richer countries these findings are in line with recent case evidence we also show that when patent length is endogenous richer countries will tend to choose longer patent protection with parallel trade whereas equilibrium price caps tend to be tighter in that case

quantitative effects of the shale oil revolution abstract the aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the so called shale oil revolution on oil prices and economic growth we employ a general equilibrium model of the world oil market in which saudi arabia is the dominant firm with the rest of the producers as a competitive fringe our results suggest that most of the expected increase in us oil supply due to the shale oil revolution has already been incorporated into prices and that it will produce an additional increase of 0 2 in the gdp of oil importers in the period 2010 2018 we also employ the model to analyze the collapse in oil prices in the second half of 2014 and conclude that it was mainly due to positive unanticipated supply shocks

does energy poverty really exist in china from the perspective of residential electricity consumption abstract china is undergoing a market oriented reform in energy and the residential sector will be involved in the near future the analysis of energy poverty is crucial in breaking the illusion of the dilemma between enhancing energy efficiency and controlling poverty based on chinese residential energy consumption survey we firstly estimated the energy poverty in china by the 10 indicator and lihc indicators and then proposed a minimum end use method to classify the energy poor households into lifeline and consumption energy poverty results show that energy poverty exists in china at the proportion of 18 9 and 46 of the energy poor houses are in short of modern energy consumption and are sensitive to tariffs with a level of electricity consumption lower than the basic demand the energy poverty rate is highest in central china while the lifeline energy poor are relatively concentrated in the western region in terms of public policy we suggest focusing on heterogeneity by considering different groups of households when implementing energy efficiency measures and targeting more on the consumption energy poor in poverty alleviation we also suggest paying particular attention to targeting households with low income by supporting practices such as coupons for energy consumption and appliance purchasing

retailers as agents and the limits of parallel trade abstract the volume of retail level parallel trade is surprisingly small despite persistent international price differences we offer an agency based explanation by considering competition between an original home manufacturer and a foreign retailer the model endogenizes the role of the retailer as an agent with private information on the perceived quality of the good in its own market the manufacturer cannot control the retailer once the latter has ordered its sales quantity but it can limit the initial offer if parallel trade is permitted this offer will fall if there is incomplete information resulting in a small or zero volume of parallel trade this outcome makes both the original producer and foreign consumers worse off while offering little benefit to home consumers compared to the case where such trade is banned

equilibrium parallel import policies and international market structure in a north south vertically differentiated duopoly the analysis in this paper derives equilibrium government policies towards parallel imports by incorporating strategic interaction at the policy setting stage and the product market the model sheds new light on i the effects of parallel import policies on pricing behavior of firms and ii the interdependence of national parallel import policies if demand asymmetry across countries is sufficiently large the north forbids parallel imports to ensure its firm sells in the south thereby generating international price discrimination the south s most preferred market outcome as the equilibrium when demand structures are relatively similar across countries the north permits parallel imports and uniform pricing its most preferred market outcome obtains

international effects of national regulations external reference pricing and price controls under external reference pricing erp the price that a government permits a firm to charge in its market depends upon the firm s prices in other countries in a two country home and foreign model where demand is asymmetric across countries we show that home s unilaterally optimal erp policy permits the home firm to engage in a threshold level of international price discrimination above which it is just willing to export if the firm faces a price control abroad or bargains over price with the foreign government an erp policy can even yield higher home welfare than a direct price control

parallel imports and the pricing of pharmaceutical products evidence from the european union we consider policy issues regarding parallel imports pis of brand name pharmaceuticals in the european union where such trade is permitted we develop a simple model in which an original manufacturer competes in its home market with pi firms the model suggests that for small trade costs the original manufacturer will accommodate the import decisions of parallel traders and that the price in the home market falls as the volume of parallel imports rises using data from sweden we find that the prices of drugs subject to competition from parallel imports fell relative to other drugs over the period 1994 1999 econometric analysis finds that parallel imports significantly reduced manufacturing prices by 12 19 there is evidence that this effect increases with multiple pi entrants

an elementary proposition concerning parallel imports abstract this paper demonstrates that when countries individually choose whether or not to prohibit parallel imports a global nash equilibrium involves the permitting of parallel importing into all relevant foreign markets i e global uniform pricing this result is sensitive in a straightforward way to the tariff setting powers of countries and to the specification of a government s objective function i e political economy considerations we also show that when countries can prevent parallel exports then any nash equilibrium involves global price discrimination

manufacturers and retailers in the global economy we develop a general equilibrium model to capture key features of the retailing and of the manufacturing industry in order to understand how these two industries interact and how labor is allocated between them we show that the observed shift in employment from manufacturing to retailing the rise in retailer product assortment and the emergence of slotting allowances in many retail markets are consistent with the global integration of product markets while higher retail market concentration is best explained by technological change in retailing we also identify a novel benefit from market integration consisting of efficiency gains in the vertical distribution chain

the impact of quotas and tariffs on strategic r d behavior quotas and tariffs are compared in a two stage cournot duopoly game where r d is chosen initially and output is selected subsequently imposing a quota at or below the free trade import level results in either a pure strategy or a mixed strategy equilibrium compared to an equally restrictive tariff a quota leads to higher domestic profits but lower domestic output and r d in a pure strategy equilibrium furthermore a quota and a tariff may often produce opposite effects on domestic r d a quota set above the free trade import level may become binding and may lead to multiple equilibria copyright 1991 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

estimating the effects of global patent protection in pharmaceuticals a case study of quinolones in india under the trips agreement wto members are required to enforce product patents for pharmaceuticals the debate about the merits of this requirement has been extremely contentious many low income economies claim that patent protection for pharmaceuticals will result in substantially higher prices for medicines with adverse consequences for the health and well being of their citizens on the other hand research based global pharmaceutical companies argue that prices are unlikely to rise significantly because most patented products have therapeutic substitutes in this paper we empirically investigate the basis of these claims central to the ongoing debate is the structure of demand for pharmaceuticals in poor economies where because health insurance coverage is so rare almost all medical expense are met out of pocket using a detailed product level data set from india we estimate key price and expenditure elasticities and supply side parameters for the fluoroquinolones sub segment of the systemic anti bacterials i e antibiotics segment of the indian pharmaceuticals market we then use these estimates to carry out counterfactual simulations of what prices profits and consumer welfare would have been had the fluoroquinolone molecules we study been under patent in india as they were in the u s at the time our results suggest that concerns about the potential adverse welfare effects of trips may have some basis we estimate that in the absence of any price regulation or compulsory licensing the total annual welfare losses to the indian economy from the withdrawal of the four domestic product groups in the fluoroquinolone sub segment would be on the order of u s 450 million or about 73 of the sales of the entire systemic anti bacterials segment in 2000 of this amount foregone profits of domestic producers constitute roughly 50 million or 11 the overwhelming portion of the total welfare loss therefore derives from the loss of consumer welfare in contrast the profit gains to foreign producers in the absence of any price regulation are estimated to be only around 53 million per year

cross national price differences for pharmaceuticals how large and why bilateral drug price and quantity indexes based on comprehensive data for seven countries us canada france germany italy japan and the uk refute the conventional wisdom that us drug prices are much higher than elsewhere for laspeyres us weighted indexes previous drug price comparisons are biased by unrepresentative samples and unweighted indexes quasi hedonic regression shows that cross national price differences reflect differences in product characteristics and in their implicit prices which reflect the regulatory regime strict price regulation systematically lowers prices for older molecules and globally diffused molecules generic competition lowers prices in less regulated regimes which also have more price elastic demand

on measuring energy poverty in indian households summary the relationship between energy and poverty is obvious and goes both ways recognizing this this paper provides a short overview of different approaches to measuring energy poverty it then presents a novel two dimensional measure of energy poverty and energy distribution that combines the elements of access to different energy types and quantity of energy consumed an assessment of the extent of energy poverty and changes in energy distribution pattern are analyzed by applying this measure to indian household survey data for 1983 2000 the analysis shows a significant reduction in the level of energy poverty and a rapidly developing subcontinent the new measure is a good complement to conventional monetary measures and is general enough to be applied to other developing countries

international aspects of merger policy a survey this paper surveys the literature on merger policy in open economies we first adopt a reduced form approach to derive general insights on the scope for conflict between national antitrust authorities and on the gains from international merger policy coordination taking trade costs as given we use standard oligopoly models to derive conditions on market structure under which underenforcement or overenforcement of national merger policies can arise we then study the interactions between merger policy and trade policy and find that trade liberalization often leads to stricter national merger policies we conclude by discussing empirical evidence on conflict between antitrust authorities

price regulation and parallel imports of pharmaceuticals abstract this paper studies the effects of price regulation and parallel imports in the on patent pharmaceutical market in a theory model where the producer price is subject to bargaining between the brand name producer and a distributor we show that the effects of stricter price regulation crucially depend on whether the producer faces competition from parallel imports while parallel imports improve the bargaining position of the distributor price regulation counteracts this effect and may even be profitable for the producer we test the implications of our model on a unique dataset with information on sales and prices at both producer and retail level for 165 substances over 4 years 2004 2007 we show that stricter price regulation reduces competition from parallel imports and has no strictly negative effect on producer profits in the presence absence of parallel imports our results suggest that price regulation might improve static efficiency without being harmful for dynamic efficiency in the presence of parallel imports

energy poverty in china an index based comprehensive evaluation abstract energy poverty has got increasing attention during the latest three decades measuring energy poverty is the premise of policy making to alleviate energy poverty there is no unified energy poverty measurement that has been widely accepted this paper reviews the commonly used energy poverty measurements through classifying them into three categories energy service availability energy service quality and satisfaction of energy demand for human s survival and development this paper also analyzes the suitability of the commonly used energy poverty measurement for china from the prospective of data availability and index applicability furthermore we construct a new energy poverty comprehensive evaluation index in this study and the index is illustrated to evaluate regional energy poverty in china the evaluation results indicate that china s energy poverty showed an alleviating trend from 2000 to 2011 and during this period china s energy service availability improved slightly energy consumption cleanliness showed no significant change energy management completeness decreased with fluctuations and household energy affordability and energy efficiency improved continually in addition china s regions show different characteristics of energy poverty for example middle reaches of yangtze river region showed the worst energy availability and eastern coastal region showed the worst energy management completeness several policy implications for energy poverty alleviation are also proposed in this study including for instance increasing investment on energy infrastructure and spreading energy management organization in rural area decreasing relative cost on household commercial energy consumption and encourage the utilization of modern clean and efficient household energy consumption equipment

pharmaceutical price controls and entry strategies abstract this paper finds that the use of price controls has a statistically and quantitatively important effect on the extent and timing of the launch of new drugs firms headquartered in countries that regulate price reach fewer markets than those in countries without price controls companies avoid price controlled markets and are less likely to introduce products in additional markets after entering a price controlled country launches into low price european countries are further delayed following legalization of parallel imports the results suggest that price regulation in one country affects entry into other countries and may affect the strategies of domestic firms

compulsory licensing of pharmaceuticals by the developing south abstract compulsory licensing cl of medicines by a developing south unambiguously improves access to treatments by its population its impact on profits and thus innovation rates and welfare is a more controversial issue in the literature this paper proposes a north south model dealing with parallel trade price controls and compulsory license if the south is not served our results challenge the literature claiming that parallel trade leads to higher innovation and welfare moreover conditions apply for cl to be used in particular it should never be used for neglected diseases as malaria and tuberculosis when the south issues cls it is compensated for the welfare losses caused by the north allowing parallel trade and innovation and northern welfare do not decrease the best outcome however is market segmentation i e no parallel trade in the first place

wti and brent futures pricing structure abstract wti and brent crude oil futures are competing pricing benchmarks and they jockey for the number one position as the leading futures market the price spread between wti and brent is also an important benchmark itself as the spread affects international trade in oil refiner margins and the price of refined products globally in addition the shapes of the wti and brent futures curves reflect supply and demand fundamentals in the u s versus the world market respectively on the analysis of the relationship between the two futures prices we identify a structural break in the wti brent price spread in january 2011 and a break in the corresponding shapes of the futures curves around the same time the structural break was a consequence of a dramatic rise in u s production due to fracking a series of supply disruptions in europe binding storage constraints and the u s crude oil export ban these events are studied in the context of a simulation model of world oil prices we reproduce the stylized facts of the oil market and conclude that the 2011 break in pricing structure was consistent with standard commodity storage theory

monopoly price discrimination and demand curvature this paper presents a general analysis of the eects of monopolistic third degree price discrimination on welfare and output when all markets are served su cient conditions involving straightforward comparisons of the curvatures of the direct and inverse demand functions in the dierent mar kets are presented for discrimination to have negative or positive eects on

pharmaceutical innovation and parallel trade abstract this paper proposes a north south model to study the interaction between price regulation policies and parallel trade with a particular focus on the pharmaceutical sector we show that under parallel trade r d investment can rise only when the south government takes into full account its impact both on investment and on the firm s decision to supply the regulated country this arises because of a complete withdrawal from price regulation when policy choices are endogenized indeed the south wants to achieve this level of full commitment when it is large in size when instead it is smaller in size the south chooses an intermediate form of commitment whereby it anticipates its effect only on local distribution and delivery but not on global r d investment as a response to these credible levels of price control commitments the north reacts by allowing parallel imports from the south

dynamics of electricity consumption oil price and economic growth global perspective this study uses the data from 157 countries from 1960 to 2014 to analyze the relationship between economic growth electricity consumption oil prices capital and labor the economic growth of developing countries with industrial infrastructure has a more significant association with electricity consumption than oil prices we use oil prices and electricity consumption jointly to study highly predictive observations for economic growth the data are categorized by income oecd and regional levels the panel cointegration long run parameter estimation and pool mean group tests are used to analyze the cointegration and short run and long run relationships between the variables the empirical results indicate the presence of cointegration between the variables the presence of feedback effects between electricity consumption and economic growth oil prices and economic growth is valid these findings confirm that in spite of the oil prices developing countries rely heavily on electricity consumption for economic growth in the short run growth and feedback effects suggest that more vigorous electricity policies should be implemented to attain sustainable economic growth for the long term

quantifying the severity of fuel poverty its relationship with poor housing and reasons for non investment in energy saving measures in ireland fuel poverty has generally been calculated by quantifying the number of households spending in excess of 10 of income on home heating this definition has a number of significant practical and scientific limitations this paper employs self reported data to calculate the severity of fuel poverty in ireland to identify chronic fuel poor households from occasional sufferers it also assesses domestic energy efficiency levels ireland is a useful case study as it demonstrates the highest variations in seasonal mortality and morbidity in northern europe both of which are associated with fuel poverty ireland is also experiencing extreme difficulties meeting its environmental emissions targets in light of recent spectacular economic growth reducing fuel poverty would lower energy related emissions assisting policy makers achieve these challenging targets furthermore little empirical research has been undertaken on fuel poverty in ireland this paper identifies key social groups at risk by conducting detailed socio economic and socio demographic analyses the relationship between fuel poverty and adverse housing conditions damp condensation is also examined moreover the reasons behind householders not investing in energy saving measures are reported the results show that ireland suffers from similar levels of fuel poverty as the uk with low income households suffering the greatest the key policy implications are outlined

strategic pricing of new pharmaceuticals this paper provides empirical evidence on the leading factors affecting the prices of new pharmaceuticals both at introduction and after 4 6 and 8 years most important is the extent of therapeutic advance embodied in a new product for drugs which represent important therapeutic gains launch prices can be two or three times those of existing drugs used for the same purposes while drugs that largely duplicate the actions of currently available products are typically priced at comparable levels in addition the number of branded substitutes has a substantial negative effect on launch prices which reflects the importance of competitive pressures duplicate products thereby play an important economic role in pharmaceutical markets

strategic competition and optimal parallel import policy this paper shows that parallel import policy can act as an instrument of strategic trade policy we demonstrate this result in two country international duopoly where a domestic monopolist competes with a rival rm in the foreign market if it chooses to incur the xed investment cost of exporting the two rms sell horizontally dierentiated goods and compete in prices when the foreign market is signi cantly larger than the domestic one the home rm gains if it is unable to price discriminate its desire to not deviate too far from its optimal monopoly price in the domestic market makes it credibly less aggressive in price competition abroad which softens price competition and raises pro ts on the other hand when the foreign market is not signi cantly larger it is optimal for the home country to forbid parallel imports since international price discrimination yields higher pro ts to the home rm we draw out the implications of the two types of parallel import policies for global welfare

energy poverty in rural bangladesh energy poverty is a well established concept among energy and development specialists international development organizations frequently cite energy poverty alleviation as a necessary condition to reduce income poverty several approaches used to measure energy poverty over the past 20 years have defined the energy poverty line as the minimum quantity of physical energy needed to perform such basic tasks as cooking and lighting this paper uses a demand based approach to define the energy poverty line as the threshold point at which energy consumption begins to rise with increases in household income at or below this threshold point households consume a bare minimum level of energy and should be considered energy poor this approach was applied using cross sectional data from a comprehensive 2004 household survey representative of rural bangladesh the findings suggest that some 58 percent of rural households in bangladesh are energy poor versus 45 percent that are income poor the findings also suggest that policies to support rural electrification and greater use of improved biomass stoves might play a significant role in reducing energy poverty

regulating a dominant firm unknown demand and industry structure in this article we study the optimal regulation of a dominant firm when an unregulated firm actively competes generally the existence of an active rival imposes new and binding constraints on regulatory problems we characterize optimal policies both when demands are known complete information and unknown incomplete information to the regulator optimal policies under complete information may set the price at the dominant firm above or below its marginal cost optimal policies under incomplete information may be either pooling or separating constant over a range of the prior distribution of the firm s private information and leave no information rent to the firm

patents and the global diffusion of new drugs analysis of the timing of launches of 642 new drugs in 76 countries during 1983 2002 shows that patent and price regulation regimes strongly affect how quickly new drugs become commercially available in different countries price regulation delays launch while longer and more extensive patent rights accelerate it health policy institutions and economic and demographic factors that make markets more profitable also speed up diffusion the estimated effects are generally robust to controlling for endogeneity of policy regimes with country fixed effects and instrumental variables the results highlight the important role of policy choices in driving the diffusion of new innovations

gray market trade with product information service in global supply chains abstract this paper investigates the economic effects of a product information service when potential consumers who are segmented by their taste exist in gray markets specifically we construct an economic model that considers a multinational firm mnf who expands business to a country and chooses whether to provide information service regarding product characteristics if receiving the information consumers in a specific segment whose taste suits the characteristics have positive utility from consuming the product while those in other segments have no utility by contrast consumers in all segments have positive expected utility before consuming the product without information with these settings we demonstrate that there arises the equilibrium that the mnf provides no information service when gray market trade i e parallel trade is allowed in the country leading to lower consumer welfare than when it is prohibited a primary finding in the equilibrium is that such a situation arises especially when potential consumers are less segmented in this situation the regulator in the country should ban the parallel imports so as to enhance consumer welfare the result is counterintuitive and notable because one might intuitively infer that gray market trade is less desirable when customers are more minutely segmented and the product information service is thus more specific and necessary

organizational structure of a global supply chain in the presence of a gray market information asymmetry and valuation difference we consider a global supply chain of a multinational firm mnf with domestic and foreign markets in the presence of a gray marketer in particular we investigate the organizational structure of the mnf for pricing centralization vs decentralization when the foreign division of the mnf competes with the gray marketer the foreign division has a private information on the market potential and customers have a valuation difference between the products sold by the foreign division and the gray marketer in this situation while centralized pricing may control the gray marketer s activities decentralized pricing may take advantage of a local manager s private information especially when a significant valuation difference of customers exists due to product or service differentiation we analyze the trade offs in the choice of organizational structure for pricing and the impact of information asymmetry and valuation difference on this choice also we show that decentralization can be further improved by an incentive adjustment of profits between divisions which has a potential to increase all divisions and mnf s total profits over centralization

the dynamics of incentive contracts the paper studies a simple two period principal agent model in which the principal updates the incentive scheme after observing the agent s first period performance the agent has superior information about his ability the principal offers a first period incentive scheme and observes some measure of the agent s first period performance cost or profit which depends on the agent s ability and unobservable first period effort the relationship is entirely run by short term contracts in the second period the principal updates the incentive scheme and the agent is free to accept the new incentive scheme or to quit the strategies are required to be perfect and updating of the principal s beliefs about the agent s ability follows bayes rule the central theme of the paper is that the ratchet effect leads to much pooling in the first period first for any first period incentive scheme there exists no separating equilibrium second when the uncertainty about the agent s ability is small the optimal scheme must involve a large amount of pooling the paper also gives necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of partition equilibria and looks at the effect of cost uncertainty

assessing the extent and intensity of energy poverty using multidimensional energy poverty index empirical evidence from households in india abstract in this paper we have made a comprehensive assessment of the extent and various socio economic implications of energy poverty in india amartya sens s capability approach to development underpins the analysis of household level data taken from the india human development survey ii ihds ii 2011 12 using the multidimensional energy poverty index mepi the overall results show that energy poverty is widespread in india and the existence of energy poverty also coincides with the other forms of deprivations such as income poverty and social backwardness for example dalits lower caste and adivasis tribal are found to be extremely energy poor compared to the other social groups in india the results also reveal that it is the responsibility of women to manage the domestic chores such as collection of firewood and making of dung cake in traditional indian households inefficient use of such biomass fuels is found to cause health hazards

arbitrage across borders why itunes gift cards sell above face value on ebay i introduction firms that operate internationally often charge different prices for the same product in different countries these price differences may be due to cost differences exchange rate fluctuations and or price discrimination where firms set prices based on consumers willingness to pay for the product there is an extensive literature on international price differences but nearly all of this research has focused on physical goods where arbitrage the situation where someone buys the product from a low price country and resells it to someone in a high price country tends to be relatively costly because of transaction costs including search costs and transportation costs there have been no empirical papers in the economics literature thus far on the arbitrage of downloadable goods this paper looks at the case of itunes which sells downloadable music videos books ipad and iphone applications and other content worldwide and shows how the sale of itunes gift cards above face value on the auction website ebay is linked to the arbitrage of itunes products itunes which is operated by apple first started selling music downloads in 2003 and by 2008 it was the largest music retailer in the united states and the world 1 people typically purchase products from their own country specific itunes stores but not all content is available in all countries due in part to licensing restrictions and consumer preferences e g itunes does not sell music movies and tv shows in many countries prices also vary across countries as detailed in section iii of this paper one can easily switch to any other country s itunes store with just a few mouse clicks in particular the u s store would seem to be a natural focal point and it tends to have lower prices and a wider selection however in order to actually purchase something from the u s store one needs to have either a u s credit card or a u s itunes gift card available in denominations ranging from 10 to 100 in the primary market through apple and its authorized sellers such as wal mart and best buy as such it can be surmised that some individuals outside the united states may be willing to purchase itunes gift cards on ebay in order to gain access to the u s store it should be noted that itunes terms and conditions specify that the u s store s products are available only to buyers in the united states we can see the evidence for this through the sale of itunes gift cards on ebay nearly 200 itunes gift cards are sold daily on ebay about 10 of all gift cards and more than half of these itunes gift cards sell above face value a phenomenon that is unusual among gift cards after discussing some background information and related literature this paper examines more than 1 300 ebay transactions in february 2011 and finds that itunes gift cards targeted to international buyers which are often sent electronically are more likely to have higher prices controlling for seller reputation shipping charges and other variables this indicates that non u s buyers are willing to pay a premium for the gift cards because they are unable to obtain them otherwise information about the buyers countries allows us to see whether it is the u s store s greater product availability or its lower prices that buyers are interested in this paper addresses an important issue because of the rising popularity of the sales of downloadable content worldwide this market includes music videos books video games and applications the internet has also made it easier for buyers and sellers in different countries to find one another and in the case of digital products exchange goods if arbitrage is widespread firms may decide to either minimize price differences between countries stop selling in low price countries altogether or use the legal system or other methods to prevent arbitrage in terms of the big picture this issue has implications for social welfare copyright enforcement and international trade policies and governments in some countries may also be concerned if their citizens have access to goods that are banned

a blessing in disguise the implications of high global oil prices for the north american market abstract we examine the implications of increased unconventional crude oil production in north america this production increase has been made possible by the existence of alternative oil recovery technologies and persistently elevated oil prices that make these technologies commercially viable we first discuss the factors that have enabled the united states to expand production so rapidly and the glut of oil inventory that has accumulated in the midwest as a result of logistical challenges and export restrictions next we assess the extent to which the increase in u s domestic production will affect global supply conditions and whether the u s experience can be repeated in other countries with unconventional oil sources the evidence suggests that even in the best case scenario the increase in u s oil production is unlikely to have a large effect on the global oil market s demand supply balance so its effect on the price of oil is expected to be limited furthermore the united states enjoys unique infrastructural and technological advantages that make it unlikely that rapid increases in unconventional production can be achieved elsewhere

pricing patent loss and the market for pharmaceuticals dustry the drug price competition and patent term restoration act of 1984 very clearly reflects the determination of policy makers to simultaneously address issues of price control and technical progress the 1984 act increased returns to innovation by extending the period of patent protection to take into account the time between receipt of a patent and food and drug administration fda approval of a drug for sale in the market the 1984 act also reduced the testing requirements for approval of new generic brands of existing chemical entities thus reducing entry barriers in markets where patents have expired the expected outcome from eased entry conditions for generic substitutes was substantially enhanced price competition and lower prices for brand name drugs in fact prices for brand name drugs have tended to increase following entry by generics wagner and duffy 28 examined price changes for top selling generics and name brands they show substantial price increases in brand name prices accompanying large reductions in generic prices as entry of generics occurs grabowski and vernon 9 examined data on 18 major orally administered rug products subject to generic competition between 1983 and 1987 and found that the name brand price increased by an average of 7 one year subsequent to generic entry and 11 two years following generic entry

parallel imports challenges from unauthorized distribution channels we examine the problem of parallel imports unauthorized flows of products across countries which compete with authorized distribution channels the traditional economics model of a discriminating monopolist that has different prices for the same good in different markets requires the markets to be separated in some way usually geographically the profits from price discrimination can be threatened by parallel imports that allow consumers in the high priced region some access to the low priced marketplace however as this article shows there is a very real possibility that parallel imports may actually increase profits the basic intuition is that parallel importation becomes another channel for the authentic goods and creates a new product version that allows the manufacturer to price discriminate we propose a two country three stage model to quantitatively study the effects and strategies in the third stage and in the higher priced country where parallel imports have entered we characterize the resulting market segmentation one segment of consumers stays with the authorized version as they place more value on the warranty and services that come with the authorized version another segment switches to parallel imports because a lower price is offered due to lack of country specific features or warranties parallel imports also generate a third and new segment that would not have bought this product before unlike counterfeits that are fabricated by imitators all parallel imports are genuine and sourced from the manufacturer in the lower priced country through authorized dealers therefore the manufacturer s global sales quantity should increase but profit may rise or fall depending on the relative sizes and profitability of the segments a profit maximizing parallel importer should set price and quantity in the second stage after observing the manufacturer s prices in both countries there will be a threshold of across country price gap above which parallel imports would occur in the first stage the manufacturer can anticipate the possible occurrence of a parallel import its price and quantity and its effect on authorized sales in each country to make a coordinated pricing decision to maximize the global supply chain profit under some circumstances the manufacturer should allow parallel imports and under others should prevent them through a stackelberg game we solve for the optimal pricing strategy in each scenario we then find in one extension that when the number of parallel importers increases the optimal authorized price gap should narrow but the prices and quantities of parallel imports may rise or fall in another extension we nd that when the manufacturer has other means such as monitoring dealers differentiating designs and unbundling warranties to contain parallel imports the authorized price gap can widen as a function of the effectiveness of nonpricing controls in summary parallel imports may help the manufacturer to extend the global reach of its product and even boost its global profit if the manufacturer offers a discount version through its authorized dealers it is running a high risk of confusing customers and tarnishing brand images parallel imports may cause similar concerns for the manufacturer but unauthorized dealers are perceived as further removed from the manufacturer therefore there is less risk of confusing consumers when parallel imports are channeled through unauthorized dealers furthermore they are more nimble in diverting the product whenever their transshipment and marketing costs are small enough not to offset the authorized price gap and the valuation discount this may explain why some manufacturers fiercely fight parallel imports while others knowingly use this alternative channel

the incentives for cost reduction in a differentiated industry abstract this paper investigates how the incentives for cost reduction in a differentiated industry depend upon the degree of product substitutability when goods are imperfect substitutes both cournot and bertrand competition result in underinvestment in the sense that a social planner would be willing to pay more for a given cost reduction than a profit maximizing firm overinvestment may occur when the goods are sufficiently close substitutes similarly cournot competition provides a stronger incentive to innovate than bertrand competition if the degree of substitutability is low and a weaker incentive if this degree is high

global oil depletion a review of the evidence within the polarised and contentious debate over future oil supply a growing number of commentators are forecasting a near term peak and subsequent decline in production but although liquid fuels form the foundation of modern industrial economies the growing debate on peak oil has relatively little influence on energy and climate policy with this in mind the uk energy research centre ukerc has conducted an independent thorough and systematic review of the evidence with the aim of establishing the current state of knowledge identifying key uncertainties and improving consensus the study focuses upon the physical depletion of conventional oil in the period to 2030 and includes an in depth literature review analysis of industry databases and a detailed comparison of global supply forecasts this communication summarises the main findings of the ukerc study a key conclusion is that a peak of conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020

energy poverty alleviation and climate change mitigation is there a trade off energy poverty alleviation has become an important political issue in the most recent years several initiatives and policies have been proposed to deal with poor access to modern sources of energy in many developing countries given the large number of people lacking basic energy services an important question is whether providing universal access to modern energy could significantly increase energy demand and associated co2 emissions this paper provides one of the few formal assessments of this problem by means of a simple but robust model of current and future energy consumption the model allows mapping energy consumption globally for different classes of energy use quantifying current and future imbalances in the distribution of energy consumption our results indicate that an encompassing energy poverty eradication policy to be met by 2030 would increase global final energy consumption by about 7 roughly 20 ej the same quantity of energy could be saved by reducing by 15 energy consumption of individuals with standards above current european levels the additional energy infrastructure needed to eradicate energy poverty would produce 44 183 gtco2 over the 21st century and contribute at most 0 13 c of additional warming

differential pricing parallel trade and the incentive to invest abstract i consider the case for imposing uniform pricing on a monopolist in a setting where markets can be segmented according to differences in marginal costs and or consumer demand i also analyze the ex ante impact on incentives to invest in r d i show how two opposite trade offs arise when differential pricing is demand based uniform pricing has good ex post welfare properties but leads to lower investment ex ante conversely when differential pricing is cost based uniform pricing has bad ex post welfare properties but leads to higher investment ex ante

parallel trade and pharmaceutical prices a game theoretic approach and empirical evidence from the european union this paper studies whether parallel traded products spark price competition in pharmaceutical markets and whether they are any cheaper than locally sourced products we follow a game theoretic approach and employ descriptive statistics and econometric methods to study the effects of parallel trade on competition from a theoretic and empirical perspective the theoretic approach suggests that there is a unique nash equilibrium and the parallel trader sets prices at the same level as the locally sourced product while the price of the latter remains unaffected by parallel trade however there may be deviations from this equilibrium in the presence of particular policies or generic competition in which case the parallel traded product may be priced at lower levels than the locally sourced product empirical analysis confirms the predictions of the theory descriptive statistics show that there is no gap between locally sourced and parallel traded products unless generics or policies encouraging parallel trade are present results of the econometric analysis show that parallel trade does not trigger price competition and that the price of the locally sourced product remains unaffected by parallel trade therefore any savings for health insurance occurring as a result of parallel trade are limited

concepts of poverty and the poverty line abstract various approaches adopted in developed economies to distinguishing between the poor and non poor to setting a poverty line are reviewed these include the budget standard food ratio official subjective and relative poverty line methods as well as the analysis of indicators of deprivation there has been significant progress in recent years in the degree of sophistication involved and a movement away from approaches with a quasi absolute background however all the methods face formidable problems at conceptual and empirical levels and no single approach is likely to dominate

demand uncertainty and price maintenance markdowns as destructive competition this paper offers a new theory of destructive competition the authors compare minimum resale price maintenance to retail market clearing in a model with a monopolistic manufacturer selling to competitive retailers in both the resale price maintenance and flexible price games retailers must order inventories before the realization of demand uncertainty the authors find that manufacturer profits and equilibrium inventories are higher under resale price maintenance than under market clearing surprisingly consumer surplus can also be higher in which case unfettered retail competition can legitimately be called destructive copyright 1997 by american economic association

parallel imports demand dispersion and international price discrimination parallel imports goods imported by unauthorized resellers are advocated worldwide for undermining international price discrimination for a continuum of markets we find that uniform pricing by a monopolist yields lower global welfare than third degree discrimination if demand dispersion across markets is large though uniform pricing avoids output misallocation too many markets go unserved mixed systems permitting discrimination across but not within designated groups of markets yield significantly higher welfare than uniform pricing or unrestricted multimarket discrimination and can pareto dominate uniform pricing thus while parallel imports might benefit some countries our results weaken the multilateral case for allowing them

why parallel trade may raise producers profits abstract this paper shows that a manufacturer may benefit from parallel trade in addition to an intuitive condition about the effect of demand shocks this occurs when competitive retailers must order inventories before they know the realization of demand and for products whose sale value drops at the end of the demand period for these types of products letting retailers trade unsold inventories generally results in larger orders placed with the manufacturer and higher manufacturer profit the model provides a simple explanation as to why the volume of parallel trade is now very large and accepted by manufacturers for some products such as automobiles clothes toys consumer electronics musical recordings cosmetics and perfumes

the impact of parallel imports on investments in cost reducing research and development abstract we develop a two country model of endogenous investment in process innovation by a manufacturer facing competition from parallel imports pi we find that the distortions associated with pi inhibit innovation however the difference between the manufacturer s expected profits under successful and failed innovation is u shaped in the cost of engaging in pi thus the reduction in r d investment depends on both legality of pi and transport costs the reduction in innovation could harm global welfare depending on whether the manufacturer was deterring pi with a high wholesale price if so banning such trade would raise expected welfare

rural electrification and energy poverty empirical evidences from brazil the aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on the reduction of energy poverty in brazil through the analysis of 23 000 rural domiciles or rural properties between the years 2000 and 2004 the results indicate a fast change in the profile of energy consumption and a reduction of energy poverty this new approach works as a complement among other variables to analyze and quantify the real economic social and energy impacts in rural electrification programs generally applied in developing countries

parallel imports and repair services abstract this study explores the welfare effects of parallel imports when the producer may refuse to provide repair services for parallel imported units which reduces the degree of price convergence between countries if the probability of the product s breakdown is endogenously determined by the producer permitting parallel imports could increase the probability because a higher probability leads to a larger price gap as a result it is possible that prices increase and welfare deteriorates in both countries this negative welfare effect is more likely to emerge as the liberalization of trade in goods proceeds the prohibition of service discrimination recovers the positive welfare effect

should the us allow prescription drug reimports from canada as a result of public outrage over lower prescription drug prices in canada congress passed legislation that would allow these drugs to be imported into the us the lower canadian prices reflect price regulation opponents of allowing these imports have argued that the us will import canadian price controls and that profits of pharmaceutical companies will be hurt in this paper a model is developed in which a good sold in the foreign country is subject to a negotiated price which is determined in a nash bargaining game when imports back into the home country are allowed this negotiated price also becomes the domestic price this causes the home firm to make fewer price concession in the nash bargaining game home firm profits are found to rise under the reimport regime for both of the demand functions analyzed in this paper

energy poor or fuel poor what are the differences abstract energy poverty and fuel poverty are descriptors of problems of households energy consumption they are both distinct problems and have been addressed by many researchers organizations and governments cross use of the terms of energy poverty and fuel poverty in published papers is common as an accurate descriptor is the presupposition of research and policy development especially for those who just started to pay attention to this issue this paper compares the definitions research priorities status quo and problems of these two concepts and summarizes the relationship between them the paper suggests that only when the research targets are households who are living in a cold climate and have difficulty in getting access to electricity or modern cooking facilities and in supplying indoor heating with appropriate cost the concepts of energy poverty and fuel poverty have the chance to be broadened and mutually integrated

vertical distribution parallel trade and price divergence in integrated markets we develop a model of vertical pricing in which an original manufacturer sets wholesale prices in two markets that are integrated at the distributor level by parallel imports pi the manufacturing rm needs to set these two prices to balance three competing interests restricting competition in the pi recipient market avoiding resource wastes due to actual trade and reducing the double markup problem in the pi source nation

what moves and works broadening the consideration of energy poverty greater detail on the specific technological and planning challenges facing energy deprived developing economies is required to improve energy policy making and development assistance practice the current literature tends to highlight electricity services and to a lesser extent clean cooking this article calls for a closer look at mobility and mechanical power as essential energy services in addition to a refinement of the specific institutional arrangements needed to reduce energy poverty and deprivation this article augments and refines arguments made by morgan bazilian and his colleagues in their viewpoint more heat and light

does regulation drive out competition in pharmaceutical markets abstract most countries regulate pharmaceutical prices either directly or indirectly on the assumption that competition is at best weak in this industry this paper tests the hypothesis that regulation of manufacturer prices and retail pharmacy margins undermines price competition we use data from seven countries for 1992 to examine price competition between generic competitors different manufacturers of the same compound and therapeutic substitutes similar compounds under different regulatory regimes we find that price competition between generic competitors is significant in unregulated or less regulated markets united states united kingdom canada and germany but that regulation undermines generic competition in strict regulatory systems france italy and japan regulation of retail pharmacy further constrains competition in france germany and italy regulation thus undermines the potential for significant savings on off patent drugs which account for a large and growing share of drug

price regulation of pharmaceuticals in canada abstract patent holding pharmaceutical firms are modeled as price discriminating international monopolies in an unregulated world market firms set monopoly prices in each national market three types of regulatory rules i reasonable relationship rule ii international price comparison rule and iii therapeutic class comparison rule are examined while price regulation may lead to lower introductory prices for new drugs the price of existing drugs may increase domestic price regulation may increase foreign prices canadian data supported the model s predictions policy makers should anticipate these responses that affects the entire vector of drug prices and not just those subject to specific regulations

commodity taxation and parallel imports we examine the interaction between commodity taxes and parallel imports in a two country model with imperfect competition while governments determine non cooperatively their commodity tax rate the volume of parallel imports is determined endogenously by the retailing sector we compare the positive and normative implications of having commodity taxes based on destination or origin principle we show that as the volume of parallel imports increases non cooperative origin taxes converge while destination taxes diverge moreover origin taxes are more similar and lead to higher aggregate welfare levels than destination taxes

compulsory licensing and patent protection a north south perspective in a stylized model involving a developing country called south and a foreign patent holder we analyze whether and how the incidence and social value of compulsory licensing cl depends upon the south s patent protection policy if south is free to deny patent protection cl fails to arise in equilibrium and the option to use it makes both parties worse off if south is obligated to offer patent protection cl can occur and even yield a pareto improvement the ability to control price increases the south s incentive for patent protection as well as the likelihood of cl this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

who is energy poor evidence from the least developed regions in china abstract energy poverty has become one of the major challenges faced by the world s energy system however there is no consensus on the measure of energy poverty several approaches have been proposed among which the energy poverty line has been defined as the minimum quantity of energy required for basic life particularly for cooking and heating this paper estimates the relationship between energy expenditure and household income and identifies the energy poverty line based on the threshold above which the energy share becomes insensitive to household income using household survey data from rural qinghai china considering the ongoing energy transition and the negative impacts of biomass energy consumption for the environment and health the study sets a scenario in which all bioenergy consumption is replaced with electricity the findings show that 57 of rural households in rural qinghai are energy poor the phase of energy poverty in terms of basic energy access has passed so increasing the share of efficient modern energy in household energy consumption requires more attention considering the existence of a population that is not income poor but is energy poor a conventional policy design that primarily targets income poor households may be inappropriate in this case

alfred marshall lecture intellectual property rights protection in developing countries the case of pharmaceuticals patent enforcement in developing countries generates considerable controversy especially when patents involve potentially life saving drugs this paper argues that common concerns regarding the effects of patents on prices and on research incentives of pharmaceutical multinationals are misplaced rather the most significant effects are likely to concern access to patented drugs in poor countries because prices in developing countries are much lower than in the developed world multinationals may choose to enter such markets with a delay or not at all implying a complete loss of access to patented drugs in developing countries even when multinationals enter countries like india their marketing and distribution networks are not currently built out leading to limited access within the country such considerations may provide a justification for policies targeting access in the short and medium run such as compulsory licensing

fuel poverty potential risk index in the context of climate change in chile abstract public housing policies face a challenge in order to meet not only the right to housing but also an affordable and comfortable use for them in this context most of the studies related to fuel poverty are based on a diagnosis of existing conditions but there is a lack of information focusing on how to predict the risk of fuel poverty in future dwellings considering a context of climate change this research develops an index to assist policymakers in the decision making process during the early stages of social housing allocation the analysis is based on the applicability of adaptive comfort the influence of climate change the urban context and the building features energy use patterns and the ability to pay utility bills have been also considered for social housing in the central south of chile after that several future scenarios are discussed considering the probable income and energy inflation rates the potential risk variables that influence the early stages of design are also discussed the results reveal that the fuel poverty potential risk index is an effective tool to select appropriate housing for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable segments of society considering the future climate income and energy price trends

a multidimensional measure of energy poverty in china and its impacts on health an empirical study based on the china family panel studies abstract inability or insufficient access to modern forms of energy is an important issue in development which makes the notion of energy poverty a widely discussed topic a consensus has been reached that energy poverty has serious health education and other socio economic impacts for people in a country however measurements of energy poverty have generally been absent or inaccurate especially for developing countries at the micro level this paper begins with the multidimensional nature of energy poverty and uses household level survey data in china to construct a quantitative measure of energy poverty covering both affordability of and accessibility to a broad range of forms of energy it then builds an econometric model to address empirically how much energy poverty affects health a statistically significant and robust negative impact on health from energy poverty is confirmed our results have important policy relevance in terms of understanding the current status quo of energy poverty in china and its consequences the concept can also be expanded to investigate similar issues in other developing countries

an econometric analysis of the drivers for residential heating consumption in the uk and germany abstract affecting millions of europeans energy poverty is increasingly high on the political agenda this paper compares space and water heating demand at household level in germany and in the united kingdom uk between 1991 and 2015 the elasticities of consumption of space and water heating with respect to price income and heating degree days hdd are examined using non parametric models domestic heating consumption is highly elastic with hdd in both countries and hdd elasticities are found to be higher in the uk from a certain income threshold heating demand decreases as income increases in german households whereas demand rises with higher incomes in the uk high price elasticities indicate that uk households are very responsive to energy conservation measures therefore implying that a pricing policy will effectively reduce heating consumption however in germany the impact of pricing policies is unclear thus the most effective policy measure to decrease domestic heating consumption in germany in the long run should be one which targets improvements of building envelope performance levels

parallel trade product quality and welfare we study the welfare effects of parallel trade pt considering investment in quality we thus revisit the case for pt in research intensive industries we find that pt may raise quality depending on how preferences for quality differ across countries conditional on quality consumer surplus may rise fall in the pt source pt recipient country while pt reduces ex post welfare improving quality is a necessary condition for pt to increase welfare ex ante

international protection of intellectual property we study the incentives that governments have to protect intellectual property in a trading world economy we consider a world economy with ongoing innovation in two countries that differ in market size and in their capacities for innovation after describing the determination of national patent policies in a non cooperative regime of patent protection we ask why is intellectual property better protected in the north than in the south we also study international patent agreements by deriving the properties of an efficient global regime of patent protection and asking whether harmonization of patent policies is necessary or sufficient for global efficiency jel o34 f13 during the 1980 s and early 1990 s the united states and several european countries expressed strong dissatisfaction with what they deemed to be inadequate protection of intellectual property in many developing countries the developed countries made the upgrading of intellectual property rights iprs one of their highest priorities for the uruguay round of trade talks their efforts bore fruit in the agreement on traderelated aspects of intellectual property rights trips which was approved as part of the final act of the uruguay round trips establishes minimum standards of protection for several categories of intellectual property for example in the area of new technology it essentially harmonizes

parallel trade international exhaustion and intellectual property rights a welfare analysis this paper analyses the issue of parallel trade arbitrage for products protected by intellectual property rights many countries have traditionally allowed owners of intellectual property rights to prohibit arbitrage in the face of international price discrimination in a well known paper malueg and schwartz 1994 showed that this policy decreases social welfare when the same markets are served in both regimes with and without arbitrage their model considered only the setting of prices and not investment in product development we consider a two stage game where firms choose quality first and then prices since the threat of arbitrage ex post reduces the incentive to invest ex ante the net benefits of parallel trade may vanish we also show that the size of the welfare effects is significantly affected by the presence of a generic product which represents a form of competition for the monopolist the monopolist will introduce a fighting brand to compete with the generic which dilutes but does not eliminate the result on the adverse effects of parallel trade on investments

2014 oil plunge causes and impacts on renewable energy abstract following four years of relative stability at around 106 per barrel bbl oil prices have declined sharply since june 2014 and are expected to remain low for a considerable period of time there are multiple factors which are being considered behind the plunge in the price of oil since june 2014 most observers have conjectured that domestic oil boom in the united states and iraq is the major cause for the falling oil prices some have suggested that a major shock to oil price expectations occurred after the november 2014 meeting of opec when they did not cut production despite the steady increase in non opec oil production in this paper first we analyzed the effect of various factors on the oil prices and then we studied impacts of the falling oil prices on non hydro renewable energy we compare the recent decline in oil prices with previous episodes up to 1996 we show that the demand and supply formula cannot be implemented to the current oil plunge the study shows that so far the recent plunge in oil prices has produced no major impact on renewable energy sector we found that renewable energies such as solar and wind are increasingly becoming cost competitive with fossil fuel energy however the oil price crash could hurt the short term outlook for certain specific clean energy technologies such as bio fuel and electric vehicles that do compete with oil based transportation while long term low oil prices may threaten renewable energies climate policies have the potential to act as a counterweight encouraging long term low carbon investment

international r d rivalry and industrial strategy this paper presents a theory of government intervention which provides an explanation for industrial strategy policies such as r d or export subsidies in imperfectly competitive international markets domestic net welfare is improved by the capture of a greater share of the output of rent earning industries although the subsidy ridden noncooperative international equilibrium is jointly suboptimal behaviour of governments and firms is modelled as a three stage subgame perfect nash equilibrium the assumption that the government is the first player in this game allows it to influence equilibrium outcomes by altering the set of credible actions open to firms

measuring energy poverty focusing on what matters abstract the provision of modern energy services is recognised as a critical foundation for sustainable development and is central to the everyday lives of people effective policies to dramatically expand modern energy access need to be grounded in a robust information base metrics that can be used for comparative purposes and to track progress towards targets therefore represent an essential support tool this paper reviews the relevant literature and discusses the adequacy and applicability of existing instruments to measure energy poverty drawing on those insights it proposes a new composite index to measure energy poverty both the associated methodology and initial results for several african countries are discussed whereas most existing indicators and composite indices focus on assessing the access to energy or the degree of development related to energy our new index the multidimensional energy poverty index mepi focuses on the deprivation of access to modern energy services it captures both the incidence and intensity of energy poverty and provides a new tool to support policy making

energy poverty in ghana any progress so far abstract this paper investigates the dynamics of energy poverty in ghana using two nationwide cross sectional datasets ghana living standards surveys round 5 and round 6 employing the multidimensional energy poverty index mepi as a measure of energy poverty this paper estimates that the share of energy poor people decreased from 88 4 in 2005 2006 to 82 5 in 2012 2013 the results indicate that although there has been a significant decline in the overall energy poverty in ghana during the study periods the incidence of energy poverty remains high moreover the study findings show a large gap between urban and rural energy poverty over the two periods rural people are almost twice as energy poor as urban people these findings suggest the need for the incorporation of energy poverty reduction strategies into income poverty reduction strategies to help improve not only access to modern energy but also in terms of affordability