intergenerational equity the capital environment trade off abstract this paper examines the trade off between capital accumulation and environmental quality that determines an intergenerationally equitable program according to the rawls maximin criterion this trade off is explored by an analysis of regular maximin programs in the framework developed by brock this results in a constant utility path supported by competitive prices with government imposed effluent charges and environmental rentals sufficient conditions for a regular maximin path to satisfy a hartwick rule in deciding on the combination of capital and environmental quality left to future generations are given

banking business models and the nature of financial crisis in our paper we analyze the heterogeneity between various business models among systemically important banks in 65 countries over the period of 2000 2012 for the first time we are able to identify true banking strategies consisting of different combinations of bank asset and funding sources and assess their impact on the mortgage crisis we then estimate how distinct strategies have affected bank profitability and risk before the crisis and what impact they have put on the mortgage crisis our results prove that the asset structure of banks was responsible for the systemic risk before the mortgage crisis whereas the liability structure was responsible for the crisis itself finally we show that countries with banks that rely on investment activities experienced a greater but more short lived drop in gdp compared to countries that have a predominantly traditional banking sector

renewable energy policies and initiatives for a sustainable energy future in malaysia abstract effective policies and incentive on renewable energy re is critical to promote low carbon economy and society in the future re was first introduced in the country s energy mix through the fifth fuel policy which was formulated under the eighth malaysia plan 2001 2005 to reduce dependency on fossil fuel and to address the rising global concern on climate change this paper addresses the re progress and achievement over the past 10 years and discusses the key policies for re programmes funding schemes and incentives that has been introduced by the government of malaysia to develop and promote the utilisation of re the recent re mechanisms under the tenth malaysia plan 2011 2015 will also be highlighted

relationship banking fragility and the asset liability matching problem we address a fundamental question in relationship banking why do banks that make relationship loans finance themselves primarily with core deposits and when would it be optimal to finance such loans with purchased money we show that not only are relationship loans informationally opaque and illiquid but they also require the relationship between the bank and the borrower to endure in order for the bank to add value however the informational opacity of relationship loans gives rise to endogenous withdrawal risk that makes the bank fragile core deposits are an attractive funding source for such loans because the bank provides liquidity services to core depositors and this diminishes the likelihood of premature deposit withdrawal thereby facilitating the continuity of relationship loans that is we show that banks will wish to match the highest value added liabilities with the highest value added loans and that doing so simultaneously minimizes the bank s fragility owing to withdrawal risk and maximizes the value the bank adds in relationship lending we also examine the impact of interbank competition on the bank s asset liability matching and extract numerous testable predictions

nigeria s energy policy inferences analysis and legal ethics toward re development the study critically assessed the various policy issues of sustainable energy development in nigeria the basic focus was to discuss and analyze some of the laws of the federation as it relates to the development of renewable energy in nigeria it surveyed the nation s energy policy statement and the vision 20 2020 of the federal government the renewable energy master plan developed by the joint efforts of the energy commission of nigeria and united nations development programs were also appraised the level of development and the index of renewable energy production as stated by the policy statement the vision 20 2020 and the renewable energy master plan were highlighted the study found some policy challenges which include weak government motivation lack of economic incentives multiple taxations non existent favorable customs and excise duty act to promote renewable energy technologies further to this some legal reforms which may aid the promotion of renewable energy development in nigeria and also make robust the nation s energy policy were proposed some of the laws that require amendment to promote renewable energy include the land use act environmental impact assessment decree and the investment laws of the federation of nigeria

this time is the same using bank performance in 1998 to explain bank performance during the recent financial crisis are some banks prone to perform poorly during crises if yes why in this paper we show that a bank s stock return performance during the 1998 crisis predicts its stock return performance and probability of failure during the recent financial crisis this effect is economically large our findings are consistent with persistence in a bank s risk culture and or aspects of its business model that make its performance sensitive to crises banks that relied more on short term funding had more leverage and grew more are more likely to be banks that performed poorly in both crises

optimal growth resource amenities and the preservation of natural environments this paper examines the conditions for which it is optimal to permanently preserve natural environments in which a productive natural resource is found the conditions are more restrictive than those previously indicated in the literature on the economics of natural environments increasing consumption and declining commodity prices are not sufficient to warrant permanent preservation the initial capital stock can be an important determinant of the optimal level of preservation in addition resource amenity values will increase the initial resource price and decrease the rate of growth of the resource price the natural world provides a variety of services to the human community natural resources are essential inputs in the production of goods and services in addition the natural world generates a variety of amenity services including the scientific recreational and aesthetic value of preserved natural environments krutilla 1967 krutilla and fisher 1975a this paper examines the impact of resource amenity values on the optimal growth of an economy which depends upon natural resource inputs for the production of goods and services in particular the paper examines the conditions under which it is optimal to permanently preserve some natural environments in which the productive resource is found the conditions which warrant permanent preservation are more restrictive than previously indicated by the literature on the economics of natural environments increasing consumption and declining commodity prices are not sufficient to warrant permanent preservation in addition the initial capital endowment can be an important determinant of the optimal level of preservation

electricity planning and implementation in sub saharan africa a systematic review abstract universal electricity access is an important development objective and the focus of a number of key global un initiatives while robust electricity planning is widely believed to be a prerequisite for effective electrification to date no comprehensive overview of electricity planning research has been undertaken on sub saharan africa the world region with the lowest access rates this paper reviews quantitative and qualitative electricity planning and related implementation research considering each of the 49 sub saharan african countries the four regional power pools and the sub continent as a whole applying a broad understanding of electricity planning and a practical limit of 20 reviewed articles per country and region 306 relevant peer reviewed journal articles are included in this review a general classification scheme is introduced that classifies the planning literature along the addressed value chain depth number of different analysed criteria and number of evaluated decision alternatives the literature is found to be strongly clustered in a few countries with less than 5 identified relevant articles in 36 of the 49 countries the total amount of articles per year is clearly increasing over time addressing technology choice operation distribution and implementation analyses although including different high level criteria in analysing electricity systems is common the literature is only starting to use formalised multi criteria decision making mcdm tools the review indicates that 63 of relevant articles favour renewable energy technologies for their given problems frequently mentioned success factors for electrification in sub saharan africa include adequate policy design sufficient finance and favourable political conditions while considerable regional and methodological literature gaps are apparent the literature in this review identifies a rich and fruitful ground for future research to fill these gaps

size and performance of banking firms testing the predictions of theory abstract in recent years two important literatures on the theory of banking firms have developed one examines the economic functions of banks in environments in which agents are asymmetrically informed another considers the incentive effects moral hazard resulting from deposit insurance both theories make predictions about the relation between banking firm size and performance an empirical analysis of large bank holding companies investigates measures of market valuation and risk of failure limited support is provided for either set of theoretical predictions

a review of trends policies and plans for increasing energy access in ghana abstract the need to secure future energy in the forms of electricity and modern cooking fuels is recognized as critical to achieving the millennium development goals particularly poverty reduction ensuring improved education health water supply and environmental sustainability this paper presents a review of the trends policies plans and programmes for increasing energy access in ghana with primary focus on electricity cooking fuels and renewable energy the paper argues that even though governments over the years have had the provision of energy services high on the national development agenda past and existing policies and plans have not delivered effective results to accelerate energy access especially in the rural and peri urban areas where the services are badly needed the paper therefore calls for a coherent national energy policy with inputs from a wider section of the public that has precise targets and clearly laid down strategies including financing mechanisms to achieve the targets

ecological economics and scientific controversies lessons from some recent policy making in the eec abstract contrasting the very limited scientific evidence on the forest dieback issue with the sudden adoption of policies on air pollution decided in the frg 1983 1984 and extended to the european community 1985 we propose an interpretative framework for the real internalization process at work in what was tantamount to a social crisis for public opinion the media and political actors we conclude that open scientific controversies on some environmental issues effects causes solutions pave the way for some actors to use the issue for their own techno industrial strategies quite alien to ecological constraints in cases of very high uncertainties on impacts it becomes impossible to apply conventional social cost benefit analysis scba as an optimizing tool we propose to develop economic analysis as a negotiation language and to give pride of place to the value of learning time and to the crucial role of technological pluralism as a condition for flexibility in the future

a macroeconomic model with a financial sector this paper studies a macroeconomic model in which financial experts borrow from less productive agents we pursue four sets of results i the economy is prone to instability and occasionally enters volatile episodes as volatility spikes agents precautionary motive increases depressing prices even further log linear approximations fail to capture these non linear effects that can cause economies to be significantly depressed for long periods of time ii endogenous risk during volatile episodes increases asset price correlations iii financial experts impose a negative externality on each other and on the labor sector by not maintaining adequate capital cushion and funding structure iv while risk sharing within the financial sector through securitization and derivatives contracts reduces many inefficiencies it can also amlify systemic risks

overuse of wood based bioenergy in selected sub saharan africa countries review of unconstructive challenges and suggestions excessive wood consumption for energy and over dependence on fossil fuel based energy are fundamental issues of importance regarding the destruction of environmental sanity in this respect international communities are seeking to explore opportunities on how to encourage aggressive deployment of technologies for clean and sustainable development and possibly renewable the kyoto protocol on climate change meeting in 1997 with about 160 countries in attendance has been used as one of the platform of discourse on carbon emissions reduction strategies advocated strategies agreed include increase in renewable energy consumption via modern techniques massive deployment of renewable energy systems on a global scale will ensure a reasonable displacement of oil based energy production which is the main source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in sub saharan africa limited access to modern energy in the region has stepped up reliance on bioenergy consumption in form of wood fuel and charcoal resulting to attendant effects on human health environment and the biodiversity in general in view of the foregoing this study presents a review on the current situations of unconstructive effects in the overuse of fuel wood and its charcoal derivative for energy consumption in three selected sub saharan african countries nigeria ghana and uganda in conclusion suggestions on how to confront the challenges associated with the over exploitation conditions of fuel wood in the region are put forward the suggestions could be part of the pursuit to increase electricity availability reliability and security with lower level of emissions in the region

renewable energy in kenya resource potential and status of exploitation this paper presents an assessment of renewable energy resource potential and the current status of exploitation in kenya as an importer of petroleum fuels kenya spends a substantial amount of foreign reserves to import oil the oil import bill in 2008 consumed 55 of the country s foreign exchange earnings from exports on the other hand there is a high dependence on wood biomass energy leading to an imbalance in its supply and demand this has exerted considerable pressure on the remaining forest and vegetation stocks thereby accelerating the processes of land degradation moreover despite the abundance of potential and a strong growth in demand for electricity the country faces constraints in satisfying electricity demand at the national level only 18 of the households have access to grid electricity the access is much lower in rural areas where only 4 of the households have grid electricity kenya has a liberalized energy sector and has made significant progress in the recent past in formulation of renewable energy policies what is more kenya s electricity power mix is among the most sustainable in the world with 80 of electricity coming from renewable sources however a substantial proportion of renewable energy resources are unexploited of the potential renewable sources kenya has harnessed only about 30 of its hydropower sources approximately 4 of the potential geothermal resources and much smaller proportions of proven wind and solar power potentials furthermore a large potential exists for the development of biomass based energy such as biogas biodiesel and power generation form baggasse the strong growth in energy demand provides excellent opportunities for private investors to invest in renewable energy power generation

do large banks have lower costs new estimates of returns to scale for u s banks this paper presents new fully nonparametric estimates of ray scale and expansion path scale economies for u s banks based on a model of bank costs unlike prior studies that use models with restrictive parametric assumptions or limited samples our methodology uses local polynomial estimators and data on all u s banks over the period 1984 2006 our estimates indicate that as recently as 2006 most u s banks faced increasing returns to scale suggesting that scale economies are a plausible but not necessarily only reason for the growth in average bank size and that the tendency toward increasing scale is likely to continue unless checked by government intervention

environmental economics an evolutionary critique and a plea for pluralism abstract environmental economics is a contradiction in terms the contradiction is intuitive to the puzzled lay person inquiring about the nature of our subdiscipline it is explicit to those who think of environmental systems in terms of complex evolving interconnectedness and identify the economic model with the atomistic and mechanistic assumptions of classical mechanics within the subdiscipline we try to resolve the contradiction by internalizing externalities by matching market feedbacks with environmental relations while acknowledging that insights can be drawn from the market view of environmental problems i argue in this essay that 1 the contradiction is nerver resolved 2 multiple incongruous perspectives are all we have for understanding the interface between economic and environmental systems and 3 environmental economics will thrive with a return to philosophical pluralism to the open acceptance of the contradiction

household energy mix in uganda abstract this paper presents evidence that household energy use in uganda conforms to the energy ladder theory as household income increases solid and transitional fuel use evolves in an inverse u manner while electricity consumption shows a direct relationship with income public infrastructure provision income and education are the key variables which can be targeted to reduce household dependence on solid fuels while increasing non solid fuel use while education and public infrastructure have varying impacts on rural and urban households energy mix these variables generally reduce rudimentary fuel use and increase modern fuel consumption timely investment in electricity infrastructure is necessary to cater for burgeoning electricity demand as households become affluent strategies for reforestation dissemination of improved cookstoves relieving supply side constraints for modern fuels and staggered payment options to lower the cost of entry for modern fuels can improve ugandan households energy security

power sector renewable energy integration for expanding access to electricity in sub saharan africa abstract a looming energy supply crisis in sub saharan africa ssa raises concerns about a long lasting energy shortage this energy crisis is expected to persist for an indefinite period in the region unless immediate actions are taken to reverse the trend although global aspiration to reduce greenhouse gas ghg emissions into the atmosphere is high such desire is low in ssa regional stakeholders are more worried about increasing power generation capacity to enhance better access to different sorts of development to progress in line with advanced patterns of energy development globally to increase the availability of electrical energy and to sustain emissions reductions exploitation of local renewable energy re resources is inevitable consequently this paper presents a comprehensive review of re integration for expanding access to electricity in ssa the review covers the sustainability of re resources in ssa the regional status of re applications and the necessity of re power generation integration planning from a management aspect finally the benefits of re integration into the power sector of ssa and some conceptual challenges affecting its integration in the region are highlighted

switching outputs in a bioenergy cogeneration project a real options approach abstract environmental concerns have stimulated the search for economically feasible renewable energy projects one such alternative is the use of biomass for energy generation which has increasingly been the focus of interest traditional valuation methods on the other hand fail to capture the value of the embedded options that exist in many of these projects which may lead to non optimal investment decisions in this article we analyze the feasibility of installing a cogeneration unit in an industrial plant in brazil in order to extract value from biomass residue currently discarded which can be used for thermal and electric energy generation the cogeneration unit also allows the firm the flexibility to optimally choose between an increase in production or the generation of surplus energy for sale in the short term market once additional investment in interconnection to the grid is made we model the uncertainty over future energy prices as a mean reverting process with jumps and seasonality and the embedded flexibility as a bundle of european options under the real options approach the results indicate that the investment in the cogeneration plant is warranted and that the option to switch outputs adds significant value to the project which suggests that biomass residue may be a sustainable energy alternative in this case

global policy of rural electrification energy poverty and lack of electricity in the rural area exacerbate the poverty of the developing countries the sustainable renewable technologies can be considered as efficient tools to reduce energy poverty whenever they are conducted based on an appropriate policy electricity can improve the human s lifestyle by increasing the level of health education welfare and technology currently sub sahara africa with only 14 2 of rural electrification has the first rank in the world with lowest access to electricity in that region around 585 million citizens has almost no access to electricity the present study focuses on the general global policies to electrify the rural areas in this regard variety of plans and programs conducted by governmental and private institutes are investigated in the year 2011 the international energy agency iea has developed three global strategies based on the world energy market that defines the overall world energy approach in the present work different technologies for rural electrification are taken into account in two major categories of grid connected and off grid systems furthermore based on sustainable development with emphasis on environmental consideration the feasibility of electrification by using different types of renewable energies such as solar biomass hydro wind and wave have been studied despite reliability of grid connection results indicate that renewable energy sources are the best choice especially in areas far from grid connections challenges between financial institutes and executive agencies result in resource management and technology development in order to overcome existing barriers and issues

the credit crisis conjectures about causes and remedies what caused the financial crisis that is sweeping across the world what keeps asset prices and lending depressed what can be done to remedy matters while it is too early to arrive at definite answers to these questions it is certainly time to offer informed conjectures and these are the focus of this paper this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

willingness to pay for renewable energy evidence from a contingent valuation survey in kenya a modern form of energy in particular electricity for household use is an important vehicle in alleviating poverty in developing countries however access and costs of connecting to this service for most poor in these countries is inconceivable policies promoting electricity connection in rural areas are known to be beneficial in improving the socio economic and health well being for households this paper examines willingness to pay wtp for rural electrification connection in kisumu district kenya using the contingent valuation method cvm a nonparametric and a parametric model are employed to estimate wtp values for two electricity products grid electricity ge and photovoltaic pv electricity the results indicate that respondents are willing to pay more for ge services than pv and households favoured monthly connection payments over a lump sum amount some of the policies suggested in this paper include subsidizing the connection costs for both sources of electricity adjusting the payment periods and restructuring the market ownership of providing rural electricity services

incentives to promote solar thermal energy in spain abstract the growth in the use of renewable energies in spain has been remarkable among these energies is solar thermal energy however there are barriers which impede citizens from deciding to install the technologies that use this type of energy in their homes over recent years various measures have been adopted to enhance and promote the use of solar thermal energy these measures have been developed at all administrative levels central regional and local one of the most used measures has been the adoption of legislative regulations that force the use of this type of energy in construction another alternative route is promotion by means of incentives in three aspects tax incentives non refundable grants and favourable lines of finance however the measures applied have been found to be insufficient and alternative stimuli are needed

renewable based distributed generation in uganda resource potential and status of exploitation abstract uganda is gifted by nature with abundant energy resources mainly renewables which can potentially provide the country with sufficient capacity to meet future growth in energy demand surprisingly uganda has one of the lowest electricity penetration levels with only 9 12 of the total population having electricity access 2 3 of them living in rural communities there is multitude of challenges facing the energy sector of uganda forcing energy demand to always exceed the supply for decades hydropower has been and is still the base electricity supply of the country with a supplement of limited biomass diesel based thermal and solar electricity the objective of this paper is to review the potential and progress of renewable based distributed generation in uganda the potential of the country s natural renewable resources and existing distributed generation is described and existing government policies are assessed the challenges facing the energy sector and the suggested remedies are discussed various distributed generation systems that could be incorporated into the energy system of the country to improve renewable energy re utilization and possibly contribute to the electricity needs of the population are also proposed and discussed exploitation of abundant re resources through distributed energy generation around the region will not only improve the electricity needs of the country but also increase the economic welfare of the growing population

fear of fire sales illiquidity seeking and credit freezes is there any need to clean up a banking system in the midst of a crisis for instance by closing some weak banks and forcing others to sell bad assets or can one wait till the crisis is over we argue that an overhang of impaired banks that may be forced to sell assets in the future can increase the private returns to holding illiquid assets sufficiently that weak banks have no interest in selling them anticipating a potential future fire sale cash rich buyers have high expected returns to holding cash which also reduces their incentive to lock up money in term loans the potential for a worse fire sale than necessary as well as the associated decline in credit origination could make the crisis worse which is one reason it may make sense to clean up the system even in the midst of the crisis we discuss alternative ways of cleaning up the system and the associated costs and benefits

institutional barriers to a perfect policy a case study of the senegalese rural electrification plan abstract this paper investigates the political and institutional factors that have influenced the success of the senegalese rural electrification action plan plan d action senegalais d electrification rurale paser paser is of interest because its innovative design attracted extensive offers of finance from donors and independent power providers however it has had limited effect on electrification levels this paper examines paser s progress and problems in detail with the aim of informing rural electrification policy internationally an extensive literature review was combined with 26 semi structured stakeholder interviews to produce a snapshot of the plan s status after its first decade of operation paser s experiences are compared with other reform based rural electrification initiatives across sub saharan africa paser has faced significant institutional and political barriers with delays arising from organisational opposition inconsistent ministerial support protracted consultations and the inherent challenges of implementing an innovative policy framework in a country with limited institutional capacity the development of human and institutional capacity has been compromised by inconsistent political commitment such experiences mirror those of electrification initiatives across sub saharan africa whilst paser s successes in garnering external support and fundraising are noteworthy and won praise from early reviews in terms of delivery the plan has failed to resolve common institutional barriers

alternative approaches to economic environmental interactions abstract the key questions raised by recent developments in resource and environmental economics have been what useful economic functions does the environment provide and how are these functions affected by the process of economic environmental interaction this paper distinguishes between two different formal approaches to answering these questions the more conventional approach which is concerned with the optimal allocation of economically valuable exhaustible resources and an alternative analysis that considers the trade off between on the one hand environmental quality and on the other resource depletion and waste generation by the economic process to illustrate and extend the latter approach a model is constructed to show how this trade off might lead to continuously declining environmental quality and a future ecological constraint society must therefore optimally allocate output between consumption and services to improve the environment and choose between increased capital accumulation and environmental degradation although strict application of such a model may be limited it has wider implications for the role of technological change and the value of the environment in any system experiencing deteriorating environmental quality

the economics of renewable energy expansion in rural sub saharan africa accelerating development in sub saharan africa will require massive expansion of access to electricity currently reaching only about one third of households this paper explores how essential economic development might be reconciled with the need to keep carbon emissions in check the authors develop a geographically explicit framework and use spatial modeling and cost estimates from recent engineering studies to determine where stand alone renewable energy generation is a cost effective alternative to centralized grid supply the results suggest that decentralized renewable energy will likely play an important role in expanding rural energy access but it will be the lowest cost option for a minority of households in africa even when likely cost reductions over the next 20 years are considered decentralized renewables are competitive mostly in remote and rural areas while grid connected supply dominates denser areas where the majority of households reside these findings underscore the need to de carbonize the fuel mix for centralized power generation as it expands in africa

the conditions for achieving environmentally sustainable development this paper is interested in the narrower interpretation the relationship between environmental quality and sustainable economic activity the latter is interpreted as that level of economic activity which leaves the environmental quality level intact with the policy objective corresponding to this notion being the maximization of net benefits of economic development subject to maintaining the services and quality of natural resources over time 3