conceptualising energy use and energy poverty using a capabilities framework in this article we conceptualise energy use from a capabilities perspective informed by the work of amartya sen martha nussbaum and others following them building on this we suggest a corresponding definition of energy poverty as understood in the capabilities space we argue that such an understanding provides a theoretically coherent means of comprehending the relationship between energy and wellbeing and thus conceptualising energy deprivation that makes sense across settings including both the global north and south a coherence which has previously been lacking at the same time it has the flexibility to be deployed in a way that is sensitive to local contexts understanding energy use in the capabilities space also provides a means for identifying multiple sites of intervention including some areas that are currently largely overlooked we argue that this is advantageous for attempts to address energy poverty in the context of climate change and imperatives for the containment of aggregate energy consumption

engendering an inclusive low carbon energy transition in japan considering the perspectives and awareness of the energy poor abstract engendering a low carbon energy transition is necessary to limit climate change impacts and temperature rises ideally this transition would be inclusive incorporating all stakeholders however the issue of energy or fuel poverty is a major obstacle to this goal this research investigates energy poverty in japan using a subjective multidimensional energy poverty measure clarifying the linkages between energy poverty and an inclusive just transition in terms of energy system and policy awareness behavior and preferences through the analysis of an original survey we uncover that there is a marked difference between low income and energy poverty households environmental awareness and their subsequent attitude toward the low carbon energy transition currently the energy poor have a negative attitude toward the low carbon energy transition in japan causing a lack of self reported engagement which will not engender an inclusive just transition our findings suggest that if the japanese low carbon energy transition were to be inclusive a further 5 percent of households could participate in the low carbon energy transition through access to solar or renewable energy capital findings identify the need for policies targeted at the energy poor specifically promoting access to solar capital and low carbon technologies in addition to existing policies targeted at low income households

public prioritisation of energy affordability in the uk much research has focused on the so called energy trilemma i e three leading energy policy issues energy security affordability and climate change mitigation whilst substantial understanding exists of why people support climate friendly energy policies little is known about why they think affordability is important particularly what leads members of the public to identify this policy goal as more important than other objectives here we examine this question via a nationally representative survey of 2441 uk residents and demonstrate that concerns about personal costs explain a small amount of variation in the prioritisation of affordability as an energy policy goal a range of other factors also significantly contribute one such factor is beliefs about who is responsible for energy transitions these findings suggest policy actions to address affordability concerns should go beyond energy prices and include additional considerations such as distributive justice and equality

trapped in the heat a post communist type of fuel poverty abstract fuel poverty is a still insufficiently researched social and energy challenge with significant climate change implications based on evidence from hungarian panel apartment blocks connected to district heating this paper introduces a new variant of fuel poverty that may not be properly captured by existing fuel poverty indicators this newly defined variant can be largely attributed to post communist legacies though it might also exist in other contexts and assumes that consumers living in poor efficiency district heated buildings are trapped in dwellings with adequate indoor temperatures but disproportionately high heating costs because a changing supplier or fuel is difficult because of the existing technical and institutional constraints and b they do not realistically have the option to reduce individually their heating costs through individual efficiency improvements this situation often translates into payment arrears indebtedness risk of disconnection or reduced consumption of other basic goods and services state supported policy responses to date have favoured symptomatic solutions direct consumer support combined with superficial retrofits though it is argued that only state of the art retrofits such as the passive house based solanova pilot project in dunaujvaros can fully eradicate fuel poverty in this consumer group

south east europe regional energy market challenges and opportunities for romania abstract the paper takes as its starting point the athens memorandum signed by countries of south east europe whereby a regional energy market in power and gas will be developed the aim under the athens memorandum is that the south east europe regional energy market seerem will be liberalized in a phased manner from 2005 and ultimately that this will form part of the eu s internal energy market the subject of the paper is the extent to which romania one of the biggest countries in south east europe and traditionally a net energy exporter to the region complies with requirements under the athens memorandum and outstanding challenges related to successful serem accession the paper argues that much progress has been made in energy sector reform in romania power prices have increased payments discipline in the power sector has improved independent regulators have been established for power and gas sectors and power and gas utilities have been restructured nevertheless a number of challenges remain if romania is to fully benefit from participation in the seerem further power price increases will be required in the medium term whilst payments discipline remains poor by industry best practice standards in the gas sector retail prices do not reflect border prices and payments discipline remains a problem the paper argues that gas price reform would likely have adverse affordability impacts and proposes means to mitigate these through rationalization of existing social safety nets for gas and heat on investment requirements the paper notes that these are significant in power generation and proposes a contract framework that would support mobilization of finance

beyond optimal city size an evaluation of alternative urban growth patterns the aim of the paper is to present a critical view of theoretical works on city size we begin with the consideration that during the 1960s and 1970s the question of optimal city size tended to b

building synergies between climate change mitigation and energy poverty alleviation abstract even though energy poverty alleviation and climate change mitigation are inextricably linked policy goals they have remained as relatively disconnected fields of research inquiry and policy development acknowledging this gap this paper explores the mainstream academic and policy literatures to provide a taxonomy of interactions and identify synergies and trade offs between them the most important trade off identified is the potential increase in energy poverty levels as a result of strong climate change action if the internalisation of the external costs of carbon emissions is not offset by efficiency gains the most significant synergy was found in deep energy efficiency in buildings the paper argues that neither of the two problems deep reductions in ghg emissions by mid century and energy poverty eradication is likely to be solved fully on their own merit while joining the two policy goals may provide a very solid case for deep efficiency improvements thus the paper calls for a strong integration of these two policy goals plus other key related benefits like energy security or employment in order to provide sufficient policy motivation to mobilise a wide scale implementation of deep energy efficiency standards

expressive voting and electoral equilibrium there are two rival accounts of rational voting in the public choice tradition the mainstream instrumental account that sees the vote as a revelation of preference over possible electoral outcomes essentially analogous to a market choice and the expressive account that sees the vote as expressing support for one or other electoral options rather like cheering at a football match this paper attempts to lay out some of the implications of the expressive account of voting for the issue of who votes as well as for the nature of political equilibrium and to compare these implications with those derived from the instrumental account we also identify and discuss the alternative views of the domain of electoral politics associated with the instrumental and expressive accounts of voting and sketch a route towards the integration of expressive and instrumental ideas in the analysis of rational electoral politics

the returns from schooling in a diversified rural economy controlling for the endogeneity of activity choice and considering both household head and family schooling we findevid ence of high returns from schooling in both crop andnoncrop activities as schooling levels increase the returns from schooling shift away from crop production failure to control for activity selection andfamily schooling is likely to result in biasedestimates of the returns from schooling in individual activities copyright 2000 oxford university press

the impact of education in rural ghana examining household labor allocation and returns on and off the farm most of the human capital literature pertaining to developing countries focuses on the returns to education in either farm work or wage work few studies examine how education affects the allocation of time between these activities this paper estimates the returns to education in farm and off farm work and consequently the role of education in determining the allocation of labor the results from this study show that off farm work has a much higher return to education than does farm work and suggest that this divergence in returns affects the allocation of labor in farm households between farm and off farm work

are women more risk averse we find that single women exhibit relatively more risk aversion in financial decision making than single men using u s sample data we examine household holdings of risky assets to determine whether there are gender differences in financial risk taking as wealth increases the proportion of wealth held as risky assets is estimated to increase by a smaller amount for single women than for single men gender differences in financial risk taking are also influenced by age race and number of children greater financial risk aversion may provide an explanation for women s lower levels of wealth compared with men s jel j16 d81 g11

does human capital raise farm or nonfarm earning more new insight from a rural pakistan household panel this study explores how human capital affects farm household earnings using two tools to refine measurement of human capital effects first it employs a two sector model to allow the allocation of family labor between farm and nonfarm activities second it accounts for village fixed effects to evaluate whether results from panel data differ meaningfully from a cross sectional data analysis with local binary variables the results show that education has a negligible effect on farm earnings instead experience appears to be the principal channel by which human capital affects agricultural performance in a traditional rural setting our results also suggest that prior models that fail to separate nonfarm activities spuriously exaggerated the effect of education to the farm sector in addition typical cross sectional analyses that ignore fixed effects may cause the effects of education on rural household earnings to be significantly overstated the fact that panel data regressions accounting for village level fixed effects found only one instance of education raising earnings the effect of literacy on nonfarm income suggests that considerable heterogeneity may have been ignored in cross sectional data analyses especially ones that omitted village level effects

an equivalent marginal cost pricing model for the district heating market district heating pricing is a core element in reforming the heating market existing district heating pricing methods such as the cost plus pricing method and the conventional marginal cost pricing method cannot simultaneously provide both high efficiency and sufficient investment cost return to solve this problem the paper presents a new pricing model namely equivalent marginal cost pricing emcp model which is based on the eve pricing theory and the unique characteristics of heat products and district heating the emcp model uses exergy as the measurement of heating product value and places products from different district heating regions into the same competition platform in the proposed model the return on investment cost is closely related to the quoted cost and within the limitations of the heating capacity cost reference and the maximum compensated shadow capacity cost both lower and higher price speculations of heat producers are restricted simulation results show that the model can guide heat producers to bid according to their production costs and to provide reasonable returns on investment which contributes to stimulate the role of price leverage and to promote the optimal allocation of heat resources

retail competition in electricity supply survey results in north carolina residential retail competition in electricity supply was introduced in many countries and some us states as part of electricity industry deregulation following problems in the electricity market in california in 2000 2001 many us states including north carolina suspended their deregulation agenda recent technological advances have made competition more viable so we ask if nc should reconsider deregulation and retail competition the welfare benefits will depend on consumers willingness to switch suppliers and the potential for value added innovations in electricity and industries such as pay tv and telecommunications consumers are sticky remaining with their current supplier even though rivals offer savings moreover some analysts question the likelihood of significant welfare improvements from retail competition we survey residents in two nc counties focusing on i households knowledge of and interest in retail competition ii factors that would encourage them to switch suppliers and iii the required savings to encourage switching about 50 65 of respondents would favor retail competition in nc demographic variables and experience switching in other industries affect opinions and the savings required to incent switching we conclude the estimated rate reduction to encourage competitive switching will be hard to achieve in nc as long as rates remain below the national average

energy poverty policies in the eu a critical perspective abstract once confined to the uk context where it was struggling to receive political recognition for years the concept of energy or fuel poverty is slowly entering the eu s agenda where it has crept into a number of regulatory documents and policy proposals using evidence gathered from an international workshop and semi structured interviews with decision makers experts and advocacy activists in brussels and sofia this paper explores the adoption of policies aimed at addressing energy poverty within i the organisational context of the eu and ii national state institutions in bulgaria a member state facing considerable problems at the energy affordability social inequality nexus while the former are largely nascent and poorly co ordinated the latter have already been implemented de jure to a significant extent however many unresolved issues surrounding their de facto implementation remain at the same time national policy makers remain largely unaware of the existence of direct energy poverty related initiatives at the eu level

residential energy expenditures and the relevance of changes in household circumstances this paper analyses the impact that dwelling characteristics and characteristics and behaviours of household members have on per capita energy expenditures it also analyses whether changes in household socio economic circumstances translate in changes in energy expenditures socio economic characteristics have a moderate impact while dwelling characteristics and especially household size have much larger impacts the largest changes in energy expenditures are due to changes in household size the recent socio demographic trends will make it harder to design policies to effectively reduce the carbon footprint of a country while policies influencing cohabitation and family size may have positive indirect effects

rejecting renewables the socio technical impediments to renewable electricity in the united states if renewable power systems deliver such impressive benefits why do they still provide only 3 percent of national electricity generation in the united states as an answer this article demonstrates that the impediments to renewable power are socio technical a term that encompasses the technological social political regulatory and cultural aspects of electricity supply and use extensive interviews of public utility commissioners utility managers system operators manufacturers researchers business owners and ordinary consumers reveal that it is these socio technical barriers that often explain why wind solar biomass geothermal and hydroelectric power sources are not embraced utility operators reject renewable resources because they are trained to think only in terms of big conventional power plants consumers practically ignore renewable power systems because they are not given accurate price signals about electricity consumption intentional market distortions such as subsidies and unintentional market distortions such as split incentives prevent consumers from becoming fully invested in their electricity choices as a result newer and cleaner technologies that may offer social and environmental benefits but are not consistent with the dominant paradigm of the electricity industry continue to face comparative rejection

the economic case for low carbon development in rapidly growing developing world cities a case study of palembang indonesia where costs or risks are higher evidence is lacking or supporting institutions are less developed policymakers can struggle to make the case for low carbon investment this is especially the case in developing world cities where decision makers struggle to keep up with the pace and scale of change focusing on palembang in indonesia this paper considers the economic case for proactive investment in low carbon development we find that a rapidly growing industrial city in a developing country can reduce emissions by 24 1 in 2025 relative to business as usual levels with investments of usd405 6 million that would reduce energy expenditure in the city by usd436 8 million emissions from the regional grid could be reduced by 12 2 in 2025 relative to business as usual trends with investments of usd2 9 billion that would generate annual savings of usd175 million these estimates understate the savings from reduced expenditure on energy subsidies and energy infrastructure the compelling economic case for mainstreaming climate mitigation in this developing country city suggests that the constraints on climate action can be political and institutional rather than economic there is therefore a need for more effective energy governance to drive the transition to a low carbon economy

measuring fuel poverty in france which households are the most fuel vulnerable fuel poverty is a growing concern in france following the hike in energy prices that started in 2004 the problem of energy affordability for low income households entered the political debate with the grenelle de l environnement in 2007 according to the standard uk definition 10 ratio 3 8 million households were subject to fuel poverty in france in 2006 we question the way fuel poverty is currently measured and compare the impact of alternative measurement approaches on the extent and composition of fuel poverty in france then we identify and characterize vulnerable households that are not ordinarily poor but can be pushed into poverty because of their fuel bills a logit a clog log and a mixed effect logit model are used to analyze which factors influence the probability of vulnerable households to fall into poverty the study indicates that the proportion of fuel poor people and their characteristics differ significantly depending on the fuel poverty measure chosen the econometric results show that the probability of falling into poverty is higher for those who are retired living alone rent their home use an individual boiler for heating cook with butane or propane and have poor roof insulation current french fuel poverty reduction policies appear to be inappropriate given our conclusions

in pursuit of energy justice abstract energy justice provides a framework to perceive disparities in our energy system the foundation of energy justice draws heavily from the environmental justice movement grounded in larger issues of representation economic relations between the state firms and social groups this article draws from the environmental justice movement to explore concepts of universal and particular justice universal energy justice holds to values stemming from judicial and philosophical groundings based in procedural distributional and cosmopolitan justice issues particular energy justice relies on recognition justice of cultural and environmental factors influencing choices around energy technologies and policy preferences for the distribution of energy services empirically this article examines tensions within the energy system in the european union it does this in two areas first by examining how universal energy justice is spread through national regulatory authorities nras dealing with energy second particular energy justice is exemplified by a political solution to energy poverty in bulgaria rather than a regulatory response this contrasts with a western european approach the aim of the article is to show the pursuit of energy justice attempts to resolve tensions between groups and differing politics to both access and provide energy services

determinants of residential space heating expenditures in germany abstract we first examine the determinants of household expenditures on space heating and hot water supply in germany a number of socio economic characteristics of households are included along with building characteristics our analysis covers information on more than 12 000 households in germany for the years 1998 and 2003 the analysis continues by investigating whether different kinds of households are affected differently by increases in energy prices households in owner occupied properties are less affected compared to those in rented accommodation this could be because owners are more likely to have installed energy efficient heating and hot water supply systems and landlords have less of an incentive to improve the conditions of their rented accommodations an energy policy targeting especially the latter group might benefit not only households in rented accommodation but might also increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well

the rebound effect gender and social justice a case study in germany abstract energy efficiency increases are essential in reducing energy consumption and co 2 emissions policy is therefore rightly concerned about rebound effects which cause energy and co 2 emission reductions to be less than anticipated a policy dilemma is emerging in that less economically privileged groups tend to show the highest rebound effects some studies suggest policymakers may therefore be reluctant to support energy efficiency upgrades among such groups this paper argues this is based on a misunderstanding of the conceptual structure of the rebound effect firstly a mathematical analysis confirms that the rebound effect is merely a comparison of proportions not a measure of absolute levels of energy consumption which are the real cause of increased co 2 emissions secondly an empirical study of commute distances in north rhine westphalia germany s largest state reveals that female commuters show considerably higher rebound effects than male commuters both in time and cross sectional analyses however male commuters consume the most energy and produce the most co 2 emissions by every measure this resonates with recent studies showing the same disjunction between rebound effects and absolute consumption in home heating among poorer and wealthier households policy needs to focus on absolute consumption levels and be cautious in interpreting rebound effects

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

spatializing energy justice this paper introduces the concept of spatial justice and inequality to understandings of energy poverty and vulnerability by applying an explicitly spatial lens to conceptualize energy poverty as a form of injustice it contributes to debates in the domain of energy justice where previous examinations of energy deprivation through a justice framing have focused on inequalities between social groups and often marginalized questions of spatial difference we start from the premise that geographic disparities in the risk and incidence of domestic energy deprivation are a key component of energy justice an extensive literature review has allowed us to highlight the spatial and temporal variation of cross sectoral and entire energy chain injustices that lead to elevated energy poverty risks these processes contribute to the rise of energy injustices via four mechanisms which we term landscapes of material deprivation geographic underpinnings of energy affordability vicious cycles of vulnerability and spaces of misrecognition operating at a multiplicity of scales while lending some support to area based approaches towards energy poverty alleviation our findings also suggest that such policies alone may marginalize the underlying structural dynamics that re produce spatial inequalities therefore achieving energy justice necessitates broader interventions in the fundamental driving forces of spatial inequality

a little fairness may induce a lot of redistribution in democracy we use a model of self centered inequality aversion suggested by fehr and schmidt 1999 to study voting on redistribution we theoretically identify two classes of conditions when an empirically plausible amount of fairness preferences induces redistribution through referenda we test the predictions of the adapted inequality aversion model in a simple redistribution experiment and flnd that it predicts voting outcomes far better than the standard model of voting assuming rationality and strict self interest

the determinants of nonfarm activities and incomes of rural households in mexico with emphasis on education abstract this paper presents the main results of a study of the effects of education as well as other household assets on the choice of activities and incomes of rural mexican households our study examines the various income sources as well as the education of the household s head and its members implications are drawn for rural education and development policies to promote rural nonfarm incomes and employment

wind hydro or mixed renewable energy source preference for electricity products when the share of renewable energy increases abstract while the share of renewable energy especially wind power increases in the energy mix the risk of temporary energy shortage increases as well thus it is important to understand consumers preference for the renewable energy towards the continuous growing renewable energy society we use a discrete choice experiment to infer consumers preferences when the share of renewable energy increases the study results indicate that consumers are generally willing to pay extra for an increasing share of renewable energy but the renewable energy should come from a mixture of renewable energy sources we also found that consumers prefer to trade with their current supplier rather than another well known supplier this study contributes to the energy portfolio theories and the theory of energy diversification in a consumer perspective the managerial implications of this study are also discussed

highway safety economic behavior and driving environment author s keeler theodore e abstract economic analysis has enhanced our understanding of the efficacy of highway safety regulations specifically a consumer theoretic literature has developed on drivers responses to regulations based on ideas first set forth by lester lave and w e weber 1970 and more fully thought out by sam peltzman 1975 meanwhile an empirical literature has also developed testing hypotheses relating to the effects on safety of speed limits safety device regulations and alcohol policies among other things yet despite extensive research controversies remain as to the effects of regulations on highway safety this paper contributes to the literature on economic aspects of highway safety in an four important ways first it is based on a county level data set for the u s for 1970 and 980 affording over 2 600 observations each year in a consistent panel many more observations than previous studies have used second this study uses different and more appropriate estimation procedures than most previous studies allowing for the count nature of highway fatalities and correcting for omitted variable bias otherwise possible in cross section analysis third the model used here controls for more variables in a single model than previous studies finally this study allows for important differences in the estimated coefficients between urban and rural driving environments

quantifying the prevalence of fuel poverty across the european union abstract the literature and policy base for fuel poverty in the uk and ireland is well established and there is a growing body of single country studies beyond these two eu member states for example brunner et al 2012 dubois 2012 robine et al 2008 however on a european level the last analysis of fuel poverty was conducted in 2004 prior to the enlargement of the eu using survey data this paper presents an updated overview of the prevalence of european fuel poverty in the context of the accession of numerous former social states and rising fuel prices analysis reveals the phenomenon of fuel poverty is occurring across the eu with particularly high levels of fuel poverty found in eastern and southern european states it is argued that there are both eu and national policy frameworks in place that address climate change and these could be used as a starting point for countries to address fuel poverty through improved domestic energy efficiency measures this paper reflects research undertaken in 2011 supported by eaga charitable trust within the umbrella of work examining issues of poverty and social exclusion across the eu which has enabled access to the eu silc dataset

objective and subjective measures of fuel poverty as energy prices continue to rise to reflect the real cost of carbon the numbers of households in fuel poverty is increasing rapidly this paper uses a unique data set to explore one alternative measure of fuel poverty based on whether consumers feel able to afford their energy similar to one introduced by the government a few years ago we explore the links between an expenditure based and our subjective measure of fuel poverty and compare these differences with those between official measures amongst low income households 28 spent more than a tenth of their income on energy in the home and so would be likely to qualify as fuel poor under the most usual definition but only 16 felt unable to afford sufficient energy to keep their homes warm amongst this group who felt they had difficulty in affording sufficient energy less than half were expenditure fuel poor the paper argues that reintroduction of a self reported measure by the government would be a valuable aid to policy development

densification what does it mean for fuel poverty and energy justice an empirical analysis energy is increasingly at the forefront of the global political agenda while there is a longstanding literature relating to fuel poverty and increasingly energy justice there remains little evidence which explores its link with the urban form specifically the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the urban consolidation hypothesis and the cultivation of energy justice in australia this study uses data from the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey years 2007 2014 a national probability sample and indefinite life panel the substantive findings of this study demonstrate that for low income and renting households greater urban density corresponds to a higher likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty further for households with a dwelling type described as an apartment two or three storeys there is a separate and quite generalisable indication that this type of dwelling is associated with a lower likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty this study connects the debate regarding urban consolidation and energy consumption to the fuel poverty and energy justice literature alongside this contribution this study also provides policymakers and planners with new evidence to inform remediation policies that are directed at supporting the fuel poor

on the power of indicators how the choice of fuel poverty indicator affects the identification of the target population in light of the creation of the eu energy poverty observatory epov in january 2018 and the increase in debates on how fuel poverty is measured we propose a critical analysis of fuel poverty indi

conditional cooperation and voluntary contributions to public goods we compare a partners condition where the same small group of subjects plays a repeated publi c good game to a strangers condition where subjects play this game in changing group formations subjects in the partners conditi on contribute from t he first period on significantly more to the publi c good than subjects in the strangers conditi on in the strangers conditi on contributions show a continual decay whil e in the partners conditi on contributions fluctuate on a high level until t hey decrease in the final periods we interpret subjects behavior in terms of conditional cooperation which is characterized by both future oriented and reactive behavior

oil vulnerability in the australian city assessing socioeconomic risks from higher urban fuel prices global oil prices have risen markedly over the past 18 months generating considerable speculation regarding their economic and social impacts cities that are highly dependent on petroleum for urban transport are likely to be most adversely affected by rising oil prices yet there has been little recent scholarly engagement with the socioeconomic implications of increasing oil prices this paper develops a basic framework and methodology for assessing the socioeconomic oil vulnerability of australian cities the paper demonstrates that there is wide spatial variability in the vulnerability of australia s urban populations to rising fuel costs which may compound existing socio spatial divisions and speculates on some underlying causal factors the paper calls for better data and new methods to understand the issue

a comment on farmer education and farm efficiency a survey in a widely acknowledged study marlaine e lockheed dean t jamison and lawrence j lau presented a meticulous survey of studies investigating the effect of farmer education on farm efficiency in less developed countries in summarizing 18 different studies in 13 countries they concluded that education has a positive effect on efficiency and that on average 4 years of education results in a 7 4 improvement in output generally lockheed et al s study confirms a widely accepted view that education has a positive effect on farm productivity however a careful analysis of the empirical foundation of their study suggests the need for some skepticism about the conclusions drawn the estimated coefficients for the education variables in the production functions presented often are not statistically significant and in some cases show that education has a negative effect on farm efficiency for example if statistical significance is calculated at the 05 level only 22 of 39 equations 56 4 reported in lockheed et al s table 2 estimate a positive and statistically significant coefficient for the education variable the remaining 44 are either not significantly different from zero or are negative 2 separating the studies by geographic area reveals another interesting pattern in the studies namely how the expected result varies across regions latin america and asia are well represented in the sample with 13 and 22 studies respectively but only two of the studies are from africa 3 of the 13 latin american studies only three 23 1 are positive and significant at the 05 level for asia on the other hand over 77 3 17 of 22 show the expected result as for the two studies for africa one finds a negative effect of education on productivity and the other finds no significant effect this indicates that while there is evidence supporting the beneficial effect of education on productivity

a review of the pricing mechanisms for district heating systems heating represents the largest proportion of energy use as supplied to consumers across all end energy uses therefore there is huge potential for energy savings in the heating sector in order to reduce the emission of co2 district heating dh has been considered an efficient environmentally friendly and cost effective method for heating in buildings and is playing an important role in the mitigation of climate change in the interest of fairness and in the highly competitive market the dh companies operate there is a strong need to develop a novel heat pricing mechanism in order to promote sustainable development of dh systems in this paper existing methods and models regarding heat pricing have been reviewed the features of different pricing mechanisms have been analysed including advantages and disadvantages insights into developing an advanced pricing mechanism for dh systems have been offered

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

the mediating role of social workers in the implementation of regional policies targeting energy poverty abstract this paper aims to provide a socio political reflection of the role played by social workers in regional policies and of the real needs of households affected by energy poverty the paper also examines the impact of technical specialised training on the ability of social workers to prevent and mitigate conditions of household energy poverty in europe the adoption of a research action participation methodological framework and a training research approach has permitted the opinions of social workers to be collected through surveys and their central role in implementing regional policies to be highlighted the conclusions obtained have made possible the construction of a self diagnosis and data collection tool which increases the ability of social workers to mediate and implement urgent mitigation measures for energy poverty finally regional policies which aim to mitigate household energy poverty are examined from the professional perspective of social workers

does urbanization lead to less energy use and lower co2 emissions a cross country analysis despite the relationship between urbanization energy use and co2 emissions has been extensively studied in recent years little attention has been paid to differences in development stages or income levels most previous studies have implicitly assumed that the impact of urbanization is homogenous for all countries this assumption can be questionable as there are many characteristic differences among countries of different levels of affluence this paper investigates empirically the effects of urbanization on energy use and co2 emissions with consideration of the different development stages using the stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stirpat model and a balanced panel dataset of 99 countries over the period 1975 2005 the findings suggest that the impact of urbanization on energy use and emissions varies across the stages of development surprisingly urbanization decreases energy use in the low income group while it increases energy use in the middle and high income groups the impact of urbanization on emissions is positive for all the income groups but it is more pronounced in the middle income group than in the other income groups these novel findings not only help advance the existing literature but also can be of special interest to policy makers and urban planners

measuring and monitoring fuel poverty in the uk national and regional perspectives abstract throughout the industrialised world fuel poverty is the most commonly accepted term with which to describe a household s inability to afford basic standards of heat power and light whilst the term gained widespread acceptance with the publication of the uk s fuel poverty strategy in 2001 little is known about the origins of the term itself this paper traces the earliest formulations of the concept focusing particularly on the 10 needs to spend threshold which was adopted in 1991 and remains in place some 20 years later this paper argues that understanding more about the origins of this threshold yields a more critical understanding of why fuel poverty targets in the uk have not been reached and enables a more informed approach to setting realistic targets for the future it also provides an opportunity to explore regional disparities in uk fuel poverty prevalence highlighting the extent to which rigid adherence to a 10 threshold has created an unstable regional mosaic of over estimation and under estimation

effect of fuelwood scarcity and socio economic factors on household bio based energy use and energy substitution in rural ethiopia abstract in ethiopia biomass is predominantly utilized for household energy needs often using inefficient rudimentary stoves which cause adverse environmental and welfare effects this paper examined the contribution of biomass resources to rural household energy use and energy substitution the analysis applied the ordinary least square in the final stage estimation of fuelwood and overall biomass energy consumption by using predicted shadow prices the paper used tobit model to estimate charcoal and agricultural fuel consumption due to the presence of censoring an increase in fuelwood shadow price was associated with reduced household fuelwood consumption with price elasticity of 0 38 the cross price elasticity between fuelwood and agricultural fuels revealed no evidence of energy substitution which conforms to the findings of previous studies household access to electricity was associated with lower household biomass energy utilization but kerosene was not fuelwood substitute household energy use conformed to the fuel stacking or multiple fuel use concept but households preferred modern energy options as welfare increased in areas where modern energy is available this suggests that there is a promising prospect for fuel transition but access to modern energy and economic growth have key roles the findings suggest that a concerted policy effort is required that would help diversify rural livelihoods improve living standards and encourage economic growth encourage inter fuel substitution through improved modern energy access and afforestation to increase biomass supply

regulating district heating in romania legislative challenges and energy efficiency barriers abstract many states in eastern and central europe ece possess extensive district heating dh networks that were constructed during the days of communist rule in order to provide a universally accessible energy service that supported soviet development policies but the post communist transition was marked by the exacerbation of the sector s numerous technical economic regulatory and environmental problems accompanied by its abandonment in favour of alternative methods of domestic heating recent efforts to increase the use of dh in ece as a result of environmental and energy security concerns have taken place in an absence of critical context sensitive research the purpose of this paper is to explore the legal aspects of post communist dh reforms in romania with the aim of identifying some of the governance challenges faced by state authorities in managing the sector in broader terms we seek to explore the extent to which the romanian legislative framework is in a position to promote energy efficiency in dh this has been achieved via an analysis of formal policy documents government decrees strategic documents and laws pertaining to this sector as published and subsequently amended in the official gazette the conclusions of the paper identify the key regulatory issues in the sector especially with respect to the tariff setting process and the division of competences among different organisations in it while suggesting a set of policy steps and general restructuring approaches that could help overcome the current situation

anyone for higher speed limits self interested and adaptive political preferences swedish survey evidence indicates that variables reflecting self interest are important in explaining people s preferred speed limits and that political preferences adapt to technological development drivers who believe they drive better than the average driver as well as drivers of cars that are newer and hence safer bigger and with better highspeed characteristics prefer higher speed limits in contrast elderly people prefer lower speed limits furthermore people report that they themselves vote more sociotropically than they believe others vote on average indicating that we may vote less sociotropically than we believe ourselves one possible reason for such self serving biases is that people desire to see themselves as socially responsible

access to water women s work and child outcomes abstractpoor rural women in the developing world spend considerable time collecting water do women living in places where more time is needed for water collection tend to participate less in income earning market based activities do the education outcomes of their children tend to be worse we use micro data for nine developing countries to help address these questions our primary aim is to describe the patterns in the data rather than to infer causality although we do treat the household level access to water as endogenous assuming that community level access is exogenous conditional on a wide range of geographic factors better access to water is not found to be associated with greater off farm paid work but is associated with less unpaid work for women in countries where substantial gender gaps in schooling exist both boys and girls enrollments also tend to be better

definitions of fuel poverty implications for policy abstract this paper outlines why the definition of fuel poverty is important in policy formulation and describes how the government s current definitions evolved from the original concept it discusses the determination of income and fuel costs and the possibilities for a relative and common european measure it examines problems inherent in assessing fuel costs as a percentage of income and puts forward the arguments for a budget standard approach the paper illustrates how the size of the problem depends on the definition and chosen threshold and suggests advantages for a rating scale it illustrates how the income composition and thresholds also govern the distribution of the target populations and the relative importance of the main causal factors and examines the consequent policy implications it explores the definition of vulnerable households and the importance of severity and questions whether the uk fuel poverty strategy is targeted at households least able to afford their fuel costs as the name implies or primarily those at risk from excess winter and summer mortality and morbidity finally after examining the role of supplementary indicators it looks at the opportunities for changing the definition and comments on the government review of the definition and targets

estimating the effect of urban density on fuel demand much of the empirical literature on fuel demand presents estimates derived from national data which do not permit any explicit consideration of the spatial structure of the economy intuitively we would expect the degree of spatial concentration of activities to have a strong link with transport fuel consumption the present paper addresses this theme by estimating a fuel demand model for urban areas to provide a direct estimate of the elasticity of demand with respect to urban density fuel demand per capita is decomposed into car stock per capita fuel consumption per kilometre and annual distance driven per car per year urban density is found to affect fuel consumption mostly through variations in the car stock and in the distances travelled rather than through fuel consumption per kilometre

australian retail electricity prices can we avoid repeating the rising trend of the past abstract after a stable or declining real trend that persisted for more than half a century australian retail electricity prices have experienced a substantial increase in real terms since 2007 this has mainly been driven by increases in the cost of electricity distribution and to a lesser degree in the cost of electricity generation reducing greenhouse gas emissions which is a bipartisan political goal in australia will likely deliver further increases in generation costs due to the expected higher cost of low emission technology participating in global negotiations on emission reduction targets and designing efficient policy mechanisms have been a major focus of governments over the last several decades in contrast managing distribution system costs has received less attention while there were a number of factors which drove historical increases in distribution costs management of peak demand growth could help contain or reduce the extent to which consumers particularly households experience further increases in distribution costs the paper demonstrates how different combinations of carbon price and peak demand scenarios could impact future residential and industrial retail electricity prices to 2050 and discusses some behavioural and technological solutions to manage peak demand and potential barriers to their deployment

the distributional implications of a carbon tax in ireland we study the effects of carbon tax and revenue recycling across the income distribution in the republic of ireland in absolute terms a carbon tax of 20 tco2 would cost the poorest households less than 3 week and the richest households more than 4 week a carbon tax is regressive therefore however if the tax revenue is used to increase social benefits and tax credits households across the income distribution can be made better off without exhausting the total carbon tax revenue

the policy implications of energy poverty indicators abstract the methodologies and indicators that have been proposed in the literature to measure energy poverty are quite diverse some are subjective approaches based on personal or third parties perceptions of affordable warmth at home whereas others calculate objective indicators although these different proposals have already been theoretically compared an empirical comparative analysis that measures in a real case study the practical impact of the theoretical limitations detected for the different indicators was still pending the goal of this paper is thus to contribute to this debate by comparing critically the different approaches used to measure energy poverty in a real case spain in 2015 and to propose a new methodology that might be able to overcome some of the major problems that affect current methods

the compact city just or just compact a preliminary analysis the aim of the research described in this paper is to examine the validity of the claims that higher density urban form promotes social equity that is promotes benefits for the life chances of low income groups overall the evidence suggests that for medium sized english cities higher urban densities may be positive for some aspects of social equity and negative for others more specifically likely benefits include improved public transport reduced social segregation and better access to facilities while the main problems are likely to be reduced living space and a lack of affordable housing investigations of different aspects of density show that the cities that most support social equity appear to be those that have a large proportion of high density housing

are the costs of cleaning up eastern europe exaggerated economic reform and the environment widespread concern has been expressed that the costs of reducing environmental pollution in eastern europe will divert substantial investment resources from the pool available for industrial modernization in fact apart from a number of severely damaged areas the general level of exposure to major pollutants in eastern europe is not high by comparison with the oecd countries even without specific environmental policies the process of general economic reform combined with energy conservation induced by higher energy prices will reduce emissions by nearly 50 percent a modest fraction of general investment in industrial modernization will deal with the remaining problems of current emissions provided that sensible systems of environmental charges are enforced the countries will then be faced with the problem of cleaning up the debris of past industrial activity which can be tackled over an extended period of years as in other industrial economies copyright 1991 by oxford university press

the ecological fallacy revisited aggregate versus individual level findings on economics and elections and sociotropic voting several aggregate level studies have found a relationship between macroeconomic conditions and election outcomes operating in intuitively plausible directions more recent survey based studies however have been unable to detect any comparable relationship operating at the individual voter level this persistent discrepancy is puzzling one recently proposed explanation for it is that voters actually behave in an altruistic or sociotropic fashion responding to economic events only as they affect the general welfare rather than in terms of self interested pocketbook considerations it is argued here that the discrepancies between the macro and micro level studies are a statistical artifact arising from the fact that observable changes in individual welfare actually consist of two unobservable components a government induced and politically relevant component and an exogenous component caused by life cycle and other politically irrelevant factors it is shown that because of this individual level cross sectional estimates of the effects of welfare changes on voting are badly biased and are essentially unrelated to the true values of the behavioral parameters of interest they will generally be considerable underestimates and may even be of the wrong sign an aggregate level time series analysis on the other hand will often yield reasonably good if somewhat attenuated estimates of the underlying individual level effects of interest thus in this case individual behavior is best investigated with aggregate rather than individual level data it is also shown that the evidence for sociotropic voting is artifactual in the sense that the various findings and evidence which ostensibly show sociotropic behavior are all perfectly compatible with the null hypothesis of self interested pocketbook voting

resource allocation in public policy the effects of the 65 mph speed limit i background previous work lave 1985 shows that highway fatality rates are strongly related to the variation in speed between cars variance kills what matters most in setting a speed limit is choosing one that people will obey hence reducing variance between cars this paper looks at another consideration for setting a speed limit how will the limit affect the allocation of vehicles across alternative roads and the allocation of policing resources across alternative safety activities this resource allocation perspective leads to the development of a new criterion for judging safety effects instead of measuring the local effect of a speed limit change we should measure the statewide effect because a reallocation of traffic and patrol activities will have systemwide consequences this perspective is analogous to the study of offsetting behavior pioneered by peltzman 1975 a government s attempt to improve the safety characteristics of a product may be offset by behavioral changes in the use of the product thus substantially weakening the expected safety improvement and possibly even making the overall situation worse 1 if this has occurred then we should be able to detect an increase in safety when the government regulation is reversed in 1987 the federal government allowed states to raise speed limits on their rural interstate highways 40 states did so some reports show that fatalities increased baum et al 1990 national highway traffic safety administration 1989 gallagher et al 1989 however they only look at local effects fatalities on a particular highway before and after the speed limit change this is not the relevant criterion ii consequences of raising the speed limit raising the speed limit might have consequences for the allocation of policing resources and the allocation of traffic consider the policing resources first the allocation of policing resources there is strong evidence that the state highway patrols felt they had been forced to misallocate their manpower because of the federally mandated 55 mph national maximum speed limit the federal government had imposed detailed compliance requirements that required strict new enforcement efforts 2 in response highway patrols shifted resources from other safety activities e g drunk driving checkpoints and truck safety to speed enforcement on the interstate highways these highways have the densest concentration of high speed traffic hence a patrol hour of activity there will control the greatest number of potential speeders by 1983 29 of patrol hours were devoted to rural interstate highways though these were already the safest highways and produced only 9 of fatalities national research council 1984 227 the state highway patrols were well aware that this was a peculiar way to allocate manpower testifying before congress the international association of chiefs of police said federal financial sanctions force the over concentration of limited resources for the express purpose of attaining compliance rather than application of resources in a manner most effectively enhancing total highway safety tippet 1990 and following the speed limit increase to 65 mph they took the opportunity to reallocate patrol resources 3 the allocation of highway resources for physical reasons the interstates are our safest roads higher legal speeds on the interstates would be expected to lure traffic away from other roads hence reducing fatalities on the less safe roads is there evidence that traffic did shift to the interstates following the speed limit increase we need to measure change relative to some expected baseline table i does this in two different ways part a concentrates on the states that increased speed limits to 65 mph for these states it compares the growth of vehicle miles traveled vmt on specific highway types to the overall vmt growth rate in the state

are compact cities environmentally friendly there is a wide consensus among international institutions and national governments in favor of compact i e densely populated cities as a way to improve the ecological performance of the transport system indeed when both the intercity and intra urban distributions of activities are given a higher population density makes cities more environmentally friendly because the average commuting length is reduced however when we account for the possible relocation of activities within and between cities in response to a higher population density the latter may cease to hold indeed an increasing density policy affects prices wages and land rents which in turn incentivizes firms and households to change place this reshapes the urban system in a way that may generate a higher level of pollution thus although an increase in compactness is environmentally desirable when locations are given compactness may not be environmentally friendly when one accounts for the general equilibrium effects generated by such a policy

how to deal with the rebound effect a policy oriented approach policy makers and environmental agencies have echoed concerns brought forward by academics about the need to address the rebound effect for achieving absolute energy and environmental decoupling however such concerns have generally not been translated into tangible policy action the reasons behind this inaction are not fully understood and much remains unknown about the status of the rebound effect issue on the policy agenda and policy pathways available such knowledge gaps may hamper the development of effective policies to address this issue in this paper we examine the extent to and ways in which the rebound effect is considered in policy documents and analyse thirteen specific policy pathways for rebound mitigation the effectiveness of the pathways is scrutinised and conclusions are offered to mitigate rebound effects the main policy conclusions of the paper are that an appropriate policy design and policy mix are key to avoiding undesired outcomes such as the creation of additional rebound effects and environmental trade offs from the discussion economy wide cap and trade systems as well as energy and carbon taxes when designed appropriately emerge as the most effective policies in setting a ceiling for emissions and addressing energy use across the economy

energy equity and the future of the fuel poor abstract a warm and adequately lit home is considered a basic need together with access to energy consuming appliances ranging from a fridge to a tv an underlying tenet of sustainable energy is that such basic needs should be affordably met yet low incomes energy inefficient housing and appliances and high energy costs mean that roughly 10 per cent of uk households many of them elderly or with young children fail to attain this basic standard these households which would need to spend more than 10 per cent of their income to attain adequate energy services are officially defined as fuel poor their cold poorly equipped homes lead to chronic cold related health conditions exacerbate social isolation and may undermine educational achievement in addition rural areas have a disproportionately high incidence of fuel poverty this review examines the current distribution of energy consumption its social impacts and the opportunities to address fuel poverty through improvements to the housing stock it will then consider potential future developments

fuel poverty as injustice integrating distribution recognition and procedure in the struggle for affordable warmth bringing attention to fuel poverty as a distinct manifestation of social inequality has asserted the place of affordable warmth in the profile of contemporary rights and entitlements as such fuel poverty can be understood as an expression of injustice involving the compromised ability to access energy services and thereby to secure a healthful living environment in this paper we consider how fuel poverty may be aligned to various alternative concepts of social and environmental justice whilst recognising that fuel poverty is fundamentally a complex problem of distributive injustice we argue that other understandings of injustice are also implicated and play important roles in producing and sustaining inequalities in access to affordable warmth addressing fuel poverty has to involve seeking justice in terms of the cultural and political recognition of vulnerable and marginalised social groups and pursuing procedural justice through opening up involvement and influence in decision making processes we make this argument both in theoretical terms and through considering the experience of fuel poverty advocacy and policy development in the uk opportunities for future action may be illuminated through such interconnected justice framings as wider awareness of energy climate and poverty issues emerge

revisiting feed in tariffs in australia a review globally solar photovoltaic pv is rapidly becoming a key source of energy incentivised through the use of feed in tariffs fits solar pv is enjoying a similarly swift adoption in australia encouraged through fits this review builds on earlier work compiling and comparing fits in australia across its states and territories for residential small scale photovoltaic installations the purpose of this review is three fold 1 to synthesise a set of data on fit policy which can be used to inform future australia wide policy analysis 2 to understand the coevolution of policies to subsidise solar panel installation installation costs and installation numbers and 3 to employ this set of data on fit policy to examine whether fit policy corresponds with unintended adverse energy justice outcomes i e electricity disconnections from the grid the analysis presented in this review indicates that fit policies correspond to a greater number of electricity disconnections from the grid these findings are discussed in the context of broader debates

a reexamination of resource allocation responses to the 65 mph speed limit michael greenstone i introduction in 1987 the federal government allowed states to raise speed limits from 55 mph to 65 mph on a single category of roads rural interstates of the 47 states with rural interstate roads 40 adopted the higher speed limit within a year garber and graham 1990 and ashenfelter and greenstone 2002 document that the fatality rate on rural interstates increased dramatically subsequent to its introduction these studies conclude that higher speed limits lead to higher fatality rates in a recent issue of economic inquiry lave and elias 1997 henceforth l e argue that the full effect of the 65 mph speed limit cannot be inferred by examining rural interstates in isolation from other roads they conjecture that the higher speed limits caused reallocations of drivers and state police that counterbalanced the increased fatality rates on rural interstates in particular they posit that the reduced travel times available on rural interstates induced drivers to switch from dangerous side roads to the safer rural interstates additionally they contend that the higher limits freed the state police from speed enforcement which allowed them to concentrate on activities with greater impacts on fatality rates thus l e s hypothesis is that the full effect of an increase in the speed limit requires an examination of statewide fatality rates figure 1 graphically depicts l e s hypothesis l e present evidence in favor of their hypothesized causal chain first in support of the driver reallocation conjecture they find that between 1986 and 1988 vehicle miles of travel vmt increased on rural interstates where the speed limit was increased to 65 mph second they present anecdotal evidence in favor of the trooper reallocation conjecture third they show that the introduction of the 65 mph limit was associated with a statistically significant decline in statewide fatality rates of 3 4 5 1 thus l e s surprising conclusion is that through driver and trooper reallocations the 1987 increase in speed limits reduced fatality rates this study reexamines l e s empirical results and is unable to confirm them it shows that the statewide fatality rate declined by a statistically insignificant amount in adopting states after 1987 this finding holds when the specification is virtually identical to the one that l e fit and when alternative specifications are estimated although this result directly contradicts l e s primary finding the source of the discrepancy cannot be determined because their data were unavailable it remains puzzling that the large increase in rural interstate fatality rates is not observable in statewide fatality rates an explanation that potentially reconciles this finding with l e s is that the increase on rural interstates was counterbalanced but not swamped by fatality declines induced by the hypothesized reallocations consequently this article also explores whether the 65 mph speed limit caused the reallocations that are the conjectured sources of the statewide decline in fatality rates if these links are not supported by the data it indicates that the statistically insignificant decline in statewide fatality rates cannot be causally related to the two reallocations and in turn to the higher speed limit the links between the 65 mph speed limit and the two reallocations are tested separately first the results suggest that vmt did not increase on rural interstates where the speed limit was raised this finding is derived from a regression on 1982 1990 data whereas l e only compared unadjusted means from 1986 and 1988 moreover it holds when the comparison is to rural interstates in states that did not adopt the higher limit and to both other states and other categories of roads these results fail to provide an empirical basis for the driver reallocation conjecture