economic analysis of investment in the rooftop photovoltaic systems a long term research in the two main markets abstract nowadays due to incentive policies the photovoltaic pv installations become an economically attractive investment the different policies aim to reduce the pv installation costs consequently to the deployment of the market in recent years a progressive price decrease of components for pv installations has occurred according their learning curve every doubling of the volume implies approximately a cost reduction of 20 in order to reduce the burden of the incentive rate on the national budget maintaining the economic margin of the investment attractive for investors a progressive tariff decline has also taken place this paper provides a technical economic analysis of investments in pv systems installed on the rooftop considering incentive policies and applies it to some significant case studies in the countries in which pv market is the most prosperous germany and italy the analysis puts into evidence the past and current economic margins of the pv investments since 2006 to 2012 four case studies from 3 kwp to 1 mwp are examined in detail the profitability indexes in terms of net present value and internal rate of return evaluated throughout incentive duration of 20 years become very interesting above all in italy higher than 100 of the installation cost and higher than 10 respectively since 2009 when an abrupt decrement in installation cost occurred in italy the best profit margins occur for large size pv plants and are poorly counterbalanced by the decline of the feed in tariff up to 2012 when a new framework has given a knock to the investments whereas in germany the best margins happen for medium size pv plants and are well adjusted by the feed in tariff however it is predictable that a cut in german feed in tariff will take place because the profit margins have been higher in last year than in the previous years

effects of a cut off in feed in tariffs on photovoltaic capacity evidence fromgermany abstract we analyze the effects of feed in tariff fit adjustments on installed photovoltaic capacity in germany we find that the current system temporarily accelerates installments and does not countervail over investment therefore we design three alternative fit regimes i constant fits ii linearly decreasing fits and iii fit adjustments related to the changes of photovoltaic panel prices simulations of installed capacities indicate that alternative adjustment mechanisms could be more appropriate to meet the government s installation target moreover we calculate the consumers burden induced by the fits and find that it might be reduced by alternative mechanisms

scientific ambiguity and climate policy economic evaluation of climate policy traditionally treats uncertainty by appealing to expected utility theory yet our knowledge of the impacts of climate policy may not be of sufficient quality to be described by unique probabilistic beliefs in such circumstances it has been argued that the axioms of expected utility theory may not be the correct standard of rationality by contrast several axiomatic frameworks have recently been proposed that account for ambiguous knowledge in this paper we apply static and dynamic versions of a smooth ambiguity model to climate mitigation policy we obtain a general result on the comparative statics of optimal abatement and ambiguity aversion and then extend our analysis to a more realistic dynamic setting where we introduce scientific ambiguity into the well known dice model of the climate economy system for policy relevant exogenous mitigation policies we show that the value of emissions abatement increases as ambiguity aversion increases and that this ambiguity premium can in some plausible cases be very large in these cases the effect of ambiguity aversion on welfare is comparable to that of other much studied welfare parameters thus ambiguity aversion may be an important neglected aspect of climate change economics and seems likely to provide another argument for strong abatement policy

pro competitive effects of trade reform results from a cge model of cameroon abstract how likely is trade liberalization to produce efficiency gains in the presence of imperfect competition scale economies and higher than average wages in the modern sectors all common features in developing economies these features create a potential conflict to the extent that traditional notions of comparative advantage lead us to expect that the modern sectors will be squeezed with liberalization in this paper we investigate this issue by using an applied general equilibrium model calibrated to cameroonian data under perfect competition we find that the welfare effect is a wash since the beneficial consequence of expanded imports is offset by the reduction in employment in the modern high wage sectors under imperfect competition by contrast trade liberalization produces welfare gains of the order of 1 to 2 percent of income the key is the pro competitive effect of liberalization domestic firms in the modern sectors now perceive themselves as facing a higher elasticity of demand which spurs them to increase production

germany s solar cell promotion dark clouds on the horizon abstract this article demonstrates that the large feed in tariffs currently guaranteed for solar electricity in germany constitute a subsidization regime that threatens to reach a level comparable to that of german hard coal production a notoriously outstanding example of misguided political intervention yet as a consequence of the coexistence of the german renewable energy sources act eeg and the eu emissions trading scheme ets the increased use of renewable energy technologies does not imply any additional emission reductions beyond those already achieved by ets alone similarly disappointing is the net employment balance which is likely to be negative if one takes into account the opportunity cost of this form of solar photovoltaic pv support along the lines of the international energy agency iea 2007 energy policies of iea countries germany 2007 review international energy agency oecd paris p 77 we recommend the immediate and drastic reduction of the magnitude of the feed in tariffs granted for solar based electricity ultimately producing electricity on this basis is among the most expensive greenhouse gas abatement options

a naturalistic theory of economic organization we develop a theory of economic organization grounded in the naturalistic paradigm currently emerging at the intersection of biology and the behavioral and social sciences the crux of this approach is the recognition that an understanding of the evolutionary origins of human organizational capabilities can inform theories of contemporary economic organization modern firms sustain large scale cooperation by applying cultural work arounds to tribal instincts that evolved from simultaneous within group and between group competition on a much smaller scale we translate this insight into ten principles of economic organization

economic analysis of different supporting policies for the production of electrical energy by solar photovoltaics in western european union countries abstract within various renewable energy technologies photovoltaics pv today attracts considerable attention due to its potential to contribute a major share of renewable energy in the future however pv market development is undoubtedly dependent on the political support of any given country in this paper after a brief analysis of national support policies in pv technology in western european union eu countries the authors perform an economic analysis of the main support mechanisms as implemented in the same countries based on the calculation of the cash flow the net present value npv and the internal rate of return irr indices the analysis shows that in some situations support policies can be inconvenient for the owner of the pv based generation system and that in many cases the differences between the implementation of the same support policy in different countries can give rise to significantly different results the analysis carried out in this work could help to assess the impact of pv energy policies in different western european member states renewable energy companies to identify potential pv markets and investigate the policy landscape across western eu countries

climate damages in the fund model a disaggregated analysis abstract we examine the treatment of climate damages in the fund model by inserting software switches to turn individual features on and off we obtain fund s estimates for 15 categories of damages and for components of the agricultural category fund as used by the u s government to estimate the social cost of carbon projects a net benefit of climate change in agriculture offset by a slightly larger estimate of all other damages within agriculture there is a large benefit from co 2 fertilization a moderate cost from the effect of temperature on yields and a much smaller impact of the rate of change in fund s agricultural modeling the temperature yield equation comes close to dividing by zero for high probability values of a monte carlo parameter the range of variation of the optimal temperature exceeds physically plausible limits with 95 confidence intervals extending to 17 c above and below current temperatures moreover fund s agricultural estimates are calibrated to research published in 1996 or earlier use of estimates from such models is arguably inappropriate for setting public policy but as long as such models are being used in the policymaking process an update to reflect newer research and correct modeling errors is needed before fund s damage estimates can be relied on

green in the heart or greens in the wallet the spatial uptake of small scale renewable technologies the introduction of a feed in tariff fit support mechanism has spurred development of small scale domestic renewable electricity generation throughout great britain gb however the spatial pattern of uptake has been been uneven suggesting that local as well as between neighbourhood factors may be at important as well as confirming that local socio economic factors including wealth housing type and population density are found to be important in explaining uptake of this policy local green attitudes measured in three different ways are shown not to be important existing local technical expertise proxied for using data on small scale renewable electricity devices in each area prior to the introduction of fit is an important factor in explaining subsequent adoption critically we also find that there are spatial i e between neighbourhood processes explaining the uptake of these technologies taken together our results suggest that as currently designed fit policy may be regressive in income and could exacerbate spatial economic in equalities

revised feed in tariff for solar photovoltaic in the united kingdom a cloudy future ahead abstract the united kingdom uk started implementing a national feed in tariff fit mechanism on the 1 april 2010 which included specific payment tariffs for solar photovoltaic pv installations however a revised fit rate has been put in place starting from 1 april 2012 applicable to any installations with an eligibility date of on or after 3 march 2012 this paper presents first an overview of solar pv installation in the uk this followed by a general concept of the fit in the uk before analyzing the financial impact of the new fit rate on the consumers similar financial analysis is conducted with selected countries in europe the financial analysis investigates the total profit the average rate of return and the payback period it is found that the new fit rate generates very low profit minimum rate of return and a longer payback period suggesting a downward trend of solar pv uptake in the future

real time pricing when some consumers resist in saving electricity successful real time electricity pricing depends firstly upon consumers willingness to subscribe to such terms and secondly on their ability to curb consumption levels the present paper addresses both issues by considering consumers differentiated by their electricity saving costs half of whom resist saving electricity we demonstrate that when consumers are free to adopt real time prices producers prefer charging inefficient prices and in so doing discriminate against that portion of the consumer population which faces no saving costs we also find that efficient marginal cost pricing is feasible but is incompatible with mass adoption of real time prices

oil depletion and development in cameroon a critical appraisal of the permanent income hypothesis this paper focuses on medium term policy options in the economic context of natural resource depletion in particular a novel approach for analyzing the impact of the permanent income hypothesis pih with a dynamic recursive computable general equilibrium cge model is employed the model is benchmarked in an oil producing country with declining production namely cameroon the results show that the pih renders public finances less vulnerable during the post oil transition however adopting the pih is not associated with substantial improvements in growth and household welfare in cameroon therefore the pih cannot be the only basis for better management of oil revenues in the country

carbon pricing carbon sequestration and social discounting abstract this paper studies the optimal taxation of carbon emissions in a dynastic economy when the welfare function places direct pareto weights on unborn generations the social discount rate is lower than the discount rate of the current generation i show that this welfare criterion has important consequences for the structure of the optimal regulatory system in particular i show that i the optimal carbon tax does not in general equal the social cost of carbon ii a subsidy on oil reserves is sometimes optimal and iii carbon trading programs should limit the award of carbon offset allowances

sharing the cost of global warming due to meteorological factors the distribution of the environmental damage due to climate change bears no relationship to that of global emissions we argue in favor of osetting this discrepancy and propose a global insurance scheme to be ncanced according to countries respon sibility for climate change because ghg decay very slowly we argue that the actual burden of global warming should be shared on the basis of cumulated emissions raher than sharing the expected costs of actual emissions as in a pigovian taxation scheme we characterize new versions of two well known cost sharing schemes by adapting the responsibility theory of bossert and fleurbaey 1996 to a context with externalities j e l classi cation d62 d63 q54

open innovation in the power energy sector bringing together government policies companies interests and academic essence the power and energy p e sector needs to respond to several challenges fostering investments in research and development according to the open innovation oi paradigm key stakeholders like utilities vendors laboratories universities etc should take advantage of external knowledge to improve their innovation performance several studies have demonstrated that firms adopting the oi paradigm are more likely to innovate despite the interest of p e firms in enhancing their innovation capabilities surprisingly few articles usually case studies described the implementation of the oi paradigm in p e firms this article fills the gap by identifying the key drivers that encourage a firm in the p e sector to embrace the oi paradigm the authors adopt a hybrid research approach collecting evidence from the literature and through a multiple case study analysis involving seven british firms and universities operating in the p e industry as the drivers of oi have mutual influence this article describes them with a fuzzy cognitive map finally the authors identify appropriated policies to enhance the oi adoption and consequently the sustainability of innovation in the p e sector a salient research agenda closes the paper

modelling land use deforestation and policy a hybrid optimisation heterogeneous agent model with application to the bolivian amazon abstract we introduce a hybrid simulation model simpachamama designed to explore the complex socio environmental trade offs of alternative policy bundles and policy sequencing options for stemming deforestation and reducing poverty in tropical countries designed and calibrated to the initial conditions of a small forest village in rural bolivia the model consists of a an optimising agricultural household module of heterogeneous agents that make individually optimal land use decisions based on factor endowments and market conditions b an encompassing general equilibrium shell module that endogenously determines wages and links the agricultural labour market and rural urban migration rates and c a novel user controlled policy maker module that allows the user to make real time choices over a variety of public and environmental policies that in turn impact land use welfare and migration over a 20 year simulation period the results highlight trade offs between reductions in deforestation and improvements in household welfare that can only be overcome either when international redd payments are offered or when decentralized deforestation taxes are implemented the sequencing of policies plays a critical role in the determination of these results

regional distribution of photovoltaic deployment in the uk and its determinants a spatial econometric approach abstract photovoltaic pv panels offer significant potential for contributing to the uk s energy policy goals relating to decarbonisation of the energy system security of supply and affordability the substantive drop in the cost of panels since 2007 coupled with the introduction of the feed in tariff fit scheme in 2010 has resulted in a rapid increase in installation of pv panels in the uk from 26 5mwp in 2009 to over 5gw by the end of 2014 yet there has been no comprehensive analysis of the determinants of pv deployment in the uk this paper addresses this gap by employing spatial econometrics methods to a recently available data set at a fine geographical detail following a traditional regression analysis a general to specific approach has been adopted where spatial variations in the relationships have been examined utilising the spatial durbin model using the cross sectional data relating to the uk nuts level 3 data empirical results indicate that demand for electricity population density pollution levels education level of households and housing types are among the factors that affect pv uptake in a region moreover lagrange multiplier test results indicate that the spatial durbin model may be properly applied to describe the pv uptake relationship in the uk as there are significant regional spillover effects

fixed feed in tariff versus premium a review of the current spanish system a b s t r a c t since 1998 the spanish government established a feed in system where res e generators could choose between two alternatives fixed feed in tariff and premium nowadays all res e 1 can be sold in the electricity market getting an additional premium except for solar photovoltaic one important novelty established in 2007 is a cap and floor system for facilities under the premium option the aim of this paper is to analyze and compare these two alternative options fixed fit and premiums which coexist at the same time in spain describe the evolution of both systems and evaluate its performance the introduction of this support system in spain led to very good results in terms of res e deployment the main advantage of the premium option is that it is a scheme integrated in the electricity market one disadvantage is that it can occasionally lead to overcompensation one way to try to avoid it is to set a cap value in order to evaluate the performance of this dual support system not only res e deployment has been assessed but also the policy stability the adequacy of res e production to the electricity demand pattern and the changes in the investors behaviour

competitive auction mechanisms for the promotion renewable energy technologies the case of the 50 mw photovoltaics projects in cyprus abstract there are a range of policy frameworks and support mechanisms to promote the penetration of renewable energy technologies into the energy mix assembled by the governments and regulatory bodies around the world the three dominant and most common support schemes that have also been implemented within the eu and proven successful in the past include the competitive auctions the feed in tariff scheme fit and tradable green certificates tgcs this study reviews the use of the competitive auction mechanism for the promotion of power generation from renewable energy technologies the process of the specific policy instrument as well as its pros and cons are introduced successful and failed case studies from countries that have already incorporated this mechanism into their renewable energy technologies development policies are also presented among these cases is the cyprus auction procurement for the licensing of 50 mw of photovoltaic power plants conducted in january 2013 which is thoroughly elaborated in this paper the timeline of the bids is presented and the auction winner strategy is tracked and examined a discussion is also presented on the feasibility of the awarded projects eventually the entire auction procurement procedure is evaluated to expose the defects of the mechanism and to offer some recommendations for the viability of the process

environmental policy and macroeconomic dynamics in a new keynesian model this paper studies the dynamic behavior of an economy under different environmental policy regimes in a new keynesian model with nominal and real uncertainty we find the following results i an emissions cap policy is likely to dampen macroeconomic fluctuations ii staggered price adjustment alters significantly the performance of the environmental policy regime put in place iii the optimal environmental policy response to shocks is strongly influenced by the degree to which prices adjust and by the monetary policy reaction

the economic power of energy and the need to integrate it with energy policy abstract drastic oil price changes the associated economic perturbations the coupling of energy conversion to entropy production in the form of emissions and the problems of climate change call for a reappraisal of energy in economic theory we review econometric growth analyses that do not weigh the production factors capital labor and energy by their cost shares their reproduction of economic growth in germany japan and the usa during the second half of 20th century is good according to these analyses energy s output elasticity which measures its economic power is much larger than energy s share in total factor cost while for labor s output elasticity and cost share the opposite is true this is consistent with profit and welfare optimization if hitherto ignored technological constraints are taken into account computing the motion of the german industrial sector in its cost mountain employing empirical data on factor quantities and prices supports these results the pivotal role of energy in economic growth provides leverage to energy policies that care about social well being and climate stability

using survey questions to measure preferences lessons from an experimental validation in kenya can a short survey instrument reliably measure a range of fundamental economic preferences across diverse settings we focus on survey questions that systematically predict behavior in incentivized experimental tasks among german university students becker et al 2016 and were implemented among representative samples across the globe falk et al 2018 this paper presents results of an experimental validation conducted among low income individuals in nairobi kenya we find that quantitative survey measures hypothetical versions of experimental tasks of time preference attitude to risk and altruism are good predictors of choices in incentivized experiments suggesting these measures are broadly experimentally valid at the same time we find that qualitative questions self assessments do not correlate with the experimental measures of preferences in the kenyan sample thus caution is needed before treating self assessments as proxies of preferences in new contexts

the dutch disease in a developing country oil reserves in cameroon abstract noting that most of the literature on the dutch disease refers to developed countries this paper looks at the impact of an oil boom on a developing country when certain features of developing countries particularly the imperfect substitutability between domestic and imported goods are incorporated one of the standard dutch disease results can be reversed not all the traded goods sectors will contract a simulation with a computable general equilibrium model of cameroon reveals that the agricultural sector is most likely to be hurt whereas some of the manufacturing sectors will benefit this suggests possible areas for government intervention should it be warranted and may explain the differential performance between the agricultural and industrial sectors of oil exporting countries in the post 1973 period

environmental and economic analysis of building integrated photovoltaic systems in italian regions abstract solar energy is a form of renewable energy that can be used to combat climate change through an environmentally accepted energy supply policy with support from both private and public consumers there are numerous factors contributing to the definition of the economic and environmental performance of solar energy investments such as average annual irradiation consumers consumption feed in tariff incentive system energy portfolio emissions produced by the photovoltaic system rated power of the individual modules disposable income of the investor availability of surface for the installation of the photovoltaic panels and mission that characterise the project environmental maximisation economic maximisation or self sufficiency of the system during the first year given the particular geographical position of italy the economic profitability and environmental impact of such system were estimated first on the provincial scale and then on the regional scale to delineate the general characteristics that are not caused by a single scenario the indicators used include the following net present value npv internal rate of return irr discounted payback period dpbp discounted aggregate cost benefit ratio bcr and reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide ercd the ultimate objective of the paper is to define the number of photovoltaic pv systems necessary to reach the target of renewable energy production in the above settings a general scenario appropriate to achieve this goal as well as implementing the total wealth generated by this framework and the reduction of co2 emissions resulting from the implementation of that plan will be examined the indicators used are total net present value per capita and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions per capita

resource scarcity and antisocial behavior abstract this paper examines whether exposure to persistent resource scarcity on the commons affects pastoralists readiness to engage in antisocial behavior towards their fellow commons users the region under study is divided into two areas according to exogenous variations in biomass production stemming from geological peculiarities we conducted a joy of destruction game with pastoralists from both areas and provide evidence for a positive relationship between antisocial behavior and long term exposure to scarcity antisocial behavior among villagers occurs twice as often in an area where resources are scarcer and competitive pressure is higher our results remain robust to the inclusion of various controls including beliefs socio demographics absolute and relative income and within group inequality if one interprets decreasing another participant s payoff below one s own as a tendency towards conflict behavior our results suggest a higher risk of conflict among resource users in areas of greater scarcity

factors influencing co2 emissions in china s power industry co integration analysis more than 40 of china s total co2 emissions originate from the power industry the realization of energy saving and emission reduction within china s power industry is therefore crucial in order to achieve co2 emissions reduction in this country this paper applies the autoregressive distributed lag ardl co integration model to study the major factors which have influenced co2 emissions within china s power industry from 1980 to 2010 results have shown that co2 emissions from china s power industry have been increasing rapidly from 1980 to 2010 the average annual growth rate was 8 5 and the average growth rate since 2002 has amounted to 10 5 secondly the equipment utilization hour as an indicator of the power demand has the greatest influence on co2 emissions within china s power industry in addition the impact of the industrial added value of the power sector on co2 emissions is also positive from a short term perspective thirdly the granger causality results imply that one of the important motivators behind china s technological progress within the power industry originates from the pressures created by a desire for co2 emissions reduction finally this paper provides policy recommendations for energy saving and emission reduction for china s power industry

mine yours or ours the efficiency of household investment decisions an experimental approach we conduct an experiment to measure the relative importance of key factors that influence the efficiency of household investment decisions we find that both for men and women their spouse s access to information does not affect efficiency however they are willing to sacrifice much efficiency for greater personal control over household income intriguingly even when spouses control over household income is exogenously assigned inefficiency persists as a wife s assigned share increases husbands undercut their own income to reduce hers this self destructive and spiteful behavior is best explained by non economic factors such as identity seldom emphasized in mainstream household economic models

production optimization considering environmental performance and preference in the cap and trade system abstract many countries like china are in a dilemma between economic growth and environmental deterioration e g smog weather simultaneously a growing people concern the product s environmental performance along with their improving environment awareness this paper focuses on the impacts of carbon footprint and low carbon preference on the production decision of emission dependent firms in the cap and trade system the cap and trade system uses the total cap to attain environmental goals and allows trade to achieve the effective scheduling through market regulation under this mechanism through analyzing the influence of carbon footprint and low carbon preference on the market supply and demand we build a production optimization model and develop the optimal decisions several interesting management insights on environmental preference and policy are concluded

property rights and liability for deforestation under redd implications for permanence in policy design reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation redd is critical in efforts to mitigate the effects of anthropogenic climate change despite uncertainty about the exact form of a future international redd system redd carbon property rights would need to be created and allocated with liability assigned for the potential loss of climate benefits in the event of carbon reversal from deforestation this commentary explores the links between forest property rights and liability to different redd policy options and their implications for permanence should national governments retain liability for permanence then project level activities that have individually assigned redd carbon rights may have a higher risk of carbon reversal than policies where rights are assigned to the state knowledge of pre existing forest rights is necessary for some policies implemented with government assigned redd rights in order to compensate for potential income losses from policy implementation

environmental policy and the economic downturn this paper considers how environmental policies should respond to macroeconomic downturns it first explores the implications of the global economic downturn of 2008 09 for environmental policies focusing in particular on the example of action against climate change the arguments for and against activist fiscal policies in general are then reviewed and the case made that a demand induced downturn provides a very good opportunity to undertake a necessary step change in the public spending component of environmental policies and to start working through a backlog of public investment to improve the environment fiscal policy should be used to improve the allocation of resources across time and space recent fiscal stimuli are considered in the light of this discussion it is also argued that there is little cause to delay the introduction of price signals to internalise environmental externalities but the levels at which such signals should be set requires careful analysis changes over the business cycle may be warranted depending on the nature of the environmental externality and the cause s of the business cycle in question

is renewable heat incentive the future this paper focuses on the renewable heat incentive rhi scheme in the united kingdom uk and in particular on its implications in relation to solar thermal systems stss first a short review on the uk s energy demand is provided then an overview of the past and present activities related to sts installations is discussed covering regulation policies and programmes research and development expenditures and implementations a financial analysis is presented afterwards analysing the rhi scheme in terms of total profit payback period and average annual return on investment this is based on installations of different sizes and at various levels of solar insolation the analysis also presents the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions that could be achieved by installing an sts from the financial analysis it is found that the rhi scheme could generate a good total profit a high average annual return on the investment and an acceptable payback period depending on locations as a result it could increase the penetration of solar thermal systems in the uk significant reductions of carbon dioxide emission can also be achieved by installing an sts on a building

do non strategic sanctions obey the law of demand the demand for punishment in the voluntary contribution mechanism abstract the prospect of receiving a monetary sanction for free riding has been shown to increase contributions to public goods we ask whether the impulse to punish is unresponsive to the cost to the punisher or whether like other preferences it interacts with prices to generate a conventional demand curve in a series of experiments we randomly vary the cost of reducing the earnings of other group members following voluntary contribution decisions in our design new groups are formed after each interaction and no subject faces any other more than once so there is no strategic reason to punish we nonetheless find significant levels of punishment and we learn that both price and the extent to which the recipient s contribution is below the group mean are significant determinants of the quantity of punishment demanded moreover punishment is mainly directed at free riders even when it costs nothing to the punisher

capital accumulation and resource depletion a hartwick rule counterfactual how rich would resource abundant countries be if they had actually followed the hartwick rule invest resource rents in other assets over the past 30 years the authors use time series data on investments and rents on exhaustible resource extraction for 70 countries to answer this question the results are striking gabon trinidad and tobago and venezuela would all be as wealthy as the republic of korea while nigeria would be five times as well off as it is currently the authors also derive a more general rule for sustainability maintain positive constant genuine investment and use this to draw further empirical results

assessing global resource use and greenhouse emissions to 2050 with ambitious resource efficiency and climate mitigation policies achieving sustainable development requires the decoupling of natural resource use and environmental pressures from economic growth and improvements in living standards g7 leaders and others have called for improved resource efficiency along with inclusive economic growth and deep cuts in global greenhouse emissions however the outlooks for and interactions between global natural resource use resource efficiency economic growth and greenhouse emissions are not well understood we use a novel multi regional modeling framework to develop projections to 2050 under existing trends and three policy scenarios we find that resource efficiency could provide pro growth pro environment policies with global benefits of usd 2 4 trillion in 2050 and ease the politics of shifting towards sustainability under existing trends resource extraction is projected to increase 119 from 2015 to 2050 from 84 to 184 billion tonnes per annum while greenhouse gas emissions increase 41 both driven by the value of global economic activity more than doubling resource efficiency and greenhouse abatement slow the growth of global resource extraction so that in 2050 it is up to 28 lower than in existing trends resource efficiency reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 15 20 in 2050 with global emissions falling to 63 below 2015 levels when combined with a 2 c emissions pathway in contrast to greenhouse abatement resource efficiency boosts near term economic growth these economic gains more than offset the near term costs of shifting to a 2 c emissions pathway resulting in emissions in 2050 well below current levels slower growth in resource extractions and faster economic growth

the spillover effects of affirmative action on competitiveness and unethical behavior we conduct an artefactual field experiment to examine various spillover effects of affirmative action policies in the context of castes in india we test a if individuals who enter tournaments in the presence of affirmative action policies remain competitive after the policy has been removed and b whether having been exposed to the policy generates unethical behavior and spite against subjects from the category who has benefited from the policy we find that these policies substantially increase the confidence and the competitiveness of the backward caste members however we find no spillover effect on confidence and competitiveness once affirmative action is withdrawn any gain in competitiveness due to the policy is then entirely wiped out furthermore the strong existing bias of the dominant category against the backward category is not significantly aggravated by affirmative action except when individuals learn that they have lost the previous competition

the many faces of human sociality uncovering the distribution and stability of social preferences there is vast heterogeneity in the human willingness to weigh others interests in decision making this heterogeneity concerns the motivational intricacies as well as the strength of other regarding behaviors and raises the question how one can parsimoniously model and characterize heterogeneity across several dimensions of social preferences while still being able to predict behavior over time and across situations we tackle this task with an experiment and a structural model of preferences that allows us to simultaneously estimate outcome based and reciprocity based social preferences we find that non selfish preferences are the rule rather than the exception neither at the level of the representative agent nor when we allow for several preference types do purely selfish types emerge instead three temporally stable and qualitatively different other regarding types emerge endogenously i e without pre specifying assumptions about the characteristics of types when ahead all three types value others payoffs significantly more than when behind the first type which we denote as strongly altruistic type is characterized by a relatively large weight on others payoffs even when behind and moderate levels of reciprocity the second type denoted as moderately altruistic type also puts positive weight on others payoff yet at a considerable lower level and displays no positive reciprocity while the third type is behindness averse i e puts a large negative weight on others payoffs when behind and behaves selfishly otherwise we also find that there is an unambiguous and temporally stable assignment of individuals to types moreover the three type model substantially improves the out of sample predictions of individuals behavior across additional games while the information contained in subject specific parameter estimates leads to no or only minor additional predictive power this suggests that a parsimonious model with three types captures the bulk of the predictive power contained in the preference estimates

the doping effect of italian feed in tariffs on the pv market abstract in less than six years italy has become one of the leading markets for pv power plants and one of the countries in the world with the largest number of installations and installed peak power such a quick and large growth is due to a series of feed in tariff schemes that have been uncapped until 2012 as a matter of fact any size or any number of pv power plants could be installed during a period of three years since the feed in tariffs are not paid by national taxes but are charged on the electricity bills italian energy users are now due to pay each year a surcharge of 9 billion euros on their energy bills this paper aims at discussing this development by highlighting the benefits but also some significant drawbacks that the application of uncontrolled feed in tariffs has produced

integration of renewable energy sources in southeast europe a review of incentive mechanisms and feasibility of investments abstract incentivizing development and deployment of renewable energy sources res but also other low carbon technologies lct has been a successful way of promoting new technologies by creating a feasible investment case and making them competitive with traditional energy sources although different incentive mechanisms exist feed in tariffs have shown to be the best model for accelerating lct development guaranteeing producers preferential prices for the produced electricity over a period of time and enabling them access to the power network to sell inject produced electricity due to these benefits feed in tariff models are the most common model for stimulating res integration in southeast europe the paper reviews the current state of preferential tariffs for res in countries of southeast europe while some countries already have significant installed res capacity others are still in the planning stage the review shows that the amount of installed capacity of a specific technology has a strong impact on the support for the future projects for same technology this comprehensive review of legislative development supporting res as well as technologies preferred in different countries of the region is supported with feasibility assessment of investing in res using the example of two different technology projects wind and photovoltaic analysing the impact of the current tariffs on the return on investment for each country of the region

emissions in the platinum age the implications of rapid development for climate change mitigation rapid global economic growth centred in asia but now spread across the world is driving rapid greenhouse gas emissions growth making earlier projections unrealistic this paper develops new illustrative business as usual projections for carbon dioxide co2 from fossil fuels and other sources and for non co2 greenhouse gases making adjustments to 2007 world energy outlook projections to reflect more fully recent trends we project annual emissions by 2030 to be almost double current volumes 11 per cent higher than in the most pessimistic scenario developed by the intergovernmental panel on climate change ipcc and at a level reached only in 2050 in the business as usual scenario used by the stern review this has major implications for the global approach to climate change mitigation the required effort is much larger than implicit in the ipcc data informing the current international climate negotiations large cuts in developed country emissions will be required and significant deviations from baselines will be required in developing countries by 2020 it is hard to see how the required cuts could be achieved without all major developing as well as developed countries adopting economy wide policies

labour policy instruments and the cyclical behaviour of vacancies and unemployment the standard mortensen pissarides mp model cannot match the observed elasticity of vacancies and unemployment in the data this paper shows that by introducing labour policy instruments the original mp model can replicate the observed fluctuations in unemployment and job vacancies in response to shocks these instruments reduce the benefit of forming a match thereby increasing the impact that shocks have on firms incentives to post vacancies and workers to accept job offers additionally the analysis shows that the design of labour policy instruments e g whether taxation is progressive or regressive has non trivial consequences on the model s performance

assessing alternative options for allocating oil revenue in iran abstract the present paper focuses on medium term effects of alternative windfall management strategies for a resource abundant country where the resource revenues are expected to last over a prolonged period in particular the trade off between spending and saving is analyzed within the framework of a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model the model is further validated against historical data available for 2001 2010 the total factor productivity is calculated endogenously in the model based on a function that reflects the changes in factor productivity the results suggest that saving oil revenues whether in an oil fund or through physical investment in domestic sectors leads to a higher economic growth however physical investment is superior in the short to medium term based on the resultant gdp while creating an oil fund might be more beneficial in the post oil era

assessing the strength and effectiveness of renewable electricity feed in tariffs in european union countries in the last two decades feed in tariffs fit have emerged as one of the most popular policies for supporting renewable electricity res e generation a few studies have assessed the effectiveness of res e policies but most ignore policy design features and market characteristics e g electricity price and production cost that influence policy strength we employ 1992 2008 panel data to conduct the first econometric analysis of the effectiveness of fit policies in promoting solar photovoltaic pv and onshore wind power development in 26 european union countries we develop a new indicator for fit strength that captures variability in tariff size contract duration digression rate and electricity price and production cost to estimate the resulting return on investment we regress this indicator on added res e capacity using a fixed effects specification and find that fit policies have driven solar pv development in the eu however this effect is overstated without controlling for country characteristics and is concealed without accounting for policy design we do not find robust evidence that fit policies have driven wind power development overall we show that the interaction of policy design electricity price and electricity production cost is a more important determinant of res e development than policy enactment alone

reciprocity as a foundation of financial economics this paper argues that the subsistence of the fundamental theorem of contemporary financial mathematics is the ethical concept reciprocity the argument is based on identifying an equivalence between the contemporary and ostensibly value neutral fundamental theory of asset pricing with theories of mathematical probability that emerged in the seventeenth century in the context of the ethical assessment of commercial contracts in a framework of aristotelian ethics this observation the main claim of the paper is justified on the basis of results from the ultimatum game and is analysed within a framework of pragmatic philosophy the analysis leads to the explanatory hypothesis that markets are centres of communicative action with reciprocity as a rule of discourse the purpose of the paper is to reorientate financial economics to emphasise the objectives of cooperation and social cohesion and to this end we offer specific policy advice

cultural identities and resolution of social dilemmas we report an experiment on payoff equivalent sequential provision and appropriation games with high and low caste indian villagers a central question is whether caste identities affect resolution of social dilemmas making caste salient elicits striking changes in behavior compared to baseline treatment with no information about others castes homogenous groups with high caste villagers are more successful in resolving social dilemmas than homogenous groups with low caste villagers the success of mixed caste groups is somewhere between which is inconsistent with a group identity model absent salient information on caste behavior is inconsistent with unconditional social preferences but as predicted by reciprocity jel c93 h41 z13

between a rock and a soft place ecological and feminist economics in policy debates abstract the field of ecological economics includes both economic analysis on the one hand and discussions of normative values and visions for society on the other using feminist insights into cultural beliefs about the relative hardness and softness of these two sides this essay discusses how ecological economists can use this unique between space in order to better inform policy the current crisis of global climate change it is argued requires that economists move beyond modeling and measurement while ecological thinkers need to re examine beliefs about markets and profit

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

environment justice and the capability approach in recent years several studies have attempted to combine the capabilities approach with sustainable development however critics have pointed out that although the capability approach takes the environment into account it has its shortcomings for not being a complete ethical theory our article attempts to go beyond these criticisms and show that the capabilities approach provides a good analytical framework for an environmental justice approach

the effect of environmental policies on risk reductions in energy generation abstract we demonstrate that environmental policies can decrease the risks in energy generation for private investors when several renewable technologies are simultaneously triggered this is because diverse renewable technologies can hedge the intermittent generation of other forms of renewable power our study is distinct from previous literature which has not examined environmental policies through a risk reduction analysis or has only considered a few technologies such as wind and solar when analyzing risk reduction benefits this paper is important as environmental policies can be justified not only due to environmental benefits but also economically from a risk reduction perspective by using basic diversification gains

an assessment of the greek incentives scheme for photovoltaics abstract after two years of elaboration a new legislation was enacted in 2006 in greece providing an appealing feed in tariff fit scheme for photovoltaics pvs the response of the market was immediate with more than 7947 licenses having been submitted in less than 2 years time the effectiveness however of an incentives scheme cannot be judged solely by the response of prospective investors aim of this paper is to present and discuss a quantitative assessment of this newly introduced fit law in greece with respect to its attractiveness to investors its effectiveness towards launching a new market its cost efficiency and its ability to lift non economic barriers that led to significant delays in the diffusion of res over the last 10 years

motivation crowding in environmental protection evidence from an artefactual field experiment abstract this paper examines how motivation crowding and social image affect environmental conservation decisions an artefactual field experiment conducted in bolivia is used to reproduce the trade off between individual and social benefits in natural resource use and test the effect of non monetary and non regulatory incentives on pro social behavior for environmental conservation the results show the presence of a social norm prescribing positive contribution towards environmental protection and that external incentives have heterogeneous effects on pro social behavior depending on how they influence reputation and self image the experimental results differ from those of analogous experiments conducted in the laboratory and are instead consistent with those from field experiments on common pool resource management this fact suggests caution in generalizing conclusions reached in the laboratory to different settings and populations

the large scale solar feed in tariff reverse auction in the australian capital territory australia abstract feed in tariffs fits offer renewable energy developers significant investor certainty but sometimes at the cost of being misaligned with generation costs reverse fit auctions where the fit rights for a predetermined capacity are auctioned can overcome this problem but can be plagued by non delivery risks particularly of competitively priced proposals in 2012 and 2013 the australian capital territory act government in australia conducted a fit reverse auction for 40 mw of large scale solar generating capacity the first such auction undertaken in the country the auction was highly competitive in relation to price and demonstrating low delivery risks proposal capital costs particularly engineering procurement and construction costs as well as internal rates of return were lower than expected the auction process revealed limited land availability for large scale solar developments in the act as well as a significant perceived sovereign risk issue the auction process was designed to mitigate non delivery risk by requiring proposals to be pre qualified on the basis of delivery risk before considering fit pricing the scheme is likely to be used by the act government to support further large scale renewable energy development as part of its greenhouse gas reduction strategy which is underpinned by a 90 per cent by 2020 renewable energy target

regime destabilisation as the flipside of energy transitions lessons from the history of the british coal industry 1913 1997 this paper investigates a neglected aspect of the transitions literature the destabilisation of existing regimes and industries it presents an analytical perspective that integrates four existing views on destabilisation and conceptualizes the process as a multi dimensional and enacted phenomenon involving technical economic political and cultural processes this perspective is illustrated with two historical cases of the british coal industry 1913 1967 1967 1997 these cases are also used to articulate five lessons regarding the overall destabilisation process and five lessons regarding the economic and socio political environments of industries the conclusion section translates the historical lessons into insights with relevance for the contemporary challenge of climate change and transitions to low carbon energy systems

when do increasing carbon taxes accelerate global warming a note on the green paradox abstract the green paradox by hans werner sinn suggests that increasing resource taxes accelerate global warming because resource owners increase near term extraction in fear of higher future taxation in this note we show that this effect does only occur for the specific set of carbon taxes that increase at a rate higher than the effective discount rate of the resource owners we calculate a critical initial value for the carbon tax that leads to a decreased cumulative consumption over the entire infinite time horizon applying our formal findings to carbon taxes for several mitigation targets we conclude that there is a low risk of a green paradox in case the regulator implements and commits to a permanently mal adjusted tax this remaining risk can be avoided by emissions trading scheme as suggested by sinn as long as the emission caps are set appropriately and the intertemporal permit market works correctly

the spite motive in third price auctions a spiteful agent losing an auction experiences negative emotions towards the winner in line with previous experimental findings i show that the symmetric equilibrium bid of a spiteful agent in third price auctions is higher than the risk neural nash equilibrium bid furthermore it can be shown that spiteful agents bid the same way agents would who anticipate to regret their decision in equilibrium

sustainable management of fossil fuels a dynamic stochastic optimization approach with jump diffusion abstract this paper deals with a relevant aspect of energy modeling i e fossil fuels management the issue is faced by using purely operational research techniques which are suitable in this context in particular a dynamic stochastic optimization model is developed to optimally determine use and stock of resources to be employed in consumption and investments in a wide economic sense human and physical capital r d etc it is assumed that a sustainability criterion drives the optimality rules i e decisions are also grounded on the well being of future generations the policymaker maximizes an aggregated intergenerational expected utility under the dilemma of present consumption conservation of natural resources for the future in reference to standard environmental economic theory jump diffusion dynamics for the stock of natural resources and infinite time horizon are assumed extensive numerical experiments complete the analysis and contribute to determine fossil fuels management policies showing that long term investments make the difference for the well being of present and future generations

rushing the impatient allowance reserves and the time profile of low carbon investments postponing the issue date of allowances in a cap and trade scheme by e g a reserve mechanism impacts the time profile of low carbon investments if the postponement constrains intertemporal arbitrage short term investments increase but long term investments are deterred this effect aggravates the shortage of long term investments at least partially attributed to firms impatience the cancellation of allowances agreed for phase iv of the eu ets is suitable to counteract the negative effects of cap neutral postponement on long term investments by making the reserve redundant all effects crucially depend on how firms form expectations about future allowance prices

specifications of social welfare in economic studies of climate policy overview of criteria and related policy insights an important assumption in economic studies of climate policy is the social welfare function this paper shows that applying distinct decision or social welfare criteria can result in different optimal policies of climate control notably if climate change impacts are uncertain first decision criteria in current climate economic studies are reviewed next the most important alternatives are discussed including their mathematical formalization and incorporation in economy climate models most of these alternative criteria suggest more stringent climate policies to be optimal than the standard discounted utilitarianism approach however several important welfare criteria have not or hardly seen any application in the economic analysis of climate policy we conclude that there is clear need for systematic research on this theme for which the current review provides a solid basis

the impact of energy labels and accessibility on office rents abstract energy consumption in the commercial property sector offers an important opportunity for conserving resources in this study we evaluate the financial implications of two elements of sustainability energy efficiency and accessibility in the market for commercial real estate an empirical analysis of some 1100 leasing transactions in the netherlands over the 2005 2010 period shows that buildings designated as inefficient with an eu energy performance certificate d or worse command rental levels that are some 6 5 percent lower as compared to energy efficient but otherwise similar buildings labeled a b or c furthermore this study shows that office buildings in multi functional areas with access to public transport and facilities achieve rental premiums over mono functional office districts for policymakers the results documented in this paper provide an indication on the effectiveness of the eu energy performance certificate as a market signal in the commercial property sector the findings documented here are also relevant for investors in european office markets as the importance of energy efficiency and locational diversification is bound to increase following stricter environmental regulation and changing tenant preferences

carbon emissions from the commercial building sector the role of climate quality and incentives commercial buildings play a major role in determining u s greenhouse gas emissions yet surprisingly little is known about the environmental performance of different buildings at a point in time or how the same buildings perform over time by exploiting a unique panel of commercial buildings from a major electric utility we study the association between a building s electricity consumption and the physical attributes of buildings lease incentive terms indicators of human capital and climatic conditions we find that buildings that are newer and of higher quality consume more electricity contrasting evidence for the residential sector however using our panel data set we document that newer buildings are most resilient when exposed to hotter weather those buildings that have a building manager on site and whose tenants face a positive marginal cost for electricity also demonstrate a better environmental performance

description prescription and the choice of discount rates abstract the choice of discount rates is a key issue in the analysis of long term societal issues in particular environmental issues such as climate change approaches to choosing discount rates are generally placed into two categories the descriptive approach and the prescriptive approach the descriptive approach is often justified on grounds that it uses a description of how society discounts instead of having analysts impose their own discounting views on society this paper analyzes the common forms of the descriptive and prescriptive approaches and finds that in contrast with customary thinking both forms are equally descriptive and prescriptive the prescriptions concern who has standing i e who is included in society how the views of these individuals are measured and how the measurements are aggregated such prescriptions are necessary to choose from among the many possible descriptions of how society discounts the descriptions are the measurements made given a choice of measurement technique thus the labels descriptive approach and prescriptive approach are deeply misleading as analysts cannot avoid imposing their own views on society

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

spite and development in a wide variety of settings spiteful preferences would constitute an obstacle to cooperation trade and thus economic development this paper shows that spiteful preferences the desire to reduce another s material payoff for the mere purpose of increasing one s relative payoff are surprisingly widespread in experiments conducted in one of the least developed regions in india uttar pradesh in a one shot trust game the authors find that a large majority of subjects punish cooperative behavior although such punishment clearly increases inequality and decreases the payoffs of both subjects in experiments to study coordination and to measure social preferences the findings reveal empirical patterns suggesting that the willingness to reduce another s material payoff either for the sake of achieving more equality or for the sake of being ahead is stronger among individuals belonging to high castes than among those belonging to low castes because extreme social hierarchies are typically accompanied by a culture that stresses status seeking it is plausible that the observed social preference patterns are at least partly shaped by this culture thus an exciting question for future research is the extent to which different institutions and cultures produce preferences that are conducive or detrimental to economic development

the potentials of a reverse auction in allocating subsidies for cost effective roof top photovoltaic system deployment abstract photovoltaic pv has developed to one of the most promising technologies for renewable electricity generation the austrian government currently provides subsidies for roof top pv systems through a constant administratively determined feed in tariff or an investment co funding in both subsidy schemes applications are approved on a first come first served basis there are concerns about i the selection of suitable roofs for pv systems and ii allocating subsidies among applicants to deploy roof top pv systems cost effectively thus we analyze the potentials of a simple discriminative first price reverse auction application scheme applicants define individually the required level of subsidy and those with the lowest request for subsidies are selected in an ex post analysis we evaluate the potentials of such a scheme in increasing power output and saving public spending for the federal state of vorarlberg in austria results indicate a potential increase of cumulated produced electricity between 15 and 18 in comparison to the current policy in addition a reverse auction based system would lead to savings of public spending per kwh between 20 and 41

adjustment with a fixed exchange rate cameroon cote d ivoire and senegal as members of the cfa franc zone cameroom cote d ivoire and senegal cannot use the nominal exchange rate as a tool of macroeconomic adjustment this article considers these countries responses to the commodity and oil price shocks of the 1970s in light of this and other institutional constraints using a two sector model it shows that there exist instruments that in principle permit the real exchange rate depreciation necessary for adjusting to macroeconomic imbalances the authors interpret the very different adjustment experiences of the three countries despite their common economic structure and institutional setting in terms of different uses of these instruments alternative assumptions about the labour market leave the qualitative nature of the results unaltered statistical analysis of data from the three countries confirms the model s linking of the current account and real exchange rate with the instruments of adjustment

employment protection reform in search economies the design of employment protection legislation epl is of particular importance in the european debate on the contours of labor market reform in this article we appeal to an equilibrium unemployment model to investigate the virtues of epl reform which reduces the red tape and legal costs associated with layo s and introduces a u s style experiencerating system which we model as a combination of a layo tax and a payroll subsidy the reform considered shows that it is possible to improve the e ciency of employment protection policies without a ecting the extent of worker protection on the labor market these results are consistent with the conventional wisdom that experience rating is desirable not only as an integral component of unemployment compensation nance as most studies acknowledge but also as part and parcel of a virtuous epl system

the impact of climate change on the balanced growth equivalent an application of fund the stern review added balanced growth equivalents bge to the economic climate change research agenda we first propose rigorous definitions of the bge for multiple regions and under uncertainty we show that the change in the bge is independent of the assumed scenario of per capita income for comparable welfare economic assumptions as the stern review we calculate lower changes in bge between a business as usual scenario and one without climate impacts with the model fund than the stern review found with the model page we find that mitigation policies give even lower changes in bge and argue that those policy choices should be the focus of the research effort rather than total damage estimates according to our results the current carbon tax should be below 55 tc sensitivity analyses show that the stern review chose parameters that imply high impact estimates however for regionally disaggregated welfare functions we find changes in bge that are significantly higher than the results from the stern review both for total damage as for policy analysis with regional disaggregation and high risk aversion we observe fat tails and with that very high welfare losses

optimal feed in tariff for solar photovoltaic power generation in china a real options analysis abstract the feed in tariff policy is widely used to promote the development of renewable energy china also adopts feed in tariff policy to attract greater investment in solar photovoltaic power generation this study employs real options method to assess the optimal levels of feed in tariffs in 30 provinces of china the uncertainties in co 2 price and investment cost are considered a method that integrates the backward dynamic programming algorithm and least squares monte carlo method is used to solve the model the results demonstrate that the feed in tariffs of 30 provinces range from 0 68 rmb kwh to 1 71 rmb kwh and the average level is 1 01 rmb kwh on this basis we find that the levels of sub regional feed in tariff announced in 2013 are no longer appropriate and should be adjusted as soon as possible we have also identified the implications of technological progress and carbon emission trading schemes as well as the importance of strengthening electricity transmission it has been suggested that the chinese government takes diverse measures including increasing research and development investment establishing and improving a nationwide carbon emission trading scheme and accelerating the construction of electricity transmission infrastructure to reduce the required feed in tariff and promote the development of solar photovoltaic power generation

socially just support mechanisms for the promotion of renewable energy sources in greece abstract although development of renewable energy sources res projects is essential for the greek national economy to revive cut downs of public spends in greece may equally well extend to affect res support mechanisms in this context an integrated cost benefit analysis is currently undertaken concerning res investments in the greek electricity sector more specifically social support compared with financial benefits accruing from such energy stations reveals hidden imbalances that urge for the reform of the current support status examination of representative case studies currently provided considers the three most widespread res i e wind energy hydropower and solar energy with special emphasis given on the determination of break even feed in tariffs fits and the comparison of life cycle electricity production cost between res and conventional power stations

farmers adoption of integrated crop protection and organic farming do moral and social concerns matter we investigate empirically the role of moral and social concerns in farmers decision to adopt integrated crop protection ip and organic farming of a survey questionnaire has been sent to 1286 fruit growers and vegetable producers located in the french areas of alpes de haute provence hautes alpes and vaucluse analysis of individual responses n 243 shows that although economic concerns play a strong role a significant number of respondents give high importance to moral and social ones we also examine how these considerations matter according to different crop protection strategies that is conventional farming ip and of using a multinomial logistic regression we find that 1 social concerns e g showing to others one s environmental commitment drive both ip and of adoption 2 moral concerns e g do not feel guilty about one s choices increase the probability of organic farming adoption only and 3 farmers who give high importance to economic concerns e g cutting production costs are less likely to adopt of

aggressive oil extraction and precautionary saving coping with volatility the effects of stochastic oil demand on optimal oil extraction paths and tax spending and government debt policies are analyzed when the oil demand schedule is linear and preferences quadratic without prudence optimal oil extraction is governed by the hotelling rule and optimal budgetary policies by the tax and consumption smoothing principle volatile oil demand brings forward oil extraction and induces a bigger government surplus with prudence the government depletes oil reserves even more aggressively and engages in additional precautionary saving financed by postponing spending and bringing taxes forward especially if it has substantial monopoly power on the oil market gives high priority to the public spending target is very prudent and future oil demand has high variance uncertain economic prospects induce even higher precautionary saving and if non oil revenue shocks and oil revenue shocks are positively correlated even more aggressive oil extraction in contrast prudent governments deliberately underestimate oil reserves which induce less aggressive oil depletion and less government saving but less so if uncertainty about reserves and oil demand are positively correlated

towards a national ets in china cap setting and model mechanisms abstract china is moving from regional emissions trading schemes etss to a nation wide ets although a larger ets will be more efficient the literature warns that it could make net permit selling regions worse off we use a cge model to simulate the linking of two provincial etss namely those of hubei and guangdong our simulations suggest a trade off between efficiency and equity as the richer regions typified by guangdong will benefit from linking but the poorer regions typified by hubei may lose this is because poorer provinces in china tend to be more emissions intensive and therefore likely to face a carbon price rise upon linking the costs of which may be only partially offset by trading if indeed trading is permitted we show this and explain why it is the case by improving on the stylized model suggested by adams and parmenter 2013 following atkinson 1970 we find that worsened equity from linking may dominate improved efficiency thus reducing aggregated welfare we advise more generous caps to be given to more emissions intensive and less developed regions if so as suggest our simulation results a pareto improvement could be attainable