the energy ladder theoretical myth or empirical truth results from a meta analysis abstract modern fuels are an important enabler of social and economic development still over 2 billion people rely on traditional biomass for their daily energy needs to overcome the negative effects of traditional energy on human health and the environment and to enhance the livelihood conditions of the poor a transition towards cleaner and more efficient forms of energy is needed understanding household fuel choice and fuel switching behaviour is of vital importance in search for policies to support such a transition process this paper adds to the existing energy transition literature in two ways first we provide a novel conceptual framework to analyze the decision environment underlying energy and fuel choices second we apply this framework in a meta analysis of existing choice models investigating energy switching and stacking behaviour in urban and rural areas in developing countries the meta analysis shows that socio economic household characteristics appear to receive most attention so far in identifying groups of fuel users while relatively little information is available on the impact of the external decision context on household energy choices

stacking up the ladder a panel data analysis of tanzanian household energy choices energy use statistics in tanzania reflect the country s low level of industrialization and development in 2016 only 16 9 of rural and 65 3 of urban inhabitants in mainland tanzania were connected to some form of electricity we use a nationally representative three wave panel dataset 2008 2013 to contribute to the literature on household energy use decisions in tanzania in the context of the stacking and energy ladder hypotheses we firstly adopt a panel multinomial logit approach to model the determinants of household cooking and lighting fuel choices secondly we focus explicitly on energy stacking behaviour proposing various ways of measuring what is inferred when stacking behaviour is thought of in the context of the energy transition and presenting household level correlates of energy stacking behaviour thirdly since fuel uses have gender differentiated impacts we investigate women s bargaining power in the decision making process of household fuel choices we find that whilst higher household incomes are strongly associated with a transition towards the adoption of more modern fuels especially lighting fuels this transition takes place in a context of significant fuel stacking in tanzania government policy has been aimed mostly at connecting households to the electric grid however the public health environmental and social benefits of access to modern energy sources are likely to be diminished in a context of significant fuel stacking lastly we present evidence that the educational attainment of women in the household is an important aspect of household fuel choices

ex post redistribution in a federation implications for corrective policy abstract this paper analyzes whether changes in the timing of equalizing transfers to state governments necessitate an adjustment in federal corrective policy according to the existing literature assuming an ex ante choice of transfers the corrective grant is equal to the marginal damage benefit inflicted by externality generation when the federal government accommodates state finances ex post the grant differs in formula from existing prescription allocative federal policy corrects state policy incentives twofold it entails a correction for the distortion in the marginal benefit of state spending as in earlier literature and for the distortion in the marginal cost of public funds induced by the ex post provision of transfers the required grant rule is generically disproportionate to the equilibrium externality even with lump sum taxation furthermore the ex post provision of transfers is critical for the nature of the equilibrium inefficiency equalizing transfers at least partly internalize consumption spill overs but simultaneously establishes a new source of inefficiency as a final result the existing prescription for allocative federal policy continues to apply if the public good is pure

a computable general equilibrium model of intergovernmental aid abstract this paper introduces a theoretical and a calibrated computable general equilibrium model of intergovernmental relations in which heterogeneous agents i are endowed with income and houses ii are fully mobile between multiple jurisdictions and iii vote in both local and state elections to determine local property and state income tax rates three different types of intergovernmental programs are analyzed i redistributive revenue sharing ii district power equalization and iii deductibility of local taxes the approach facilitates a heretofore difficult comparative analysis in that it provides for integrated investigation of these programs in a single general equilibrium model

fuel choices for cooking in china analysis based on multinomial logit model abstract ensuring household access to affordable reliable sustainable and modern energy for all the people is one of the 17 united nations sustainable development goals sdgs china has achieved 100 electricity access while the traditional solid fuels such as firewood are still widely used in its rural area this paper using a long term and large micro dataset and multinomial logit model investigates quantitatively the determinants of cooking fuel choice in rural china the results show that in addition to the previous knowledge on household income occupation is crucial to the cooking fuel transition in average if the head of household changes its occupation from farm to non farm the possibility of using firewood would reduce by around 14 21 the impact of income is slightly small a 10 increase in income may result in 0 5 of possibility of firewood use these conclusions are robust after considering the possible energy ladders using ordered logit regressions olr and generalized olr after controlling other factors such as income and occupation we have not found concrete evidence on the influences of education and gender of the household head and household member numbers to accelerate the fuel transition in addition to increase the household income the government should pay attention to create more non farm work opportunities for the rural

evaluating the relative strength of product specific factors in fuel switching and stove choice decisions in ethiopia a discrete choice model of household preferences for clean cooking alternatives switching from conventional stoves to modern clean safe and efficient stoves will improve health and social welfare for the 2 7 billion people worldwide that lack reliable access to modern energy services in this paper we critically review some key theoretical dimensions of household consumer behaviour in switching from traditional biomass cooking stoves to modern efficient stoves and fuels we then describe the results of empirical research investigating the determinants of stove choice focusing on the relative strength of product specific factors across three wealth groups a stated preference survey and discrete choice model were developed to understand household decision making associated with cooking stove choice in addis ababa ethiopia the study found that with the exception of price and usage cost factors for the high wealth group the product specific factors that were investigated significantly affect stove and fuel choices the relative strength of factors was assessed in terms of marginal willingness to pay and provides some evidence that consumer preference for higher quality fuels and stoves tends to increase with increasing wealth

the choice theory approach to market research this paper surveys economic choice theory stressing developments that permit use of data from psychometric and conjoint experiments to produce market demand forecasts alternatives to the widely used multinomial logit model are summarized and a new method for estimating multinomial probits is described an integration of choice models with attitudinal scaling and perceptual mapping within a latent variable system is described estimation of such systems under either random effects or fixed effects descriptions of heterogeneity across individuals is discussed issues in the use of choice models to describe responses from conjoint experiments are presented new regression diagnostic tests for the consistency of multinomial logit representations are discussed

is everything neutral in his well known analysis of the national debt robert barro introduced the notion of a dynastic family this notion has since become a standard research tool particularly in the areas of public finance and macroeconomics in this paper we critique the assumptions on which the dynastic model is predicated and argue that this framework is not a suitable abstraction in contexts in which the objective is to analyze the effects of public policies we reach this conclusion by formally considering a world in which each generation consists of a large number of distinct individuals as opposed to one representative individual we point out that family linkages form complex networks in which each individual may belong to many dynastic groupings the resulting proliferation of linkages between families gives rise to a host of neutrality results including the irrelevance of all public redistributions distortionary taxes and prices since these results are not at all descriptive of the real world we conclude

from linear fuel switching to multiple cooking strategies a critique and alternative to the energy ladder model abstract promoting sustainable development requires evaluating the technical and policy options that will facilitate the adoption and use of energy efficient and less polluting cooking stoves and practices the transition from traditional to modern fuels and devices has been explained by the energy ladder model that suggests that with increasing affluence a progression is expected from traditional biomass fuels to more advanced and less polluting fuels in this paper we evaluate the energy ladder model utilizing data from a four year 1992 96 case study of a village in mexico and from a large scale survey from four states of mexico we show that an alternate multiple fuel model of stove and fuel management based on the observed pattern of household accumulation of energy options rather than the simple progression depicted in the traditional energy ladder scenario more accurately depicts cooking fuel use patterns in rural households the multiple fuel model integrates four factors demonstrated to be essential in household decision making under conditions of resource scarcity or uncertainty a economics of fuel and stove type and access conditions to fuels b technical characteristics of cookstoves and cooking practices c cultural preferences and d health impacts this model also allows better estimates of the expected fuelwood demand and indoor air pollution in rural households

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

budgetary pressures in the eec a fiscal federalism perspective as is widely known the eec has gone through some troubling budgetary difficulties in recent years disputes have revolved around the growth of agricultural subsidies and about the contributions to be made to the eec by various member countries in particular the u k these problems have been brought under control for the short run however the implementation of the single european act could be greatly complicated and might falter if policymakers again became intensely involved in acrimonious budgetary disputes maintaining budgetary control for the next several years and for that matter in the longer term as well is thus a matter of considerable tactical importance within the context of the overall progress of european economic affairs in view of the fact that the threat of acute budgetary crisis has receded somewhat and in view of the prospect of a significant step forward toward more complete economic integration associated with the 1992 initiative it seems appropriate to give some thought to the budgetary problems that the eec is likely to confront in the medium term at a time of enormous political change in eastern europe it is exceptionally hazardous to attempt projections about economic affairs in the eec it is easy to visualize scenarios in which significant amounts of resources whether from the eec itself or from individual member states are directed toward promoting economic and other reform in the east forcing new choices with respect to the commitment of resources by member countries to the eec however to limit the scope of this paper attention is restricted to developments within the eec itself the major trends in the eec budget are easily delineated since only a few main initiatives account for the bulk of eec expenditures first agricultural subsidies through the european agricultural guidance and guarantee fund eaggf have entailed large expenditures through the 1980s these outlays accounted for about two thirds of eec expenditures another major category of eec expenditures are for the so called structural funds in particular the european regional development fund erdf and the european social fund esf the erdf funds economic development projects in specially targeted low income regions the esf funds programs that promote the training and employment of workers especially youth and long term unemployed persons these and related expenditures have accounted for about 10 15 percent of expenditures during the 1980s altogether then agricultural and structural expenditures account for about 85 percent of the total budget the u k has repeatedly protested against what it regards as excessive contributions to the eec relative to the return that it gets in the form of structural fund outlays and it has garnered a partial rebate of its contributions to the eec equal to two thirds of the difference between the u k vat contribution and eec expenditures allocable to the u k these rebates account for roughly 5 percent of the eec budget as a result of decisions taken in 1988 the outline of the eec budget for the next sevtdiscussants paul courant university of michigan rudolph penner the urban institute john yinger syracuse university

preferences for domestic fuel analysis with socio economic factors and rankings in kolkata india abstract the choice of domestic fuel is a matter of great concern for households and policy makers in india this paper investigates the demand for domestic fuels when households face four choices fuelwood coal kerosene and lpg the study is based on a survey of 500 households in kolkata india the demand estimates are conducted using a two stage process where the first stage investigates choice and the second the quantity used determinants of fuel demand are identified and their relative importance shown extending the study the paper also analyses the choice of the main cooking fuel in terms of the households stated rankings of six fuels for five attributes the policy discussion indicates that subsidies have less potential to reduce polluting fuels such as coal and fuelwood due to weak cross price elasticities while increased availability of lpg and potentially also increased awareness of indoor air pollution have greater prospect

the impact of unconditional cash transfer on fuel choices among ultra poor in pakistan quasi experimental evidence from the benazir income support program abstract we analyze the impact of the unconditional cash transfer program namely the benazir income support program bisp on fuel choices among ultra poor in pakistan using two rounds of household level data collected in 2011 and 2016 the analysis based on regression discontinuity design shows that bisp cash transfer has a significant impact on interfuel substitution cash transfer increases the use of modern fuels among bisp beneficiaries besides cash transfer also encourages the use of intermediate fuels even in some cases traditional fuels cash transfer also increases the share of fuel expenses in total household expenses therefore the fuel stacking theory provides a better explanation of interfuel substitution than the energy ladder theory of the cash transfer program the provincial analysis shows that interfuel substitution exists due to cash transfer but varies from province to province signifying the role of regional heterogeneities the net impact on fuel choices may depend on the availability of different fuel components from policy perspective the expansion of the cash transfer program as planned by the government would require a reasonable investment in the energy sector to ensure an uninterrupted supply of modern fuels

efficient alleviation of poverty and hunger a new international assistance facility abstract the numbers of poor are large and have been increasing with the economic crisis in the 1980s structural adjustment through policy reforms and additional resource transfers hold promise for the long run elimination of poverty in the interim more special programmes are needed to augment the purchasing power of the poorest but such programmes need to transfer income efficiently and wherever possible in conjunction with projects that increase human and physical capital food aid can play a major role but not through direct distribution of food to households more direct income transfer mechanisms are discussed in this article the establishment of an international poverty and hunger alleviation facility is recommended such a facility could be funded with an appropriate mix of food and financial aid presently idle food stocks could provide approximately half of the additional required resources

the welfare effects of intergovernmental grants in an economy with independent jurisdictions abstract a general equilibrium model is presented of an economy where mobile and immobile households engage in decentralized market behavior and where immobile households control the expenditure and tax policy of each local government subject to a local budget constraint it is shown how central government grant policy which is a formula with lump sum matching and population elements affects the general equilibrium of the system determined through market and local political decisions the welfare effects of grants are discussed with particular emphasis on distortions that may arise at lower levels of decision making that grants may be useful in partially or completely correcting

interjurisdictional capital mobility fiscal externality and a corrective subsidy abstract recent studies emphasize that local property taxation may result in inefficiently small amounts of local public spending this paper shows that the inefficiency can be traced to a fiscal externality when one jurisdiction increases its taxes it causes a flow of capital to other jurisdictions that increases their tax revenues the inefficiency can be corrected with a subsidy that internalizes the externality key empirical parameters determining the magnitude of the externality are identified illustrative calculations indicate that subsidy rates on the order of 40 might be required to achieve efficiency

reassessing the energy ladder household energy use in maun botswana abstract in the context of sub saharan africa s rapid urbanization improved insight into urban energy use is increasingly important based on the predictions of energy transition theory a regional shift from biomass to modern fuels has long been expected to occur in tandem with urban growth however trends observed in the region s towns and cities have often not followed such patterns and fuelwood continues to be important in most areas this paper examines the practical relevance of transition theory using a recent case study conducted by the authors in maun botswana and results previously reported in the literature it finds that despite the long term link between socio economic development and increased modern fuel consumption at the national scale the notion of transition does not accurately reflect ongoing energy use patterns at lower levels of aggregation this is chiefly because its model of household fuel switching largely dismisses the importance of active and strategic decision making by urban consumers and their responsiveness to structural factors such as relative fuel prices as the botswana case illustrates this weakness can significantly distort expectations and policies around urban fuelwood use

tax transfer policies and the voluntary provision of public goods abstract the purpose of this paper is twofold first it extends previous models of non cooperative private funding of pure public goods by allowing both for distortionary taxation of private goods and for subsidies based on contributions to the public goods second it clarifies the type of behavioral and informational assumptions which are needed to insure neutrality of both lump sum and distortionary policies the analysis is developed in the context of fiscal federalism

foreign aid in a period of democratization the case of politically autonomous food funds abstract this article suggests a new model of dispensing foreign aid that transcends the limits of conventional one way transfers and responds to the particular challenges and opportunities associated with the ongoing process of democratization applied here specifically to food aid it illustrates how such dispensations could be better utilized in the context of politically autonomous food funds administered in recipient food poor countries it indicates how current food aid allocations could be used more efficiently and with better results particularly in terms of strengthening the position of the poor segments of the population

household fuel use in developing countries review of theory and evidence because of recent concerns about the negative externalities of traditional fuel use on the environment and health the issue of the household fuel transition in developing countries from dirty fuels towards clean fuels has received growing research attention this paper provides an up to date survey of the economic literature on household fuel use in these countries first we present the conceptual and theoretical frameworks then we discuss the empirical results that show how a wide range of factors drive the household fuel transition finally we suggest priorities for policy initiatives and highlight areas of future research

economic evaluation of environmental externalities in china s coal fired power generation abstract serious environmental externalities exist in china s power industry environmental economics theory suggests that the evaluation of environmental externality is the basis of designing an efficient regulation the purposes of this study are 1 to identify chinese respondents preferences for green development of electric power industry and the socio economic characteristics behind them 2 to investigate the different attitudes of the respondents towards pollution and co2 reduction 3 to quantitatively evaluate the environmental cost of china s coal fired power generation based on the method of choice experiments ce and the 411 questionnaires with 2466 data points we found that chinese respondents prefer pm2 5 so2 and nox reduction to co2 reduction and that the environment cost of coal fired power plants in china is 0 30 yuan per kwh in addition we found that the socio economic characteristics of income education gender and environmental awareness have significant impacts on respondents choices these findings indicate that the environmental cost of coal fired power generation is a significant factor that requires great consideration in the formulation of electric power development policies in addition importance should also be attached to the implementation of green power price policy and enhancement of environmental protection awareness

the energy transition in action urban domestic fuel choices in a changing zimbabwe two questionnaire surveys of fuel use by low income households in zimbabwe were conducted in four small towns in 1994 and in these towns plus four larger towns in 1999 an energy transition from wood through kerosene to electricity occurred a with rising household income b with increasing electrification status among towns and c over time in the smaller towns in spite of falling household incomes in two of the towns increasing discrepancy in the incomes of higher and lower income groups over time was not associated with greater divergence in their fuel choices by 1999 electricity was used by almost all households in towns with good electricity supplies while use of firewood in these towns was infrequent however even the wealthiest households continued to combine electricity with other fuels usually kerosene electricity use by less affluent households is apparently limited by lack of connections in the home and by access to appliances while fuel prices which are subject to government subsidies and fell in real terms over 5 years have been less important zimbabwe s urban domestic energy policy has had considerable success in terms of equity but this is increasingly difficult to maintain given present economic and political uncertainty

choice modelling approaches a superior alternative for environmental valuation in this paper we examine some popular choice modelling approaches to environmental valuation which can be considered as alternatives to more familiar valuation techniques based on stated preferences such as the contingent valuation method a number of choice modelling methods are consistent with consumer theory and its focus on an attribute based theory of value permits a superior representation of many environmental management contexts however choice modelling surveys can place a severe cognitive burden upon respondents and induce satisficing rather than maximising behavioural patterns in this framework we seek to identify the best available choice modelling alternative and investigate its potential to solve some of the major biases associated with standard contingent valuation we then discuss its use in the light of policy appraisal needs within the eu an application to the demand for rock climbing in scotland is provided as an illustration

interior matching equilibria in a public good economy an aggregative game approach abstract if the equilibrium generated by a matching mechanism is to be the desired pareto optimal outcome it is necessary for every player to be at an interior solution at that equilibrium using the aggregative game approach developed by cornes and hartley 2003 2007 this paper analyzes the conditions under which matching mechanisms in a public good economy lead to interior matching equilibria at which all agents make strictly positive flat contributions to the public good in particular we show that the distribution of income among the agents is crucial for both the existence of interior matching equilibria and warr neutrality in the case of matching

rural household energy consumption the effects of access to electricity evidence from south africa this paper examines household energy consumption patterns in rural areas in the light of energy transition theories in particular the study aims to identify the effects of access to electricity on fuel choice the analysis uses data from an extensive household survey conducted in south africa and examines the prevalence of different fuels energy expenditure the end uses of fuels and multiple fuel use patterns it is concluded that evidence exists for the presence of an energy transition in rural households largely driven by income access to electricity affects the nature of this transition and there is weak evidence to suggest that it accelerates the process

how large are the welfare costs of tax competition abstract competition among regional governments may lead to suboptimal levels of capital taxation as governments ignore the external benefits of capital flight to other regions however there have been few attempts to quantify the magnitude of the resulting efficiency losses this paper presents extensive calculations of the efficiency costs over a wide range of parameter scenarios and assumptions about government behavior using various generalizations of wildasin journal of urban economics 25 1989 193 213 the efficiency costs tend to be fairly moderate under most though not all scenarios and particularly when allowance is made for the possibility of leviathan and non competitive government behavior

household energy preferences for cooking in urban ouagadougou burkina faso abstract an extensive survey on household expenditures in ouagadougou the capital of burkina faso was used to analyze the factors determining urban household energy choices using a multinomial logit model wood energy remains the preferred fuel of most urban households in the country though rational the choice is not sustainable as it portends a threat to the savanna woodlands and the economy many important policies have been adopted by public authorities to minimize household wood energy consumption and to substitute it by alternative fuel despite the magnitude of all these policies the depletion rate of the forest resource is increasing a kind of inertia is thus observed for household preferences for cooking fuel this model analyzes the sociological and economic variables of household energy preferences for cooking in ouagadougou the analyses show that the inertia of household cooking energy preferences are due to poverty factors such as low income poor household access to electricity for primary and secondary energy low house standard household size high frequency of cooking certain meals using woodfuel as cooking energy the descriptive analyses show that the domestic demand for wood energy is strongly related to household income the firewood utilization rate decreases with increasing household income in other words this fuel appears as a transition good for these households which aim for other sources of energy for cooking that are more adapted for urban consumption this implies that a price subsidy policy for liquid petroleum gas lpg and its cook stoves could significantly decrease the utilization rate of wood energy

financing public goods public goods can be financed by direct taxation or a subsidy to private spending this paper examines the relative efficiency and distributional consequences of the two methods efficiency is shown to depend on the price elasticity of private spending and the trade off between public and private spending when this trade off is dollar for dollar however a subsidy is always more efficient than direct taxation the gains from a subsidy are larger for a mixed good than for a pure public good looking a t distributional effects the author shows when richer taxpayers may prefer a tax credit to deductibility even though they face lower prices with deductibility and also shows when richer taxpayers prefer direct taxation to either type of subsidy copyright 1987 by university of chicago press

preferences for improved cook stoves evidence from rural villages in north india abstract because emissions from solid fuel burning in traditional stoves impact global climate change the regional environment and household health there is today real interest in improved cook stoves ics nonetheless surprisingly little is known about what households like about these energy products we report on preferences for biomass burning ics attributes in a large sample of 2120 rural households in north india a global hotspot for biomass fuel use and the damages that such use entails households have a strong baseline reliance and preference for traditional stoves a preference that outweighs the 10 and 5 willingness to pay wtp for realistic 33 reductions in smoke emissions and fuel needs on average respectively preferences for stove attributes are also highly varied and correlated with a number of household characteristics e g expenditures gender of household head patience and risk preferences these results suggest that households exhibit cautious interest in some aspects of ics but that widespread adoption is unlikely because many households appear to prefer traditional stoves over ics with similar characteristics the policy community must therefore support a reinvigorated supply chain with complementary infrastructure investments foster experimentation with products encourage continued applied research and knowledge generation and provide appropriate incentives to consumers if ics distribution is to be scaled up

fiscal capacity tax effort and optimal equalization grants in this paper we address the question how should the tax burden in a feder ation be distributed across the different jurisdictions so that the social cost of providing government services is minimized using optimal tax theory we derive formulas for the optimal equalization grants that equalize the social marginal cost of raising revenue across all provinces we show how the optimal equalization grants are related to a measure of tax effort based on the marginal cost of public funds and a measure of fiscal capacity that takes into account the elasticity of the tax base and its substitutability with other tax bases

woodfuels livelihoods and policy interventions changing perspectives in the 1970s it appeared that fuelwood use was growing rapidly and this could have major adverse impacts on the resource and poor users by the mid 1980s revised assessments indicated that there was less of a problem than had been foreseen and much less of a need for forestry interventions to maintain supplies as a result many of the latter were sharply scaled back additional information and analysis that has become available since the 1980s support the view that there is no need for large scale interventions devoted just to provision of fuelwood however declining access to supplies or markets can raise significant problems in some areas and for particular categories of user growing urban demand for charcoal can also cause local problems in particular in africa the potentials for appropriate forms of intervention are discussed

the provision of local public goods and factors in the presence of firm and household mobility abstract this paper studies the efficiency properties of allocations when firms and households are mobile and when local governments provide local public goods and local public factors the analysis differentiates between immobile land owners and perfectly mobile workers and concludes that an efficient allocation is obtained if there is no outflow of land rents to absentee owners if rents flow out only local public goods are supplied in accordance with the samuelson rule the provision of local public factors is inefficiently low however and jurisdictions tax mobile firms and mobile households inefficiently high in order to restrict the outflow of rents an optimal intervention scheme is derived in this case we also analyze the distortions that result when the non availability of local head taxes makes it impossible to internalize crowding costs

the impact of the household decision environment on fuel choice behavior abstract consumer preferences for fuels and alternative cookstove technologies in kenya are examined focusing on household internal and external determinants driving choice behavior in a choice experiment the potential for a transition towards cleaner and more efficient fuels and technologies is assessed by zooming in on three fuel stove combinations we find substantial demand and positive willingness to pay for the fuel stove combinations in three locations representing different decision environments demand is significantly higher in the peri urban and the resource abundant rural location than in the resource scarce rural location the presence of better developed consumer markets for fuels in these locations functions as an important driver for cookstove adoption although charcoal and ethanol stoves are preferred over improved firewood stoves continued firewood usage is expected energy switching behavior cannot be substantiated instead energy stacking is more likely where charcoal and ethanol add to and extend a household s energy portfolio

one off subsidies and long run adoption experimental evidence on improved cooking stoves in senegal free technology distribution can be an effective development policy instrument if market driven adoption is socially inefficient and hampered by affordability constraints yet policy makers often oppose free distribution arguing that reference dependence lowers the willingness to pay wtp and thus market potentials in the long run for improved cookstoves this paper studies the wtp six years after a randomized one time free distribution in 2009 we demonstrate that the cookstoves were intensely used by the treatment group households in the years after randomization until they reached their designated lifetime using a real purchase offer we find that both treatment and control households reveal a remarkably high wtp in 2015 the estimated confidence interval suggests that we can exclude a substantial negative effect on the treatment group the policy implication is that one time free distribution does not necessarily undermine future market establishment and thus can be an effective policy instrument if rapid dissemination is the objective

the welfare effects of intergovernmental grants in an economy with distortionary local taxes a simple general equilibrium analysis this paper examines the welfare impact of intergovernmental transfers when recipient governments use distortionary taxes both lump sum and matching grants are investigated a distortionary factor depending on local demand and supply elasticities and the local tax rate on the taxed commodity determines the real income change to a jurisdiction per dollar transferred matching grants are dominated by lump sum grants when these can be set optimally for each recipient if grant policy must be uniform positive or negative matching rates are desired if equity adjusted distortionary factors are positively negatively correlated with local public service levels

project food aid and equitable growth income transfer efficiency first abstract this paper discusses the income transfer properties of food aid in order to shed light on the inputs necessary to ensure a contribution to equitable growth particularly with reference to the alleviation of poverty and malnutrition the author defines the concepts of income transfer efficiency and nutrition efficiency and shows that food aid which is income transfer efficient is usually also nutrition efficient some empirical evidence of the income transfer efficiency of different commodities supplied to various countries is reviewed and policy implications for the selection of food aid commodities and projects are discussed the author concludes with some working propositions designed to stimulate further debate on the selection and administration of food aid projects

pareto optimal redistribution and private charity abstract when private charity exists and is motivated by utility interdependence a non pareto optimal outcome the free rider problem typically arises nevertheless incremental fiscal redistribution cannot achieve a paretian welfare improvement so long as private charity continues at positive levels donors respond to incremental fiscal redistribution by reducing their voluntary contributions by exactly a dollar for every dollar transferred in this way no net transfer is achieved unless incremental fiscal redistribution is pursued to the point where private contributions have been driven to zero alternatively a net transfer may be achieved by fiscal measures which affect donors marginal incentives to donate