a test for subadditivity of the cost function with an application to the bell system stable url http links jstor org sici sici 0002 8282 28198409 2974 3a4 3c615 3aatfsot 3e2 0 co 3b2 rthe american economic review is currently published by american economic association your use of the jstor archive indicates your acceptance of jstor s terms and conditions of use available athttp www jstor org about terms html jstor s terms and conditions of use provides in part that unless you have obtainedprior permission you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles and you may use content inthe jstor archive only for your personal non commercial use please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work publisher contact information may be obtained athttp www jstor org journals aea html each copy of any part of a jstor transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission the jstor archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long term preservation and access to leading academicjournals and scholarly literature from around the world the archive is supported by libraries scholarly societies publishers and foundations it is an initiative of jstor a not for profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology for more information regarding jstor please contact support jstor org http www jstor orgmon jul 2 16 52 19 2007

technical efficiency and scope economies in hospitals the main purposes are to develop a method for measuring the economies of scope which involves the use of non parametric production frontiers and does not require information on input prices and to apply this method to individual hospital data drawn from a sample of spanish hospitals the results confirm the presence of technical inefficiencies and also of potential and non exploited economies of scope the combination that produces most economies of scope is that of gynaecology and paediatrics

the political economy of opec abstract we develop a conceptual model that captures opec pricing behavior and apply it to explain the large gap observed between domestic fuel prices in opec countries and prices in the rest of the world we model opec as a cartel of nations not firms and assume that politicians use two instruments production quotas and domestic fuel consumption subsidies the cartel of nations model suggests that introduction of alternatives to petroleum products may lead opec to reduce exports and increase domestic fuel consumption the empirical analysis suggests that when opec sets production quotas it places similar weights on consumer and producer surplus but when opec countries set domestic fuel subsidies on average 6 more weight is given to consumer surplus with some of the opec countries pursuing very aggressive domestic cheap fuel policies

assessment and optimization of forest biomass supply chains from economic social and environmental perspectives a review of literature abstract forest biomass is a renewable source that has the potential to substitute fossil fuels in many applications from the generation of bioenergy heat electricity or transportation fuels to the production of bioproducts chemicals and other materials the increased use of forest biomass could support the reduction of anthropogenic carbon emissions to the environment and could help forest dependent communities achieve energy independence while generating jobs the viability and feasibility of generating valuable products from forest biomass depend on ensuring the long term availability of biomass supply with the required quality at a competitive cost this calls for a cost efficient design of the forest biomass supply chain social and environmental aspects have to be considered in the design as well to guarantee sustainable use of this renewable resource in this paper we present a review of studies that assessed or optimized economic social and environmental aspects of forest biomass supply chains for the production of bioenergy and bioproducts the majority of studies so far considered either economic techno economic and optimization studies or environmental life cycle assessment studies aspects of bioenergy projects nevertheless there is a recent trend to integrate economic environmental and social aspects in the assessment and optimization of forest biomass supply chains combined approaches integrating multi objective optimization and life cycle assessment have started to flourish in these studies ghg emissions are the most frequently used environmental indicator production and capital costs are the preferred economic measures and the number of created jobs is the most considered social criterion further research has to be done to study and assess the potential social impacts of using forest biomass there is a need for further development of decision support tools that consider economic environmental and social criteria to aid the design and planning of forest biomass supply chains

value and quantity data in economic and technical efficiency measurement this paper calls attention to the implications of using value data in efficiency measurement through data envelopment analysis dea the main contributions are twofold i it provides a reconciliation of the previous literature on analysing issues of quantity and value data in efficiency measurement ii it provides some guidelines on what to do when these issues arise in a data set

diversification diseconomies of scope and vertical contracting evidence from the taxicab industry this paper studies how firms reorganize following diversification proposing that firms use outsourcing or vertical disintegration to manage diseconomies of scope we also consider the origins of scope diseconomies showing how different underlying mechanisms generate contrasting predictions about the link between within firm task heterogeneity and the incentive to outsource following diversification we test these propositions using microdata on taxicab and limousine fleets from the economic census the results show that taxicab firms outsource by shifting the composition of their fleets toward owner operator drivers when they diversify into the limousine business the magnitude of the shift toward driver ownership is larger in less urban markets where the tasks performed by taxicab and limousine drivers are more similar these findings suggest that 1 firms use outsourcing to manage diseconomies of scope at a particular point in the value chain and 2 interagent conflicts can be an important source of scope diseconomies

optimal technology choice and investment timing a stochastic model of industrial cogeneration vs heat only production abstract in this paper we develop an economic model that explains the decision making problem under uncertainty of an industrial firm that wants to invest in a process technology more specifically the decision is between making an irreversible investment in a combined heat and power production cogeneration system or to invest in a conventional heat only generation system steam boiler and to purchase all electricity from the grid in our model we include the main economic and technical variables of the investment decision process we also account for the risk and uncertainty inherent in volatile energy prices that can greatly affect the valuation of the investment project the dynamic stochastic model presented allows us to simultaneously determine the optimal technology choice and investment timing we apply the theoretical model and illustrate our main findings with a numerical example that is based on realistic cost values for industrial oil or gas fired cogeneration and heat only generation in switzerland we also briefly discuss expected effects of a co 2 tax on the investment decision

does environmental concern change the tragedy of the commons factors affecting energy saving behaviors and electricity usage electricity consumption produces private goods such as heat for homes but fossil fuel consumption impacts the public goods of clean air and water while self interests can increase usage social interests such as global climate change can impact an individual s attitude toward energy consumption this paper examines the tragedy of the commons using household data and compares the impact of self and social interests in predicting electricity consumption using both stated and observed behavioral data the results show that self interests have a greater impact on energy saving behaviors and electricity use we extend the analysis to control for an individual s environmental concern and perceived behavioral impact finding similar results and supporting the notion that the tragedy of the commons occurs regardless of a person s perception or environmental concern these findings may explain why pro environmental attitudes do not necessarily lead to pro environmental behaviors and it contributes to our understanding of the motivating factors for energy savings and electricity use by examining both stated and observed behaviors policies aimed at electricity reduction may have a greater impact if they focus on private interests such as pricing rebates subsidies and taxes rather than social interests alone

managing an oligopoly of would be sovereigns the dynamics of joint control and self control in the international oil industry past present and future the key to the success of the oil oligopoly has been the ability of its members to make commitments to each other credible despite great divisiveness and enormous uncertainties to accomplish this the oil companies constructed a regime of suprasovereign constraints to control the pursuit of individual self interest when these anti democratic anti autonomous institutions functioned effectively the corporations met challenges far greater than those opec subsequently faced when they began to disintegrate the companies ability to hold price above marginal cost deteriorated opec reinvigorated the oligopoly using the ready made self denial and surveillance mechanisms built by the companies then systematically unravelled them in moving towards a mature cartel held together by mere common interest promises and threats to reconstruct an oligopoly that has the cohesiveness of the corporate era opec will need not only a more moderate price trajectory but also a binding structure that gives preponderance to the most conservative members provides prompt and accurate verification of cheating and automatically imposes penalties in magnified form for competitive behavior without the need for direct retaliation beyond predictions about the future of the oil industry these findings have important implications for economic approaches to imperfect competition for anti trust analyses of collusion and for organizational theories of hegemonic leadership

economies of diversification a generalization and decomposition of economies of scope abstract the paper investigates the benefits of diversification for a multi product firm it examines economies of diversification reflecting the cost reduction associated with producing outputs in an integrated firm compared to specialized firms the analysis applies under complete specialization as well as partial specialization when firms are not fully specialized and or when the specialization scheme does not cover all outputs it decomposes economies of diversification into four additive parts a part measuring complementarity among outputs a part reflecting economies of scale a part reflecting convexity and a part reflecting the role of fixed cost this new decomposition appears useful in investigating how scale effects complementarity effects and convexity effects can contribute to economies of scope in a multiproduct firm and helps generate valuable insights into the economics of specialization for multiproduct firms

modeling opec behavior economic and political alternatives the predominant approach to modeling opec behavior depends upon the assumption that economic self interest provides the best predictor of the cartel s price and production strategy with rational monopoly behavior the exogenous characteristics of the oil market determine an optimal price path for the group but opec members have diverse economic as well as political goals and uncertainty about oil market responses provides substantial leeway to argue about what is optimal an examination of the five key opec price decisions since 1973 shows that an operational code of advancing political priorities on arab israeli issues while deflecting security challenges better explains saudi arabia s decision making than the economic optimizing approach moreover no economic formula alone is consistent with saudi behavior the balance of internal and external forces of a political or security character on saudi leadership suggests more of a tilt toward price hawkishness than pure considerations of economic self interest would indicate this tilt is reinforced by a systematic weakness on the part of the u s government to exercise a sustained countervailing influence on the kingdom on behalf of moderation

cartel formation and oligopoly structure a new assessment of the crude oil market while economic theorists regard opec as a perfect example of a long lasting cartel energy economists strongly deny such view applying the ideas of new empirical industrial organization a market description is derived cartel theory and empirical evidence fit together well stable long lasting cartels can be explained only for subclasses of market models and exactly such type of model is obtained here a variety of different market models is tested opec and the market for crude oil is best described by a price leader model

a review on biogas technology and its contributions to sustainable rural livelihood in ethiopia abstract biogas technology has uneven dissemination over the globe the technology is at its infant stage of development and dissemination in many developing countries while china has the largest implementation record the principal factors controlling its dissemination include policies and institutions financial constraint subsidies availability of inputs awareness about the technology consumers considerations and success stories about the technology however biogas technology is a multipurpose technology which assists in addressing economic health social and environmental problems simultaneously thus development and dissemination of the technology certainly minimize energy poverty and improve peoples status in the energy ladder in line with this ethiopia has completed implementing the first phase 2009 2013 of its national biogas programme and has started implementing its second phase during the first phase it was able to disseminate 57 6 the total 14 000 domestic biogas plants planned for the period though the technology was introduced about five decades ago into the country biogas installations constructed prior to the establishment of the national biogas programme were having varied digester models lacked standards and central coordination and their entire number was not more than 1000 this paper reviews the status of dissemination of household biogas technology factors influencing the dissemination of the technology benefits of the technology at global scales energy resources consumption patterns and brief account of the technology at national scale ethiopia

supplier selection order allocation a two stage multiple criteria dynamic programming approach this paper proposes a two stage multiple criteria dynamic programming approach for two of the most critical tasks in supply chain management namely supplier selection and order allocation in the first stage to address multiple decision criteria in supplier ranking the analytic hierarchy process ahp is employed in the second stage supplier ranks are fed into an order allocation model that aims at maximizing a utility function for the firm as well as minimizing the total supply chain costs subject to constraints on demand capacity and inventory levels a dynamic programming approach is crafted to solve the proposed bi objective model

the renewable portfolio standard design considerations and an implementation survey renewables have social and environmental bene ts compared to conventional electricity sources but are rarely competitive on a strict nancial cost basis this is because conventional sources are sometimes subsidized their full pollution costs are ignored and renewables involve newer higher cost technologies whose relative costs will fall with commercialization governments use several mechanisms to support renewables including direct nancial support grants loans indirect support r d demonstrations reform of nancial costs of conventional sources subsidy removal pollution taxes and the renewable portfolio standard rps the rps requires a minimum share of electricity from renewable energy sources its use is spreading because it maintains an incentive for renewable producers to reduce costs links the regulated market outcome to an environmental target and reduces government involvement although it is too early to evaluate fully its e ectiveness the survey for this study explored implementation issues in three european countries nine us states and australia and found the following the rps target is usually set to have environmental bene ts without causing signi cant price increases cost caps are sometimes used most jurisdictions limit eligibility to gridconnected domestic renewables the rps is usually applied to producers rather than consumers and to energy output not capacity flexibility mechanisms are desired but a challenge to implement administration in the us and australia is by government with delegation to independent utility regulators while in europe it is more the responsibility of government everywhere the rps is applied alongside other mechanisms of renewables support 2001 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

the plight of the biomass power generation industry in china a supply chain risk perspective abstract for the past several years the biomass power generation industry in china has witnessed notably rapid development however many biomass power generation manufacturers in china are currently making small profits or suffering losses and the entire biomass supply chain does not function well which not only poses a challenge for the stable operation of enterprises but also may impact the smooth development of the biomass power industry from the perspective of supply chain risk this paper explores the reasons for the current plight and the future obstacles that the chinese biomass power generation industry may face identifying such risks as market risk production risk technology risk economic risk and management risk in the upstream midstream and downstream of the biomass supply chain and ordering the degrees of risk controllability by the government and enterprises it is determined that joint effort by both the chinese government and the biomass power generation enterprises is an ideal choice for risk control coming out of the plight however at present more problems should go to the government for solutions than to the enterprises to guide the healthy development of the industry the chinese government should play a more prominent role in promulgating supporting policies in each stage of the supply chain and strengthening the supervision and control of biomass projects last specific measures taken by the chinese government and the enterprises are proposed

competition between biomass and food production in the presence of energy policies a partial equilibrium analysis abstract bioenergy has several advantages over fossil fuels for example it delivers energy at low net co 2 emission levels and contributes to sustaining future energy supplies the concern however is that an increase in biomass plantations will reduce the land available for agricultural production the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of taxing conventional electricity production or carbon use in combination with subsidizing biomass or bioelectricity production on the production of biomass and agricultural commodities and on the share of bioelectricity in total electricity production we develop a partial equilibrium model to illustrate some of the potential impacts of these policies on greenhouse gas emissions land reallocation and food and electricity prices as a case study we use data for poland which has a large potential for biomass production results show that combining a conventional electricity tax of 10 with a 25 subsidy on bioelectricity production increases the share of bioelectricity to 7 5 under this policy regime biomass as well as agricultural production increase a carbon tax that gives equal net tax yields has better environmental results however at higher welfare costs and resulting in 1 to 4 reduction of agricultural production

the complex relationship between households climate change concerns and their water and energy mitigation behaviour climate change will require commitment by all levels of the community but there is still uncertainty surrounding the best way to influence individual mitigation behaviour this study analyses household survey data on water and energy climate change mitigation behaviour from eleven oecd countries in 2011 and provides new evidence of a form of maladaptation namely a complex rebound relationship between climate change attitudes and mitigation behaviour first results confirm other studies that climate change concerns and economic incentives in terms of electricity and water charges positively influence mitigation behaviour second we find that the more costly in terms of time and or money are the mitigation actions of a household the more likely undertaking such actions directly lessens respondents climate change concerns this negative rebound effect is more likely to occur in environmentally motivated households who are more likely to have stated they believe human actions can help mitigate climate change conversely economic incentives in driving energy and water pro environmental behaviour work better in non environmentallymotivated households this highlights that a portfolio of policies is needed to drive mitigation behaviour

effects of changes in italian bioenergy promotion schemes for agricultural biogas projects insights from a regional optimization model italy has witnessed an extraordinary growth in biogas generation from livestock effluents and agricultural activities in the last few years as well as a severe isomorphic process leading to a market dominance of 999 kw power plants owned by entrepreneurial farms under the pressure of the economic crisis in the country the italian government has restructured renewable energy support schemes introducing a new program in 2013 in this paper the effects of the previous and current support schemes on the optimal plant size feedstock mix and profitability were investigated by introducing a spatially explicit biogas supply chain optimization model which accounts for different incentive structures by applying the model to a regional case study homogenization observed to date is recognized as a result of former incentive structures considerable reductions in local economic potentials for agricultural biogas power plants without external heat use are estimated new plants are likely to be manure based and due to the lower energy density of such feedstock wider supply chains are expected although optimal plant size will be smaller the new support scheme will therefore most likely eliminate past distortions but also slow down investments in agricultural biogas plants

higher education costs and scale and scope economies higher education multi product cost functions are estimated for the public and private sectors disaggregated by research comprehensive baccalaureate and associate level institutions the output mix incorporates professional school teaching output in addition to undergraduate and graduate teaching and research outputs scale and scope economies are examined by sector and institutional level also accounting for regional differences ray economies are found throughout the private sector but confined to lower level public institutions research economies are widespread throughout all sector levels economies of scope prevail among private institutions across levels but only among comprehensive and baccalaureate public colleges

revenue sharing coordination in reverse logistics a reverse supply chain as a post consumption activity aims at extracting value from products at the end of their life cycle it could be comprised of reusing refurbishing remanufacturing and recycling activities in this paper we revisit the issue of revenue sharing in reverse supply chains to formulate the decision problems of coordinating parties manufacturer and retailer the coordination is formed in a dynamic setting where a feedback relationship exists between the return incentive policy of the retailer and the revenue sharing incentive strategy of the manufacturer to model this process we have adopted the use of a system dynamics sd approach sd is well suited for studying the behavior of complex systems over time and where internal feedbacks and delays exist we first identify pareto optimal solutions for individual players and from environmental perspectives of landfill diversion and carbon offset we then focus on revenue sharing as a widely practiced coordination scheme in reverse supply chains it resembles a leader follower stackelberg strategic decision making game with an equilibrium solution that yields lower performance for environmental criteria in this context we investigate if how a revenue sharing mechanism can be coordinated to achieve a higher environmental performance

analysis of the energy access improvement and its socio economic impacts in rural areas of developing countries abstract access to modern energy is one of the most basic requirements for development in rural areas of developing countries there are a large number of people who do not have access to lpg and depend on traditional biomass such as wood crop and dung for cooking in addition energy has numerous and complex links with poverty reduction therefore it is important to estimate the impacts of energy access improvement on socio economic situation in the rural areas of developing countries quantitatively this study focuses on socio economic impacts of cooking demand through changes in stoves adopted by the rural households we have developed an energy economic model of rural areas in india to analyze the links between energy income and health hazard applying both opportunity cost for using fuelwood and exposure to resipirable suspended particulate matter rspm as a result of the analysis there is a positive relation between the opportunity cost and the average rspm exposure of women in the rural areas following to increase in the opportunity cost that is income the cost of an improved wood stove becomes relatively lower first than that of a traditional wood stove and then a gas stove attains price competitiveness it is achieved that the average rspm exposure is below the who and japanese criteria for suspended particulate matter spm 190 and 100 g m3 at the opportunity cost of us 9 and 15 gj respectively

economies of scale in biogas production and the significance of flexible regulation abstract biogas production is characterised by economies of scale in capital and operational costs of the plant and diseconomies of scale from transport of input materials we analyse biogas in a danish setting where most biogas is based on manure we use a case study with actual distances and find that the benefits of scale in capital and operational costs dominate the diseconomies of increasing transport distances to collect manure to boost the yield it is common to use co substrates in the biogas production we investigate how costs and income changes when sugar beet is added in this case study and demonstrate that transport cost can be critical in relation to co substrates further we compare the new danish support for upgraded biogas with the traditional support for biogas being used in combined heat and power production in relation to scale economies we argue that economies of scale is facilitated by the new regulation providing similar support to upgraded biogas fed into the natural gas grid however in order to keep transport costs low we suggest that the biogas plants should be allowed to use and combine as many co substrates as possible respecting the sustainability criteria regarding energy crops in danish legislation

measuring and decomposing economies of diversification an application to biogas fuelled cogeneration plants in austria abstract this paper investigates the existence and the degree of economies of diversification for small scaled renewable fuelled cogeneration systems using 2014 cross sectional data from 67 austrian biogas plants it is the first study applying the recently introduced concept of economies of diversification proposed by chavas and kim 2010 which is a generalization and decomposition of economies of scope economies of diversification are decomposed into three additive parts a part measuring complementarity among outputs a part reflecting economies of scale a part reflecting convexity in addition this paper extends the decomposition introduced by chavas and kim 2010 in such a way that the contribution of each input to economies of diversification and its components can be investigated the results indicate substantial cost savings from diversification for very small scaled plants 100 kwel most of the cost savings come from scale economies for larger plants 250 kwel positive complementarity and convexity effects are the main source of economies of diversification and outweigh the negative effect from scale diseconomies in addition to substantial fuel feedstock cost reductions significant costs saving effects from the jointness in labour and other inputs positively contribute to the complementarity effect while on average capital and labour costs positively contribute to economies of scale feedstock costs work in the direction of diseconomies of scale

optimal design of supply chains for second generation biofuels incorporating european biofuel regulations abstract expected changes in european biofuel regulations lead to uncertainty in supply chain planning for second generation biofuel industries previous studies used optimization to design biofuels supply chains and a few of them analyzed the impact of selected biofuel policy instruments on sustainability targets this study presents a mixed integer programming model for the optimal design of second generation biofuel supply chains considering all policy instruments of european biofuel regulations the model maximizes the net present value of second generation biofuel supply chains considering time dependent quotas for biofuel market shares and greenhouse gas emission savings the model includes multiple counting of second generation biofuel towards meeting biofuel market share targets and captures all greenhouse gas emissions of the second generation biofuel supply chain including land use change emissions we demonstrated the use of the model through the case study of second generation biodiesel in a german region and evaluated the sensitivity of the optimal solution to model parameters and policy instruments levels a set of remarks were made regarding the impact of policy instruments on the performance of second generation biodiesel supply chain under study future work entails the application of the analysis to the aggregate level in the european union

opec the seven sisters and oil market dominance an evolutionary game theory and agent based modeling approach abstract a methodological toolkit comprised of evolutionary game theory and agent based modeling is used to study opec and the seven sisters as they struggled for control over global petroleum markets during the 1960s and 1970s an evolutionary game theory model incorporates heterogeneous populations energy specific variables and behavioral considerations to capture the fundamentals of the applied problem an agent based model is used to provide detailed results and demonstrate the importance of the natural resource to the outcome of the model

the emperor has no clothes the limits of opec in the global oil market most scholars and policymakers believe opec can and does influence the price of oil by acting as a cartel this paper argues that most of the conventional wisdom about opec is wrong opec rarely if ever influences the oil production rate in its member states further opec has almost no lasting impact on world prices except under rare conditions there was one occasion on which opec did have a significant impact on world oil prices namely the 1973 oil crisis but opec s role in the event has been greatly misunderstood the circumstances of the crisis were highly exceptional making it unlikely that the organization could ever have a similar impact on world oil prices again this paper seeks to correct the misunderstanding about opec s role and replace it with a better understanding of the organization i argue that opec is dysfunctional as a cartel as it has little or no causal impact on its members choices about production levels or investment in production capacity opec s role is obscured in part by the complexity of the world oil market and in part by misdirection by policymakers especially within opec many scholars especially economists have argued that opec should be understood as a cartel designed to solve a prisoner s dilemma pd coordination game yet opec s persistence is better understood as a widespread failure to update beliefs about the organization a failure that is driven by information asymmetry and politics the fact that such a widespread belief about the world s most important commodity market could be wrong can help us better understand international regimes

the impact of perceptions in averting decision models an application of the special regressor method to drinking water choices households monetary valuation of water quality is a prerequisite for efficient water resource management and the valuation of water quality protection policies individuals are commonly questioned about their perception of risk in valuation surveys based on stated preference methods and revealed preference methods such as averting behavior models these subjective and often discrete measures are commonly used to explain individuals actions to protect themselves against these risks perceptions appear as endogenous variables in traditional theoretical averting decision models but quite surprisingly endogeneity of perceived risk is not always controlled for in empirical studies in this article we argue that perceptions have to be treated as endogenous to averting decisions in order to produce accurate and reliable measures of households valuation of water quality improvements we present various binary averting decision models featuring an endogenous discrete variable such as risk perception in particular we compare the traditional bivariate probit model with the special regressor model which is less well known and relies on a different set of assumptions in the empirical illustration using household data from australia canada and france we study how the perceived health impacts of tap water affect a household s decision to drink water from the tap individuals perceptions are found to be endogenous and significant for all models but the estimated marginal effect is sensitive to the chosen model our empirical application also includes some tests of the special regressor estimator s sensitivity to underlying assumptions

opec behavior a test of alternative hypotheses since interpretations of past and future oil price patterns depends on the model chosen the author tests and compares alternative theories of opec as a first step in validating the choice on any one model the results show that among opec countries the partial market sharing cartel model is the only model not rejected by at least some of the 11 members and gives the best explanation of production in comparison with 11 non opec countries the competitive model could not be rejected for 10 of the 11 non opec producers this raises the question of why if opec is a cartel friedman s predictions have not come true and introduces new questions for future research 19 references 3 tables

how do oil producers respond to oil demand shocks abstract this paper analyzes the response of international oil producers to demand induced changes in the price of crude oil during 1975 2011 focusing on potential differences between opec and non opec countries the goal is to derive consistent estimates of the short run price elasticity of crude oil supply at the country level i find that oil producers hardly respond to demand shocks within the same month and that the corresponding impact price elasticities of supply are statistically indistinguishable from zero while there is little evidence of differences in the dynamic responses to a typical flow demand shock on average over the sample period opec members seem to curtail production in response to a speculative demand shock whereas non opec production expands significantly flow and speculative demand shocks account for a nontrivial fraction of the total variability in country level crude oil supply

scale and scope efficiencies through hospital consolidations the hospital sector in the province of ontario has recently completed a large scale restructuring marked by wide ranging hospital closures mergers and program transfers given a generally inconclusive economics literature regulators used an accounting as opposed to an economic approach when predicting gains to consolidations this paper uses an economic cost function to examine economies of scale and scope in the years preceding restructuring where there was little doubt that economies were possible issues relating to output aggregation functional form and scale and scope testing are addressed and an equilibrium cost function is derived from an estimated short run function to measure the cost concepts of interest using index and direct approaches we examine a variety of potential reconfigurations and conclude that there were indeed large scale unexploited gains to strategic consolidation in the hospital sector furthermore these gains may not have been detected using standard approaches in the literature

economies of diversification in the banking industry abstract this paper defines a new measure economies of diversification to examine the cost effect of product line expansion this measure is a special case of expansion path subadditivity and contains economies of scope as a special case a nonparametric frontier technique which isolates the effects of inefficiency and scale is used to measure economies of diversification applied to a set of 468 u s depository institutions operating in 1984 we find slight diseconomies of diversification diseconomies of diversification and inefficiency due to the overutilization of resources are found to be more important determinants of bank costs than is the failure to operate at optimal scale

does green consumerism increase the acceptance of wind power abstract in this paper we discuss what might be termed an action based learning approach to promoting important pro environmental actions such as support for or acceptance of environmental policy such an approach involves promoting simple and easy behaviours as entry points for more radical steps towards sustainability referred to as catalytic or wedge behaviours despite the obvious need for innovative approaches to promote important pro environmental behaviour and sound theoretical backing for such concepts there is a lack of research testing the key propositions of this approach in a survey study based on a random sample of residents of the state of maine usa we find that both everyday green behaviour and the acceptance of an expansion of wind power are rooted in environmental concern and that everyday green behaviour gives a significant contribution to predicting acceptance of wind power when controlling for environmental concern hence the promotion of everyday green behaviours may prepare the grounds for increasing acceptance of more far reaching changes in the population such as an expansion of wind power

rural domestic biogas supply model for zambia abstract there is potential of producing biogas in rural areas of zambia where rearing of cattle and other livestock exists with feedstock and financial resources people in rural areas could form groups or co operatives and install digesters with sizes ranging from 12 to 1000 m 3 generally the initial investment costs decrease with increase in digester size and decrease in the number of digesters to be installed economic analysis indicates that these digester sizes would be viable with positives net present values npvs at the nominal base rate of 18 up to about 37 when npvs start to be negative the payback period ranges from 1 3 years to about 3 years depending on size and investment costs biogas production results in an opportunity cost of us 0 01 kg dry dung biogas would replace the use of biomass for cooking energy needs currently burning of biomass on inefficient stoves leads to respirable particulate matter exposure ranges from 125 to 2125 g m 3 which is above the world health organization guidelines implementation of biogas production in the chitete settlement real case example would result into 3 022 ggco 2 eq avoided emissions from the use of biomass for cooking using inefficient stoves manure management and chemical fertilizer application conserve 9 48 t of nitrogen from avoided biomass consumption for cooking production of 336 t of organic fertilizer at a net income us 224 978 per year saving of 2171 t of firewood worth us 57 000 and 948 t of charcoal worth us 95 000 per annum

supply chain and logistics issues of bio energy production abstract within the concert of renewable energy technologies bio energy can play a decisive role during the next decades when smartly designed and applied under favorable conditions in this respect efficient and effective supply chain and logistics management represent one key parameter this paper presents a literature review of articles published in english speaking peer reviewed journals from 2000 to 2009 which cover the interface of bio energy production and issues of logistics and supply chain management first the articles are assessed according to descriptive criteria such as journal year of publication and research design applied then issues and challenges of designing and operating biomass chains that secure stable and competitively priced feedstock supply for bio energy plants have been classified 1 into the operations harvesting and collection storage transport and pre treatment techniques as well as 2 into overall supply system design although biomass supply chains for energy use are manifold in terms of size design and functioning most relevant issues regarding supply chain management and logistics of bio energy production are identified the findings are discussed against the backdrop of bio energy as sustainable renewable energy option

measuring economies of scope for cogeneration systems in korea a nonparametric approach this study empirically identifies the existence and the degree of economies of scope for cogeneration systems in korea we derive the index of economies of scope and estimate it by using a nonparametric approach of linear programming method based on the empirical results we explicitly present that there exist economies of scope for cogeneration in korea with total cost reduction of 13 1 in addition we show that the cost saving effects from the jointness in capital and labor are also significant in addition to that in fuel

developing a sustainability framework for the assessment of bioenergy systems the potential for biomass to contribute to energy supply in a low carbon economy is well recognised however for the sector to contribute fully to sustainable development in the uk specific exploitation routes must meet the three sets of criteria usually recognised as representing the tests for sustainability economic viability in the market and fiscal framework within which the supply chain operates environmental performance including but not limited to low carbon dioxide emissions over the complete fuel cycle and social acceptability with the benefits of using biomass recognised as outweighing any negative social impacts this paper describes an approach to developing a methodology to establish a sustainability framework for the assessment of bioenergy systems to provide practical advice for policy makers planners and the bioenergy industry and thus to support policy development and bioenergy deployment at different scales the approach uses multi criteria decision analysis mcda and decision conferencing to explore how such a process is able to integrate and reconcile the interests and concerns of diverse stakeholder groups

modeling of biomass to energy supply chain operations applications challenges and research directions reducing dependency on fossil fuels and mitigating their environmental impacts are among the most promising aspects of utilizing renewable energy sources the availability of various biomass resources has made it an appealing source of renewable energy given the variability of supply and sources of biomass supply chains play an important role in the efficient provisioning of biomass resources for energy production this paper provides a comprehensive review and classification of the excising literature in modeling of biomass supply chain operations while linking them to the wider strategic challenges and issues with the design planning and management of biomass supply chains on that basis we will present an analysis of the existing gaps and the potential future directions for research in modeling of biomass supply chain operations

how to model different socio economic and environmental aspects of biomass utilisation case study in selected regions in slovenia and croatia abstract wood biomass is an important renewable source of energy especially in countries with traditional dependency on forestry resources in these countries wood biomass can have numerous positive socio economical and environmental effects this paper presents a new model score model for estimation of 15 socio economic and environmental aspects of increased use of biomass from the forests the presented model enables selected estimation of different aspects in the whole chain of biomass production preparation and use namely the model enables the estimation of net labour income net profit regional public finance income net direct jobs net indirect jobs net induced jobs total net jobs contribution to forest management impact on wood waste utilisation impact on other woody biomass utilisation avoided costs of landfill saving co2 emissions possible impact on regional unemployment avoided costs of unemployment additional jobs for farmers additional activities on farms from indirect and induced jobs and self sufficiency in electricity production the score model was tested in selected regions in slovenia and croatia and apart from a good understanding of the socio economic and environmental aspects it also enables an overview of the economy of wood biomass production given that it includes the economic analysis of wood biomass production and use the model is not intended for a detailed economic analysis of separate phases of wood biomass production processing and use but particularly to show advantages or disadvantages that can result from planned and existing biomass systems

green logistics and national scale economic indicators evidence from a panel of selected european countries abstract the objective of the study is to examine the impact of logistics performance indices on national scale economic indicators i e energy environment and economic health in a panel of 27 european countries over a period of 2007 2014 the results show that logistics performance index in terms of timeliness significantly increases gdp per unit of energy use health expenditures and per capita income where as logistics index in terms of infrastructure increases renewable energy source and decreases carbon emissions logistics index for customs processes significantly associated with the less energy prices while logistics index for tracking and trace consignments substantially increases fossil fuel energy consumption logistics competence index have a differential impact on environment on one hand it substantially reduce the burden of fossil fuel energy consumption while on the other hand it s significantly increases carbon emissions logistics international shipments increase fossil fuel energy in a region industry value added and fdi inflows both increases energy prices fossil fuel energy health expenditures and per capita income whereas trade openness decreases energy prices and increases carbon emissions energy efficiency and per capita income the results conclude that logistics indices significantly linked with the national scale economic indicators that provoke for the green supply chain management in the region

opec and venezuelan oil production evidence against a cartel hypothesis abstract this study revisits the opec cartel hypothesis using a case study a test is conducted to see if venezuela has its production granger cause its opec quota or whether the opec quota for venezuela granger causes venezuelan production the results show both occur at different times in the short run opec s oil production quota for venezuela granger causes venezuelan production however shortly after cuts venezuela cheats on agreements suggesting a tit for tat oligopoly game which is not anti competitive in the long run we show that venezuelan oil production granger causes opec s quota for venezuela but not vice versa having venezuelan oil production granger cause opec quotas for venezuela in the long run suggests opec does not coordinate outputs as much as it reacts to them the evidence suggests venezuela is not a part of an opec anti competitive syndicate even though we show that venezuelan oil production is low an alternative explanation for why venezuela and possibly other opec members have low oil production outputs is that institutions and risk aversion not cartel participation is the cause a vector error correction model shows that there is no tendency for venezuelan oil production to converge to opec s quota for venezuela

opec and other commodity cartels a comparison abstract the economic literature provides specific characteristics for cartels although the theory of international cartels is not well developed in the literature and every cartel is unique some of these characteristics exist in each cartel this study investigates the existence of these characteristics in six known commodity cartels including opec in addition it compares the oil companies cartel the seven sisters to opec and summarizes the findings of opec econometric models developed in the literature in the last 25 years and concludes that the results do not support cartel or competitive models for opec although other cartels are more successful than opec many books and articles in economics use opec as a cartel example neither statistical tests nor theory support the popular use of opec as a cartel example indeed this article concludes that opec is composed of saudi arabia the dominant world producer plus several distinct sub groups and that separate models are required to explain the behavior of each assigning the power of some opec members to opec has caused confusion about its behavior recent opec success is attributed to political natural and technical capacity limitations in the oil fields that prevented countries from cheating on their quota in other words opec adherence to the quota except for saudi arabia is anything but voluntary

opec and world oil security abstract on the margin the effectiveness of policy to enhance the stability of world oil market oil conditions greatly depends on which countries supply what economists would call the marginal barrels that is the barrels whose production responds to changes in demand if the countries dominating the production of the marginal barrels are relatively unstable policies to reduce world oil consumption or boost oil production from stable suppliers will provide the additional benefit of reducing the contribution of unstable producers to the world oil market if the countries dominating the marginal barrel are relatively stable however policies to reduce world oil consumption or boost oil production from stable suppliers will be less effective in promoting oil market stability typically we think of the highest cost producers as supplying the marginal barrel of oil but our assessment finds it quite likely that opec dominates production of the marginal barrel of world oil moreover opec members have been among the more unstable producers on a historical basis hence reducing world oil consumption and promoting oil production in stable non opec countries will enhance world oil security policies to promote stability in opec countries also would enhance world oil security

an exploratory game theoretic analysis of biomass electricity generation supply chain this study proposes a game theoretic approach to model and analyze the process of utilizing biomass for power generation considering three players distributor facility developer and participating farmer we characterize the nash equilibrium of the sequential game and discuss its features a special attention is devoted to the analysis of the impact of incentives and initial target on the equilibrium in which the biomass is part of electricity production

an overview of feed in tariffs premiums and tenders to promote electricity from biogas in the eu 28 abstract the eu has assumed objectives for energy sustainability and the fight against climate change in this regard the generation of biogas allows contributions to the 2020 established targets the eu is leader in the production of biogas representing 60 of total global production in 2011 the estimates of the contribution of biogas to electricity generation for 2020 in the eu 28 represent 1 5 within the total energy mix this paper analyzes the measures implemented in the eu 28 to promote biogas relating them to the country targets established in their national renewable energy action plans currently 19 countries apply some measure of price and or amount 14 use feed in tariffs 6 premium tariffs and 1 uses tenders a trend has been observed to reduce public financial support to promote biogas linked to the reduction of the cost of this technology and to the attempt to increasingly link it to the markets however excessive linking to the market hinders its development putting the attainment of 2020 targets at risk consequently the feed in tariff or premium tariff systems used in each country must be designed in agreement with the peculiarities of the development of their markets to be able to guarantee suitable development

cost revenue and profit efficiency measurement in dea a directional distance function approach abstract estimation of efficiency of firms in a non competitive market characterized by heterogeneous inputs and outputs along with their varying prices is questionable when factor based technology sets are used in data envelopment analysis dea in this scenario a value based technology becomes an appropriate reference technology against which efficiency can be assessed in this contribution the value based models of tone 2002 are extended in a directional dea set up to develop new directional cost and revenue based measures of efficiency which are then decomposed into their respective directional value based technical and allocative efficiencies these new directional value based measures are more general and include the existing value based measures as special cases these measures satisfy several desirable properties of an ideal efficiency measure these new measures are advantageous over the existing ones in terms of 1 their ability to satisfy the most important property of translation invariance 2 choices over the use of suitable direction vectors in handling negative data and 3 flexibility in providing the decision makers with the option of specifying preferable direction vectors to incorporate their preferences finally under the condition of no prior unit price information a directional value based measure of profit inefficiency is developed for firms whose underlying objectives are profit maximization for an illustrative empirical application our new measures are applied to a real life data set of 50 us banks to draw inferences about the production correspondence of banking industry

modeling opec behavior theories of risk aversion for oil producer decisions abstract theories of opec such as price leadership cartel or game theoretic models suggest an incentive for opec members to expand their production capacity well above current levels in order to maximize revenues yet individual opec members consistently explore for and develop oil fields at a level well below their potential the cause of low oil exploration and development efforts among opec members and even some non opec members may have to do with risk aversion this paper describes an alternative theory for opec behavior based on risk aversion using a two piece non neumann morgenstern utility function similar to fishburn and kochenberger 1979 decision science 10 503 518 and friedman and savage 1948 journal of political economy 56 the model shows possible low oil production behavior

rural amenity values and length of residency new residents of rural communities are often assumed to have preferences for development and conservation that differ from those of longer term residents however the literature offers little to quantify presumed preference heterogeneity this article assesses whether stated preferences differ according to length of residency results are based on a conjoint choice experiment survey of rhode island rural residents heterogeneity according to length of town residency is modeled using dummy variables multiplicative interactions and lagrangian interpolation polynomials results are compared across the three models and identify a range of attributes for which willingness to pay depends on length of residency