historical review of demand side management in china management content operation mode results assessment and relative incentives abstract traditional power load management in china is featured by power rationing without considering user demand however since the 1990s demand side management dsm has been introduced by local governments and enterprises in china to improve terminal power efficiency and optimize resources allocation and certain breakthrough have already been achieved demand response aims at improving the energy efficiency of end users and achieving emission reduction targets based on the development status of power industry and electricity market in china this paper firstly reviews the three key development stages of traditional dsm including management content operation mode and results assessment secondly this paper analyzes the demand side management aimed at energy conservation and emissions reduction selecting the core elements and key processes influencing terminal power efficiency of dsm development in addition dsm safeguard system and incentive mechanism including political economic technical and managerial measures are further discussed to achieve the aim of energy conservation and emission reduction finally this paper systematically analyzes related policies and regulations proposed by the government and put forward relative policy recommendations for dsm development in china

the new great debate about unionism and collective bargaining in u s state and local governments recently some state and local governments in the united states have sharply reduced or eliminated public employee unionism and bargaining rights in the belief that their fiscal adversity stems mainly from overcompensation of public employees caused by collective bargaining the authors examine public private sector pay and benefit relationships the effects of unions on public employee pay the effectiveness of employment dispute resolution procedures and the ability of public sector labor and management to combat fiscal adversity they provide new evidence showing that on balance public employees are undercompensated relative to their private sector counterparts the effects of unions on compensation are smaller in the public than in the private sector and public sector dispute resolution procedures and joint labor management initiatives to reform work function reasonably well

measuring the financial impact of demand response for electricity retailers abstract due to the integration of intermittent resources of power generation such as wind and solar the amount of supplied electricity will exhibit unprecedented fluctuations electricity retailers can partially meet the challenge of matching demand and volatile supply by shifting power demand according to the fluctuating supply side the necessary technology infrastructure such as advanced metering infrastructures for this so called demand response dr has advanced however little is known about the economic dimension and further effort is strongly needed to realistically quantify the financial impact to succeed in this goal we derive an optimization problem that minimizes procurement costs of an electricity retailer in order to control demand response usage the evaluation with historic data shows that cost volatility can be reduced by 7 74 peak costs drop by 14 35 and expenditures of retailers can be significantly decreased by 3 52

the brevity and violence of contractions and expansions abstract early studies of business cycles argued that contractions in economic activity were briefer shorter and more violent rapid than expansions this paper systematically investigates this claim and in the process discovers a robust new business cycle fact contractions in employment are briefer and more violent than expansions but we cannot reject the null of equal brevity and violence for expansions and contractions in output the difference arises because employment typically lags output around peaks but they coincide in their troughs we discuss the performance of existing business cycle models in accounting for this fact and conclude that none can fully account for it we then show that a business cycle model with asymmetric adjustment costs on employment and a choice of when to scrap old technologies can account for the business cycle fact both qualitatively and quantitatively

residential peak electricity demand response highlights of some behavioural issues electricity demand response refers to consumer actions that change the utility load profile in a way that reduces costs or improves grid security the focus of demand response has mainly been on the commercial and big industrial sectors because of the large demand reduction that they can offer to the utility grid operators utilities are showing increasing interest in residential demand response rdr rdr can be treated as an energy resource which can be assessed and commercially developed however there are still some issues that remain to be addressed for rdr to be successful these include price unresponsiveness of some residential consumers equity issues and high cost of the metering infrastructure the aim of this paper is to investigate and present some of the challenges in achieving effective voluntary demand reduction based on a review of residential demand response literature as well as the general residential energy use behaviour literature the authors propose the use of a hybrid engineering approach using social psychology and economic behaviour models to overcome these challenges and realize the benefits of supply security and cost management

demand response with locational dynamic pricing to support the integration of renewables abstract electricity production from centralised and decentralised renewable energy resources in europe is gaining significance resulting in operational challenges in the electricity system although these challenges add to the locational and time dependency of the underlying cost of operating the system this variability in time and location is not reflected in residential tariff schemes consequently residential users are not incentivised to react to varying system conditions and to help the integration of renewable energy resources therefore this paper provides a theoretical framework for designing a locational dynamic pricing scheme this can be used to assess existing tariff structures for consumption and injection and can serve as a theoretical background for developing new tariff schemes starting from the underlying costs this paper shows that the potential for locational dynamic pricing depends on the locational and time dependency of its cost drivers when converting costs into tariffs the tariff design should be determined this includes the advance notice of sending tariffs to users and the length of price blocks and price patterns this tariff design should find a balance between tariff principles related to costs practicality and social acceptability on the one hand and the resulting demand response incentive on the other

are business cycles asymmetric some european evidence economic thought has often regarded business cycles as asymmetric this study examines the existence of asymmetries over the business cycle in seven european countries france germany ireland italy luxembourg the netherlands and the united kingdom to analyse this issue industrial production in these countries from 1957 to 1998 is examined and quarterly contractions and expansions in this variable are compared the results obtained with both parametric and non parametric methods allow the existence of asymmetries in these countries to be questioned

was the recent downturn in us real gdp predictable this article uses a small set of variables real gdp the inflation rate and the short term interest rate and a rich set of models atheoretical time series and theoretical structural linear and nonlinear as well as classical and bayesian models to consider whether we could have predicted the recent downturn of the us real gdp comparing the performance of the models to the benchmark random walk model by root mean square errors the two structural theoretical models especially the nonlinear model perform well on average across all forecast horizons in our ex post out of sample forecasts although at specific forecast horizons certain nonlinear atheoretical models perform the best the nonlinear theoretical model also dominates in our ex ante out of sample forecast of the great recession suggesting that developing forward looking microfounded nonlinear dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models of the economy may prove crucial in forecasting turning points

regional pay the public private sector pay differential abstractregional pay the public private sector pay differential regional studies this paper extends the debate on making public sector wages more responsive to those in the private sector the way in which the public private sector wage differential is calculated dramatically alters conclusions and far from there being substantial regional disparity in wages offered to public sector workers any differences are predominantly concentrated in london and the south east where public sector workers are significantly disadvantaged relative to private sector workers this has implications for staff recruitment and retention such findings question the need for regional market facing pay but highlight the necessity to revisit the london weighting offered to public sector workers

the importance of engaging residential energy customers hearts and minds abstract in an attempt to reduce the contribution of residential greenhouse gas emissions the eu has implemented a variety of policy measures the focus has been to promote domestic energy efficiency and ultimately a reduction in residential energy demand in this study we estimate residential energy demand using underlying energy demand trend uedt and asymmetric price responses for 14 european oecd countries between 1978 and 2008 our results support the conclusion that policies to reduce residential energy consumption and the consequent emissions need to account for behavioural lifestyle and cultural factors in order to be effective

scenario analysis on co2 emissions reduction potential in china s electricity sector abstract with the approach of the year 2012 a new round of international negotiations has energized the entire climate change community with this analyses on sector based emissions reduction and mitigation options will provide the necessary information to form the debate in order to assess the co2 emissions reduction potential of china s electricity sector this research employs three scenarios based on the long range energy alternative planning system leap model to simulate the different development paths in this sector the baseline scenario the current policy scenario and the new policy scenario seek to gradually increase the extent of industrial restructuring and technical advancement results imply that energy consumption and co2 emission in china s electricity sector will rise rapidly in all scenarios until 2030 triple or quadruple the 2000 level however through structural adjustment in china s electricity sector and through implementing technical mitigation measures various degrees of abatement can be achieved these reductions range from 85 to 350 million tons co2 per year figures that correspond to different degrees of cost and investment demand side management and circulating fluidized bed combustion cfbc ranked in order are employed prior to use to realize emissions reduction followed by supercritical plants and the renovation of conventional thermal power plants in the long term nuclear and hydropower will play the dominant role in contributing to emissions reduction it is also suggested that a self restraint reduction commitment should be employed to help contribute to the reduction of emission intensity an avenue that is more practical for china in light of its current development phase setting the year 2000 as the base year the intensity reduction target could possibly range from 4 2 to 19 4 dependent on the implementation effectiveness of various mitigation options

progress and prospective on the police system of renewable energy in china abstract the renewable energy law has been formulated by china government in 2005 during the next few years there has been dramatic progress in china s renewable energy industries along with the formation of the policy system of renewable energy in china it is widely recognized that a reasonable and effective policy system can lay the solid foundation for the development of renewable energy regarding the rapid growth of renewable energy with a host of relevant policies issued in china there is an urgent need to study the policy system of renewable energy in view of the latest situations to further promote the development of renewable energy this paper is a systematical review about the promotion of china s policy system of renewable energy since renewable energy law issued achievements on the policy system of renewable energy in 2011 as of 2005 are discussed experiences from recent periods are drawn and factors limiting the policy system of renewable energy are also addressed in details to probe the policy predicament and solutions the development tendency of renewable energy is presented and the framework is drafted to set the framing constraints for china s policy system of renewable energy finally policy suggestions are proposed for the successful implementation of renewable energy policies within the framing constraints of the policy system and the long term healthy development of renewable energy in china

complicated dynamics in a flow model of the labor market abstract we develop a worker flow model with a nonlinear and endogenous outflow rate from unemployment inconsistent claims on the output lead to changing inflation rates which feedback on job offers through the real money supply via simulations one can show that the nonlinear outflow rate causes asymmetric adjustment of unemployment to the equilibrium rate of unemployment in addition and depending on the parameters the equilibrium rate of unemployment may also become locally unstable then there is a downward sloping phillips curve but no trade off between unemployment and inflation in the short run as there is none in the long run

public service employment and the public private wage differential in british regions successive forms of regional policy in the uk have sought to support the maintenance and creation of public sector employment opportunities in relatively disadvantaged regions nationally negotiated public sector pay rates mean that the private public pay gap is likely to be wider in lower demand regions this will be reinforced by the relative absence of private sector employment crowding out in such higher unemployment regions this paper investigates the association between private and public sector service employment using panel data for british regions and estimates regional public private wage differentials using british household panel survey data for 1991 to 1996 across britain private sector employment growth is weakly positively associated with higher public service employment growth but the association is stronger in scotland and the north of england the pattern of regional wage differentials found is consistent with lower crowding out in higher unemployment regions this suggests that reg

forecasting unemployment across countries the ins and outs abstract this paper evaluates the flow approach to unemployment forecasting proposed by barnichon and nekarda 2012 for a set of oecd countries characterized by very different labor markets we find that the flow approach yields substantial improvements in forecast accuracy over professional forecasts for all countries with especially large improvements at longer horizons one year ahead forecasts for european countries moreover the flow approach has the highest predictive ability during recessions and turning points when unemployment forecasts are most valuable

how to fit demand side management dsm into current chinese electricity system reform abstract dsm is one of the best and most practical policy tools available to china for balancing environmental protection and economic growth the new round of electricity system reform provides a good opportunity to consolidate and integrate dsm policy and expedite its development and implementation dsm policy can be upgraded by incorporating it into the current electricity system reform comparing the potential acceleration of electricity price reform with the possibility of imposing a system benefit charge sbc the author argues that support for a sbc would be much easier to gather among policymakers and stakeholders in a short time and would have a much better policy effect in the current situation the author discusses three kinds of price discrimination related to the dsm development in china time based electricity pricing electricity price discrimination for industrial structure adjustment in china fujian province as a case and direct power purchases by large customers and preferential tariff policy these can be well designed to be combined with dsm and energy efficiency policy

dynamic asymmetries in u s unemployment we examine dynamic asymmetries in u s unemployment using nonlinear time series models and bayesian methods we find strong statistical evidence in favor of a two regime threshold auto regressive model empirical results indicate that once we take into account both parameter and model uncertainty there are economically interesting asymmetries in the unemployment rate one finding of particular interest is that shocks that lower the unemployment rate tend to have a smaller effect than shocks that raise the unemployment rate this finding is consistent with unemployment rises being sudden and falls gradual

distributed generation storage demand response and energy efficiency as alternatives to grid capacity enhancement the need for investment in capital intensive electricity networks is on the rise in many countries a major advantage of distributed resources is their potential for deferring investments in distribution network capacity however utilizing the full benefits of these resources requires addressing several technical economic and regulatory challenges a significant barrier pertains to the lack of an efficient market mechanism that enables this concept and also is consistent with business model of distribution companies under an unbundled power sector paradigm this paper proposes a market oriented approach termed as contract for deferral scheme cds the scheme outlines how an economically efficient portfolio of distributed generation storage demand response and energy efficiency can be integrated as network resources to reduce the need for grid capacity and defer demand driven network investments

forecasting asymmetric unemployment rates asymmetric behavior has been documented in postwar quar terly u s unemployment rates this suggests that improvement over conventional linear forecasts may be possible through the use of nonlinear time series models in this note an out of sample forecasting competition is carried out for a set of leading nonlinear time series models it is shown that several nonlinear forecasts do indeed dominate the linear forecast the results are sensitive however to whether a stationarity inducing transfor mation is applied to the nonstationary unemployment rate series

is the business cycle characterized by deterministic chaos abstract tests are conducted on u s macroeconomic data for the presence of low dimensional deterministic chaos where deterministic chaos is defined as in grandmont s 1985 walras bowley lecture or in brock 1986 the idea is to test for evidence of endogenous instability causing the business cycle low order autoregressions are hard to reject with our methods evidence of chaos is weak but our tests may be too weak to detect it evidence of nonlinearity is present in employment 1950 i to 1983 iv unemployment 1949 i to 1982 iv monthly post war industrial production and pig iron production 1877 1937

relocation of public sector workers evaluating a place based policy this paper investigates the local labor market impact of a uk relocation initiative the 2004 lyons review the review resulted in the dispersal of about 25 000 civil service jobs out of london and the south east towards other uk destinations this study aims to detect whether the inflow of public sector jobs crowded out private sector activity or stimulated the local provision of jobs in the private sector focusing on short term effects i find that the relocation initiative raised private sector employment in receiving areas and changed the sectoral distribution of local employment towards services i also find evidence of displacement i e a tendency for private businesses to locate closer to a relocation site moving out of areas at 1 2km and 2 3km distances into areas at 0 1km distance these agglomeration effects appear highly localized the largest policy impact is found in areas that received the relocated jobs with spillover effects reducing sharply over distance

reform of china s electric power industry challenges facing the government abstract china s electrical power industry requires substantial reform if the country s economic growth is to be sustained the 1997 electricity law the creation of a state power company and the abolition of the ministry of electric power are important first steps on the path of reform but it seems that a clear plan is lacking objectives of the reform should include increasing the capacity to deliver power constraining the costs of the power industry increasing end user efficiency and minimising environmental damage efforts should be directed at restructuring the industry in such a way that fair competition may be introduced at least in power generation and at establishing a viable regulatory agency both tasks have the potential to be thwarted by a range of vested interests at different levels of government and industry

what happened to efficiency in electricity industries after reforms the last two decades have witnessed widespread power market reforms in both developed and developing countries that have cost billions of dollars among the key aims and assumptions of these reforms there has always been realization of improvements in power sector efficiency this paper questions the validity of this hypothesis using panel data from 92 countries covering the period 1982 2008 empirical models are developed and analyzed the research findings suggest that the impact of the reforms on electricity industry performance is statistically significant but also limited the results imply that after controlling for country specific variables application of liberal market models in electricity industries slightly increases efficiency in power sector besides we detect a positive relationship between reform process and the percentage share of network transmission and distribution losses in total electricity supplied meaning that as countries take more reform steps the network losses as a fraction of power generated tend to increase moreover the study puts forward that income level and other country specific features are more important determinants of industry efficiency than the reform process overall contrary to expectations of substantial increases in sector efficiency the paper concludes that introducing a decentralized market model with competition in the electricity sector has a limited increasing effect on power industry performance

electricity consumption and economic growth in china abstract this paper applies the error correction model to examine the causal relationship between electricity consumption and real gdp for china during 1971 2000 our estimation results indicate that real gdp and electricity consumption for china are cointegrated and there is unidirectional granger causality running from electricity consumption to real gdp but not vice versa in order to overcome the constraints on electricity consumption the chinese government has to speed up the nation wide interconnection of power networks to upgrade urban and rural distribution grids and to accelerate rural electrification

time of use pricing in electricity markets under different market structures in this paper we propose variational inequality models for electricity markets with time of use tou pricing demand response is dynamic in the model through a dependence on the lagged demand different market structures are examined within this context with an illustrative example the welfare gains losses are analyzed after an implementation of tou pricing scheme over the single pricing scheme it is intended that the proposed models would be useful 1 for regulatory bodies in jurisdictions to assess market power 2 to forecast future tou prices and 3 to examine welfare changes in electricity markets that change to tou pricing from single pricing

china s ongoing energy efficiency drive origins progress and prospects abstract in 2004 china s government launched a vigorous programme to reverse the trend of rising national energy intensity and to reduce intensity by 20 over the period 2006 2010 the aim of this paper is to examine this programme in the context of nearly 30 years of measures to enhance energy efficiency in china and thus to evaluate the likelihood that today s policies will yield improvements over a longer period the country achieved a sustained decline of energy intensity in the period 1980 2001 but this trend was reversed in 2002 this reversal arose from a shift in the structure of the economy to more energy intensive industries and from a decline in the rate of technical innovation the measures taken since 2003 have been directed principally at energy intensive industries but have also addressed other sectors of the economy though the energy intensity target for the year 2010 may be achieved greater efforts will be needed to address a number of constraints which include the reluctance to use economic and financial instruments the dependency of energy policy on industrial and social policies the nature of political decision making and of public administration a shortage of skills and social attitudes to energy

on grid electricity tariffs in china development reform and prospects abstract with the introduction of market oriented measures in china s power sector in the mid 1980s electricity sale prices to the grid companies on grid electricity tariffs became the focus of the energy industry thus affecting all related stakeholders including fuel suppliers power generators and end use consumers a number of changes have gradually been undertaken in terms of electricity tariff settings and their implementation to address specific requirements of the expansion of the power industry at each stage of its development on grid electricity tariffs had been used as a key lever to attract investment in power generation at an early stage of reform and then to encourage competition in the power industry in response to the rising concerns about environmental protection and the promotion of clean energy utilisation tariffs have progressively been developed for renewable electricity generation which has contributed to massive expansion of the renewable power industry in china this paper reviews key milestones of the development of on grid electricity tariffs in china examines the tariff setting mechanisms of coal fired power plants and renewable power generation analyses the factors associated with the adjustments of the tariff levels and discusses the options for further reform and more effective electricity pricing

a review of the costs and benefits of demand response for electricity in the uk the recent policy discussion in the uk on the economic case for demand response dr calls for a reflection on available evidence regarding its costs and benefits existing studies tend to consider the size of investments and returns of certain forms of dr in isolation and do not consider economic welfare effects from review of existing studies policy documents and some simple modelling of benefits of dr in providing reserve for unforeseen events we demonstrate that the economic case for dr in uk electricity markets is positive consideration of economic welfare gains is provided

elasticities of electricity demand in urban indian households abstract in the past several electricity demand studies have been published for india based on aggregate macro data at the country or sub national state level since the underlying theory of consumer demand is based on the behaviour of individual agents the use of micro data which reflects individual and household behaviour more closely can shed greater light on the nature of consumer responses in this paper seasonal price and income elasticities of electricity demand in the residential sector of all urban areas of india are estimated for the first time using disaggregate level survey data for about 30 000 households three electricity demand functions have been econometrically estimated using monthly data for the winter monsoon and summer season in order to understand the extent to which factors like income prices household size and other household specific characteristics influence variations observed in individual households electricity demand the results show electricity demand is income and price inelastic in all three seasons and that household demographic and geographical variables are significant in determining electricity demand

comparing smooth transition and markov switching autoregressive models of us unemployment logistic smooth transition and markov switching autoregressive models of a logistic transform of the monthly us unemployment rate are estimated by markov chain monte carlo methods the markov switching model is identified by constraining the first autoregression coefficient to differ across regimes the transition variable in the lstar model is the lagged seasonal difference of the unemployment rate out of sample forecasts are obtained from bayesian predictive densities although both models provide very similar descriptions bayes factors and predictive efficiency tests both bayesian and classical favor the smooth transition model copyright 2008 john wiley sons ltd

electricity regulation and electricity market reforms in china the electricity industry of china has been in a process of reforms since the 1980s this paper gives a review on the three main stages of reforms in china so as to trace out key features of various reform measures including those for power investment financing the separation between government and power enterprises and the division between power generation firms and power grids the findings suggest that further regulatory change in china s electricity market reform is necessary when integration of the electricity markets and increased competition are paving the way ahead for a market oriented structure prospective electricity regulation in the form of a strong legal system and effective institutions that protect market competition and promote appropriate incentives for efficiency are suggested in the paper

barriers and opportunities of using the clean development mechanism to advance renewable energy development in china studying the barriers and opportunities of using clean development mechanism cdm to advance renewable energy deployment in china has a practical significance to achieve its ambitious renewable energy plan which affects the global efforts to curb carbon emission this paper analyses the role of cdm in promoting renewable energy development in china by reviewing the cdm activities especially renewable energy cdm activities in china there are three barriers to utilizing cdm for renewable energy deployment namely the dilemma of additionality lower proportional certified emission reduction credit revenues on the investment and the lack of incentive for technology transfer whereas the opportunities of using cdm in promoting renewable energy development include the international carbon market redirection to renewable energy chinese renewable energy boom driven by a series of effective energy policies and additional finance from cdm supporting chinese renewable energy development based on the study on the barriers and opportunities the article considers that cdm is an indispensable incentive and a viable choice to promote renewable energy deployment in china crown copyright c 2010 published by elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the real time price elasticity of electricity the real time price elasticity of electricity contains important information on the demand response of consumers to the volatility of peak prices despite the importance empirical estimates of the real time elasticity are hardly available this paper provides a quantification of the real time relationship between total peak demand and spot market prices we find a low value for the real time price elasticity which may partly be explained from the fact that not all users observe the spot market price if we correct for this phenomenon we find the elasticity to be fairly low for consumers currently active in the spot market if this conclusion applies to all users this would imply a limited scope for government intervention in supply security issues

why do smaller firms pay less this paper uses data from the national longitudinal survey of young men and the current population survey for 1983 to examine the relationships among wages firm size and plant size we reach three key findings first plant size has little independent effect on wages once we have controlled for firm size for firms with fewer than 1 000 employees second we find evidence of sorting on observed and unobserved ability characteristics across firm sizes better educated and more stable workers are in larger firms third results from a first difference estimator indicate that about 60 percent of the wage size effect is due to unobserved heterogeneity when all firms are considered and about 100 percent when firms with 25 or more employees are considered

are economic time series asymmetric over the business cycle it has long been argued that major cyclical variables such as the unemployment rate display an asymmetric behavior over various phases of the business cycle the paper provides a statistical test for this hypothesis using the framework of finite state markov processes i implement a test to see if the behavior of the unemployment rate is characterized by sudden jumps and slower drops it is argued that the framework provided in the paper can also be used to test other sample path properties of economic time series

testing nonlinearities in economic growth in the oecd countries an evidence from setar and star models this study estimates the self exciting threshold autoregressive setar and smooth transition autoregressive star models and examines the nonlinear and regime switching dynamics of economic growth for a set of 10 oecd countries the null of linearity in setar model is tested using the recursive polynomial f test of tsay and the bootstrap based supremum average and exponential average lagrange multiplier lm tests of hansen the f test of tsay rejects the null of linearity for all the countries except spain and switzerland the setar model of hansen reinforces the evidence and suggests the rejection of linear model the star model rejects the null of linearity against star nonlinearity for all the countries except denmark and switzerland the sequential f tests for the conditional nulls suggest the lstar nonlinearity for australia belgium france sweden and uk and the estar nonlinearity for canada spain and the usa

presidential approval and macroeconomic conditions evidence from a nonlinear model abstractcontrary to previous empirical studies that find a linear link between economic conditions and presidential approval this study argues for and finds a nonlinear relationship a threshold regression is used to assess potential nonlinear relationships between macroeconomic variables and presidential popularity a quarterly data analysis for the 1960q1 2012q2 time period reveals that domestic factors prevail in shaping presidential approval most compelling is evidence of a threshold relationship involving economic conditions when unemployment is slightly over 7 its decline impacts significantly and favourably on presidential approval an effect that virtually disappears below the threshold value change in consumer sentiment affects presidential approval in a limited way while inflation shows no association at all these results combine to encourage further investigation of nonlinear processes in the nexus of economics and politics

introducing a demand based electricity distribution tariff in the residential sector demand response and customer perception increased demand response is essential to fully exploit the swedish power system which in turn is an absolute prerequisite for meeting political goals related to energy efficiency and climate chan

renewable energy policy and electricity market reforms in china the article examines the potential effectiveness of the renewable energy policy in china and its regulatory law framework it frames the option of renewable energy technology within the background of the long lasting electricity problems that china has faced including serious supply shortages reliance on coal and severe environmental contamination its dual administrative and ownership system based on state and privately owned industry is discussed together with the market reform measures adopted in the sector current renewable energy policy is analysed and the scope of the 2005 renewable energy promotion law is investigated this is conducted within the context of the electricity sector reform that china adopted and its effects upon the prospects of encouraging as well as expanding the development of renewable energy this study draws upon primary information collected from interviews with stakeholders on the policy adequacy and identifies three main types of shortcomings that have interfered with a more successful expansion of renewable energy in china

a reexamination of the federal private wage differential in the united states the federal private wage differential is reexamined with recent data using specifications similar to those used in three previous studies i find that the federal private wage differential has narrowed since the 1974 79 period analyzed in those studies in addition i discover that wage differentials based on specifications used in the literature are biased upward because the previous studies did not control for detailed occupational and locational characteristics of workers corrected point estimates of the wage gap are much smaller than previous estimates in the literature differences in the gap across demographic groups occupations and locations are also discussed

unit root tests persistence and the unemployment rate of the u s states author affiliation diego romero avila department of economics carretera de utrera km 1 pablo de olavide university 41013 seville spain dromtor upo escarlos usabiaga professor department of economics carretera de utrera km 1 pablo de olavide university 41013 seville spain cusaiba upo es corresponding author acknowledgment the authors would like to thank seminar participants at the pablo de olavide university and dg economics at the european central bank carlos usabiaga acknowledges the financial support from centro de estudios andaluces ecod1 05 033 special thanks go to junsoo lee and nikolay gospodinov for making available to us the codes to implement some of the techniques used in the paper and to two anonymous referees for suggestions that substantially improved the paper the usual disclaimer applies 1 introductionthe high persistence in unemployment rates observed in the developed world since the first oil shock has led to a vivid debate over which paradigm can better explain the behavior of unemployment rates the traditional strand of the literature that forms the basis of the natural rate theory phelps 1967 1968 friedman 1968 assumes that the unemployment rate evolves around an equilibrium level describing stationary fluctuations this equilibrium level or natural rate is set depending on fundamentals of the economy while initially the absence of theories explaining the determination of the natural rate meant that in practice it was taken to be constant and exogenous subsequent developments have attempted to identify the structural factors behind differences across economies and over time including labor productivity technological change real interest rates real exchange rates and energy prices to name a few see phelps 1994 phelps and zoega 1998 according to the structuralist view phelps 1994 most shocks to unemployment are temporary but occasionally the natural rate permanently changes and is affected by variations in the aforementioned structural factors as a consequence the unemployment rate may be characterized as a process that is stationary once a small number of structural breaks are allowed for in contrast to the natural rate and structuralist approaches the hysteresis hypothesis see blanchard and summers 1986 1987 implies that the unemployment rate is path dependent and temporary shocks can affect unemployment permanently 1 while hysteresis is thought to imply that the natural rate is conditioned by the level of unemployment recorded in the past persistence in unemployment which is a special case of the natural rate hypothesis entails a slow adjustment process of reversion toward the mean thus hysteresis implies that unemployment is characterized by a unit root while persistence is characterized by a near unit root in the latter case shocks to unemployment though long lasting would not have a permanent effect to discriminate among theories explaining the behavior of unemployment rates unit root tests have been widely applied the hysteresis hypothesis has been formulated as a unit root process and its rejection lends support to the natural rate hypothesis if no breaks are included in the specification and the structuralist hypothesis if breaks are allowed for the purpose of this article is to investigate which theoretical paradigm most closely represents the behavior of unemployment rates in the states of the united states over the period 1976 2004 we first apply the individual lagrange multiplier lm t statistic proposed by schmidt and phillips 1992 to monthly data and we fail to reject the null hypothesis of a unit root in unemployment for forty states perron 1989 pointed out that the presence of structural changes could favor the nonrejection of the unit root null if they are not properly accounted for therefore we employ the minimum lm t statistic allowing for up to two endogenous changes in level proposed by lee and strazicich 2003

smart demand response in china challenges and drivers abstract smart demand response sdr induces change in electricity consumption by end users in response to price signals or incentives via smart infrastructures in china sdr programs are instrumental in peak shaving renewables integration emissions reduction and grid reliability improvement previous literature has not captured the effects of the latest development of electricity market reform on sdr our work is distinguished from prior work by a comprehensively identifying china specific sdr challenges by contrasting these with international experience b identifying effective drivers to overcome new market challenges and c recommending policies and providing insights into china s future sdr development our paper identifies three major challenges for sdr development and adoption in china namely financial and market consumer and infrastructural challenges in parallel we identify drivers to overcome these challenges including electricity market reform introduction of new market entrants and development of decentralized electricity systems finally we put forth china specific policy recommendations including continuous market reform performance based regulations for national utilities a level playing field for new market entrants and investments on consumer based technologies these measures aim to create equitable compensations to sdr align the interests of utilities with sdr initiatives provide incentives for consumer outreach and improve the responsiveness of consumers to sdr signals

spatially rebalancing the uk economy towards a new policy model martin r pike a tyler p and gardiner b spatially rebalancing the uk economy towards a new policy model regional studies the current uk government has announced its intention to rebalance the national economy spatially to create a northern powerhouse to rival that in london and the south east this imbalance is in fact a longstanding problem that 90 years of regional policy has not resolved this paper argues that the entrenched nature of the uk s spatial imbalance derives in part from the centralized nature of the national political economy and that only a bold and radical change in that political economy based on a devolution and decentralization of or economic financial and political power is called for

policy redesign for solving the financial bottleneck in demand side management dsm in china abstract dsm is one of the best and most practical policy tools for china to balance environmental protection and economic growth however the bottleneck lies in the lack of long term stable sufficient and gradually increasing funds to flow into dsm projects the author redesigns the practical system benefit charge sbc policy which will provide long term and stable funding for dsm the policy to facilitate the financial support from banking sector and capital market and investigates the possibility of dsm funding from cdm projects sbc is the best way to boost long term stable and sufficient funding for dsm at present in china the current low inflation rate and natural resource price are favored to expedite the implementation of sbc and dsm developments with regard to the uneven development china needs to design relative policies to offset the impact in different areas such as tax reduction and fiscal subsides it is time for china to develop a definite and clear target and timetable to implement dsm which will give the public and enterprises a definite and clear expectation for the future the government should publicize a clear and integrated dsm development plan and relative policy outline in the near medium and long term

demand side management and european environmental and energy goals an optimal complementary approach demand side management dsm in electricity markets could improve energy efficiency and achieve environmental targets through controlled consumption for the past 10 years or so dsm programmes have registered significant results however detailed analysis of its real impact as observed by a large number of pilot studies suggests that such programmes need to be fine tuned to suit clearly identified conditions this study aims to provide recommendations for the instruments to be used to prompt demand response with a view to maximizing energy and environmental efficiencies of various countries the present study suggests that different dsm models should be deployed depending on the specific generation mix in any given country beside the natural benefits from cross borders infrastructures dsm improves the flexibility and reliability of the energy system absorbing some shock on generation mix we show efficiency increases with demand response but at a decreasing rate so according to rebound and report effects simple dsm tools could be preferred

coupon incentive based demand response theory and case study this paper presents the formulation and critical assessment of a novel type of demand response dr program targeting retail customers such as small medium size commercial industrial and residential customers who are equipped with smart meters yet still face a flat rate enabled by pervasive mobile communication capabilities and smart grid technologies load serving entities lses could offer retail customers coupon incentives via near real time information networks to induce demand response for a future period of time in anticipation of intermittent generation ramping and or price spikes this scheme is referred to as coupon incentive based demand response cidr in contrast to the real time pricing or peak load pricing dr programs cidr continues to offer a flat rate to retail customers and also provides them with voluntary incentives to induce demand response theoretical analysis shows the benefits of the proposed scheme in terms of social welfare consumer surplus lse profit the robustness of the retail electricity rate and readiness for implementation the pros and cons are discussed in comparison with existing dr programs numerical illustration is performed based on realistic supply and demand data obtained from the electric reliability council of texas ercot

a review on implementation strategies for demand side management dsm in kuwait through incentive based demand response programs abstract since the export of fossil fuel is the backbone of kuwait s economy the enormous upsurge in the internal fuel consumption creates anguish and bane at present 46 of the internal fossil fuel consumption is used for electricity generation the increase in fuel consumption hurled kuwait as one of the highest per capita electricity consuming as well as co 2 emitting countries in the world consumers pay only 6 of the production cost of electricity the government subsidizes the balance which is one of the major reasons behind the high electricity consumption in the country any reduction in electricity consumption can positively reflect on both per capita electricity consumption and co 2 emission additionally the saved fossil fuel can be exported to generate revenue to support the country s economy worldwide demand side management dsm is considered as an effective tool to curtail electricity demand the objective of this review paper is to explore the available literature to find out the most suitable dsm measures to control the growth of per capita electricity consumption in kuwait after conducting a detailed strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats swot analysis it is concluded that incentive based demand response programs can be considered as one of the most suitable solutions to address this problem

demand side management in china the context of china s power industry reform abstract the reform of china s power industry has lasted for decades while the implementation of demand side management dsm in china is still in its infancy in this paper we present a comprehensive study of the dsm and demand response dr programs in china under the context of china s power industry reform we first present a brief introduction of the background including the socio economic status and geographical location of china the energy policy of china china s power industry the smart grids and microgrid in china and the reform of china s power industry then based on the introduction of dsm and the analysis of dsm practices in some countries we discuss the development status of dsm and the reform of electricity pricing in china finally the main challenges in five aspects for the future development of dsm programs in china are proposed and discussed these challenges include customer understanding and participation advanced metering infrastructure ami and information and communication technology ict pricing mechanisms and optimal scheduling big data analytics based decision support as well as government regulations and market policies

the power industry reform in china 2015 policies evaluations and solutions abstract more than a decade ago in china s electric power industry the investment for generation side and power grids was inadequate and the gap between power supply and demand kept enlarging in order to relief the problems above power industry reform has been carried out in 2002 under the guidance of no 5 document by the central government the reform in 2002 has made a series of achievements including the enhancement of operation efficiency of power industry and the fulfillment of power demand all over the country during the past decade as the rapid development of the society and economy the external environment of china s power industry has changed greatly however the pricing and planning mechanism of china s power industry still operates following the requirements of no 5 document this has led to a number of problems including twisted pricing mechanism irrational power system planning inefficient utilization of renewable energy and so on these problems have not only hindered the development of power industry in china for quite a long time but also brought negative influence on the business operation of upstream and downstream industries therefore chinese government has issued no 9 document in 2015 and launched a new round of power industry reform policies were carried out to form new pricing mechanism new policies about renewable energy generation and power system planning process to solve the problems mentioned above this paper has reviewed the history of reform in 2002 and summarized the existing problems of china s power industry besides the main policies of no 9 document were deeply analyzed and their significance as well as backwards were illustrated at last solutions were proposed accordingly and these solutions have considerable theoretical and practical significance to china s electric power industry reform in the future

a review of demand side management policy in the uk abstract demand side management dsm refers to actions undertaken on the demand side of energy metres a broad definition of dsm is proposed to include current policy objectives for emissions reduction energy security and affordability and encompasses energy efficiency demand response and on site back up generation and storage the paper reviews the concept of dsm outlines the historical impacts of dsm globally since the energy crises of the 1970s analyses uk dsm policy and examines the influence of eu directives on uk dsm policy as the country is currently deciding on how to include the demand side in its electricity market reform proposals and wider energy policy much of the focus of previous research has been on dsm technological trials and modelling studies rather than dsm policy and the paper contributes to filling this gap policy recommendations for the uk context are discussed and it is clear that the success of dsm policies is determined primarily by regulatory support and utility financial incentives it is important that policy clarity is provided and that current and new policies do not overlap

residential electricity pricing in china the context of price based demand response abstract as a secondary energy electricity is an important channel between original energy and energy consumers electricity price is a critical factor for the interests of all involvers in the electric power market it also plays an important role for the sustainable development of energy and environment smart grid is a new conception proposed in recent years to improve the intelligent level and increase the efficiency of electric power system operation smart grid combines and integrates information technology communication technology and intelligent control technology with tradition power system to achieve the many objectives of smart grid demand response dr as an effective technique of demand side management dsm refers to the changes in electricity consumption behavior of users in response to the dynamic price or incentive rewards price based demand response pbdr is one of the two major dr programs in this paper we first introduce the pricing theories in economics the pricing of electricity and the development of electricity pricing in china then we present a detailed discussion on the pbdr strategies in the dsm of smart grid also the research status of pbdr is reviewed finally it gives a summary of the whole paper in the last section

how much have electricity shortages hampered china s gdp growth abstract based on an econometric analysis of the annual growth data for china s gdp and electricity generation from 1953 to 2010 we find that electricity generation growth granger causes gdp growth but not vice versa we also find that the gdp elasticity of electricity generation is about 0 6 implying that a 1 increase in china s electricity generation growth would increase gdp growth by 0 6 while deng s reform raised china s gdp growth rate by about 5 per year it did not alter the gdp elasticity of electricity generation hence an obvious strategy to promote china s economic growth would be accelerating electricity generation expansion rapidly adding thermal generation units however could have large scale adverse environmental impacts we therefore support china s 2011 five year plan which calls for expanding investments in renewable energy conservation and energy efficiency as well as improving china s integrated electricity planning and cost based pricing decisions

demand side reserve offers in joint energy reserve electricity markets we propose a market model that includes demand side reserve offers and where energy and reserve are jointly dispatched generators and consumers can submit offers and bids on five distinct products energy upspinning reserve downspinning reserve and two kinds of standby reserve the resources are scheduled and dispatched in a joint auction through a mixed integer optimization program the extra scheduling flexibility introduced by demand side reserve offers can lead to significant gains in economic efficiency thus the results suggest that not only do the consumers increase their profits but in addition the market power of the generators is reduced

asymmetric labour force participation decisions this article finds compelling evidence of asymmetric labour force participation decisions across demographic groups in response to changes in labour market conditions this behaviour is consistent with predictions from the standard labour leisure choice model and suggests that asymmetry in individual behaviour plays some role in the observed asymmetry of the aggregate unemployment rate it is estimated that the weighted average difference in response to a one percentage point change in unemployment rates is sizeable when compared to the average monthly change in the aggregate labour force

market driven energy pricing necessary to ensure china s power supply abstract china s rapid economic growth has strained its power supply as manifested for instance by the widespread 2008 power shortage the cause for this shortage is thought to be the current chinese energy pricing system which is mainly government rather than market controlled government regulated price caps for coal have seriously affected coal supply at the same time price caps for electricity supply have caused suspension of power plant operation as a result the average operating time of coal fired power plants declined 50 h annually across the nation in the first half of 2008 compared to the previous year despite clear power shortages here it will be suggested that energy pricing set by supply and demand may effectively discourage excessive growth in heavy industry substantially encourage energy conservation and efficiency and curb the rapid electricity demand in china it will be argued that a market oriented electricity pricing mechanism is required for china to secure its future power supply

china s electricity market oriented reform from an absolute to a relative monopoly abstract the market oriented reform in electricity industry has become a global trend since 1980s although china s electricity industry has been reformed since 1978 the substantial reform has not been conducted until 1985 before 1985 china s power industry had been absolutely monopolized by the central state owned companies the absolute monopoly has been broken since 1985 when the chinese government opened doors for non central state owned investment entities and foreign investors in power supplies in order to solve the chronic power shortage in 2002 the comprehensive electricity reform plan entitled scheme of the reform for power industry was enacted however implementation of this plan was delayed due to electricity supply shortages even worse a new kind of monopoly has been developed under the background the state advances the private sector retreats in late years in some sense the former absolute monopoly has transformed the current relative monopoly we contend that the relative monopoly has reversed the market oriented reform in china s electric industry if the relative monopoly remains unchanged it will be harmful to public welfare

integrated resource strategic planning in china abstract many governments around the world are focusing on emissions reduction through energy efficiency improvements particularly on the demand side although integrated resource planning irp which considers both supply side and demand side options had been a useful tool in the planning process for the power industry its effectiveness has been challenged recently with the restructuring of the power sector that has occurred in china and elsewhere around the world the paper proposes integrated resource strategic planning irsp as an alternative to irp in a deregulated power sector irsp takes the resource planning process one step further to the national level in this paper the authors demonstrate the tremendous potential for efficiency improvements on both the supply and demand sides of the power sector in china with irsp the results show that between 2009 and 2020 the potential for electricity savings will reach about 1228 5 twh and the potential reduction in carbon dioxide co 2 emissions will be about 1020 5 million tons another important finding of this study is that the current market based pricing system in china should be improved to provide sufficient incentives for pursuing energy savings on the demand side