wheat from chaff meta analysis as quantitative literature review abstract this paper presents and develops a quantitative method of literature reviewing and evaluating empirical research meta regression analysis or mra economics is theory driven yet we must learn empirically if economics is to advance mra offers a more objective statistical method to summarize our empirical knowledge and to explain the wide study to study variation in economic research mra is used to assess the evidence for ricardian equivalence and its findings are contrasted to those of conventional narrative review furthermore mra establishes a platform from which to distinguish genuine empirical effect from the exploitable specification error that infests applied econometrics

endogenous growth convexity of damage and climate risk how nordhaus framework supports deep cuts in carbon emissions to slow or not to slow nordhaus 1991 was the first economic appraisal of greenhouse gas emissions abatement and founded a large literature on a topic of worldwide importance we offer our assessment of the original article and trace its legacy in particular nordhaus s later series of dice models from this work many have drawn the conclusion that an efficient global emissions abatement policy comprises modest and modestly increasing controls we use dice itself to provide an initial illustration that if the analysis is extended to take more strongly into account three essential elements of the climate problem the endogeneity of growth the convexity of damage and climate risk optimal policy comprises strong controls

employment impacts of eu biofuels policy combining bottom up technology information and sectoral market simulations in an input output framework this paper analyses the employment consequences of policies aimed to support biofuels in the european union the promotion of biofuel use has been advocated as a means to promote the sustainable use of natural resources and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions originating from transport activities on the one hand and to reduce dependence on imported oil and thereby increase security of the european energy supply on the other hand the employment impacts of increasing biofuels shares are calculated by taking into account a set of elements comprising the demand for capital goods required to produce biofuels the additional demand for agricultural feedstock higher fuel prices or reduced household budget in the case of price subsidisation price effects ensuing from a hypothetical world oil price reduction linked to substitution in the eu market and price impacts on agro food commodities the calculations refer to scenarios for the year 2020 targets as set out by the recent renewable energy roadmap employment effects are assessed in an input output framework taking into account bottom up technology information to specify biofuels activities and linked to partial equilibrium models for the agricultural and energy sectors the simulations suggest that biofuels targets on the order of 10 15 could be achieved without adverse net employment effects

environmental policy intra industry trade and transfrontier pollution the paper discusses effects of domestic environmental policy on foreignemissions and on transboundary pollution we use a dixit stiglitz typemodel of monopolistic competition with an endogenous number of firms production generates environmental externalities which spill over to theother country it is shown that environmental policy has an impact onmarket structure at home and abroad these market structure effectsinduce changes in emissions abroad in contrast to what has been derivedin earlier contributions it turns out to be possible that tighterenvironmental standards at home lead to less emissions abroad the paperderives these results and provides the economic intuition behind them finally conditions for optimal environmental policies are derived

democracy and economic growth a meta analysis despite a sizeable theoretical and empirical literature no firm conclusions have been drawn regarding the impact of political democracy on economic growth this article challenges the consensus of an inconclusive relationship through a quantitative assessment of the democracy growth literature it applies meta regression analysis to the population of 483 estimates derived from 84 studies on democracy and growth using traditional meta analysis estimators the bootstrap and fixed and random effects meta regression models it derives several robust conclusions taking all the available published evidence together it concludes that democracy does not have a direct impact on economic growth however democracy has robust significant and positive indirect effects through higher human capital lower inflation lower political instability and higher levels of economic freedom democracies may also be associated with larger governments and less free international trade there also appear to be country and region specific democracy growth effects overall democracy s net effect on the economy does not seem to be detrimental

some aspects of trade between australia and pacific island countries australia and pacific island countries pics have maintained an ongoing trade and economic relationship for several years the determinants of trade between australia and pics are examined using a gravity model by utilising time series cross country data for the period 1981 to 2005 the empirical findings indicate that imports by pic from australia are significantly determined by pics population and their per capita gdp the results also suggest that pics exports are significantly determined by pics and australia s population pics infrastructure telecommunications and the distance to australia consistent with the findings of other studies using the gravity model distance is found to be a friction to pics exports to australia while this study identifies factors influencing pics trade with australia a more substantial issue for the governments and trade policy makers in pics is to look into the generally disappointing long term trade performance from a policy perspective pics would need to seriously look at increasing their export potential

tariff preferences wto negotiations and the ldcs the case of the everything but arms initiative by assessing the impact of the recently adopted everything but arms eba initiative of the eu on the least developed countries ldcs and by showing how further multilateral trade liberalisations erode the eba preferences and impact the ldcs this paper attempts to uncover the ldcs difficult positions in the wto trade negotiations due to its limited product coverage and previous preferences granted by the eu welfare impacts of the eba on the ldcs are shown to be small and the bulk of these gains are associated with the sensitive products that are subject to gradual liberalisations moreover these small gains are likely to disappear if the eu conducts trade policy reforms in fulfilling its wto obligations resulting in an actually worse off situation for the ldcs extending the analysis to a multilateral trade liberalisation scenario reinforces the above results that the ldcs may well lose due to preference erosion and higher world market prices it concludes that other development assistance measures from developed countries should be made available to the ldcs to ease their dependency on trade preferences and to foster their supply capacities the ldcs themselves should attempt to integrate the duty and quota free market access status contained in the eba into a binding wto agreement to secure a stable trading environment but more importantly in order to solve the difficulties at the root these countries should actively engage in reforming their own trade policies

income generating effects of biofuel policies a meta analysis of the cge literature abstract while the production of biofuels has expanded in recent years findings in the literature on its impact on economic growth and development remain contradictory this paper presents a meta analysis of computable general equilibrium cge studies published between 2006 and 2017 on the effect of biofuel production on economic development worldwide using 30 cge studies we found that biofuel supportive policies generated significant impacts on gdp and household incomes cge studies included in our database reported an average 0 25 percentage point increase in gdp and a 0 49 percentage point increase in household incomes we also found that results were driven by several key features of the cge studies included in our database we investigated features such as biofuel type geographic area and characteristics of the cge models employed we found that biofuel expansion has heterogeneous effects in developed versus emerging countries simulations on longer time periods and in multi country studies led to results that indicate higher impacts of biofuel expansion on gdp growth and household incomes moreover simulations with an increase in agricultural productivity indicate positive welfare impact gains unlike simulations with land expansion lastly we found that biodiesel development leads to higher welfare impact gains than that of bioethanol

applied general equilibrium models of taxation and international trade an introduction and survey we wish to acknowledge the help of three referees and of john pencavel on several earlier drafts as well as the assistance of the modelers whose work is referred to in the paper they corrected our lack of understanding of their work and provided many other helpful comments excellent research and bibliographical assistance have been provided by debbie fretz radwan shaban and janet stotsky helpful comments have been made by charles ballard michael boskin lans bovenberg sylvester damus harvey galper glenn harrison gordon lenjosek jack mutti serena ng t n srinivasan charles stuart and eric toder the authors also acknowledgefinancial support from the national bureau of economic research the national science foundation international business machines and the social sciences and humanities research council ottawa canada

directional preferences information processing and investors forecasts of earnings this paper investigates the effects of preferences on judgments in an investing context where investors should be motivated to interpret information objectively yet have clear preferences with respect to what the information they are evaluating conveys i e a gain or a loss on their investment the results of the experiment are consistent with theories of motivated reasoning that predict when and in what manner directional preferences affect how information is processed specifically investors are motivated to agree unthinkingly with information that suggests they might make money on their investment but disagree with information that suggests they might lose money in disagreeing long investors expect earnings to be relatively high and short investors expect earnings to be relatively low these results have implications not only for understanding investor behavior but also for understanding the biased behavior of market participants who face conflicts of interest such as analysts managers and auditors by providing direct evidence that such behavior can arise for purely psychological reasons

the use and abuse of meta analysis in environmental and natural resource economics an assessment motivated by the 2006 report of a work group appointed by the environmental protection agency epa this paper examines the present state of meta analysis in environmental economics and offers recommendations for its future use to this end we summarize and assess 140 meta analyses from 125 published and unpublished studies covering 17 topical categories in environmental and resource economics first we provide several generic meta analysis models as reference points and discuss major estimation issues five econometric issues are identified as part of a complete analysis 1 sample selection criteria 2 basic data summary 3 primary data heterogeneity 4 heteroskedasticity and 5 non independence of multiple observations from primary studies second a tabular summary is presented for the 140 meta analyses with respect to estimation methods third a narrative summary is presented for 19 meta analyses including the three value of statistical life studies examined by the epa work group and one analysis from each of 16 other categories fourth we offer a set of best practice guidelines for future meta analyses in this and other areas of economics last the paper comments on the use of meta analytic methods for benefit transfers of environmental values

regulation factor rewards and international trade this paper develops an approach for incorporating regulation into the theory of production distribution and trade using environmental regulation as an example four major conclusions emerge in the course of the analysis 1 production process regulation is equivalent in its effect on other cooperating factors to neutral technical regress i e negative progress 2 specific unambiguous income redistribution consequences follow from such regulation if commodity prices are held constant the factor used relatively intensively in the non regulated industry will gain absolutely in terms of both goods 3 unilateral or uncoordinated regulation destroys the link between uniform world commod ity prices and identical factor proportions factors prices across trading countries or regions 4 if any factor of production is freely mobile across frontiers the least differential regulation as between countries will entirely drive out the regulated industry from the more to the less regulated economy

the economic impact of the trans pacific partnership what have we learned from cge simulation the trans pacific partnership tpp trade agreement if were it to be successfully implemented would be one of the largest regional agreements ever seen it is the only exemplar to date of a mega regional fta for which negotiations have been successfully concluded and a landmark in evolving approaches to asia pacific integration as such quantitative assessments of its potential effects are of considerable interest one of the most widely used techniques for evaluating the economic impact of regional trading agreements is numerical simulation with computable general equilibrium or cge models there have now been a large number of papers written that use cge methods to analyse the potential economic impact of the tpp agreement under varying theoretical and policy assumptions in this paper we provide a synthesis of the key results that have emerged from the literature and introduce some new simulation results of our own to anchor the discussion

agricultural tariffs or subsidies which are more important for developing economies this article assesses the impact of the world price depressing effect of agricultural subsidies and border protection in organization for economic co operation and development oecd countries on developing economies exports imports and welfare developing economy exporters are likely to benefit from reductions in such subsidies and trade barriers whereas net importers may lose as world prices rise a simple partial equilibrium model of global trade in commodities that benefit from domestic support or export subsidies is developed to estimate the relevant elasticities simulation results suggest that a 50 percent reduction in border protection will have a much larger positive impact on developing economies exports and welfare than a 50 percent reduction in agricultural subsidies although there is significant heterogeneity across developing economies the results suggest that efforts in the doha round of world trade organization wto negotiations should be directed at substantially reducing border protection

some neglected social costs of government spending in farm programs economic welfare analyses of farm programs typically assume that the direct social opportunity cost of subsidy payments is one dollar per dollar of government spending recent literature suggests that the marginal opportunity cost of a dollar of u s federal government spending is more likely to be in the range of 1 20 to 1 50 this implies that the net social costs of farm programs that involve government spending are significantly greater than the typical estimates in addition the normative efficiency ranking of alternative policies is sensitive to the marginal opportunity cost of government spending

china and the trans pacific partnership a numerical simulation assessment of the effects involved the trans pacific partnership tpp is a new negotiation on cross border liberalisation of goods and service flows going beyond wto disciplines and focused on issues such as regulation and border controls this paper uses numerical simulation methods to assess the potential effects of a tpp agreement on china and also china s inclusion or exclusion on other countries we use a numerical 11 country global general equilibrium model with trade costs and inside money trade costs are calculated using a method based on gravity equations tpp barriers potentially removable are trade costs less tariffs simulation results reveal that china will be slightly hurt by tpp initiatives in welfare when china is out but the total production and export will be increased other non tpp countries will be mostly hurt in welfare but member countries will mostly gain if china takes part in tpp she will significantly gain and increase other tpp countries gain as well the comparison of tpp effects and global free trade effects show that the positive effects of global free trade are stronger than tpp effects japan s joining tpp would be beneficial to both herself and most of other tpp countries but which negative effects on china s welfare when out of tpp will increase further

the enlargement of the european union effects on trade and emissions of greenhouse gases abstract with the gradual accession of various central and eastern european countries ceecs to the european union eu international trade between the eu and the ceecs will change as a result of trade liberalisation and the mobility of production factors within the eu the eu and most of the ceecs have already committed themselves to reduce by 2008 2012 their emissions of greenhouse gases ghgs by 8 compared to the 1990 level this paper reports on an investigation of the potential consequences of the enlargement of the eu and of the emission reduction target set by the kyoto protocol on the sectoral production patterns and international trade a comparative static general equilibrium model was developed to examine the impacts under different scenarios for illustrative purposes two regions the eu and the ceecs and three categories of goods and services agricultural goods industrial goods and services were included the model was calibrated by the 1998 data the model was subsequently applied to study the effects of free trade the mobility of factors and the environmental constraints on production and international trade in light of the enlargement of the eu we show that in this specific context free trade is beneficial to economic welfare and does not necessarily increase emissions of greenhouse gases the mobility of factors also increases economic welfare but in the case of fixed production technology it may harm the environment through more emissions of ghgs

a review of the ecological and socioeconomic effects of biofuel and energy policy recommendations abstract many countries have attached great emphasis on biofuel because it is universally acknowledged renewable and sustainable however there remain doubts regarding biofuel s renewability cleanliness and ecological friendliness in addition its impacts on income employment and food security have been widely discussed therefore the effect of developing biofuel as an important method of resolving the energy crisis and climate change is questioned based on the rocketing concern on the multiple effects of biofuel this paper provides a comprehensive and updated review of the literature on biofuel s ecological effects and socioeconomic effects the literature included in this paper is selected english language papers being published since 2004 we find that existing studies have not arrived at a consensus regarding the ecological or the socioeconomic effects of biofuel there remain uncertainty and doubts toward biofuel s renewability and cleanliness biofuel s impacts on water and biodiversity are also questioned although biofuel is widely regarded to have positive impacts on income and employment many studies prove that biofuel influences food security negatively besides biofuel s economic cost is likely to be the barrier to its promotion because of the uncertainty of biofuel s impacts this study recommends cautious attitude toward biofuel development especially for those countries where biofuel development would be inappropriate and suggests that policy makers engage in demand side management instead of unsustainable supply side management

a meta analysis of the international gender wage gap abstract since the early 1970s a number of authors have calculated gender wage differentials between women and men of equal productivity this meta study provides a new quantitative review of this vast amount of empirical literature on gender wage differentials as it concerns not only differences in methodology data and time periods but also different countries we place particular emphasis on a proper consideration of the quality of the underlying study which is done by a weighting with quality indicators the results show that data restrictions i e the limitation of the analysis to new entrants never marrieds or one narrow occupation only have the biggest impact on the resulting gender wage gap moreover we are able to show what effect a misspecification of the underlying wage equation like the frequent use of potential experience has on the calculated gender wage gap over time raw wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially however most of this decrease is due to better labor market endowments of females

sweetening the transition in eu sugar preferences the case of fiji the european union grants preferential market access for sugar to a group of african caribbean and pacific acp countries sugar exported under these quotas receives between two and three times the world price these trade preferences are intended as a form of aid but they tend to stifle productivity growth in the recipient countries the european union could better assist acp countries by providing direct development assistance in place of sugar subsidies for example by investing the aid transfers into infrastructure or other essential public services this paper tests this proposition for the case of fiji using a computable general equilibrium model it is found that significant gains in economic performance can be achieved by employing such alternative strategies for aid these gains are particularly strong over the medium to long term when the aid funds are diverted to infrastructure development however there are issues of equity to consider since in the case of fiji the rural poor would be the losers if trade preferences were to be removed moreover the degree of benefit in alternative strategies such as infrastructure development will be contingent on the economy s flexibility which in turn depends upon the country s regulatory regime and education performance

gasoline demand revisited an international meta analysis of elasticities meta analysis is used to determine if there are factors that systematically affect price and income elasticity estimates in studies of gasoline demand four econometric models are estimated using long run and short run price and income elasticity estimates from previous studies as the dependent variables explanatory variables include functional form lag structure time span national setting estimation technique and other features of the model structure elasticity estimates are found to be sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of some measure of vehicle ownership static models appear to overestimate short run elasticities underestimate long run price elasticities but pick up the full long run income responsiveness there is variation in the elasticity of demand across countries especially in the short run and gasoline demand appears to be getting more price elastic and less income elastic over time

beyond publication bias abstract this review considers several meta regression and graphical methods that can differentiate genuine empirical effect from publication bias publication selection exists when editors reviewers or researchers have a preference for statistically significant results because all areas of empirical research are susceptible to publication selection any average or tally of significant insignificant studies is likely to be biased and potentially misleading meta regression analysis can see through the murk of random sampling error and selected misspecification bias to identify the underlying statistical structures that characterize genuine empirical effect meta significance testing and precision effect testing pet are offered as a means to identify empirical effect beyond publication bias and are applied to four areas of empirical economics research minimum wage effects union productivity effects price elasticities and tests of the natural rate hypothesis

meta analysis of economics research reporting guidelines meta regression analysis mra can provide objective and comprehensive summaries of economics research their use has grown rapidly over the last few decades to improve transparency and to raise the quality of mra the meta analysis of economics research network maer net has created the below reporting guidelines future meta analyses in economics will be expected to follow these guidelines or give valid reasons why a meta analysis must deviate from them

biofuels and food security micro evidence from ethiopia abstract there is considerable controversy about the impact of biofuels on food security in developing countries a major concern is that biofuels reduce food security by increasing food prices in this paper we use survey evidence to assess the impact of castor production on poor and food insecure rural households in ethiopia about 1 3 of poor farmers have allocated on average 15 of their land to the production of castor beans under contract in biofuel supply chains castor production significantly improves their food security they have fewer months without food and the amount of food they consume increases castor cultivation is beneficial for participating households food security in several ways by generating cash income from castor contracts they can store food for the lean season castor beans preserve well on the field which allows sales when farmers are in need of cash or food spillover effects of castor contracts increases the productivity of food crops increased food crop productivity offsets the amount of land used for castor so that the total local food supply is not affected

interfuel substitution a meta analysis interfuel substitutability has been of longstanding interest to the energy economics and policy community however no quantitative meta analysis has yet been carried out of this literature this paper fills this gap by analyzing a broad sample of studies of interfuel substitution in the industrial sector manufacturing industry or subindustries or macro economy of a variety of developed and developing economies publication bias is controlled for by including the primary study sample size in the meta regression results for the shadow elasticities of substitution between coal oil gas and electricity for forty six primary studies show that at the level of the industrial sector there are easy substitution possibilities between all the fuel pairs with the exception of gas electricity and coal electricity substitution possibilities seem more constrained at the macro level and less constrained in sub industries estimates also vary across countries publication bias does not seem to be present but model and data specification issues very significantly affect the estimates derived by each individual study estimates from cross section regressions are generally largest fixed effects panel estimates intermediate in magnitude and time series estimates are mostly much smaller econometric research suggests that the fixed effects estimates are likely the best among the existing studies though biased downwards

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

global models applied to agricultural and trade policies a review and assessment the continuing process of global integration bears implications for farmers and related supplying and processing industries in all parts of the world but also for the rest of the world economy an assessment of agricultural and trade policy impacts is bound to be complex and is often supported by quantitative modeling analysis this article provides an assessment of the present state of applied modelling in the area of trade and agricultural policies we provide in this paper a comparative assessment of alternative modelling approaches considering a total of 16 partial equilibrium and general equilibrium models the assessment includes theoretical modelling foundations datasets employed and institutional aspects such as model maintenance and dissemination of results a typology of models is provided by structuring the assessment along a clear set of evaluation criteria

a meta analysis on the price elasticity of energy demand abstract price elasticities of energy demand have become increasingly relevant in estimating the socio economic and environmental effects of energy policies or other events that influence the price of energy goods since the 1970s a large number of academic papers have provided both short and long term price elasticity estimates for different countries using several models data and estimation techniques yet the literature offers a rather wide range of estimates for the price elasticities of demand for energy this paper quantitatively summarizes the recent but sizeable empirical evidence to facilitate a sounder economic assessment of in some cases policy related energy price changes it uses meta analysis to identify the main factors affecting short and long term elasticity results for energy in general as well as for specific products i e electricity natural gas gasoline diesel and heating oil

the impact of selected abatement strategies on transnational pollution the terms of trade and factor rewards a general equilibrium approach abstract widespread publicity of international conflict over transfrontier pollutants such as acid deposition and the november 1986 chemical spill in the rhine river has increased the public s awareness of the need to devise abatement strategies appropriate for transnational pollution this article develops a general equilibrium approach for analyzing the economic impacts of selected abatement strategies the model includes internationally mobile goods capital and pollution flows and flexible output and factor prices the general equilibrium approach provides policymakers with important information which is usually not revealed by a partial equilibrium approach that is demonstrated by applying the model to the north american acid deposition issue

agricultural market access a moving target in the wto negotiations abstract this article analyzes the impact of multilateral market access liberalization of the doha round agricultural negotiations at the center are the effects of variations in the magnitudes of tariff cuts different tariff cutting formulas the tariff capping as well as different numbers and width of tariff bands the simulations are conducted with an extended version of the gtap model and the gtap database 6 0 including bound and applied rates and a module to cut tariffs at the 6 digit tariff line level the results reveal that the heights of the tariff cuts and the kind of tiered formula applied are most important for the outcome of the doha round while the width of tariff bands and the tariff capping only have a moderate influence on the countries trade pattern and welfare in contrast the number of tariff bands is not important for the results

the hidden costs of renewables promotion the case of crop based biogas abstract this paper finds that specific characteristics of bioenergy investments namely long times to build relatively high variable costs and the managerial ability of corrective actions during the project help bioenergy producers to respond to market uncertainties this effect is shown to compromise the economic effectiveness of bioenergy policies the paper compares the effectiveness of financial and regulatory incentive programs aiming to stimulate production of crop based biogas a stylized stochastic real options based investment model is developed to analyze the investment behavior of biogas producers under alternative policies the model is solved by a numerical approach combining stochastic simulations and the genetic algorithm technique unless bioenergy schemes account for structural characteristics of the bioenergy industry they will tend to encourage investments in unused production capacities this would cause additional welfare costs and benefit mainly crop producers

socioeconomic implications of biofuels deployment through an input output approach a case study in uruguay abstract some countries in the world aim to increase biofuel production and consumption as a way to decarbonize the transport sector and transit to a low carbon economy besides their potential environmental advantages compared to conventional fuels biofuels may also bring other socioeconomic benefits using the input output analysis this study has looked at the socio economic impacts associated to the biofuels targets established in uruguay by estimating the associated gross and net effects on production of goods and services value added and job creation categorized into rural and non rural next the impacts on the uruguay s balance of payments energy security and tax revenues have been estimated and added to the previous effects when it comes to value added bioethanol from sugarcane ranks first among the considered biofuels with 431 million us 2018 followed by bioethanol from sorghum and biodiesel as to job creation around 34 000 full time new jobs are created as a result of sugarcane bioethanol twice as much as from biodiesel of these figures rural employment share represents a 13 and 6 in the case of sugarcane bioethanol and biodiesel respectively on concluding result from this study is that while biofuel production costs in uruguay are higher than fossil fuel when the economic effects on tax revenues and balance of payments are added to the previous socio economic impacts the total benefits from biofuels compensate the extra costs however this situation may be altered in the future as a result of changes in biofuel production costs fiscal policies as well as import and export prices variations

discussion of the joint effect of management s prior forecast accuracy and the form of its financial forecasts on investor judgment hirst koonce and miller henceforth hkm investigate how the prior accuracy and precision of management s earnings forecasts influence investors judgments hkm hypothesize that revisions in investors earnings forecasts and their confidence in those forecasts will be positively related to management s prior forecasting accuracy more surprisingly they hypothesize that the precision of management s forecast will not influence investors earnings forecast but will interact with prior forecasting accuracy to influence investors confidence levels specifically investors who receive a point forecast rather than a range forecast from management are predicted to be more confident in their own earnings forecast but only when management s prior forecast accuracy is high hkm do not expect precision to affect investors confidence when management s prior forecast accuracy is low their results are consistent with these hypotheses this discussion focuses on three issues the importance of behavioral financial accounting studies such as this one some of the auditors experimental choices and the implications of this study

energy security for india biofuels energy efficiency and food productivity abstract the emergence of biofuel as a renewable energy source offers opportunities for significant climate change mitigation and greater energy independence to many countries at the same time biofuel represents the possibility of substitution between energy and food for developing countries like india which imports over 75 of its crude oil fossil fuels pose two risks global warming pollution and long term risk that oil prices will undermine real living standards this paper examines india s options for managing energy price risk in three ways biofuel development energy efficiency promotion and food productivity improvements our salient results suggest that biodiesel shows promise as a transport fuel substitute that can be produced in ways that fully utilize marginal agricultural resources and hence promote rural livelihoods first generation bioethanol by contrast appears to have a limited ability to offset the impacts of oil price hikes combining the biodiesel expansion policy with energy efficiency improvements and food productivity increases proved to be a more effective strategy to enhance both energy and food security help mitigate climate change and cushion the economy against oil price shocks

biofuels in sub sahara africa drivers impacts and priority policy areas there has been a growing interest in jatropha and sugarcane based biofuels across sub sahara africa biofuel expansion in the region reflects policy concerns related to energy security poverty alleviation and economic development however biofuels have also been linked to numerous environmental and socioeconomic impacts such as ghg emissions water availability pollution deforestation biodiversity loss poverty alleviation energy security loss of access to land and food security to name just a few yet there is a an insufficient understanding of these impacts and their synergies in sub sahara africa and b a lack of policies that could regulate the biofuel sector and ensure its viability while at the same time preventing its negative impact the aim of this literature review is to synthesize the current knowledge about biofuel impacts in africa and to identify priority policy areas that should be targeted for enhancing biofuel sustainability in the continent the findings of this review indicate that biofuel impacts can be positive or negative depending on several factors such as the feedstock the environmental socio economic context of biofuel production and the policy instruments in place during biofuel production use and trade in most cases there are significant trade offs but at least part of the negative impacts can be mitigated through careful planning the incomplete and piecemeal understanding of these trade offs combined with agronomic institutional and market failures are currently the most important barriers for the viability and sustainability of biofuel investments in the continent

energy consumption and economic growth new evidence from meta analysis abstract the causal relationships between energy consumption and economic growth have given rise to much discussion but remain controversial alternative data sets based on different time spans countries energy policies and econometric approaches result in diverse outcomes a meta analysis using a multinomial logit model with 174 samples governing the relationships between gdp and energy consumption is applied here to investigate the major factors that affect these controversial outcomes the empirical results have demonstrated how the time spans subject selections including gdp and energy consumption econometric models and tools for greenhouse gases emission reduction characteristics significantly affect these controversial outcomes

biofuel policies and the environment do climate benefits warrant increased production from biofuel feedstocks abstract we examine whether climate benefits warrant policies promoting biofuel production from agricultural crops when other environmental impacts are accounted for we develop a general economic ecological modelling framework for integrated analysis of biofuel policies an economic model of farmers decision making is combined with a biophysical model predicting the effects of farming practices on crop yields and relevant environmental impacts they include ghg emissions over the life cycle nitrogen and phosphorus runoff and the quality of wildlife habitats we apply our model to crop production in finland we find that under current biofuel production technology the case for promotion of biofuels is not as evident as has been generally thought only reed canary grass for biodiesel is unambiguously desirable whereas biodiesel from rape seed and ethanol production from wheat and barley cause in most cases negative net impacts on the environment suggested policies in the us and the eu tend to improve slightly the environmental performance of biofuel production

on energy consumption and gdp studies a meta analysis of the last two decades abstract the relationship between energy consumption and gdp growth has been intensely examined in multiple frameworks set by various methods and countries this paper is a meta analysis of 51 studies published in the last two decades with worldwide data since 1949 on the relationship between energy consumption and gdp growth the aim is to systemize some of the factors that cause the variation of results in these studies our results yield evidence that the long run elasticity of gdp growth with respect to energy consumption is not independent of the method employed for cointegration the data type and the inclusion of variables such as the price level or capital in the cointegration equation also 1 increase in capital increases the elasticity of gdp with respect to energy consumption by 0 85

use renewables to be cleaner meta analysis of the renewable energy consumption economic growth nexus abstract the renewable energy consumption economic growth nexus is a growing area of research over the last few years emanating to mixed results the aim of the current study is to quantitatively synthesise the empirical literature on the subject using the meta analysis approach in particular a meta multinomial regression is employed to investigate the sources of variation in the direction of causality between renewable energy consumption and economic growth this causal relationship takes the form of four hypotheses namely the feedback conservation growth and neutrality hypotheses to the best of author s knowledge this study constitutes the first meta analysis undertaken on the renewable energy consumption economic growth nexus the empirical results reveal that the variation in the supported hypotheses is due to a number of characteristics including model specification data characteristics estimation techniques cointegration methods and causality tests and development level of the country on which a study was conducted

ukraine and the great biofuel potential a political material flow analysis ukraine was once considered the breadbasket of the soviet union its agriculture subject to both extensification and intensification measures following the dissolution of the soviet union both these processes were reversed giving modern day ukraine the image of untapped agricultural potential alongside the country s proximity to the european union and its access to the black sea this has made ukraine a key candidate as a global supplier of feedstock for biofuel demand for the latter is rising noticeably especially in the wake of current european and international blending targets for liquid biofuels ukraine has responded with a number of initiatives to further biofuel feedstock production we have compiled a material flow account for ukraine focusing especially on the development of the agricultural sector since the early 1990s by complementing this physical account with an in depth analysis of political and economic developments we are able to trace the impact of rising demand for biofuel feedstock on ukraine we find that the attempt to establish a biofuel sector based largely on rapeseed was not successful but has nonetheless left the country at a cross road in the development of both its economy and its resource use

regional trade agreements versus global trade liberalisation implications for a small island developing state this study undertakes an empirical investigation of the macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of two forms of regional trade agreements vis a vis global trade liberalisation on a small island country using fiji as a case study in order to capture the feedback effects of such a complex set of policies we employ a dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the fijian economy to investigate i the impact of the pacific island countries trade agreement picta ii the impact of picta the pacific agreement for closer economic relations pacer and the economic partnership agreements epas iii the impact of full tariff liberalisation i e tariff removal only and iv the impact of full trade liberalisation with removal of both tariff and non tariff barriers while picta consistently provides the least benefits across a range of macroeconomic indicators including real output welfare trade volumes and employment full trade liberalisation involving the removal of tariff and non tariff barriers provides the greatest benefits compared to the other scenarios in terms of real output however the latter scenario is outperformed by picta pacer the epas and full tariff liberalisation in terms of welfare effects trade volumes and employment the policy implications hold important lessons for developing countries considering trade liberalisation

the income elasticity of money demand a meta analysis of empirical results abstract in this paper we use meta analytic methods to investigate possible sources for the large variation in empirical findings about the income elasticity of money demand our results suggest that the broadness of the monetary aggregate the inclusion of wealth and the consideration of financial innovation exert a significant influence on estimated income elasticities furthermore we find substantial cross country differences in particular between the us and other countries these differences can to some extent be explained by the macrofeconomic environment and the dissemination of payment cards

trade secrets law and corporate disclosure causal evidence on the proprietary cost hypothesis this study exploits the staggered adoption of the inevitable disclosure doctrine idd by u s state courts as an exogenous shock that generates variations in the proprietary costs of disclosure we find that firms respond to idd adoption by reducing the level of disclosure regarding their customers identities supporting the proprietary cost hypothesis our results are stronger for firms in industries with a higher degree of entry threats for firms in more volatile industries and for firms with a lower degree of external financing dependence overall this study represents one of the first efforts in identifying the causal effect of proprietary costs of disclosure on the supply of disclosure this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

environmental disclosures regulatory costs and changes in firm value abstract union carbide s chemical leak in bhopal india during december 1984 resulted in approximately 4 000 deaths and 200 000 injuries this study examines the market reaction of chemical firms other than union carbide to this catastrophe evidence indicates that a significant negative intra industry reaction occurred however firms with more extensive environmental disclosures in their financial report prior to the chemical leak experienced a less negative reaction than firms with less extensive disclosures this result suggests that investors interpreted such disclosures as a positive sign of the firm managing its exposure to future regulatory costs

doha merchandise trade reform what is at stake for developing countries this paper provides new estimates of the global gains from multilateral trade reform and their distribution among developing countries in the presence of trade preferences particular attention is given to agriculture as farmers constitute the poorest households in developing countries but are the most assisted in rich countries the latest gtap database version 6 05 and the linkage model of the global economy are used to examine the impact first of current merchandise trade barriers and agricultural subsidies and then of possible reform outcomes from the wto s doha development agenda the results suggest moving to free global merchandise trade would boost real incomes in sub saharan africa proportionately more than in other developing countries or high income countries despite a terms of trade loss in parts of that region net farm incomes would rise substantially in that and other developing country regions thereby alleviating rural poverty a doha partial liberalization could move the world some way toward those desirable outcomes but more so the more developing countries themselves cut applied tariffs particularly on agricultural imports

what drives the global land rush the authors review evidence regarding the size and evolution of the land rush in the wake of the 2007 8 boom in agricultural commodity prices and authors study the determinants of foreign land acquisition for large scale agricultural investment the use of data on bilateral investment relationships to estimate gravity models of transnational land intensive investments confirms the central role of agro ecological potential as a pull factor however this finding contrasts the standard literature insofar as the quality of the destination country s business climate is insignificant and weak tenure security is associated with increased interest for investors to acquire land in the country policy implications are discussed

endogenous proprietary costs through firm interdependence abstract in the preceding paper darrough and stoughton suggest that firm interdependence modelled as an entry game among firms in a product market can yield endogenous proprietary costs this allows the costs associated with the dissemination of information about the firm to depend upon the information s content in some direct way my comments focus on first the structure of the game which emphasizes the potential for full disclosure second the extent to which the entry game exaggerates the usefulness of bad news and third their suggestion that more competition among firms implies more and not less disclosure an observation seemingly contrary to verrecchia 1983

a meta analysis of general and partial equilibrium simulations of trade liberalisation under the doha development agenda model based simulation of welfare effects is commonly used to make a case for trade liberalisation and to inform participants a nd stakeholders in trade negotiations however the simulated welfare effects of trade liberalisation vary greatly even across studies that model similar liberalisation scenarios this

international trade and environmental regulation time series evidence and cross section test this paper examines empiricallywhether more stringent domestic environmental policiesreduce the international competitiveness ofenvironmentally sensitive goods esgs our timeseries evidence indicates that there are no systematicchanges in trade patterns of esgs in the last threedecades despite the introduction of more stringentenvironmental regulations in most of the developedcountries in the 1970s and 1980s this observedphenomenon is then subjected to a multi countryeconometric test using an extended gravity equationframework the test suggests that overall morestringent environmental regulations do not reducetotal exports exports of esgs and exports ofnon resource based esgs neither was there anyevidence to support the hypothesis that new tradebarriers emerge to offset the effects of morestringent environmental regulations

does trade globalization induce or inhibit corporate transparency unbundling the growth potential and product market competition channels abstract trade globalization may affect corporate transparency via multiple channels with potentially opposite signs we aim to empirically disentangle these channels by tracking evolution of corporate transparency for 4061 listed firms in tradable sectors in 49 countries during 1992 2005 by using detailed tariff schedules we measure changes in growth opportunities and product market competition enabled by foreign and domestic trade liberalizations respectively on the one hand higher growth opportunities engendered by foreign trade reforms are disproportionately associated with better corporate transparency in industries that depend more heavily on external financing on the other hand greater product market competition engendered by domestic tariff reductions has no significant impact on corporate transparency

a development friendly prioritisation of doha round proposals agriculture looms large on the wto s agenda it was the first substantive item listed in the work programme of the ministerial declaration launching the doha round and it was arguably at the centre of the failure at cancun developing countries made it clear both before and during the cancun meeting that progress on agriculture was their primary objective negotiations in other areas have received less attention and progressed more slowly this paper considers that prioritisation and suggests that the interests of developing countries in the current round of trade negotiations are much broader than is suggested by the narrow range of agricultural issues that have dominated negotiations a true development round would require a significant reprioritisation of many areas of the wto s current agenda

a meta analysis investigation of the direction of the energy gdp causal relationship implications for the growth degrowth dialogue abstract the complex relation between energy use and the economic process has long attracted attention issues such as the scarcity of energy resources energy theory of value degrowth and a growth approaches are closely related to the relationship between energy and development the present study traces the implications of the energy gdp causality dialogue for the context of the growth degrowth debate where the energy development link plays a decisive role in that context the present research investigates the possible existence of a fundamental macro direction of causality between energy use and economic growth that is not influenced by study specific characteristics and events towards this objective we perform a meta analysis that takes into account 158 studies on causality between energy and gdp covering the period 1978 2011 this is the first time to our knowledge that meta analysis has been applied to investigate the direction of the energy and gdp causal relationship the meta analysis results neither support the existence of a fundamental macro direction nor the so called neutrality hypothesis e gdp in the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth

reconciling the conflict between the pollution haven hypothesis and an emerging trajectory of international technology transfer abstract many developing countries have relied on technology transfer through foreign direct investment fdi from developed countries as a primary means of technology acquisition however recent increased global eco consciousness and linking of trade and investment with environmental issues has the potential of disrupting these investment flows this paper investigates the validity of the pollution haven hypothesis which claims that an open market regime will encourage the flow of generally low technology polluting industries to developing countries from a neo technology trade perspective in the process an emerging trajectory of international technology transfer favoring high technology industries is established this paper concludes that positive measures enhancing fdi is not only crucial for technology upgrading but at the same time brings about enhanced environmental welfare through transfer of eco friendly products and production processes

integrating bioenergy into computable general equilibrium models a survey in the past years biofuels have received increased attention since they were believed to contribute to rural development energy security and to fight global warming it became clear though that bioenergy cannot be evaluated independently of the rest of the economy and that national and international feedback effects are important computable general equilibrium cge models have been widely employed in order to study the effects of international climate policies the main characteristic of these models is their encompassing scope global models cover the whole world economy disaggregated into regions and countries as well as diverse sectors of economic activity such a modelling framework unveils direct and indirect feedback effects of certain policies or shocks across sectors and countries cge models are thus well suited for the study of bioenergy biofuel policies one can currently find various approaches in the literature of incorporating bioenergy into a cge framework this paper gives an overview of existing approaches critically assesses their respective power and discusses the advantages of cge models compared to partial equilibrium models grouping different approaches into categories and highlighting their advantages and disadvantages is important for giving a structure to this rather recent and rapidly growing research area and to provide a guidepost for future work

disclosure of contingent environmental liabilities some unintended consequences this research presents evidence that anchoring can influence the judgments and decisions of financial statement users presented with alternative disclosures of contingent environmental liabilities i e the minimum maximum best estimate or range we conjecture that users reliance anchoring on the disclosed parameter to estimate other undisclosed parameters of the distribution of possible losses results in tight distributions despite substantial uncertainty inherent in the estimates tversky and kahneman 1982 therefore different disclosures of the

impacts of ethanol policy on corn prices a review and meta analysis of recent evidence abstract the literature on the impacts of biofuels on agricultural commodity prices is characterized by contradictory findings we review studies published between 2007 and 2014 that estimate the effects of u s corn ethanol policy on corn prices and find estimates ranging from nil to over 80 such divergent results make it difficult to assess the merits of alternative biofuel policies to bring more clarity to the issue and facilitate comparisons across studies we assemble a database of over 150 medium to long run estimates of the effect of corn ethanol production on corn prices from 29 published studies we first normalize corn price impacts by the change in corn ethanol volume to control for the large differences in ethanol quantities across scenarios we then conduct a meta analysis to identify the factors that drive the remaining variation in corn price impacts across studies in addition to ethanol volumes we find that modeling framework projection year inclusion of ethanol co products and biofuel production from other feedstocks explain much of the differences in price effects the results indicate that a one billion gallon expansion of the us corn ethanol mandate in the year 2015 would lead to a three to four percent increase in corn prices with smaller price changes projected in future years

governing biofuels in brazil a comparison of ethanol and biodiesel policies over the last decade brazil has implemented a new and ambitious biofuel program the national program of production and use of biodiesel pnpb when launching this program in 2004 the government stated that it wanted to avoid the same kind of geographical concentration single crop focus dominance of agribusiness and exclusion of family farmers that have occurred with bioethanol production through the proalcool policy since 1975 this paper compares the life histories of the bioethanol and the biodiesel policies of brazil by analyzing their substantive policy content the power and politics of actors that struggle for the design and implementation of the policies and the polity in terms the organization and institutionalization of the policies the paper concludes that both policies have become submerged by and dependent on the polity and politics of primarily the energy and agricultural sectors that operate as the two semi autonomous governance fields this submerging has shaped the substantive contents of biofuels policies and explains why the 2004 biodiesel policy pnpb in spite of its objectives for social inclusion and rural development faces similar problems in implementation as its predecessor the 1975 bioethanol policy proalcool

a north american free trade agreement analytical issues and a computational assessment abstractthe following sections are included introductionissues in analyzing the economic impact of the naftathe computational modelcomputational resultsconclusionsstudy questionsreferencessuggested further reading this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

meta analysis of general and partial equilibrium simulations of doha round outcomes quantification of welfare changes due to trade liberalization plays a crucial role for political decision making however significant differences in simulated gains from liberalization do not serve to increase confidence in quantitative assessments based on trade models a meta analysis of trade simulations under the wto doha round is employed to identify model characteristics that influence the magnitude of simulation results findings from a simple regression model are plausible and show that each simulation experiment represents a complex interaction of model characteristics and experimental settings that may not easily be communicated to nonexperts meta analysis proves to be useful for empirically assessing this complexity

a review of biofuel policies in the major biofuel producing countries of asean production targets policy drivers and impacts since the turn of this century development of biofuels have progressed rapidly in indonesia malaysia philippines and thailand the major biofuels producing countries in the asean association of south east asian nations the article analyses the biofuel polices underlying drivers and way forward for sustained biofuel development in these countries favorable regulatory and economic mechanisms have played an important role in the production utilization and market penetration of biofuels in these countries a large variety of biofuel support policies are in place ranging from policy targets blending mandates tax incentives and other financial schemes to stimulate the development and adoption of biofuels indonesia is leading the region in biodiesel production and thailand is leading in ethanol production though each of these countries have had occasional setbacks in their production in totality there has been positive growth in biofuel production and an upward trend in future is likely with increased demand consumption enforcement of mandates and realization of policy targets the biofuel development of these countries is motivated by several factors mainly their concerns for energy security e g to reduce the dependence of oil imports and socio economic development e g to increase income generating opportunities climate change is not the primary motive of these countries to pursue biofuel development however sustainable production of biofuels and reliance on second generation biofuels can provide opportunities for these countries to translate their growth potential into economic revenues under carbon finance and thus address greenhouse gas emissions and climate change concerns

biofuels and economic development a computable general equilibrium analysis for tanzania abstract biofuels could offer new economic opportunities for low income countries we use a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of tanzania to evaluate different biofuels production options and estimate their impacts on growth and poverty our results indicate that maximizing the poverty reducing effects of biofuels production in countries like tanzania will require engaging and improving the productivity of smallholder farmers evidence shows that cassava based ethanol production is more profitable than other feedstock options cassava also generates more pro poor growth than sugarcane based systems however if smallholder yields can be improved rather than expanding cultivated land then both sugarcane and cassava out grower schemes generate similar pro poor outcomes we conclude that in so far as the public investments needed to establish a biofuels industry are consistent with other development needs then producing biofuels will enhance economic development in countries like tanzania

negotiating reductions in agricultural support implications of technology and factor mobility this paper highlights the joint significance of agricultural technology and factor mobility in determining the impact of changing support policies the impact of across the board reductions in farm support on output exports employment and land values will vary systematically across countries depending on their relative reliance on export output and input subsidies furthermore considerable maneuvering room exists even after an aggregate reduction in support is agreed upon for example the aggregate u s producer subsidy equivalent could be reduced while leaving unchanged the demand for farm labor by shifting the mix of remaining subsidies toward inputs which are complementary