the determinants of the management hierarchy evidence from italian plants abstract the paper aims to test some of the predictions of economic theory on the organizational architecture by looking at the relation between the depth of the management hierarchy of plants and plant and industry specific variables i test this relation through the estimates of an ordered logit econometric model on a sample of 438 italian manufacturing plants the findings show that the plant size the characteristics i e vintage and extent of use of the production and communication technology in use the plant s ownership status i e state versus private ownership and differences in the nationality of firms to which plants belong figure prominently in explaining the complexity of a plant s organization

state dependence and heterogeneity in fishing location choice to explore the distinction between state dependence and heterogeneity in repeated decisions this paper combines a mixed logit model with a state dependence parameterization from the marketing literature to study fishing location choices of commercial sea urchin divers in california it examines implications of ignoring either effect and finds in all cases that true state dependence is an important determinant of location choice consequently spatial policies like marine reserves can lead to differences in the short and long run behavioral responses of the fishing fleet under some specifications random preference parameters are statistically significant when state dependence is excluded from the model but when it is included random preference parameters are not significant in other specifications including state dependence only dampens the variability in preference parameters these results highlight the importance of gathering and analyzing diary type data for commercial fisheries as well as for similar choice problems in recreation demand

limit pricing and the in effectiveness of the carbon tax we present a theory of limit pricing monopoly in non renewable resource production facing a very inelastic demand an oil monopoly seeks to induce the highest price that does not destroy its demand unlike the conventional hotellian analysis the monopoly tolerates some ordinary substitutes to its oil but deters high potential ones with limit pricing policy induced extraction changes do not obey the usual logic for example oil taxes have no effect on current oil production extraction increases when high potential substitutes are promoted but can be effectively reduced by supporting ordinary substitutes the carbon tax not only applies to oil it also penalizes its ordinary carbon substitutes whose market shares are taken over by the monopoly thus the carbon tax ambiguously affects current and long term oil production and carbon emissions

monopoly extraction of a nonrenewable resource facing capacity constrained renewable competition abstract this paper studies monopoly extraction of a nonrenewable resource with the presence of a competitively supplied capacity constrained renewable substitute the monopolist staves off the renewable supply when the latter becomes competitive and then lets the resource price jump up

should we be worried about the green paradox announcement effects of the acid rain program this paper presents the first empirical test of the green paradox hypothesis according to which well intended but imperfectly implemented environmental policies may lead to detrimental outcomes due to supply side responses we use the introduction of the acid rain program in the u s as a case study the theory predicts that owners of coal deposits expecting future sales to decline would supply more of their resource between the announcement of the acid rain program and its implementation moreover the incentive to increase supply would be stronger for owners of high sulfur coal this would all else equal induce an increase in sulfur dioxide emissions using data on prices heat input and sulfur content of coal delivered to u s power plants we find strong evidence of a price decrease and of an increase in the sulfur premium some indication that the amount of coal used might have increased and no evidence of fuel switching towards higher sulfur coal overall our evidence suggests that while the mechanism indicated by the theory might be at work market conditions and concurrent regulation largely prevented a green paradox from arising these results have implications for the design of climate policies

unilateral climate policy and the green paradox extraction costs matter i analyze the effect of unilateral climate policies in a two country model where fossil fuel extraction costs depend on both current extraction and remaining stock and where a constant marginal cost clean substitute is available an intensification of climate policy in the country with an initially stricter policy does not increase early fossil fuel extraction i e there is no weak green paradox or the present value of pollution costs i e there is no strong green paradox if energy demand in that country is initially met with a mix of fossil fuel and a substitute whether a stricter climate policy in the country with an initially laxer policy causes a weak green paradox depends on the price elasticity of energy demand and the strength of the flow and stock dependence of extraction costs if the reduction of total extraction is sufficiently strong it overcompensates for a weak green paradox with respect to pollution costs thus a weak green paradox does not necessarily imply a strong green paradox due to stock dependence politique climatique unilaterale et paradoxe vert l incidence des couts d extraction l article analyse l effet des politiques climatiques unilaterales dans un modele a deux pays ou les couts d extraction de combustibles fossiles dependent a la fois de l extraction actuelle et du stock residuel et ou la disponibilite d un substitut energetique propre et constant a cout marginal demeure une intensification des politiques climatiques dans le pays de pair avec une politique initialement plus stricte n augmente ni l extraction precoce des combustibles fossiles c est a dire qu il n y a pas de paradoxe vert faible ni la valeur actuelles des couts de pollution c est a dire qu il n y a pas de paradoxe vert accru x00ab pour autant que la demande en energie dans ce pays est initialement satisfaite par une combinaison d un combustible fossile et d un substitut qu une politique climatique plus stricte dans ce pays dote d une politique initialement plus laxiste entrane un paradoxe vert moins prononce depend de l elasticite par rapport au prix de la demande d energie de l importance du flux et de la dependance en matiere de stock relativement aux couts d extraction si une reduction de l extraction totale est suffisamment forte elle surcompensera un paradoxe vert limite relativement aux couts de pollution ainsi un faible paradoxe vert n engendre pas necessairement un fort paradoxe vert en raison de la dependance au stock

the role of spatial scale in the timing of uncertain environmental policy the spatial scale of an environmental problem is dictated by boundaries physical boundaries limit the extent of impacts while the scale of decision making creates perceived boundaries beyond which impacts are ignored by decision makers while it is well understood that uncertainty and irreversibility will alter policy decisions aimed at alleviating environmental impacts the effect of spatial scales both physical and perceived is less understood when spatial scale is included in a real options model of environmental policy adoption results indicate that the importance and influence of spatial considerations depends on the level of uncertainty stringency of the proposed policy and flexibility of the policy decision recognizing spatial scale may force policy adoption to take place within a window of current damage when spatial scale is small or uncertainty high this window for policy adoption can close precluding policy adoption entirely this undermines well known results demonstrating that changes in uncertainty will only alter the timing of policy adoption in other instances the policy adoption window remains open but the option value increases faster than the benefits of the policy creating a scenario where it is always preferable to delay here the inclusion of an option value can prevent adoption of policies that would be adopted according to traditional cost benefit analysis in general policy decisions will be most affected by spatial considerations when the spatial scale is small damage is spreading fast and the uncertainty in damage spread is high

wages profits and capital intensity evidence from matched worker firm data swedish data on workers matched with firms balance sheet reports are used to examine the relation between wages and firms ability to pay results indicate that experienced and highly educated workers are sorted into profitable firms wages are positively correlated with profits and the capital labor ratio after controlling for worker quality degree of effort supervision job characteristics local unemployment firms employment history and employer size lester s range of pay due to rent sharing is around 12 24 of the mean wage in sweden which is close to the estimates for the united states and united kingdom

an economic evaluation of peru s liquefied natural gas export policy abstract peru s camisea gas fields hold nearly 90 of the country s natural gas reserves in the 1990s the government had a policy to prioritize camisea gas for domestic consumption the revocation of this policy in the 2000s allowed private developers to export 40 of camisea s proven reserves equivalent to one third of peru s total this usd 3 9 billion liquefied natural gas lng export project boasts the largest single foreign direct investment in peru s history a major component of the financing was granted by international financial institutions on economic grounds while the project was expected to yield a substantial return to private investors the export of one third of peru s total proven natural gas reserves is not in line with its long term interests we undertake cost benefit analyses for a series of scenarios starting with the project s formative stage in the mid 2000s and then in 2012 two years after it began its commercial operation in all cases peru does not have sufficient reserves to warrant export and the economic costs far exceed the benefits this policy of lng exports should not have been approved by the government nor should the loans have been granted by international financial institutions to make it possible

static modeling of dynamic recreation behavior implications for prediction and welfare estimation abstract this paper examines the consequences of using a static model of recreation trip taking behavior when the underlying decision problem is dynamic specifically we examine the implications for trip forecasting and welfare estimation using a panel dataset of lake michigan salmon anglers for the 1996 and 1997 fishing seasons we derive and estimate both a structural dynamic model using bellman s equation and a reduced form static model with trip probability expressions mimicking those of the dynamic model we illustrate an inherent identification problem in the reduced form model that creates biased welfare estimates and we discuss the general implications of this for the interpretation of preference parameters in static models we then use both models to simulate trip taking behavior and show that although their in sample trip forecasts are similar their welfare estimates and out of sample forecasts are quite different

a complex systems approach to the value of ecological resources a theory of value sits at the core of every school of economic thought and directs the allocation of resources to competing uses ecological resources complicate the modem neoclassical approach to determining value due to their complex nature considerable non market values and the difficulty in assigning property rights application of the market model through economic valuation only provides analytical solutions based on virtual markets and neither the demand nor supply side techniques of valuation can adequately consider the complex set of biophysical and ecological relations that lead to the provision of ecosystem goods and services this paper sets out a conceptual framework for a complex systems approach to the value of ecological resources this approach is based on there being both an intrinsic quality of ecological resources and a subjective evaluation by the consumer both elements are necessary for economic value this conceptual framework points the way towards a theory of value that incorporates both elements so has implications for principles by which ecological resources can be allocated c 2005 elsevier b v all rights reserved

the supply of non renewable resources there exists no formal treatment of non renewable resource nrr supply systematically deriving quantity as function of price we establish instantaneous restricted fixed reserves and unrestricted nrr supply functions the supply of a nrr at any date and location not only depends on the local contemporary price of the resource but also on prices at all other dates and locations besides the usual law of supply which characterizes the own price effect cross price effects have their own law they can be decomposed into a substitution effect and a stock compensation effect we show that the substitution effect always dominates a price increase at some point in space and time causes nrr supply to decrease at all other points this new but orthodox supply setting extends to nrrs the partial equilibrium analysis of demand and supply policies thereby it provides a generalization of many results about policy induced changes on nrr markets the properties of restricted and unrestricted supply functions are characterized for hotelling homogeneous as well as ricardian non homogeneous reserves for a single deposit as well as for several deposits that endogenously come into production or cease to be active

optimal transition to renewable energy with threshold of irreversible pollution when cheap fossil energy is polluting and pollutant no longer absorbed beyond a certain concentration there is a moment when the introduction of a cleaner renewable energy although onerous is optimal with respect to inter temporal utility the cleaner technology is adopted either instantaneously or gradually at a controlled rate the problem of optimum under viability constraints is 6 dimensional under a continuous discrete dynamic controlled by energy consumption and investment into production of renewable energy viable optima are obtained either with gradual or with instantaneous adoption a longer time horizon increases the probability of adoption of renewable energy and the time for starting this adoption it also increases maximal utility and the probability to cross the threshold of irreversible pollution exploiting a renewable energy starts sooner when adoption is gradual rather than instantaneous the shorter the period remaining after adoption until the time horizon the higher the investment into renewable energy

natural resource economics under the rule of hotelling abstract natural resource stocks held in situ are physical assets equilibrium in the assets market requires that their rates of return be such that their owners are just willing to hold on to them rather than invest elsewhere i discuss a number of factors relating to the evolution of extraction costs to the durability of the resource to market structure and to uncertainty that are important in correctly characterizing the rate of return on holding exhaustible natural resource stocks the emphasis is put on how those factors can potentially help bridge the gap between the basic hotelling s rule of natural resource exploitation and the historical behaviour of the flow price of a number of resources i also highlight some theoretical and empirical issues that need further attention

absolute abundance and relative scarcity environmental policy with implementation lags we study the effectiveness of environmental policy in a model with nonrenewable resources and an unavoidable implementation lag we find that a time lag between the announcement and the implementation of an emissions quota induces an increase in emissions in the period between the policy s announcement and implementation since a binding constraint on emissions restricts energy use during the implementation phase more of the resources must be extracted outside of it we call this the abundance effect in the case of multiple resources that differ in their pollution intensity a second channel emerges since cleaner sources are relatively more valuable when the policy is implemented it is optimal to conserve them before the cap is enforced this ordering effect tends to induce a switch to dirtier resources before the policy is implemented compounding the increase in emissions via the abundance channel using the announcement lag in title iv of the 1990 caaa as a case study we are able to empirically show that the abundance effect and ordering effect are both statistically and economically significant we discuss a number of alternative policy options to deal with these undesirable side effects of policy announcements

extraction capacity and the optimal order of extraction the least cost first extraction rule for deposits with different extraction costs previously has been shown to be invalid in general equilibrium this paper demonstrates that this rule also does not hold in partial equilibrium when extraction capacity is limited necessary and sufficient conditions for several surprising extraction orders are presented if extraction from a high cost resource is constrained it may be optimal to begin extraction from a high cost deposit or backstop strictly before extracting from a lower cost deposit if extraction from a low cost resource is limited it may be optimal to exhaust a high cost deposit strictly before the low cost deposit is exhausted or to abandon extraction temporarily from a high cost deposit and then to exhaust it later the analysis demonstrates how extraction constraints affect the order of extraction and shows that certain cost reversals are caused by limited extraction capacity rather than by the general equilibrium definition of extraction costs

on the optimal order of natural resource use when the capacity of the inexhaustible substitute is limited consider a general equilibrium framework where the marginal cost of extraction from several deposits of an exhaustible resource is constant in terms of an inexhaustible perfect substitute and differs between deposits the instantaneous rate of production form the inexhaustible resource is subject to a capacity constraint

are food choices really habitual integrating habits variety seeking and compensatory choice in a utility maximizing framework given the large number of food choices that consumers make each day it seems likely that they will adopt decision strategies that minimize cognitive effort to examine this issue we develop a conceptual and empirical model of habitual choice and the factors that result in transitions to two strategies other than habitual selection utility maximizing choice and a variety seeking strategy our approach provides an alternative to traditional state dependence methods used in this type of panel data we apply this framework to the choice of two food products that illustrate the heterogeneity across types of products in decision strategies and routine choice patterns copyright 2013 oxford university press

decision making under uncertainty capturing dynamic brand choice processes in turbulent consumer goods markets we construct two models of the behavior of consumers in an environment where there is uncertainty about brand attributes in our models both usage experience and advertising exposure give consumers noisy signals about brand attributes consumers use these signals to update their expectations of brand attributes in a bayesian manner the two models are 1 a dynamic model with immediate utility maximization and 2 a dynamic forward looking model in which consumers maximize the expected present value of utility over a planning horizon given this theoretical framework we derive from the bayesian learning framework how brand choice probabilities depend on past usage experience and advertising exposures we then form likelihood functions for the models and estimate them on nielsen scanner data for detergent we find that the functional forms for experience and advertising effects that we derive from the bayesian learning framework fit the data very well relative to flexible ad hoc functional forms such as exponential smoothing and also perform better at out of sample prediction another finding is that in the context of consumer learning of product attributes although the forward looking model fits the data statistically better at conventional significance levels both models produce similar parameter estimates and policy implications our estimates indicate that consumers are risk averse with respect to variation in brand attributes which discourages them from buying unfamiliar brands using the estimated behavioral models we perform various scenario evaluations to find how changes in marketing strategy affect brand choice both in the short and long run a key finding obtained from the policy experiments is that advertising intensity has only weak short run effects but a strong cumulative effect in the long run the substantive content of the paper is potentially of interest to academics in marketing economics and decision sciences as well as product managers marketing research managers and analysts interested in studying the effectiveness of marketing mix strategies our paper will be of particular interest to those interested in the long run effects of advertising note that our estimation strategy requires us to specify explicit behavioral models of consumer choice behavior derive the implied relationships among choice probabilities past purchases and marketing mix variables and then estimate the behavioral parameters of each model such an estimation strategy is referred to as structural estimation and econometric models that are based explicitly on the consumer s maximization problem and whose parameters are parameters of the consumers utility functions or of their constraints are referred to as structural models a key benefit of the structural approach is its potential usefulness for policy evaluation the parameters of structural models are invariant to policy that is they do not change due to a change in the policy in contrast the parameters of reduced form brand choice models are in general functions of marketing strategy variables e g consumer response to price may depend on pricing policy as a result the predictions of reduced form models for the outcomes of policy experiments may be unreliable because in making the prediction one must assume that the model parameters are unaffected by the policy change since the agents in our models choose among many alternative brands their choice probabilities take the form of higher order integrals we employ monte carlo methods to approximate these integrals and estimate our models using simulated maximum likelihood estimation of the dynamic forward looking model also requires that a dynamic programming problem be solved in order to form the likelihood function for this we use a new approximation method based on simulation and interpolation techniques these estimation techniques may be of interest to researchers and policy makers in many fields where dynamic choice among discrete alternatives is important such as marketing decision sciences labor and health economics and industrial organization

choice and temporal welfare impacts incorporating history into discrete choice models abstract static cross sectional discrete choice models are often employed to calculate welfare measures in environmental valuation these measures will be biased if the underlying preference function includes temporally related attributes and lagged dependent variables nevertheless static models continue to dominate the literature in this paper we provide an approach to estimating discrete choice models that includes consideration of prior behavior and past attribute perceptions and allows for testing consistency with random utility maximization in a time series context we apply this model to the case of recreational fishing site choice and participation comparing our time series approach to static versions we find that the time series model provides a richer behavioral characterization of site choice we also find significant differences between cross section and time series welfare measures the time series model raises several concerns about the specification of the policy impact and the subsequent welfare measurement that are not apparent in the static case

on price taking behavior in a nonrenewable resource cartel fringe game abstract we consider a nonrenewable resource game with one cartel and a set of fringe members we show that i the outcomes of the closed loop and the open loop nonrenewable resource game with the fringe members as price takers the cartel fringe game a la salant 1976 coincide and ii when the number of fringe firms becomes arbitrarily large the equilibrium outcome of the closed loop nash game does not coincide with the equilibrium outcome of the closed loop cartel fringe game thus the outcome of the cartel fringe open loop equilibrium can be supported as an outcome of a subgame perfect equilibrium however the interpretation of the cartel fringe model where from the outset the fringe is assumed to be price taker as a limit case of an asymmetric oligopoly with the agents playing nash cournot does not extend to the case where firms can use closed loop strategies

the rise and fall of bioenergy abstract if bioenergy has a less negative impact on the climate than fossil energy it may be optimal to have a significant increase in the use of bioenergy over time due to the difference in the way the climate is affected by the two types of energy the future time path of the use of bioenergy may be non monotonic it may be optimal to first have an increase in its use and later a reduction optimal taxes subsidies are derived both for the first best case and for the case of a constraint on the size of the fossil tax

embracing model uncertainty strategies for response pooling and model averaging econometricians modeling stated preference sp data and most other types of data are confronted with the uncomfortable reality that our knowledge of the true model is limited with only certain variables suggested by the application at hand and general classes of functional forms and error structures suggested by the literature accepting our limited knowledge we pursue strategies for analyzing sp data that are more robust to uncertainties in our knowledge of the true model these include non parametric and parametric likelihood based tests of pooling responses from different elicitation formats and a frequentist based model averaging approach for estimating willingness to pay functions we argue that these strategies lead to increased econometric integrity and empower the ultimate users of models such as policy decision makers and even juries to better assess the robustness of the results we apply these approaches to an sp survey of saltwater angling in alaska which utilized split sample rankings and ratings elicitation methods while an important goal of our paper is to develop practicable modeling strategies that will ultimately lead to more robust conclusions and more confidence by the users of sp results an equally important goal is to engender a critical discussion of how we can make the analysis of sp data more robust

the alberta dilemma optimal sharing of a water resource by an agricultural and an oil sector we fully characterize the optimal time paths of production and water usage by an agricultural and an oil sector that share a limited water resource we show that for any given water stock if the oil stock is sufficiently large it will become optimal to have a phase during which the agricultural sector is inactive followed by a phase during which both sectors are active again the agricultural sector will always be active in the end as the oil stock is depleted if agriculture is not constrained by the given natural inflow of water then oil extraction will always end with a phase during which oil production follows a pure hotelling path otherwise oil production never follows a pure hotelling path because its full marginal cost must always reflect not only the imputed rent on the finite oil stock but also the positive opportunity cost of water usage the case of oil and agriculture sharing a water resource is but one example our analysis provides a framework to generalize the hotelling rule to other cases where the full marginal opportunity cost of extracting a nonrenewable resource depends on the endogenous activity of some other sector of the economy

optimal transition from coal to gas and renewable power under capacity constraints and adjustment costs this paper studies the optimal transition from existing coal power plants to gas and renewable power under a carbon budget it solves a model of polluting exhaustible resources with capacity constraints and adjustment costs to build coal gas and renewable power plants it finds that optimal investment in renewable energy may start before coal power has been phased out and even before investment in gas has started because doing so allows for smoothing investment over time and reduces adjustment costs gas plants may be used to reduce short term investment in renewable power and associated costs but must eventually be phased out to allow room for carbon free power one risk for myopic agents comparing gas and renewable investment is thus to overestimate the lifetime of gas plants e g when computing the levelized cost of electricity and be biased against renewable power these analytical results are quantified with numerical simulations of the european commission s 2050 energy roadmap

ordering the extraction of polluting nonrenewable resources energy markets are often characterized by the use of multiple nonrenewable resources such as coal and natural gas with different pollution characteristics the same resource may have different qualities as when high and low sulfur coal is used to generate electricity multiple resources are used in providing transportation services such as cars running on gasoline or plug in hybrids that may be fueled by electricity produced from coal when these nonrenewable resources contribute differentially to pollution what is the opti mal sequence of extraction over time harold hotelling 1931 developed the classical theory of extraction of a nonrenewable resource orris c herfindahl 1967 extended the hotelling model by considering many resources with different unit costs of extraction and proposed the least cost first principle extraction must be ordered by cost with the cheapest resource used first others have examined whether herfindahl s model remains valid in a variety of situations in a general equilibrium setting see murray kemp and ngo v long 1980 tracy r lewis 1982 in the presence of setup costs g rard gaudet moreaux and stephen w salant 2001 under het erogeneous demands chakravorty and darrell l krulce 1994 and when the extraction rate is constrained jean pierre amigues et al 1998 stephen p holland 2003 in these studies following hotelling and herfindahl resources were differentiated by cost alone in this paper we abstract from cost considerations and focus on how the sequence of extraction may be affected when resources are differentiated only by their pollution character istics we consider two resources one more polluting than the other without loss of generality consider coal to be the dirty resource and natural gas the clean one both may be used to generate electricity environmental regulation is imposed through a cap on the stock of pollution this may be a stylized approximation of an international agreement such as the kyoto protocol which aims to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere 1 with heterogeneity in pollution the results are nonintuitive and do not depend on the emis sion rates of the resources when the economy is already at its allowable stock of pollution the clean natural gas is used first and use of the dirty coal is postponed to the future this is what one would expect armed with insights from the herfindahl model however when the economy starts from below the ceiling and accumulates pollution coal may be used first and use of the clean natural gas is postponed the optimal strategy is to benefit from natural dilution by build ing the stock of pollution as quickly as possible this is done by burning coal rather than natural

green expectations current effects of anticipated carbon pricing i report evidence that an anticipated strengthening of environmental policy increased emissions i find that the breakdown of the u s senate s 2010 climate effort generated positive excess returns

optimal pricing of depletable replaceable resources the case of landfill tipping fees abstract we develop a general model for pricing a depletable replaceable asset and discuss its application in determining optimal tipping fees for a sanitary landfill we show that the optimal fee includes a component that grows at the real interest rate as space in the landfill is depleted and then drops when a new landfill is built because the scarcity cost of landfill space increases as the landfill is filled it may be optimal to delay a waste reduction program such as recycling composting or incineration until the landfill is partially full

the grey paradox how fossil fuel owners can benefit from carbon taxation abstract this paper considers the distributional impact of optimal carbon taxation on fossil fuel owners a carbon emitting exhaustible resource competes with a dirtier abundant resource and a clean backstop a time dependent carbon tax is set to optimally use these resources under a cap constraint over co 2 atmospheric concentration as the cap is tightened the dirtier resource becomes less competitive compared to the exhaustible resource the competition effect but the timing and duration of extraction of the exhaustible resource is modified the timing effect we provide analytical expressions of these effects and determine conditions over size of reserves pollution contents extraction costs and demand elasticity such that the exhaustible resource owners profits increase as the ceiling is tightened calibrations for the transport and power sectors suggest that the profits of conventional oil and natural gas owners increase compared to a baseline without regulation for plausible carbon ceiling values

the supply side of co2 with country heterogeneity several recent articles have analyzed climate policy paying explicit attention to the fact that carbon resources are non renewable in most of this body of literature the economy is treated as a single unit and in the context of climate policy it seems reasonable to interpret this as the whole world however carbon taxes and other climate policies differ substantially across countries with such heterogeneity the effects on the emission paths of changes in taxes costs and subsidies might be very different from what is found for a hypothetical world of identical countries

abatement r d and growth with a pollution ceiling abstract the consequences of the 2 c climate target and the implicitly imposed ceiling on co2 have been analyzed in several studies we use an endogenous growth model with a ceiling and an abatement option to study the effect of the ceiling on the allocation of limited funds for r d abatement and capital accumulation it is found that the advantagenousness of abatement rises with the cost advantage of fossil fuel versus backstop if the cost advantage is sufficiently large at some point in time it outweighs the costs of abatement and the gains of r d and capital accumulation the reallocation of production towards abatement may cause an increase or decrease in long run consumption in the latter case abatement allows an intertemporal consumption trade off which may even justify the disregard of everlasting growth in case of stock dependent fossil fuel costs an abatement induced speed up of technology development may cause an increase in fossil fuel stock left in situ

the employer size wage gap evidence for britain university of edinburgh and university of sussexfinal version received 5 may 1992 this paper presents estimates for the employer plant size wage gap for britain using anordered probit model selectivity corrected wage equations are estimated for three plant sizecategories in a comparison between plants with more than 500 workers and those with lessthan 100 a wage gap estimate of over 17 per cent is detected the wage effects of unionizationin plants with more than 500 workers is reported as insignificant in contrast to evidenceprovided by idson and feaster 1990 for the united states no evidence of non randomsorting of workers across plant size is detected

optimal harvesting of stochastic spatial resources abstract we characterize the optimal harvest of a renewable resource in a generalized stochastic spatially explicit model despite the complexity of the model we are able to obtain sharp analytical results we find that the optimal harvest rule in general depends upon dispersal patterns of the resource across space and only in special circumstances do we find a modified golden rule of growth that is independent of dispersal patterns we also find that the optimal harvest rule may include closure of some areas to harvest either on a temporary or permanent basis biological reserves reserves alone cannot correct open access but may under sufficient spatial heterogeneity and connectivity increase profits if appropriate harvest controls are in place outside of reserves

the location of overseas production and production for export by u s multinational firms abstract the location of overseas manufacturing production is influenced by common factors that operate in all industries notably proximity to the united states and to other markets within industries opposites attract low wage and low capital intensity parents choose high wage countries production for export is attracted by large internal markets in host countries economies of scale in production presumably make large markets economical as export bases another factor is high trade propensities of host countries u s firms tend to export from high wage countries but labor cost is not in general a major influence on the location of export production

unpacking preference how previous experience affects auto ownership as environmental concerns mount alongside increasing auto dependence research has been devoted to understanding the number of automobiles households own the 2000 us census public use micro sample is used to demonstrate the importance of preference formation in auto ownership by studying auto ownership among recent movers using a multinomial probit model the paper demonstrates that residents in the us transit cities who moved from major metropolitan areas are more likely to own fewer vehicles than counterparts who moved from smaller metropolitan areas and non metropolitan areas it is concluded that these results are due to learned preferences for levels of car ownership once the self reinforcing cultural knowledge of living without cars is lost it could be difficult to regain a focus on children and young adults familiarising them with alternatives to the car may be an important approach to developing collective preferences for fewer cars so wrote kain and fauth over 30 years ago since then energy prices have risen fallen and risen again in 2007 fuel prices in the us were about 30 per cent higher than what they were in 1978 energy information administration 2007 table 5 24 increasing awareness of introduction increasing energy prices rapid growth in petroleum imports and the importance of transport in total petroleum consumption have heightened the interest of analysts and policy makers in measures that would decrease auto ownership and use kain and fauth 1978 p 305 2 rachel weinberger and frank goetzke environmental effects and a relatively new awareness of the importance in curbing greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning fossil fuels are additional impetuses policy makers have for continuing to examine the question of auto ownership and use in 2005 americans registered 232 million passenger cars vans light duty trucks and sport utility vehicles the number represents 1 07 registered vehicles per person over 18 usdot bts 2007 that is to say the us has more motor vehicles in the private passenger class than it has adults and it has 1 2 motor vehicles for each licensed driver vehicle miles travelled per year have increased by 40 per cent over the past 20 years this increase is due only in part to population growth per vehicle or roughly per driver annual mileage has increased by 30 per cent fuel economy has remained relatively constant since 1990 resulting in an increase in fossil fuel consumption and related emissions as policy makers seek to understand the seemingly unabated and insatiable appetite for driving it is incument upon us to revisit the issue seeking increasingly nuanced understandings of the motivators for this behaviour in the current paper we examine past research on auto ownership and use in the us measured typically as vehicle miles travelled vmt we add to the literature by measuring the impact of a person s previous observations and experiences on automobile ownership these observations and experiences constitute what we consider learning opportunities which form the basis of preference arentze and timmermans 2003 and 2005 the previous experience of interest is exposure to different levels of automobile ownership which we proxy by metro area versus non metro area living we estimate a model of vehicle ownership that highlights the importance of preserving and promoting environments where auto ownership is optional so that such learning opportunities continue to exist specifically our finding is that people who are likely to have been exposed to relatively lower levels of auto ownership are more likely to own fewer autos other things being equal this becomes critically important when we analyse the literature which consistently holds that reduced vmt in dense urban areas is unlikely to be related to density alone but that it is also at least partly due to reduced levels of auto ownership that is auto owners in dense areas may use their vehicles as frequently and intensively as auto owners in low density areas boarnet and crane 2000 however the option of choosing to live without an automobile or with fewer autos per licensed driver contributes to a lower vmt per capita in dense areas the paper is divided into five sections following this introduction the second section describes previous research on auto ownership and use as well as describing the theoretical work that leads to our approach the third section describes the data and the model this is followed by an exposition and analysis of the model results the final section describes conclusions following immediately from this research

combining revealed and stated preference data to estimate the nonmarket value of ecological services an assessment of the state of the science this paper reviews the marketing transportation and environmental economics literature on the joint estimation of revealed preference rp and stated preference sp data the rp and sp approaches are first described with a focus on the strengths and weaknesses of each recognizing these strengths and weaknesses the potential gains from combining data are described a classification system for combined data that emphasizes the type of data combination and the econometric models used is proposed a methodological review of the literature is pursued based on this classification system examples from the environmental economics literature are highlighted a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each type of jointly estimated model is then presented suggestions for future research in particular opportunities for application of these models to environmental quality valuation are presented

different firm size effects on wages for supervisors and workers abstract we find that i the plant size effect for supervisors is at least double that of non supervisors ii the difference is statistically significant and iii the firm size effect for supervisors is not explained by differential returns on standard variables

the economics of ccs why have ccs technologies not had an international breakthrough abstract eleven years on since the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change was awarded the nobel peace prize in recognition of its efforts in combating climate change fossil fuels remain the most dominant global energy source as the total replacement of fossil fuel energy is not expected to take place immediately in the near future the international energy agency has repeatedly declared carbon capture and sequestration ccs as a key technology for mitigating climate change however ccs lacks the scale required for substantial reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power generation even though ccs is one of the key technologies for mitigating climate change why has this technology not had an international breakthrough to shed light on this question this paper employs a simple model of energy generation scrutinizes the economic drivers of ccs based on the analytical results and discusses the possible obstacles that can prevent a widespread rollout of the technology this is followed by a state of the art in literature pertaining to the economics of ccs and a discussion that points to a dichotomy between the economic theory and reality the study concludes with some policy suggestions and directions for future research

opec unconventional oil and climate change on the importance of the order of extraction we show that opec s market power contributes to climate change by enabling producers of relatively expensive and dirty oil to start producing before opec reserves are depleted we examine the importance of this extraction sequence effect by calibrating and simulating a cartel fringe model of the global oil market while welfare net of climate damage under the cartel fringe equilibrium can be significantly lower than under a first best outcome almost the entire welfare loss is due to the sequence effect of opec s market power in our benchmark calibration the cost of the sequence effect amounts to 15 trillion us which corresponds to 97 percent of the welfare loss moreover we find that an increase in non opec oil reserves decreases global welfare in a counterfactual world without non opec oil global welfare would be 13 trillion us higher 10 trillion us of which is due to lower climate damages

too much coal too little oil abstract our main message is that it is optimal to use less coal and more oil once one takes account of coal being a backstop which emits much more co2 than oil the way of achieving this is to have a steeply rising carbon tax during the initial oil only phase a less steeply rising carbon tax during the intermediate phase where oil and coal are used alongside each other and the following coal only phase and a flat carbon tax during the final renewables only phase the laissez faire outcome uses coal forever or starts with oil until it is no longer cost effective to do so and then switches to coal we also analyze the effects on the optimal transition times and carbon tax of a carbon free albeit expensive backstop solar or wind energy subsidizing renewables to just below the cost of coal does not affect the oil only phase the gain in green welfare dominates the welfare cost of the subsidy if the subsidy gap is small and the global warming challenge is acute without a carbon tax a prohibitive coal tax leads to less oil left in situ and substantially delays introduction of renewables but curbs global warming substantially as coal is never used finally we characterize under general conditions what the optimal sequencing oil and coal looks like

climate policy and the optimal extraction of high and low carbon fossil fuels we study how restricting co2 emissions affcts resource prices and depletion over time we use a hotelling style model with two nonrenewable fossil fuels that differ in their carbon content e g coal and natural gas and that are imperfect substitutes in final good production we study both an unexpected constraint and an anticipated constraint both shocks induce intertemporal substitution of resource use when emissions are unexpectedly restricted it is cost effective to use high carbon resources relatively more less intensively on impact if this resource is relatively scarce abundant if the emission constraint is anticipated it is cost effective to use relatively more less of the low carbon input before the constraint becomes binding in order to conserve relatively more less of the high carbon input for the period when climate policy is active in case the high carbon resource is relatively scarce abundant

modeling nonrenewable resources use with multiple demands and multiple sources the theoretical literature following hotelling j polit econ 39 137 175 1931 assumed that all nonrenewable resource needs are satisfied by one type of resource e g oil extractible at different per unit costs this formulation implicitly assumes that all users are the same distance from each resource pool that all users can switch costlessly from one type of resource to another e g liquid fossil fuels to coal or vice versa and that all users are subject to the same regulations these assumptions imply as herfindahl extractive resources and taxation university of wisconsin press madison pp 63 90 1967 showed that in competitive equilibrium all users will exhaust a lower cost resource completely before beginning to extract a higher cost resource simultaneous extraction of different grades of oil or of oil and coal should never occur in trying to apply the single demand curve model during the last twenty years several teams of authors have independently found a need to generalize it to account for users differing in their 1 location 2 resource needs or 3 regulatory environment each research team found that herfindahl s strong unrealistic conclusion disappears in the generalized model in its place a weaker herfindahl result emerges since each research team focussed on a different application however it has not always been clear that everyone has been describing the same generalized model the goal in this paper is to integrate the findings of these teams and to present an easily accessible generalization of the nonrenewable resource model to multiple demand curves

strike when the force is with you optimal stopping with application to resource equilibria optimal investment in a nonrenewable resource project occurs when the rate of increase of the project s forward value falls to the force of interest this stopping rule yields a financial interpretation of resource quality as being a property of the project rather than of individual units of reserves it also leads to re interpretations of a rent as the present value of the project rather than of units of reserves and b hotelling s insight as not a rule for the path of rents but an equilibrium algorithm for price the analysis is extended to sequential development of pesticides antibiotics and forests

are renewable energy policies climate friendly the role of capacity constraints and market power abstract this paper studies the impacts of renewable energy support policies on energy prices fossil fuel supply and thus carbon emissions from fossil fuels such supports are climate friendly if the renewables are already competitive against fossil fuels but if the renewables are not yet competitive the climate change impacts are often ambiguous and are sensitive to capacity constraints of renewables production and to the fossil fuel market structure if the renewables do not have capacity constraints then the subsidies are subject to the green paradox under perfect competition but might be climate friendly under monopoly supports for capacity constrained renewables under perfect competition lead to more current fossil fuel supply but delay fossil fuel exhaustion time and these effects are reversed under monopoly our results highlight the importance of considering the long term effects on fossil fuel supply as well as capacity constraints and market power in designing renewable energy policies and evaluating their carbon footprints

a characterization of sustainability with indicators abstract economists favor the use of criteria to characterize sustainability in practice policy makers use indicators i e measurements based on the current economic state and decisions representing given sustainability issues in this paper i introduce a criterion characterizing sustainability with indicators and thresholds acting as constraints i interpret the thresholds as minimal rights to be guaranteed to all generations and define sustainable trajectories as those satisfying all the constraints at all times the new criterion is a generalized maximin criterion the approach is applied to a simple production consumption economy with non renewable resources to derive some policy recommendations on the use of indicators to deal with sustainability i discuss the implications of such a criterion in terms of trade off between sustainability thresholds efficiency and time consistency in particular the resulting problem is time inconsistent and sustainability thresholds may be revised over time following the time inconsistent policy based on indicators with dynamic revision of the thresholds may however result in a sustained utility path and even in utility growth

financial stability at risk due to investing rapidly in renewable energy we present novel insights about effective energy policies using an agent based model the model describes relevant feedback mechanisms between technological evolution the interbank market and the electricity sector analysis with it shows that energy policies affect interbank connectivity and hence the likelihood of cascades of bank failures this effect has not been studied before in the literature in particular we find that investments in renewable energy reduce interbank connectivity increasing the probability of bank failures while raising taxes on energy has an opposite effect increasing the share of renewable energy in electricity production initially increases the price of electricity and thus improves profits and the ability to re pay debts of incumbent power plants however when the share of renewable energy increases too quickly financial stability may be at stake as the burden of financing investments in renewable energy offsets the improved profitability of existing power stations all in all this study provides a unique and novel perspective on the relationship between renewable energy investments and financial stability

emission regulation of markets with sluggish supply structures i examine regulation in the presence of convex investment costs and technology specific capacity stocks announcement of future emission taxes reduces current emissions unless fossil fuels are scarce in which case the effect is ambiguous substantial future emission reductions require action today because it takes time to build up clean production capacity and phase out dirty capacity the pigou tax must be coupled with sector specific investment taxes or subsidies to induce the socially optimal trajectory if the private discount rate differs from the social discount rate if such investment taxes or subsidies are unavailable a time inconsistent second best alternative may be to tax emissions above the pigouvian level during the transition phase the theory is complemented with a stylized numerical model of the us electricity market

intertemporal depletion of resource sites by spatially distributed users mineral deposits and other exhaustible resources are scattered around the globe as are their users yet the theory for analyzing depletion of such resources assumes that all resource sites and all users are located in the same place when applying the theory therefore one is forced to disregard what often seems to be an important real world consideration our purpose here is to generalize harold hotelling s 1931 theory of exhaustible resources to accommodate situations in which resource sites and their users are spatially distributed our analysis has many applications it can be applied to a conventional exhaustible resource like oil alternatively it can be applied to an unconventional exhaustible resource like scarce landfill space shipments of solid waste to landfills in other states or countries have become a prominent public policy issue eduardo ley et al 2000 finally our analysis can be applied in situations where the space reflects not geographical location but characteristics of the resource e g the sulfur content hardness and so forth of coal which users find distinctive 2 only two theoretical papers in resource economics have introduced spatial considerations 3 jean jacques laffont and michel moreaux 1986 studied the extraction of resources from sites located along a line segment with all users at one end charles kolstad 1994 was the first to consider spatially distributed users in his formulation consumers are distributed uniformly along a line segment with resource sites at each end kolstad s approach although innovative requires that the set of users be parti

fossil fuels stock externalities and backstop technology the hotelling exhaustible resource model is extended to include stock pollution and nonpolluting backstop technology it is shown that an optimal energy consumption strategy typically includes a regime in which the two energy sources are consumed simultaneously along this regime fossil fuel consumption decreases and backstop consumption increases together fossil fuel and backstop consumption may form eleven optimal regime combinations a decrease in the backstop price decreases the initial level of optimal emission tax

the efficient use of multiple sources of a nonrenewable resource under supply cost uncertainty whereas in a deterministic world leaving a high cost source of a nonrenewable resource untouched as long as a less costly source is available is always efficient this may not be the case in a stochastic world conditions are derived under which it can be efficient to use a risky supply source in order to conserve a cheaper nonrisky source or to use a costly nonrisky source while a less costly risky source is still available a supply embargo can be interpreted as a limiting case the nonrisky source can be reinterpreted as an artificial stockpile

specialization and non renewable resources ricardo meets ricardo abstract the one demand hotelling model fails to explain the observed specialization of non renewable resources we develop a model with multiple demands and resources to show that specialization of resources according to demand is driven by ricardian comparative advantage while the order of resource use over time is determined by ricardian absolute advantage an abundant resource with absolute advantage in all demands must be initially employed in all demands when each resource has an absolute advantage in some demand no resource may be used exclusively the two by two model is characterized resource and demand specific taxes are shown to have significant substitution effects

wage size relation and the structure of work force composition in italian manufacturing firms in this paper we study the impact of firms productivity and scale of activity on the cost of labour for italian manufacturing firms investigating how the work force composition affects the total expenditures for wages our analysis reveals that once productivity differences among firms are accounted for size still retains a positive effect on cost of labour we show that the source of this phenomenon is the relatively higher proportion of non production workers in bigger firms which results in a cost of labour for white collar workers that increases with increasing firm size copyright the author 2009 published by oxford university press on behalf of the cambridge political economy society all rights reserved oxford university press

testing the consistency of nested logit models with utility maximization abstract this paper provides simple necessary conditions for testing the local consistency of nested logit models with stochastic utility maximization a graphical analysis illustrates the extent to which these conditions extend the range of admissible dissimilarity coefficients beyond the unit interval

crossing the river a comparative perspective on italian employment dynamics crossing the river a comparative perspective on italian employment dynamics this paper studies the unprecedented job destruction which occurred throughout europe during the recession of the early 1990s it raises the question whether changes in the institutional structure of various countries labour markets may have deepened the normal effects of the recession institutional legal and sociopolitical safety nets were used to protect many european employees from technological and demand shocks throughout the 1970s and early 1980s important steps have since been taken to deregulate industrial relations european labour markets may currently be in the middle of the river they already experience the negative employment aspects of an american labour market without yet enjoying its benefits based on a study of several countries the article concludes that the social costs of deregulation will be smallest if the intended destination of the transition is reached credibly and without hesitation policy makers must point decisively towards a well defined riverbank rather than leaving the labour market in the middle of the stream giuseppe bertola and andrea ichino

when additional resource stocks reduce welfare in the dominant firm model we show that an increase of the fringe s reserves of a nonrenewable resource may lead to a decrease in aggregate discounted social welfare this happens when the difference between the fringe s extraction cost and the dominant firm s is positive and large enough we also show that welfare might decrease if the fringe s marginal extraction cost decreases

corporate tournaments human capital acquisition and the firm size wage relation this paper provides a possible explanation for the empirically observed size wage effect and inter industry wage differences it develops a model in which incentives for workers to accumulate general human capital are provided by corporate tournaments where workers with the highest level of general human capital win promotions given that the prizes in such tournaments are determined by outside market conditions the investment and the equilibrium wages depend on firm and industry characteristics the model implies that workers in bigger firms and in more technology intensive and profitable firms and industries acquire more human capital and receive higher wages and benefits

a hotelling model with a ceiling on the stock of pollution abstract environmental agreements such as the kyoto protocol aim to stabilize the amount of carbon in the atmosphere which is mainly caused by the burning of nonrenewable resources such as coal we characterize the solution to the textbook hotelling model when there is a ceiling on the stock of emissions we consider both increasing and decreasing demand for energy we show that when the ceiling is binding both the low cost nonrenewable resource and the high cost renewable resource may be used jointly a key implication is that if energy demand were to decline in the long run we may supplement energy supply through clean renewables to meet the environmental standard but then revert back to using only dirty fossil fuels in the future when the ceiling has become non binding that is the much heralded societal transition to clean energy resources may be short lived

energy transition under irreversibility a two sector approach in this paper we analyze the optimal energy transition of a two sector economy energy and final goods with exhaustible oil reserves a renewable source of energy and a pollution threat the latter corresponds to a pollution threshold above which a part of the capital is lost following flooding for instance we show that the optimal energy transition path may correspond to a corner regime in which the economy starts using both resources then crosses the pollution threshold and therefore loses a part of its capital at the end the sole adoption of the renewable energy is optimal only in the long run this result is in line with the asymptotic energy transition arguments stating that the transition to clean energy may happen only in the long run we also show that economy reduces the use of energy resource as long as the productivity of capital and energy services is high therefore public policies should promote investments in energy innovation that targets productive sector home appliances and buildings and helps to save both money and energy we extend the present model to allow for additional investment in energy saving technologies our main results show that this additional investment favours the energy transition in the sense that it increases the time within which the economy may experience the catastrophe and the welfare of the society for policy implications economic instruments such as taxes on dirty energy subsidies on clean energy or incentives for energy saving technologies need to be implemented in order to promote the energy transition this is particularly important for developing countries that mostly rely on polluting energy resources and are the most vulnerable to climate change but those economic instruments should be carefully designed in line with the asymptotic energy transition result

hotelling rents in hotelling space product differentiation in exhaustible resource markets abstract using a hotelling spatial model this paper examines the interrelationship between resource rents in related exhaustible resource markets in a product space context we show that even if two exhaustible resources are not currently in the same market e g coal and oil differential scarcity will link their current scarcity rents this applies analogously in geographic markets another result is that monopoly accelerates depletion of substitutes and may not affect time to depletion of the monopolized resource

restricting the trash trade in early 1999 the mayor of new york city announced a plan for exporting most of his city s waste about 13 000 tons per day to other states the responses escalated an already growing war of words about interstate waste shipments a pennsylvania state legislator bluntly called the mayor s plan irresponsible and the governor of new jersey labeled it a direct assault on her state a spokesperson for new york city s department of sanitation coolly staked out the city s position you can t stop interstate commerce if virginia is the least expensive place to deliver this solid waste then that is where it is going to go the response was swift various legislators joined environmental activists to send 50 pounds of trash to the mayor s office led by the governor s efforts the virginia general assembly subsequently responded with proposed legislation to restrict significantly imports of waste see r h melton 1998 virginia s legislative proposal came on the heels of numerous similar proposals by other states to which large shipments of waste are transported interstate shipments of waste involve almost the entire nation 47 states export waste and 44 states import waste and represent nearly 1 billion annually in disposal and transportation fees since the early 1990 s these shipments have increased by more than 30 percent as officials in importing states have sought to curb these flows the u s supreme court has repeatedly struck down their proposed restrictions as violations of the interstate commerce clause in response the congress has advanced proposals to exempt waste from jurisdiction of that clause to date however very little is known about the positive and normative effects of the various proposals to restrict municipal solid waste transshipments how are the effects of restrictions likely to be distributed among the owners of waste disposal facilities and the users of these services given that the northeast is a net exporter and the midwest is a net importer of waste are the effects likely to differ among regions of the country in this paper we model the interstate market for municipal solid waste and evaluate the potential economic effects of public policies proposed to restrict waste flows these restrictions include local and state requirements stipulating where waste must be landfilled prohibitions on the import or export of waste across state boundaries quantitative limits on these flows and extra fees levied on imported waste to our knowledge this research is the first to evaluate these proposals quantitatively we develop both a conceptual and a computable economic model of the use over time of spatially differentiated resources characteristics which well describe the nation s landfill facilities landfills rather than recycling or other disposal options are the dominant destination of most interstate shipments the model characterizes the efficient intertemporal allocation of spatially distributed waste disposal capacity among users who are also spatially distributed in addition

on nonrenewable resource oligopolies the asymmetric case we give a full characterization of the open loop nash equilibrium of a nonrenewable resource game between two types of firms differing in extraction costs we show that i there almost always exists a phase where both types of firms supply simultaneously ii when the high cost mines are exploited by a number of firms that goes to infinity the equilibrium approaches the cartel versus fringe equilibrium with the fringe firms acting as price takers and iii the cheaper resource may not be exhausted first a violation of the herfindahl rule that may be detrimental to social welfare

endogenous growth with a ceiling on the stock of pollution the effects of an agreement such as the kyoto protocol which implicitly imposes a ceiling on the stock of pollution have recently been studied in hotelling models we add pollution and a ceiling to the endogenous growth model of tsur and zemel j environ econ manag 49 3 484 499 2005 to study the effects of the ceiling and pollution on capital and research investments in the short run the ceiling adds an additional scarcity to the one induced by the limited fossil fuel stock ceteris paribus the extraction rate of cheap fossil fuel is reduced and backstop utilization boosted this increases energy costs energy cost effect and makes r d more beneficial compared with capital accumulation research effect r d investments may increase depending on capital endowment and the strength of the two effects the sum of r d and capital investments is affected as both effects change disposable production in the long run i e after the exhaustion of limited resources the shape of the evolution path can be only affected by the ceiling if the capital endowment is sufficiently large

net energy analysis in a ramsey hotelling growth model this article presents a dynamic growth model with energy as an input in the production function the available stock of energy resources is ordered by a quality parameter based on energy accounting the energy return on energy invested eroi in our knowledge this is the first paper where eroi fits in a neoclassical growth model with individual utility maximization and market equilibrium establishing the economic use of net energy analysis on a firmer theoretical ground all necessary concepts to link neoclassical economics and eroi are discussed before their use in the model and a comparative static analysis of the steady states of a simplified version of the model is presented

optimal timing of carbon capture policies under learning by doing abstract using a standard hotelling model of resource exploitation we determine the optimal energy consumption paths from three options dirty coal which is non renewable and carbon emitting clean coal which is also non renewable but carbon free thanks to carbon capture and storage ccs and solar energy which is renewable and carbon free we assume that the atmospheric carbon stock cannot exceed an exogenously given ceiling taking into account learning by doing in ccs technology we show the following results i clean coal exploitation cannot begin before the outset of the carbon constrained phase and must stop strictly before the end of this phase ii the energy price path can evolve non monotonically over time and iii when the solar cost is low enough an unusual energy consumption sequence along with solar energy is interrupted for some time and replacement by clean coal may exist

invariances and diversities in the evolution of manufacturing industries this work explores and compares some basic properties of corporate growth process at both aggregate manufacturing level and disaggregated sectoral levels using an extensive dataset on italian manufacturing firms we investigate which properties of firm growth dynamics are robust under disaggregation we compare the results obtained with three different definitions of firm size namely total sales number of employees and value added our analysis suggests that while different sectors are characterized by significant differences in firm size distributions in the degrees of concentration and in the autoregressive structure of the growth processes there are also regularities which hold across all of them such as the approximate unit root nature of the growth process and the power exponential shape of the growth rates density together these stylized facts suggest challenging puzzles on the drivers of corporate growth and the resulting industrial structures