activity choice labor allocation and forest use in malawi this article examines the determinants of activity choice affecting forest use among low income households in malawi data from three villages are used to estimate a system of household labor share equations for maize production forest employment and non forest employment a system estimation approach is used to identify factors influencing the competing and synergistic livelihood strategies which households undertake at the forest margin results from constrained maximum likelihood estimation indicate heightened incentives to degrade forests when returns to forest use are high factors reducing forest pressure include favorable returns to non forest employment secondary education of the household head and wealth

who benefits from local job growth migrants or the original residents bartik t j 1993 who benefits from local job growth migrants or the original residents reg studies 27 297 311 this paper surveys research on whether the new jobs resulting from growth in a local economy e g a metropolitan area go to inmigrants or the original local residents the empirical evidence suggests that around one quarter of the new jobs from local growth increases the labour force participation rates of local residents in the long run these long run effects may occur because local growth provides residents with valuable employment experience research also suggests that minorities benefit most from growth and that higher wage industries provide greater employment benefits for local residents bartik t j 1993 qui est ce qui beneficie de la croissance d emploi locale les migrants ou la population autochtone reg studies 27 297 311 cet article etudie la recherche effectuee dans le but d evaluer si les nouveaux emplois dus a la croissance d une economic locale par exemple une

can technology specific deployment policies be cost effective the case of renewable energy support schemes can technology specific deployment policies be cost effective the case of renewable energy support schemes

a survey of agricultural household models recent findings and policy implications semicommercial farms that produce multiple crops make up a large part of the agricultural sector in developing economies these farms or agricultural households combine two fundamental units of microeconomic analysis the household and the firm traditional economic theory has dealt with these units seperately but in developing economies in which peasant farms dominate their interdependence is of crucial importance researchers have developed models of agricultural households that combine producer and consumer behavior in a theoretically consistent fashion recent empirical applications of these models have extended them and expanded the range of policy issues which can be investigated using this general framework this article reports the results of empirical applications of this model in india indonesia japan the republic of korea malaysia nigeria senegal sierra leone taiwan and thailand it provides a comparative analysis of the policy implications of the approach for such matters as the welfare of farm households the size of marketed surplus the demand for nonagricultural goods and services and for hired labor and the availability of budget revenues and foreign exchange

employment growth worker mobility and rural economic development a county level labor market model is estimated for north carolina the model accounts for inter county commuting migration and within county adjustments to labor demand shocks econometric results indicate that most employment growth 70 80 during the 1980s was accommodated by changes in commuting flows evidence is also presented indicating that labor force growth and by extension population growth and associated fiscal impacts in rural counties is sensitive to employment growth in nearby urban counties these results highlight two opposing forces related to spatial spillovers that are usually neglected in analyses of the economic and fiscal impacts of employment growth copyright 2003 oxford university press

agricultural household models extensions applications and policy this book presents the basic model of an agricultural household that underlies most of the case studies undertaken so far the model assumes that households are price takers and is therefore recursive the decisions modeled include those affecting production and the demand for inputs and those affecting consumption and the supply of labor comparative results on selected elasticities are presented for a number of economies the empirical significance of the approach is demonstrated in a comparison of models that treat production and consumption decisions separately and those in which the decisionmaking process is recursive the book summarizes the implications of agricultural pricing policy for the welfare of farm households marketed surplus the demand for nonagricultural goods and services the rural labor market budget revenues and foreign exchange earnings in addition it is shown that the basic model can be extended in order to explore the effects of government policy on crop composition nutritional status health saving and investment and to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the effects on budget revenues and foreign exchange earnings methodological topics primarily the data requirements of the basic model and its extensions along with aggregation market interaction uncertainty and market imperfections are discussed the most important methodological issues the question of the recursive property of these models is also discussed

theories of poverty traps and anti poverty policies in this paper we provide a conceptual overview of alternative mechanisms leading to poverty traps at the individual level making a distinction between those that are due to external frictions e g market failure and those that are due to behavior under extreme scarcity in the absence of any frictions we develop a common theoretical framework to examine alternative scenarios characterizing conditions under which poverty traps in the sense of multiple stable steady states arise as opposed to possibly conditional convergence to a unique steady state we apply this framework to discuss the relative merits of alternative anti poverty policies such as unconditional and conditional cash transfers and direct interventions aimed at improving market access to the poor or improving public service delivery jel codes d13 d23 o12 o15

the new political economy of taxation in advanced capitalist democracies earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 1999 annual meeting of the american political science association september 1 5 atlanta ga and the 2000 annual meeting of the midwest political science association april 27 30 chicago il the authors thank steffen ganghof philip genschel mark hallerberg alex hicks william keech dennis quinn and the anonymous reviewers and editor of this journal for many helpful comments and dennis quinn for generously sharing data duane swank thanks the german marshal fund of the united states and marquette university for support of work incorporated in this paper data utilized in this paper are available from duane swank marquette edu

trade liberalisation and poverty what are the links this paper asks whether a developing country s own trade liberalisation could translate into increased poverty and what information would be required to identify whether it will do so it plots the channels through which such effects might operate identifying the static effects via four broad groups of institutions households distribution channels factor markets and government and the dynamic issues of volatility long term economic growth and short term adjustment stresses an increase in the price of something a household sells labour good service increases its welfare thus the paper first explores the likely effects of trade liberalisation on the prices of goods and services taking into account the distribution sector also critical is whether trade reform creates or destroys markets trade reform is also likely to affects factor prices of which the wages of the unskilled is the most important for poverty purposes if reform boosts the demand for labour intensive products it boosts the demand for labour and wages and or employment will increase however not all developing countries are relatively abundant in unskilled labour and trade can boost demand for semi skilled rather than unskilled labour hence poverty alleviation is not guaranteed trade reform can affect tariff revenue but much less frequently and adversely than is popularly imagined even if it does it is a political decision not a law of nature that the poor should suffer the resulting new taxes or cuts in government expenditure opening up the economy can reduce risk and variability because world markets are usually more stable than domestic ones but sometimes it will increase them because stabilisation schemes are undermined or because residents switch to riskier activities the non poor can generally tide themselves over adjustment shocks from a liberalisation so public policy should focus on whether the initially poor and near temporary setbacks the key to sustained poverty alleviation is economic growth there is little reason to fear that growth will not boost the incomes of the poor similarly while the argument that openness stimulates long run growth has still not been completely proven there is every presumption that it will

network externality perspective of feed in tariffs fit instruments some observations and suggestions abstract existing energy policy frameworks revolving around the acceleration of deployment 1 of renewable energy technology can be broadly classified as the quantity vs price approach with this brief viewpoint this paper suggests another perspective of viewing these instruments in terms of a more fundamental basis whether the deployment in capacity is in terms of a cost minimization approach or a network externality approach we suggest that the generic price or feed in tariff fit approach in subsidizing renewable electricity generation and associated income would create a bandwagon or self propagation effect among users rendering the renewable energy technology spreads like a software or information technology our objective is to raise awareness of this technology dynamics oriented perspective in renewable deployment supplementing the conventional installation subsidies perspective we hope that it would inspire more empirical works and studies relating to the policy implications of this viewpoint

rural livelihood diversification in sub saharan africa a literature review abstractthis article provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the nature and evolution of rural livelihood diversification in sub saharan africa and the situation regarding smallholders it reveals mixed findings about the causes and consequences of livelihood diversification on rural smallholders adopting this strategy a lot of evidence from the literature suggests that it is relatively better off smallholders with sufficient assets who achieve successful livelihood diversification mainly by exploiting opportunities and synergies between farm and nonfarm activities because of asset constraints increase in incomes and wealth based on livelihood diversification has not yet benefitted the large majority of smallholders

fuelwood consumption and forest degradation a household model for domestic energy substitution in rural india this paper disusses domestic en ergy supply and demand in rural india links be tween forest scarcity and household fuel collec tion are analyzed in a non separable household model focusing on substitution of non commer cial fuels from the commons and the private do main based on data from villages bordering a protected area a novel maximum entropy ap proach is used for estimation it is found that households respond to forest scarcity and in creased fuelwood collection time by substituting fuels from private sources for forest fuelwood however the magnitude of the response appears insufficient to prevent current fuelwood collection practices from causing serious forest degrada tion jel q24

poverty and prosperity among migrant settlers in the amazon rainforest frontier of ecuador household level interview data from a probability sample survey conducted in the northeastern ecuadorian amazon in 1990 are used to examine the determinants of income and assets among migrant farmers in the agricultural frontier multivariate analysis indicates that size of plot owned proximity to markets duration of residence quality of soil receipt of technical assistance off farm employment and initial wealth positively influence current household income and wealth more land in cattle pasture is also associated with higher status some settlers are prospering relative to others despite variable soil quality unsustainable land uses geographic isolation apparent scarcity of labor and lack of supportive infrastructure the article closes with a discussion of implications for policies to assist small farmers with some consideration of the potential ecological consequences of farmers activities

distributional impacts of investment subsidies for residential energy technologies abstract this study analyses the distributional impacts of investment subsidies paid to households that install residential energy technologies based on renewable energy sources the subsidies covering a significant part of the total investment play a considerable role in households energy decisions depending on their design support measures may provide the most benefits to certain groups of society and thus may cause increasing inequality the potential distributional impacts of the investment subsidies are determined by the combination of technologies targeted and their costs household income support intensity subsidy design restrictions and the availability of additional measures this study examines the support system for residential renewable energy technologies in the lithuanian case by employing a microsimulation model this analysis of existing measures provides more general results and highlights the policy features that cause distributional impacts therefore the results are applicable in other countries as well the analysis shows that although the support is efficient from an energy point of view it provides the most benefits to households with higher income and thus increases inequality moreover the subsidies fail to reduce energy poverty due to the poorest households low capacity to invest to obtain a flatter distribution of benefits the design of support measures should consider the current situation of lower income households and affordability issues

spice price spikes simulating impacts of saffron price volatility in a gendered local economy wide model summary access to international markets provides smallholders with unprecedented opportunities but also exposes them to world market whims we use a local economy wide impact evaluation lewie model to analyze how the recent global saffron price variability affected morocco s taliouine taznakht region a specialized agro export economy with a stark gender division of labor prices of saffron increased by 71 per year over the 2007 09 period before falling quickly back to their trend our modeling approach allows us to simulate such shocks and evaluate impacts not only on producers but also on the local economies around them in our simulations positive price shocks and increases in productivity both cause large reallocations of labor resources particularly for female workers at harvest time we use monte carlo simulations to evaluate how saffron price variance affects the economy female wage income is especially sensitive to global price variability a 100 increase in saffron price variance leads to 133 increase in female wage income variance but only 36 for males accounting for general equilibrium effects is critical for understanding the ramifications of exposure to export price volatility in poor economies

small enterprise and firm level technical efficiency in the indonesian garment industry this paper examines technical efficieny in the indonesian garment industry based on the country s 1986 census of small industry drawing on a sample of 2250 firms our analysis suggests that inter firm variations in efficiency are very considerable the paper then investigates the correlates of these variations finding in particular a positive correlation between technical efficiency and each of export orientation financial integration and female participation in the workforce it is also found that there is a significant level of labour capital substitution in the industry

pull and push individual farming in hungary this paper is motivated by the fact that part time individual farming is commonly observed among rural households in a number of transition economies but it is not clear prima facie if such resource allocation is optimal a conceptual model of household labor allocation between individual farming and off farm wage employment is developed the model explicitly accounts for the role of household endowments in labor allocation as the analysis is conditioned on the status of factor markets the hypotheses are empirically tested using 1998 data from a country representative survey of rural households in hungary an advanced transition country which only recently became eu member state results provide evidence that capital market imperfections still remain implications for the policies related to agricultural sector restructuring employment and rural development are discussed

modeling the impact of agricultural growth and government policy on income distribution in india this article uses a limited general equilibrium model to investigate the growth and equity effects of a variety of economic and technical changes and selected agricultural policies in india it explores how changes in food prices rural wages and farm profits associated with the green revolution period affected income distribution between net buyers and sellers of food the model shows that income gains from the green revolution initially accrued to the wealthier rural groups but that after 1972 73 they were transferred to urban consumers and that by 1980 81 the per capita incomes of poor and wealthier rural groups alike were barely above their respective 1960 61 levels the model is also used in counterfactual analysis of the impact of changes in technological demographic investment taxation and income redistribution variables its findings indicate the importance of trade policies for the nature of the equity outcomes from agricultural growth and suggest that a reduction in population growth and an increase in nonagricultural employment and income are required to convert agricultural growth into reduced rural poverty

agricultural policy market barriers and deforestation the case of mexico s southern yucatan summary this paper examines the linkages between agricultural policies and deforestation in a development frontier of southern mexico focusing on support programs targeted at buffering farmers from structural reforms we argue that local barriers to market participation condition the responsiveness of farmers to program incentives thereby constituting a key channel through which agricultural policies impact the environment an econometric model parameterizes the influence of two programs procampo and alianza para el campo on cultivation consistent with an economic environment characterized by market barriers results suggest that program support even when decoupled from production decisions significantly determines land use and deforestation

measuring structural change and energy use decomposition of the us economy from 1997 to 2002 abstract the steadily increasing focus on energy production and consumption has led to growing research attention to patterns of energy use within economies of particular interest has been comparing the driving forces of increasing efficiency and economic structural change input output analysis ioa and decomposition analysis have become critical tools for performing such analyses this study analyzes aggregate energy use in the united states in 1997 and 2002 to discover the causes of changing energy usage and flows results show that rising population and household consumption acted to drive up energy demand but this driving force was offset by considerable structural change within the economy particularly related to a quickly increasing trade deficit in manufacturing goods thus while total energy intensity the ratio of energy use to economic output declined by approximately 12 between 1997 and 2002 changes in the structure of the economy explain this drop more than increased energy efficiency the level of aggregation at which decomposition analyses are run was identified as a crucially sensitive parameter for the determination of structural change and future studies should specifically address the amount of detail necessary to adequately measure changes in economic structure

startup costs and the decision to switch from firewood to gas fuel firewood remains a key source of energy for households in developing countries contributing to forest degradation and deforestation the adoption of alternative fuels may be hindered by high startup costs and this problem may be compounded by restrictions in credit availability we use survey data to examine how credit access affects firewood consumption in guatemala our results suggest that access to credit plays a statistically significant role in determining firewood consumption through its effect on the ability to purchase a gas stove however simulations suggest that these effects are small and that subsidizing stoves would be amore promising policy for reducing firewood consumption

the philippines roll on roll off policy and its impact on household income abstractour paper captures the immediate impact of the roll on roll off policy that offered an alternative system of inter island transfer within the philippines it provides evidence on the effect

village banking and maternal and child health evidence from ecuador and honduras abstract many microcredit institutions bundle credit with health education or other programs this paper reviews arguments on such tie ins and concludes that net benefits are possible but requires empirical testing quasi experimental data from project hope s health banks and credit only village banks are then examined the paper presents evidence that health practices do not improve automatically with greater wealth in honduras results show that health bank participation is robustly associated with reduced subsequent conditional child diarrhea probability but in no specification does credit only bank participation have this effect in ecuador results suggest a larger effect of credit only banks in both countries health bank participation significantly raises subsequent healthcare over credit only participation and at least reduces the tendency to switch from breast feeding to bottle feeding as income rises effects on expenditures are ambiguous there is no clear link between tie ins and bank performance

are agricultural markets more developed around cities testing for urban heterogeneity in separability in tanzania abstract a key question for policymakers concerned about feeding sub saharan africa s ssa rapidly growing cities is whether or not nearby farms benefit from improved agricultural markets evidence from case studies and agricultural location theory suggest so but urban heterogeneity has not yet been found in a common economic test of functioning agricultural markets the separability result the test is based on a key insight of the agricultural household model which finds that a farm s profit should be maximized independently from household utility given perfect factor markets i e separability but not so if the household faces at least two market failures i e non separability in this paper i test for geographic heterogeneity in separability between rural peri urban and urban districts using 2014 15 data from the world bank s living standards measurement study and integrated surveys on agriculture lsms isa from tanzania i find strong evidence that the correlation between pre harvest labor demand and household size implying non separability in rural areas is significantly weaker in three of tanzania s five largest cities dar es salaam arusha and mbeya given certain assumptions this can be interpreted as evidence of increased agricultural market functionality around these cities relative to rural areas overall these results contribute to the debate on how to achieve urban food security in ssa and give some validity to agricultural location theory and the separability test as tools to help policymakers characterize the nature of agricultural factor markets

subsistence fishing in a 21st century capitalist society from commodity to gift abstract in this paper we examine the extent range and diversity of noncommercial wild ocean seafood subsistence harvests among commercial operators in washington and california usa and test the relationship between subsistence drivers and market behavior analyzing data from pacific fisheries information network between 1990 and 2010 we show that over 17 million kg of fish and shellfish were kept for personal use we used general additive models to examine patterns in proportion of personal use versus price for the top 10 species retained over the 20 year period for each of the three population groups washington commercial tribal indigenous fishing operators washington commercial nontribal operators and california commercial fishing operators out of the 26 species price relationships tested only one fits the market relationship with statistical significance and the model failed to predict personal use patterns for any of the other species we conclude that market sensitivity is not a reliable predictor for subsistence behavior although a nominal figure in the overall seafood catch the presence of subsistence practices among 21st century market based commercial fishing operators reveals a more diverse array of economic systems than previously imagined we suggest that alternative economies including subsistence and associated community share systems function to improve human wellbeing and strengthen community resilience by increasing food security and community food systems engaging in a quality of life practice and supporting social networks through seafood gifting and sharing

land use and income diversification comparing traditional and colonist populations in the brazilian amazon this article compares and analyzes land use and income diversification among two distinct groups of farmers in the brazilian amazon recent colonists in ouro preto do oeste rondonia and traditional long term residents along the tapajos river para we investigate the hypothesis that farmers who diversify their cash income sources clear less forest on an annual basis and we compare these livelihood choices across colonist and traditional populations in particular we develop a conceptual model based on the household production framework and use econometric models to identify determinants of diversification and forest clearing we find that diversification of agricultural cash crops is negatively correlated with forest clearing by colonists providing limited evidence for the hypothesis other significant covariates of diversification and forest clearing include cash income levels stage in family life cycle cattle ownership and chemical inputs differences in these variables and differences in household response to these variables explain variation in diversification and forest clearing across the two populations

do energy efficiency investments deliver evidence from the weatherization assistance program a growing number of policies and programs aim to increase investment in energy efficiency because conventional wisdom suggests that people fail to take up these investments even though they have positive private returns and generate environmental benefits many explanations for this energy efficiency gap have been put forward but there has been surprisingly little field testing of whether the conventional wisdom is correct this article reports on the results of an experimental evaluation of the nation s largest residential energy efficiency program the weatherization assistance program conducted on a sample of approximately 30 000 households in michigan the findings suggest that the upfront investment costs are about twice the actual energy savings furthermore the model projected savings are more than three times the actual savings although this might be attributed to the rebound effect when demand for energy end uses increases as a result of greater efficiency the article fails to find evidence of significantly higher indoor temperatures at weatherized homes even when accounting for the broader societal benefits derived from emissions reductions the costs still substantially outweigh the benefits the average rate of return is approximately 7 8 annually

tagging and targeting of energy efficiency subsidies corrective taxation is a common approach to addressing externalities internalities and other market distortions these distortions are often heterogeneous for example some cars pollute more than others and many people consume alcohol rationally even as present biased individuals might over consume such heterogeneity raises the question of whether a corrective tax is well targeted does it primarily affect individuals subject to relatively large distortions a tax set at the average level of the distortion could actually reduce welfare if the marginal individuals were already making relatively undistorted decisions this paper studies the targeting of corrective subsidies for energy ef cient durable goods such as air conditioners insulation and cars these subsidies are justi ed by multiple distortions primarily including environmental externalities credit constraints landlord tenant information asymmetries imperfect information and behavioral biases such as inattention to energy costs allcott and greenstone 2012 gillingham newell and palmer 2009 we rst argue that these distortions are heterogeneous on observables wealthy people are less credit constrained homeowners are unaffected by the landlord tenant problem and we show empirically that environmentalists are more attentive to energy costs and believe that energy ef cient goods save more money we then show that

local economic conditions and wage labor decisions of farm and rural nonfarm couples effects of geographical differences in local economic conditions on wage labor demand and wage labor participation decisions of rural couples are examined for current population survey households 1978 82 wage premiums are shown to exist for localities anticipating labor demand growth higher unemployment rates larger share of employment in services and higher costs of living these effects are stronger for males than females effects of local economic conditions on the probability of wage work are consistent with expected market wage and reservation wage effects and for farm households the probability of wage work increases when expected farm output prices decline or the wage increases

implications of non farm work to vulnerability to food poverty recent evidence from northern ghana summary using survey data from northern ghana this study seeks to establish the impact of participation in non farm work on the vulnerability of resource poor households to food poverty vulnerability to food poverty is assessed based on expected future food expenditure of households the potential endogeneity problem associated with participation in non farm work by households is overcome using a novel instrumental variable approach analysis of the determinants of expected future food expenditure is done using a standard feasible generalized least squares fgls method demographic and socioeconomic variables location variables and household facilities are included in the model as control variables our study finds that participation in non farm work significantly increased the future expected food consumption thereby alleviating the vulnerability of households to food poverty our study also confirms that current food poverty and future food poverty i e vulnerability to food poverty are not independent from each other non farm work plays a crucial role in providing the means to overcome the risk of food poverty in these resource poor households policies that promote off farm income generating activities such as small businesses and self employment as well as the creation and support of businesses that absorb extra labor from the farm should be encouraged in the study region because households in the study region are exposed to above average levels of hunger and food poverty the study recommends the government of ghana and development partners to take measures that enhance the resilience of these resource poor households

land property rights and international migration evidence from mexico abstract in this paper i ask whether there is a relationship between land property rights and international migration in order to identify the impact of property rights i consider a country wide land certification program that took place in mexico in the 1990s my identification strategy exploits the staggered implementation and the households eligibility for the program i find that the program increased the eligible households likelihood of having one or more members abroad by 12 in terms of the number of migrants my coefficient estimates explain 26 of the 1994 1997 increase in migrants from ejido areas and 13 15 of the increase from all of mexico consistent with our theoretical model the impact is strongest for households without a land will this implies that land inheritance issues drive at least part of the effect

the effects of china s sloping land conversion program on agricultural households in the late 1990s china aimed to mitigate environmental degradation from agricultural production activities by introducing the world s largest payments for environmental services pes program the sloping land conversion program slcp in order to analyze its effects on agricultural households we develop a microeconomic agricultural household model ahm which can model the production consumption and non farm labor supply decisions of agricultural households in rural china in a theoretically consistent fashion based on this theoretical model we derive an empirical specification that we use to econometrically estimate the effects of the slcp and other exogenous factors using a large longitudinal farm household survey data set we estimate the empirical model with the hausman taylor estimation method the empirical results are generally consistent with the results of our theoretical comparative static analysis e g that the slcp significantly decreases agricultural production while the slcp increases non farm labor supply and total consumption in the yellow river basin these effects could not be observed in the yangtze river basin the recent reduction of the slcp compensation payment rates has had some notable but generally small effects

deforestation property rights and international trade deforestation primarily affects developing countries most developing countries share two characteristics 1 trade liberalization reforms in the last two decades and 2 weak property rights and limited rule of law this paper investigates this second best world first in a stylized model in which trade distortions are eliminated in an economy whose natural resources are subject to open access second empirically in an estimation exercise that disentangles the direct effect of trade on deforestation rates and an indirect effect through its interaction with ownership security in accordance with the theory the results show that only the indirect effect is significant

cost effectiveness of renewable electricity policies we analyze policies to promote renewable sources of electricity a portfolio standard rps raises electricity prices and primarily reduces gas fired generation a knee of the cost curve exists between 15 and 20 goals for 2020 in our central case and higher natural gas prices lower the cost of greater reliance on renewables a renewable energy production tax credit lowers electricity price at the expense of taxpayers which limits its effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions and it is less cost effective at increasing renewables than a portfolio standard neither policy is as cost effective as a cap and trade policy for achieving carbon emission reductions

time and frequency connectedness among oil shocks electricity and clean energy markets abstract this paper examines the time and frequency connectedness among electricity carbon and clean energy markets and oil price demand and supply shocks in doing so we use the spillover method proposed by diebold and yilmaz 2012 and its extension in the frequency domain by barunik and k ehlik 2018 we find increased connectedness during the global financial crisis as well as in the shale oil revolution period the total connectedness is also higher in the short run compared to the long run due to their low connectedness electricity futures can act as a risk diversifier and safe haven asset against oil shocks net pairwise directional connectedness among oil shocks and the clean energy index is higher during the shale oil revolution these results have important implications for investors with different investment time horizons

u s federal government subsidies for clean energy design choices and implications abstract subsidies for clean energy deployment have become a major component of u s federal energy and climate policy after a surge in spending under the american recovery and reinvestment act of 2009 they are an even larger component but now face increased scrutiny given their lasting presence how does one design these subsidies to be as cost effective as possible surprisingly the conceptual framework and empirical evidence available to help policymakers identify which subsidies generate the most bang for the buck are limited to help answer this question we begin with an overview of the justifications for and the arguments against subsidizing clean energy technologies next we briefly describe major subsidies finally we summarize key design choices suggesting an increased focus on upfront cash payments for physical outcomes such as capacity this contrasts with the considerable focus on tax credits loan guarantees production and cost based subsidies which have been more prominent to date

general equilibrium with parallel markets for goods and foreign exchange theory and application to ghana abstract this paper presents a simple model of a distorted economy with parallel markets which is motivated by the ghanaian experience the model has simultaneous illegal trade in goods and foreign exchange markets its general equilibrium determines the black market foreign exchange rate and the price of consumer goods after determining some comparative statics the predictions are tested on ghanaian monthly data from 1982 1983 the empirical results are shown to be consistent with those from the theoretical model

deconstructing the energy efficiency gap conceptual frameworks and evidence abstract energy efficient technologies offer considerable promise for reducing the financial costs and environmental damages associated with energy use but these technologies appear not to be adopted to the degree that appears justified even on a purely private basis we present two complementary frameworks for understanding this so called energy paradox or energy efficiency gap first we build upon previous literature by dividing potential explanations for the energy efficiency gap into three categories market failures behavioral anomalies and model and measurement errors second we examine the elements of cost minimizing energy efficiency decisions the typical benchmark used in assessing the gap s magnitude

the determinants of nonfarm income diversification in rural peru abstract this paper shows that in peruvian rural areas there has been substantial growth over the past decade in household employment outside of own farming at present 51 of the net income of rural households comes from these off farm activities and thus they certainly cannot be considered as marginal the reasons households diversify their incomes are several access to public assets such as roads and private assets such as education and credit is an important factor in diversification increasing access to these assets will help rural households to increase their self employment as well as wage employment in the nonfarm sector

terms of trade fluctuations and stabilization of producer prices by compensatory taxation abstract a small general equilibrium model is presented which highlights the role of the real exchange rate in the south in determining the terms of trade between the south and the north the dynamics of the model may generate terms of trade instability for some values of the parameters of the system compensatory taxation of export earnings by a stabilization fund in the south is shown to increase the likelihood of instability

the effects of fiscal stimulus evidence from the 2009 cash for clunkers program we evaluate the impact of the 2009 cash for clunkers program on short and medium run auto purchases our empirical strategy exploits variation across u s cities in ex ante exposure to the program as measured by the number of clunkers in the city as of summer 2008 we find that the program induced the purchase of an additional 370 000 cars in july and august 2009 however we find strong evidence of reversal high clunker counties bought fewer autos in the 10 months after the program expired which offset most of the initial purchases we find no evidence of an effect on employment house prices or household default rates in cities with higher exposure to the program jel codes h20 e62 copyright 2012 oxford university press

give a man a fishpond modeling the impacts of aquaculture in the rural economy abstract the rapid growth of fish farming over the past three decades has generated heated debate over the role of aquaculture in rural development and poverty reduction central to these debates is the question of whether and how aquaculture impacts local incomes and employment yet little empirical evidence exists on the issue to address this question we propose a local economy wide impact evaluation lewie model which nests fish farm models within a general equilibrium model of their local economy the model is calibrated using primary data collected from 1102 households in myanmar s main aquaculture zone representative of 60 of the country s aquaculture farms using this model we examine the impact of aquaculture on the incomes and labor market outcomes of fish farming households but also crop farms and non farm households in the cluster simulating one acre increases in pond plot surface we find that 1 aquaculture generates much higher incomes per acre than agriculture 2 aquaculture generates larger income spillovers than agriculture for non farm households by way of retail and labor markets 3 small commercial fish farms generate greater spillovers than large fish farms these results bolster the notion that fish farming and in particular small scale commercial aquaculture may have a significant role to play in rural development and poverty reduction

globalization and the connection of remote communities a review of household effects and their biodiversity implications abstract the remote regions of the world provide refuge to a disproportionate amount of the earth s biodiversity as globalization continues isolated human communities in these regions are increasingly connected to global market migration and technology networks we review the diffuse literature on the household effects of changing market access migration and technology adoption in remote regions and implications for native biodiversity market access affects biodiversity in remote communities through changes in household economics and social networks migration either to or from remote settlements affects biodiversity through changes in population remittances human capital and social networks finally we consider effects due to production public infrastructure and information and communication technologies there is much ambiguity surrounding these causal pathways and thus we also examine the roles of various ecological household community and institutional mediating factors in determining the impacts of global connection finally we explore the limitations of our current knowledge and research practices and propose directions for future work to address key uncertainties in theory and evidence as well as weaknesses in methodological approaches we recommend a broad and interdisciplinary mode of inquiry as the best means toward clarifying globalization s impacts on human settlements and the biodiversity harbored in the earth s remaining remote regions

the energy efficiency gap what does it mean abstract as renewed attention has been given by policy makers to energy conservation issues it has frequently been asserted that an energy efficiency gap exists between actual and optimal energy use the critical questions is how to define the optimal level of energy efficiency this paper seeks to disentangle some confusing strands of argument that are frequently brought to bear on this question by identifying the major conceptual issues that determine the set of feasible answers we identify five separate and distinct notions of optimality the economists economic potential the technologists economic potential hypothetical potential the narrow social optimum and the true social optimum each of these has associated with it a corresponding definition of the energy efficiency gap our analysis demonstrates that necessary preconditions for identifying the right measure of the energy efficiency gap include understanding and disentangling market failure and non market failure explanations for the gradual diffusion of energy efficient technologies

labor supply the family and poverty the s shaped labor supply curve abstract the canonical model of labor supply is extended to account for subsistence needs and a frequently rigid division of labor within families gender various theories that have been put forward are thus reconciled in particular with respect to the distinct work choices of the poor the model predicts negative labor supply elasticities for secondary workers at low wage rates and positive ones at higher rates but near 0 for primary workers at all levels detailed time allocation data of the rural philippines support these conclusions as well as evidence from other studies including of industrialized countries policy implications are briefly discussed

the role of natural resource amenities in attracting retirees implications for economic growth policy abstract increasing criticism of resource extractive and polluting heavy duty industries in urban areas as well as continuing declines in timbering farming and mining in rural areas have created challenges for planners and policy makers seeking sustainable rural economies earlier studies have concluded that a retiree economy is a viable approach for rural economic sustainability using specific measures of natural amenities that are variant over time this study examined the role that natural amenity resources have played in attracting retirees results reveal that the rural and biologically rich counties with substantial land use diversity water amenities and other man modified natural and recreational attractions have great potential for attracting retirees the findings from this study can be useful for local and regional agencies to identity their latent potential to promote retiree economy and also to predict the future amenity demands in addition we draw other policy implications regarding regional economic growth and ecological concern in rural america

colonist land allocation decisions land use and deforestation in the ecuadorian amazon frontier as one of the last agricultural frontiers of the humid tropics amazonia is the largest area of the world currently undergoing frontier settlement although the earliest intrusions of foreign populations into amazonia date from pre hispanic times the large scale entrance of peasant colonists into the vast region is a recent phenomenon much of this movement represents the spontaneous migration of peoples but governments in the region have also become increasingly interested in opening up and integrating amazonia to national and international economies these actions are frequently seen as potential solutions to a number of national problems including the need to increase agricultural production correct spatial imbalances in the distribution of population exploit frontier lands for reasons of national security and defuse potentially serious political problems resulting from the existing agrarian structure landlessness and unemployment the upper basin of the amazon in ecuador bordering on the eastern slopes of the andes is one such area of frontier settlement recent decades have witnessed the rapid conversion of these amazonian forests to agricultural uses through a series of schemes bearing such labels as land development and colonization most forest intervention in the region has come at the hands of colonist farmers attempting to establish land claims along transport routes originally constructed to aid in petroleum exploration and exploitation these are farmers who formerly have made a living in long established farmlands and who for various reasons population pressures pervasive poverty maldistribution of farmland lack of inputs for intensive cultivation lack of nonagrarian livelihood opportunities and generally inadequate rural development have been increasingly squeezed out of their homelands a marginal person by virtue of his low socioeconomic and political status the farmer often perceives

assessing the u s oil security premium abstract world oil supply disruptions lead to u s economic losses increased oil consumption increases the vulnerability of the economy to oil supply disruptions but it matters where the additional oil is produced increased production from stable producers can dampen future oil price shocks whereas increased production from unstable producers can exacerbate future oil price shocks because oil is fungible u s pricing and import policies can differentiate only between domestic and imported oil rather than between stable and unstable sources the economic losses associated with oil supply disruptions gdp losses and some transfers abroad are externalities that can be quantified as oil security premiums we estimate these premiums by taking into account projected world oil market conditions probable oil supply disruptions the market response to oil supply disruptions and the resulting u s economic losses