effects of demand side management on chinese household electricity consumption empirical findings from chinese household survey abstract china s residential electricity demand has grown rapidly over the last three decades and given the expected continued growth demand side management dsm can play an important role in reducing electricity demand by using micro level data collected from 1450 households in 27 provinces in the first ever china residential energy consumption survey in 2012 this study estimates the effects of three dsm measures empirically tiered household electricity pricing china energy label program and information feedback mechanisms we find these measures have contributed to moderating residential electricity demand growth but additional policy reform and tools are needed to increase their effectiveness and impact residential electricity demand is found to be price and income inelastic and tiered pricing alone may not be as effective in electricity conservation the statistically significant relationship between china energy label efficient refrigerators but not televisions and lowered residential electricity consumption reflect mixed program effectiveness lastly of the information feedback currently available through electricity bills payment frequency and meters only meter reader is estimated to be statistically significant important policy implications and recommendations for improving each of these three dsm measures to expand their impact on reducing residential electricity consumption are identified

the inequalities of public utility products in china from the perspective of the atkinson index abstract the chinese households make up approximately a quarter of the world s total compared with its size of population china s reserves of natural resources are relatively limited with the actual concerns about sustainable development in china we should pay more attention to the unequal distribution of energy which may result low efficiency and wasting of energy therefore how to best allocate the scarce public utility products pups for the household usage should be closely addressed in terms of equity and efficiency based on the micro household level data from crecs which investigated in 2013 in different scales city all over the country we measure the distribution of pups consumption quantitatively and evaluate the inequality of household income expenditures on electricity gas and water in the china s residential sector by using the atkinson index the results show that the atkinson index of households total pups consumption in medium scale city is equal to 0 0261 which is 83 0 higher than that of large scale city and 35 6 higher than that of small scale city it indicates that the inequalities of pups and income are greater in medium scale cities than in large scale and small scale cities considering the sustainability of pups we suggest further reform in china s public utility sectors the government should take more consideration on equality and efficiency of distribution and ensure that people have equal living standards especially for the low income households who serve as the main anchor for the sustainable development of china

household electricity demand revisited respond to price changes this paper develops a model for evaluating the effects of alternative tariff designs on electricity use the model concurrently addresses several interrelated difficulties posed by nonlinear pricing heterogeneity in consumer price sensitivity and consumption aggregation over appliances and time we estimate the model using extensive data for a representative sample of 1300 california households the results imply a strikingly skewed distribution of household electricity price elasticities in the population with a small fraction of households accounting for most aggregate demand response we then estimate the aggregate and distributional consequences of recent tariff structure changes recent efforts to restructure electricity markets have renewed interest in electricity demand and pricing this interest reflects a broad desire to improve the efficiency of electricity markets and policy makers concerns over the impact of price changes on consumers how new pricing mechanisms would affect households consumption and expenditures is a matter of considerable uncertainty however this uncertainty has provoked controversy and debate in the regulatory policy arena hampering market reforms using econometric methods to assess the effects of electricity price changes presents several challenges these include the nonlinear structure of tariff schedules aggregation of metered consumption behaviour over time and appliances and the interdependence of energy use with longer term household decisions over appliance ownership and dwelling characteristics the first two issues introduce complex simultaneity problems between marginal prices and consumption the third issue imposes high data requirements information on household specific appliance holdings and residence features and creates heterogeneity in consumption responses related to the characteristics of these durable goods when the researcher s objective is to develop a model for simulating the effects of prospective tariff changes ignoring these issues will provide an incomplete assessment of demand responses and potentially misleading predictions of a new tariff s consumption and revenue consequences in this paper we estimate a model of household electricity demand that can be used

can poor consumers pay for energy and water an affordability analysis for transition countries low income households spend a substantial share of their income on utility services such as electricity heating and water the difficulty of these socially vulnerable consumers to absorb further price increases is often used as an argument against tariff reform however detailed quantitative information on the affordability of tariff adjustments for low income consumers is actually quite scarce much of the available information is based on households this paper takes a more detailed look at the affordability of electricity district heating and water for low income consumers in transition countries while the available data are incomplete the paper finds that affordability is a problem for low income consumers in most countries in particular in the water sector and in the commonwealth of independent states cis the affordability consequences of tariff reform ultimately depend on the speed of tariff adjustments relative to the growth in household income the level of tariffs needed for cost recovery the level of effective tariffs at the outset tariffs adjusted for non payment and the demand response to the tariff increase the paper finds that delaying tariff reform by a few years makes little difference to affordability constraints and may therefore not be an effective way to mitigate the social impact of utility reform

the welfare effects of different pricing schemes for electricity distribution in finland the main components of electricity prices can be divided into the wholesale price the price of network operations and taxes even if the wholesale price is determined efficiently total welfare can be significantly disturbed if network operations are priced inefficiently in this study we calculate network prices based on four alternative methods these are marginal cost pricing ramsey pricing fdc pricing and optimal two part tariffs the welfare effects on the prevailing pricing system are compared we show that potentially significant improvements in welfare can be achieved by using marginal cost prices or optimal two part tariffs also ramsey pricing indicates that prevailing prices are inefficient

balanced variable addition in linear models this paper studies what happens when we move from a short regression to a long regression in a setting where both regressions are subject to misspecification in this setup the least squares estimator in the long regression may have larger inconsistency than the least squares estimator in the short regression we provide a simple interpretation for the comparison of the inconsistencies and study under which conditions the additional regressors in the long regression represent a balanced addition to the short regression

one price doesn t fit all an examination of heterogeneity in price elasticity of residential electricity in india abstract although well designed consumer electricity pricing can improve access contribute to higher metering increase penetration of energy efficient technologies limit extent of the rebound effect and influence viability of electricity distribution utilities in india there has been no comprehensive policy relevant assessment of price elasticities of electricity demand in the country the objective of this study is to estimate price elasticity of residential electricity consumption and disaggregate it by state rural and urban residence and income categories to provide evidence for electricity tariff setting in india we combine survey data from five rounds of nationally representative household consumption expenditure surveys covering the period 2005 2012 with administrative data on electricity deficit and improve on methods applied in previous studies by estimating price elasticities using a quadratic form to account for constraints in electricity supply we find that while the average price elasticity at the national level is 0 39 95 confidence interval 0 46 0 31 it varies significantly by state rural and urban residence and income categories our results indicate that a one price fits all policy may not be an effective approach to electricity tariff setting in india and a data driven understanding of heterogeneities in price elasticities can better inform residential electricity tariff design in the country

energy savings potential in china s industrial sector from the perspectives of factor price distortion and allocative inefficiency abstract china s industrial energy consumption accounted for 70 82 of national and 14 12 of world energy usage in 2011 in the context of energy scarcity and environmental pollution the industrial sector in china faces unsustainable growth problems by adopting the stochastic frontier analysis sfa framework this paper analyzes the factor allocative efficiency of china s industrial sector and estimates the energy savings potential from the perspective of allocative inefficiency this paper focuses on three issues the first is examining the factor allocative inefficiency of china s industrial sector the second is measuring factor price distortion by the shadow price model the third is estimating the energy savings potential in china s industrial sector during 2001 2009 major conclusions are thus drawn first factor prices of capital labor and energy are distorted in china due to government regulations moreover energy price is relatively low compared to capital price while is relatively high compared to labor price second the industry wide energy savings potential resulted from energy allocative inefficiency was about 9 71 during 2001 2009 the downward trend of energy savings potential implies the increasing energy allocative efficiency in china s industrial sector third a transparent and reasonable pricing mechanism is conducive to improving energy allocative efficiency

elasticities of electricity demand in india abstract the paper examines econometric relationship between electricity consumption and variables like income price of electricity and diesel used in for captive power generation to meet the shortages and reliability of power supply from utilities in five major consumer categories in india these categories are residential commercial agriculture small and medium industries and large industries income and price elasticities of electricity consumption are estimated at the national level for these consumers by pooling data across 19 states spread over 9 years 1985 86 1993 94 the results show that electricity consumption in commercial and large industrial sectors are income elastic 1 while residential agricultural and small and medium industries are income inelastic

structural path and decomposition analysis of aggregate embodied energy intensities in china 2012 2017 abstract the dependence of the economic development of a region on its energy consumption is a major challenge for developing countries the aggregate embodied energy intensity aei based on an input output framework reflects the interaction between regional economy and energy consumption driven by final demand studying the change in aei from the perspective of sector production and final demand can effectively control the source and trend of energy intensity change in order to control the growth of energy intensity however there is a relative lack of studies determining the causes of aei changes from the perspective of sectors and final demands this study attempted to identify the influencing factors of aei changes and establish an aei based environmental policy in china a multiplicative structural decomposition analysis and a structural path analysis were used to study the aei under conditions of different final demands sectors and transmission layers along with the factors influencing aei changes in china from 2012 to 2017 our results indicate that the final demand category of gross fixed capital formation made the largest contribution to aei changes in 2012 and 2017 and the multiplicative intensity factor significantly inhibited the decrease in aei among the sectors studied only a few were found to significantly affect the change in aei with s11 processing of petroleum coking and nuclear fuel s12 chemical industry and s14 smelting and rolling of metals being the key sectors that input high energy consumption products to other sectors

policy cognition is more effective than step tariff in promoting electricity saving behaviour of residents abstract as a demand response plan the step tariff policy for electricity has been fully implemented for several years in china however it is not clear whether the step tariff policy for electricity is effective therefore we analysed and compared the effectiveness of step tariff policy from two aspects step tariff and policy cognition specifically combining macro scale statistical data and microscopic research data we constructed a regression discontinuity design and binary response model first we tested the correction effect of the step tariff to residential electricity consumption behaviour further combined with cognitive behavioural theory we analysed the role of policy cognition in the occurrence of electricity saving behaviour finally based on the cognitive evaluation theory the impact of residents heterogeneity on their cognitive differences was identified the specific conclusions are as follows 1 the step tariff based on the ramsay strategy cannot effectively correct electricity consumption behaviours as expected 2 compared with the step tariff construction of correct policy cognition has a more significant effect on changing the customary behaviour of electricity consumption 3 policy cognition of residents is heterogeneous and groups with weak policy cognition are accurately identified

residential electricity demand in taiwan this paper examines the residential demand for electricity in taiwan as a function of household disposable income population growth the price of electricity and the degree of urbanization short and long term effects are separated through the use of an error correction model in the long run the income elasticity is unit elastic the own price effect is negative and inelastic in an error correction framework the short run income and price effects are small and less than the long run effects cooling degree day effects have a positive impact on short run consumption we have used a proxy variable urbanization to capture economic development characteristics and changes in electricity using capital stocks not explained by income the variable provides significant explanatory power to the model both in the short and long run we interpret it as controlling for economic development factors not captured by the pure income effect and we think it holds promise for explaining residential electricity consumption in other developing countries

impact of factor price distortions on energy efficiency evidence from provincial level panel data in china abstract the marketization of energy price is not only an important part of factor pricing reforms but also decisive for energy efficiency improvement thus this study aims to measure factor price distortions and estimate their impact on energy efficiency based on an empirical analysis of 30 provinces of china during 2004 2013 using the stochastic frontier analysis framework results yielded three important findings 1 technical efficiency was the highest in eastern china which still remains low at around 0 7980 followed by central china and western china and there were growing gaps among the above areas 2 capital price was relatively high while energy price was relatively low compared with labor price and the relative allocative efficiency of energy got worse over time 3 energy efficiency loss among the three regions showed convergence trends policy implications are summarized as follows 1 measures such as adjusting energy consumption structure and improving production technology and management levels can reverse the trend of declining technical efficiency 2 the process of energy price marketization needs to be accelerated 3 it is necessary to expand the depth and breadth of regional technology diffusion and break the barriers of technology transfer among regions in china

toward an optimal u s ethanol fuel subsidy abstract enhanced environmental quality fuel security and economic development along with reduced prices of ethanol gasoline blends are often used as justifications for the u s federal excise tax exemption on ethanol fuels however the possible effect of increased overall consumption of fuel in response to lower total price mitigating the environmental and fuel security benefits are generally not considered taking this price response into account the optimal u s ethanol subsidy is derived estimated values of the optimal subsidy reveal that the subsidy s environmental and security benefits are questionable however positive environmental and security benefits from the ethanol tax exemption subsidy may be obtained if the subsidy is combined with an increase in the excise tax on gasoline

financial subsidies to the australian fossil fuel industry abstract a common claim during international greenhouse gas reduction negotiations has been that domestic emissions cuts will harm national economies this argument fails to consider the distorting effect of existing financial subsidies and associated incentives to fossil fuel production and consumption provided by governments in most developed countries these subsidies support a fossil fuel energy sector that is the major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and conflict with attempts to expand the role of sustainable energy technologies reform of these types of subsidies has the potential to provide substantial gains in economic efficiency as well as reductions in carbon dioxide emissions a no regrets outcome for the economy and the environment this paper examines financial subsidies to fossil fuel production and consumption in australia and estimates the magnitude of the subsidies subsidies and associated incentives to fossil fuel production and consumption in australia are similar to those in the united states and the other countries that have pushed for increased flexibility during international negotiations

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

the public perceptions and willingness to pay from the perspective of the smog crisis in china the deteriorating air quality which is linked to human actions related to energy resources has become an urgent global problem china s air pollution has reached the hazardous level since 2000s in consideration of the serious health and social problems residential demand for clean air is increasing this paper applies the contingent valuation method to estimate public s willingness to pay wtp for reducing air pollution in the urban area of china open ended scenarios through face to face surveys are used to elicit public s wtp the two part model is employed for the estimation the probit model is used to estimate the probability of respondents who have positive wtp values and the interval regression model is employed to estimate the specific wtp level of those with nonzero wtp values the results show that nearly 90 of the respondents are willing to pay for reducing air pollution and the average amount of wtp per individual is 382 6rmb per year household income is found to be positively correlated with people s wtp and those who trust the government are more willing to share the cost of reducing air pollution this study recommends designing some effective mechanisms to tap the potentially available source of money for smog mitigation and improving the transparency of smog governance to enhance the government credibility as solutions to cope with smog crisis

evaluating the atkinson index of household energy consumption in china abstract improving equality and efficiency of household energy distribution is the primary concern of china s policy makers in their effort to reform the energy pricing system in this paper we use atkinson index as an analytical tool to quantitatively and systematically evaluate the equality and efficiency of household energy distribution the result shows that the atkinson index of electricity expenditure is much smaller than that of transportation expenditure which indicates that transportation expenditure responds better to income differences furthermore a geographical distribution analysis indicates that households in middle china suffer greater inequality in energy distribution than those in eastern and western china in view of the oncoming energy pricing reform in china we reevaluate the atkinson index under the new pricing scenarios for electricity and petroleum products compared to the current household energy pricing mechanism the simulated new policies generate more allocative efficiency of household energy and ensure more equality of energy consumption for low income households on this account we suggest that geographical differences and equality in energy distribution be duly addressed in reforming energy policies in china

optimal departures from marginal cost pricing focuses on departures from marginal cost pricing optimal allocation or resources level of tax revenue that will be collected by the government theorems developed for resource allocation ebsco

fishery socioeconomics a survey fisheries management is constantly confronted and sometimes confounded by the complexities of real world fishery systems two major sources of such complexities are 1 the many conflicting goals and objectives faced by fishery managers and 2 the wide variety of socioeconomic factors which impact on the validity and effectiveness of regulatory instruments amongst the considerations lying within this fishery socioeconomics framework are distributional issues labor market structure social and opportunity costs fishing community dynamics and fishermen decisionmaking processes andersen 1978 fao 1985 fricke 1985 germa 1986 panayotou 1982 pollnac and sutinen 1979 while their importance is widely recognized little consensus exists regarding the manner in which such topics can best be incorporated into economic analyses and into fishery management decisions this paper reviews relevant literature on fishery socioeconomics addressing the questions what contribution can multi objective socioeconomic analysis play in fisheries economics and in practical fisheries management what insights can be obtained from existing socioeconomic research what specific questions need to be emphasized in future research an attempt is made to consolidate the research in this diverse area which has tended to develop somewhat independently from traditional resource economics theory and which has some clear connections to the ideas of institutional economics see e g wilson 1986 the paper is organized as follows section i explores the wide variety of objectives such as employment distributional concerns and rent generation which often play a practical role in real world fisheries whether or not they are expressed explicitly in fishery policy statements section ii reviews theoretical and empirical studies of income distribution wh le ection iii presents a broad examination of literature dealing with socioeconomic aspects of fishery management this involves both critiques of common management methods such as regulated property rights and limited entry schemes and examinations of alternative approaches such as cooperatives informal contracting and community property rights this leads into an exploration in sections iv and v of the social and opportunity costs for labor in fisheries and of related themes involving fishery labor markets the determinants of labor supply and the key issue of labor mobility section vi presents an overview of the literature concerned with fishermen and fishing community decision processes and behavioral dynamics the discussion is broadened in section vii to review data requirements in socioeconomic analysis and to provide perspectives on future priorities for research in fishery socioeconomics finally the paper ends in section viii with some general conclusions and some thoughts on the diffi ulties that have been faced in integrating socioeconomic research into economic analyses

is something really wrong with macroeconomics while there is much that is wrong with macroeconomics today most critiques of the state of macroeconomics are off target current macroeconomic research is not mindless dsge modeling filled with ridiculous assumptions and oblivious of data rather young macroeconomists are doing vibrant varied and exciting work getting jobs and being published macroeconomics informs economic policy only moderately and not more nor all that differently than other fields in economics monetary policy has benefitted significantly from this advice in keeping inflation under control and preventing a new great depression macroeconomic forecasts perform poorly in absolute terms and given the size of the challenge probably always will but relative to the level of aggregation the time horizon and the amount of funding they are not so obviously worst than those in other fields what is most wrong with macroeconomics today is perhaps that there is too little discussion of which models to teach and too little investment in graduate level textbooks

subsidising inequality economic reforms fiscal transfers and convergence across chinese provinces the article investigates per capita income convergence across chinese provinces over the 1978 92 period it confirms previous studies which find a reduction in inter regional income inequality over the course of economic reforms however the rate of convergence has declined since 1985 as a result of two factors first the shift from rural to industrial reforms has disproportionately benefited the relatively wealthier coastal provinces second the system of inter provincial fiscal transfers has prevented convergence among interior provinces as transfers have gone to the richer among them further fiscal decentralisation and an acceleration of reforms in the interior provinces is thus unlikely to increase regional income inequality

tariff structure of japanese electric power companies an empirical analysis using dea this research explores a marginal cost mc based pricing system using data envelopment analysis dea this dea technique is widely applied for performance analysis and efficiency measurement in public and private sectors this article does not follow such a previous research direction rather directing itself towards the new measurement of mc and ramsey prices of multiple electric power services as an important case study this research applies the proposed dea approach to examine how much the current tariffs of japanese electric power services deviate from these mc and ramsey prices this type of research has never been explored in japan even though such a research effort is needed by many policy makers and consumers it is hoped that our empirical findings can serve as a policy making basis for guiding the japanese electric power industry this study believes that this japanese experience is useful for other nations such as asia pacific countries where many public industries are regulated by their governments

price elasticity block tariffs and equity of natural gas demand in china investigation based on household level survey data abstract on the basis of a newly established database from the chinese residential energy consumption survey this paper estimates the price elasticity of natural gas demand for the households and investigates the factors that affect residential natural gas consumption in china to address the endogeneity problems the non residential natural gas price has been adopted as the instrumental variable for residential natural gas price results demonstrate that the natural gas demand of chinese households respond significantly to price change with an overall price elasticity coefficient of 0 898 in the meanwhile 1 increase in family members would cause 0 159 rise in natural gas demand and household in the south consumes 28 8 more natural gas than that in the north recognizing the heterogeneity of residential natural gas price elasticity for different households quantile regression technique has further been applied to analyze the distributional effect of natural gas consumption the simulation suggests that the gini coefficient drops from 0 49 to 0 40 after introducing an increasing block tariff scheme to replace the original flat tariff system confirming a price reform has potential to improve the energy equity situation by reshaping the energy consumption pattern

effects of carbon taxes in an economy with prior tax distortions an intertemporal general equilibrium analysis abstract this paper analyzes the costs of carbon taxes in a model that recognizes interactions between this tax and pre existing taxes first we examine the extent to which costs of a u s carbon tax are reduced when its revenues finance cuts in income taxes such use of revenues significantly reduces but does not eliminate the overall policy costs the positive overall costs reflect the carbon tax s focus on intermediate inputs and its relatively narrow base in comparison with income taxes we also examine the sensitivity of the carbon tax s costs to the level of pre existing taxes for any given use of revenues welfare costs rise significantly with pre existing tax rates indicating that models disregarding pre existing taxes may substantially understate the costs of new environmental tax initiatives

the credibility revolution in empirical economics how better research design is taking the con out of econometrics since edward leamer s memorable 1983 paper let s take the con out of econometrics empirical microeconomics has experienced a credibility revolution while leamer s suggested remedy sensitivity analysis has played a role in this we argue that the primary engine driving improvement has been a focus on the quality of empirical research designs the advantages of a good research design are perhaps most easily apparent in research using random assignment we begin with an overview of leamer s 1983 critique and his proposed remedies we then turn to the key factors we see contributing to improved empirical work including the availability of more and better data along with advances in theoretical econometric understanding but especially the fact that research design has moved front and center in much of empirical micro we offer a brief digression into macroeconomics and industrial organization where progress by our lights is less dramatic although there is work in both fields that we find encouraging finally we discuss the view that the design pendulum has swung too far critics of design driven studies argue that in pursuit of clean and credible research designs researchers seek good answers instead of good questions we briefly respond to this concern which worries us little

the optimality of boiteux ramsey pricing consider an economy with one public enterprise that is subject to a budgetary constraint and charges prices according to the first order necessary conditions suggested by boiteux 1956 or in another context by ramsey 1972 we state restrictive conditions sufficient to ensure that the resulting allocation is second best author s abstract

how to achieve green growth in china s agricultural sector abstract green development is the direction of china s agricultural sector investigating the main influencing factors of the agricultural sector s co2 emissions will help plan agricultural development and achieve low carbon growth this paper selects 2001 2016 panel data of china s 30 provinces and uses the nonparametric additive regression models to investigate the agricultural sector s co2 emissions the empirical results show that economic growth financial capacity and energy intensity all have a pull first then restrict inverted u shaped nonlinear effect on co2 emissions however the influencing mechanisms of these three influencing factors are different and need to be paid attention by relevant government departments more complicated the impact of urbanization on co2 emission shows a gentle m shaped pattern in addition an inverse n shaped nonlinear link exists between trade openness and co2 emissions therefore government departments should formulate differentiated emission reduction policies at different stages

china s energy demand and its characteristics in the industrialization and urbanization process a reply zhang and qin 2013 argued that in jiang and lin 2012 the equation form and variable selection should be altered and it was problematic to use regression equation to project the future in this reply we disagree with and will refute some of the points raised in their comments the model that we established was based on the mature economic theory with the variable selections all having economic implications considering the economic development stage china s urbanization will speed up and this will have significant effect on energy consumption therefore urbanization is an indispensable variable for analyzing energy demand in china the scenario design only in terms of the gdp is sufficient for illustrating energy demand trend in china to be understood in a way by most of the people although energy forecast is not that precise it has an important implication for energy policy design especially for china which is in transition and china s energy demand will keep high growth in the mid term

differences in citation patterns across journal tiers the case of economics we study how citation patterns differ between journal tiers in economics concretely we analyze citations patterns of more than 6 000 economics research articles published in top five second tier and top field economics journals between 1992 and 1996 in line with previous literature we find that top five journals articles generally receive more citations and that the life cycles of those citations are longer however their influence in term of citations is overestimated in its first twenty five years since publication the median top five article accumulates 4 25 around 3 as many citations when compared to the second tier and top field median article we show that this ratio is strongly associated with the field of economics research e g this ratio is the lowest for econometric methods papers and with articles impact e g in all fields of economics research except for theory this ratio decreases sharply as one moves toward high impact articles in term of citations

productivity growth and deregulation of japanese electricity distribution deregulation of japanese electric power industry began in 1995 after the amendment of electricity utility industry law in 1995 competition was partially introduced in a generation sector and retail competition started from 2000 eligibility to choose suppliers was gradually extended from larger to smaller customers as of 2008 almost all customers except households can choose their electricity suppliers based upon both previous implementation result of competition policy and review on their achievement japanese government will begin new policy debate in 2013 to assess further retail competition which includes household customers to prepare for policy suggestion on the future electric power industry this study examines the cost structure of japanese electricity distribution for the purpose we estimate a multi product translog cost function of japanese electricity distribution from 1983 to 2003 using the estimated cost function we calculate several economic measures such as productivity growth technical change and economies of scale and scope the empirical results of this study indicate the improvement in productivity growth after deregulation

power steering the canadian automotive industry the 1965 canada usa auto pact and political exchange abstract in the 1965 canada usa auto pact the automotive companies were required to maintain specified levels of assembly activity in canada this restriction and subsequent events such as the correlation of a shift in employment to canada and the widening of pay disparities between american and canadian workers the concentration of research in the united states despite canadian fiscal incentives and the differences in the rescue packages offered to chrysler by the two governments cannot be explained by conventional economic theory the paper demonstrates that they can be explained as mutually advantageous accommodations to different evaluations of political outputs reflecting endowments and domestic economic interests

industrial electricity demand for turkey a structural time series analysis abstract this research investigates the relationship between turkish industrial electricity consumption industrial value added and electricity prices in order to forecast future turkish industrial electricity demand to achieve this an industrial electricity demand function for turkey is estimated by applying the structural time series technique to annual data over the period 1960 to 2008 in addition to identifying the size and significance of the price and industrial value added output elasticities this technique also uncovers the electricity underlying energy demand trend uedt for the turkish industrial sector and is as far as is known the first attempt to do this the results suggest that output and real electricity prices and a uedt all have an important role to play in driving turkish industrial electricity demand consequently they should all be incorporated when modelling turkish industrial electricity demand and the estimated uedt should arguably be considered in future energy policy decisions concerning the turkish electricity industry the output and price elasticities are estimated to be 0 15 and 0 16 respectively with an increasing but at a decreasing rate uedt and based on the estimated equation and different forecast assumptions it is predicted that turkish industrial electricity demand will be somewhere between 97 and 148 twh by 2020

the long run performance of increasing block pricing in taiwan s residential electricity sector abstract this article examines the performance regarding efficiency and equity of increasing block pricing ibp in taiwan s residential electricity sector by using long term nationwide household data 1999 2014 actual variations in ibp rate structure are explored empirical results show that cross subsidization under ibp have resulted in inefficient over consumption by the poor and inefficient under consumption by the rich in addition the financial burden increased with decreases of household s income levels and a relatively high percentage of subsidies mistakenly went to non poor households the upward price adjustments and broadened first block in recent years have increased the household s financial burden and the rates of wrongly excluding the poor and wrongly including the rich to enjoy the subsidy being unable to take family size into consideration and send correct price signals to all users are two serious problems for ibp which may hinder the achievement of equity and efficiency in electricity use

price and expenditure elasticities of residential energy demand during urbanization an empirical analysis based on the household level survey data in china abstract urbanization one of the most obvious characteristics of economic growth in china has an apparent lock in effect on residential energy consumption pattern it is expected that residential sector would become a major force that drives china s energy consumption after urbanization process we estimate price and expenditure elasticities of residential energy demand using data from china s residential energy consumption survey crecs that covers households at different income levels and from different regional and social groups empirical results from the almost ideal demand system model are in accordance with the basic expectations the demands for electricity natural gas and transport fuels are inelastic in the residential sector due to the unreasonable pricing mechanism we further investigate the sensitivities of different income groups to prices of the three types of energy policy simulations indicate that rationalizing energy pricing mechanism is an important guarantee for energy sustainable development during urbanization finally we put forward suggestions on energy pricing reform in the residential sector based on characteristics of china s undergoing urbanization process and the current energy consumption situations

evaluation of energy saving effects of tiered electricity pricing and investigation of the energy saving willingness of residents abstract the effects of tiered electricity pricing tep on the energy saving willingness of residents and household electricity consumption behaviour are qualitatively studied through a social investigation in guangdong china furthermore an autoregressive integrated moving average model arima model is constructed using monthly electricity consumption data of residents in guangdong to quantify the effects of implementing a tep policy on energy saving meanwhile to explore the opportunities for improving the policy this research uses an ordered probit model to study the factors influencing the energy saving willingness of residents based on explanatory variables such as personal characteristics living conditions etc the empirical results demonstrate that after the implementation of tep energy saving awareness among women is higher than that among men with increasing levels of educational attainment or having a family energy saving awareness gradually increases in addition there is a u type relationship between age and energy saving awareness while a reciprocal u type is present between income and energy saving awareness meanwhile the housing ownership type self occupation or rental is also closely related to the energy saving awareness of residents finally according to the above research results suggestions are put forward to improve the tep policy

recent experiences with tariffs for saving electricity in households abstract financial incentives or disincentives in the form of electricity tariffs can be used to encourage energy efficiency in this paper two simple tariffs aimed at residential consumers are reviewed progressive tariffs pts which penalise high consumption of electricity and electricity saving feed in tariffs esfits which provide incentives to reduce consumption of electricity the effectiveness of these tariffs is quantified and compared using the price elasticity for pt and an incentive elasticity for esfit the results indicate that pts are more effective in mobilising electricity saving than esfits and confirm biases in human decision making here loss aversion while further research is necessary we propose a tariff which would motivate consumers to reduce their consumption by offering both an incentive for reaching an energy saving goal and a disincentive for failing to reach this goal the flexibility of such a tariff makes it a promising solution suitable for application in countries with a comparatively high household income and liberalised retail electricity market

is it more effective to bring time of use pricing into increasing block tariffs evidence from evaluation of residential electricity price policy in anhui province abstract reform of energy prices in china has stepped into a crucial stage it has become a controversial issue after the reform of increasing block tariffs ibts for household electricity followed by a time of use tou pricing policy using eles model this paper estimates the price elasticity of residential electricity demand based on perceived price and price elasticity a power structure model demand response for nonlinear electricity price is proposed taking anhui province as a case this paper analyzes the attainment situation of such policy objectives as electricity saving consumer welfare equity improvement and peak shaving with the introduction of tou pricing into ibts for household electricity the results show that ibts helps reduce electricity consumption by 0 74 0 93 with minor energy effect ibts may lead to a maximum 1 57cny increase of electricity expense per household per month which is acceptable for residents it also may reduce cross subsidy to some extent after introducing tou pricing the efficiency of peak shaving is only 2 25 2 78 and the load decrement at peak periods is far lower than the increase at valley periods while the effect of electricity conservation and cross subsidy reduction have been alleviated in other words peak valley price is not only difficult to achieve its own objective effectively but also prohibits the effect of ibts based on the above conclusions some policy recommendations are provided to improve the price reform of residential electricity natural gas and other public resources in various regions of china and foreign regions with similar electricity market

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

evaluating the influence of increasing block tariffs in residential gas sector using agent based computational economics abstract designing a desirable increasing block tariff for the residential gas retail market has been a challenging task for regulated utilities especially in china to deal with such problems in this paper we establish an agent based computational economics system to provide a formal evaluation of the direct and indirect influences of several issued increasing block tariffs in the residential gas market moreover a comprehensive demand response behaviour model has been improved in term of price elasticity while still coping with income levels and complex social environment we also compute and compare the outcomes of several increasing block tariffs with the initial flat tariff by running the system on a test case using real world data from a middle scale gas retail market in wuhan the results indicate that there is an appropriate increasing block gas tariff scheme that has greater ability to improve social equity while still ensuring operator revenue and promoting gas conservation in order to offset the limitations of the proposed increasing block tariffs the regulator should adopt some complementary measures such as applying appropriate policies targeting the intended consumers and allowing large families to obtain extra allowance of volume

lin b jiang z 2012 designation and influence of household increasing block electricity tariffs in china energy policy 42 pp 164 173 how biased is the measurement of household s loss abstract the three tier inclining block tariff ibt issued by the chinese government in 2010 is focusing attention of energy economists among whom lin and jiang 2012 designation and influence of household increasing block electricity tariffs in china energy policy 42 164 173 who assert that the issued tariff is unsuited to meet the social and environmental objectives it was designed for these authors offer an alternative four tiered ibt the performance of which they show by evaluating its welfare and income distribution effects taking the current uniform tariff as reference to measure the surplus loss to a representative household in a given block the authors use the trapezoid approach but because of the limited data on demand they calculate the household s response by using a constant point estimate of the own price elasticity of electricity demand in this note i show there is an incompatibility between these two modeling assumptions combining them is causing an upward bias in the surplus loss which is of significance given the large price change associated with the ibt i then offer a correction to this bias

tiered gasoline pricing a personal carbon trading perspective abstract this paper proffers a tiered gasoline pricing method from a personal carbon trading perspective an optimization model of personal carbon trading is proposed and then an equilibrium carbon price is derived according to the market clearing condition based on the derived equilibrium carbon price this paper proposes a calculation method of tiered gasoline pricing then sensitivity analyses and consumers surplus analyses are conducted it can be shown that a rise in gasoline price or a more generous allowance allocation would incur a decrease in the equilibrium carbon price making the first tiered price higher but the second tiered price lower it is further verified that the proposed tiered pricing method is progressive because it would relieve the pressure of the low income groups who consume less gasoline while imposing a greater burden on the high income groups who consume more gasoline based on these results implications limitations and suggestions for future studies are provided

possible adverse effects of increasing block water tariffs in developing countries ture in which a commodity is priced at a low initial rate up to a specified volume of use block then at a higher or several increasingly higher rates for additional blocks used the ordinary household municipal water bill in developing countries is often calculated on some sort of ibt structure and donor organizations and consultants continue to recommend this practice for town and city water systems the majority of world bank sponsored water tariff studies conducted since 1970 for example have recommended the use of increasing block water tariffs there are two commonly accepted justifications for using ibts the first based on a rationale of equity is that ibts should assist low income households and ensure an equitable allocation of the costs of water production and distribution the argument in this case is that low income households use less water than high income households because they have fewer water using appliances and are less likely to have large lawns and gardens an ibt results in higher marginal prices to the customer and thus higher average prices for higher income households the price of water in the initial block may be set very low usually at a subsidized rate to ensure that the poor are not discouraged from using the amount of water considered essential for human needs typically estimated at 25 50 liters per capita per day the price of water in the initial block is thus sometimes termed the lifeline rate the second justification for ibt structures is that the higher prices charged beyond the initial block discourage extravagant water use and promote water conservation both these justifications for ibts assume that each household has

will carbon motivated border tax adjustments function as a threat abstract due to large incremental carbon emissions china might become an important target country of cbta carbon motivated border tax adjustments to levy cbta could reduce china s emissions meanwhile china s emissions reduction could also be achieved by china s climate policies termed as cbta emissions equivalent policies this paper contributes to the discussion on cbta by comparing the potential regional effects of cbta and cbta emissions equivalent policies the main findings are as follows 1 cbta and cbta emissions equivalent policies would result in relocations of outputs across regions and countries affect the structure of economy and contribute to world s emissions reduction 2 there would be significant differences in the regional effects between cbta and cbta emissions equivalent policies 3 compared to carbon tax cbta would be a costly and inefficient policy instrument to reduce emissions but could function as an effective coercion strategy 4 these policies would result in competitiveness issue and rebound effects wherein different countries would be affected differently china is a large economy and energy consumer with high openness to international trade looking ahead the chinese government should consider the potential interactions between china and other economies when designing tax reforms

reform of refined oil product pricing mechanism and energy rebound effect for passenger transportation in china new huadu business school research fund china sustainable energy program of the energy foundation g 1203 15828 national social science foundation of china 12zd059 ministry of education 10gbj013

university differences in the graduation of minorities in stem fields evidence from california the low number of college graduates with science degrees particularly among underrepresented minorities is of growing concern we examine differences across universities in graduating students in different fields using student level data on the university of california system during a period in which racial preferences were in place we show significant sorting into majors based on academic preparation with science majors at each campus having on average stronger credentials than their non science counterparts students with relatively weaker academic preparation are significantly more likely to leave the sciences and take longer to graduate at each campus we show the vast majority of minority students would be more likely to graduate with a science degree and graduate in less time had they attended a lower ranked university similar results do not apply for non minority students

governing the transition of socio technical systems a case study of the development of smart grids in korea abstract this paper examines the motivations processes and outcomes of the development of smart grids in south korea through the perspectives of governance and innovation systems drawing on desktop research and semi structured interviews this paper has two major findings first the development of smart grids in korea has been shaped by various factors including macroeconomic policy the role of the government and experimentation the complex interactions between these factors at the landscape regime and niche levels has impacted on the development of smart grids second while korea s government led approach has its strengths in driving change it has also exposed weaknesses in the country s ability to mobilise the private sector and consumer participation major obstacles including partial electricity market reform and public distrust exist a systemic perspective is needed for policy in order to accommodate the changes required for smart grid development regulatory reforms particularly price setting mechanisms and consumer engagement are priority areas for policy change

china s regional balanced development based on the investment in power grid infrastructure abstract due to the stark reality of regional development disparities china has to confront the sustainable development challenges brought about by social inequality to compensate for these regional differences in natural resource endowments effective investment in power grid infrastructure pgi and improvement of power grids might prove helpful in reducing poverty and narrowing the development gap this paper constructs a peripheral degree index pdi of power grid to measure the effective distance between electricity delivering areas and receiving regions moreover we discuss how to efficiently locate the investment in pgi and optimize the allocation of limited financial resources the results show investment in pgi has higher marginal benefit for less developed provinces in energy delivering regions and more importantly improvement of the grid infrastructure in central areas which connect energy receiving and delivering regions particularly to improve the grid facilities in the central areas could reduce electricity transmission cost and help to alleviate the railway strain for coal transportation therefore our findings suggest that it is more advisable to locate the investment of power grid infrastructure in the central provinces that are located at strategic conjunctions of the nationwide power grid including shanxi henan hubei and hebei

impact of tiered pricing system on china s urban residential electricity consumption survey evidences from 14 cities in guangxi province the chinese government has highlighted the crucial role of energy conservation in its 2014 2020 energy strategy plan where the residential sector inevitably takes great responsibility one big move was the implementation of the tiered electricity pricing tep system which intends to motivate electricity saving behavior and address cross subsidization issue this paper therefore attempts to investigate the effectiveness of the tep i e whether the tep has attained its anticipated electricity conservation outcome the empirical study was carried out in 14 cities in china s guangxi province using a survey method the survey data demonstrated that there were more than half of the respondents 52 8 affirmed that the tep had encouraged them to save electricity regression results show that the tep performance was significantly associated with respondents electricity expenditures and their income levels moreover respondents electricity saving attitudes awareness and literacy were also found to be the critical driving forces to improve the effectiveness of tep the key drawn policy implication is that the tep price magnitudes should be increased further while the adjustment of the magnitudes should not neglect residents income levels

estimating short and long term residential demand for electricity new evidence from sri lanka this study investigates the short run dynamics and long run equilibrium relationship between residential electricity demand and factors influencing demand per capita income price of electricity price of kerosene oil and price of liquefied petroleum gas using annual data for sri lanka for the period 1960 2007 the study uses unit root cointegration and error correction models the long run demand elasticities of income own price and price of kerosene oil substitute were estimated to be 0 78 0 62 and 0 14 respectively the short run elasticities for the same variables were estimated to be 032 0 16 and 0 10 respectively liquefied petroleum lp gas is a substitute for electricity only in the short run with an elasticity 0 09 the main findings of the paper support the following 1 increasing the price of electricity is not the most effective tool to reduce electricity consumption 2 existing subsidies on electricity consumption can be removed without reducing government revenue 3 the long run income elasticity of demand shows that any future increase in household incomes is likely to significantly increase the demand for electricity and 4 any power generation plans which consider only current per capita consumption and population growth should be revised taking into account the potential future income increases in order to avoid power shortages ill the country

an agent based approach with collaboration among agents estimation of wholesale electricity price on pjm and artificial data generated by a mean reverting model abstract this study examines the performance of mais multi agent intelligent simulator equipped with various learning capabilities in addition to the learning capabilities the proposed mais incorporates collaboration among agents the proposed mais is applied to estimate a dynamic change of wholesale electricity price in pjm pennsylvania new jersey mainland and an artificial data set generated by a mean reverting model using such different types of data sets the methodological validity of mais is confirmed by comparing it with other well known alternatives in computer science this study finds that the mais needs to incorporate both the mean reverting model and the collaboration behavior among agents in order to enhance its estimation capability the mais discussed in this study will provide research on energy economics with a new numerical capability that can investigate a dynamic change of not only wholesale electricity price but also speculation and learning process of traders

impacts of increasing renewable energy subsidies and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies in china abstract subsidies to fossil fuel consumption have made china s energy system fragile and unsustainable it is necessary for china to reform fossil fuel subsidies and reflect the resource cost and environmental cost in energy prices considering the life cycle external costs this paper estimates the scale of fossil fuel subsidy and the true cost of renewable energy in 2010 and evaluates impacts of increasing renewable energy subsidies and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies on macro economy and energy system in china based on scenario analysis simulation results show that the negative impacts on economic growth can be reduced from 4 460 to 0 432 if only 10 of fossil fuel subsidies were removed increasing subsidies for renewable energy has positive impacts on macroeconomic variables although the economic benefits per unit of subsidies for renewable energy are lower than those for fossil fuels by 0 06 0 19 cny the revenue gap can be narrowed by shifting more subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables increasing subsidies for renewable energy helps optimize china s energy system in three ways the first is making energy consumption structure cleaner the second is improving energy efficiency and the third is addressing the problem of imbalanced distribution and consumption of energy

public investment and economic growth this article uses an extension of mankiw romer and weil s augmented solow swan growth model to examine whether public investment has a distinct role as a determinant of economic growth it considers both the predictions of the model in steady state and in transition to steady state for the steady state model there is no significant effect from public investment on the level of output per worker using standard ordinary least squares ols methods for the transition model it observes a significant contribution to economic growth from public investment when instrumental variables methods are used however the associated standard errors are much larger and the contribution of public investment is statistically insignificant

reforming residential electricity tariff in china block tariffs pricing approach the chinese households that make up approximately a quarter of world households are facing a residential power tariff reform in which a rising block tariff structure will be implemented and this tariff mechanism is widely used around the world the basic principle of the structure is to assign a higher price for higher income consumers with low price elasticity of power demand to capture the non linear effects of price and income on elasticities we set up a translog demand model the empirical findings indicate that the higher income consumers are less sensitive than those with lower income to price changes we further put forward three proposals of chinese residential electricity tariffs compared to a flat tariff the reasonable block tariff structure generates more efficient allocation of cross subsidies better incentives for raising the efficiency of electricity usage and reducing emissions from power generation which also supports the living standards of low income households

evaluating the public perceptions of nuclear power in china evidence from a contingent valuation survey national natural science foundation of china 71303199 71373218 ministry of education foundation of china 13yjc790123 11jbgp006 13jzd010 fundamental research funds for the central universities 201122g008 2014221001 national social science foundation of china 13zd167

using latent variable approach to estimate china s economy wide energy rebound effect over 1954 2010 the energy rebound effect has been a significant issue in china which is undergoing economic transition since it reflects the effectiveness of energy saving policy relying on improved energy efficiency based on the ipat equation and brookes explanation of the rebound effect this paper develops an alternative estimation model of the rebound effect by using the estimation model and latent variable approach which is achieved through a time varying coefficient state space model we estimate china s economy wide energy rebound effect over 1954 2010 the results show that the rebound effect evidently exists in china as a result of the annual average of 39 73 over 1954 2010 before and after the implementation of china s reform and opening up policy in 1978 the rebound effects are 47 24 and 37 32 with a strong fluctuation and a circuitously downward trend respectively indicating that a stable political environment and the development of market economy system facilitate the effectiveness of energy saving policy although the energy saving effect of improving energy efficiency has been partly realised there remains a large energy saving potential in china

a review of residential tiered electricity pricing in china abstract at present the unformed market oriented pricing mechanism has become a great challenge faced by china s electricity pricing and the unreasonable electricity pricing caused by cross subsidization has become increasingly serious with the economic development and energy shortage tiered electricity price tep which was developed and used since 1970s was introduced into china as a new electricity pricing method for residential electricity consumption the tep can also improve the tariffs the behaviors and the efficiency of residential electricity consumption in this study we use the fundamental theory of the electricity economics to analyze the pricing methods and the forms of china s power market with the reform of electric power industry we also point out the characteristics of residential tiered electricity pricing in china which is also compared with other countries such as the united states and japan the main factors influencing the residential tiered electricity pricing design are discussed in this paper from the perspectives of users the electric power enterprise and government regulation then we point out the main problems of china s existing tiered electricity pricing including inadequate level of public awareness and acceptance unreasonable tiered and electricity price standard insufficient reflection in regional differences less combination with other electricity pricing forms and low level of smart meter application

estimates of energy subsidies in china and impact of energy subsidy reform abstract for a transitional economy such as china some energy subsidies are reasonable and sometimes even necessary for achieving social goals however with rising energy prices and environmental concerns we see conflicts emerging between energy subsidies energy demand supply fundamentals and climate change considerations energy subsidies have important implications for sustainable development through their effects on energy use efficiency and the choice of fuel source this paper applies the price gap approach to estimate china s energy subsidies results indicate that china s energy subsidies amounted to cny 356 73 billion in 2007 equivalent to 1 43 of gdp subsidies for oil products consumption are the largest followed by subsidies for the electricity and coal sectors furthermore a cge model is used to analyze the economic impacts of energy subsidy reforms our findings show that removing energy subsidies will result in a significant fall in energy demand and emissions but will have negative impacts on macroeconomic variables we conclude that offsetting policies could be adopted such that certain shares of these subsidies are reallocated to support other sustainable development measures which could lead to reducing energy intensity and favoring the environment

input substitution effect in china s chemical industry evidences and policy implications abstract the chemical industry is one of the six high energy consuming and emission intensive sectors in china and the chinese government has focused its attention on energy saving and emissions reduction in the sector with the aim of contributing to the objective of energy saving and emission reduction in the sector this article studies the external substitution relationship of capital energy and labor energy using the translog production function and ridge regression the results are as follow the output elasticities of energy labor and capital are positive the substitution elasticities of capital labor capital energy and labor energy are positive and stable and their values are close to 1 which indicates that the three factors are substitutes for one another furthermore based on the above function we measure the level of energy saving and emissions reduction under different scenarios in 2012 policy implications of the results are provided

post fukushima public acceptance on resuming the nuclear power program in china abstract this study investigates social perceptions electricity preference management instruments towards nuclear power in china and evaluates the extent of opposing nuclear power by estimating public willingness to pay wtp to prevent a nuclear power plant from being constructed in their local cities and the neighboring cities it is pretty important to understand the public sentiment towards recommencement of nuclear programs since public acceptance of nuclear energy is one of the determinants for government establishment of a new nuclear project especially the chinese government has resumed the approval of new nuclear power plants and planned to expand this industry in the post fukushima world the findings show that most of the respondents care about the development of nuclear power in china the publics are a bit skeptical about the security of nuclear power since they are worried about nuclear accidents in addition the government is requested to improve policy transparency which is seen as an essential way of alleviating the public nuclear anxieties in china

cartels and dynamic contracts in sharefishing abstract this paper studies a principal agent model of a fishery where cooperative vessel owners the principal hire unorganized fishermen agents to operate the vessels on each vessel fishermen s remuneration is a share of the value of the catch the results show that harvest shares of myopic fishermen will be reduced when cartels are established intertemporal optimization of the resource use by the cartel is accompanied by the problem of the cartel s viability share contracts are traditionally motivated by risk sharing and by the avoidance of labor monitoring the results of this paper suggest new important reasons for the commonness of share contracts in fishing sharefishing is a self adaptive and time consistent remuneration system as it automatically accomodates differences in individual crews labor supplies due to differences in fishermen s skills and cost factors an essential result found that supports harvest sharing is the relative simplicity of the social management policy optimal regulation is accomplished by a constant subsidy on the price of fish the subsidy policy is time consistent and does not change as the stock level changes the paper also addresses conditions under which stock extinction does not occur in sharefishing

how do urban households in china respond to increasing block pricing in electricity evidence from a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach abstract china is the largest electricity consumption country after it has passed the united states in 2011 residential electricity consumption in china grew by 381 35 12 85 per annum between 2000 and 2013 in order to deal with rapid growth in residential electricity consumption an increasing block pricing policy was introduced for residential electricity consumers in china on july 1st 2012 using difference in differences models with a fuzzy regression discontinuity design we estimate a causal effect of price on electricity consumption for urban households during the introduction of increasing block pricing policy in guangdong province of china we find that consumers do not respond to a smaller approximately 8 increase in marginal price however consumers do respond to a larger increase in marginal price an approximately 40 increase in marginal price induces an approximately 35 decrease in electricity use 284 kw h per month our results suggest that although the increasing block pricing could affect the behavior of households with higher electricity use there is only a limit potential to overall energy conservation

fuel consumption in road transport a comparative study of china and oecd countries abstract energy conservation and emissions reduction have been the focus of the road transport sector due to its energy intensive and air pollution intensive nature it also embodies the imprints of human technological progress this paper compares the energy consumption of the road transport sector in china and oecd countries we used time series and panel data co integration analysis error correction model and dynamic model to study the impacts of the major influencing factors such as income income structure urbanization price and technological advancement on gasoline and diesel consumption in road transport overall china s fuel consumption is influenced mainly by investment government expenditure and demographic changes such as urbanization while the fuel consumption of oecd countries is mainly driven by household final consumption expenditure in the short run and from a dynamic perspective china s fuel consumption is less influenced by its historical consumption than current influencing factors while that of oecd countries is more affected by historical fuel consumption based on the analysis and findings of this study some policy implications are proposed

designation and influence of household increasing block electricity tariffs in china abstract electricity is the guarantee of normal life and the electricity price is widely concerned as a developing country in the transition stage abundant policy implications are included in the electricity price in china thus whether to adjust the resident electricity price is a dilemma for the government however the current single tariff system cannot cope with the complex social and environmental problems a new price mechanism is indeed needed this paper tries to design an increasing block tariffs system with the consideration of residential income and electricity consumption the result indicates that the increasing block tariffs system with four tier structure is more reasonable for china although the increasing block tariffs will result in the increase of electricity price it is still acceptable and affordable the increasing block tariffs will greatly improve the equity and efficiency and promote the electricity saving and emissions reduction moreover the power companies will increase tariffs revenue which would use to the transmission networks investment in poor area in order to the offset the limitations of the increasing block tariffs the government should adopt some complementary measures

short and long run elasticities in us residential electricity demand a co integration approach abstract co integration techniques show promise in the analysis of short and long run effects of economic variables on energy use we use these techniques to develop an error correction model of annual us residential electricity demand we construct equipment stock indices and estimate the model for 1949 1993 our analysis suggests a structural shift in consumption during the 1960s we discuss reasons for this shift report the short and long run elasticities provide forecasts for 1994 1995 and compare the model s forecasts with other published forecasts

case study on initial allocation of shanghai carbon emission trading based on shapley value abstract carbon emission trading is an effective measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide china has publicized plans to initiate the demonstration of carbon emission trading in seven regions as of 2013 initial allocation is fundamental but it proposes difficulty in the mechanism design of the carbon emission trading system benchmark grandfathering and the shapley value have been employed to simulate a specific case which consists of the initial allocation of carbon emission allowances of three power plants in shanghai china the results of the shapley value are regarded as a theoretical equitable reference the results of benchmark are similar to those of the shapley value however it is apparent that the allocation regarding grandfathering is inequitable considering other factors we proposed the following at the introduction of experimental stage free allocation pertaining to grandfathering can be adopted meanwhile benchmark should be prepared and adopted at the appropriate time furthermore a portion of the initial allowances can be reserved for auction and this portion for auction will escalate to the extent of 100 upon entering the formal stage in addition the tiered price mechanism and the subsidy policy are also suggested

household heterogeneity impact of removing energy subsidies in china direct and indirect effect abstract reforming subsidies for fossil fuels is a challenging prospect for many governments the impact of such a reform on households is a major concern for the government this paper investigates the heterogeneous impacts of eliminating energy subsidies on households in china from direct and indirect perspectives the results of the direct effects show that the removal of energy subsidies particularly for removing electricity and gas subsidies has a greater negative impact on the poor than on the rich from an indirect perspective this article shows that the lower the per capita disposable income the higher the proportion of consumption to disposable income and the greater the indirect impact of eliminating subsidies meanwhile the impact is not only related to household income but consumer goods moreover the indirect effects of eliminating subsidies on households differ across energy types specifically eliminating electricity subsidies has the greatest effect on households followed by transportation fuel and gas we suggest that targeted supportive measures need to be taken towards the implementation of subsidy reform particularly in countries with greater inequality to minimize the negative effects on the poor

electricity consumption in g7 countries a panel cointegration analysis of residential demand elasticities this article applies recently developed panel unit root and panel cointegration techniques to estimate the long run and short run income and price elasticities for residential demand for electricity in g7 countries the panel results indicate that in the long run residential demand for electricity is price elastic and income inelastic the study concludes that from an environmental perspective there is potential to use pricing policies in the g7 countries to curtail residential electricity demand and thus curb carbon emissions in the long run

block rate versus uniform water pricing in agriculture an empirical analysis in this article we adapt burtless and hausman s 1978 methodology in order to estimate farmers demand for irrigation water under increasing block rate tariffs and empirically assess its effect on aggregate demand and inter farm allocation efficiency this methodology overcomes the technical challenges raised by increasing block rate pricing and accounts for both observed and unobserved technological heterogeneity among farmers employing micro panel data documenting irrigation levels and prices in 185 israeli agricultural communities in the period 1992 1997 we estimate water demand elasticity at 0 3 in the short run the effect of a price change on demand within a year of implementation and 0 46 in the long run we also find that in accordance with common belief switching from a single to a block price regime yields a 7 reduction in average water use while maintaining the same average price however based on our simulations we estimate that the switch to block prices will result in a loss of approximately 1 of agricultural output due to inter farm allocation inefficiencies

is public expenditure productive abstract this paper considers the relationship between aggregate productivity and stock and flow government spending variables the empirical results indicate that i the nonmilitary public capital stock is dramatically more important in determining productivity than is either the flow of nonmilitary or military spending ii military capital bears little relation to productivity and iii a core infrastructure of streets highways airports mass transit sewers water systems etc has most explanatory power for productivity the paper also suggests an important role for the net public capital stock in the productivity slowdown of the last fifteen years

a critical review of china s rapidly developing renewable energy and energy efficiency policies renewable energy and energy efficiency reee policies have far reaching implications for energy security climate change economic competitiveness pollution and human livelihood for these reasons reee has become a national priority for the chinese government particularly since 2005 this paper aims to critically review china s reee policies in six sectors electricity industry transportation buildings and local government in addition to examining the progress china has made in the development and implementation of reee policies this review also identifies limitations and room for improvement finally five policy recommendations are presented

price and income elasticities of residential water demand a meta analysis this article presents a meta analysis of variations in price and income elasticities of residential water demand meta analysis constitutes an adequate tool to synthesize research results by means of an analysis of the variation in empirical estimates reported in the literature we link the variation in estimated elasticities to differences in theoretical microeconomic choice approaches differences in spatial and temporal dynamics as well as differences in research design of the underlying studies the occurrence of increasing or decreasing block rate systems turns out to be important with respect to price elasticities the use of the discrete continuous choice approach is relevant in explaining observed differences

shaping china s energy security the impact of domestic reforms this paper is a subsequent study of china s energy security situation which concludes that china s energy security has not improved over 30 years of economic reform the objective of the study is to explore qualitatively why the energy security situation has not improved to answer the why question the study opens up a new perspective by analyzing the relationship between energy security and energy policies from the macroeconomic reform perspective this study discusses major reforms that took place over 30 years it is found that china s macroeconomic reform has restricted the formation of china s energy policies and determined its energy security situation in essence china s energy policies are only a reaction to the macroeconomic measures in other words china s energy policies are not originally intended to improve energy security but passive reactions to china s macroeconomic reform this explains why china did not improve its energy security situation despite 30 years of reform

electricity demand and basic needs empirical evidence from china s households an increasing block tariff ibt has been implemented nationwide in the residential sector in china since 2012 however knowledge about ibt design is still limited particularly how to determine the electricity volume for the first block of an ibt scheme assuming the first block should be set based on some measure of electricity poverty we attempt to model household electricity demand such that the range of basic needs can be established we show that in chinese households there exists a threshold for electricity consumption with respect to income which could be considered a measure of electricity poverty and the threshold differs between rural and urban areas for rural urban families electricity consumption at the level of 7th 5th income decile households can be considered the threshold for basic needs or a measure of electricity poverty since household electricity demand in rural urban areas does not respond to income changes until after 7th 5th income decile accordingly the first ibt block for some provinces e g beijing appears to have been set at a level that is too high over time however given continued rapid growth the ibt will begin to better reflect actual basic needs

a review of optimal energy policy instruments on industrial energy efficiency programs rebound effects and government policies abstract industrial energy efficiency programs ieeps are defined as one of the most popular government policies that aim to reduce energy consumption in industrial energy intensive sectors in this paper we review and classify the most important academic studies that have addressed the environmental and economic aspects of ieeps using a systematic review the classification of energy policy instruments has been developed based on an analytical approach we discuss also the outputs benefits and barriers of ieeps besides a comprehensive argument about the restrictive policies on the rebound effects made after the implementation of these programs the results disclose that china usa and sweden are the most addressed countries on ieeps and their applications in this regard incentive energy policies e g voluntary agreements and subsidies have been applied more than others in the last decade furthermore most of the reviewed studies emphasize energy price reform as an effective practical policy while a few analytical methods can be seen to help policy makers determine the optimal levels of decision variables finally according to the state of the art analysis the authors provide some novel recommendations to improve the performance of ieeps using some restrictive policies on the negative impacts of rebound effects

undergraduate econometrics instruction through our classes darkly the past half century has seen economic research become increasingly empirical while the nature of empirical economic research has also changed in the 1960s and 1970s an empirical economist s typical mission was to explain economic variables like wages or gdp growth applied econometrics has since evolved to prioritize the estimation of specific causal effects and empirical policy analysis over general models of outcome determination yet econometric instruction remains mostly abstract focusing on the search for true models and technical concerns associated with classical regression assumptions questions of research design and causality still take a back seat in the classroom in spite of having risen to the top of the modern empirical agenda this essay traces the divergent development of econometric teaching and empirical practice arguing for a pedagogical paradigm shift

comparing climate policies to reduce carbon emissions in china new huadu business school research fund national social science foundation of china 12zd059 shandong social science planning fund program 12djjj12 independent innovation foundation of shandong university iifsdu 2012gn038 ministry of education research of social sciences china postdoctoral science foundation 2013m530309