rising residential rents in chinese mega cities the role of monetary policy although there have been a large number of studies carried out on fluctuations in housing prices little is known about what causes changes in residential rents which are inextricably intertwined with urban living standards this is especially noteworthy in chinese cities which are now being challenged by the housing market frenzies shift share analysis is proposed to evaluate all possible triggers of residential rent inflation in three cities during the 2001 2013 period which covers two distinct monetary policy regimes in china it is found that the recent rise in residential rent comes as a result of aggregate inflation associated with an expansionary monetary policy since the 2008 global financial crisis and an all encompassing and stable policy stance should therefore be adopted

microcredit what can we learn from the past abstract six microcredit organizations of 19th century europe are compared to identify what institutional designs were conducive to success and sustainability organizations that depended on charitable funding were more fragile and tended to lose their focus more quickly than those that obtained funds from depositors an ability to adjust interest rates also appears important in sustainability examining historical microcredit is particularly useful since it offers an opportunity to explore the characteristics of organizations which were sustained over many decades a perspective which is rare in modern microcredit banks and programs most of which are less than 15 years old

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

can we use the energy intensity indicator to study decoupling in modern economies abstract the economic energy intensity of a country defined as the ratio between the energy consumed and the gross domestic product of a country is a widely adopted indicator of economic performance often applied to sustainability analysis the usefulness of this indicator has been challenged on the basis of the fact that the two variables making up this ratio are correlated this implies that when considered in isolation each one of these two variables energy consumption p c and gdp p c maps on to typologies of socio economic systems e g developed countries vs less developed countries however calculating their ratio produces an indicator which does not map on to any meaningful typology of economic system a number without an external referent this paper checks the validity of this criticism by looking at the economic energy intensity eei of 133 countries over the period 1960 2009 two approaches are used for this task 1 an analysis at a given point in time year 2009 after excluding countries with real gdp p c

understanding the penalties associated with corporate misconduct an empirical examination of earnings and risk we examine the relationship between allegations of corporate misconduct and changes in profitability and risk of the alleged offender profitability is measured as reported earnings and analysts earnings forecasts risk is measured as stock return volatility and concordance among analysts forecasts decreases in earnings and increases in risk are found to accompany allegations of misconduct and although the results are somewhat sensitive to the earnings and risk metrics used the changes are found to be consistently greater for related party offenses the importance of reputational penalties is underscored by analysis of the association between allegation related changes in firm value and changes in earnings and risk

microenterprise clusters in rural indonesia industrial seedbed and policy target abstract this paper shows the importance of clustering at early stages of development when clustering is still largely a rural phenomenon and may serve as a survival strategy it argues first that dismally poor but clustered rural microenterprises may have a seedbed function for industrial development and second that clustering policy has brought about some success in indonesia data on more than 4 000 rural clusters provide insights in the various forces behind cluster gestation prosperity and dissolution it is argued that social capital is crucial for the achievement of transaction cost reductions which attract traders to the clustered enterprises ubiquitous search and reach advantages in marketing trigger clustering processes but these advantages diminish with overcrowding further external economies arise from specialization and technical indivisibilities but vary significantly by subsector consequently only specific clusters might benefit from public intervention in technology and organization

path towards achieving of china s 2020 carbon emission reduction target a discussion of low carbon energy policies at province level abstract following the announcement of the china s 2020 national target for the reduction of the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gdp by 40 45 compared with 2005 levels chinese provincial governments prepared to restructure provincial energy policy and plan their contribution to realizing the state reduction target focusing on fujian and anhui provinces as case studies this paper reviews two contrasting policies as a means for meeting the national reduction target that of the coastal province of fujian proposes to do so largely through the development of nuclear power whilst the coal rich province of anhui proposes to do so through its energy consumption rate rising at a lower rate than that of the rise in gdp in both cases renewable energy makes up a small proportion of their proposed 2020 energy structures the conclusion discusses in depth concerns about nuclear power policy energy efficiency energy consumption strategy and problems in developing renewable energy

operational and reputational risk in the european banking industry the market reaction to operational risk events abstract in this paper i study the stock market reaction to the announcement of operational losses in european financial companies accounting for the effect of the nominal loss amount allows for an examination of the reputational damage caused by operational loss events the analysis is based on a sample of 136 operational losses stemming from a database of the association of german public sector banks bundesverband offentlicher banken vob all operational loss events affect european financial institutions with settlements reported by the press between january 2000 and december 2009 in line with previous literature i find a significant negative stock price reaction to the first press announcement of operational losses results show that the stock market also reacts negatively to the settlement announcement as losses are confirmed and the loss amount is known even after accounting for the nominal loss amount cumulative abnormal returns are negative following the date of the initial news article and the settlement date indicating damages to the reputation of the firm suffering the operational loss multivariate regression results suggest that reputational damages are rather influenced by firm characteristics than characteristics of the operational loss event companies with a high ratio of liabilities to total assets suffer more severe damages to reputation from operational losses than companies with more equity

energy in the development strategy of indian households the missing half there is a growing consensus that universalization of modern energy services is central to reducing major elements of poverty and hunger to increase literacy and education and to improve health care employment opportunities and lives of women and children in india as per 2011 census over 700 million people lack access to modern energy services for lighting cooking water pumping and other productive purposes devoid of these services people mostly women are forced to spend significant amounts of their time and effort on subsistence activities like firewood collection carrying these head load for miles and then burning these hard earned fuels inefficiently in traditional chullas these adversely affect the health and standard of living for women and act as a barrier to gender development here gender means women unless otherwise specified although the links between gender inequity poverty and energy deprivation have been studied by many not many practical solutions to the above problems have emerged the present paper explores the nexus among gender energy poverty highlights areas of gender concern and suggests actions we analyze how women from rural areas and low income households are at the receiving ends of energy poverty we then analyze the roles women as an important stakeholders in universalizing modern energy services we show how women self help groups can be a vital link in large scale diffusion of energy efficient and renewable technologies the paper concludes with policy pointers for sustainable development and gender empowerment through energy solutions

improvement of energy demand forecasts using swarm intelligence the case of turkey with projections to 2025 the energy supply and demand should be closely monitored and revised the forecasts to take account of the progress of liberalization energy efficiency improvements structural changes in industry and other major factors medium and long term forecasting of energy demand which is based on realistic indicators is a prerequisite to become an industrialized country and to have high living standards energy planning is not possible without a reasonable knowledge of past and present energy consumption and likely future demands energy demand management activities should bring the demand and supply closer to a perceived optimum turkey s energy demand has grown rapidly almost every year and is expected to continue growing however the energy demand forecasts prepared by the turkey ministry of energy and natural resources overestimate the demand recently many studies are performed by researchers to forecast the energy demand of turkey particle swarm optimization pso technique has never been used for such a study in this study a model is proposed using pso based energy demand forecasting psoedf to forecast the energy demand of turkey more efficiently although there are other indicators as well gross domestic product gdp population import and export are used as basic energy indicators of energy demand in order to show the accuracy of the algorithm a comparison is made with the ant colony optimization aco energy demand estimation model which is developed for the same problem

reconciling the wage curve and the phillips curve the wage curve is the negative relationship that links wage levels to the unemployment rate it fits accurately with modern non competitive labour market models but goes against a phillips curve modelling because the latter ties wage growth to the unemployment rate in this article we present a comprehensive review of these non competitive models highlighting recent contributions that try to eliminate the possible gap that exists between the concepts of the wage curve on the one hand and the phillips curve on the other copyright blackwell publishers ltd 2005

the time varying nairu and its implications for economic policy the nairu the unemployment rate consistent with a constant rate of inflation is estimated in this paper as a parameter allowed to vary over time value is determined in an econometric model where the inflation rate depends on its past values demand and supply shocks the nairu estimated for the gdp deflator varies over the past forty years within 5 4 to 6 5 percent its estimated value for the most recent quarter 1996 q2 is 5 6 percent the nairu has declined in recent years in response to global competition immigration other factors weakening labor s bargaining position and the rapidly declining prices of computers and other electronics

the nairu and wages in local labor markets unemployment in the united states has been below its presumed nairu nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment of 6 percent for more than four years the doctrine or dogma of the nairu led to the expectation that an unemployment rate below the nairu would make accelerating inflation inevitable but by all measures inflation has if anything declined and shows no signs of increasing the nairu doctrine has had a major role in macroeconomic theory and monetary policy for several decades for example the seven hikes in interest rates by the fed in 1994 1995 seem to have been motivated not by concerns about existing inflation cpi u inflation was steady and below 3 percent but by fears that an unemployment rate falling toward the 6 percent level and then below 6 percent in september 1994 would foster future inflation theoretical and statistical criticisms of the nairu have been growing see e g robert solow 1986 james tobin 1993 eisner 1994 rod cross 1995 essays by cross frank hahn and tobin ray fair 1996 olivier blanchard and lawrence katz 1997

price flexibility and output stability an old keynesian view in this symposium i shall play the role in which i was cast the unreconstructed old keynesian considering the alternatives i do not mind being billed as a keynesian an old keynesian at that but old keynesians come in several varieties and i speak for no one but myself nor do i defend the literal text of the general theory several generations of economists have criticized amended and elaborated that seminal work i shall argue for the validity of the major propositions that distinguish keynesian macroeconomics from old or new classical macroeconomics

malaysia energy strategy towards sustainability a panoramic overview of the benefits and challenges sustainable energy supply is essential for actualizing malaysia s vision to become a high income country the current power production and demand trends show that malaysia has a reserve margin that will only last for the next few years this calls for further investment research and development in the country s power sector in order to meet the ever increasing energy demand the government s diversification policy and power sector expansion plan emphasizes on the incorporation of renewable energy sources ress and other less co2 emitting sources like nuclear into the national energy mix however the environmental ramifications of this policy should be part of any future expansion plan of national grid this paper presents a panoramic overview of the malaysian energy sector the energy policy revolution and the power sector expansion strategy towards secure sustainability we want to bring into focus the benefits and challenges of malaysia s power sector expansion plan with the aim of stimulating further discussion and research on the environmental ramifications of the plan

the lmdi approach to decomposition analysis a practical guide in a recent study ang energy policy 32 2004 compared various index decomposition analysis methods and concluded that the logarithmic mean divisia index method is the preferred method since the literature on the method tends to be either too technical or specific for most potential users this paper provides a practical guide that includes the general formulation process summary tables for easy reference and examples

vietnam s energy sector a review of current energy policies and strategies abstract since the introduction of market oriented economy in 1986 vietnam has made noticeable socio economic progress in this progress the energy sector has played a vital role this role is likely to deepen in the years to come as vietnam strives to achieve even higher levels in economic progress such deepening in the role of energy this paper argues will heighten concerns about the security of energy supply and economic environmental social and political consequences in order to address these issues vietnam has over the last decade developed a suite of energy policies a deeper review of these policies suggests that they are typified by economic growth orientation exclusive focus on a single sector or single issue and largely neglect the significance of cross sectoral and cross thematic issues arising from the interdependencies between energy economy and the polity at large the existing energy policy settings are therefore unlikely to be able to provide a satisfactory redress to the challenges noted above this paper provides an overview of the current energy policies with a view to identify areas where further policy effort is needed in order to facilitate a sustainable development of the vietnamese energy sector

effects of urbanisation on energy consumption in china as a key issue in china s economic development urbanisation creates increasing pressure on energy supply and the natural environment thus a better understanding of the relationship between urbanisation and energy consumption is necessary for chinese decision makers at various levels to address energy security and sustainable economic and social development this paper empirically investigates the effects of china s urbanisation on residential energy consumption rec and production energy consumption pec through a time series analysis the results show that compared with rural areas urbanisation slows per capita rec growth because of the economy of scale and technological advantages associated with urbanisation but has greater promotional effects on the growth of rec and the improvement of rec structure the economic growth caused by urbanisation most significantly contributes to an increase in pec whereas technological advancement was found to reduce the scale of pec except from 2001 to 2005 finally the structural effect of the energy supply increased rather than decreased china s pec and the effect of industrial structure adjustment on pec was found to be insignificant

the energy metabolism of china and india between 1971 and 2010 studying the bifurcation abstract this paper presents a comparison of the changes in the energetic metabolic pattern of china and india the two most populated countries in the world with two economies undergoing an important economic transition the comparison of the changes in the energetic metabolic pattern has the scope to characterize and explain a bifurcation in their evolutionary path in the recent years using the multi scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism musiasem approach the analysis shows an impressive transformation of china s energy metabolism determined by the joining of the wto in 2001 since then china became the largest factory of the world with a generalized capitalization of all sectors especially the industrial sector boosting economic labor productivity as well as total energy consumption india on the contrary lags behind when considering these factors looking at changes in the household sector energy metabolism associated with final consumption in the case of china the energetic metabolic rate emr soared in the last decade also thanks to a reduced growth of population whereas in india it remained stagnant for the last 40 years this analysis indicates a big challenge for india for the next decade in the light of the data analyzed both countries will continue to require strong injections of technical capital requiring a continuous increase in their total energy consumption when considering the size of these economies it is easy to guess that this may induce a dramatic increase in the price of energy an event that at the moment will penalize much more the chance of a quick economic development of india

macroenvironmental determinants of operational loss severity abstract we investigate the relationships between the severity of operational loss events reported in the banking sector and various regulatory legal geographical and economic indicators based on a data sample of over 57 000 losses incurred in more than 130 countries reported by the operational riskdata exchange orx consortium we identify the most relevant exposure indicators for losses in four basel ii event categories internal fraud external fraud employment practices and workplace safety and clients products and business practices we find evidence of significant correlations between internal fraud and constraints on executive power and the prevalence of insider trading clients products and business practices losses are significantly related to securities and shareholder protection laws restrictions on banking activity supervisory power and the prevalence of insider trading other event types are sensitive to per capita gdp and a governance index

the phillips curve regime switching and the nairu abstract this paper explores the impact of nonlinearities in the phillips curve and its representation by means of a regime switching model on the meaning and the usefulness of the nairu by implementing a regime switching model that can endogenously generate fluctuations in inflation and in the rate of unemployment we conclude that the nairu is not necessarily a single value is not necessarily reachable and is very difficult to measure the model yields a neutral rate which is more an interval of values than a precise number furthermore by postulating dynamic interdependence between real and monetary aspects the model weakens the theoretical basis of the nairu concept itself

mighty oaks from little acorns can microenterprise serve as the seedbed of industrialization abstract how can microenterprises foster the development of an industrial sector featuring a dynamic medium or large enterprise sector we propose two possible mechanisms graduation of microenterprises and savings by microentrepreneurs we examine the barriers to both mechanisms and reexamine policies designed to aid the sector projects aimed at the enterprise level are not likely to remove barriers to firms graduating or saving changes in macro policy may have a positive effect reforms of the legal and regulatory environment may be very important and should be rethought with the mechanisms of the seedbed role specifically in mind

the failure of china s energy development strategy 2050 and its impact on carbon emissions china is the world s largest energy consumer and emitter of carbon china s energy development strategy is thus of great significance to the world s energy security and global carbon reduction target in this study the implementation of china s energy development strategy 2050 eds2050 which has been in operation since 1985 is investigated this study analyzes the causes of the failure of eds2050 and the impacts of that failure on carbon emissions the results show the following 1 eds2050 basically failed in 2010 and the strategic planning values of primary energy consumption and production were underestimated compared with the actual values by 39 and 67 respectively 2 comparing the predicted values of basic parameters in eds2050 with the actual values in the production field the main causes of failure were the underestimation of the economic growth rate and the proportion of non agricultural industries while in the living field the main causes were the underestimation of urbanization and per capita energy consumption in rural areas further analyses of various provinces demonstrated that the major factors leading to eds2050 failure include the economic growth rate urbanization population growth and the growth in car ownership 3 eds2050 failure resulted in an increase in carbon emissions in 2010 of 583 50 x 10 6 tc and increases of per capita carbon emissions reached 46 49 47 04 carbon emissions per unit of output demonstrated a reduction which was as a result of technological progress improving energy efficiency optimizing energy utilization and promoting national energy conservation should be highly emphasized in china s future sustainable energy development strategy c 2015 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

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

segmented labor markets in ldcs this discussion is confined to the urban labor markets in developing countries and to manual workers it outlines the process by which the urban market for workers of low skill tends to develop a sector of high wage often accompanied by job security and fringe benefits unavailable to the large number of workers outside this sector it views the problem of large wage differentials within the urban manual work force more as one of distribution of income than as creating distortions of income or inefficiency in the neoclassical sense the paper concludes that the difference in efficiency wages and hence of labor costs between different size classes of enteprises could be much less than the observed wage gap the urban economy appears to be characterized by widening wage differentials between the formal and the residual sectors with a declining proportion of the urban labor force employed in the former what happens to income distribution in its lower reaches depends crucially on the dynamism of the self employed sector of petty producers and traders which often shows high returns to small doses of capital and entrepreneurship and which may provide an alternative to job seekers not able to get into the high wage sector

the problem of transaction costs in group based microlending an institutional perspective abstract to be financially viable group based microlending needs to economize on transaction costs for both lenders and borrowers group lending programs vary in their transaction cost characteristics depending on their specific credit delivery arrangements and social contexts this article illustrates these arguments by examining the challenges faced by various group lending programs worldwide it also examines how social capital or the lack of it affects the transaction costs and operations of three typical group lending arrangements group loan with joint liability individual loan with joint liability and individual loan with individual liability

time to ditch the nairu the concept of a natural rate of unemployment or nonacceleratinginflation rate of unemployment nairu has ruled macroeconomics for about 25 years yet it is still controversial a wide range of views exists over how the nairu should be estimated a fact that in itself raises questions about the practical usefulness of the concept this essay presents a brief for no confidence in four parts first the theoretical case for the natural rate is not compelling second the empirical evidence for a vertical phillips curve and the associated hypothesis that lowering unemployment past the nairu leads to unacceptable acceleration of inflation is weak and has become much weaker in the past decade third viewed collectively attempts to estimate the location of the nairu have become a professional embarrassment disagreements remain on too many basic issues fourth adherence to the concept as a guide to policy has major costs and negligible benefits conversely the risks of dropping the natural rate hypothesis are minor while the benefits from a sustained pursuit of full employment could be substantial

event studies in economics and finance the event study is an important research tool in economics and finance the goal of an event study is to measure the effects of an economic event on the value of firms event study methods exploit the fact that given rationality in the marketplace the effects of an event will be reflected immediately in security prices thus the impact can be measured by examining security prices surrounding the event in this paper event study methods are described including some of the potential complications an example is included to illustrate the approach

towards a new approach in measuring energy poverty household level analysis of urban india abstract measurement of energy poverty has been a missing priority in energy research there is hardly any consensus regarding whether to consider energy as a resource or capacity output or outcome and quantity or service in this paper we revisit major approaches in literature to assess energy poverty economic engineering and access based including others we critique the economic and engineering approaches for the arbitrariness of cut offs and the misplaced emphasis on less meaningful energy quantity finding the access based approach most suitable we propose a method of assessing energy poverty based on deprivation in modern cooking and lighting fuels we divide the energy poor into three groups transitional moderate and extreme energy poor we apply the method to india s urban areas of different states and union territories using the national sample survey data the results reveal energy poverty to be primarily dictated by deprivation in cooking and a greater incidence of energy poverty in larger states in contrast to conventional measures we compute the depth and severity of energy poverty only for energy poor as opposed to for the entire population these complementary measures depict energy poverty of energy poor more accurately and therefore will direct the attention of pro poor energy policies and programmes appropriately

aid and the dutch disease macroeconomic management when everybody loves you abstract countries that undertake serious and sustained programs of stabilization and structural adjustment should expect to attract significant new inflows of capital from donor countries and international institutions while apparently beneficial those flows can work at crosspurpose with other goals of the policy reforms in particular abundant foreign exchange loans can force an appreciation of the real exchange rate often through domestic inflation rather than a nominal appreciation in addition since the government is almost always the recipient of these loans it can crowd out the private sector if it increases its aggregate demand for domestic goods and services if the crowding out is accomplished by tight monetary policy it will fall primarily on private investment rather than consumption this paper shows that both of these problems have surfaced in ghana a country that has become a favorite of donors after demonstrating a serious commitment to policies promoted by the world bank and international monetary fund the paper also suggests modifications in macroeconomic policy that would help lower inflation and boost private investment

operational risk and its impact on north american and british banks abstractthis study examines the financial impact of operational risk and its loss announcements on the value of publicly traded banks in united states uk and canada there are three main findings 1 on average the market reacts more negatively to a loss s initial announcement than its settlement news 2 operational loss events cause strong reputational damage to the announcing banks and 3 the market is particularly sensitive to the announcement of losses caused by internal fraud of a large magnitude resulted in the order of restitution and that are the rulings of a regulatory investigation

the energy gdp nexus addressing an old question with new methods abstract this paper reassesses the causal relationship between per capita energy use and gross domestic product while controlling for capital and labour productivity inputs in a panel of 30 oecd countries over the past 40 years the paper uses panel unit root and cointegration testing and specifies an appropriate vector error correction model to analyse the nexus between income and energy use in doing so we contribute to an old debate using modern tools that shed a new light there is some evidence that over the very short run bidirectional causality exists our results also show a strong unidirectional causality running from capital formation and gdp to energy usage in the long run the reverse causality found in recent work is lost we then show that we can reproduce these earlier results in our data if we reproduce a slightly misspecified model for the engle granger two step procedure used in these earlier papers our findings thus imply that results are very sensitive to model misspecification and careful testing of specifications is required our results have some strong policy implications they suggest that policies aimed at reducing energy usage or promoting energy efficiency are not likely to have a detrimental effect on economic growth except over the very short run

unemployment getting the questions right in my opinion the form and conception of this conference exemplifies the right instinct for modern macroeconomics there is a fact a big unmistakable unsubtle fact essentially everywhere in the modern industrial capitalist world unemployment rates are much higher than they used to be two or three decades ago why is that if macroeconomics is good for anything it ought to be able to understand and explain that fact we should be able to produce a fairly convincing analytical account of the occurrence and persistence of unusually high unemployment rates you might think that to be a mere commonplace to what other sort of end would anyone organize a conference my experience however is that most high powered academic conferences are stimulated by purely technical developments or less often by ideological or political promotion rather than by the need to deal with an outstanding fact i do not blame anyone for this state of affairs we may not be blessed with many significant observations too big to be quibbled over and technical innovations do need to be thrashed out by experts anyway it is good to be faced by a brute fact that needs explanation it is what macroeconomics ought to be about i compliment the organizers also on a second aspect of the agenda the country by country organization of the papers we can all hope to learn something from cross country comparisons one of the few good ways we have to test analytical ideas is to see whether they can make sense of international differences in outcomes by appealing to international differences in institutional structure and historical environment the right place to start is within each country separately studied by someone who knows the peculiarities of its history and its data you might think that this too ought to be obvious but in fact the usual approach is just the opposite more often than not we fail to take institutional differences seriously one model is supposed to apply everywhere and always each country is just a point on a cross section regression or one among several essentially identical regressions leaving only grumblers to worry about what is exogenous and what is endogenous and whether simple parametrizations do justice to real differences in the way the economic mechanism functions in one place or another i have no way of knowing whether this organized effort will get anywhere in explaining high unemployment but it seems to be set up to give itself the best chance for better or worse probably for the better theoretical and empirical work are closely intertwined in macroeconomics scratch a macro theorist and you find a casual econometrician scratch a macro econometrician and you find a casual theorist usually you do not have to scratch very hard thus the discussion of the issues central to the conference has already hardened into certain characteristic forms there are questions already lying on the table that the individual country papers will be trying to answer i suspect that some

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

energy consumption in china past trends and future directions abstract in 2003 china s energy consumption amounted to 1678 million tonnes coal equivalent mtce making china the world s second largest consumer behind only the united states china is now also one of the largest oil importers in the world with an economy that is expected to maintain a rate of growth of 7 8 for decades china s role in the world energy market becomes increasingly influential this makes it important to predict china s future demand for energy the objective of this paper is to apply the bayesian vector autoregressive methodology to forecast china s energy consumption and to discuss potential implications the results of this paper suggest that total energy consumption should increase to 2173 mtce in 2010 an annual growth rate of 3 8 which is slightly slower than the average rate in the past decade the slower growth reflects expected slower economic growth and a decline in energy consumption due to structural changes in the chinese economy

access to modern energy services an economic and policy framework abstract affordable and accessible modern energy services are a pre requisite for development economic environmental or social and are crucial to reduce poverty and sustain growth hence there is a need to promote the uptake of modern energy the present study investigates the issue of accessibility of modern energy services in relation to three indicators availability affordability and reliability and suggest practical ways of evaluating them and identifies various strategies to provide them to the needy households in a cost effective manner promoting the development of small rural enterprises is a key contributor to achieve this goal and a central aspect in this promotion is the large scale diffusion of sustainable energy technologies which provide affordable and reliable services the suggested framework helps the policymakers to identify technologies that are better than others under the present conditions implementing and scaling up the energy demand requires collaboration among various actors like households local bodies energy utilities governments entrepreneurs research organisations non governmental organisations community groups financial institutions and international agencies

the natural rate of unemployment reflections on 25 years of the hypothesis 1 introduction rod cross part i the theoretical framework 2 the origins and further development of the natural rate of unemployment edmund phelps 3 the natural rate as new classical macroeconomics james tobin 4 theoretical reflections on the natural rate of unemployment frank hahn 5 of coconuts decomposition and a jackass the genealogy of the natural rate huw dixon part ii adjustment ranges of equilibria and hysteresis 6 the economics of adjustment andrew caplin and john leahy 7 hysteresis and memory in the labour market g c archibald 8 models of the range of equilibria ian mcdonald 9 hysteresis revisited a methodological approach bruno amable jerome henry frederic lordon and richard topol 10 is the natural rate hypothesis consistent with hysteresis rod cross part iii empirical tests and macro models 11 the natural rate hypothesis and its testable implications hashem pesaran and ron smith 12 non linear dependence in unemployment output and inflation empirical evidence for the uk david peel and alan speight 13 prices wages and unemployment in the us economy a traditional model and tests of some alternatives albert ando and flint brayton 14 the natural rate in empirical macroeconomic models simon wren lewis part iv political economy 15 is the natural rate of unemployment a useful concept for europe maria demertzis and andrew hughes hallett 16 the natural rate of unemployment a fundamentalist keynesian view meghnad desai 17 politics and the natural rate hypothesis a historical perspective bernard corry

the energy metabolism of countries energy efficiency and use in the period that followed the global financial crisis this paper discusses how the deceleration of economic growth that followed the financial crisis of 2008 influenced the energy efficiency allocation and use of 18 european countries by using a multi scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism musiasem the relationships between energy requirements economic trends and population are investigated for the years 2008 and 2015 the analyses are performed for the entire society level n for the household and the paid sectors level n 1 and for the agricultural the industrial and the service activities level n 2 results show that two main groups of countries performed the largest energy reductions namely the country most affected by the global financial crisis such as greece romania and spain where the total energy throughput decreased by 19 6 15 8 and 12 1 respectively and the countries such as ireland and united kingdom that experienced the largest energy intensity reductions 38 7 and 19 2 together with the highest gdp increases 44 8 and 10 2 by providing an overview of the relationships existing between socio economic and energy variables this paper contributes to the debate around growth and efficiency and can support the design of policies oriented to promote the achievement of a more sustainable and competitive economy

event studies in management research theoretical and empirical issues we examined the use of event studies in management research and found that there was inadequate attention paid to theoretical and research design issues this lack of attention may lead to false in

growth constraints on small scale manufacturing in developing countries a critical review abstract the question raised in this review is whether small scale producers in developing countries can expand or whether they are up against constraints which stunt their growth most of the literature has been optimistic on this score while internal constraints e g lack of managerial ability or external constraints e g discrimination from government are identified expansion is seen as an open ended process in other contributions this view has been severely criticized some allege that the small producers are exploited through various mechanisms others suggest that their road to expansion is blocked as a result of factors such as the pre existence of very advanced technology the control of large firms over product markets or difficulties in access to raw materials in discussing the arguments put forward in the debate an attempt is made to assess their theoretical bases and examine the extent to which they are supported empirically while most studies express explicitly or implicitly a definite view on the growth potential of small producers such judgement is rarely based on a comprehensive examination of the context which determines this potential

arima forecasting of primary energy demand by fuel in turkey abstract forecasting of energy demand in emerging markets is one of the most important policy tools used by the decision makers all over the world in turkey most of the early studies used include various forms of econometric modeling however since the estimated economic and demographic parameters usually deviate from the realizations time series forecasting appears to give better results in this study we used the autoregressive integrated moving average arima and seasonal arima sarima methods to estimate the future primary energy demand of turkey from 2005 to 2020 the arima forecasting of the total primary energy demand appears to be more reliable than the summation of the individual forecasts the results have shown that the average annual growth rates of individual energy sources and total primary energy will decrease in all cases except wood and animal plant remains which will have negative growth rates the decrease in the rate of energy demand may be interpreted that the energy intensity peak will be achieved in the coming decades another interpretation is that any decrease in energy demand will slow down the economic growth during the forecasted period rates of changes and reserves in the fossil fuels indicate that inter fuel substitution should be made leading to a best mix of the country s energy system based on our findings we proposed some policy recommendations

the double edged sword of legitimacy in base of the pyramid markets as compared to developed countries a much higher proportion of entrepreneurs within base of the pyramid bop markets operate unregistered businesses prior research has suggested that the primary cause of such informal activity in these settings is the general failure of weak institutions to provide sufficient resources to warrant formalization we attempt to extend such thinking by deconstructing the discrete and inter related effects of formal business registration on the level of resources obtained by entrepreneurs from financial labor and legal institutions within bop markets using a multi method approach involving 299 entrepreneurs within guatemala city our results suggest that being seen as a legitimate registered business can actually lead to both increased resource provision and resource appropriation more specifically adhering to the norms and rules prescribed by regulatory institutions within weak legal environments can convey positive signals of stability and profitability that both attract the desired attention from formal institutional actors as well as unwanted attention from criminals

geographical and environmental perspectives for the sustainable development of renewable energy in urbanizing china with rapid urbanization and industrialization china has become both the largest energy consumer and co2 emitting country in the world as a clean and low carbon energy source renewable energy is a good choice to substitute for the exhausted fossil energy the chinese central and local governments have made a series of policies and optimistic plans to promote a rapid development of renewable energies china s renewable energy development has become a key to the sustainable development of socioeconomic system unlike most of the current studies which mainly identified the challenges regarding policies and technologies around renewable energy or performed specific analyses for a certain kind of renewable energy this paper summarizes the spatial disparity and consistency among the major renewable energies coal resources energy consumption and its major influencing factors in china and reviews the positive and negative environmental impacts of major renewable energies based on the geographical and environmental perspectives this paper recommends that the chinese government constructs the national energy production bases according to the resource distribution integrates different energies on the basis of their natural features and spatial consistency adjusts the overall layout of socio economic development consistent with renewable energies and promotes a moderate renewable energy development to maximize the environmental benefits c 2013 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

energy metabolism of the balearic islands 1986 2012 researchers from multiple disciplines point to the link between fossil fuel consumption and socio ecological deterioration studying the energy metabolism of the balearic islands 1986 2012 gives insights on the ecological economic and social consequences of regional specialization in mass tourism the methodology applied multi scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism musiasem has been developed in the last decades to analyze societal metabolism from the perspective of complex systems this study has allowed us to see that since the entry of spain in the european economic community in 1986 the real state tourism business model has been reinforced giving place to a higher level of consumption of fossil fuels an increase in work instability and a diminishing of labor productivity

adapting to the financial landscape evidence from small firms in nairobi abstract small enterprises face a financial landscape that limits their access to bank loans and trade credit they adapt by relying on a range of other mechanisms to relieve the financing constraint employing an institutional framework the paper explores the use of credit from suppliers customers and other sources a unique finding is that very small firms use purchase orders as a signaling device to obtain irregular access to trade credit the use of pre payments installments and overdrafts is also investigated the results indicate that small firms may be less credit constrained than is suggested by a narrow definition of credit evidence is drawn from a survey of 115 micro and small manufacturing enterprises in nairobi

small industry in developing countries a discussion of issues abstract this paper first examines the changing size distribution of industry in developing countries by region and over time and by reference to firm level surveys it discusses the underlying causes the importance of markets generated by the growth of agriculture and rural incomes for the regional development of industry both small and large scale is noted second it discusses the entrepreneurship issue arguing that while small and largefirms alike are highly responsive to the growth of markets the measured entrepreneurial response is neither as full nor as efficient as is desirable the third and last part discusses small industry programmes and their relation to development policy financing and extension programmes are considered in detail and there is a discussion of the risks involved some parallels with agricultural credit are discussed in particular the default problem and the problems associated with concessionary finance it is also argued that small industries and by implication the programmes intended to support them would stand to benefit from more efficient and also more labour demanding policies towards agriculture and industry