economic analysis of investment in the rooftop photovoltaic systems a long term research in the two main markets abstract nowadays due to incentive policies the photovoltaic pv installations become an economically attractive investment the different policies aim to reduce the pv installation costs consequently to the deployment of the market in recent years a progressive price decrease of components for pv installations has occurred according their learning curve every doubling of the volume implies approximately a cost reduction of 20 in order to reduce the burden of the incentive rate on the national budget maintaining the economic margin of the investment attractive for investors a progressive tariff decline has also taken place this paper provides a technical economic analysis of investments in pv systems installed on the rooftop considering incentive policies and applies it to some significant case studies in the countries in which pv market is the most prosperous germany and italy the analysis puts into evidence the past and current economic margins of the pv investments since 2006 to 2012 four case studies from 3 kwp to 1 mwp are examined in detail the profitability indexes in terms of net present value and internal rate of return evaluated throughout incentive duration of 20 years become very interesting above all in italy higher than 100 of the installation cost and higher than 10 respectively since 2009 when an abrupt decrement in installation cost occurred in italy the best profit margins occur for large size pv plants and are poorly counterbalanced by the decline of the feed in tariff up to 2012 when a new framework has given a knock to the investments whereas in germany the best margins happen for medium size pv plants and are well adjusted by the feed in tariff however it is predictable that a cut in german feed in tariff will take place because the profit margins have been higher in last year than in the previous years

interrelationships among banks stock markets and economic growth an empirical investigation this article utilizes a simultaneous equations model to study the relationships among economic growth banking and stock market development in contrast to conventional instrumental variable approach we implement the analysis via the methodology of identification through heteroscedasticity using beck and levine 2004 dataset we find that each of the three variables interacts in important ways while both are conducive to economic growth banking development matters more for growth in low income countries and stock market development is more favourable to growth in high income or low inflation ones the data also reveal coexistence of a positive effect of banking development on stock market development and a negative effect of stock market development on banking development besides the feedback effects of growth on both banking and stock market development are found

economic assessment of eucalyptus spp for biomass production as alternative crop in southern italy the increase in energy prices and the stagnation of sales prices of the main agricultural commodities required a rethinking of farm production strategies since during the last years thanks to a series of policies aimed at promoting renewable sources it has been a rapid diffusion of lignocellulosic biomass species this paper aimed at evaluating the economic feasibility of the introduction of eucalyptus eucalyptus spp as energy crop for farmers of southern italy by comparing it with traditional crop rotations in particular economic analysis has been carried out in a representative case study located in the sicilian hilly hinterland where in 2013 it has been built a biomass plant for energy production however results showed that introduction of eucalyptus for biomass production is less profitable for farmers than traditional crops considering the incompressibility of production costs and the actual market price of woodchips

a moral hazard trap to growth this paper studies the consequences of asymmetric information in the investment sector upon economic growth in this paper the information asymmetry generates a moral hazard problem this moral hazard problem restricts financial arrangements it is shown that these restrictions make even the long run competitive equilibrium income dependent upon history this result also holds in case there is perfect capital mobility however when there is capital mobility the government may be able to intervene in a pareto improving way copyright 1992 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

finance and property rights exploring other directions there is a consensus that stronger property rights advance financial development we provide evidence that the reverse hypothesis is also true we isolate the structural component in the finance property rights relationship using an instrument for financial development private credit based on an index of exposure to foreign crises in addition to generalized method of moments approaches for panel data our results suggest a one standard deviation increase in private credit from its average in 2005 translates into a 0 5 to 1 0 point increase in property rights to contextualize this the difference in property rights between israel and uruguay two countries separated by about one standard deviation in the volume of private credit was 0 67 points

financial intermediation and endogenous growth an endogenous growth model with multiple assets is developed agents who face random future liquidity needs accumulate capital and a liquid but unproductive asset the effects of introducing financial intermediation into this environment are considered conditions are provided under which the introduction of intermediaries shifts the composition of savings toward capital causing intermediation to be growth promoting in addition intermediaries generally reduce socially unnecessary capital liquidation again tending to promote growth

occupation induced status social norms and economic growth abstract we analyse a monetary growth model where entrepreneurs borrow funds to invest in projects that produce capital goods in addition to their varying pecuniary returns different projects also vary with respect to the status they confer to the entrepreneurs who operate them we show that i social status increases the growth rate but this effect is mitigated by a social norm that inversely links overall levels of employment in the high return project with the status conferred to it ii the combined effect of social status and inflation is a source of transitional dynamics in an environment where such dynamics would not emerge if considerations of occupational prestige were absent iii when the social norm affects social status the economy s dynamics may be manifested in the form of endogenous volatility iv the presence and characteristics of social status can generate a negative correlation between volatility and growth

energy investment economic growth and carbon emissions in china empirical analysis based on spatial durbin model abstract the international community has reached a consensus on preventing the global climate from deterioration by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere energy industry is a key field for greenhouse gas emission and investment in the energy industry plays a crucial part in promoting the low carbon development of china s energy industry energy investment can effectively break the high carbon lock in effect of energy industry and achieve the low carbon development of energy industry by guiding regulating and gathering social funds into the field of cleaner production and the field of low carbon technology based on the unified framework of energy economy and environment this article takes 30 provinces in china as the research object and constructs a spatial econometric model to investigate the impact of energy investment and economic growth on carbon emission reduction the results indicate that both energy investment and economic growth are responsible for the increase of china s provincial co2 emissions but their driving mechanisms are significantly different furthermore the increase of carbon emissions in adjacent provinces will bring about the increase of local carbon emissions through spatial spillover effects based on these findings the corresponding countermeasures and policy suggestions are put forward

environmental efficiency of investments in renewable energy comparative analysis at macroeconomic level abstract this paper aims to bring into attention the concept of renewable energy investments efficiency and to study one of the three concepts related to it namely environmental efficiency of investments in renewable energy the analysis is undertaken at macroeconomic level for several countries in europe some of them are member states of european union and were observed over the period between 1990 and 2008 the method assumes the study of the econometric models based on kaya identity an equation widely used in studies regarding emissions trends and future emissions scenarios working with time series and cross sectional data a panel data approach is needed indicators like energy intensity co 2 intensity and gross domestic product per capita and per unit of investment are used as they establish a connection between effects and efforts a prerequisite for studying the efficiency a novelty of this research lies in the calculation of environmental efficiency index after an original method proposed by authors the findings of this analysis reveal that there are both countries with high and low environmental efficiency of investments in renewable energy

tax evasion the underground economy and financial development abstract we study the relationship between the underground economy and financial development in a model of tax evasion and bank intermediation agents with heterogeneous skills seek loans in order to undertake risky investment projects asymmetric information between borrowers and lenders implies a menu of loan contracts that induce self selection in a separating equilibrium faced with these contracts agents choose how much of their income to declare by trading off their incentives to offer collateral against their disincentives to comply with tax obligations the key implication of the analysis is that the marginal net benefit of income disclosure increases with the level of financial development thus in accordance with empirical observation we establish the result that the lower is the stage of such development the higher is the incidence of tax evasion and the greater is the size of the underground economy

a design of experiments response surface methodology approach to study the economic sustainability of a 1 mwe photovoltaic plant abstract to obtain a rigorous investment analysis for photovoltaic power generation plants a dynamic business plan has been studied it allows us to determine in real time the investment parameters net present value internal rate of return return on investment etc starting from the technical economical financial and positional data the business plan provides as output the exact values of the parameters dependent variables or objective functions basing on the exact values of the input variables independent variables by suitably varying the independent variables it is possible to obtain a sensitivity analysis on the dependent variables due to which different evaluations about the investment in multiple pre set scenarios can be obtained on the other hand by using the business plan as data creator and then applying the response surface methodology techniques it has been possible to obtain mathematical functions regression meta models which are able to explain the link among dependent and independent variables in the definition range this approach allows to generate a sort of k dimensional state equation of order n for the different investigated economic parameters these equations provide in the chosen dimensional space two or three dimensional a view of the dependent variable behaviour e g net present value internal rate of return while changing one or two independent variables e g government incentives discount rate the descriptive ability of this approach has a higher level in terms of quality and reliability than a traditional sensitivity analysis in this paper a case study about a 1 mwe photovoltaic plant located in liguria north italy and a comparison with a similar plant located in sicily south italy are also presented

economics of pooling small local electricity prosumers lcoe self consumption abstract the arrival of small scale decentralized energy installations coincides with the emergence of so called prosumers entities households that are producer and consumer of energy in one this research focuses on an electricity prosumer model in the context of the uk market levelized cost of electricity lcoe for photovoltaic pv and wind energy will be modeled for six uk sites additionally self consumption levels for two different load profiles and technologies will be estimated per site the simulations are modeled with homer software and multiple inputs will be varied including natural resource equipment cost maintenance cost equipment life expectancy cost of capital project life and load profiles the modeled self consumption levels show significant differences and varied between 31 and 72 depending on load profile itself and re technologies mixes modeled the pooling of prosumers implied by lower load profile volatility proved to be beneficial to self consumption levels in the modeled scenarios up to 17 6 lcoe showed significant ranges depending on the input parameters and their combination 10 55 p kw h for pv and 2 19 p kw h for wind the combination of these factors is decisive for the final lcoe and the negative effects of less benign factors can be compensated by other parameters when compared to current electricity retail prices of around 15 p kw h around 97 of wind sites and around 4 of pv scenarios implied lcoe reached grid parity the self consumption levels and lcoe analysis indicate the viability of electricity prosumer models

public capital asymmetric information and economic growth we investigate the provision of public capital in an endogenous growth model with asymmetric information in a credit market with costly screening we show that the equilibrium contracts are characterized by the self selection of borrowers through identifying an additional adverse effect of taxation on growth we show that the optimal tax rate in our model is smaller than the output elasticity of public capital therefore our analysis justifies a more conservative tax policy in the presence of asymmetric information furthermore our model suggests a number of implications that appear to be well supported by preliminary evidence in cross country data jel classification d82 h21 041

grid parity and self consumption with photovoltaic systems under the present regulatory framework in spain the case of the university of jaen campus abstract the cut off of any subsidy or feed in tariff that incentives the installation of new renewable energy systems which are close to the grid parity is a reality in most of the european countries but in the recent years the grid parity has worsened because of the global economic crisis in the case of spain in addition to the economic problems the photovoltaic sector has been dramatically damaged through a changeable regulatory framework an excessive bureaucracy and the inclusion of additional fees or possible back up tolls that are very prejudicial for the deployment of this sector nowadays the current spanish legislation mentions the possibility of self consumption totally or partially of the electricity generated by pv or any renewable energy systems but up to the date of this work the law that regulates the administrative technical and economic conditions for the net metering of the electrical energy produced within the consumer s network is still under a draft stage in this paper it is analyzed the case of the university of jaen where it has been identified and simulated several pv systems on the roofs and parking lots of the university campus and considering the current electrical tariffs hourly defined for the case of high power and high voltage consumers it has been done a cost and economic analysis as a result it has been obtained an average levelised cost of energy around 0 125 kwh 1 a discount payback time of 17 5 years or less a positive net present value and a nominal internal rate of return of 8 48 in the worst case beyond that it has been carried out a sensitivity analysis of the factors that have more influence in the profitability of these systems like the initial investment cost the pv electricity yield additional taxes and the variations in the electricity price market

asymmetric information auditing commitment and economic growth we analyze in this paper the growth and welfare consequences arising from the lack of auditing commitment in a credit market with costly state verification specifically two endogenous growth models of which one allows lenders to commit to costly auditing strategies to identify borrowers investment returns and the other does not are compared we show that the inability to commit acts as an additional source of informational friction that leads to more stringent contractual terms which in turn result in lower capital accumulation growth and welfare in addition when a tax on capital is considered the tax induced investment distortions are amplified by the absence of auditing commitment from the policy perspective our analysis can be interpreted as suggesting a new micro economic channel through which institutional failings hinder economic growth and social welfare

costly monitoring financial intermediation and equilibrium credit rationing abstract this paper establishes a link between equilibrium credit rationing and financial intermediation in a model with asymmetrically informed lenders and borrowers costly monitoring and investment project indivisibilities intermediation is shown to dominate borrowing and lending between individuals and these financial intermediaries exhibit several of the important features of intermediaries as we know them equilibrium interest rates and the aggregate quantity of loans respond quite differently to changes in taste and technology parameters depending on whether or not there is rationing in equilibrium

predicting the effects of sugar sweetened beverage taxes on food and beverage demand in a large demand system a censored exact affine stone index incomplete demand system is estimated for 23 packaged foods and beverages and a numeraire good instrumental variables are used to control for endogenous prices a half cent per ounce increase in sugar sweetened beverage prices is predicted to reduce total calories from the 23 foods and beverages but increase sodium and fat intakes as a result of product substitution the predicted decline in calories is larger for low income households than for high income households although welfare loss is also higher for low income households neglecting price endogeneity or estimating a conditional demand model significantly overestimates the calorie reduction

role of renewable energy investment in india an alternative to co2 mitigation abstract this paper discusses the potential of renewable energy investment and co2 mitigation by renewable energy technologies currently india s per capita emissions are around one tonne of co2 year the present energy scene offers india a window of opportunity to invest in renewable energy the annual turnover of renewable energy industry has reached 12 3 billion in 2011 which is 36 higher than 2010 investment of 7 5 billion increasing the share of renewable energy in overall energy mix is an effective option to mitigate co2 emission presently the share of renewable energy is around 12 in the energy mix the present study estimated co2 mitigation potential of indian renewable energy sector about 203 million tonnes with an installed capacity of 24 gw in 2012 however enormous potential identified in renewable energy sector with favorable co2 mitigation the government is compromising with limited financial resources however policy efforts need to be strengthened to encourage a massive scale up of renewable technologies to build sustained low carbon economy

habit formation and demand for sugar sweetened beverages using scanner data we estimated demand for nine nonalcoholic beverages under habit formation we found strong evidence for habit formation although demand for sugar sweetened beverages by low income households is less elastic to own price changes compared with high income households there is evidence that high income households consider beverages to be more substitutable than low income households do a half cent per ounce tax on store purchased sugar sweetened beverages will result in a moderate reduction in consumption of sugar sweetened beverages for both income strata because of habit formation long run national tax revenue from a sugar sweetened beverage tax is about 15 to 20 lower than short run revenue

tax on name abstract how to tax the name we answer this question by introducing a name market in the sense of tadelis 1999 into an endogenous growth model in which an informational asymmetry exists between capital producing borrowers and lenders we show a name market endogenously arises to screen the borrowers but at the cost of crowding out investment we derive the optimal name price that trades off the screening effect and the crowding out effect and show this optimal price decreases with the investor protection level an optimal tax scheme should tax the name to this optimal price and reimburse the tax revenue to the name buyer when the investor protection level is low the net worth could be lower than the optimal name price so capital income tax shall be allowed to subsidy the name purchase to activate the name market overall we show the optimal tax scheme in the presence of a name market depends crucially on the country s investor protection level

equilibrium loan contracts and endogenous growth in the presence of asymmetric information abstract this paper considers an endogenous growth model in which an informational asymmetry exists between capital producing borrowers and lenders as to the borrower s ability to successfully operate an investment project in contrast to previous models of this genre the lender can induce self selection either by rationing a fraction of borrowers or by using a costly screening technology or by a mix of the two the equilibrium contract s form and the growth rate of output are mutually dependent and are jointly determined the effect of the lower cost of screening on the growth rate of output has been considered we show that a decline in the screening cost paradoxically may lower the growth rate of output only when a threshold level of sophistication is crossed will the benefit of an advanced financial sector become evident in a higher growth rate

factor income taxation and growth under asymmetric information abstract this paper studies the growth effects of factor income taxation on capital and labor in an endogenous growth model with overlapping generations capital accumulation in our model takes place through credit financed investments in a market with asymmetric information between lenders and borrowers we show that in the presence of asymmetric information capital income taxation worsens the adverse selection problem in the credit market which in turn introduces an additional adverse effect on growth in so doing our analysis provides a new argument in favor of a lower higher capital labor income taxation in funding public expenditures

economic guideline about financial utilization of flat plate solar collectors fpscs for the consumer segment in the city of eskisehir abstract solar energy systems yield energy savings relative to conventional systems by considering the ecological balance although it still has barriers the most commonly used system of this type is fpsc in turkey which produces hot water by absorbing solar energy through fpscs this study is a kind of guidance about utilization of fpscs in eskisehir that concentrates on a consumer segment the aim of the study is displaying the necessity of transition to renewable energy systems in the local free markets where the place of domestic resources the data is supplied from an original hand collected survey and turkish governmental institutions such as the central bank of the republic of turkey cbrt and the turkish statistical institute turkstat that is used for a possible scenario to show how these systems can become an extensive investment and financed in the city the most significant finding is purchasing a fpsc device which is a rational and profitable investment decision for households in the economic conditions of eskisehir this type of energy system has certain costs including installation credit and annual maintenance costs however after they have been set up fpsc systems yield many ecological advantages that more than offset the associated costs such as fuel savings over the long term and exemptions from tax payments that apply to other types of fuels these advantages benefit both the environment on a global scale and the region in which the system is constructed therefore the global and local economy can improve its structure by utilizing fpscs

techno economic evaluation of small hydro power plants in greece a complete sensitivity analysis abstract hydropower has by far been the most mature renewable energy resource used for electricity generation in our planet recently the investors interest was whipped up by the mass development of small hydropower shp stations as they are the most prosperous for additional hydropower penetration in developed electricity markets in greece the increasing interest for building shp stations got off the ground since 1994 ever since an enormous number of requests keep piling up in the greek regulatory authority of energy and the ministry of development with the object of creating new shp stations of total capacity over 600 mw the present work is concentrated on the systematic investigation of the techno economic viability of shp stations the study is concluded by a sensitivity analysis properly adapted for the local market financial situation in order to enlighten the decision makers on the expected profitability of the capital to be invested according to the results obtained the predicted internal rate of return irr values are greater than 18 for most shp cases analysed finally as per the sensitivity analysis carried out the installation capacity factor the local market electricity price annual escalation rate and the reduced first installation cost are found to be the parameters that mostly affect the viability of similar ventures

solar energy markets economics and policies abstract solar energy has experienced phenomenal growth in recent years due to both technological improvements resulting in cost reductions and government policies supportive of renewable energy development and utilization this study analyzes the technical economic and policy aspects of solar energy development and deployment while the cost of solar energy has declined rapidly in the recent past it still remains much higher than the cost of conventional energy technologies like other renewable energy technologies solar energy benefits from fiscal and regulatory incentives including tax credits and exemptions feed in tariff preferential interest rates renewable portfolio standards and voluntary green power programs in many countries the emerging carbon credit markets are expected to provide additional incentives to solar energy deployment however the scale of incentives provided by the existing carbon market instruments such as the clean development mechanism of the kyoto protocol is limited despite the huge technical potential the development and large scale deployment of solar energy technologies world wide still has to overcome a number of technical financial regulatory and institutional barriers the continuation of policy supports might be necessary for several decades to maintain and enhance the growth of solar energy in both developed and developing countries

financial development growth and the distribution of income a paradigm is presented in which both the extent of financial intermediation and the rate of economic growth are endogenously determined financial intermediation promotes growth because it allows a higher rate of return to be earned on capital and growth in turn provides the means to implement costly financial structures thus financial intermediation and economic growth are inextricably linked in accord with the goldsmith mckinnon shaw view on economic development the model also generates a development cycle reminiscent of the kuznet hypothesis in particular in the transition from a primitive slow growing economy to a developed fast growing one a nation passes through a stage in which the distribution of wealth across the rich and poor widens

a review of renewable energy investment in the brics countries history models problems and solutions abstract this paper reviews the history of renewable energy development in the brics countries the financing models for renewable energy development of brics countries include bank financing institutional loans industry funds and international financing this paper identified several problems with financing in brics countries including a lack of financing channels investment shortage for small and medium sized enterprises and imperfect government policies the solutions to these problems include expanded capital markets the financing of leasing services and build operate transfer and build own operate projects further a financial citizen participation model should be employed similar to that as germany and european union emissions trading system eu ets a financial citizen participation model means that legal entities private individuals and agricultural enterprises invest in renewable energy infrastructure through equity a regional reserve ratio monetary policy is suggested to allow regions to develop renewable energy

revisiting the techno economic analysis process for building mounted grid connected solar photovoltaic systems part two application part one in this two part paper identified monte carlo analysis as an improved approach over traditional deterministic techno economic methods for solar pv prosumers in deregulated markets in this

selection effects and heterogeneous demand responses to the berkeley soda tax vote early evidence from household level surveys suggests that the one cent per ounce tax on sugar sweetened beverages that took effect on march 1 2015 in berkeley california has decreased consumption of sugar sweetened beverages dramatically even if these findings are robust the public policy implications of expanding the berkeley soda tax policy to a national level are complicated by selection effects inherent in the populations of both voters and consumers we find that consumption responses related to the tax interact nontrivially with consumer heterogeneity some of these responses directly counter the public policy goals of a soda tax for example high consuming households are less price sensitive and therefore less responsive to price changes following a tax further reactance among high consuming populations led to increases in soda consumption immediately following the passage of the tax partially mitigating reductions in soda consumption

financial structure and aggregate economic activity an overview this paper surveys literature that explores the possible links between the financial system and aggregate economic behavior the survey is in two parts the first reviews the traditional work and the second discusses new research copyright 1988 by ohio state university press

heterogeneous behavior obesity and storability in the demand for soft drinks we apply a dynamic estimation procedure to investigate the effect of obesity on the demand for soda the dynamic model accounts for consumers storing behavior and allows us to study soda consumers price sensitivity how responsive consumers are to the overall price and sale sensitivity the fraction of consumers that store soda during temporary price reductions by matching store level purchase data to county level data on obesity incidence we find higher sale sensitivity in populations with higher obesity rates conversely we find that storers are less price sensitive than non storers and that their price sensitivity decreases with the obesity rate our results suggest that policies aimed at increasing soda prices might be less effective than previously thought especially in areas where consumers can counteract that price increase by stockpiling during sale periods according to our results this dampening effect would be more pronounced precisely in those areas with higher obesity rates

tax evasion and financial development under asymmetric information in credit markets abstract recent empirical studies have documented that after controlling for variables related to state capacity the incidence of firms tax evasion on their sales is negatively correlated with the level of a country s financial development motivated by this stylized fact our paper takes state capacity as given and provides an alternative theory that is built upon asymmetric information in credit markets particularly within developing economies we analytically show that with a more developed financial sector that exhibits smaller agency costs the government of a rich small open economy country will raise its optimal tax auditing probability which in turn leads to more tax compliance our baseline model also yields an empirically realistic positive correlation between financial development and the ratio of tax revenue over gdp in an extended setting which allows for size dependent probabilities of tax detection we find that consistent with the empirical evidence large firms comply with taxes whereas small firms evade taxes

the optimal public expenditure financing policy does the level of economic development matter i introduction does the growth effect of public expenditures depend on the way these expenditures are financed over the years a substantial volume of theoretical and empirical research has been directed toward identifying the elements of public expenditure at its aggregated and disaggregated level that bear significant association with economic growth in contrast only a handful of studies have paid particular attention to examine the extent to which the growth effect of public expenditures depends on the method of financing such expenditures e g de gregorio 1993 miller and russek 1997 palivos and yip 1995 the consensus appears to be that the two primary modes of financing income taxation and seigniorage are distortionary opinions however are divided as to their relative merits for example according to palivos and yip 1995 income tax financing is more detrimental to growth than seigniorage financing at the same time de gregorio 1993 suggests that as long as the rate of return on indexed bonds is substantially responsive to changes in the rate of inflation seigniorage financing of public expenditure is more growth reducing pecorino 1997 on the other hand prescribes a mix of both modes of financing despite these differences the above mentioned studies share a common characteristic the optimal mode of financing public expenditure in these studies is viewed as being not contingent on the stages of economic development accordingly there remains little understanding of the process by which public expenditure financing policies shape the prospect of economic growth for developing vis a vis developed countries the primary objective of this paper is to bridge this gap in the existing literature it is a long standing belief among development experts that outcomes of public expenditures and revenue policies are conditional on the state of an economy recent evidence supports such belief for example miller and russek 1997 suggest that for developing countries a deficit financed increase in public expenditure retards economic growth and a tax financed increase leads to higher growth for developed countries a deficit financed increase in government expenditure does not affect economic growth and a tax financed increase leads to a lower growth in light of these findings and in light of the theoretical controversy about the relative merits of seigniorage versus tax finance it is meaningful to ask the following question does the relative merit of seigniorage vis a vis tax financing of public expenditure depend on the stage of economic development this paper seeks an answer to this question using both theoretical and empirical analyses the theoretical framework developed in this paper shares many of the characteristics of the models proposed by espinosa vega and yip 1999 2000 and schreft and smith 1997 in particular we consider a two period overlapping generations model where agents are subjected to stochastic relocations shocks which act like shocks to their portfolio preferences these shocks have the same consequence as liquidity preference shocks as in diamond and dybvig 1983 and create a role for financial intermediaries who take deposits and make a portfolio decision on behalf of the households in addition there is a government that relies on two alternative sources of revenue seigniorage and tax revenue to finance its exogenously given expenditure sequence the results that we derive are shaped by the portfolio decision of the financial intermediaries in particular at each point in time financial intermediaries are required to allocate their portfolios between a nonproductive liquid asset money and a productive illiquid asset the illiquid asset takes the form of financing risky investment projects which in turn generate productive capital stock for the economy the financial intermediaries optimal portfolio allocation rules depend on the relative rate of return of the two available assets

some consequences of credit rationing in an endogenous growth model an endogenous growth model is developed where all investment is financed via credit extension there is also an adverse selection problem in loan markets so that in equilibrium credit rationing arises endogenously the result is that equilibrium levels of credit rationing and real growth rates are jointly determined in this context several changes in the environment can have unusual consequences for instance improvements in the technology for producing capital can reduce growth because of their adverse impacts on credit rationing for similar reasons various government investment subsidies can be growth reducing this phenomenon is often observed empirically

determining the impact of food price and income changes on body weight we develop a theoretical model to identify conditions under which price and income changes are most likely to change weight although it is intuitive that raising the price of high calorie food will decrease consumption of such goods it is not clear that such an outcome will actually reduce weight our empirical analysis demonstrates a case where a tax on food away from home a food intake category blamed for much of the rise in obesity could lead to an increase in body weight a finding which emphasizes the need to employ economic modeling when developing public policy to reduce obesity

the effects of soft drink taxes on child and adolescent consumption and weight outcomes abstract childhood and adolescent obesity is associated with serious adverse lifetime health consequences and its prevalence has increased rapidly soft drink consumption has also expanded rapidly so much so that soft drinks are currently the largest single contributors to energy intake in this paper we investigate the potential for soft drink taxes to combat rising levels of child and adolescent obesity through a reduction in consumption our results based on state soft drink sales and excise tax information between 1989 and 2006 and the national health examination and nutrition survey suggest that soft drink taxation as currently practiced in the united states leads to a moderate reduction in soft drink consumption by children and adolescents however we show that this reduction in soda consumption is completely offset by increases in consumption of other high calorie drinks

energy and economic analysis for large scale integration of small photovoltaic systems in buildings the case of a public location in southern spain abstract the integration of grid connected pv systems into buildings or public areas is one of the most usual applications of the photovoltaic solar energy in developed countries and it is being highly promoted by several european governments in this paper it has been evaluated the photovoltaic potential of the campus of the university of jaen and it has been defined possible areas where the pv systems could be installed according to power requirements space possibilities the electrical configuration of the campus and some social integration requirements too the definition of the pv potential together with a technical analysis for the calculation of the energy generated is the previous step for carrying out an economic and cost analysis in order to certify the profitability of these systems in general particularizing the study for the case of this university located in southern spain the pv electricity cost generated has been calculated through the concept levelised cost of electricity lcoe where in our case is estimated to be around 0 13 0 14 kwh 1 the results obtained in this economic analysis recommend the implementation of pv grid connected systems pvgcs as the internal rate of return reaches a maximum value of 6 21 the net present value is positive and the discounted payback time is around 16 years an additional sensitive analysis shows the influence that some parameters have on the lcoe specially the initial investment the energy yield and the nominal discount rate

credit rationing and capital accumulation with investment and consumption loans revisited abstract a simple model is developed to evaluate the roles of credit rationing and government policies of financial repression in the process of capital accumulation in the model credit rationing on both investment and consumption loans decreases as capital accumulates but increases as the government imposes policies of financial repression to a greater extent while a reduction in credit rationing on consumption loans impedes capital accumulation such a reduction on investment loans facilitates it we find that developing countries may be trapped at a low capital stock steady state while developed countries converge to a high capital stock steady state instead of adopting policies of financial liberalization interestingly this paper finds that policies of financial repression may enable developing countries to escape the development trap

economic analysis of pv systems on buildings in sicilian farms abstract the photovoltaic sector in italy in recent years has experienced a rapid growth also in the primary sector thanks to substantial incentives guaranteed by energy policies simultaneous reduction of investment costs and tax benefits in order to better understand the growth of the pv industry in italian primary sector the aim of this paper has been to evaluate the economic convenience of four pv systems on farm buildings located in four different farms of the north western coast of sicily and realized during the second and fourth italian feed in schemes for each feed in scheme it has been considered a pv plant that sells the electricity to the grid and another in which the energy generated is consumed entirely by the farm the results show a clear convenience to the realization of investments both with the current market conditions and at the variation of the feed in tariff or the investment costs