wind power price trends in the united states struggling to remain competitive in the face of strong growth the amount of wind power capacity being installed globally is surging with the united states the world leader in terms of annual market share for three years running 2005 2007 the rapidly growing market for wind has been a double edged sword however as the resulting supply demand imbalance in wind turbines along with the rising cost of materials and weakness in the u s dollar has put upward pressure on wind turbine costs and ultimately wind power prices two mitigating factors reductions in the cost of equity provided to wind projects and improvements in project level capacity factors have helped to relieve some of the upward pressure on wind power prices over the last few years because neither of these two factors can be relied upon to further cushion the blow going forward policymakers should recognize that continued financial support may be necessary to sustain the wind sector at its current pace of development at least in the near term though this article emphasizes developments in the u s market for wind power those trends are similar to and hold implications for the worldwide wind power market

ecosystem wealth in the barents sea abstract we develop an inclusive wealth type index for natural capital in the barents sea that accounts for ecosystem services via trophic interactions we consider three key fish species in the barents sea under stochastic growth dynamics compared to evaluation at market prices the estimated wealth from the inclusive wealth approach is several times higher ecosystem wealth depends on the management scheme and we consider both business as usual bau and an optimized ecosystem based management scheme ebm while bau maintains wealth near its current level 5 increase in the long run ebm increases wealth with almost 20 in the short run and more than 25 in the long run realized shadow prices suggest that prey species stocks are undervalued when evaluated at market prices

firm behavior under quantity controls the theory of virtual quantities the theory of virtual quantities the dual to virtual prices provides a framework to analyze competitive multiproduct firm behavior under multiple quantity controls on inputs and outputs including command and control quotas and transferable property rights the framework addresses the firm s reactions to regulatory controls impacts of adding or dropping quantity controls inferring unrationed from rationed production and conversion from command and control quotas to cap and trade systems with transferable property rights and secondary market behavior the paper develops reasons for failure of quasi concavity of technology extends the elasticity of intensity s properties and integrates the virtual price and virtual quantity frameworks virtual quantities are applied to assess potential firm responses to quantity controls and a potential transferable property right in a malaysian fishery

optimal harvest in an age structured model with different fishing selectivity an age structured model of a fishery is studied where two fishing fleets or fishing agents are targeting two different mature age classes of the fish stock the agents are using different fishing gear with different fishing selectivity the model includes young and old mature fish that can be harvested in addition to an age class of immature fish the paper describes the optimal harvesting policy under different assumptions on the objectives of the social planner and on fishing selectivity first biomass yield is maximized under perfect fishing selectivity second equilibrium profit rent is maximized under perfect fishing selectivity and third equilibrium profit is maximized under imperfect fishing selectivity the paper provides results that differ significantly from the standard lumped parameter also surplus production or biomass model

a review on global wind energy policy with the increasing negative effects of fossil fuel combustion on the environment in addition to limited stock of fossil fuel have forced many countries to inquire into and change to environmentally friendly alternatives that are renewable to sustain the increasing energy demand energy policy plays a vital role to mitigate the impacts of global warming and crisis of energy availability this paper explores the wind energy industry from the point of view of the wind energy policy it is noticed that energy policy could help increasing wind power generation as well as stimulating the energy industry it may be stated that without specific energy policy a country would not be able to solve the acute problems like reducing greenhouse gases ghgs emission scarcity of energy etc this paper discussed the existing successful energy policies for few selected countries based on literatures it has been found that fit rps incentives pricing law and quota system are the most useful energy policies practiced by many countries around the world then status of wind energy policy for malaysia was investigated and compared with few selected countries around the world

developing country fisheries and technical efficiency the java sea purse seine fishery the analysis of technical efficiency in developing country agriculture is well established but has been overlooked for developing country commercial marine fisheries policies raising technical efficiency in agriculture are viewed as uniformly positive but are a mixed blessing in fisheries due to the open access property right and common pool resource this study explores this contradiction and policies aimed to promote sustainable development and management of renewable common pool resources through a case study of the java sea purse seine fishery season of the year rather than fisher or vessel characteristics primarily determines technical efficiency the results are contrasted with developing country agriculture and conclusions drawn for fisheries development strategies

optimal allocation of tac and the implications of implementing an itq management system for the north east arctic cod first we study the allocation rule applied to split the norwegian total allowable catch for cod between coastal and trawler vessels second we explore the bioeconomic implications of an itq management system for this fishery a model combining a cannibalistic biomodel with cooperative game theory is developed key results from the study are 1 the current allocation rule acts in opposite fashion to what may be considered bioeconomically optimal and 2 an itq system for this fishery is likely to result in economic losses as the biological advantages of harvesting with the two vessels types may be lost

parametric estimation of technical and allocative inefficiency with panel data the error components approach to estimating allocative inefficiency imposes restrictive assumptions on the distributions of the errors and functional form the parametric approach does not require special assumptions about the error distribution or technology but typically assumes technical efficiency or restrictive functional forms the parametric approach also allows for systematic firm responses to shadow prices the authors generalize the parametric approach to a panel data setting and show that input and firm specific allocative inefficiency as well as firm specific technical inefficiency can be identified and estimated using a flexible functional form this is demonstrated empirically with an application to u s airlines copyright 1994 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

probabilistic decision model of wind power investment and influence of green power market this paper presents results from a model of a representative wind power investor s decision making process using a monte carlo simulation of a project financial analysis data in the form of probability distribution functions pdfs for key input variables were collected from interviews with investors and other professionals active in the u s wind power industry using a formal expert elicitation protocol this study presents the first quantitative estimates of the effect of the u s voluntary renewable energy certificate rec market on renewable energy generation the results indicate that the investment decisions of wind power project developers in the united states are unlikely to have been altered by the voluntary rec market the problem with the current voluntary rec market is that it does not offer developers a reliable risk adjusted revenue stream consequently the claims by u s green power retailers and promoters that voluntary market recs result in additional wind power projects lack credibility even dramatic increases in voluntary market rec prices in the absence of long term contracts were found to have only a small effect on investor behavior

ex post analysis of economic impacts from wind power development in u s counties wind power development has surged in recent years in the united states policymakers and economic development practitioners to date have typically relied upon project level case studies or modeled input output estimates to assess the economic development impacts from wind power often focusing on potential local state wide or national employment or earnings impacts building on this literature we conduct an ex post econometric analysis of the county level economic development impacts of wind power installations from 2000 through 2008 in a large wind rich region in the country taking into account factors influencing wind turbine location we find an aggregate increase in county level personal income and employment of approximately 11 000 and 0 5 jobs per megawatt of wind power capacity installed over the sample period of 2000 to 2008 these estimates appear broadly consistent with modeled input output results and translate to a median increase in total county personal income and employment of 0 2 and 0 4 for counties with installed wind power over the same period

the relative inefficiency of quotas the cheese case the nonequivalence of tariffs and quotas under a wide variety of circumstances is well established in economic theory this study considers heterogeneity as a source of nonequivalence and demonstrates its practical importance where restriction is inevitable the bias of economists in favor of price instruments is not thoroughly grounded this study should help provide a foundation the point of departure from the equivalence model is differentiation of products

implications of a discard ban in multispecies quota fisheries we present an analysis of quota regulation and discarding in multispecies fisheries explicitly taking into account the costs of non compliance with quotas and a possible discard ban as well as the costs of selective fishing avoidance effort we examine the impact of a discard ban on vessels profit maximising behaviour in particular where species quotas are not set in proportion to their availability on the fishing grounds considering both non tradeable quotas and itqs we show the interdependence between penalty rates for both discards and over quota landings in determining quota market outcomes we find that quota prices are sensitive to penalty rates and to the presence of restrictive quotas for choke species

policies and market factors driving wind power development in the united states abstract in the united states there has been substantial recent growth in wind energy generating capacity with growth averaging 24 percent annually during the past five years about 1700 mw of wind energy capacity was installed in 2001 while another 410 mw became operational in 2002 during 2003 development activity has remained strong with an estimated 1600 mw of capacity installed with this growth an increasing number of states are experiencing investment in wind energy projects currently about half of all states host at least one wind power project this paper explores the key factors at play in the 12 states in which a substantial amount of wind energy capacity has been developed or planned some of the factors that are examined include policy drivers such as renewable portfolio standards rps federal and state financial incentives as well as market drivers such as consumer demand for green power natural gas price volatility and wholesale market rules

design limitations in australian renewable electricity policies abstract renewable electricity is pivotal to the medium and long term reduction of australia s greenhouse gas ghg emissions if deep cuts in them are eventually implemented this paper examines the effectiveness of the principal existing policies that could potentially promote the expansion of renewable electricity relec in australia the expanded renewable energy target ret the proposed emissions trading scheme ets and the state and territory based feed in tariffs we find the effectiveness of ret is severely eroded by the inclusion of solar and heat pump hot water systems by the inclusion of phantom tradable certificates and by high electricity consumption growth we also find that the ets will not produce a high enough carbon price to assist most relec technologies before 2020 and that most of the feed in tariffs exclude large scale relec and will give little assistance to small scale relec because they are mostly net tariffs unless there is a major revision of its relec policy mechanisms australia will fail to reach its renewable electricity target and in particular will fail to build up its solar generation capacity which could be a major source of future deep cuts in the country s electricity generation emissions

regulation of fisheries bycatch with common pool output quotas abstract many fisheries around the world are plagued with the problem of bycatch the inadvertent harvesting and discard of non targeted species bycatch occurs when targeted and non targeted species coincide in the same habitat and gear is imperfectly selective one of the prevailing methods of controlling bycatch is the common pool quota system under this system biologists set total allowable catches tacs for both the targeted and non targeted species and the fishing season is closed when one of these tacs binds we develop a predictive model of a renewable resource that is regulated with this kind of common pool quota system the model demonstrates that the equilibrium will generally be characterized by excessive discards shortened seasons and foregone target species harvest these results occur even with very efficient low bycatch fishing gear we examine the sensitivity of our predictions to changes in technological parameters and degrees of spatial correlation of target and non target species finally we derive the optimal bycatch penalty function and describe its significance in light of various policy options available to regulators

production technology costs and multiproduct industry structure an application of the long run profit function to the new england fishing industry the long run multiproduct profit function is developed to provide a more general procedure than the static minimum cost function to examine the technological and cost determinants of multiproduct industry structure and the likely form of any market equilibrium in this approach outputs are endogenous and the long run equilibrium levels of quasi fixed factors are endogenously determined the multiproduct structure of the multispecies new england fishing industry and the likely multi

multi output nonfrontier primal measures of capacity and capacity utilization this article implements an econometric approach for generating primal capacity output and utilization measures for fisheries in situations where regulatory environmental and resource conditions affect catch levels but are not independently identified in the data frontier based capacity models may interpret such impacts as production inefficiency however if such inefficiencies are unlikely to be eliminated the implied potential output increases may be unrealistic we develop a multi output multi input stochastic transformation function framework that permits various assumptions about how output composition may change when operating at full capacity we apply our model to catcher processor vessels in the alaskan pollock fishery

assessing efficiency gains from individual transferable quotas an application to the mid atlantic surf clam and ocean quahog fishery delayed fishing fleet restructuring complicates the assessment of efficiency gains from individual transferable quota itq fisheries management programs this article presents a methodology to estimate harvest sector efficiency gains in lieu of incomplete fleet restructuring the methodology is applied to assess the efficiency gains in the mid atlantic surf clam and ocean quahog fishery itq program while roughly 128 vessels harvested clams under the previous management regime the analysis suggests that 21 25 vessels will remain under ltqs the efficiency gains are estimated to be between 11 1 million and 12 8 million annually 1990 dollars

public regulation and the structure of production in multiproduct industries an application to the new england otter trawl industry this article considers the problem of managing multispecies fishing industries as one of regulating the production of individual multiproduct firms the multispecies new england otter trawl industry is examined within this framework empirical results derived from estimating a multiproduct profitfunction indicate that management consistent with the structures ofmultiproduct production and costs would directly regulate inputs little support is provided for applying the traditional bioeconomic model to the fishery studied

an analysis of the efficient production frontier in the fishery implications for enhanced fisheries management the transformation relationship between factor inputs and outputs the efficient production frontier epf contains important information for fisheries managers a directional technology distance function model of the harvesting technology is used to measure changes in the epf over time frontier shifts are summarized with input and output based frontier indicators that are interpreted as measures of bioeconomic productivity change the model is applied to the mid atlantic surf clam and ocean quahog fishery

application of the distance function to nonmarket valuation of environmental goods and services an illustrative example abstract this paper develops and implements a unique formulation of a household production model in that technology is characterized as a distance function the properties of the distance function allow for the derivation of shadow prices for the inputs and outputs associated with household production which can be applied to the problem of valuing nonmarket goods or activities the approach requires only one input to or output of household production to bear a price the derivation of shadow prices for all other household inputs outputs follows from the properties of the distance function i demonstrate the approach using data on the waste management activities of a sample of households from marietta georgia and by calculating shadow prices for the nonmarket activity of recycling

public schooling for young children and maternal labor supply as policy makers have sought to reduce the welfare rolls by increasing labor supply among single mothers much attention has been given to the possible role of expanded child care subsidies including direct provision of public preschool at the same time public interest in child care subsidies for two parent households is high for example former vice president gore not long ago proposed to make high quality pre school fully available to every family for every child in every community in america albert gore 1999 in this paper i use 1980 census data to estimate the effect of public school enrollment for a woman s five year old on measures of labor supply and public assistance receipt this approach has two advantages first i am able to estimate the effect of a large implicit child care subsidy 1 second because public kindergarten is universally available to all age eligible children where it is provided selection problems related to means testing do not arise a difficulty with public school enrollment arises because parents may choose to hold their children back a year or enroll them in private school i deal with this issue by using five yearold s quarter of birth qob variables as instruments for public school enrollment status this strategy works because parents ability to enroll a child in public kindergarten in the academic year when the child turns five typically depends on the calendar date of the child s birth 2 in most states children born in the second quarter april 1 june 30 of 1974 will have been eligible to start kindergarten in the fall of 1979 while children born in the first quarter january 1march 31 of 1975 generally will not eligibility for children born between july 1 and december 31 1974 depends on the rules where they live 3

quota induced discarding in heterogeneous fisheries abstract individual quota iq programs are a promising and increasingly common means of regulating fisheries this paper examines how profit maximizing fishers respond to different types of iq programs in fisheries where many types of fish are harvested simultaneously this analysis shows that the most common types of individual quota programs can induce discarding and that individual quota programs that regulate the value of harvests never induce discarding since discarded fish have a high mortality rate value based individual quota programs are superior to their more conventional counterparts in that they waste fewer fish the disadvantages of value based quotas are also examined results are driven by the fact that the harvest technology examined here does not satisfy a free disposal assumption since this free disposal assumption is ubiquitous in production theory and not obviously true the framework developed herein may be useful for analyzing a broad class of problems involving joint production

informal labor markets and on the job training evidence from wage data i introduction this study explores the role of informal jobs in the formation of human capital among young less educated workers an informal job is a job that fails to comply with some or all of the labor regulations 1 the set of all informal jobs constitute what is typically known as the informal sector due to the lack of compliance with the labor laws informal jobs are not registered with the authorities 2 however it is often argued that compliance with these laws is of great significance in developing countries to ensure social justice for workers berg and kucera 2008 and to protect them against the forces of reallocation in the labor market inter american development bank 2003 in spite of these arguments the lack of compliance with these mandates in developing countries is common practice leading to the existence of sizable informal labor markets especially among the youth and the less educated 3 hence the importance of understanding what role the informal sector is playing in the lives of young less educated workers the traditional views of the informal sector in the literature are that of a sector that is the last resort for many workers who are rationed out of the protected and better paid jobs in the formal sector e g ozorio de almeida et al 1995 or that it is the disadvantaged sector in a segmented labor market e g fields 1975 harris and todaro 1970 4 the support for these views of the informal sector is mixed in the literature the work of maloney 1999 amaral and quintin 2006 and galiani and weinschelbaum 2012 suggests that the existence of informal labor markets is not necessarily evidence of segmentation and that could be an equilibrium outcome in a competitive labor market however the work of arias and khamis 2008 presents some evidence that is consistent with the rationing of formal salaried jobs and with segmentation in the labor market 5 despite the ongoing debate informal jobs play an important role in the work lives of less educated workers maloney 1999 argues that informal salaried jobs serve as the main point of entry for young poorly educated workers into paid employment the current study further explores this idea focusing on the group of young less educated workers in mexico the study explores the extent to which less educated workers in the informal sector experience wage growth and how wage growth in the informal sector compares with wage growth in the formal sector the basic question is whether informal jobs offer wage growth and skill accumulation to less educated workers and how it compares with formal jobs the empirical analysis uses a household survey from mexico the enoe acronym in spanish for encuesta nacional de ocupacion y empleo the panel structure of the survey allows the construction of measures of wage growth and continuing sector participation the results indicate that young less educated workers in the informal sector experience faster wage growth than their peers in the formal sector based on existing models of on the job training acemoglu and pischke 1999a 1999b becker 1993 stevens 1994 this result suggests that informal jobs offer valuable general training opportunities to young less educated workers the literature provides little evidence on wage growth in the informal sector or on how it compares with wage growth in the formal sector there is some evidence on the wage gain or loss from informality for example maloney 1999 and alcaraz et al 2011 provide estimates of the wage change associated with transitions between the formal and informal sectors in mexico the results in both studies indicate that informal to formal transitions are associated with positive wage changes while transitions in the opposite direction are associated with negative wage changes however none of these two studies provide evidence on wage growth experienced by workers in the informal sector or how it compares to wage growth in the formal sector

capacity utilization under regulatory constraints this paper presents a methodology for predicting the effect of quota type regulatory constraints on capacity utilization for a multiproduct profit maximizing firm the approach builds on recent advances in the use of virtual prices to model the effects of rationing this allows the effects of regulatory constraints to be examined ex ante the methodol ogy is illustrated through a case study of the imposition of output quotas in an open access marine fishing industry on the pacific coast of the united states the results suggest that for certain species output quotas can cause strong disinvestment incentives have been used for many years to analyze the current status of the economy the expansion ary or contractionary forces on investment and inflation and productivity movements tradi tional cu measures were based on the notion of maximum possible output recently economists have developed measures derived from the eco nomic theory of the firm and based instead on a notion of optimal output berndt and fuss 1986 hickman 1964 klein 1960 morrison 1985 1988 segerson and squires 1990a these measures assume that some inputs are quasi fixed and that capacity utilization is determined by the level of the quasi fixed input s relative to the level of output previous studies of theory based cu measures have generally assumed that the industry under study was free from regulatory constraints an exception is morrison s 1988 study which ana lyzed among other things the effect of pollution control regulations on capacity utiliza tion in the u s and canadian steel industries the analysis is retrospective however since it studied the impacts of regulations that were al ready in effect in many cases it would be useful to be able to predict the effect of proposed regulations on ca pacity utilization such prospective or ex ante analysis would provide regulators with useful information regarding the likely effect of alterna tive policies on investment incentives for exam ple regulatory production limits on a single product such as quotas may cause multiproduct firms to change the volume and mix of their production which could in turn change invest ment incentives 1 likewise input use restrictions could affect both output supplies and the de mands for unregulated inputs thereby altering investment incentives predictions of these changes would contribute to designing more ef fective public policies regulating capacity and in vestment

a model of production with supply management for the canadian agricultural sector the production structure of the canadian agricultural sector is modeled by an output constrained multiproduct profit function to account for the existence of supply management policies the le chatelier effects of supply constraints are illustrated and the comparative statics of supply management is shown to depend under input normality on the type of jointness convexity is tested and accepted and nonjointness is rejected by the estimated normalized quadratic profit function the results support the hypothesis of nonjointness due to allocatable fixed factors decreasing the supply of managed commodities will increase the supply of unrestricted commodities while total input use is reduced

grandchildren and their grandparents labor supply abstract working age grandparents supply large amounts of child care an observation that raises the question of how having grandchildren affects grandparents own labor supply exploiting the unique genealogical design of the psid and the random variation in the timing when the parents of first born boys and girls become grandparents we estimate a structural labor supply model and find a negative effect on employed grandmother s hours of work of about 30 that is concentrated near the bottom of the hours distribution i e among women less attached to the labor market implications for the evaluation of child care and parental leave policies are discussed

technological learning and renewable energy costs implications for us renewable energy policy abstract this paper analyzes the relationship between current renewable energy technology costs and cumulative production research development and demonstration expenditures and other institutional influences combining the theoretical framework of learning by doing and developments in learning by searching with the fields of organizational learning and institutional economics offers a complete methodological framework to examine the underlying capital cost trajectory when developing electricity cost estimates used in energy policy planning models sensitivities of the learning rates for global wind and solar photovoltaic technologies to changes in the model parameters are tested the implications of the results indicate that institutional policy instruments play an important role for these technologies to achieve cost reductions and further market adoption

money for nothing universal child care and maternal employment abstract the strong correlation between child care and maternal employment rates has led previous research to conclude that affordable and readily available child care is a driving force both of cross country differences in maternal employment and of its rapid growth over the last decades we analyze a staged expansion of subsidized child care in norway our precise and robust difference in differences estimates reveal that there is little if any causal effect of subsidized child care on maternal employment despite a strong correlation instead of increasing mothers labor supply the new subsidized child care mostly crowds out informal child care arrangements suggesting a significant net cost of the child care subsidies

american policy conflict in the greenhouse divergent trends in federal regional state and local green energy and climate change policy climate change threatens significant impacts on global ecosystems and human populations to address this challenge industrialized nations have ratified the kyoto protocol and undertaken commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases the primary agents linked to anthropogenic alteration of earth s climate by contrast the us government led by the bush administration has rejected mandatory targets for curbing emissions under the protocol and has instead pursued voluntary mitigation measures amid a larger push for clean coal and next generation nuclear technologies these actions in total have fueled global perceptions that the us is not acting in substantial ways to address climate change nevertheless action within the us is indeed moving forward with states cities and regional partnerships filling the federal leadership vacuum this paper reviews the diverse policies strategies and cooperative frameworks that have emerged at regional state and local levels to guide climate protection and identifies the environmental and economic benefits linked to such programs the paper also attempts to explain the existing federal impasse on climate policy with attention given to how sub national efforts may ultimately obviate national governmental inaction r 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

dynamic female labor supply the increase in female employment and participation rates is one of the most dramatic changes to have taken place in the economy during the last century however while the employment rate of married women more than doubled during the last 50 years that of unmarried women remained almost constant to empirically analyze these trends we estimate a female dynamic labor supply model using an extended version of eckstein and wolpin 1989 to compare the various explanations in the literature for the observed trends this dynamic model provides a much better fit to the life cycle employment pattern than a static version of the model and a standard static reduced form model heckman 1979 the main finding using the dynamic model is that the rise in education levels accounts for about 33 percent of the increase in female employment and the rise in wages and narrowing of the gender wage gap account for another 20 percent while about 40 percent remains unexplained by observed household characteristics we show that this unexplained portion can be empirically attributed to cohort specific changes in preferences or the costs of child rearing and household maintenance finally the decline in fertility and the increase in divorce rates account for only a small share of the increase in female employment rates

efficient feed in tariff policies for renewable energy technologies feed in tariff fit policies aim at driving down the cost of renewable energy by fostering learning and accelerating the diffusion of green technologies under fit mechanisms governments purchase green energy at tariffs that are set above market price the success or failure of fit policies in turn critically depend on how these tariffs are determined and adjusted over time this paper provides insights into designing cost efficient and socially optimal fit programs our modeling framework captures key market dynamics as well as investors strategic behavior in this framework we establish that the current practice of maintaining constant profitability is theoretically rarely optimal by contrast we characterize a no delay region in the problem s parameters such that profitability should strictly decrease over time if the diffusion and learning rates belong to this region in this case investors never strategically postpone their investment to a later period when the diffusion and learning rates

unraveling the multiple margins of rent generation from individual transferable quotas individual transferable quotas itqs induce changes along both the extensive margin via consolidation of quota among fewer vessels and the intensive margin as harvesters adjust their behavior to itq incentives we use itq introduction in the bering sea crab fishery to decompose the sources of rent generation across both margins we embed an empirically calibrated structural model of the harvesting process into a sector level model allowing us to experimentally unravel the itq treatment we show that the magnitude and source of rent generation under itqs critically depends on the manner and degree of rent dissipation before itqs are implemented

measures of welfare effects in multiproduct industries the case of multispecies individual quota fisheries a framework is developed to measure the welfare effects of individual quota reforms in multiproduct industries using the multimarket welfare measure techniques suggested by just hueth and schmitz 1982 and the concept of virtual price in the production theory literature neary 1995 squires and kirkley 1996 under joint in input production it is shown that quasirent under a single quota can be measured by the producer surplus either in the output market for quota output or in the quota market under multiple quotas the welfare effects of quota policies can be measured in one of the quota markets using inverse derived equilibrium demand curves these results are obtained for a joint in input technology where positive production of at least one of the quota outputs is necessary for the firm to continue to operate application of the inverse derived demand functions for welfare measurement is shown for both transferable and nontransferable quotas

sustainable energy systems role of optimization modeling techniques in power generation and supply a review electricity is conceivably the most multipurpose energy carrier in modern global economy and therefore primarily linked to human and economic development energy sector reform is critical to sustainable energy development and includes reviewing and reforming subsidies establishing credible regulatory frameworks developing policy environments through regulatory interventions and creating market based approaches energy security has recently become an important policy driver and privatization of the electricity sector has secured energy supply and provided cheaper energy services in some countries in the short term but has led to contrary effects elsewhere due to increasing competition resulting in deferred investments in plant and infrastructure due to longer term uncertainties on the other hand global dependence on fossil fuels has led to the release of over 1100 gtco2 into the atmosphere since the mid 19th century currently energy related ghg emissions mainly from fossil fuel combustion for heat supply electricity generation and transport account for around 70 of total emissions including carbon dioxide methane and some traces of nitrous oxide this multitude of aspects play a role in societal debate in comparing electricity generating and supply options such as cost ghg emissions radiological and toxicological exposure occupational health and safety employment domestic energy security and social impressions energy systems engineering provides a methodological scientific framework to arrive at realistic integrated solutions to complex energy problems by adopting a holistic systems based approach especially at decision making and planning stage modeling and optimization found widespread applications in the study of physical and chemical systems production planning and scheduling systems location and transportation problems resource allocation in financial systems and engineering design this article reviews the literature on power and supply sector developments and analyzes the role of modeling and optimization in this sector as well as the future prospective of optimization modeling as a tool for sustainable energy systems

transferable quotas enforcement costs and typical firms an empirical application to the norwegian trawler fleet an alternative to traditional regulations of fisheries to avoid rent dissipation is the use of individual transferable quotas itqs where prices in the quota market provide the necessary information to owners of harvest rights to contract with each other however even under such a decentralized regime information on the underlying technology of the fishing vessels is also necessary first since most fisheries consist of many interrelated production processes in order to avoid rent dissipation by discarding wrong output mix etc the structure of production in the multispecies fishery must be known to design a proper quota system second an itq system may create incentives for misreporting by understating the actual catch this may especially be the case where the expected degree of self enforcement is low the paper proposes a way to reduce the information requirements under regulation with asymmetric information by constructing a typical firm and comparing performance for the other vessels to this firm based on the typical firm and if the industry is relatively homogenous the performance and hence catch of any other firm in the industry can be predicted within a certain range further the paper applies this idea to the norwegian trawler fleet to assess the production structure in terms of jointness input output separability and the supply and demand elasticities for the fishing firms this information characterizes the fishery and thus how the quota system may be designed and how to construct a yardstick in order to reduce the enforcement cost under a decentralized regulation of itqs

cost of power or power of cost a u s modeling perspective abstract future scenarios and assessment studies used to prepare for long term energy transitions and develop robust strategies to address climate change are highly dependent on the assessment of technology characteristics and availability the electric power sector in the united states recently experienced a significant cost escalation e g construction costs for large plants such as nuclear and coal fired power plants doubled between 2003 and 2007 we assess the main drivers of this escalation while many factors have affected costs some of the most significant include cost of materials particularly the price of metals and to a lesser extent cement possible increases in labor quantity requirements the aggressive worldwide competition for power plant design and construction resources driven by high demand in asia market and regulatory changes and general uncertainty about future regulations and climate policies we recalibrate power sector technology costs in the global change assessment model gcam based on an extensive literature review of recent post 2010 studies and in the process develop a coherent and updated set of current cost and performance assumptions for all major electricity generating technologies while current cost and performance assumptions of electricity generating technologies are key drivers of short term technology deployment and technology mix in the electricity sector medium and long term deployment pathways are significantly affected by assumed efficiency improvement rates and cost reductions we develop and demonstrate a method to project efficiency and construction cost of power plants and report a sensitivity analysis to explore the importance of such assumptions in future scenarios generated by gcam

fishing revenue productivity and product choice in the alaskan pollock fishery a key element in evaluating fishery management strategies is examining their effects on the economic performance of fishery participants yet nearly all empirical studies of fisheries focus exclusively on the amount of fish harvested the economic benefits derived from fish stocks involve the amount of revenue generated from fish processing which is linked to both the way fish are harvested and the products produced from the fish in this study we econometrically estimate a flexible revenue function for catcher processor vessels operating in the alaskan pollock fishery recognizing potential endogeneity and a variety of fishing inputs and conditions we find significant own price supply responses and product substitutability and enhanced revenues from increased fishing days and tow duration after a regulatory change introduced property rights through a new fishing cooperative we also find significant growth in economic productivity or higher revenues over time after controlling for observed productive factors and price changes which exceeds that attributable to increased harvest these patterns suggest that the move to rights based management has contributed significantly to economic performance in the pollock fishery

renewable electricity production costs a framework to assist policy makers decisions on price support abstract despite recent progress the production costs for renewable electricity remain above those for conventional power expectations of continuous reductions in production costs typically underpin governments policies for financial support they often draw on the technology focused versions of the experience curve model this paper discusses how national contextual factors also have a strong influence on production costs such as geographic infrastructural institutional and resource factors as technologies mature and as they reach significant levels of diffusion nationally sustained increases in production costs might be recorded due to these nationally contextual factors poorly accounted for in policy making decisions for price support the paper suggests an analytical framework for a more comprehensive understanding of production costs based on this it recommends that the evolution of specific cost levels and factors be monitored to locate sources of changes the paper also suggests policy instruments that governments may use to facilitate cost decreases whenever possible the application of the framework is illustrated for the diffusion of wind power in spain during the past three decades

explaining non compliance in the norwegian coastal cod fishery an application of the multinomial logit establishing motive is central to the analysis of criminal behaviour this article analyses the range of motives for noncompliant behaviour among coastal cod fishermen a multinomial logit model is employed to analyse the reasons that underlie various motives the four motives compared in this study are economic technological and social and motives caused by bureaucracy and legitimacy problems the economic motive is found to be most important for coastal fishermen however the cross sectional data indicate that motives vary with fishing gear vessel length and fishermen s age the results indicate that identifying motives for noncompliant behaviour is not straightforward but is important for reducing the extent of infringements of the regulations fishermen who use gill net seine and long line for example are more often motivated to noncompliance by technical problems and bureaucracy than hand jig fishers the study suggests that in order to prevent noncompliance behaviour the authorities manageme

sons daughters and parental behaviour the prevalence of son preference and its implications for family behaviour in developing countries have received a great deal of scholarly attention but child gender bias is believed to be empirically unimportant in wealthy non traditional societies studies by sociologists and psychologists during the past 30 years however have documented consistent discrepancies between the behaviour of parents of sons and parents of daughters boys tend to increase marital stability and marital satisfaction relative to girls and fathers spend more time with and are more involved with sons than daughters in recent years economists have begun to contribute to the child gender literature re examining the effects of sons and daughters on family structure and parental involvement with larger samples and greater concern for possible sources of selection bias other economic outcomes such as market work and earnings have also been studied and some investigators have exploited the randomness of child gender as a source of exogenous variation in parental behaviour in general recent results suggest that child gender does affect family stability and the time allocation of parents but it is not clear whether these responses reflect parental preferences for boys rather than girls or differences in the constraints parents face copyright 2005 oxford university press

renewable resource economists and policy what differences have we made abstract this paper surveys developments in fisheries economics and fisheries policy over the past half century early work clarified the nature of the economic issues associated with open access laying the groundwork for changes in policies after coastal nations expanded their jurisdictions in 1976 perhaps the most important point made by economists is that property rights matter and that open access conditions create economic as well as biological problems the policy process has begun to create property rights systems although many of the world s fisheries still operate under mixed systems of regulations and open access incentives

a parametric approach to efficiency measurement using a flexible profit function although the idea of measuring productive efficiency goes back to farrell 8 the econometric estimation of it began with aigner lovell and schmidt 1 and meeusen and van den broeck 17 in aigner lovell and schmidt 1 and meeusen and van den broeck 17 and their extensions which incorporate either cost minimizing or profit maximizing behavior efficiency is measured relative to a frontier an alternative to the frontier approach that started with hopper 10 and lau and yotopoulos 15 is to measure efficiency mostly allocative without estimating any frontier in the latter approach allocative inefficiency defined as the deviations of the first order conditions of profit maximization or cost minimization is modeled through shadow virtual prices which are parametric functions of observed prices the shadow price approach is extensively used in the literature on efficiency measurement because it has an advantage over the frontier approach which requires distributional assumptions on the error terms especially in cross sectional models in empirical studies on the efficiency of regulated utilities it has been argued that due to the presence of rate of return and other regulations these firms optimize with respect to shadow prices instead of observed prices these studies often fail to consider the possibility that the firms under question may be technically inefficient as well which can affect allocation of inputs 1 this issue is important in both cost minimization and profit maximization cases this paper uses a profit maximization framework and develops a generalized profit function approach that accommodates both technical and allocative inefficiencies in the context of a panel data model the relationship between production technical inefficiency loss of output due to technical inefficiency and profit technical inefficiency profit loss due to technical inefficiency is derived for a flexible production function presently it is believed that the derivation of this relationship is only possible for the self dual production functions we show that if the profit function is translog some popular approaches used in modeling technical and allocative inefficiency are incorrect in particular we show that i models that fail to include technical inefficiency and consider only allocative inefficiency yield biased and inconsistent parameter estimates ii if technical inefficiency is neglected the measure of technical change will be biased the generalized profit function developed here is capable of distinguishing between technical change and time varying technical inefficiency such a distinction is not possible if for example one uses

the effect of child gender on parents labor supply an examination of natives immigrants and their children previous research has shown that child gender has significant effects on household behavior in developing countries more recently research on parents in developed countries has shown that child gender affects many aspects of parents behavior including parents labor supply shelly lundberg and elaina rose 2002 lundberg 2005 marital stability gordon b dahl and enrico moretti 2004 lundberg and rose 2003 and time spent with children lundberg sabrina wulff pabilonia and wardbatts 2006 one hypothesis as to why parents behave differently depending on child gender is that there is a gender preference i e fathers prefer sons this appears to be a reasonable explanation for the difference in parental behavior by child gender in some developing countries where the eldest male son and his wife traditionally provide old age security for his parents it is less clear why preference for a son would be a significant explanation for the difference in parental behavior by child gender in an industrialized country such as the united states where social security and private pensions are used as support in old age and there is greater gender equality in the workplace using the march current population survey cps supplement we examine us parents to determine whether having a son rather than a daughter has a significant effect on parents labor supply and whether the cultural preferences of immigrants play a role in generating the effects of child gender on us parents labor supply if preference for a son is the only explanation then we would expect to find that immigrant status increases the effect of having a son on parents the effect of child gender on parents labor supply an examination of natives immigrants and their children

an economic perspective on experience curves and dynamic economies in renewable energy technologies this paper analyzes dynamic economies in renewable energy technologies the paper has two contributions the first is to test the robustness of experience in solar photovoltaic solar thermal and wind energy to the addition of an explicit time trend which has been done in experience studies for other industries but not for renewable energy technologies estimation is carried out on the assumption that cumulative capacity industry production average firm production and electricity generation affect experience and thus the fall in price the second contribution is to test the impact of r d on price reduction in general cumulative experience is found to be highly statistically significant when estimated alone and highly statistically insignificant when time is added to the model the effect of r d is small and statistically significant in solar photovoltaic technology and statistically insignificant in solar thermal and wind technologies

private property and economic efficiency a study of a common pool resource abstract the british columbia halibut fishery provides a natural experiment of the effects of privatizing the commons using firm level data from the fishery 2 years before private harvesting rights were introduced the year they were implemented and 3 years afterward a stochastic frontier is estimated to test for changes in technical allocative and economic efficiency the study indicates that 1 the short run efficiency gains from privatization may take several years to materialize and can be compromised by restrictions on transferability duration and divisibility of the property right 2 substantial long run gains in efficiency can be jeopardized by preexisting regulations and the bundling of the property right to the capital stock and 3 the gains from privatization are not just in terms of cost efficiency but include important benefits in revenue and product form

sustainable fisheries development in the tropics trawlers and licence limitation in malaysia sustainable fisheries development requires sound fisheries management area licence limitation programmes may form the cornerstone for most tropical multispecies fisheries management programmes an empirical analysis of peninsular malaysian fishing trawlers is used to design an area licence limitation programme that conforms to the multiproduct production technology and cost and revenue structures to best accommodate condtions of asymmetric information between the regulator and fishing vessels

intrinsic fish characteristics and intraseason production efficiency a management level bioeconomic analysis of a commercial fishery biological changes in pacific whiting merluccius productus and corresponding production yields were used to model a vertically integrated fishery from harvest through processing the seasonal bioeconomic programming model incorporated stock dynamics with the interactive economic effects of intrinsic fish quality the harvest schedule and quota allocation between heterogeneous user groups the optimal management plan would maximize discounted net industry revenues npv given a minimum spawning biomass npv was maximized when the intraseason timing of harvest coincided with the seasonal improvement in fish quality e g following spawning and or migration npv was only marginally affected however by the quota allocation between groups

child care choices and children s cognitive achievement the case of single mothers we evaluate the effect of child care versus maternal time inputs on child cognitive development using single mothers from the nlsy79 to deal with nonrandom selection of children into child care we exploit the exogenous variation in welfare policy rules facing single mothers in particular the 1996 welfare reform and earlier state level policy changes generated substantial increases in their work child care use we construct a comprehensive set of welfare policy variables and use them as instruments to estimate child cognitive ability production functions in our baseline specification we estimate that a year of child care reduces child test scores by 2 1

hidden flexibility institutions incentives and the margins of selectivity in fishing the degree to which selectivity in fisheries is malleable to changes in incentive structures is critical for policy design we examine data for a multispecies trawl fishery before and after a transition from management under common pool quotas to a fishery cooperative and note a substantial shift in postcooperative catch from bycatch and toward valuable target species we examine the margins used to affect catch composition finding that large and fine scale spatial decision making and avoidance of night fishing were critical we argue that the poor incentives for selectivity in many systems may obscure significant flexibility in multispecies production technologies

female labor supply why is the united states falling behind abstract in 1990 the us had the sixth highest female labor participation rate among 22 oecd countries by 2010 its rank had fallen to seventeenth we find that the expansion of family friendly p

production quota in multiproduct pacific fisheries abstract assessing the individual firm s technology and costs in a multispecies fishery allows design of a more effective output quota prior to regulation by anticipating and controlling for the firm s regulation induced responses an empirical study of a pacific coast trawl fishery indicates that the firm s flexibility of product decision is tightly constrained by its technology and cost structure hence as the resource stock for the regulated species sablefish deteriorates and the trip quota progressively tightens the firm cannot sufficiently reorganize its product bundle to preclude increasingly large sablefish disposal this defeats the purpose of the production quota

estimation of output and input technical efficiency using a flexible functional form and panel data the farrell 1957 concept of technical efficiency can be measured in two ways denoted output and input technical efficiency the empirical literature does not distinguish between the two measures and confusion exists regarding the required restrictions on technology for the specification of either measure with panel data the authors show how both types of efficiency when treated as fixed effects are to be specified in the context of a translog cost system technical efficiency enters the share equations only in the output case when homotheticity is not imposed the authors estimate their cost systems using panel data on u s airlines copyright 1994 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

understanding wind turbine price trends in the u s over the past decade understanding wind turbine price trends in the u s over the past decade mark bolinger and ryan wiser lawrence berkeley national laboratory pre print of article submitted to energy policy abstract on a per kw basis wind turbine prices in the u s have declined by nearly one third on average since 2008 after having previously doubled over the period from 2002 through 2008 these two substantial and opposing trends over the past decade and particularly the earlier price doubling run counter to the smooth gradually declining cost trajectories predicted by standard learning curve theory taking a bottom up approach we examine seven possible drivers of wind turbine prices in the u s with the goal of estimating the degree to which each contributed to the doubling in turbine prices from 2002 through 2008 as well as the subsequent decline in prices through 2010 in aggregate these seven drivers which include changes in labor costs warranty provisions manufacturer profitability turbine scaling raw materials prices energy prices and foreign exchange rates explain from 70 to 90 depending on the year of empirically observed wind turbine price movements in the u s through 2010 turbine scaling is found to have been the largest single contributor to the price doubling through 2008 although the incremental cost of scaling has been justified by greater energy capture resulting in a lower cost of wind generation acknowledgments the work described in this article was funded by the u s department of energy s wind water power program within the office of energy efficiency and renewable energy under contract no de ac02 05ch11231 disclaimer this document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the united states government while this document is believed to contain correct information neither the united states government nor any agency thereof nor the regents of the university of california nor any of their employees makes any warranty express or implied or assumes any legal responsibility for the accuracy completeness or usefulness of any information apparatus product or process disclosed or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights reference herein to any specific commercial product process or service by its trade name trademark manufacturer or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement recommendation or favoring by the united states government or any agency thereof or the regents of the university of california the views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the united states government or any agency thereof or the regents of the university of california ernest orlando lawrence berkeley national laboratory is an equal opportunity employer

assessing technical efficiency in commercial fisheries the mid atlantic sea scallop fishery despite the extensive effort to research issues of allocative efficiency in fisheries little empirical analysis of technical efficiency te in fisheries exists this study examines vessel efficiency using a stochastic production frontier based on a sample of sea scallop vessels operating in the mid atlantic between 1987 and 1990 estimates of te are computed and compared with input usage resource conditions economic performance and recently imposed regulations the analysis suggests that owners and captains only partially compensate for changes in resource conditions through the use of labor and fishing effort and recent regulations may improve overall te in the short run

markets and rent dissipation in regulated open access fisheries abstract using a model of regulated open access resource use with markets we illustrate the potential complexity of interactions between markets product quality excess effort and regulatory behavior in fisheries our model assumes two product types one of which is processed and storable the model describes the equilibrium that results when effort responds to open access incentives and when regulators respond to effort growth by mitigating its potential harmful effects on biomass safety we use numerical simulations to demonstrate a mechanism by which market growth leads to the diversion of raw inputs into the inherently inferior market the result is a scenario in which rents are dissipated not only because excessive inputs raise costs but also because inferior product types reduce revenues we conclude with an illustrative decomposition of rent gains into revenue and cost savings gains from rationalizing a hypothetical fishery demonstrating the potential significance of market side rents

joint ventures and technology transfer the solomon islands pole and line fishery abstract joint ventures are a popular way of facilitating the transfer of technology from distant water fishing nations dwfns to developing resource owning countries in addition to being exploited by a joint venture the solomon islands fishing zone is also exploited by a dwfn fleet and a domestic fleet a stochastic frontier approach is used to compare changes in technology and technical inefficiency among the three fleets in the period 1988 1994 it is found that the level of productivity of the joint venture fleet is higher than that of the domestic fleet reflecting some past gains from the joint venture however the rate of increase of productivity is higher for the domestic fleet suggesting that the solomon islands are not receiving any on going benefits of technology transfer in return for concessional access to their waters

adjustment cost and supply response in a fishery a dynamic revenue function in industries where firms can adjust product mix in response to price changes the process can be delayed by adjustment costs an example is fishermen who change fishing grounds to target different species if adjustment costs are sufficiently large this may hamper the fishermen s response so that regulatory tools that are not efficient in the long run are useful in the short run moreover adjustment costs can influence the choice of species targeted in this paper dynamic supply equations are specified using a revenue function approach different hypotheses about the dynamics of the supply equations are tested for norwegian trawlers

individual transferable quotes in a multiproduct common property industry this paper extends the method of virtual prices for quantity constraints to provide inverse derived demand functions for quotas and quota market equilibrium and pricing the approach is applied to evaluate the anticipated effects of a potential program of individual transferable quotas addressing the ill structured property rights and market failure of a multiproduct common property fishery the results indicate that individual transferable quotas on multiple products may not generate the desired rents or achieve biological objectives owing to limitations when joint products are regulated however an individual transferable quota on a single joint product may induce industry disinvestment and reduce overcapitalization

wind power development in the united states abstract this paper analyzes the drivers of wind power development in the united states focusing on government renewable energy incentives and access to the electricity grid the effects of wind capacity electricity transmission line coverage and grid regulation as well as state and federal subsidies from 1998 to 2007 are estimated via random effects tobit probit and ordinary least squares instrumental variables regression the results indicate that the federal production tax credit state level sales tax credit and production incentives play an important role in promoting wind power in addition higher wind power penetration levels can be achieved by bringing more parts of the electricity transmission grid under independent system operator regulation this paper concludes that state and federal government policies play a significant role in wind power development both by providing financial support and by improving physical and procedural access to the electricity grid

resource rent in individual quota fisheries traditional fisheries management schemes generate incentives for vessels to maximize catch resulting in rent dissipation and overcapacity individual vessel quota management schemes change the incentives to maximize profit and have the potential to generate resource rent and reduce capacity an interesting question is whether it is the changed incentives due to individual quota or the capacity reduction due to transferability of individual quota that is most important in generating rent in this study a cost function approach is used to model and measure rent generated and potential rent in a fishery managed with individual vessel quotas

cost structure and capacity in the norwegian pelagic fisheries the parameters of the short run cost function are estimated for three vessel types taking part in the norwegian pelagic fisheries purse seine vessels trawlers and coastal vessels the generalized translog functional form is used estimates of returns to scale are calculated and the results indicate that there are substantial economies of scale in all vessel classes it is further investigated whether excess capacity varies with vessel size and age the analysis suggests increased quotas per vessel to avoid rent dissipation with the total allowable catch given the number of participating vessels must be reduced

technology transfer to developing countries through engineering firms the canadian experience abstract this article presents the results of an empirical study conducted on some 50 major international projects conducted by the 36 largest canadian consulting engineering firms in developing countries the study concludes that contrary to the neoclassical assumption of cost free information adoption technology transfer costs are positive and mostly concentrated in the area of training it also finds that successful transfers involves a specific set of capabilities and are usually conducted through joint ventures between the transferor and the transferee that successful transferees often conduct research and development do not suffer from host government restrictions and are not usually located in africa

the theory and measurement of producer response under quotas tobin and houthakker s work on consumer behavior under quantity rationing has been extended by many authors especial ly through the use of duality theory this paper uses duality theory to extend the work on demand theory under rationing to the case of producer behavior under quotas these results permit estimation of otherwise unobservable market supply and demand structures the structure of the farm economy operating under a tobacco quota system is estimated and the theory is utilized to infer that the supply elasticity of tobacco would be about 7 0 if the quotas were removed estimates such as this are not normally attainable without the theor y outlined here even though they are essential for the evaluation of policy changes copyright 1993 by mit press

the effects of sons and daughters on men s labor supply and wages in this paper we estimate the effects of children and the differential effects of sons and daughters on men s labor supply and hourly wage rates the responses to fatherhood of two cohorts of men from the psid sample are examined separately and we use fixed effects estimation to control for unobserved heterogeneity we find that fatherhood significantly increases the hourly wage rates and annual hours of work for men from both cohorts most notably men s labor supply and wage rates increase more in response to the births of sons than to the births of daughters

rent capture in a rights based fishery abstract the paper compares four methods of rent capture in a fishery managed with individual transferable quotas using simulations from a unit profit function some theoretical properties of a quota rental charge profit charge lump sum charge and an ad valorem royalty are examined and then compared in simulations in terms of the distribution of profits distortions to the fishery the relative burden on fishers and flexibility to adjust to changes in the fishery

seasonal harvest patterns in multispecies fisheries fishers face multidimensional decisions when to fish what species to target and how much gear to deploy most bioeconomic models assume single species fisheries with perfectly elastic demand and focus on inter seasonal dynamics in real world fisheries vessels hold quotas for multiple species with heterogeneous biological and or market conditions that vary intra seasonally we analyze within season behavior in multispecies fisheries with individual fishing quotas accounting for stock aggregations capacity constraints and downward sloping demand numerical results demonstrate variation in harvest patterns we specifically find 1 harvests for species with downward sloping demand tend to spread out 2 spreading harvest of a high value species can cause lower value species to be harvested earlier in the season and 3 harvest can be unresponsive or even respond negatively to biological aggregation when fishers balance incentives in multispecies settings we test these using panel data from the norwegian multispecies groundfish fishery and find evidence for all three we extend the numerical model to account for transitions to management with individual fishing quotas in multispecies fisheries we show that under some circumstances fishing seasons could contract or spread out

itqs firm dynamics and wealth distribution does full tradability increase inequality concerns over the re distributive effects of individual transferable quotas itq s have led to restrictions on their tradability we consider a general equilibrium model with firm dynamics to evaluate the redistributive impact of changing the tradability of itqs a change in tradability would happen for example if permits are allowed to be traded as a separate asset from ownership of an active firm if the property right is associated with ownership of an active firm the permit can be leased in each period but it is not possible to exit the industry and keep the right however allowing the permits to be traded as a separate asset has two effects first it leads to a greater concentration of production in the industry second it directly converts a non tradable asset into a tradable one and this is equivalent to giving a lump sum transfer to all firms the first effect implies a concentration in revenues while the second implies a redistribution of wealth we calibrate our model to match the observed increase in revenue inequality in the northeast multispecies groundfish u s fishery we show that although observed revenue inequality measured by the gini coefficient increases by 12 wealth inequality is reduced by 40

can purse seiners target yellowfin tuna both purse seine and longline fleets exploit yellowfin tuna in the western pa cific region management options available to achieve the optimal allocation of the yellowfin stock depend on whether purse seiners can con trol the species mix of their catch by targeting their fishing effort a fishing strategy to target effort on juvenile yellowfin is discussed and a supply model based on a revenue maximizing framework is estimated using data of japanese and u s purse seine vessels in papua new guinea the hypothesis of targeting is con firmed for the more modern u s fleet but not for the more traditional japanese vessels jel q22

patterns of attention to renewable energy in the british farming press from 1980 to 2013 abstract the farming sector is a major actor in developing renewable energy providing sites feedstock and investment media coverage can both drive and reflect levels of interest in renewable energy and affect policy support and farmer decision making about deployment this paper presents a content analysis of attention to renewable energy in the british farming press from 1980 to 2013 identifying the topics which sparked sustained media interest cycles of increased attention to specific types of renewable energy are made evident through quantification of article frequencies and qualitative analysis of content the findings contribute to the explanation of the role of information in the diffusion of renewable energy wind energy and liquid biofuels have received the most attention with multiple attention cycles whereas photovoltaics and anaerobic digestion have received focused attention only in recent years policy changes particularly support measures emerge as the most important driver of media attention although public controversies particularly in relation to wind energy lead to longer periods of attention attention typically increases when opportunities in renewable energy emerge and then quickly shifts to a longer stage of focused attention in which opportunities problems and solutions are explored and advice is offered before attention declines the media thus clearly play a role in informing farmers about opportunities arising in relation to renewable energy technology and policy developments but are less helpful in providing on going and consistent information about recurrent and more complex problems thus the farming press appears likely to have the strongest impact on early adopters of renewable technologies but is unlikely to contribute to diffusion at later stages when potential adopters are less willing to bear uncertainties

estimating irrigator ability to pay for reclamation water the reclamation program sets prices based on irrigators ability to pay for water in contrast to the traditional approach the farm budget study this research develops a model of irrigator profit and ability to pay the shadow price marginal revenue of water is shown to measure ability to pay per acre foot of water the model can be estimated econometrically with commonly available although deficient data using data from thirteen water districts in california annual district level shadow price functions are derived for 1981 91 and compared to ability to pay estimates from a farm budget study of the districts

easing the constraints of motherhood the effects of all day schools on mothers labor supply low rates of female labor force participation lfp have been linked to the absence of childcare policies this article examines the degree to which extending the school day by 3 5 hours in elementary schools a large implicit childcare subsidy affects lfp the number of weekly hours worked and the monthly earnings of females with elementary school age children to do so we exploit within individual variation in access to full time schools and a rotating panel of households that contains 12 years of individual level data on labor outcomes and sociodemographic characteristics results from long difference models show that extending the school day increases mothers labor supply increasing lfp by 5 5 percentage points and the number of weekly hours worked by 1 8 moreover these increases are accompanied by a raise in monthly earnings jel i25 j13 j22

economic versus physical input measures in the analysis of technical efficiency in fisheries the measurement of technical efficiency requires the estimation of an appropriate production frontier this is based on a set of inputs that are assumed to influence the level of output deviations from this frontier production function are separated into random variation and inefficiency however mis specification of the production function through the use of inappropriate input measures may result in a bias in the measures of inefficiency in fisheries production is generally assumed to be a function of stock size fishing time and the level of physical inputs employed defining the appropriate levels of physical inputs however is not straightforward and several alternative measures are available while economic measures of capital are more intuitively appealing physical measures are generally readily available and hence less costly to collect in this study technical efficiency is measured for three fleet segments operating in the north sea using three different gear types the effects of using

international factor mobility minimum wage rates and factor price equalization a synthesis this paper examines the behavior of a small open economy facing perfectly elastic supply curves for some of its productive factors in particular the paper derives some comparative statics properties of such economies compares them with the properties of otherwise identical economies in which all factor prices are determined endogenously and investigates the relationship between factor price rigidities factor price equalization and the pattern of specialization among the new results which are proved it is shown that as more and more factor price rigidities are imposed on an economy it comes closer to a state of factor price equalization

the dynamic efficiency costs of common pool resource exploitation we conduct the first empirical investigation of common pool resource users dynamic and strategic behavior at the micro level using real world data fishermen s strategies in a fully dynamic game account for latent resource dynamics and other players actions revealing the profit structure of the fishery we compare the fishermen s actual and socially optimal exploitation paths under a time specific vessel allocation policy and find a sizable dynamic externality individual fishermen respond to other users by exerting effort above the optimal level early in the season congestion is costly instantaneously but is beneficial in the long run because it partially offsets dynamic inefficiencies jel d24 q21 q22

efficiency estimation in a profit maximising model using flexible production function abstract this paper uses a flexible translog production function to estimate efficiency of 227 farms from west bengal india we consider estimation of technical and allocative inefficiencies using a profit maximising framework which accommodates both endogenous and exogenous inputs the maximum likelihood method of estimation developed in this paper is based on the production function and the first order conditions of profit maximisation farm specific technical and allocative inefficiencies are also estimated empirical results show that the mean level of technical efficiency is 75 46 while the best farm is 85 87 efficient technically so far as allocative efficiency is concerned the majority of the farms are found to be under users of the endogenous inputs viz fertiliser manure human and bullock labour

economic inefficiency in a revenue setting the norwegian whitefish fishery the main focus in the inefficiency literature is on suboptimal input use and how this causes increased costs due to technical and allocative inefficiency production or cost functions are then typ