the environmental kuznets curve environmental protection policy and income distribution abstract the effect of economic growth on pollution emissions differs substantially among high income countries i address this issue by analyzing public environmental policy decisions individual heterogeneity relative income effect and the political framework in which policy decisions are taken determine the emergence of the downward sloping segment of the environmental kuznets curve ekc income inequality produces a gap between the country s ability to pay for environmental protection and a country s willingness to pay i test this result by using oecd data on public r d expenditure for environmental protection the conclusion is that contrary to the ek hypothesis moments of the income distribution function other than the mean may be important for the emergence of a virtuous path of sustainable growth in high income countries

on macro economic instability under a monetarist policy rule in a federal economy the feasibility of a monetarist policy rule has been the subject of a good deal of research all of which has implicitly assumed a unitary state in this paper the question is re examined for the case of a federal state with deficit financing non federal govemments the results of the paper indicate that the decision of non federal governments to deficit finance significantly lessens the feasibility of the monetarist policy rule and that this conclusion is true regardless of the degree to which economic agents perceive government debt as comprising a part of net wealth

is there a leviathan in your neighborhood this paper measures effects of decentralization in local government hierarchies on local public sector size this sector shrinks if decentralization encourages competition among governments it expands if decentralization sacrifices scale economies in a sample of 3 022 counties larger county governments reduce competition and increase aggregate local public sector size relative to aggregate county income more cities and towns increase competition and reduce its size more special and school districts sacrifice scale economies and increase it two recent articles have attempted to identify the effects of decentralization in state and local government on the size of the state and local public sector wallace oates 1985 finds no important effects michael nelson 1987 finds modest evidence that increased competition among government units reduces the size of the public sector this article demonstrates that the effects of decentralization are important and complex decentralization which encourages competition reduces the size of the local public sector decentralization which discourages scale economies increases it

the impact of decentralization of health services on health outcomes evidence from canada this article contributes to the limited empirical literature on the impact of decentralization on economic welfare by investigating the hypothesis that shifts towards more fiscal decentralization in health services would be accompanied by improvements in population health building on a conventional public finance model applied to health care this hypothesis is tested on a panel data of the highly decentralized canadian provinces during the period 1979 to 1995 the results of the exploratory empirical analysis presented in this article suggest that fiscal decentralization of health services in canada has had a positive and substantial influence on the effectiveness of public policy in improving a population s health over the period studied

an econometric study of co2 emissions energy consumption income and foreign trade in turkey abstract this study attempts to empirically examine the dynamic causal relationships between carbon emissions energy consumption income and foreign trade in the case of turkey using the time series data for the period 1960 2005 this research tests the interrelationship between the variables using the bounds testing to cointegration procedure the bounds test results indicate that there exist two forms of long run relationships between the variables in the case of first form of long run relationship carbon emissions are determined by energy consumption income and foreign trade in the case of second long run relationship income is determined by carbon emissions energy consumption and foreign trade an augmented form of granger causality analysis is conducted amongst the variables the long run relationship of co2 emissions energy consumption income and foreign trade equation is also checked for the parameter stability the empirical results suggest that income is the most significant variable in explaining the carbon emissions in turkey which is followed by energy consumption and foreign trade moreover there exists a stable carbon emissions function the results also provide important policy recommendations

unwanted effects of european union environmental policy to promote a post carbon industry the case of energy in the european ceramic tile sector global warming combined with low carbon transition plans is threatening the future of high energy consumption industry sectors in the european union eu the need to respond to environmental challenges is demonstrated by support for international level energy policies and legal requirements such as the kyoto protocol which the eu supports and increased eu level environmental legislation and energy policies the effect of these initiatives is gradually transforming industrial activities in the eu however since not all countries have adopted these policies evaluation of their net effect needs to take account also of side effects such as delocalization of industry activity and the legal environmental frameworks in the countries where companies have chosen to relocate this paper analyses eu energy policy and its impact on a particular energy intensive industry the european ceramic tile sector the discussion in this paper is not about the purpose of eu legislation but about its effects on a specific industry the effect of policy on industry is not a new topic but the question of the unwanted effects of environmental and energy policy on european industry is becoming more relevant as the struggle to achieve a post carbon europe increases in focussing on a specific set of eu legislation on a particular industry this article adds to the debate by showing the negative effects of policy mechanisms the need for a scientific evaluation of the systemic changes required for a transition to a resource efficient green and competitive low carbon economy outlined in the 7th environment action programme is highlighted it is suggested that the eu should periodically re evaluate its emissions trading scheme legislation to include specific actions and a follow up system which would prevent the best performing environmental companies from delocalizing or shutting down

decomposing industrial co2 emissions of southern european countries into production and consumption based driving factors abstract industry is a leading economic sector in european countries as well as a major carbon emitter european industry has been quite successful in abating the environmental pressures and carbon emissions and increasing its energy efficiency from production over the last years however focusing only on the production side may not lead to the desired sustainable development since there are other forces such as the international trade and consumption patterns which also shape the evolution of industrial co 2 emissions the aim of this study is to investigate how changes in production and consumption of industrial products affect the co 2 emissions of industries in four southern european countries during the period 2000 2011 to this purpose a new model of index decomposition analysis is developed in order to decompose the change in co 2 emissions of the industrial sectors of greece italy spain and portugal moreover the examined period in this study is split into two sub periods 2000 2008 and 2008 2011 in order to investigate the impact of the recent economic crisis on both the driving factors and industrial co 2 emissions the overall evolution of industrial co 2 emissions was quite similar in all the countries and the decomposition results of the two sub periods revealed substantial homogeneity across countries two production based driving factors the economic activity and the energy intensity were the main driving factors which shaped the total change in co 2 emissions of industries in the examined countries the consumption based driving factors contributed mostly to the increase in industrial co 2 emissions but not at the same level as the production based ones furthermore industrial production was more significantly affected by the economic crisis than consumers expenditures the decomposition results performed at a sectoral level revealed that it was difficult for southern european consumers to switch to a more environmentally conscious use of industrial products and their consumption preferences were not significantly affected by the consequences of the economic crisis

index decomposition analysis applied to co2 emission studies index decomposition analysis ida was first extended from energy consumption to energy related co2 emission studies in 1991 since then many studies have been reported covering various countries and emission sectors however unlike the case of energy consumption studies a comprehensive literature survey that focuses specifically on emission studies has so far not been reported in this paper we attempt to fill this gap by reviewing 80 papers appearing in peer reviewed journals from 1991 to 2012 in this application area the first part of this paper deals with the developments with regard to the ida approaches used by researchers and the scope and focus of their studies in the second part the empirical results reported in the surveyed studies are analyzed consolidated and presented by emission sector the objective is to reveal the relative contributions of key effects on changes in the aggregate carbon intensity and this is done by emission sector and by country the findings of both parts are useful in understanding the development of ida in the application area of emission study as well as the key drivers of aggregate carbon intensities in the past and their possible future developments

change in energy related co2 carbon dioxide emissions in portuguese tourism a decomposition analysis from 2000 to 2008 abstract tourism is an activity with great potential in portugal at a time of economic crisis tourism is seen as an opportunity to boost the economy and provide sustainable economic growth this strategic path based on tourism has to be accomplished in order to make better use of the economic advantages but at the same time respecting the environment and environmental goals to which portugal is committed so it becomes important to analyze what effects contribute more to emissions in this sector as well as which tourism subsectors are more responsible for the increase of emissions the objective of this work is to identify the effects in which co2 carbon dioxide emissions in tourism can be broken down and analyzed as well as their evolution and which of them has more importance in determining emissions for that in this study a decomposition technique based on logarithmic mean divisia index was used in the 2000 2008 period for five tourism subsectors in portugal in general tourism activity is the most important effect energy mix carbon intensity and energy intensity effects also proved important

co2 emissions from household consumption in india between 1993 94 and 2006 07 a decomposition analysis abstract co 2 emission from anthropogenic activities is one of the major causes of global warming india being an agriculture dependent country global warming would mean monsoon instability and consequent food scarcity natural disasters and economic concerns however with proper policy interventions co 2 emissions can be controlled input output analysis has been used to estimate direct and indirect co 2 emissions by households for 1993 94 1998 99 2003 04 and 2006 07 complete decomposition analysis of the changes in co 2 emissions between 1993 94 and 2006 07 has been done to identify the causes into pollution energy intensity structure activity and population effects according to broad household consumption categories results indicate that activity structure and population effects are the main causes of increase in co 2 emission from household fuel consumption to identify the causes at the sectoral level a second decomposition has been done for changes between 2003 04 and 2006 07 to identify the causes in the next stage finally alternative energy policy options have been examined for each consumption category to reduce emissions combined strategies of technology upgradation fuel switching and market management in order to reduce co 2 emissions for sectors like batteries other non electrical machinery construction and electronic equipments including television for which all the effects are positive need to be adopted

sustainable consumption and production governance in countries in transition abstract unsustainable consumption and production patterns have brought human civilization to the brink of a global disaster alteration of these patterns to minimize adverse environmental impacts has become the key question of survival a question relevant for every country and citizen in this paper we are looking at trends of consumption and production in the post soviet republics these countries have a common history but they took different routes to development they are at different stages of economic growth and political processes with differences also in consumption and production related environmental pressures and policies this study is based on statistical data analysis and snap shot surveys of national experts from non governmental organizations reflecting their views and observations which often differ from official positions of national governments and international organizations in order to draw conclusions about the possibilities for further development we analyze various sustainable consumption and production indicators policy developments progress achieved and the main challenges behind sustainable consumption and production governance in these countries sustainable consumption and production policy in the countries of the region is fragmented and none of the countries uses a holistic integrated approach the influence of the eu seems to be critical for advancing sustainable development principles however the eu accession does not address the growth effect which is the main driver behind increasing environmental pressures related to consumption there is still a long way to go from this mosaic of policy elements to a coherent policy with adequate institutional support and funding mechanisms

fiscal decentralization and government size numerous studies have attempted to model the possible factors contributing to universal growth in public sectors this paper analyzes one device that appears capable of controlling some of that growth fiscal decentralization the results reported here also support the use of monopoly government assumptions in models of public policy

dynamics of government revenues and expenditures in industrial economies the sources of growth in government revenues and expenditures in 22 oecd countries is addressed the question of whether the revenue constraint is binding on the growth of government expenditures or whether the displacement effect of expenditure growth is binding is considered controls for the effects of the output gap and inflation rate on government revenues and expenditures in each of the 22 countries are presented a major conclusion is that reductions in spending are essential to reducing budget deficits and controlling government size

impact of household consumption on co2 emissions danish household consumption increased by 58 over the period 1966 1992 while co2 emissions only increased by 7 using decomposition analysis we investigated the global co2 impact of danish household consumption from 1966 to 1992 our conclusion is that overall growth in private consumption but not changes in the composition of consumption is the key to understanding the increase in co2 emissions however the effect of growth in private consumption has been partly offset by substantial energy conservation in the energy supply and manufacturing sectors

some evidence on the effect of the separation of spending and taxing decisions it is often argued that separation of public spending and taxing decisions engenders in the voter overoptimistic hopes that someone else will bear the cost of public services thereby inducing an increase in the size of government but are perceived tax prices systematically and persistently reduced by separation although in stock markets all agents expectations may be unbiased they may or may not be unbiased in political markets this paper analyzes the separation created in federal states when the central government finances local expenditures evidence from a dynamic decisive voter model is presented that indicates that the separation introduced by federal grants to canadian provinces did in fact reduce the perceived tax price of provincial public services and raise provincial expenditures the results suggest also that the effect of separation diminished over time

common trends and drivers of co2 emissions and employment a decomposition analysis in the industrial sector of selected european union countries the countries of the european union face the challenge of reversing the declining role of industry and achieving their targets for sustainable development combining industrial growth with fewer environmental repercussions and more jobs this paper uses a decomposition analysis in order to quantify the effect of the driving factors on two indicators of sustainable industrial development co2 emissions and employment in five european union countries during 2000 2011 the decomposition method applied is the log mean divisia index i and the models developed comprise some common or closely related driving factors the parallel investigation of the factors affecting the two indicators offers useful insights into relevant complementary and or antithetical effects the timeframe of the study is divided into two time periods before and after the start of the economic crisis 2000 2007 and 2007 2011 respectively this time division enables the evaluation of the impacts of the economic crisis directly on the drivers and indirectly on the two indicators it was deduced that in both time periods the two main drivers of industrial co2 emissions and employment were economic growth and resource intensity which counterbalance each other structural changes appeared to have a rather marginal effect even if the general tendency was the expansion of less energy labour intensive sectors finally changes in the fuel mix used in industry were beneficial to emissions reduction in all the examined countries especially in the second time period the results obtained show that the examined eu countries have not found a solid path towards sustainable and inclusive industrial development yet the stronger economies seem to move faster to this direction though

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

government size and decentralization evidence from disaggregated data public choice models of government behavior draw heavily from the economics literature of industrial organization following the argument that private monopoly in production leads to relatively high prices and profits the public choice literature suggests that similar analysis of government structure may be useful in the modeling of public production brennan and buchanan 3 4 model government as leviathan a public entity which seeks to maximize its revenue the leviathan hypothesis is motivated by the desire to successfully understand government behavior as well as to recommend effective means of controlling its behavior among other suggestions brennan and buchanan offer the private monopoly corollary that competition among different fiscal units is an effective means of controlling the aggregate size of leviathan the resulting decentralization hypothesis is total government intrusion into the economy should be smaller ceteris paribus the greater the extent to which taxes and expenditures are decentralized 3 15 this paper tests the decentralization hypothesis by examining a data set which considers all units of government by disaggregating federal spending on a state by state basis we construct a cross section of state data on federal state and local government activity all previous examinations of the decentralization hypothesis at the level of the state have excluded the activity of the federal government however given that federal government expenditures greatly exceed those of state and local governments previous cross sectional tests of the decentralization hypothesis may have employed grossly incomplete measures of governmental activity in each state our study provides two extensions to the debate one by testing the decentralization hypothesis at the level of state aggregation we suggest that previous cross sectional studies do not report strong evidence in support of the hypothesis because of their exclusion of the federal sector two our study suggests the importance of including all potential competitors in the government arena state local and federal governments our study does not solve all issues concerning aggregation

the causes of government expenditure growth a survey of the u s evidence abstract the growth of government budgets can be broken down into a institutional and institutional components the former component the familiar substitution income and population public goods tax sharing effects is estimated to contribute about two fifths of the growth of u s government spending the latter component rent seeking political redistributions bureaucracy and perceptual informational impedimentia is important too but an exact imputation cannot be asserted given the state of the art in empirical public choice theory the cross effects on spending of the growth of regulation and tax preferences or tax expenditures though interesting is not pursued

energy intensity developments in 40 major economies structural change or technology improvement this study analyzes energy intensity trends and drivers in 40 major economies using the wiod database a novel harmonized and consistent dataset of input output table time series accompanied by environmental satellite data we use logarithmic mean divisia index decomposition to 1 study trends in global energy intensity between 1995 and 2007 2 attribute efficiency changes to either changes in technology or changes in the structure of the economy and 3 highlight sectoral and regional differences we first show that heterogeneity within each sector across countries is high these general trends within the sectors are dominated by large economies first and foremost the united states in most cases heterogeneity is lower within each country across the different sectors regarding changes of energy intensity at the country level improvements between 1995 and 2007 are largely attributable to technological change while structural change is less important in most countries notable exceptions are japan the united states australia taiwan mexico and brazil where a change in the industry mix was the main driver behind the observed energy intensity reduction

the modest environmental relief resulting from the transition to the service economy a service transition is supposed to lead to the decline of energy intensity energy gdp we argue that this interpretation is overly optimistic because the shift to a service economy is somewhat of an illusion in terms of real production several recent studies of structural effects on energy intensity have made the error of using sector shares in current prices combined with gdp in constant prices which is inconsistent and ignores the different behaviour of prices across sectors we use the more correct method of sector shares in constant prices and make an attempt to single out the effect from the real service transition by using two complementary methods shift share analyses in current and constant prices and logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi for 10 developed and 3 emerging economies a service transition is rather modest in real terms the major driver of the decline in energy intensity rests within the manufacturing sector meanwhile the transition to a service sector had a small downward impact on energy intensity in 7 of the developed countries and no impact in the others for emerging economies like brazil mexico and india it is the residential sector that drives energy intensity down because of the declining share of this sector as the formal economy grows and as a consequence of switching to more efficient fuels less

the power to tax analytical foundations of a fiscal constitution preface 1 taxation in constitutional perspective 2 natural government a model of leviathan 3 constraints on base and rate structure 4 the taxation of commodities 5 taxation through time income taxes capital taxes and public debt 6 money creation and taxation 7 the disposition of public revenues 8 the domain of politics 9 open economy federalism and taxing authority 10 toward authentic tax reform prospects and prescriptions epilogue notes selected bibliography index

evolutionary selection against iteratively weakly dominated strategies abstract this paper provides sufficient conditions under which regular payoff monotonic evolutionary dynamics a class of imitative dynamics that includes the replicator dynamic select against strategies that do not survive a sequence of iterated elimination of weakly dominated strategies we apply these conditions to bertrand duopolies and first price auctions our conditions also imply evolutionary selection against iteratively strictly dominated strategies

evolutionary stability in the finitely repeated prisoner s dilemma game the dynamic evolutionary stability of mutual defection is proven for the repeated prisoner s dilemma game where payoffs are cumulative and the number of repetitions is known this agrees with the classical result that the only nash equilibrium outcome is to defect at all stages of this repeated game moreover it is shown that for any initial polymorphic population the evolutionary dynamic converges to a unique nash equilibrium strategy that depends on the original polymorphism both these results confirm earlier conjectures concerning the application of evolutionary game theory to the repeated prisoner s dilemma journal of economic literatureclassification numbers c70 c72

centralization and government competition this paper examines the relationship between government size and fiscal centralization with specific focus on the separate influences of centralism and fragmentation on the size of public sector in the united states the empirical findings at the national level provide support to the hypothesis that fiscal decentralization leads to a smaller government the findings at the state and local levels however show no empirical relationship between government size and the degree of centralization

tax structure and the size of government an empirical analysis of the fiscal illusion and fiscal stress arguments this study attempts to fulfill a number of objectives one is the possible reconciliation of two divergent strains of thought concerning the size of government fiscal illusion and fiscal stress in this respect the results show little evidence of fiscal illusion but provide support for some of the notions associated with the fiscal stress hypothesis namely the effects of revenue and income variability on the size of government

foreign trade and declining pollution in sweden a decomposition analysis of long term structural and technological effects this article examines whether there exists any causal relationship between foreign trade and declining pollution in developed countries in other words do developed countries outsource their problems to less developed countries rather than solve them the case study is the swedish economy and the two environmental indicators employed are energy consumption and co2 emissions no causal relationships are found since sweden has long been a net exporter of embodied energy and co2 and continues to be so after 1970 when energy consumption stabilizes and co2 emissions decline in addition the ratios of net exported energy and co2 to total consumption remain stable which means there were no effects on the energy intensity or co2 intensity either these results suggest that internal forces like efficiency improvements changed consumption patterns and transformation of the energy system have been crucial for relative environmental improvement in sweden while foreign trade has played no role

federalism and the size of government over the last few decades the size of the public sector in both absolute and relative terms has increased in all of the western economies this has led to considerable investigation of the factors determining government size factors considered have included income elasticity of voter demand for public goods i e wagner s law relative price changes threshold effects e g wars or depressions interest group demands e g public sector employees or unions 17 productivity differentials 1 and redistributional motivations 18 10 one factor which has received little more than passing interest is government structure that is centralization of government activities as opposed to decentralization or federalism authors such as fratianni and spinelli 7 musgrave and musgrave 12 beck 2 and buchanan 4 make no mention of government structure as a factor in the determination of government size when considered the impact of government structure on government size is treated more as an afterthought for example mueller and murrell 11 incorporate a centralization variable in only two of their twenty two regression equations and then only in their two stage least squares equations and offer little analysis of its expected impact on government size exceptions to this standard treatment of federalism include brennan and buchanan 3 oates 15 nelson 13 14 and marlow 9 brennan and buchanan consider the structure of government and its impact on public sector size in the context of a revenue maximizing government model they argue that with mobile voters and local public goods decentralization of government taxing and expenditure powers would serve to constrain the size of the public sector in a tiebout like world any attempt on the part of one jurisdiction to exploit its citizenry would result in instantaneous and complete migration on the part of the citizenry to an alternative nonexploitive jurisdiction this competition among jurisdictions for the patronage of the citizenry limits the extent of fiscal exploitation possible and as such the size of the public sector brennan and buchanan note however that w ithin a constitutionally designed federal structure one would predict that there would be constant pressures by competitive lower level governments to secure institutional rearrangements that would moderate competitive pressures 3 182 these institutional rearrangements would take the form of collusive agreements between the central and lower level governments which assign to the central government what were previously lower level revenue raising powers subject to the revenues being returned to the lower level governments by

centralization and the size of government in canada the determinants of the growth of government in canada over the period 1926 90 are examined of particular interest is whether changes in the degree of centralization have affected the public sector s share of gdp unlike other studies using time series data the effect of decentralization toward the provincial state and toward the local levels of government are measured separately empirical estimates provide strong support for the conclusion that citizen mobility acts as an important constraint on the growth of government

fiscal decentralization and government size an extension this paper analyzes one method governments employ to circumvent the discipline of a competitive system of fiscal federalism intergovernmental collusion in the form of intergovernmental grants grants it is argued serve to encourage the expansion of the public sector by concentrating taxing powers in the hands of the central government and by weakening the fiscal discipline imposed on governments forced to self finance their expenditures the results reported suggest that intergovernmental grants do encourage growth in the public sector the results offer further support for the use of monopoly government assumptions in public sector modeling

endogenous public sector budgeting to centralize or not in this paper the impact of budget size on a government s choice to centralize or decentralize the budgetary process is investigated using asymmetric information differing preferences and endogenous budgetary arrangements the central government chooses between a budgetary process that excludes the regional board centralization and one that includes the board decentralization in the determination of program budget levels it is predicted that the central government will decentralize the budgetary process at low and centralize at high overall budget levels switching from decentralization to centralization is predicted to

searching for leviathan an empirical study in several papers and a recent book geoffrey brennan and james buchanan 1977 1978 1980 have put forth a striking and controversial view of the public sector drawing by analogy on the conventional theory of monopoly in the private sector they envision a monolithic government that systematically seeks to exploit its citizenry through the maximization of the tax revenues that it extracts from the economy from this perspective they develop a fiscal constitution whose central purpose is to constrain leviathan by limiting in various ways its access to tax and other fiscal instruments while the leviathan hypothesis has been the source of lively debate and a wide range of policy proposals it has not been the subject of much systematic empirical work or testing this is a matter of some importance since the policy implications of the leviathan view are disturbing to put it mildly in particular brennan and buchanan virtually stand on their heads many of the basic theorems in public finance for an efficient and equitable tax system if in fact the leviathan view is an inaccurate depiction of the functioning of the public sector the introduction of their policy proposals is likely to make a sorry mess of the fiscal system the leviathan model does however have some straightforward implications for observable fiscal behavior it is the purpose of this paper to examine one of these testable implications brennan and buchanan stress that fiscal decentralization is itself a powerful constraint on leviathan competition among governments in the context of the interjurisdictional mobility of persons in pursuit of fiscal gains can offer partial or possibly complete substitutes for explicit fiscal constraints on the taxing power 1980 p 184 such competition among governments in a federal system that places heavy reliance on local fiscal decisions will greatly limit the capacity of leviathan to channel resources into the public sector in short as indicated by the epigraph to this paper the leviathan model implies that other things equal the size of the public sector should vary inversely with the extent of fiscal decentralization 2

vertical competition in the spanish national health system nhs in unitary states competitive decentralisation structures can take place by increasing the visibility of politically accountable jurisdictions in certain policy responsibilities such as health care drawing from the spanish decentralisation process we examine the mechanisms and determinants of vertical competition in the development of health policies in the spanish national health system the spanish example provides qualitative evidence of vertical competition that assimilates government outcomes of unitary states to that of federal structures the spanish experience indicates that the specific vertical competition mechanisms in place until 2002 are likely to be responsible for significant policy innovation and welfare state development