modified ecological footprint accounting and analysis based on embodied exergy a case study of the chinese society 1981 2001 abstract the resource consumption of the chinese society from 1981 to 2001 is investigated by ecological footprint ef as an aggregate indicator based on the theory of ecological thermodynamics a modified calculation of ecological footprint termed as embodied exergy ecological footprint eeef in contrast to the conventional one is performed and related overall trends of the chinese society 1981 2001 are analyzed the annual policy for the individual sector is described in detail corresponding to the ef and eeef components comparison of the conventional ef and the eeef based on different views of ecological production is outlined the ef intensity and eeef intensity are also presented to depict the resource consumption level corresponding to unit economic output finally eeef is suggested to serve as a modified indicator of ef towards illustrating the productions of the resource environment population and thereby reflecting the ecological overshoot of the general ecological system

european schemes for promoting renewables in liberalised markets abstract the paper describes possibilities and problems for penetration of supply systems based on renewable energy sources in liberalised markets the analysis is based on recent development in eu with different models for support of installations based on renewable energy these include feed in models with guaranteed minimum tariffs tender models for different bands of technologies and green certificates trading models with obligatory consumer quota the paper describes the market situation in selected european countries including germany the uk holland and denmark an eu directive from september 2001 has postponed the decision on a possible harmonisation of promotional models until at least 2005 in order to obtain more practical experience with the different support schemes a critical evaluation is given in this paper of the different models with proposals for a balanced development between environmental and trading concerns it is argued that too much emphasis is presently given to the side of free trade at the expense of long range planning for a sustainable energy development

the effects of welfare and tax reform the material well being of single mothers in the 1980s and 1990s abstract the tax and welfare programs that provide income and in kind benefits to single mothers have changed dramatically in recent years these changes began as far back as the mid 1980s and culminated with the 1996 welfare law that ended welfare as we knew it these tax and welfare changes have sharply increased the employment of single mothers and cut welfare rolls however little is know about the effects of these policy changes on the material well being of single mothers and their children studies of those leaving welfare have found that a substantial percentage have problems paying rent purchasing enough food and paying utility bills other studies found a decline in income among the worst off single mothers after 1994 or 1995 the goal of this paper is to examine the material well being of single mothers and their families before and after recent welfare and tax reforms using data from two nationally representative household surveys we examine the consumption patterns of single mothers and their families from 1984 2000 we find that the material conditions of single mothers did not decline in recent years either in absolute terms or relative to single childless women or married mothers this pattern holds for the average single mother as well as for low educated single mothers at both the 15th and 25th percentiles of the consumption distribution in most cases our evidence suggests that the material conditions of single mothers have improved slightly

diffusion of renewable energy technologies in south korea on incorporating their competitive interrelationships renewable energy technologies rets have attracted significant public attention for several reasons the most important being that they are clean alternative energy sources that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions to increase the probability that rets will be successful it is essential to reduce the uncertainty about its adoption with accurate long term demand forecasting this study develops a diffusion model that incorporates the effect of competitive interrelationships among renewable sources to forecast the growth pattern of five rets solar photovoltaic wind power and fuel cell in the electric power sector and solar thermal and geothermal energy in the heating sector the 2 step forecasting procedure is based on the bayus 1993 manage sci 39 11 1319 1333 price function and a diffusion model suggested by hahn et al 1994 marketing sci 13 3 224 247 in an empirical analysis the model is applied to the south korean renewable energy market

indexing government programs for changes in the cost of living this article presents social cost of living indexes constructed from an econometric model of aggregate consumer behavior the econometric price index has the same average inflation rate as a tornqvist price index over the period 1947 1995 but rises less rapidly after 1973 group cost of living indexes are presented for white and nonwhite male and female headed and elderly and nonelderly households elderly households have experienced a slightly higher rate of inflation than the nonelderly since 1980 we recommend indexing government programs such as social security by social and group cost of living indexes rather that the consumer price index

exploring technology diffusion in emerging markets the role of public policy for wind energy abstract this study challenges the implicit assumption of homogeneity in national institutional contexts made in past studies of renewable energy policy we propose that institutional differences matter by focusing on several technology specific and generic policy factors that can foster technology diffusion through private sector activity more specifically we explore perceptions of early adopters in emerging economy contexts using wind park project developers as an example by applying a parsimonious method for our questionnaire as well as qualitative data we make several contributions methodologically we introduce maximum difference scaling to the energy policy domain empirically we identify several public influences on private investment and assess their relative importance this leads to new insights challenging findings from industrialized economies we identified additional institutional barriers to diffusion hence the requirement of a combination of technology specific and generic policy measures

chronic poverty in the united states this paper proposes a method of measuring chronic and transitory poverty using an axiomatically sound additively decomposable index of aggregate poverty our approach is contrasted with alternative methods of measuring poverty persistence we use our method to measure chronic and transitory poverty in the united states during the 1980s and late 1970s and find that chronic poverty is a more serious problem than previously thought between the late 1970s and mid 1980s poverty not only increased it became more chronic and less transitory in nature this is true for the population as a whole and for some but not all of the subpopulations we considered the latter were defined according to race type of social unit and educational qualifications of the head of the social unit all empirical analyses are based on data from the panel study of income dynamics

industry self regulation without sanctions the chemical industry s responsible care program industry self regulation the voluntary association of firms to control their collective action has been proposed as a complement to government regulation proponents argue that the establishment of

initiating a sustained diffusion of wind power the role of public private partnerships in spain the literature on policy approaches for the market support of renewable electricity is dominated by narrow conceptualizations of policy referring mostly to direct instruments for economic feasibility such approaches often led to unsatisfactory explanations of diffusion results this is the case of wind power diffusion in spain the success of which is typically credited to the feed in tariff instrument this paper offers an alternative explanatory account for wind power diffusion in spain it is argued that diffusion can be explained by a less obvious policy of stimulating investments by means of public private partnerships ppps the three legal frameworks for economic feasibility applicable up to 2004 harbored high economic risks although projects could have high profitability because of generous investment subsidies up to mid 1990s most investments were based on ppps to address the risk perceptions of early investors fully private partnerships now dominate investments though ppps have not disappeared next to winning investors confidence the ppp policy led to an investment culture whereby partnership investments dominate by 2000 95 7 of the installed wind capacity was owned by partnerships and only 4 3 by individual companies partnerships invest in larger projects have ambitious investment plans and these lead to a high diffusion tempo

applying contingent valuation in china to measure the total economic value of restoring ecosystem services in ejina region abstract this paper reports an attempt to apply the contingent valuation method cvm in rural china the cvm was used to obtain estimates of willingness to pay for restoring ejina ecosystem services in our survey we used a payment card format and a 12 page survey booklet with maps depicting the reasons why ejina ecosystem deteriorated the means by which ecosystem services could be restored from their current level we used an in person interview along with the survey booklet we employed a parametric model to estimate the benefits of restoring ejina ecosystem results from 700 in person interviews indicate that households would pay an average of 19 37 rmb per year with 20 78 per household for the main river area and 16 41 per household for the rest of hei basin the aggregate benefit to residents of the hei basin is 8 84 million annually for 20 years taking into account an environmental discount rate calculated by using respondent s equivalent utility between periodical payments and lump sum payments the present value of aggregate benefit of restoring ejina ecosystem is 55 33 million these results suggest that the general public in hei valley would be willing to pay to restore the ejina ecosystem although this amount is substantially less than the estimated costs of restoration

on measuring child costs with applications to poor countries the theoretical basis for measuring child costs is discussed and detailed consideration is given to two straightforward procedures for calculation engel s food share method and rothbarth s adult good method each of these methods embodies different definitions of child costs so that the same empirical evidence can generate quite different estimates depending on the method used it is shown that true costs are generally overstated by engel s method and understated by rothbarth s procedure although the latter unlike the former can provide a sensible starting point for cost measurement our estimates from sri lankan and indonesian data suggest that children cost their parents about 30 40 percent of what they spend on themselves

creating integrated business and environmental value within the context of china s circular economy and ecological modernization abstract this paper investigates the challenges and opportunities of how firms and organizations can and will be able to strike a better balance between economic growth and environmental stewardship in the context of china s emerging circular economy policy paradigm and based on ecological modernization theoretic approaches based on three company case studies in the information technology and electronic industries in china we identify and demonstrate how a blended business and environmental value can be created from adopting a sustainable supply chain management approach the adoption of a sustainable supply chain management approach is rapidly becoming a key business challenge and opportunity in china and other large emerging economies around the world where our greatest environmental management challenges currently reside and will continue to exist for many years to come the value creation framework proposed in research focuses on evaluating three case study companies who appear in various stages of an electronic industry supply chain value creation within a supply chain can provide the impetus for organizations to adopt circular economy sustainable supply chain practices for competitive reasons in addition we describe how a value proposition can be evaluated at two levels of analysis a more specific micro level and a more general meso level of analysis the four major business value dimensions include cost reduction revenue generation resiliency and legitimacy and image the initial findings are that a variety of opportunities exist for electronic firms in emerging and developing countries while results from this study provide an important scholarly foundation to develop and refine sustainable supply chain management practices in emerging and developing economies

measuring pro poor growth when relative prices shift abstract the theoretical literature on pro poor growth as well as its application has not paid sufficient attention to the issue of varying inflation rates across the income distribution ignoring inflation inequality in pro poor growth measurements can however severely bias assessments of pro poor growth hence we suggest simple methods which are able to redress such biases as an empirical illustration we use the case of burkina faso and the growth incidence curve and poverty change decompositions as pro poor growth measurements

identifying the disadvantaged official poverty consumption poverty and the new supplemental poverty measure few economic indicators are more closely watched or more important for ew economic indicators are more closely watched or more important for policy than the offi cial poverty rate it is used to gauge the extent of deprivapolicy than the offi cial poverty rate it is used to gauge the extent of deprivation in the united states and to determine how economic well being has tion in the united states and to determine how economic well being has changed over time the poverty rate is often cited by policymakers researchers changed over time the poverty rate is often cited by policymakers researchers and advocates who are evaluating social programs that account for more than half and advocates who are evaluating social programs that account for more than half a trillion dollars in government spending eligibility for some means tested transfer a trillion dollars in government spending eligibility for some means tested transfer programs is determined based on the poverty thresholds and local poverty rates programs is determined based on the poverty thresholds and local poverty rates affect the allocation of billions of dollars in federal funds affect the allocation of billions of dollars in federal funds the methods for calculating the current poverty measure largely unchanged the methods for calculating the current poverty measure largely unchanged since the 1960s have been criticized by many researchers in response the census since the 1960s have been criticized by many researchers in response the census bureau has led a two decade process of research and discussion of poverty measurebureau has led a two decade process of research and discussion of poverty measurement with an eye to revising the offi cial measure the process has involved hundreds ment with an eye to revising the offi cial measure the process has involved hundreds of papers dozens of offi cial census bureau publications u s census 2010 of papers dozens of offi cial census bureau publications u s census 2010 and two national academy of sciences reports citro and michael 1995 iceland and two national academy of sciences reports citro and michael 1995 iceland 2005 we will not summarize this vast literature here rather we will examine 2005 we will not summarize this vast literature here rather we will examine the properties of three measures of poverty the offi cial u s poverty rate the new the properties of three measures of poverty the offi cial u s poverty rate the new supplemental poverty measure fi rst released by the u s census bureau in fall 2011 supplemental poverty measure fi rst released by the u s census bureau in fall 2011 and a consumption based measure of poverty we will focus on two fundamental and a consumption based measure of poverty we will focus on two fundamental goals of these measures to identify the most disadvantaged and to assess changes goals of these measures to identify the most disadvantaged and to assess changes

green electricity market development lessons from europe and the us this study compares the development and implementation of green electricity policies in germany the netherlands sweden and the united states a set of countries applying a range of policy instruments to encourage electricity from renewable energy sources a general tendency is identified that policies shift emphasis from r d stimulation towards dissemination and market application of renewable energy technologies we argue that in light of the long term nature of policy goals on energy security mitigation of climate change and environmental protection the applied range of policy instruments may be lacking in providing incentives for the long term development of new technologies clarifying policy objectives would allow careful selection of policy instruments including support for r d improved capacity building for policy implementation is also important

effects of local legitimacy on certification decisions to global and national csr standards by multinational subsidiaries and domestic firms we explore the impact of local legitimacy on the imitation of certification by subsidiaries of foreign multinational enterprises and domestic firms we propose that mne multinational enterprise subsidiaries and domestic firms differ in their propensity to imitate geographically proximate firms when deciding whether to adopt national vs global csr corporate social responsibility certifications for two reasons first there are differences in the legitimacy they can expect to gain in different communities from adopting these certifications second there are differences in their knowledge about the local legitimacy of these certifications we test our hypotheses by studying the decisions of automotive suppliers in mexico to certify either to iso 14001 a global certification or to clean industry a national certification we find that geography matters mne subsidiaries imitate national certifications by geographically proximate firms to overcome a liability of foreignness while domestic firms imitate global certifications by proximate firms to overcome the disadvantages of localness we explore the implications of our findings for institutional theory and future research

firm level determinants of international certification evidence from ethiopia summary this paper investigates a wide range of plausible determinants of international certification ic in ethiopia while past studies focus on the effect of international laws the findings of this paper suggest that domestic pressure and firm capability are also equally important besides export orientation we find international connectivity sources of finance such as credit from local banks or local customers and manager s human capital as significant determinants of ic once such factors are controlled for firm size sector and nationality of owner appear not to matter furthermore we find that certification may not necessarily enhance business performance in the short run

fixed feed in tariff versus premium a review of the current spanish system a b s t r a c t since 1998 the spanish government established a feed in system where res e generators could choose between two alternatives fixed feed in tariff and premium nowadays all res e 1 can be sold in the electricity market getting an additional premium except for solar photovoltaic one important novelty established in 2007 is a cap and floor system for facilities under the premium option the aim of this paper is to analyze and compare these two alternative options fixed fit and premiums which coexist at the same time in spain describe the evolution of both systems and evaluate its performance the introduction of this support system in spain led to very good results in terms of res e deployment the main advantage of the premium option is that it is a scheme integrated in the electricity market one disadvantage is that it can occasionally lead to overcompensation one way to try to avoid it is to set a cap value in order to evaluate the performance of this dual support system not only res e deployment has been assessed but also the policy stability the adequacy of res e production to the electricity demand pattern and the changes in the investors behaviour

poverty and inequality under income and price dispersions many policies simultaneously affect the distribution of prices and incomes in the economy moreover a bias may occur when there is a stochastic relationship between prices and incomes and this relationship is being ignored it is therefore important to dispose of an analytical framework for welfare analysis that could account for changes in this joint distribution how can the joint influences of price and income distributions on poverty and inequality indicators be analysed we offer a method to deal with this problem by using parametric formulae of poverty and inequality measures we propose statistical indicators for the levels variabilities and a statistical link of price indices and nominal living standards these indicators are consistent with an approximation of the problem based on a bivariate lognormal distribution of price indices and nominal living standards our analysis provides hints about the social welfare impact of economic shocks or policies affecting levels variabilities and correlation of prices and incomes intuitive insights are obtained while using arithmetic means and variances instead does not lead to illuminating results the role of price and income variabilities for poverty and inequality is more complex than generally expected with the possibility of several variation regimes empirical investigation of these statistics would guide social policies

striving to be green the adoption of total quality environmental management many firms are undertaking environment friendly organizational change by applying the philosophy of total quality management with its emphasis on reducing waste and increasing efficiency their objective is to improve their management of pollution and increase customer satisfaction this article investigates the factors that lead to total quality environmental management tqem by large firms we find that internal considerations stemming from a firm s technical capability size absolute and relative to competing firms extent of operations and volume of past emissions are strongly associated with the tqem adoption decision the first four factors are proxies for the firm s costs and capabilities of adopting tqem while the fifth factor is related to the benefits from increasing efficiency and waste reduction and thus proxies for internally generated demand for tqem the desire to improve a firm s image with customers earning good will with regulators and the anticipation of future regulations do not a

consumption needs and inequality most empirical studies demonstrating a u turn in inequality in the united states are based on the distribution of income however utility is derived from the consumption of goods and services and there are many reasons to expect the distribution of expenditure to be different from the distribution of income the author demonstrates that consumption based inequality indexes actually decrease over the postwar era this conclusion differs from the stylized facts because of differences in the income and expenditure distributions differences also arise from the inclusion of equivalence scales to account for the different needs of heterogeneous households copyright 1994 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

chinese investment in the eu renewable energy sector motives synergies and policy implications abstract this paper addresses three questions how have trade and investment in wind and solar sectors evolved between the eu and china in recent years is there a link between rising trade conflicts and trade and investment trends and what wider motivations and synergies can be identified in chinese investments in the eu s re sector to address these questions we analyze trade and investment data as well as qualitative data including information from media and company reports large increases in trade and investment were followed by rapid falls since 2012 13 trade tensions have not led to increases in investment rather the inverse we find that chinese investment in these two sectors is very concentrated in germany the key motivation for investment is market seeking although r d is also important especially for wind most investments are greenfield a preference that has persisted over time our qualitative analysis of several key acquisitions indicates that technology integration and the consolidation of capacities across the supply chain were key motivations in most of the cases studied we conclude with some policy orientations

private versus public charity reassessing crowding out from the supply side this paper tests a model where governmentand private charity are perfect substitutesin consumption but the cost of providingcharitable assistance differs betweenprivate and government suppliers theanalysis demonstrates that higher costs oftransferring through the government canaccount for the observed phenomenon of lessthan complete crowding out and theempirical results are broadly consistentwith that approach overall the evidenceis consistent with the hypothesis thatindividuals both care about the leakagesinvolved in transferring funds to the poorthrough government and respond in theirprivate giving to changes in thedifferential public cost

what is challenging renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries this paper cumulates the findings from a review of the challenges faced by renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries to date research that could facilitate the success of renewable energy entrepreneurs in the world s developing regions has been fragmented across two main bodies of literature management specifically entrepreneurship and renewable energy by conducting a qualitative review of the extant literature i propose that the findings from both bodies of research may be distilled to six 6 key challenges inadequate access to institutional finance the price of renewable energy technologies rets the lack of skilled labour underdeveloped physical infrastructure and logistics power dominance of incumbents inadequate government or policy support through this research i not only advance a unified conceptualisation of the challenges faced by renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries but also highlight a number of the revealed opportunities for future research

has poverty gotten worse iven the major changes now being implemented in programs aimed atalleviating poverty in the united states it is important to have a goodunderstanding of how the extent of poverty has evolved over the lastcouple of decades has poverty gotten worse or have we been gradually winningthe war on poverty there is unanimous agreement that there was a steady and dramatic decreasein the percentage of the u s population in poverty during the 1960s the of cialu s census bureau gures show the poverty rate dropping from 22 4 percent ofthe population in 1959 to 12 6 percent in 1970 with a further decrease to11 1 percent in 1973 the trend since 1973 is not as clear the of cial poverty raterose somewhat during the latter part of the 1970s and then sharply increased dur ing the recession of the early 1980s reaching 15 2 percent in 1983 it then graduallydeclined hitting 12 8 percent in 1989 increased to 15 1 percent in 1993 and thendropped to 13 8 percent in 1995 according to the of cial rate even at the peakof the economic expansion of the late 1980s there was a higher percentage of thepopulation with income below the poverty line than there was 20 years earlier poverty does seem to have gotten worse this conclusion is controversial however because the way in which poverty isbest measured is controversial the of cial poverty scale has been criticized alonga number of dimensions one point of contention is whether people should bede ned as being poor when they are part of a family with

ecological economics in china origins dilemmas and prospects abstract this paper is a first step towards articulating a chinese version of ecological economics over the last decade ecological economics has attracted increasing attention in the west similarly since the early 1980s scholars in china have undertaken specific research on existing ecological economic issues in accordance with chinese political economic socio cultural and ecological conditions however this endeavor is hardly known in the west and little attention has been given so far to the potential role of chinese attitudes in the international ecological economics movement this paper is designed to make up for that neglect and attempts to address the following questions what social and cultural traditions are required for chinese ecological economics to operate what are the political and institutional implications of ecological economics in china will chinese ecological economists feel comfortable in a society where open debate is viewed as unacceptable behavior in order to clarify the chinese interpretation of ecological economics and its impact on the policy making process a preliminary overview of its emerging background evolutionary history key viewpoints and theories nature and policy influence is presented three major intellectual sources of chinese ecological economics are identified and the theoretical applications are emphasized then some theoretical and practical issues that may arise in future research are discussed along with implications of chinese ecological economics for the international community in addition to biophysical functions and ecological conditions socio political structures and processes need to be explicitly addressed in extending the research agenda of ecological economics

measuring the well being of the poor using income and consumption we examine the relative merits of consumption and income as measures of the material well being of the poor consumption offers several advantages over income because consumption is a more direct measure of well being than income and is less subject to underreporting bias measurement problems with income are problematic for analyses of changes in well being of the poor because the biases appear to have changed over time and are correlated with government policies on the other hand income is often easier to report and is available for much larger samples providing greater power to test hypotheses we begin by considering the conceptual and pragmatic reasons why consumption might be better or worse than income then we employ several empirical strategies to examine the quality of income and consumption data first we compare income and consumption reports for those with few resources as well as their assets and liabilities to examine measurement errors and under reporting second we examine other evidence on the internal consistency of reports of low income or consumption third we compare how well micro data in standard datasets weight up to match aggregates for classes of income and consumption that are especially important for low resource families fourth we validate income and consumption measures by comparing them to other measures of hardship or material well being although the evidence tends to favor consumption measures our analyses suggest that both measures should be used to assess the material well being of the poor

determinants of proactive environmental management practices in indian firms an empirical study abstract the present study aims to empirically determine the primary factors that have a major influence on adoption of environmental management practices in indian firms for this purpose a theoretical framework has been proposed based on previous studies and a pilot survey that provides broad and specific variables that might have an impact of these practices this impact has been investigated by conducting factor analysis and stepwise regression analysis in order to collect the primary data a questionnaire has been designed for which 104 valid responses 8 5 response rate have been obtained the study reveals that internal holder ship and employees and market commercial buyers and suppliers of goods and services pressures are the significant drivers who govern the adoption of proactive environmental management practices however the external pressures from regulatory and societal stakeholders were not found to be important in the indian context the analysis further showed that firm s characteristic also play a significant role in defining the positive behavior of firms as large firms are more proactively engaged in environmental management initiatives moreover firms in the manufacturing chemical and agriculture sector are likely to have more comprehensive environmental management practices compared to the service sector

globalization and the environment determinants of firm self regulation in china critics assert that globalization is detrimental to the environment because it encourages location of polluting industries in countries with low environmental regulations we suggest that globalization might also have positive environmental effects because global ties increase self regulation pressures on firms in low regulation countries using survey data from firms in china we find that multinational ownership multinational customers and exports to developed countries increase self regulation of environmental performance

determinants of international standards in sub saharan africa the role of institutional pressure from different stakeholders abstract international environmental and quality standards in africa are seen as being driven by pressure from international markets and importers this study presents a conceptual framework where other stakeholders and plant resources are included in the argument for standards we argue that among other stakeholders international banks as creditors are important determinants international banks most of which are committed to sustainable practices facilitate the diffusion of standards they also perform sustainability related risk analysis urging customers to demonstrate corporate social responsibility our results also suggest that foreign ownership plant size and business communications through company website are important for the adoption of standards in africa

the impact of the changing us family structure on child poverty and income inequality this paper analyses links between rising income inequality child poverty and one parent families in the united states from 1971 to 1989 one test reallocated weights so that 1989 proportions of children by mothers marital status resembled the 1971 distribution a second method used 1 simulated marriages among unmarried men and unmarried mothers in 1989 to reproduce 1971 marital patterns and 2 earnings responses induced by the simulated marriages the results indicate that the trend away from marriage accounted for almost half the increase in child income inequality and more than the entire rise in child poverty rates excerpt

pro poor economic growth inequality and fiscal policy the case of spanish regions ayala l and jurado a pro poor economic growth inequality and fiscal policy the case of spanish regions regional studies this paper aims to discuss whether substantive differences exist in terms of the distribution of economic growth by income groups in spanish regions in order to do so data from the spanish family budget surveys for various years are used to estimate growth incidence curves decomposition models of poverty changes and isopoverty curves the results show that while economic growth in the long term has meant an improvement of the lower income percentiles in spain this improvement is not uniform in the different regions limited possibilities for poverty reduction in the lower income regions are also found ayala l et jurado a pour la croissance economique faible l inegalite et la politique fiscale l etude de cas des regions d espagne regional studies cet article cherche a discuter si oui ou non il existe d importants ecarts de la distribution de la croissance economique pa

social responses to wind energy development in ontario the influence of health risk perceptions and associated concerns this study documents and analyzes the role of health risk perceptions and other associated concerns of wind energy development henceforth wed in ontario drawing on the risk society framework we conduct a longitudinal media content analysis to document and analyze perceptions of and responses to wed over a nine year period attention is paid to temporal variations in responses relative to ontario s green energy act 2009 henceforth gea legislation aimed at the rapid expansion of renewable energy the study reveals that the most radical forms of resistance to wed on health grounds are driven by perceived injustices in the treatment of potential at risk citizens and citizens with health concerns the gea is fuelling these perceptions of injustices in subtle and nuanced ways particularly by acting as a major confounder to health risk concerns contrary to several existing studies we problematize the use of financial incentives to foster the development of wind energy we also provide policy recommendations which include the need for increased public engagement in the wed process the importance of using third party health and environmental assessments to inform developments as well as the need for post development strategies to address ongoing community concerns

international and domestic pressures and responses of chinese firms to greening abstract organizational responses to international and domestic institutional pressures may help proactive corporate environmental practices and routines diffuse to chinese organizations who are key participants in global product chains using the 2006 survey data on 377 chinese manufacturers in six major industrial groups in suzhou dalian and tianjin cities we propose and test a relationship between normative coercive and mimetic international institutional pressures and the adoption of three important proactive corporate environmental practices routines iso 14001 tqem total quality environmental management and eco auditing by chinese firms we also argue for and find that this relationship is greater than that arising from corresponding normative coercive and mimetic internal domestic pressures finally we find a positive effect of international parenting or partnering on the adoption of proactive corporate environmental practices and routines these findings have important implications as chinese organizations continue to go global and international organizations seek global product supply chain partners within china

does fdi bring environmental knowledge spillovers to developing countries the role of the local industrial structure this paper examines the environmental knowledge externalities of fdi within and across cities in an emerging economy context it argues that the extent of these environmental externalities is contingent upon local industrial agglomeration using a panel dataset of 280 chinese prefectural cities from 2003 to 2012 we employ a spatial economic approach although limited to evidence from soot and hbox so 2 pollutants our results suggest that fdi brings overall positive environmental knowledge externalities to a region and also spillovers to nearby regions specialised cities may lock into a particular technological path attenuating the absorption and diffusion of a variety of fdi environmental knowledge conversely diversified cities promote cross fertilisation of environmental knowledge and mitigate local pollution intensity at the aggregated city level this study adds to the literature by highlighting the importance of considering both the spatiality of fdi and industrial structure in understanding fdi environmental knowledge spillovers

economic well being and poverty among the elderly an analysis based on a collective consumption model we apply the collective consumption model of browning chiappori and lewbel 2006 to analyse economic well being and poverty among the elderly the model focuses on individual preferences a consumption technology that captures the economies of scale of living in a couple and a sharing rule that governs the intra household allocation of resources the model is applied to a time series of dutch consumption expenditure surveys our empirical results indicate substantial economies of scale and a wife s share that is increasing in total expenditures we further calculated poverty rates by means of the collective consumption model collective poverty rates of widows and widowers turn out to be slightly lower than traditional ones based on a standard equivalence scale poverty among women men in elderly couples however seems to be heavily underestimated overestimated by the traditional approach finally we analysed the impact of becoming a widow er based on cross sectional evidence we nd that the drop increase in material well being following the husband s death is substantial for women in high low expenditure couples for men the picture is reversed

poverty in america 1970 1990 who did gain ground an application of stochastic dominance criteria employing simultaneous inequality tests in a partial panel atkinson 1987 proposed stochastic dominance criteria for analysing poverty which under certain conditions establish orderings of states for any poverty line and any poverty measure within given class refocusing debate on the nature of the income distribution of the poor employing new empirical techniques these criteria are implemented for the united states from 1970 to 1990 using the panel study of income dynamics results highlight the pivotal role of family size scale economies in consumption indicate different experiences for white versus non white groups and suggest that optimism over the progress of the poor is not warranted copyright 2003 john wiley sons ltd

harmonization of renewable electricity feed in laws a comment abstract this comment aims at critically analyzing some of the economic efficiency issues that are raised in the paper by munoz et al 2007 harmonization of renewable electricity feed in laws in the european union energy policy 35 3104 3114 on the harmonization of feed in law schemes for renewable electricity in the european union we comment on the choice between green certificate systems and feed in laws but pay particular attention to the implementation and design of a harmonized feed in law scheme in the comment we argue first that the approach suggested by munoz et al tends to downplay many of the practical difficulties in assessing the real costs facing investors in renewable electricity not the least since the presence of regulatory uncertainty about the marginal costs of renewable electricity may be essential for the choice between different support systems concerning the benefit side of renewable electricity promotion the munoz et al 2007 paper builds on an interpretation of the eu renewables directive that provides plenty of room for national priorities and that therefore essentially implies that harmonized support premiums per se are of little value we argue instead that a harmonized system should primarily address the international spillover effects from renewable electricity promotion not the least those related to improved security of supply in europe there exists then a strong case for disregarding the specific national benefits of renewable electricity production in the design of harmonized support systems and for instead considering international perhaps at the start bilateral policy support coordination based on entirely uniform support levels

planning siting and the local acceptance of wind power some lessons from the french case abstract after some years of trifling development under a system of public tenders 1995 2000 french politicians progressively changed the national policy framework for feed in tariffs december 2000 and wind power development zones july 2005 the new policy framework has triggered a beginning of takeoff in wind power capacity the paper examines french wind power development in the light of two key dimensions and concepts related to wind power policy planning and siting part 1 we particularly focus on the recent french legislative debate which led to the adoption of the new policy framework part 2 the french case shows that the recourse to planning tools was not tailor made for siting issues but resulted from a political fight over the decentralization of energy policy the policy outcome which we call flexible decentralized planning is both interesting and ambiguous it is interesting in that it develops interfaces between planning tools and siting institutions it is ambiguous in that it is potentially very hierarchical the final decision power is left in state planners hands making it unpredictable the extent to which room will genuinely be provided for siting processes to take place

energy transition to a future low carbon energy society in japan s liberalizing electricity market precedents policies and factors of successful transition abstract this paper investigates the precedents policies and factors relevant to a successful energy regime transition which may be applied in the japanese case through a review of national leaders in renewable energy deployment the examples of germany italy and spain are of particular note for their progress along the transition pathway toward a low carbon energy regime transition theory is used as a framework to enable this assessment and exogenous impacts specific to japan such as recent and ongoing market liberalization and the fukushima nuclear incident are considered as pertinent factors which impact upon the transition landscape through a comparative assessment of policy approaches technologies deployed and social factors impacting upon deployment lessons are drawn for comparison with current japanese transition progress identifying factors critical to the future estimation of the japanese transition pathway future energy transition pathway projections will need to incorporate policy approaches and mechanisms as well as being cognizant of japan s geographic and cost competitive re resource deployment limitations these limitations alongside existing generation assets including nuclear energy are expected to have a significant impact upon japan s transition from the current pre development phase toward take off acceleration and the stabilization of a new low carbon energy regime

from earnings inequality to consumption inequality this paper studies the paths from inequality in earnings to inequality in household consumption we show that careful study of the evolution of the variances and covariances of earnings and consumption within cohorts across time can identify permanent and transitory shocks we present an application to the evolution of inequality in the united kingdom we extend previous results to recognise separate earnings of partners in couples

use of economic instruments in the german renewable electricity policy this article surveys the economic instruments adopted in germany since the start of the previous decade and analyse the factors determining their effectiveness it is found out that their effect has always diminished in correspondence of increased uncertainty on the future of the system in particular while in two of these instances uncertainty was mainly due to national factors in the other the debate on the european renewable directive played a very important role recent changes in the production incentives have introduced a process simulating the effect of competition among renewable generators it is pointed out that the biennial revision of the rates can increase the uncertainty intrinsic in the policy on the other hand this process also provides a forum for the debate on the future of the renewable sector one can notice that currently germany the biggest renewable market in europe is granting one of the lowest production incentives this is rather curious as germany never relied on market competition in order to increase the renewable electricity production

mobilizing private finance for low carbon innovation a systematic review of barriers and solutions this paper analyses the field of innovation studies regarding barriers to low carbon innovation and consequences for finance investment and divestment and contributes to a more holistic understanding of the underlying mechanisms a combination of technological barriers combined with economic barriers institutional and political barriers contribute to sub optimal low carbon investment all along the innovation cycle policy makers need to take a systemic approach to enable the redirection of diverse private financial sources instruments range from cutting dirty r d subsidies and support for clean technology innovation and diffusion levelling the institutional playing field and making risks of high carbon and low carbon technologies transparent to providing a consistent but adaptive long term transition strategy this would allow financiers to gradually shift their investments away from high carbon mainstream markets and scale low carbon technology niche markets however financiers also need to sharpen their competencies with regard to new clean technologies and markets

gaining ground poverty in the postwar united states official measures of poverty in the united states are compiled by the bureau of the census by comparing a household s income level to a prespecified threshold from a theoretical perspective it is more appropriate to evaluate the level of poverty using a consumption based measure of household welfare in this paper i evaluate the level of poverty using expenditure data from the consumer expenditure survey i find that consumption based poverty rates are much lower than those based on income the trend in the poverty rate in the united states is sensitive to the price index and equivalence scales used to adjust the poverty thresholds

examining the financial performance of micro generation wind projects and the subsidy effect of feed in tariffs for urban locations in the united kingdom abstract this paper seeks to evaluate the effect of the upcoming 2010 uk feed in tariff uk fit on decentralised small wind energy installations at the household and building level in urban locations it is projected that the uk fit will stimulate an unprecedented surge in building mounted turbine installation the tariff amount must stimulate incentive but mitigate the likelihood of distortions in the competitive electricity market to analyse these issues measured energy output from sites in the warwick wind trials project wwtp is converted into revenue in a net present value npv framework for assessing commercial purchases of small wind systems variances in project variables are examined through npv simulations using monte carlo analysis to capture permutations of small wind project performance in the uk with and without the uk fit our research concludes that the proposed tariff amount of 30 5 p kwh will not significantly boost the economic attractiveness of mildly selective wwtp based sites in the uk furthermore the fixed tariff rate kwh generated could cause inefficiencies applied across uneven wind resource distribution the results of this study suggest further examination of policy related to micro generation in particular decentralised small wind projects

shifting chinese organizational responses to evolving greening pressures organizations are facing various evolving pressures to green their practices these pressures range from obligatory forces to voluntary measures environmental pressures traditionally influenced organizations to seek reactive and internal practices the adopted environmental management em practices have evolved to be more proactive and external as the focus has shifted to supply chains this paper aims to further understand the driving mechanisms for em practices under various external pressures to meet this research goal this study extends the theory of dynamic incentives of environmental policies and institutional theory to develop environmental pressures using an empirical study of 422 chinese manufacturers covering all 31 provinces and provincial cities an exploratory factor analysis reveals four em practices factors and four pressures drivers factors results of a hierarchical regression analysis show that coercive pressures positively relate to more reactive internal em practices less coercive pressures positively relate to more proactive external and green supply chain management practices the empirical findings provide further support that voluntary regulatory measures can help motivate companies in extending their em efforts to supply chains the work also provides insights into how organizations may respond to evolving regulatory regimes dynamic incentives of environmental regulatory policy and various institutional pressures

intertemporal and interprovincial variations in income inequality spain 1973 1991 goerlich f j and mas m 2002 intertemporal and interprovincial variations in income inequality spain 1973 1991 reg studies 36 1005 1015 the paper presents the main findings on personal income distribution for the spanish provinces over the period 1973 91 the information comes from the three structural household budget surveys and has been elaborated by the authors on a homogeneous base available at http www ivie es it starts by reviewing the information provided by some dispersion statistics including kernel density functions applied to the provincial gini indices and lorenz percentiles it goes on to test making use of an anova model two propositions related with intertemporal and interprovincial variations in inequality the penultimate section before the conclusions deals with the estimation of convergence equations in inequality

consumption and poverty how effective are in kind transfers the ability of in kind transfers to alleviate poverty depends on accurate targeting as well as recipients valuations of the benefits using data from the consumer expenditure surveys the efficiency of in kind transfers is examined in a microsimulation framework in which recipients are identified as those who have the lowest consumption in this framework in kind transfers of food capital services which includes housing and consumer services are an effective means of providing support to the poor even at high levels of subsidization the multiple good transfers that are considered are essentially equivalent to cash grants copyright 1996 by royal economic society

inequality in the joint distribution of consumption and time use abstract this paper examines inequality in both leisure and consumption over the past four decades using time use surveys stretching from 1975 to 2016 we estimate the distribution of leisure time conditional on hours worked and other individual level and family level characteristics we show that these characteristics especially when including work hours explain most of the long run variation in leisure we then use these estimates to predict the distribution of leisure using work hours and other characteristics in the consumer expenditure survey a survey that also provides detailed information on consumption the advantage of this approach is that it gives us measures of consumption and leisure at the family level within a single data source combining consumption and leisure allows us to characterize more accurately changes in the distribution of well being we find that leisure time is highest for families at the bottom of the consumption distribution and typically declines monotonically as consumption rises however the consumption leisure gradient is small we find noticeable differences across family types with the gradient being largest for single parent families and single individuals and smallest for families with a head age 65 or older the negative relationship between consumption and leisure appears strongest during the period around the great recession we find that including both leisure and consumption as opposed to just consumption in a measure of economic well being results in less inequality the negative association between leisure and consumption is a sufficient condition for this result however the degree to which leisure inequality offsets consumption inequality depends on the valuation of leisure

defining poverty lines as a fraction of central tendency we show under lognormality that when the gini coefficient is stable over time defining the poverty line as a fraction of a central tendency of the living standard distribution restricts the evolution of the poverty measures to be stable that is poverty does not change if the gini coefficient does not change moreover when the gini coefficient slightly changes most of the poverty change can be considered a change in inequality then the consequences of using different poverty lines are analysed thus important features in studies of poverty change based on these lines may result from methodological choices rather than from economic mechanisms