externality and literacy a note abstract kaushik basu and james foster 1998 have opened up an interesting approach to the measurement of literacy in which the phenomenon of externality has an important role to play the externality these authors examine is what one may call a material externality and they demonstrate that reckoning such an externality in the measurement of literacy provides an instrumental justification for horizontal equity the present note elucidates this link through a specific formulation of the basu foster thesis it also suggests that apart from a material externality there is also a psychic externality to be considered the psychic externality runs in a direction somewhat orthogonal to that of the material externality postulated by basu and foster and it is shown that reckoning such an externality in the measurement of literacy provides an instrumental justification for being sensitive to levels of literacy attainment in comparisons of literacy improvements in a broad sense the note suggests

water and energy price impacts on residential water demand in copenhagen while water price effects on residential water demand have been studied for several decades the impact of energy prices does not seem to have received much attention in this paper a residential water demand function derived from a model of household production of final consumption goods taking water energy and an aggregate of other goods as inputs is estimated on pooled time series data we find negative energy cross price elasticities around 0 2 and water price elasticities in the order of 0 1 or smaller

residential peak electricity demand response highlights of some behavioural issues electricity demand response refers to consumer actions that change the utility load profile in a way that reduces costs or improves grid security the focus of demand response has mainly been on the commercial and big industrial sectors because of the large demand reduction that they can offer to the utility grid operators utilities are showing increasing interest in residential demand response rdr rdr can be treated as an energy resource which can be assessed and commercially developed however there are still some issues that remain to be addressed for rdr to be successful these include price unresponsiveness of some residential consumers equity issues and high cost of the metering infrastructure the aim of this paper is to investigate and present some of the challenges in achieving effective voluntary demand reduction based on a review of residential demand response literature as well as the general residential energy use behaviour literature the authors propose the use of a hybrid engineering approach using social psychology and economic behaviour models to overcome these challenges and realize the benefits of supply security and cost management

electrical network capacity support from demand side response techno economic assessment of potential business cases for small commercial and residential end users demand side response dsr is recognised for its potential to bring economic benefits to various electricity sector actors such as energy retailers transmission system operators tsos and distribution network operators dnos however most dsr is provided by large industrial and commercial consumers and little research has been directed to the quantification of the value that small below 100 kw commercial and residential end users could accrue by providing dsr services in particular suitable models and studies are needed to quantify potential business cases for dsr from small commercial and residential end users such models and studies should consider the technical and physical characteristics of the power system and demand resources together with the economic conditions of the power market in addition the majority of research focuses on provision of energy arbitrage or ancillary services with very little attention to dsr services for network capacity support accordingly this paper presents comprehensive techno economic methodologies for the quantification of three capacity based business cases for dsr from small commercial and residential end users case study results applied to a uk context indicate that if the appropriate regulatory framework is put in place services for capacity support to both dnos and tsos can result into potentially attractive business cases for dsr from small end users with minimum impact on their comfort level

the costs of electricity interruptions in spain are we sending the right signals one of the objectives of energy security is the uninterrupted physical availability of energy however there is limited information about how much is the cost of energy supply interruptions this information is essential to optimize investment and operating decisions to prevent energy shortages or alternatively to determine the strength of the signals to be sent to the agents so that they may invest accordingly in this paper we estimate the economic impact of an electricity interruption in different sectors and regions of spain although there are several caveats in our analysis we find that in 2008 the cost for the spanish economy of one kwh of electricity not supplied was above 4 even in a conservative scenario which is higher than the signals currently being sent as incentives to avoid these interruptions this might result in an underinvestment in short term energy security particularly when we add the usual risk aversion of most consumers

welfare effects of expansions in equilibrium models of an electricity market with fuel network the welfare of electricity producers and consumers depends on congestion in the transmission grid generation costs that consist mainly of fuel costs and strategic behavior we formulate a game theoretic model of an oligopolistic electricity market where generation costs are derived from a fuel supply network the game consists of a fuel dispatcher that transports fuels at minimum cost to meet generator demands generators that maximize profit in cournot competition and an independent system operator iso that sets nodal prices to balance electricity supply with linear demand functions we prove the existence of an equilibrium if fuel supplies are unlimited the same equilibria hold in a simplified version of the game in which each generator optimizes its fuel acquisition from the network in some very simple examples under different assumptions about the rationality of generators with respect to iso decisions paradoxical effects on total welfare can occur from expanding either electricity transmission capacity or the transportation capacity of low cost fuel we find some instances in which the paradox occurs only under bounded rationality of the generators others where it occurs only if the generators are fully rational and still others where it occurs to different degrees under the two rationality assumptions

do droughts have long term effects on water consumption evidence from the urban area of barcelona this article examines the long term effects of droughts on water consumption using data of municipalities of the urban area of barcelona two important characteristics of the sample of municipalities are the relatively low water consumption in the pre drought period and the fact that indoor uses are clearly predominant controlling for prices income and various socio demographic factors we find a reduction in water consumption not only during the drought episode but also in subsequent periods these permanent reductions in water use may be explained by household behavioural changes technological changes or structural water policy changes

examining the benefits of load shedding strategies using a rolling horizon stochastic mixed complementarity equilibrium model abstract as a result of government policies increasing the amount of electricity generated from fluctuating renewable sources in many countries the requirement for flexibility in the corresponding electricity systems increases on the demand side load shedding is one demand response mechanism contributing to an increased flexibility traditionally load shedding was based on rather static or rotational strategies whereby the system operator chooses the consumers for load shedding however ongoing technological developments provide the basis for smarter and more efficient load shedding strategies we therefore examine the costs and strategies associated with such mechanisms by modelling an electricity market with different types of generators and consumers some consumers provide flexibility through load shedding only while others additionally have the ability to generate their own electricity focussing on the impacts of how and to whom consumers with own generation ability can supply electricity the presence of market power and generator uncertainty we propose a rolling horizon stochastic mixed complementarity equilibrium model where the individual optimisation problems of each player are solved simultaneously and in equilibrium we find that a non static strategy reduces consumer costs while allowing consumers to provide own generation to the whole market results in minimal benefits the presence of market power was found to increase costs to consumers

modeling commercial demand for water exploring alternative prices instrumental variables and heterogeneity in this paper we introduce a previously unused instrumental variable to estimate the elasticity of commercial water demand for firms served by a large municipal utility we then present evidence that firms are more responsive to one period lagged average price than marginal price finally we find notable differences in elasticity among different categories of businesses the findings in this paper are particularly important as water utilities consider how to maintain revenue while coping with limited water supplies and increasing commercial demand

local matching of flexible load in smart grids abstract today s power systems are experiencing a transition from primarily fossil fuel based generation toward greater shares of renewable energy sources it becomes increasingly costly to manage the resulting uncertainty and variability in power system operations solely through flexible generation assets incorporating demand side flexibility through appropriately designed incentive structures can add an additional lever to balance demand and supply based on a supply model using empirical wind generation data and a discrete model of flexible demand with temporal constraints we design and evaluate a local online market mechanism for matching flexible load and uncertain supply under this mechanism truthful reporting of flexibility is a dominant strategy for consumers reducing payments and increasing the likelihood of allocation suppliers during periods of scarce supply benefit from elevated critical value payments as a result of flexibility induced competition on the demand side we find that for a wide range of the key parameters supply capacity flexibility level the cost of ensuring incentive compatibility in a smart grid market relative to the welfare optimal matching is relatively small this suggests that local matching of demand and supply can be organized in a decentral manner in the presence of a sufficiently flexible demand side extending the stylized demand model to include complementary demand structures we demonstrate that decentral matching induces only minor efficiency losses if demand is sufficiently flexible furthermore by accounting for physical grid limitations we show that flexibility and grid capacity exhibit complementary characteristics

economic potential of demand response at household level are central european market conditions sufficient abstract the aim of this paper is to show the economic potential of demand response dr on household level at central european market conditions thereby required economic benefits for consumers participation the realistic load shifting potential at household level and the estimation of essential intelligent infrastructure costs are discussed the core of this paper builds a case study applying spot market oriented load shifting from the supplier s point of view by using austrian electricity market data household load profiles as well as a heat pump and e car charging load profile it is demonstrated which cost savings for suppliers can be derived from such load shifting procedure at household level furthermore upper cost limits for intelligent infrastructure in order to break even are derived results suggest to take a critical look at european discussions on dr implementation on household level showing that at central european market conditions the potential for dr at household level is restricted to significant loads and hence the applied load shifting strategy is only beneficial with application to heat pumps in contrast the frequently discussed shifting of conventional household devices loads such as washing machines economically does not add up

is it better to be a boy a disaggregated outlay equivalent analysis of gender bias in papua new guinea the demographic evidence of gender bias in many countries has provided an impetus for finding ways to study the status of women in developing countries because of the lack of accurate intra household data deaton 1989 introduced a method for using household expenditure data to infer discrimination in the allocation of goods between boys and girls few studies of discrimination using the method however have detected bias even though alternative indicators suggest it is a serious problem in this paper we study the case of papua new guinea a country in which there are many indicators of severe gender bias discrimination in the allocation of goods between boys and girls within households in papua new guinea is examined using deaton s outlay equivalent ratio method adding a boy to the household reduces expenditure on adult goods by as much as would a nine tenths reduction in total outlay per member but girls have no effect on adult goods expenditure the hypothesis of haddad and reardon 1993 that

nash profit efficiency a measure of changes in market structures abstract imperfectly competitive markets can be characterized by endogenous prices limited or no competition and the exercise of market power to address the resulting dysfunctionality this study proposes an alternative efficiency measure estimated by the directional distance function ddf with the direction toward nash equilibrium and develops the nash profit efficiency npe and its decomposition which complements the typical profit efficiency measure we model the production possibility set and the price functions of inputs and outputs and then develop the mixed complementarity problem micp we validate the model with an empirical study of the oil and natural gas industry in new york state between 1981 and 1989 the results show that before 1984 firms exploited a less competitive market that between 1984 and 1986 the number of new entrants transformed the market and that after 1986 no firms could exercise market power due to market restructuring deregulation and an unforeseen oil glut based on the results we conclude that the direction toward nash equilibrium can be justified for efficiency estimation in imperfectly competitive markets and that npe is appropriate for investigating changes in market structures

poverty and household size the widely held view that larger families tend to be poorer in developing countries has influenced research and policy the scope for size economies in consumption cautions against this view we find that the correlation between poverty and size vanishes in pakistan when the size elasticity of the cost of living is about 0 6 this turns out to be the elasticity implied by a modified version of the food share method of setting scales by contrast some measures of child nutritional status indicate an elasticity of unity consideration of the weight attached to child versus adult welfare may help resolve the non robustness of demographic profiles of poverty excerpt

optimal generation mix with short term demand response and wind penetration demand response defined as the ability of load to respond to short term variations in electricity prices plays an increasingly important role in balancing short term supply and demand especially during peak periods and in dealing with fluctuations in renewable energy supplies however demand response has not been included in standard models for defining the optimal generation technology mix three different methodologies are proposed to integrate short term responsiveness into a generation technology mix optimization model considering operational constraints elasticities are included to adjust the demand profile in response to price changes including cross price elasticities that account for load shifts among hours as energy efficiency programs also influence the load profile interactions of efficiency investments and demand response are also modeled comparison of model results for a single year optimization with and without demand response shows peak reduction and valley filling effects impacting the optimal amounts and mix of generation capacity increasing demand elasticity also increases the installed amount of wind capacity suggesting that demand response yields environmental benefits by facilitating integration of renewable energy

a mixed complementarity based equilibrium model of natural gas markets we present a new multiseasonal multiyear natural gas market equilibrium model based on the concept of a competitive equilibrium involving the market participants producers storage reservoir operators peak gas operators pipeline operators marketers and consumers the first three classes are depicted as price takers consistent with perfect competition the pipeline operations are described with regulated tariffs but also involve congestion pricing as a mechanism to allocate scarce pipeline capacity the marketers are price takers in all markets except in sales to consumers in which they compete as nash cournot players finally consumers are described by demand curves for each of the four sectors residential commercial industrial and electric power we show that the equilibrium model is an instance of a mixed nonlinear complementarity problem ncp and provide sufficient detail not generally seen in previous complementarity models of natural gas the ncp formulation is derived from considering the karush kuhn tucker optimality conditions of the optimization problems faced by these participants under mild conditions we show that this ncp has a solution and under additional reasonable conditions we show that the market prices are unique we also validate the model on a representative sample network with nine market participants and three seasons using four scenarios

health as a family matter do intra household education externalities matter for maternal and child health abstract this paper is concerned with the role of education as a determinant of health care choices the central premise of the paper is that utilisation of health services is determined not solely by an individual s own education but rather by a notion of effective education which incorporates the educational attainment of other household members the paper sets out a general framework for representing intra household education externalities and proposes a number of specific hypotheses concerning the way in which the education of different household members affects health care choices these hypotheses are tested on data from mozambique focusing on maternity services child immunisations and child malnutrition we draw four major conclusions from the analysis first while maternal education seems to be the education variable of primary importance for the health service and malnutrition variables under consideration the education of other household members does have a significant and sometimes larg

an exact solution method for binary equilibrium problems with compensation and the power market uplift problem abstract we propose a novel method to find nash equilibria in games with binary decision variables by including compensation payments and incentive compatibility constraints from non cooperative game theory directly into an optimization framework in lieu of using first order conditions of a linearization or relaxation of integrality conditions the reformulation offers a new approach to obtain and interpret dual variables to binary constraints using the benefit or loss from deviation rather than marginal relaxations the method endogenizes the trade off between overall societal efficiency and compensation payments necessary to align incentives of individual players we provide existence results and conditions under which this problem can be solved as a mixed binary linear program we apply the solution approach to a stylized nodal power market equilibrium problem with binary on off decisions this illustrative example shows that our approach yields an exact solution to the binary nash game with compensation we compare different implementations of actual market rules within our model in particular constraints ensuring non negative profits no loss rule and restrictions on the compensation payments to non dispatched generators we discuss the resulting equilibria in terms of overall welfare efficiency and allocational equity

a modified human development index abstract this paper discusses a modified index for measuring human development the suggested index is based on the components of the human development index hdi developed by the united nations development programme undp since 1990 it discusses two categories of technical issues related to the hdi for 1995 those related to the components and those relevant to the structure of the index the data from the human development report 1995 for 174 countries are used to test the robustness of the suggested index and the results are compared to those of the hdi the new index is then used to delineate with some justification different groups of countries at various levels of human development

alternate price specifications for estimating residential water demand with fixed fees using a new model formulation and data from a sample of colorado utilities we investigated the price specification controversy marginal price versus average revenue when estimating residential water demand the improved statistical fit using average revenue as the price variable was shown to be an artifact of the unitary elastic identity created when monthly rate schedules contain a fixed fee when the fixed fee was purged from the data average price was not significant but marginal price remained significant in the preferred double log marginal price model estimated price elasticity was 0 3 and conservation programs had no significant effect on water use

an empirical survey of residential water demand modelling abstract the increased reliance on demand side management policies as an urban water consumption management tool has stimulated considerable debate among economists water utility managers regulators consumer interest groups and policymakers in turn this has fostered an increasing volume of literature aimed at providing best practice estimates of price and income elasticities quantifying the impact of non price water restrictions and gauging the impact of non discretionary environmental factors affecting residential water demand this paper provides a synoptic survey of empirical residential water demand analyses conducted in the last 25 years both model specification and estimation and the outcomes of the analyses are discussed

an oligopolistic model of an integrated market for energy and spinning reserve in this paper a model for oligopolistic competition in electricity markets is presented most previous proposed models have been static and focused only on the energy market incentives for strategic behavior in contrast in this paper a multiperiod market for energy and spinning reserve sr is considered by including such factors the competition among participants is modeled with more realism competition in the energy market is modeled by means of conjectured supply functions while conjectured reserve price response functions are used to consider the generators ability to alter the sr prices the resulting equilibrium problem is modeled in terms of complementarity conditions based upon a complementarity model the opportunity cost between the energy and sr markets is derived for oligopolistic markets the proposed model is illustrated by a six node network using a dc approximation

optimal fuel power and load based emissions trades for electric power supply chain equilibrium this paper proposes a model to determine equilibrium fuel power and emissions trades in an electric power supply chain fuel generation transmission distribution consumption framework with a load based lb emissions trading program the model represents the oligopolistic gaming behavior of generation companies gencos and load serving entities lses and equilibrium conditions for fuel power and emissions allowance markets which are integrated through endogenous prices the model is solved by using a practical heuristic method based on the fisher burmeister nonlinear complementarity function ncp and smoothing technique an application to a four node system with three gencos and lses is also presented to illustrate the effects of emission allowances trading renewable energy generation and network congestion on equilibrium solutions

estimating urban residential demand for water under alternative price measures urban water supplies are becoming scarce therefore it is not surprising that the prospect of scarcity has led to renewed interest in policies designed to use the available supply more efficiently this policy interest has promoted the reexamination of earlier empirical studies on efficient pricing schemes for urban water hanke 5 hanke and davis 6 water authorities have paid little attention to the marginal cost of providing water or to the prospect for a scarcity rent akin to a hotelling 7 rent where water supplies are exhaustible even ignoring scarcity rent pricing policies have not been consistent with conventional efficiency objectives indeed pricing decisions are sometimes based on nonmarket considerations hanke and davis 6 among economists the price equal marginal cost debate has centered on the question of seasonal pricing schemes there has also been some interest in zonal i e distance based pricing policies for water in any case the deviation between price and marginal costs depends on the sensitivity of demand to changes in water prices the primary attribute of demand in these calculations is the price elasticity of demand thus any response to the policy concerns identified at the outset requires estimates of the responsiveness of water demanded to price in practice customers pay for water under a multistep block pricing scheme many of the problems noted in the literature with estimating demand for a commodity in the presence of block pricing schemes have not been resolved by current econometric analyses in fact taylor 14 nordin 12 billings and agthe l have demonstrated that while demand models developed to explain consumer behavior under both declining and increasing block rate pricing schemes are theoretically correct practical problems associated with the empirical implementation of the demand model persist one of the most important problems is the implication that the demand

bidding strategy of virtual power plant for participating in energy and spinning reserve markets part i problem formulation this paper addresses the bidding problem faced by a virtual power plant vpp in a joint market of energy and spinning reserve service the proposed bidding strategy is a non equilibrium model based on the deterministic price based unit commitment pbuc which takes the supply demand balancing constraint and security constraints of vpp itself into account the presented model creates a single operating profile from a composite of the parameters characterizing each distributed energy resources der which is a component of vpp and incorporates network constraints into its description of the capabilities of the portfolio the presented model is a nonlinear mixed integer programming with inter temporal constraints and solved by genetic algorithm ga

a review of the costs and benefits of demand response for electricity in the uk the recent policy discussion in the uk on the economic case for demand response dr calls for a reflection on available evidence regarding its costs and benefits existing studies tend to consider the size of investments and returns of certain forms of dr in isolation and do not consider economic welfare effects from review of existing studies policy documents and some simple modelling of benefits of dr in providing reserve for unforeseen events we demonstrate that the economic case for dr in uk electricity markets is positive consideration of economic welfare gains is provided

your retirement and my health behavior evidence on retirement externalities from a fuzzy regression discontinuity design this paper presents evidence on intra household retirement externalities by assessing the causal effect of partner s retirement on own health behaviour in europe we identify partner s retirement effects by applying a fuzzy regression discontinuity rd framework using retirement eligibility as an exogenous instrument for partner s retirement status using data from the survey of health ageing and retirement in europe share we find that while partner s retirement increases own physical activity it also increases smoking by up to 7 cigarettes a day and increases alcohol intake by 1 2 drinks per day furthermore we find that physical activity increases only for individuals that are themselves retired pointing toward compensated effects that arise due to husband s and wife s retirement being complements similarly an increase in alcohol intake is observed only if the individuals are themselves retired and an increase in smoking is only observed if the partner is a smoker suggesting mutual positive externalities and leisure complementarities

measuring the effects of price controls using mixed complementarity models abstract government involvement in managing domestic prices of energy and other commodities is a major issue in emerging economies we examine one aspect of the problem price controls when governments set or cap prices we show how a mixed complementarity problem mcp formulation can be used to model and assess the impacts of price controls in multi sector economic equilibrium models both the gains from deregulation and the consequences of imposing new or altering existing regulations can thus be measured we present three distinct models that capture different price control situations firms have to meet demand and receive an implicit subsidy demand rationing occurs due to an associated price control constraint and subsidies limit demand rationing we present an approach to measuring the effects on the equilibrium in the first case and the levels of disequilibrium induced by price controls in the other cases we also show how to determine the most efficient allocation program when a government engages in rationing we illustrate the cases described by these models using markets that have or had price controls

social implications of residential demand response in cool temperate climates residential electrical demand response dr offers the prospect of reducing the environmental impact of electricity use and also the supply costs however the relatively small loads and numerous actors imply a large effort response ratio residential dr may be an essential part of future smart grids but how viable is it in the short to medium term this paper reviews some dr concepts then evaluates the propositions that households in cool temperate climates will be in a position to contribute to grid flexibility within the next decade and that that they will allow some automated load control examples of demand response from around the world are discussed in order to assess the main considerations for cool climates different tariff types and forms of control are assessed in terms of what is being asked of electricity users with a focus on real time pricing and direct load control in energy systems with increasingly distributed resources the literature points to the significance of thermal loads supply mix demand side infrastructure market regulation and the framing of risks and opportunities associated with dr in concentrating on social aspects of residential demand response the paper complements the body of work on technical and economic potential

the effect of market conduct on international steam coal trade abstract this paper is concerned with the determinants of international steam coal trade most quantitative work in explaining such trade has been stymied by the apparent failure of the competitive model to account for observed and anticipated trade flows in general authors have sought institutional explanations for this failure the hypothesis explored by this paper is that the exercising of market power by certain agents in the market can lead to trade patterns consistent with those observed and anticipated this hypothesis is explored through a simple model of imperfect market equilibrium in addition to perfect competition we examine cournot nash monopoly south africa duopoly south africa australia and duopoly monopsony south africa australia japan with a competitive fringe of producers us canada poland china colombia using the equilibrium model of coal trade we examine these market structures and evaluate the extent to which they can explain existing and anticipated trade patterns

an estimate of the value of lost load for ireland this paper estimates the value of short term lost load in the all island electricity market which includes the republic of ireland and northern ireland the value of lost load voll is the average willingness of electricity consumers to pay to avoid an additional period without power voll is also known as the value of security of electricity supply and is inferred using a production function approach detailed electricity use data for the republic of ireland allows us to estimate the value of lost load by time of day time of week and type of user we find that the value of lost load is highest in the residential sector in both the republic of ireland and northern ireland our results can be used to advise policy decisions in the case of supply outages and to encourage optimum supply security in the context of this study short term is taken to be a matter of hours rather than days or weeks

the income earned by women impacts on welfare outcomes abstract this paper provides an updated review of the evidence on income pooling across household members income pooling is one of the main predictions of the unitary model of the household new studies come to much the same conclusion as do past studies income pooling and the unitary model are rejected the paper then looks beyond the mere rejection of the unitary model and explores some of the issues that arise first what is the progress in testing the restrictions imposed by non unitary models of the household second what are the implications of rejection of the unitary model for policy and program design finally what are some of the challenges faced by programs and policies that internalize the rejection of income pooling in terms of impact evaluation

modeling strategic investment decisions in spatial markets abstract markets for natural resources and commodities are often oligopolistic in these markets production capacities are key for strategic interaction between the oligopolists we analyze how different market structures influence oligopolistic capacity investments and thereby affect supply prices and rents in spatial natural resource markets using mathematical programming models the models comprise an investment stage and a supply stage in which players compete in quantities we compare three models a perfect competition and two cournot models in which the product is either traded through long term contracts or on spot markets in the supply stage tractability and practicality of the approach are demonstrated in an application to the international metallurgical coal market results may vary substantially between the different models the metallurgical coal market has recently made progress in moving away from long term contracts and more towards spot market based trade based on our results we conclude that this regime switch is likely to raise consumer rents but lower producer rents while the effect on total welfare is negligible

evaluating the welfare effects of reforming municipal water prices abstract despite the strong criticisms by economists of water utility pricing practices and the presence of well articulated theoretical models of efficient pricing alternatives few empirical studies have documented the magnitude of the efficiency gains from altering water prices the structures of water supply costs and water demands are estimated using data from vancouver canada a simulation program uses these estimated relationships to compute the impact upon a representative water utility s output and deficit and upon aggregate consumer surplus of a move from its current practice to efficient prices simulation results show that a move to seasonally differentiated pricing with an annual charge calculated to recoup the resulting deficit raises aggregate surplus by approximately 4 this result contrasts with recent water pricing studies that found welfare improvements of approximately 1

electricity market near equilibrium under locational marginal pricing and minimum profit conditions this paper provides a tool to determine the near equilibrium of an electric energy market this market works under locational marginal pricing i e generating units and demand loads are paid and pay respectively the locational marginal prices corresponding to the nodes they are connected to the near equilibrium is defined as the energy transaction levels for which generating companies maximize their respective profits and consumption companies maximize their respective utilities an independent system operator clears the market maximizing the social welfare conditions that ensure minimum profit for generating units can be included however these conditions may render a generating unit uncompetitive and expel it from the market demands are taken to be non constant and values are determined as part of the solution the near equilibrium is obtained through the solution of a mixed integer quadratic problem equivalent to a mixed linear complementarity problem that includes the minimum profit conditions it is important to note that the near equilibrium concept presented in this paper does not solve a market equilibrium when indivisibilities such as start up costs or the like are present lastly we validate the proposed model on a case study using data from the ieee reliability test system

oligopolistic competition of gencos in reactive power ancillary service provisions the need for a market based approach for reactive power procurement has been recognized by ferc due to the localized characteristic of reactive power regulatory mechanisms are necessary to mitigate the possibility of holding market power by generators the regulator is responsible for devising the regulatory mechanisms that provide incentives to generators to supply reactive power while preventing the abuse of market power this paper proposes a mathematical model to simulate the strategic behavior of generators supplying reactive power while considering the system operator s schedule the proposed method can be used by the regulator to simulate the market behavior in the reactive power supply we further study how regulatory policies affect the strategic behavior an alternative price cap method has been proposed and tested in the numerical example to mitigate the effect of strategic behavior of generators in reactive power procurement by the system operator the numerical examples are tested on the nordic 32 bus system

literacy sharing assortative mating or what labour market advantages and proximate illiteracy revisited abstract this paper explores the relationship between household literacy and the labour market outcomes of illiterate household members which basu narayan and ravallion 2002 report using household income and expenditure data from bangladesh bnr attribute a considerable wage premium for proximate illiterate women in off farm employment to labour productivity gains from intra household literacy sharing this wage premium also suggests that women may be more efficient recipients of literacy externalities than men we propose that any such relationship might not be due to higher labour productivity but may have other explanations such as systematically different and unobserved attributes of illiterate females married into literate households we also pay attention to the negative selection of illiterate females into non farm wage employment which contrary to received wisdom suggests that household literacy may not be unambiguously progressive for females we propose that the widely reported finding that

multiplicity of equilibria in conjectural variations models of natural gas markets abstract spatial partial equilibrium models incorporating conjectural variations are widely used to analyze the development of oligopolistic multi agent markets such as international energy and raw material markets although this model type can produce multiple equilibria under commonly used assumptions to the best of our knowledge the consequences for the interpretation of the model results have not yet been explored in detail to this end we derive a linear complementarity model for the gas market and discuss under which assumptions on the model structure a component of the solution is unique in particular we find that the gas flow between a trader and a consumer is unique whenever the trader is modeled to exert market power in the consumer s market we demonstrate our findings by computing the extreme points of the polyhedral solution space and show that erroneous conclusions could be drawn whenever only one arbitrary point in the solution space is picked for interpretation furthermore we discuss whether economically meaningful parameter value changes exist which would enforce uniqueness in all components of the solution

an econometric estimation of industrial water demand in france this study investigates the structure of industrial water demand byestimating the derived demand for water on a sample of industrialestablishments located in the south west of france productiontechnologies are represented by short term variable cost functions andapproximated by a translog form industrial water use is modeled ashaving three components the quantity of water bought to a waterutility the quantity of autonomous water and the quantity of watertreated prior to use we include in this framework water effluents which are considered as a by product of the production process emittedby firms each of the three water components is treated as a separateinput and all are estimated as a system of simultaneous equations themodel is estimated on a sample of 51 industrial plants in the girondedistrict observed from 1994 to 1996 using seemingly unrelated regression sur and feasible generalized least squares fgls results ofestimations show that industrial firms are sensitive to water priceinputs network water elasticity is estimated at 0 29 it variesfrom 0 10 to 0 79 according to the type of industryconsidered autonomous water price elasticity is not significant elasticity for treated water is evaluated at 1 42 at themean sample and varies from 0 90 to 2 21 according to theindustry considered

the welfare impact of self supplied water pricing in canada a computable general equilibrium assessment this paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to assess the welfare cost of changing the method of water allocation in canada towards one that uses prices to ration demand we model the introduction of a price on both water that is abstracted as well as water that is consumed that is abstracted and not returned to the source we estimate that reducing water consumption by 25 would require imposition of a price on water consumption of around 0 21 text m 3 similarly introduction of a water abstraction charge of about 0 013 text m 3 would be sufficient to reduce water abstraction by 25 we find that if revenues from water pricing are returned in lump sum to households the introduction of water pricing would result in a modest welfare loss when revenues from water pricing are used to offset existing taxes we find a gain in welfare corresponding to a strong double dividend

response bias in a conjoint analysis of power outages abstract a methodology is proposed for estimating status quo effects resistance to change and loss aversion willingness to pay is less than willingness to accept from consumer survey data conjoint data on israeli households attitudes to electricity outages reveal that both of these effects are pronounced and that they depend on the interviewees characteristics ordered conditional logit estimation indicates that while the estimates are rank sensitive the suggested methodology continues to be applicable finally the conjoint estimates are compared with those obtained by applying the method of contingent valuation

residential electricity consumption in seattle abstract recent empirical research for different regions of the united states indicates that residential electricity may be an inferior good whose consumption is negatively correlated with income that is a provocative result that runs counter to what many earlier econometric studies indicate given that it makes sense to examine how electricity consumption behaves in different regional service areas even if residential electricity is an inferior good whose usage declines as income rises there is no guarantee that this will be the case across all service areas this study examines residential electricity consumption for seattle washington the largest metropolitan economy in the northwestern region of the united states results from a dynamic error correction modeling approach indicate that residential electricity consumption reacts in statistically significant manners to changes in real price real income and cold weather in the short run residential electricity is a normal good in this metropolitan economy in the long run residential electricity appears to be an inferior good in seattle all else equal whenever real per capita income growth exceeds 1 2 per capita residential electricity usage declines in seattle

business model innovation in electricity supply markets the role of complex value in the united kingdom this research investigates the new opportunities that business model innovations are creating in electricity supply markets at the sub national scale these local supply business models can offer significant benefits to the electricity system but also generate economic social and environmental values that are not well accounted for in current policy or regulation this paper uses the uk electricity supply market to investigate new business models which rely on more complex value propositions than the incumbent utility model nine archetypal local supply business models are identified and their value propositions value capture methods and barriers to market entry are analysed this analysis defines complex value as a key concept in understanding business model innovation in the energy sector the process of complex value identification poses a challenge to energy researchers commercial firms and policymakers in liberalised markets to investigate the opportunities for system efficiency and diverse outcomes that new supplier business models can offer to the electricity system

equilibrium pricing and lead time decisions in a competitive industry pricing and lead time are two crucial decisions to a success in today s competitive markets this paper examines the equilibrium pricing and lead time decisions in a duopoly industry consisting of two large and several smaller firms with competition we solve the sufficient karush kuhn tucker kkt optimality conditions for the nash equilibrium solution we characterize the existence and uniqueness of the nash equilibrium solution of pricing and lead time decisions for both homogenous and heterogeneous firms our case study provides important managerial insights about firms behavior under price and lead time competition in a semiconductor manufacturing industry

child growth shocks and food aid in rural ethiopia this brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study entitled child growth shocks and food aid in rural ethiopia conducted between 1995 and 1996 in ethiopia the study observed the impact of food aid on child growth and shocks in communities on the child level food aid has a positive significant impact on the growth in height of children the total amount of food aid appears on average to be sufficient to offset the negative effects of plot damage on child growth given the fact there remains a massive amount of child stunting there must be large amounts of mis targeting of aid girls seem to be more resilient to shocks than boys

optimal interconnection and renewable targets for north west europe we present a mixed integer linear programming model for determining optimal interconnection for a given level of renewable generation using a cost minimisation approach optimal interconnection and capacity investment decisions are determined under various targets for renewable penetration the model is applied to a test system for eight regions in northern europe it is found that considerations on the supply side dominate demand side considerations when determining optimal interconnection investment interconnection is found to decrease generation capacity investment and total costs only when there is a target for renewable generation higher wind integration costs see a concentration of wind in high wind regions with interconnection to other regions

endogenous production capacity investment in natural gas market equilibrium models abstract the large scale natural gas equilibrium model applied in egging 2013 combines long term market equilibria and investments in infrastructure while accounting for market power by certain suppliers such models are widely used to simulate market outcomes given different scenarios of demand and supply development environmental regulations and investment options in natural gas and other resource markets however no model has so far combined the logarithmic production cost function commonly used in natural gas models with endogenous investment decisions in production capacity given the importance of capacity constraints in the determination of the natural gas supply this is a serious shortcoming of the current literature this short note provides a proof that combining endogenous investment decisions and a logarithmic cost function yields a convex minimization problem paving the way for an important extension of current state of the art equilibrium models

effect of price information on residential water demand microeconomic theory predicts that people decrease consumption when price increases the magnitude of the effect depending on price elasticity the law of demand however implicitly assumes that consumers know prices an assumption that is not always satisfied in markets with ex post billing when prices are not transparent elasticity estimates are potentially lower than their full information potential evidence of low price elasticity abounds in residential water demand studies limiting the effectiveness and desirability of using price signals as a conservation tool it is hypothesized that resident s sluggish response to price is partly due to the absence of price information on water bills differences in the informational content of bills are documented for the first time on the basis of sample bills collected from 383 utilities across the usa a standard aggregate water demand model is augmented with qualitative variables describing differences in billing information allowing such variables to a

measuring the income elasticity of water demand the importance of publication and endogeneity biases we present the first study that examines the effects of publication selection in the literature estimating the income elasticity of water demand paradoxically more affected by publication selection are the otherwise preferable estimates that control for endogeneity attempting to correct simultaneously for publication and endogeneity biases we find that the mean underlying elasticity is approximately 0 15 or less the result is robust to controlling for more than 30 characteristics of the estimates and accounting for model uncertainty the differences in the reported estimates are systematically driven by differences in the tariff structure regional coverage data granularity and control for temperature

assessing energy supply security outage costs in private households abstract the objective of this paper is to contribute to the topic of energy supply security by proposing a monte carlo based and a survey based model to analyze the costs of power interruptions outage cost estimations are particularly important when deciding on investments to improve supply security e g additional transmission lines in order to compare costs to benefits but also other policy decisions on measures that have direct or indirect consequences for the supply security e g a phasing out of nuclear energy need to be based on results from outage cost estimations the main focus of this paper lies with residential consumers but the model is applied to commercial industrial and governmental consumers as well there are limited studies that have approached the problem of evaluating outage cost when comparing the results of these studies they often display a high degree of diversification as consumers have different needs and dependencies towards the supply of electricity because of varying circumstances and preferences a great diversity in outage cost is a logical consequence to take the high degree of uncertainties into account a monte carlo simulation was conducted in this study for the case of private households in germany

constructing demand curves in forward capacity market this paper presents an economic framework for designing demand curves in forward capacity market fcm capacity demand curves have been recognized as a way to reduce the price volatility inherited from fixed capacity requirements however due to the lack of direct demand bidding in fcm obtaining demand curves that appropriately reflect load s willingness to pay for reliability is challenging the proposed framework measures the value of reliability by the avoided cost of unserved energy cue i e expected unserved energy eue multiplied by value of lost load voll the total cost of capacity and cue are then minimized allowing economic tradeoffs between different reliability levels eue a multivariate function of the total system capacity and its distribution among capacity zones is decomposed into single variable functions which form the base for system and zonal demand curves voll is implied from the net cost of new entry net cone based on long term market equilibrium properties the proposed framework is applied to a multizone iso new england system to demonstrate its effectiveness

analysing rationing policies drought and its effects on urban users welfare analysing rationing policies during drought the aim of this paper is to study the impact on consumers of rationing policies implemented during water shortages water scarcity gives rise to the need for rationing and various methods including supply cutoffs can be used a model is devised to quantify the welfare losses associated with qualitive and quantitive restrictions based on virtual prices and using the consumer surplus as a welfare measurement welfare variations for different users have been calculated to achieve the aim information relative to seville spain has been used analysing the drought period that took place in the first half of the 1990s it has been possible to observe the main source that led to welfare losses for each kind of user

the cost of natural gas shortages in ireland this paper investigates the economic implications of disruptions of one to ninety days to the supply of natural gas in ireland we assess the impact of a hypothetical gas supply disruption in both winter and summer in 2008 with observed market characteristics and in 2020 with projected market characteristics the cost of a natural gas outage includes the cost of natural gas being unavailable for heating and other purposes in the industrial and commercial sectors lost consumer surplus in the residential sector the cost of lost electricity in all sectors and lost vat on the sale of gas and electricity ireland generates much of its electricity from natural gas and the loss of this electricity accounts for the majority of the cost of a natural gas outage losing gas fired electricity would cost 0 1 1 0 billion euro per day depending on the time to the week the time of year and rationing industry should be rationed before households to minimise economic losses but current emergency protocols do the opposite if gas fired electricity is unavailable for three months the economic loss could be up to 80 billion euro about half of gross domestic product losing gas for heating too would add up to approximately 8 billion euro in economic losses we also discuss some options to increase ireland s security of supply and find that the cost is a small fraction of the avoided maximum damage

industrial companies demand for electricity evidence from a micropanel abstract the paper presents a micro econometric analysis of industrial companies demand for electricity previous studies on electricity consumption in the industrial sector have relied on aggregate data or cross section observations here we present an econometric study on electricity demand based on a panel of 2949 danish companies followed from 1983 to 1996 it is found that estimators of electricity demand that take account of the panel structure fixed effect models yield considerably lower price and production elasticities compared to estimators that do not like cross section models it is also investigated how various company characteristics like size type of industrial sub sector and electricity intensity in production influence price and production elasticities it appears that companies with a high electricity intensity also have a high own price elasticity

shared literacy and employment in the nonfarm sector this article empirically examines the external effect of family literacy on the earnings of illiterate workers considering recent findings that rural nonfarm sectors in developing countries are becoming more important in determining the welfare of households this article tests two hypotheses 1 an illiterate person living with literate members i e a proximate illiterate person is more likely to find a job in the nonfarm sector than is an illiterate person living with no literate person i e an isolated illiterate person and 2 wage income of a proximate illiterate worker is higher than that of an isolated illiterate worker the empirical results suggest that proximate illiterate persons earn higher wages than isolated illiterate persons because they are more likely to be employed in the nonfarm sector

sustainable transmission planning in imperfectly competitive electricity industries balancing economic and environmental outcomes abstract we explore the role of a transmission system operator tso that builds a transmission line to accommodate renewable energy in order to lower emissions as required by government policy in contrast to central planning a tso in a deregulated electricity industry can only indirectly influence outcomes through its choice of the transmission line capacity via a bi level model we show that this results in less transmission capacity and with limited emissions control in a perfectly competitive industry vis a vis a benchmark centrally planned system a carbon charge on industry that fully accounts for the cost of pollution damage leads to a perfect alignment of incentives and maximised social welfare only under perfect competition by contrast a carbon charge may actually lower social welfare under a cournot oligopoly as the resulting reduction in consumption facilitates the further exercise of market power

a method to estimate the costs and benefits of undergrounding electricity transmission and distribution lines abstract there has been a general shortfall of peer reviewed literature identifying methods to estimate the costs and benefits of strategies employed by electric utilities to improve grid resilience this paper introduces for the first time a comprehensive analysis framework to estimate the societal costs and benefits of implementing one strategy to improve power system reliability undergrounding power transmission and distribution lines it is shown that undergrounding transmission and distribution lines can be a cost effective strategy to improve reliability but only if certain criteria are met before the decision to underground is made

a cost benefit analysis of female primary education as a means of reducing hiv aids in tanzania this article uses panel data related to 20 tanzania regions and 8 years to estimate the direct and indirect effects of female primary education on hiv aids rates a recursive framework for education income and infections is employed based on two autoregressive equations that allow us to obtain dynamic estimates of effectiveness we find that the indirect effect working through changes in income outweighs the direct positive effect of education on infections implying that female education can be effective as an intervention to lower the disease in tanzania the estimates of effectiveness are then utilized to carry out a cost benefit analysis of the education expenditures the human capital approach is used to measure the benefits irrespective of the timing of the benefits and costs and the discount rate alternatives we consider our best estimates result in positive net benefits with benefit cost ratios in the range 1 3 2 9 this article was completed with the financial assistance provided by the

an analysis of a forward capacity market with long term contracts we analyze the effectiveness of a forward capacity market fcm with long term contracts in an electricity market in the presence of a growing share of renewable energy an agent based model is used for this analysis capacity markets can compensate for the deteriorating incentive to invest in controllable power plants when the share of variable renewable energy sources grows but may create volatile prices themselves capacity markets with long term contracts have been developed e g in the uk to stabilize capacity prices in our analysis a fcm is effective in providing the required adequacy level and leads to lower cost to consumers and more stable capacity prices as compared to a yearly capacity market in case of a demand shock a fcm may develop an investment cycle but it still maintains security of supply its main effect on the power plant portfolio is more investment in peak plant

mill pricing versus spatial price discrimination under bertrand and cournot spatial competition this paper asks two questions about spatial competition first does spatial price discrimination lead to lower prices and higher welfare than mill pricing if firms hold the bertrand conjecture the answer is yes for most values of fixed cost but for the cournot conjecture the opposite is true second does the introduction of space into the oligopoly models of bertrand and cournot change their results the answer is generally no however spatial bertrand prices exceed marginal cost unlike their spaceless counterparts these answers are obtained using models of spatial competition of which the cournot mill pricing models are new in spatial competition significant transport costs and economies of scale bestow market power upon firms this paper addresses two questions about spatial competition first does spatial price discrimination yield lower prices and higher social welfare producer plus consumer surplus than fo b mill pricing under spatial price discrimination differences in the delivered prices charged by a firm bear no necessary relationship to differences in transport costs in contrast a mill pricing firm sets a single price at its plant and customers bear the cost of transport this paper answers this question for the cases in which firms adopt the bertrand or cournot conjectures concerning how rivals will react to price and output changes this question is important because of the superficial appeal of mill pricing which stems from its imitation of the spatial structure of marginal costs the presence of spatial price discrimination by contrast is often considered to be evidence of the presence of market power at least in part for these reasons the us robinson patman antitrust act and great britain s price commission favor mill pricing nevertheless spatial price discrimination remains ubiquitous in the us europe and japan greenhut 1981 the second question is how does the introduction of space into the original oligopoly models of cournot and bertrand change their results cournot

tenure security resource endowments and tree growing evidence from the amhara region of ethiopia we analyze roles of tenure insecurity and household endowments in explaining tree growing in ethiopia where farmers cannot sell or mortgage land and factor markets are imperfect unlike most other studies we use panel data and examine determinants of the decision and intensity of tree growing unlike other studies we compare the decision to keep trees and the decision to plant in the recent past the results suggest that land tenure insecurity influences the decision to grow trees but not the number of trees households grow household endowments time and location also explain tree growing by farmers

a robust linear approach for offering strategy of a hybrid electric energy company this paper presents a new approach for determining the day ahead bidding strategies of a large scale hybrid electric energy company the company has both energy generation and energy retailing businesses in a competitive electricity market demand response programs are also considered in the retail side of the company in order to hedge the risk of participation in wholesale market this paper introduces a max min bilevel mathematical programming with equilibrium constraint model for offering a strategy that manages the risk of uncertain forecasted rivals bids by robust optimization the max min bilevel model is converted to its equivalent single level optimization using karush kuhn tucker optimality conditions the duality theory is utilized to find the equivalent ordinary maximization model of the max min problem strong duality theory and big m method are also used to linearize the final model of offering strategy applicability of the proposed approach is shown by implementing it on the ieee 118 bus test system

a 100 year review of electricity policy in ireland 1916 2015 abstract over the past century ireland s electricity sector has undergone a significant transformation this paper documents the nation s struggle to build an electricity system to improve security of electricity supply through portfolio diversification and to promote indigenous energy sources this was a challenge for an electrically isolated island with little natural resources the paper also identifies the ineffective policy decisions that left ireland exposed to the 1970s energy crises the crises did however provide a clear impetus for focusing irish energy policy going forward the successful deployment and integration of large scale wind power was due to strong national and supranational policy decisions in 2015 ireland had the third highest wind energy share of national electricity demand 22 8 of all iea wind member countries the paper also traces ireland s transition through market reform regional fragmentation and looks onwards to the eu internal market for electricity in essence this paper provides a holistic view of the implications of various policy decisions on the electricity sector along with the stresses of external factors on the electricity market and should be useful for policy makers elsewhere faced with similar decisions

literacy and intrahousehold externalities abstract the size of the intrahousehold externality created when a literate household member provides literacy services to illiterate members is estimated in this paper using a model of children s height for age in papua new guinea this externality appears to be large these results support the use of a new measure of literacy developed by basu and foster 1998 to take account of the gains when illiterates live in households where at least one person is literate regional rankings change when the new measure of literacy is used suggesting that policies guided by the usual measure of adult literacy may overlook an important pathway for human development

linear complementarity models of nash cournot competition in bilateral and poolco power markets two cournot models of imperfect competition among electricity producers are formulated as mixed linear complementarity problems lcps and a simple example is presented to illustrate their application the two models simulate bilateral markets the models include a congestion pricing scheme for transmission but other transmission pricing approaches can also be represented in this framework the two models differ from each other in that one has no arbitrage between nodes of the network while in the other model arbitragers erase any noncost based differences in price the latter bilateral model turns out to be equivalent to a cournot model of a poolco the models differ from other cournot market models in that they include both of kirchhoff s laws via a dc approximation can include arbitragers possess unique solutions and are readily solved by efficient lcp algorithms the key assumption that permits their formulation as lcps is that each producer naively assumes that its output will not affect transmission prices

prices infrastructure household characteristics and child height household survey data from brazil matched with information collected at the municipio county level are used to examine the relation between parental characteristics primarily education community infrastructure and services and child height data are drawn from 2 sources informacoes basicas municipais 1974 is a periodic survey of 4000 municipios on infrastructure health and education services estudo nacional da despesa familiar 1974 75 is a household survey covering 37000 children under age 8 on income expenditure anthropometry and socio demographic characteristics local food price indices were derived from these data child height is significantly affected by local infrastructure particularly modern sewerage and piped water in urban areas and electricity in rural settings these effects are stronger for children over 2 those of better educated mothers and those in households spending more higher prices for dairy products and sugar are linked to lower urban child height and higher fish prices to lower rural child height significantly for children of illiterate mothers higher prices for meat and rice are associated with taller height possible because men usually eat these foods mothers with elementary schooling can counteract the effects of food prices on child height number of teachers is positively related to height in rural children numbers of nurses and of hospital beds is associated with shorter children suggesting that large hospitals locate in poor urban areas this study has succeeded in identifying some public investments that affect child health

renewable generation expansion under different support schemes a stochastic equilibrium approach abstract following the deregulation of electricity markets a current challenge of policy makers is to facilitate the transition to a sustainable power system at the highest welfare for society in this paper we investigate the efficiency of different support schemes such as a feed in tariff a feed in premium and tradable green certificates with respect to incentivizing the required investments in renewable generation we consider a number of generation expansion problems and formulate stochastic equilibrium models that account for uncertainty in demand and renewable supply the risk aversion of investors and the competitiveness of the market the problem of the policy maker is formulated as a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints mpec and as a non linear complementarity problem ncp for the feed in schemes and the certificate market respectively our models are solved for a small illustrative example and a larger case study based on the danish power system the results confirm that the main driver for the optimal choice of renewable support scheme is the aversion of power producers towards price and volume risk while the competitiveness of the market rarely affects such choice