a decomposition analysis of the trend in uk income inequality post war britain has experienced a number of dramatic demographic and social changes that have undoubtedly influenced the distribution of income there has been a rise in the number of pensioners whose incomes are relatively low a considerable increase in the number of young and old households living on their own and a remarkable expansion in the proportion of working wives the potential importance of these structural changes suggests that their impact on the income distribution needs to be examined systematically before any attempt can be made to interpret the observed trend in overall income inequality adequately the method usually adopted for this purpose attempts to create a comparable time series of distributions based on the structural characteristics pertaining in one particular year for example if we wished to investigate the effect of shifts in the age structure of the population this approach would disaggregate the distribution in one year tl and estimate what the distribution would have been like if the age structure had been the same as that observed in some other year to on the assumption that other distributional characteristics such as ageincome differentials and inequality within age groups remain invariant to this demographic change the comparison between the actual distribution at t1 and the constructed distribution at t1 with to s age structure is taken to indicate the impact of changes in the age structure over the period concerned this comparison can be presented in terms of quantile shares summary measures of inequality or the entire lorenz curves this approach known as shift share analysis or standardising the inequality series see semple i975 love and wolfson i976 dinwiddy and reed i977 royal commission i977 rowley and henderson i978 macleod and horner i980 is perfectly adequate for simple and straightforward structural changes when several changes are occurring simultaneously however it becomes difficult to identify the contribution of the individual factors and to assess their relative importance to the overall trend in inequality furthermore the combined impact of several structural influences will not in general sum up to the inequality change requiring explanation the purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative method of analysing

industrial shift skill mismatch and income inequality a decomposition analysis of changing distributions in the oslo region this paper examines changing income inequality in the oslo region between 1993 and 2000 adopting a decomposition approach the analysis reveals that both earnings inequality and post tax inequalit

trade policy in a growth model with technology gap dynamics and simulations for south africa we extend an open economy ramsey model to include the technology gap to the world technology frontier the setting is a middle income country with productivity growth driven by technology adoption and foreign capital goods stimulating spillover and catching up the interaction of technology adoption and capital accumulation generates prolonged transition growth and strengthens the growth effect of increased openness model simulations reproduce the changing openness in south africa 1960 2005 international sanctions and protectionism are represented by a calibrated tariff equivalent and the counterfactual elimination of the tariff equivalent shows large potential for gdp growth according to our preferred parameterization increased trade share by 10 points raises gdp level over time by about 12 separating the effects of openness between investment and productivity we find that almost 60 of the increase in gdp is due to increased productivity partly because of interaction with higher investment

fuel taxes an important instrument for climate policy abstract this article shows that fuel taxes serve a very important role for the environment and that we risk a backlash of increased emissions if they are abolished fuel taxes have restrained growth in fuel demand and associated carbon emissions although fuel demand is large and growing our analysis shows that it would have been much higher in the absence of domestic fuel taxes people often assert that fuel demand is inelastic but there is strong research evidence showing the opposite the price elasticity is in fact quite high but only in the long run in the short run it may be quite inelastic which has important implications for policy makers had europe not followed a policy of high fuel taxation but had low us taxes then fuel demand would have been twice as large hypothetical transport demand in the whole oecd area is calculated for various tax scenarios and the results show that fuel taxes are the single most powerful climate policy instrument implemented to date yet this fact is not usually given due attention in the debate

what are the key drivers of mac curves a partial equilibrium modelling approach for the uk marginal abatement cost mac curves are widely used for the assessment of costs related to co2 emissions reduction in environmental economics as well as domestic and international climate policy several meta analyses and model comparisons have previously been performed that aim to identify the causes for the wide range of mac curves most of these concentrate on general equilibrium models with a focus on aspects such as specific model type and technology learning while other important aspects remain almost unconsidered including the availability of abatement technologies and level of discount rates this paper addresses the influence of several key parameters on mac curves for the united kingdom and the year 2030 a technology rich energy system model uk markal is used to derive the mac curves the results of this study show that mac curves are robust even to extreme fossil fuel price changes while uncertainty around the choice of the discount rate the availability of key abatement technologies and the demand level were singled out as the most important influencing factors by using a different model type and studying a wider range of influencing factors this paper contributes to the debate on the sensitivity of mac curves

two decades of income inequality in britain the role of wages household earnings and redistribution we study earnings and income inequality in britain over the past two decades including the period of relatively inclusive growth from 1997 to 2004 and the great recession we focus on the middle 90 where trends have contrasted strongly with the new inequality at the very top household earnings inequality has risen driven by male earnings although a catch up of female earnings did hold down individual earnings inequality and reduce within household inequality nevertheless net household income inequality fell due to deliberate increases in redistribution the tax and transfer system s insurance role during the great recession falling household worklessness and rising pensioner incomes

has consumption inequality mirrored income inequality we revisit to what extent the increase in income inequality since 1980 was mirrored by consumption inequality we do so by constructing an alternative measure of consumption expenditure using a demand system to correct for systematic measurement error in the consumer expenditure survey our estimation exploits the relative expenditure of high and low income households on luxuries versus necessities this double differencing corrects for measurement error that can vary over time by good and income we find consumption inequality tracked income inequality much more closely than estimated by direct responses on expenditures jel d31 d63 e21

pareto models top incomes and recent trends in uk income inequality i determine uk income inequality levels and trends by combining inequality estimates from tax return data for the rich and household survey data for the non rich taking advantage of the better coverage of top incomes in tax return data which i demonstrate and creating income variables in the survey data with the same definitions as in the tax data to enhance comparability for top income recipients i estimate inequality and mean income by fitting pareto models to the tax data examining specification issues in depth notably whether to use pareto i or pareto ii generalized pareto models and the choice of income threshold above which the pareto models apply the preferred specification is a pareto ii model with a threshold set at the 99th or 95th percentile depending on year conclusions about aggregate uk inequality trends since the mid 1990s are robust to the way in which tax data are employed the gini coefficient for individual gross income rose by around 7 or 8 between 1996 7 and 2007 8 with most of the increase occurring after 2003 4 the corresponding estimate based wholly on the survey data is around 5

wage inequality in the labour years this paper studies changes in labour market inequality in the uk with particular reference to what happened to wage inequality during the years of labour government the analysis uses micro data through time to document what happened to overall wage inequality as well as upper and lower tail wage inequality relative to what went before simple supply and demand models of changing wage differentials by education group are used so as to consider the drivers of relative demand shifts in favour of the more educated that underpin rising wage inequality the changing role of labour market institutions is also discussed and in particular the decline of unionization and the importance of the introduction of the national minimum wage in 1999 for the evolution of lower tail wage inequality

the distribution of ncome in the uk and oecd countries in the twentieth century distributional changes are an important part of the economic history of the oecd countries over the twentieth century in the uk income inequality in the 1970s was substantially lower than 40 years earlier and is now much higher than in 1979 the pattern of change in the usa has similarities to that in the uk but other countries have exhibited significant differences in order to explain diversity of experience over time and differences in income inequality across countries today we need to recognize that the distribution of income is subject to a variety of forces affecting earnings wealth and income these forces include the policy choices made by governments affecting market incomes and fiscal redistribution what we need to explain is why in some periods a number of these forces combine to produce episodes of rising or falling inequality any single theory such as that based on a global shift of demand away from unskilled workers cannot provide a fully adequate explanation

measuring the trends in inequality of individuals and families income and consumption we present evidence on the level of and trend in inequality from 1985 2010 in the united states using disposable income and consumption for a sample of individuals from the consumer expenditure ce survey differing from the findings in other recent research we find that the trends in income and consumption inequality are broadly similar between 1985 and 2006 but diverge during the great recession with consumption inequality decreasing and income inequality increasing given the differences in the trends in inequality in the last four years using both income and consumption provides useful information

extreme wage inequality pay at the very top we provide new evidence on the growth in pay at the very top of the wage distribution in the united kingdom sectoral decompositions show that workers in the financial sector have accounted for the majority of the gains at the top over the last decade new results are also presented on the pay of ceos in the united kingdom we show how improved measurement of pay points to a stronger pay performance link than previously estimated this link is stronger and more symmetric for those firms in which institutional investors play a larger role

import substitution and economic growth abstract despite latin america s dismal performance between the 1950s and 1980s the region experienced strong capital deepening we suggest that these facts can be explained as a consequence of the restrictive trade regime adopted at that time our framework is based on a dynamic heckscher ohlin model with scale economies in the capital intensive sector initially the economy is open and produces only the labor intensive good the trade regime is modeled as a move to a closed economy the model produces results consistent with the latin american experience specifically a sufficiently small country experiences no long run income growth but an increase in capital

accounting for inequality trends decomposition analyses for the uk 1971 86 eight explanations for uk income inequality trends between 1971 and 1986 are assessed by pooling evidence from inequality index decompositions by population sub group and by income source the principal causes of the aggregate trends were a mixture of changes in earnings inequality employment structure and unemployment but this mixture changed over time the impact of wage inequality changes on income inequality changes fell during the 1970s and 1980s reflecting the secular decline in the importance of employment earnings for household income packages unemployment changes had their largest impact at the start of the 1980s between 1981 and 1986 self employment income changes appear to have had the largest influence

consumption and income inequality and the great recession abstract we examine changes in consumption and income inequality between 2000 and 2011 during the most recent recession unemployment rose and asset values declined sharply we investigate how the recession affected inequality while addressing concerns about underreporting in consumption data income inequality rose throughout the period from 2000 to 2011 the 90 10 ratio was 19 percent higher at the end of this period than at the beginning in contrast consumption inequality rose during the first half of this period but then fell after 2005 by 2011 the 90 10 ratio for consumption was slightly lower than it was in 2000

will a radical transport pricing reform jeopardize the ambitious eu climate change objectives abstract this paper examines the effects of replacing current fuel taxes by a system of taxes that account better for all the different external costs of the different transport modes one of the important implications of this reform is that current fuel taxes are decreased to a level of 80 euro ton of co 2 but that the mileage related taxes on car and truck use increase using the tremove model for the transport sector of 31 european countries one finds that the volume of transport will decrease because current taxes on transport are too low compared to overall external costs overall co 2 emissions will decrease slightly using the markal times model for the belgian energy sector putting all sectors and technologies on equal footing shows that a fuel tax reform makes that it is not cost efficient to require large co 2 emission reductions in the transport sector and that traditional car technologies will continue to dominate the car market in 2020 2030

consumption inequality and family labor supply we examine the link between wage and consumption inequality using a life cycle model incorporating consumption and family labor supply decisions we derive analytical expressions for the dynamics of consumption hours and earnings of two earners in the presence of correlated wage shocks nonseparability progressive taxation and asset accumulation the model is estimated using panel data for hours earnings assets and consumption we focus on family labor supply as an insurance mechanism and find strong evidence of smoothing of permanent wage shocks once family labor supply assets and taxes are properly accounted for there is little evidence of additional insurance jel d12 d14 d91 j22 j31

automatic stabilizers and economic crisis us vs europe this paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the eu and the us to provide income insurance through automatic stabilization in the recent economic crisis we find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 of a proportional income shock in the eu compared to 32 in the us in the case of an unemployment shock 47 of the shock is absorbed in the eu compared to 34 in the us this cushioning of disposable income leads to a demand stabilization of up to 30 in the eu and up to 20 in the us there is large heterogeneity within the eu automatic stabilizers in eastern and southern europe are much lower than in central and northern european countries we also investigate whether countries with weak automatic stabilizers have enacted larger fiscal stimulus programs

trade as a threshold variable for multiple regimes abstract this paper employs the data sorting method developed by hansen econometrica 68 2000 575 which allows the data to endogenously select regimes using different variables it is shown that openness as measured by the trade share to gdp is a threshold variable that can cluster middle income countries into two distinct regimes that obey different statistical models our result suggests that openness may not be as crucial in the growth process of low and high income countries but it is instrumental in identifying middle income countries into high and low growth groups

does britain or the united states have the right gasoline tax this paper develops an analytical framework to assess the second best optimal level of gasoline taxation taking into account unpriced pollution congestion and accident externalities as well as interactions with the broader fiscal system we provide calculations of the optimal taxes for the us and the uk under a variety of parameter scenarios under our central parameter values the second best optimal gasoline tax is 1 01 gal for the us and 1 34 gal for the uk current tax rates are much lower than this in the us and higher in the uk the calculations are moderately sensitive to alternative parameter assumptions the congestion externality is the largest component in both nations revenue raising needs also play a significant role as do accident externalities and local air pollution potential welfare gains from reducing the current uk tax rate are estimated at nearly one fourth the production cost of all gasoline used in the uk even larger gains could be achieved by switching to a tax on vehicle miles with equal revenue yield for the us the welfare gains from optimizing the gasoline tax are smaller but those from switching to an optimal tax on vehicle miles are very large

regulation by prices quantities or both a review of instrument choice choosing appropriate policy instruments is an important part of successful regulation once objectives are agreed and suitable targets adopted policy makers can employ command and control regulation and or economic instruments and choose between fixing a price or a quantity this paper examines the relative advantages of price quantity and hybrid instruments according to their efficiency under uncertainty the trade off between credible commitment and flexibility implementation international considerations and political economy various illustrations of the theory are provided with two detailed applications to climate change and transport policy specifically congestion and safety pricing

climate policies for road transport revisited ii closing the policy gap with cap and trade current policies in the road transport sector fail to deliver consistent and efficient incentives for greenhouse gas abatement see companion article by creutzig et al in press market based instruments such as cap and trade systems close this policy gap and complement traditional policies that are required where specific market failures arise even in presence of strong existing non market policies cap and trade delivers additional abatement and efficiency by incentivizing demand side abatement options this paper analyzes generic design options and economic impacts of including the european road transport sector into the eu ets suitable points of regulation are up and midstream in the fuel chain to ensure effectiveness cover all emissions and avoid double counting efficiency incentivize all abatement options and low transaction costs based on year 2020 marginal abatement cost curves from different models and current eu climate policy objectives we show that in contrast to conventional wisdom road transport inclusion would not change the eu ets allowance price hence industrial carbon leakage induced by adding road transport to the eu ets may be less important than previously estimated

marginal abatement costs of co2 emission reductions geographical flexibility and concrete ceilings an assessment using the poles model abstract the kyoto protocol envisage the setting up of flexibility mechanisms allowing annex b countries to fulfil their commitments to reducing greenhouse gases with respect for the principle of economic efficiency the current negotiations relate in particular to the possibility of setting up a system of tradable emissions permits for annex b countries and also of introducing ceilings to trade this paper analyses the stakes and economic potential of adopting this instrument both for those countries that made commitments in kyoto and for developing countries it is based on a formal approach that allows for a consistent framework of analysis the emission permit market is in fact simulated on the basis of a reference scenario and of marginal abatement cost curves and estimated by the poles model after analysing these marginal abatement cost curves and comparing them with those produced by other models we explore two different configurations for a competitive market a market limited to the annex b countries and a world market the results produced by the model show that widening the market to include developing countries is more effective than the annex b market solution it reduces the cost of implementing kyoto for oecd countries and at the same time allows the countries of the south to benefit from selling the permits this research also shows that introducing restrictions on exchanges for annex b countries could have a counter productive redistribution effect with the ethical argument that underlies that particular measure

top incomes in the long run of history a recent literature has constructed top income shares time series over the long run for more than twenty countries using income tax statistics top incomes represent a small share of the population but a very significant share of total income and total taxes paid hence aggregate economic growth per capita and gini inequality indexes are sensitive to excluding or including top incomes we discuss the estimation methods and issues that arise when constructing top income share series including income definition and comparability over time and across countries tax avoidance and tax evasion we provide a summary of the key empirical findings most countries experience a dramatic drop in top income shares in the first part of the twentieth century in general due to shocks to top capital incomes during the wars and depression shocks top income shares do not recover in the immediate postwar decades however over the last thirty years top income shares have increased substantially in english speaking countries and in india and china but not in continental european countries or japan this increase is due in part to an unprecedented surge in top wage incomes as a result wage income comprises a larger fraction of top incomes than in the past finally we discuss the theoretical and empirical models that have been proposed to account for the facts and the main questions that remain open

bankers and their bonuses we analyse the role of financial sector workers in the huge rise of the share of earnings going to those at the very top of the pay distribution in the uk rising bankers bonuses accounted for two thirds of the increase in the share of the top 1 after 1999 surprisingly bankers share of earnings showed no decline between the peak of the financial boom in 2007 and 2011 three years after the global crisis began nor did bankers relative employment position deteriorate over this period we discuss proposed policy responses such as transparency bonus clawbacks numerical bonus targets and tax

endogenous aggregate elasticity of substitution abstract in the literature studying aggregate economies the aggregate elasticity of substitution aes between capital and labor is often treated as a constant or deep parameter this view contrasts with the conjecture put forward by arrow et al 1961 capital labor substitution and economic efficiency review of economics and statistics 43 225 250 that aes evolves over time and changes with the process of economic development this paper evaluates this conjecture in a simple dynamic multi sector growth model in which aes is endogenously determined our findings support the conjecture and in particular demonstrate that aes tends to be positively related to the state of economic development a result consistent with recent empirical findings

marginal abatement cost curves for policy recommendation a method for energy system analysis abstract the transport sector is seen as one of the key factors for driving future energy consumption and greenhouse gas ghg emissions in order to rank possible measures marginal abatement cost curves have become a tool to graphically represent the relationship between abatement costs and emission reduction this paper demonstrates how to derive marginal abatement cost curves for well to wheel ghg emissions of the transport sector considering the full energy provision chain and the interlinkages and interdependencies within the energy system presented marginal abatement cost curves visualize substitution effects between measures for different marginal mitigation costs the analysis makes use of an application of the energy system model generator times for south africa times geeco for the example of gauteng province this study exemplary shows that the transport sector is not the first sector to address for cost efficient reduction of ghg emissions however the analysis also demonstrates that several options are available to mitigate transport related ghg emissions at comparable low marginal abatement costs this methodology can be transferred to other economic sectors as well as to other regions in the world to derive cost efficient ghg reduction strategies

the fundamentals of the future international emissions trading system the study aims to analyze the sectoral marginal abatements cost curves for a number of eu countries as well as to examine the efficiency aspects and the economic impacts for the major sectors of the ets under different carbon market configurations in 2010 and 2020 to produce a consistent and realistic assessment we employ sources such as ghg national inventories naps and poles world energy model to constitute the sectoral base year and 2010 2020 emission levels in different countries and regions we then use the market analysis tool aspen which enables to derive supply and demand from sectoral maccs produced with the poles model and to evaluate the economic impacts on the carbon market participants the paper shows that in compliance with the kyoto targets the benefits of an enlarged carbon market are significant since more than 50 of the abatement in the short term have to be achieved in ets sectors which may indeed use cdm or ji credits a second major conclusion is that in 2020 the new flexibility margins provided by the adjustment of investments in new capacities compensate for the increase in pressure towards stronger emission reductions this reduces the relative importance of the enlarged carbon market

the eu 20 20 2020 targets an overview of the emf22 assessment three computable general equilibrium models are used to estimate the economic implications of a stylized version of eu climate policy if implemented at the lowest possible cost the 20 emissions reduction would lead to a welfare loss of 0 5 2 0 by 2020 second best policies increase costs a policy with two carbon prices one for the ets one for the non ets could increase costs by up to 50 a policy with 28 carbon prices one for the ets one each for each member state could increase costs by another 40 the renewables standard could raise the costs of emissions reduction by 90 overall the inefficiencies in policy lead to a cost that is 100 125 too high the models differ greatly in the detail of their results the ets non ets split may have a negligible impact on welfare while the renewables standard may even improve welfare the models agree however that the distortions introduced by total eu package imply a substantial welfare loss over and above the costs needed to meet the climate target the marginal total and excess costs reported here are notably higher than those in the impact assessment of the european commission

renewable energy sector in belarus a review abstract belarus by faces broad needs for energy security enhancement energy diversification and improvements in the state of the environment being the 13th largest importer of natural gas for energy by has very limited energy resources of its own maximum reduction of energy imports is among the strategic tasks of raising the efficiency of belarus economy the task fulfillment is possible through creation of a national infrastructure conductive to increasing the share of local and renewable sources of energy res in heat and power energy production by s geographic location has several advantages for extensive use of most of the renewable energy re and bioenergy sources however information on existing re sector for the second largest landlocked country in europe is still hardly awailable for a wider audience of researchers working in the field of economic environmental political planning and social aspects of energy supply in global proportions the review on the renewable energy sector in by so far has tried to give the background for res to describe their occurrence and conditions for using them leading up to a discussion of the role of renewable energy in current and future energy systems depending on a path of economic transition social values availability and economic rules used to judge the viability of competing solutions to ensure a simple comprehensible and transparent presentation of the different available options of using re for the provision of heat and power the individual chapters describing the various renewable energy potentials and contribution options have been similarly structured whenever possible and sensible

the applicability of marginal abatement cost approach a comprehensive review abstract the marginal abatement cost mac methodology is widely used in climate change policies policy makers rely on mac to assess feasible strategies and related costs to achieve emission reduction goals this paper introduces a variety of mac methodologies aiming at solving diverse problems which utilizes various calculable logic thus producing different results and implications this study applies a mind mapping method to capture differentiation of mac methods and systematically classify mac methodologies the applicability path analysis was proposed based on principles such as stakeholder type decision making objectives cost concept strategy mode and information scope our goal is to assess the applicability of different methodologies to reduce misuse by policy makers and to serve as a guide for subsequent research which might prompt and lead to the derivation of more consequential results in future studies the results of this study suggest that the complex method is not always better than the simplified method because policy makers are required to select the appropriate method according to the type of information needed it may even be suggested that mac could be reliable by ranking relative value of options compared with baseline rather than focusing on the absolute value of individual measures

on the output effects of barriers to trade we study the macroeconomic effects of international trade policy by integrating a hecksher ohlin trade model into an optimal growth framework the model predicts that a more open economy will have higher factor productivity furthermore there is a selective development trap to which countries may or may not converge depending on policy income at the development trap falls as trade barriers increase hence cross country differences in barriers to trade may help explain the dispersion of per capita income observed across countries the effects are quantified and we show that protectionism can explain a relevant fraction of tfp and long run income differentials across countries we study the effects of international trade policy on output to do so we analyze a standard neoclassical growth model where countries can trade intermediate goods the markets of these goods are structured as in the also standard hecksher ohlin trade model thus trade happens owing to comparative advantage which emerges from differences in factor endowments across countries 2 we focus on the case of a small price taking economy one can solve for equilibrium sequentially first each period s output and trade can be treated as a static problem and its solution can be summarized by a mapping from capital and labor to the output of the final good then using that endogenous mapping as if it were an exogenous production function one can solve the intertemporal decisions of agents in the economy in that way a potentially complex dynamic trade problem is avoided it turns out that the equilibrium mapping linking inputs and final output is affected by tariffs as the gains from trade impact not only welfare but also the availability and price of intermediate inputs and hence productivity

automobile externalities and policies this paper discusses the nature and magnitude of externalities associated with automobile use including local and global pollution oil dependence traffic congestion and traffic accidents it then discusses current federal policies affecting these externalities including fuel taxes fuel economy and emissions standards and alternative fuel policies summarizing insofar as possible the welfare effects of those policies finally we discuss emerging pricing policies including congestion tolls and insurance reform and summarize the appropriate combination of policies to address automobile externalities

bringing income distribution in from the cold the title of this presidential address is chosen to highlight the way in which the subject of income distribution has in the past been marginalised for much of this century it has been very much out in the cold there are signs that in the 1990s it is being welcomed back and i shall be referring to recent research but i would like to use this occasion to give further impetus to the re incorporation of income distribution into the main body of economic analysis this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

a tale of two market failures technology and environmental policy abstract market failures associated with environmental pollution interact with market failures associated with the innovation and diffusion of new technologies these combined market failures provide a strong rationale for a portfolio of public policies that foster emissions reduction as well as the development and adoption of environmentally beneficial technology both theory and empirical evidence suggest that the rate and direction of technological advance is influenced by market and regulatory incentives and can be cost effectively harnessed through the use of economic incentive based policy in the presence of weak or nonexistent environmental policies investments in the development and diffusion of new environmentally beneficial technologies are very likely to be less than would be socially desirable positive knowledge and adoption spillovers and information problems can further weaken innovation incentives while environmental technology policy is fraught with difficulties a long term view suggests a strategy of experimenting with policy approaches and systematically evaluating their success

how to deal with the rebound effect a policy oriented approach policy makers and environmental agencies have echoed concerns brought forward by academics about the need to address the rebound effect for achieving absolute energy and environmental decoupling however such concerns have generally not been translated into tangible policy action the reasons behind this inaction are not fully understood and much remains unknown about the status of the rebound effect issue on the policy agenda and policy pathways available such knowledge gaps may hamper the development of effective policies to address this issue in this paper we examine the extent to and ways in which the rebound effect is considered in policy documents and analyse thirteen specific policy pathways for rebound mitigation the effectiveness of the pathways is scrutinised and conclusions are offered to mitigate rebound effects the main policy conclusions of the paper are that an appropriate policy design and policy mix are key to avoiding undesired outcomes such as the creation of additional rebound effects and environmental trade offs from the discussion economy wide cap and trade systems as well as energy and carbon taxes when designed appropriately emerge as the most effective policies in setting a ceiling for emissions and addressing energy use across the economy

returns to investment in education a global update the author updates compilations of rate of return estimates to investment in education published since 1985 and discusses methodological issues surrounding those estimates some key patterns among the three main levels of education primary education continues to exhibit the highest social profitability in all world regions private returns are considerably higher than social returns because of the public subsidization of education the degree of public subsidy increases with the level of education which is regressive social and private returns at all levels generally decline by the level of a country s per capita income overall the returns to female education are higher than those to male education but at individual levels of education the pattern is more mixed the returns to the academic secondary school track are higher than the vocational track since unit cost of vocational education is much higher and the returns for those who work in the private competitive sector of the economy are higher than in the public noncompetitive sector and the returns in the self employment unregulated sector of the economy are higher than in the dependent employment sector controversies in the literature are discussed in the light of the new evidence the undisputable and universal positive correlation between education and earnings can be interpreted in many ways the causation issue on whether education really affects earnings can be answered only with experimental data generated by randomly exposing different people to various amounts of education given the fact that moral and pragmatic considerations prevent the generation of such pure data researchers have to make do with indirect inferences or natural experiments some have been attempted the author looks at the research on overeducation or surplus schooling the conclusions reinforce earlier patterns they confirm that primary education continues to be the number one investment priority in developing countries they also show that educating females is marginally more profitable than educating males that the academic secondary school curriculum is a better investment than the technical vocational tract and that the returns to education obey the same rules as investment in conventional capital that is they decline as investment is expanded