state dependent pricing invoicing currency and exchange rate pass through abstract we analyze exchange rate pass through and volatility of import prices in a dynamic framework where firms are subject to menu costs and decide on price adjustments in response to exchange rate innovations the exchange rate pass through and import price volatility then depend on the invoicing currency in combination with functional forms of cost and demand functions in particular there is lower pass through less frequent price adjustments and lower price volatility when prices are set in the importer s currency than when prices are set in the exporter s currency

indonesian agricultural development in comparative perspective abstract in both the late colonial and the early post independence periods most observers of the indonesian economy were pessimistic about the prospects for agricultural and especially foodcrop growth but over the last 15 years food production growth in indonesia has been among the fastest in the world this paper examines the reasons for the accelerated growth and reviews some of the literature on its distributive consequences comparisons are made with other episodes of accelerated agricultural growth in recent asian history especially that of meiji japan it is shown that there are remarkable similarities between agricultural development indicators in indonesia in the 1960s and 1970s and those in meiji japan the challenge for indonesian policy makers in the future will be to build on the agricultural successes of the past two decades in order to create a more diversified economy and ensure sustained economic development

should renewable energy policy be renewable political flexibility brings about trade offs for policy makers aiming to support the deployment of renewable energy sources res on the one hand it allows incorporating new information on ex ante uncertain benefits and costs of res policy on the other hand it may deter res investments this paper scrutinizes how these trade offs play out economically and politically when res policy makers choose the degree of flexibility as well as the instruments to implement flexibility the analysis builds on a theoretical framework distinguishing between flexibility by design and by adjustment it is complemented by a discussion of three case studies res support schemes in germany and the united kingdom and the eu emissions trading scheme theoretical as well as empirical results suggest that the politically chosen degree of flexibility by policy design may be sub optimally low in contrast flexibility by policy adjustment is often excessively high

gains from an integrated market for tradable renewable energy credits abstract decoupling the environmental attributes of renewable energy re generation from the physical unit of energy is an innovative mechanism for marketing green or renewable power the introduction of tradable renewable energy credits trecs allows the green power attributes of energy to be sold or traded separately from the physical unit of energy since the green power certificate system removes potential locational and physical bottlenecks both suppliers and consumers gain flexibility in the marketplace the trec is also an efficient tool to meet renewable portfolio standard rps required by different states in the us this paper discusses the rps requirements for different states and examines the implications of an integrated trec market it offers a competitive setting to the consumers to pay for renewable energy and a cost effective tool to support renewable energy generation grace and wiser 2002 this paper also highlights some practical difficulties that should be addressed in order to establish an efficient integrated trec market

supplementing an emissions tax by a feed in tariff for renewable electricity to address learning spillovers abstract in the presence of learning spillovers related to renewable energy technologies an optimal strategy to mitigate climate change should complement an emissions tax by a subsidy for renewables this article addresses the question how such subsidy should be designed it is shown that the widely used approach of a revenue neutral fixed feed in tariff can yield an optimal outcome under restrictive conditions only it has to be adapted continuously as the electricity price changes moreover funding the tariff by a surcharge on the electricity price has important implications for the design of the emission tax the optimal tax rate has to be below the pigovian level differentiated across fossil fuels and adapted over time as the patterns of technological development change these requirements may pose a formidable challenge for practical decision making however it is important to point out that the eventual choices made with respect to the design and funding of a feed in tariff have to be based on a careful and more comprehensive policy assessment including inter alia economic effects beyond the electricity sector and existing institutional constraints

financial services for microenterprises principles and institutions abstract this article argues for the use of a financial systems approach in the provision of financial services to the poor the experience of the last decade has produced a successful technology for credit delivery that utilizes sound financial principles as its basis that is understanding the needs of the client increasing efficiency by cutting administrative costs and using various techniques to motivate repayment savings receives equal emphasis as a financial service and several principles for its provision are discussed the institutional dimensions behind this approach focus on the need to achieve self sufficiency which the article frames as a four stage process finally the article outlines various factors related to creating financial institutions that reach the poor and the policy implications that these suggest

evaluating the economic impact of a special credit programme kik kmkp in indonesia this article discusses a study of the economic impact of indonesia s kik kmkp programme of special credits for small scale enterprises our major focus is on how to measure economic impact it discusses the concept of impact the survey design the statistical framework and the practical problems of implementation and briefly summarises the findings we believe that our methodology generated reasonably reliable data and fundamentally sound estimates of the credit programme s direct impact on employment output and income

eu renewable energy support policy faith or facts the recent eu commission proposal for promoting the supply of power from renewable energy sources was originally based on a pan european harmonised tradable green certificate tgc scheme we suggest on the basis of a multi disciplinary analysis that a pan eu tgc system is not the way forward for europe it is vital that the commission and the majority of member states avoids implementation of such policy designs put forward by a coalition of vested interests they should instead look at and act upon the available evidence from those countries that have experimented with tgcs e g flanders uk and sweden and design policies that stand a better chance of meeting the criteria of effectiveness efficiency and equity in particular the policies must enable eu to meet the immense innovation industrialisation challenge by inducing the development of a capital goods industry that can eventually diffuse a broad range of technologies that use renewable energy sources only then we can acquire an ability to implement an industrial revolution in the energy system in a way that broadly meets the criteria of effectiveness and dynamic efficiency

carbon trading in the policy mix the kyoto protocol is stimulating the development of emissions trading schemes at the national and international levels these are being introduced alongside existing policy instruments such as carbon taxes and negotiated agreements leading to complex problems of policy interaction but the topic of policy interaction remains under researched this paper aims to improve understanding of such interactions by examining the conditions under which a cap and trade scheme for carbon dioxide emissions may usefully coexist with carbon energy taxes support mechanisms for renewable electricity and policies to promote energy efficiency the paper argues that each of these instrument combinations may be acceptable provided they contribute to either improving the static or dynamic efficiency of the trading scheme or delivering other valued policy objectives but since the coexisting instruments may raise overall abatement costs while contributing nothing further to emission reductions the objectives and trade offs within the policy mix must be explicit

national environmental targets and international emission reduction instruments according to the agreed burden sharing within the european union the overall eu emission reduction target as agreed by in the kyoto protocol is converted into national greenhouse gas reduction targets for each of the member states in parallel with national emission reduction initiatives common eu policies for emission reductions are considered currently discussed is the introduction of a market for tradable permits for co2 emissions to achieve emission reductions within the power industry and other energy intensive industries in parallel with this markets for green certificates to deploy renewable energy technologies seem to be appearing in a number of countries among these denmark italy sweden belgium flanders england and australia although these national initiatives for a green certificate market are fairly different they could be a starting point for establishing a common eu certificate market but interactions between national targets for greenhouse gas emissions and these international instruments for emission reduction are not a trivial matter especially not seen in relation to the possible contributions of these instruments in achieving national ghg reduction targets the paper is split into three parts all taking a liberalised power market as starting point the first part discusses the consequences of a general deployment of renewable energy technologies using planning initiatives or national promotion schemes feed in tariffs in the second part an international green certificate market is introduced into the liberalised power market context substituting other national promotion schemes finally in the third part a combination of an international green certificate market tgc and an international emission trading scheme for co2 is analysed within the liberalised international power market set up the main conclusion is that neither the use of national renewable support schemes nor the introduction of a tgc market into a liberalised power market can be recommended if these initiatives efficiently are expected to contribute in achieving the national co2 reduction targets countries most ambitious in implementing renewable energy technologies will only partly be gaining the co2 reduction benefits themselves the ambitious countries will support the less ambitious ones in achieving their ghg reduction targets finally in a tgc market context the most ambitious countries to fulfil their tgc quotas will have to buy certificates from the less ambitious ones although this only contributes to fulfilling a national target for renewable development not in reaching their national co2 reduction targets however a combination of an international tradable permits market and a green certificate market is seen to be efficient in contributing in achieving the national co2 reduction targets if a close co ordination of the two instruments is undertaken at least at the national level when the green power production is increased the tradable permits quota should be decreased correspondingly otherwise the expected co2 reductions will not contribute by the full value in achieving the national targets for greenhouse gas reductions thus if it is a prerequisite that renewable power contributes to achieving national ghg reduction targets then the combination of these two markets might be the right solution

cost structure and technical change in rural banking abstract using the multi product translog cost function this paper examines the cost structure and technical change occurring within the novel ghanaian rural banks the results of the seemingly unrelated error components model indicate substantial unexploited economies of scale in individual products as well as in overall intermediation there is presence of pairwise complementarity between loans and government securities and between deposits and government securities but absence of pairwise complementarity between loans and deposits overall capital using and labour saving technical change has occurred but efficiency loss in deposit mobilization outweighs the efficiency gains in government securities and lending activities operation of agencies reinforces the overall efficiency loss the rural banks must not be hindered from expanding but in any growth strategy deposit mobilization should take a central position and the cost of operating agencies watched closely

supporting renewable energy on liberalised markets green electricity between additionality and consumer sovereignty abstract the german feed in regulation has been perhaps the most effective promotional policy for green electricity however with the growing momentum of the liberalisation process the current regulation is challenged by structural problems about how to address the demand side price regulation lefts only little room for private green electricity market activities moreover the success of the feed in regulation depends on a strict differentiation of the political segment and the emerging green electricity markets the question therefore is about the role green electricity markets can or should perform in general in order to evaluate green electricity markets the additionality criteria is frequently used implying that markets are only desirable if they lead to additional environmental effects the additionality criteria has two implications first transformed into individual behaviour additionality implies that consumers are assumed to act as pure altruists however there is evidence from empirical studies that green electricity consumers behave more as impure altruists they are not so much interested in the objective environmental impact of their behaviour but more objected to receive a private satisfaction from buying an environmental friendly product whereas theoretical models in the case of pure altruism suggest that private activities crowd out totally when policy becomes active in supporting the public good this crowding out disappears in the case of impure altruism second using end state criteria such as the additionality principle as pre condition and neglecting process criteria such as consumer sovereignty means to prevent establishing competitive market process right at the outset in principle

the feasibility of 100 renewable electricity systems a response to critics abstract the rapid growth of renewable energy re is disrupting and transforming the global energy system especially the electricity industry as a result supporters of the politically powerful incumbent industries and others are critiquing the feasibility of large scale electricity generating systems based predominantly on re part of this opposition is manifest in the publication of incorrect myths about renewable electricity relec in scholarly journals popular articles media websites blogs and statements by politicians the aim of the present article is to use current scientific and engineering theory and practice to refute the principal myths it does this by showing that large scale electricity systems that are 100 renewable 100relec including those whose renewable sources are predominantly variable e g wind and solar pv can be readily designed to meet the key requirements of reliability security and affordability it also argues that transition to 100relec could occur much more rapidly than suggested by historical energy transitions it finds that the main critiques published in scholarly articles and books contain factual errors questionable assumptions important omissions internal inconsistencies exaggerations of limitations and irrelevant arguments some widely publicised critiques select criteria that are inappropriate and or irrelevant to the assessment of energy technologies ignore studies whose results contradict arguments in the critiques and fail to assess the sum total of knowledge provided collectively by the published studies on 100relec but instead demand that each individual study address all the critiques inappropriate criteria we find that the principal barriers to 100relec are neither technological nor economic but instead are primarily political institutional and cultural

microenterprise credit programs deja vu abstract microenterprises in low income countries are the target of an increasing number of credit programs these efforts resemble earlier problematic attempts to assist operators of small farms with credit similarities discussed include target group definition assumptions policies and project justifications authors go on to list a dozen lessons from the experience with small farmer credit that might apply to microenterprise credit efforts authors then conclude that debt is not an effective tool for helping most poor people to enchance their economic conditions be they operators of small farms or microenterprises

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

optimal regulation of renewable energy a comparison of feed in tariffs and tradable green certificates in the spanish electricity system abstract incentives for renewable energy based on feed in tariffs have succeeded in achieving high levels of renewable installed capacity however these incentives have not been responsive to market conditions or price signals imposing in some cases a great financial burden on consumers when renewable energy sources reached significant levels a way out of this problem could be a market mechanism where incentives respond to the level of investment on renewables we explore this issue comparing a regulatory system based on tradable green certificates able to react to market changes to a feed in tariffs incentive scheme we model the strategic interaction between participants in the electricity pool and the tradable green certificates market and focus on the optimal regulation for the retailer segment which generates the desired demand for green certificates as a decreasing function of the certificate price we then calibrate our theoretical model with data from the spanish electricity system for the period 2008 2013 simulations show that a green certificate scheme could both achieve the 2020 targets for renewable electricity and reduce regulatory costs however the role of regulators is still important since setting the right target for renewable electricity affects the cost burden of the system

a techno economic analysis of eu renewable electricity policy pathways in 2030 the aim of this paper is to assess several pathways of a harmonised european policy framework for supporting renewable electricity res e in a 2030 horizon according to different criteria the pathways combine two main dimensions degrees of harmonisation and instruments and design elements a quantitative model based analysis with the green x model is provided the results of the simulations show that there are small differences between the evaluated cases regarding effectiveness all the policy pathways score similarly with respect to res e deployment i e with different degrees of harmonisation and whether using a feed in tariff a feed in premium a quota system with banding or a quota without banding scheme in contrast the policy costs clearly differ across the pathways but the differences can mostly be attributed to the instruments rather than to the degrees of harmonisation this is also the case with other criteria static and dynamic efficiency and the socioeconomic and environmental benefits in terms of co2 emissions and fossil fuels avoided both the degree of harmonisation and the choice of instrument influence the distribution of support costs across countries finally our findings suggest that keeping strengthened national support leads to similar results to other policy pathways

rural financial markets in developing countries their use and abuse until recently the use of agricultural credit as a developmental tool seemed clear and straightforward most concerned people believed that increases in the volume of cheap credit were necessary to boost agricultural production and that the rural poor could be brought into the mainstream of development through supervised credit programs it seemed that certain ideal types of rural credit institutions offered the promise of meeting farmers credit needs and that experience in the industrialized countries with cooperatives and specialized agricultural finance institutions could be effectively transplanted to low income countries this collection of readings highlights facets of rural financial markets that have often been neglected in discussions of agricultural credit in developing countries it moves beyond a narrow concern with the simple provision of credit to a broad consideration of the performance of rural financial markets and of ways to improve the quality and range of financial services for low income farmers it reflects new thinking on the design administration evaluation and policy framework of rural finance and credit programs in developing countries

wavelet based test of co movement and causality between oil and renewable energy stock prices abstract we studied co movement and causality between oil and renewable energy stock prices using continuous and discrete wavelets firstly to obtain information on dynamic correlations over time and for different time scales from wavelet coherence and secondly to obtain information on linear and non linear granger causality in the time frequency domain for general and sectoral renewable energy indices for the period 2006 2015 our findings indicate that dependence between oil and renewable energy returns in the short run was weak but gradually strengthened towards the long run mainly for the period 2008 2012 our causality tests provide evidence against linear causality at higher frequencies and in favour of unidirectional and bidirectional linear causality at lower frequencies in contrast we found consistent evidence of non linear causality running from renewable energy indices to oil prices at different time horizons and mixed evidence of causality running from oil to renewable energy prices these results have potential implications for investors in terms of hedging and for policymakers in terms of policy support decisions regarding the development of renewable energy

renewable energy policies in europe converging or diverging abstract nations today are urgently challenged with achieving a significant increase in the deployment of renewable energies in europe that need has given rise to a debate about the most effective and efficient support strategy whilst the different interests debate whether full european harmonisation or strengthening of national support policies for electricity from renewable energy sources res e is the best way forward individual national support schemes are rapidly evolving this study investigates how the eu member states have applied support policy types over the last decade by identifying predominant developments in the application of feed in tariffs premiums tradeable green certificates tax incentives investment grants and financing support for specific technologies wind biomass pv this study shows that europe is currently experiencing certain tendencies towards a bottom up convergence of how national policy makers design res e policy supports while some outliers remain the policy supports of most countries become more similar in the policy types applied dominance of feed in tariffs and in their scope of implementation differentiation for installation sizes and stacking of multiple instruments these trends in national decision making which show tendencies of convergence could make an eu driven top down harmonisation of support either dispensable or at least depending on the agreement less controversial

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

carbon mitigation in the electric power sector under cap and trade and renewables policies in europe co2 emissions from the electric power sector and energy intensive industries are capped under a cap and trade system i e the eu ets when other indirect measures are taken to impact emissions in a specific sector under the cap such as a push for renewables in the electric power sector this has implications on the overall allowance price and on co2 emissions both from this specific sector and the other sectors under the cap the central contribution of this paper is the derivation of impact curves which describe these interactions i e the impact on allowance price and the shift of emissions across sectors from a set of detailed simulations of the electric power system operation a so called emission plane is obtained from which impact curves can be derived focus is on interactions between co2 abatement through fuel switching and measures affecting the residual electricity demand such as deployment of renewables in the electric power sector as well as on interactions with other sectors both in a short term framework a case study for central western europe is presented the analysis reveals a substantial impact of renewables on co2 emissions and hence on emissions shifts across sectors and or on the co2 price

micro macro and strategic forces in international trade invoicing synthesis and novel patterns abstract the currency used in invoicing international trade matters for the impact of exchange rate movements in the presence of price rigidities we present stylized facts on specific macro micro and other drivers of invoicing based on 45 million canadian import transactions four main results emerge first a large share of invoicing takes place in vehicle currencies that are neither the exporters nor the importers second we document a novel link between the size of individual transactions and invoicing both the absolute value of a transaction and its relative size at the industry level matter third the exchange rate plays an important role along three dimensions exchange rate volatility exchange rate regime and currency transaction volumes in foreign exchange markets finally we confirm the role of the market share of an exporting country at the industry level our results identify the most salient patterns in order to guide further developments in theoretical models of invoicing currency choice

innovation in rural finance indonesia s badan kredit kecamatan program abstract donor agencies and governments are committing increasing resources to microenterprise credit programs much as they earlier funded rural credit yet few programs embody the lessons from this earlier experience central java s badan kredit kecamatan program shows considerable promise in providing the access convenience and flexibility desired by poor borrowers while assuring the financial viability of the credit institution by minimizing administrative costs and imposing interest rates sufficient to cover costs and prevent capital erosion recent progress has also been made in mobilizing voluntary savings strong political support from the government has been crucial to the program s success

research on optimal benchmark price of tradable green certificate based on system dynamics a china perspective abstract renewable portfolio standard rps is a compulsory institutional change to achieve low carbon energy transformation in china its success depends on the scientific system quasi parameter design the most important system quasi parameter is the benchmark price of the tradable green certificate tgc setting the benchmark price of tgc scientifically and reasonably in line with china s national conditions is conducive to the effective implementation of rps in china based on the system dynamics sd to construct china s green certificate trading market model this paper analyzes the interaction between the tgc market and the electricity market under the rps and uses vensim simulation to simulate the optimal tgc benchmark price based on the maximization of social welfare the results show that the tgc market and the electricity market are mutually influential as the benchmark price of tgc increases the total power generation increases and the on grid price decreases consumer surplus producer surplus and social welfare all reach the maximum when the tgc benchmark price is 0 4yuan kwh so determines 0 4yuan kwh as the optimal benchmark price of tgc

promoting the market and system integration of renewable energies through premium schemes a case study of the german market premium abstract with the share of renewable energies within the electricity sector rising improving their market and system integration is of increasing importance by offering plant operators a premium on top of the electricity market price premium schemes represent an option to increase the alignment of renewable electricity production with market signals and have been implemented by several eu member states this paper examines the case study of the german market premium scheme adopted in 2012 building on an evaluation of early experiences we discuss whether the market premium contributes to the aims of market and or system integration effectiveness and what potential efficiency gains and additional costs of administering integration are associated with it efficiency while exposing renewables to price risks is not the scheme s purpose it has successfully increased participation in direct marketing however risks of overcompensating producers for marketing and balancing costs are high and the benefits of gradually leading plant operators towards the market are questionable incentives for demand oriented production are established but they seem insufficient particularly in the case of intermittent renewable energy sources to conclude we provide an outlook on alternative designs of premium schemes and discuss whether they seem better suited for addressing the challenges ahead

analysis on the determinants of currency invoicing in korean trade we investigate the determinants of currency invoicing in trade using import and export transactions data between korea and its 30 major trading partners from 2000 to 2013 we find a noticeably different pattern of currency invoicing from advanced countries for example a large market share of korean exporters in partner countries does not guarantee more use of the korean won in currency invoicing this might be attributed to a low degree of korean won s internationalisation and the strong coalescing effect we also observe that the higher the level of industry product differentiation the weaker the coalescing motive in addition we verify that the share of invoicing in the currency of korea s trading partner tends to be higher when the partner country has i a larger trade volume ii higher level of financial development iii lower inflation and lower price volatility and iv its own currency with lower transaction costs

equivalence results for optimal pass through optimal indexing to exchange rates and optimal choice of currency for export pricing firms sometimes write price lists or catalogs for their exports so they set prices for a period of time and do not adjust prices during that interval in response to changes in their environment the firm sets the price either in its own currency or the importer s currency this paper draws a simple link between the choice of currency and the pricing decision of a firm that changes prices in response to all shocks specifically if the latter firm s price has a lower variance in terms of its own currency than the importer s currency then the firm with a price list will set the price in its own currency and otherwise it will set price in the foreign currency this relationship is established by consideration of the firm with a price list as a special case of a firm that indexes its export price to the exchange rate jel f4 f1

moneylenders and informal financial markets in malawi abstract after a background review of the institutional financial srvices available to small and medium enterprises in malawi and a survey of the literature on malawi s informal financial markets ifms this paper presents a detailed report on the character and operations of a katapila moneylender in lilongwe malai the moneylender market is then analyzed in terms of several themes from the literature on ifms in less developed countries for example calculations show that the interest charges on katapila loans are not justified by economic costs of doing business finally policy implications for promoting more efficient finance are discussed

redefining recs part 2 untangling certificates and emission markets abstract renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions markets are currently in a state of confusion regarding the treatment of renewable energy certificate recs how should emission trading schemes treat recs how can emission mitigation policies provide real incentives for renewable generation the objective of rec markets should be to promote additional renewable energy investments the author asserts that defining recs in terms of attributes especially off site attributes does not further this goal ambiguous language such as environmental attribute or environmental benefit creates confusion in the marketplace while failing to address the relevant coordination issues with renewable portfolio standard compliance markets voluntary emission offset markets or emission cap and trade markets specifically defining recs in terms of off site attributes creates a number of problems including that once an emissions cap and trade scheme is in place such definitions of a rec can become indefensible the author proposes to redefine recs in terms of on site attributes which resolves the aforementioned problems and allows compliance and voluntary renewable energy and emission markets to function without conflicts ideally environmental commodities should be homogeneous first best measures of the relevant environmental good as well as easily measured and verified the author proposes tradable environmental commodities that achieve these characteristics

rural financial markets in low income countries recent controversies and lessons abstract recently some researchers have criticized traditional agricultural credit policies in low income countries this article identifies the major points of controversy between traditional views and these new views and also summarizes the primary lessons learned from these controversies savings mobilization more flexible interest rate policies less loan targeting and greater emphasis on improving the quality of financial services in rural areas are new views that are emphasized

a historical review of promotion strategies for electricity from renewable energy sources in eu countries abstract the core objective of this paper is to elaborate on historically implemented promotion strategies of renewable energy sources and the associated deployment within the european electricity market hence at a first glance the historic development of renewable energy sources in the electricity res e sector is addressed on member state and on sectoral level as well as consequently discussed according to available res e potentials and costs the specific focus of this paper are promotion strategies for res e options as they are the key driver of an efficient and effective res e deployment therefore the paper depicts the main types of different promotion schemes and their properties additionally several cases studies of different european member states show an in depth analysis of the different res e promotion schemes in this context special emphasises are put on the question of effective and efficient promotion scheme designs of different res e technologies generally conducted research led to the conclusion that technology specific financial support measures of res e performed much more effective and efficient than others did hence it is not all about the common question of feed in tariffs vs quota systems based on tradable green certificates but more about the design criteria of implemented res e support schemes

evaluating renewable portfolio standards and carbon cap scenarios in the u s electric sector this report examines the impact of renewable portfolio standards rps and cap and trade policy options on the u s electricity sector the analysis uses the national renewable energy laboratory s regional energy deployment system reeds model that simulates the least cost expansion of electricity generation capacity and transmission in the u s to examine the impact of a variety of emissions caps and rps scenarios both individually and combined the generation mix carbon emissions and electricity price are examined for various policy combinations simulated in the modeling

how do energy environmental policy goals and instruments affect electricity demand a framework for the analysis several measures in the environment and energy realms are currently being implemented in the eu and its member states three of these instruments with an impact on the electricity market are demand side management activities promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources and measures aimed at the mitigation of greenhouse gas ghg emissions the objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of these energy efficiency and environmental goals and instruments on electricity demand and costs to electricity consumers when electricity markets are either national or international and when those policies are implemented by a national or an international institution the paper shows that the effectiveness and impact of those measures largely depends on the demand response in the electricity market an additional conclusion is that when either the electricity markets or the support policies are national distortions may occur i e the reductions in electricity demand in one country may be subsidised by consumers or taxpayers in another country

towards a comprehensive policy for electricity from renewable energy an approach for policy design abstract energy policy design in europe is a complex issue involving multiple levels of governance and heavily influenced by institutional contexts however policy design in europe and model based analysis even more so is arguably shaped by the neo classical school of thought there is a need to provide a structured approach that would facilitate the incorporating of institutional contexts into renewable energy sources for electricity res e policy design and analysis this paper presents a formal approach to res e policy design based on design theory the institutional analysis and development iad framework and agent based modelling and simulation given a certain frame of analysis we propose that it is theoretically possible to identify the complete policy design space a set of design elements crucially this aspect potentially opens up to the policy analyst new avenues for intervention and allows her systematically explore given a range of uncertainties which element s of intervention is are the most vital to achieve the goals of the community its empirical applicability is demonstrated by representing and differentiating between six res e schemes from western europe in terms of the design elements a model based illustration demonstrates the value of this approach to quantitatively analyse the impact of design elements

assessment of government support for the household adoption of micro generation systems in korea abstract this paper investigates how korean government support affects household adoption of renewable energy based micro generation systems by analyzing household preferences in relation to the costs and benefits of system installation and different kinds of government support the research adopts a discrete choice experiment approach and focuses on two micro generation technologies solar voltaic and solar thermal our empirical analysis revealed firstly that households prefer micro generation systems that have low installation costs but high energy saving benefits and long warranty periods and secondly that households prefer direct subsidies to low interest loans however we also found that households are reluctant to install photovoltaic or solar thermal systems in reality because they see the cost of system installation as being higher than the benefits they would receive from such installation in short while existing government supports are somewhat effective in promoting household adoption of micro generation systems there also exists the obstacle that the majority of households are unwilling to install such systems despite government support thus several policy improvements which focus on increasing the benefits and decreasing the installation costs of micro generation systems are suggested in this paper

similar goals divergent motives the enabling and constraining factors of russia s capacity based renewable energy support scheme abstract in 2009 the russian government set its first quantitative renewable energy target at 4 5 of the total electricity produced and consumed by 2020 in 2013 the government launched its capacity based renewable energy support scheme cress however the ministry of energy 2016d expects it will merely add 0 3 to the current 0 67 share of renewables ministry of energy 2016c this raises the question what factors might explain this implementation gap on the basis of field research in moscow the article offers an in depth policy analysis of resource geographic financial institutional and ecologic enabling and constraining factors of russia s cress between 2009 and 2015 to avoid the trap that policy intentions remain on paper the entire policy cycle from goal setting to implementation has been covered the article concludes that wind energy which would have contributed the lion s share of new renewable energy capacity lags behind jeopardizing the quantitative renewable energy target the depreciation of the rouble decreased return on investment and the local content requirement discouraged investors given the lack of russian wind production facilities contrary to resource geographic and financial expectations solar projects have been commissioned more accurately benefitting from access to major business groups and existing production facilities

responsive feed in tariff adjustment to dynamic technology development abstract this paper reviews the adjustments of the feed in tariffs for new solar photovoltaic pv installations in germany as pv system prices declined rapidly since 2009 the german government implemented automatic mechanisms to adjust the remuneration level for new installations in response to deployment volumes this paper develops an analytic model to simulate weekly installations of pv systems of up to 30 kw based on project profitability and project duration the model accurately replicates observed market developments and is used to assess different adjustment mechanisms against multiple scenarios for pv system price developments the analysis shows that responsive feed in tariff schemes with frequent tariff adjustments and short qualifying periods reach deployment targets most effectively

pricing of exports and exchange rate uncertainty this paper examines the implications of different pricing cum invoicing strategies available to an exporting firm that sells its product in domestic and foreign markets when the exchange rate is uncertain the firms decisions are made sequentially throughout the decision making process the firm receives new information about the distribution of the random exchange rate the information arrives after output decisions have been made but before setting prices and allocating sales the authors state conditions that lead to the dominance of invoicing exports in the importer s currency over the alternative invoicing strategies copyright 1991 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

the conundrum of successful credit projects in floundering rural financial markets many governments use credit projects to foster agricultural development and donors spend billions of dollars supporting these activities in low income countries lics most of these activities are justified by the purported impact that loans have on ultimate borrowers for example credit demands filled additional crops produced changes in modern inputs used and borrowers incomes increased most project evaluations report favorable impacts that in turn stimulate donors and governments to spend more money on agricultural credit these favorable evaluations have prompted policymakers to conclude that rural financial markets are strengthened by most credit projects at the same time other researchers have evaluated rural financial markets in countries with successful credit projects and have found mounting problems they report on markets that lose substantial portions of the purchasing power of their loan portfolios to ravages of default or inflation concentrations of cheap loans in the hands of the wealthy political meddling in lending systems that offer few savings opportunities large transaction costs for lenders and borrowers lenders who are addicted to outside funds for their sustenance and credit institutions that sporadically implode or self destruct these reports of healthy parts but infirm wholes present a conundrum how can the major parts of the rural financial system involved in donor and government projects be doing well while the system as a whole is doing poorly are these projects islands of tranquility in otherwise stormy seas or is one of these two approaches to evaluation giving an erroneous picture unfortunately few credit project evaluations are published in journals or books although a large number of these studies have been done typically evaluation results are buried in unpublished reports or in graduate student theses while millions of dollars have been spent

risk sharing versus low cost credit systems for international development low cost credit programs in developing countries have failed to achieve agricultural technology adoption goals this research attributes the failure to the inabiiity of poor farmers to bear the combined business and financial risks p sed ly adopting new technologies and develops proposals for the design of credit programs that reduce these risks agronomic and socioeconomic data are combined through simulation and mathematical programming to analyze problems of decision making under risk for developing countries the results will assist iii the design of new rural financial institutions conducive to the adoption of new production technologies by subsistence

interactions of a tradable green certificate market with a tradable permits market abstract the reduction of greenhouse gas ghg emissions is an important goal in the energy and environmental policies of the european union eu and its member states according to a recent directive proposal from the eu commission the inclusion of renewable technologies is one of the important ways to achieve this emission reduction more policy instruments are on hand to pursue this objective frequently discussed currently is the establishing of a market for tradable permits for co2 emissions to achieve emission reductions in the power industry in parallel with this is the introduction of a green certificate market to promote the development of renewables if these two instruments are brought into play at the same time two separate markets with two individual targets will co exist in a number of countries with a focus on the green certificate market this paper discusses how these two markets may interact with each other in international trade three different cases are analysed 1 a green certificate market without any tradable permits scheme 2 a green certificate market in combination with a tradable permits scheme based on grandfathering and finally 3 a green certificate market in combination with a tradable permits bidding scheme emphasis is placed on analysing the pricing mechanisms in international trade at the green certificate and tradable permits market in relation to the value of the reductions in ghg emissions actually achieved the influence of the permits scheme on the spot market price of electricity is shown and the benefits of trading green certificates compared to a domestic implementation of renewable technologies are discussed the main conclusion is that only if a green certificate market is combined with a tradable permit scheme based on a bidding procedure will trade in certificates be equivalent to the domestic development of renewables using the bidding system no other country will have to pay for co2 reductions in the home country of the renewable development as would otherwise be the case if a tradable permit system based on grandfathering were introduced or even worse if no tradable permits were introduced at all finally it must be stated that even if the green certificate market were introduced alongside with a tradable permit bidding system there still would be no incentives for international certificate trade on account of the need for ghg reductions in the version of the green certificate market discussed in this paper no ghg credits are attached to certificates this means that the development of renewables will add to ghg reductions only in those countries where the plants are established no matter what kind of tradable permit scheme is adopted

do support systems for res e reduce eu ets driven electricity prices abstract support systems for electricity from renewable energy sources res e can reduce electricity prices which have also been influenced by a co2 emission trading scheme ets additional res e substitutes electricity from fossil fuels and thus co2 emissions are reduced the demand for emission reductions is lowered as a result the co2 price is also reduced consequently the wholesale price for electricity decreases however most res e support systems are financed via the electricity market which increases the retail electricity price an assessment for germany shows that retail electricity prices in the first trading period of the eu ets 2005 2007 are lowered by 2 6 euro mwh due to additional res e considering the complete eu the effect is substantially higher this paper describes the effect and the influence of different policy designs it develops an approach for assessing the effect and applies it for the case of germany and roughly estimates the effect for the eu

the effect of financial constraints technological progress and long term contracts on tradable green certificates tradable green certificates tgcs have recently become a diffuse instrument to support renewable electricity in oecd countries although it is perhaps too early to draw a conclusive judgement on the effectiveness of this instrument in increasing renewable capacity and decreasing the price of certificates one view in the literature maintains that long term contracts are of particular importance for tgcs to be effective this paper contributes to this debate by analysing how financial constraints and technological progress can induce investors to hold pessimistic expectations of their ability to sell green certificates and still make a profit clearly these expectations will prevent investors from building new capacity to fulfil the quota comprised in tgcs and will keep the price of certificates traded in the market high as this kind of expectation is not influenced by most design features of tgcs one can conclude that long term contracts are particularly important in determining the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of these instruments some attention should therefore be paid to the features of the tgcs which induce obliged parties to offer long term contracts to renewable generators

green certificates and carbon trading in the netherlands abstract the combination of trading schemes for green certificates and for carbon as they are implemented and planned in the netherlands imply a complete separation of green certificates and co 2 markets this means that the costs of co 2 reduction will be reflected in the spot price of electricity and that the price of green certificates only reflects the additional cost of re development however since the green certificate scheme is already implemented while the carbon trading scheme is not it is unclear if currently the green certificate value includes the co 2 reduction value of re production it is important that buyers and sellers in the market for green certificates agree on what they are trading therefore this issue should be clarified

in which currency should exporters set their prices this paper studies the choice of price setting currency for an exporter faced with the choice of setting price in his own in the importers or a third currency under exchange rate uncertainty we establish that sufficient conditions on demand and cost functions for exchange rate pass through to be less than unity under certainty are also sufficient conditions for price setting in the importer s currency to yield the highest expected profit under exchange rate uncertainty under the same conditions on demand and cost functions setting price in the importer s currency maximizes expected utility when risk aversion and forward currency markets are introduced

financial deepening and economic growth the core of shapley shubik games and general equilibrium models with a venn diagram is applied for a theory on the role of real finance in economic growth among advanced economies then the dynamic computable general equilibrium dcge models for germany france the uk japan and the usa are constructed to assess the validity of the over financing hypothesis that has reappeared after the financial crisis of 2008 actual financial deepening ratios observed in the nonconsolidated balance sheet of the oecd exceeded by factors of 3 5 2 4 5 1 11 6 and 4 8 than the optimal financial deepening ratios implied by dcge models respectively in these countries because of excessive leveraging and bubbles up to 19 times of gdp which were responsible for this great recession containing such massive fluctuations for macroeconomic stability and growth in these economies are not possible in conventional fiscal and monetary policy models and require a dcge analysis like this along with adoption of separating equilibri

rural credit markets and institutions in developing countries lessons for policy analysis from practice and modern theory this article presents evidence of the failure of government intervention in rural credit markets of ldcs in the past three decades it then shows how lessons for policy analysis can be drawn from modern theory particularly those theories focussing on credit rationing in competitive markets and interlinking of credit contracts with labor and land contracts the article outlines the policy implications of these theories and finds them insufficient to account for the empirical evidence it contends that a more systematic and rigorous analysis of institutions and institutional environments is essential for understanding and implementing effective policy reforms of rural credit markets it presents suggestions for undertaking such an analysis

many borrow more save and all insure implications for food and micro finance policy abstract among policy makers researchers and micro finance practitioners alike there is much discussion on the role of micro finance for alleviation of poverty this paper focuses on the linkages between access to credit savings and insurance services and household food security what is the role of micro finance in the overall mix of policy instruments what types of financial services are demanded by the poor and which are offered by micro finance institutions mfis hence which are the gaps in financial products we present a conceptual framework that addresses these questions and provide a synthesis of the empirical results of a multi country research program in ten african and asian countries we conclude that insurance can be considered as the missing third of micro finance during the 1990s and that the mfi s outreach to the poor can be improved by offering savings credit and insurance products that enhance the poor s ability to bear risks applied research on the poor s preferences as well as bold experimentation with new financial products appear to be particularly promising in making progress towards that goal since insurance services are difficult to be offered except for easily observable idiosyncratic risks precautionary savings services can be a valuable insurance substitute in particular for the poorest

when renewable portfolio standards meet cap and trade regulations in the electricity sector market interactions profits implications and policy redundancy emission trading programs c t and renewable portfolio standards rps are two common tools used by policymakers to control ghg emissions in the energy and other energy intensive sectors little is known however as to the policy implications resulting from these concurrent regulations especially given that their underlying policy goals and regulatory schemes are distinct this paper applies both an analytical model and a computational model to examine the short run implications of market interactions and policy redundancy the analytical model is used to generate contestable hypotheses while the numerical model is applied to consider more realistic market conditions we have two central findings first lowering the co2 c t cap might penalize renewable units and increasing the rps level could sometimes benefit coal and oil and make natural gas units worse off second making one policy more stringent would weaken the market incentive which the other policy relies upon to attain its intended policy target

european union commitment towards res market penetration from the first legislative acts to the publication of the recent guidelines on state aid 2014 2020 during the last three decades the european union eu commitment towards the renewable energy sources res market penetration has been very complex involving several aspects pertaining to the economic and political action of member states this paper seeks to overview the historical development of the legislative eu framework including a description of the main financial programmes established and managed by the eu directorates general moreover the work will proceed with the picture of some investment funds ad hoc created for res undertakings and managed by the european investment bank eib in collaboration with the eu or other foreign bank institutes the delicate matter of state aid is discussed paying particular attention to the transition from 1999 to the recent eu guidelines 2014 2020 as these wider scopes could lead to an effective and well functioning european energy single market focusing the attention on three case studies we have produced final remarks on the correct functioning of the eu political framework giving attention to important improvements needed at infrastructural level the eu awareness of the power grid limits that are currently recorded in europe has lead to further reforms of the legislation as shown by the new eu guidelines that will probably support member states in dealing with the infrastructure challenge

timing based business models for flexibility creation in the electric power sector energy policies in many countries push for an increase in the generation of wind and solar power along these developments the balance between supply and demand becomes more challenging as the generation of wind and solar power is volatile and flexibility of supply and demand becomes valuable as a consequence companies in the electric power sector develop new business models that create flexibility through activities of timing supply and demand based on an extensive qualitative analysis of interviews and industry research in the energy industry the paper at hand explores the role of timing based business models in the power sector and sheds light on the mechanisms of flexibility creation through timing in particular we distill four ideal type business models of flexibility creation with timing and reveal how they can be classified along two dimensions namely costs of multiplicity and intervention costs we put forward that these business models offer coupled services combining resource centered and service centered perspectives this complementary character has important implications for energy policy

transaction costs of tradable white certificate schemes the energy efficiency commitment as case study this paper analyses the nature and scale of transaction costs tcs borne by obliged parties under a tradable white certificate twc scheme taking the first phase of the energy efficiency commitment eecl in great britain as a case study several sources of tcs were considered such as search for information persuasion of customers negotiation with business partners and measurement and verification activities information was obtained through interviews and a questionnaire distributed to obliged parties results show that the most significant sources of tcs were related to search for information persuading customers and negotiating with managing agents contractors to implement energy efficiency measures perceived high tcs related to contract negotiation and liability risks slightly reduced the low trading level the scale of tcs was estimated to be around 10 and 30 of total investments costs for the lighting and insulation segments respectively the results indicate that despite the presence and scale of tcs the eecl scheme generated energy savings that yielded net societal benefits estimated financial benefits range from 0 6 to 6 p kwh for insulation and lighting savings respectively when avoided external costs due to electricity savings are included estimated economic benefits range from 3 to 8 p kwh several lessons from the eecl can be drawn for twc schemes among others it is found that informative policy instruments to raise awareness among end users are critical if a twc scheme is to deliver cost effective energy savings in all the nature and scale of tcs under twc schemes will differ because of a number of endogenous and exogenous determinants c 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved less

impact of renewables deployment on the co2 price and the co2 emissions in the european electricity sector abstract as of 2005 electricity generators in europe operate under the european union emission trading system eu ets at the same time european member states have launched support mechanisms to stimulate the deployment of renewable electricity sources res e res e injections displace co 2 emissions within the sectors operating under the eu ets and they reduce the demand for european union allowances euas thereby reducing the eua price this paper presents the results of an ex post analysis to quantify the impact of res e deployment on the eua price and co 2 emissions in the western and southern european electricity sector during the period from 2007 to 2010 following from an operational partial equilibrium model of the electricity sector this study shows that the co 2 displacement from the electricity sector to other ets sectors due to res e deployment can be up to more than 10 of historical co 2 emissions in the electricity sector the eua price decrease caused by res e deployment turns out to be likely significant

simulating price patterns for tradable green certificates to promote electricity generation from wind abstract this article uses computer simulation to anticipate the price dynamics in a market for tradable green certificates tgcs these markets have been used in europe to promote generation of electricity from renewable resources like wind similar markets have been proposed in the united states of america usa where the certificates are called renewable energy credits recs the certificates are issued to the generating companies for each megawatt hour of renewable electricity generation the companies may sell the certificates in a market and the revenues from certificate sales provide an extra incentive to invest in new generating capacity proponents argue that this market based incentive can be designed to support government mandates for a growing fraction of electricity generation from renewable sources in the usa these mandates are set by the states and are known as renewable portfolio standards rps we simulate the price dynamics of a market designed to support an aggressive mandate for wind generation in the northwestern usa the simulations show that the certificate price climbs rapidly to the cap in the early years after the market opens investors then react to these high prices with construction of new wind capacity after a few years wind generation meets and then exceeds the requirement we show that this pattern appears again and again when the simulations are repeated with wide variations in the estimates of behavioral parameters we use the model to study the impact of different trading strategies by the wind companies and by the distribution companies we also study the simulated market response if the usa adopts the carbon allowance market envisioned in the climate stewardship act the article concludes with recommendations for policy makers involved in tgc market design

renewable energy certificate mechanism in india a preliminary assessment abstract the indian national action plan for climate change napcc envisages several measures to address global climate change one of the important measures identified involves increasing the share of renewable energy in total electricity consumption in the country this would mean napcc envisages renewable energy to constitute approximately 15 of the energy mix of india by 2020 to achieve the target set by the napcc indian ministry of power launched renewable energy certificate rec mechanism in november 2010 however participation in the rec markets is low and recs have failed to attract significant investment so far in this study a preliminary attempt has been made to assess the performance of existing rec mechanism in india after highlighting the salient features of the indian renewable energy policy framework a brief description of renewable purchase obligation rpo and source specific rpos for different states is discussed along with an overview of rec market in india to date the performance of indian rec mechanism is evaluated by cost competiveness decentralized distributed generation and renewable energy portfolio diversity and their effectiveness has also been measured on the basis of the available data although it is difficult to make any conclusive remark on the success or failure of rec mechanism due to its short experience this study examines the process to date to come out with some recommendations which can be used to fine tune the functioning of existing rec market in india for instance rec price bounds should be revised because it has been not explicitly supporting cost competiveness by offering 60 33 higher average price than the existing average feed in tariff fit it is also observed that state wise contribution in registered capacity is skewed towards few states like tamil nadu 27 maharashtra 23 and uttar pradesh 22 which puts pressure on policy makers to restructure the existing rec mechanism

status and perspectives of renewable energy policy and deployment in the european union what is needed to reach the 2020 targets abstract this article evaluates the status of current res deployment policies and barriers in the eu 27 member states and compares it to the required to meet the 2020 targets the evaluation relies strongly on the quantitative deployment status and policy effectiveness indicators european res deployment and policy has progressed strongly in recent years but the growth here has been mainly driven by effective policies in a small or medium number of top runner countries across europe the highest average policy effectiveness over six years was reached for onshore wind 4 2 biofuels 3 6 and biomass electricity 2 7 while in the heat sector all technologies score below 2 comparing the recent progress to the required growth for meeting the 2020 target it appears that some countries largely exceed the interim targets of the res directive 2009 28 ec despite this europe will need additional policy effort to reach the 2020 target critical success factors include implementing effective and efficient policies that attract sufficient investments reducing administrative and grid related barriers especially in currently less advanced countries upgrading the power grid infrastructure dismantling financial barriers in the heat sector realising sustainability standards for biomass and lowering energy demand through increased energy efficiency efforts

explaining government choices for promoting renewable energy abstract many advanced industrialized countries have in recent years experienced a significant expansion of electricity production from renewables yet we know quite little about the dynamics of the underlying policychoices in this area using new data on adoptions and changes in feed in tariff and green certificate schemes in 26 advanced industrialized countries over 20 years we examine both domestic driving forces as well as international determinants the findings suggest that three factors play a particularly important role in pushing countries towards market based support systems characteristics of the existing energy supply system a federalist structure of the political system and eu membership particularly noteworthy is the finding that higher shares of fossil and nuclear energy in the national energy supply as well as higher co 2 intensity of the economy do not as we had expected stand in the way of policies for supporting renewables in electricity production to the contrary they increase the likelihood of a country adopting such policies we also find however that higher economic growth and higher growth in solar and wind energy capacity tend to reduce the political appetite for reforms of existing schemes

wind turbine manufacturing in china a review abstract domestic wind turbine manufacturing sector in china has experienced development stages starting from scratch to mass production during the 11th fyp period 2006 2010 the main goal of wind power policy in china is to promote the commercialization of wind power by large scale deployment of wind farms this goal has been realized to a great extent and now the cost of wind power generation is nearly comparable to coal fired power generation in china the industry policy which devotes to mass production of domestic wind turbines is also largely successful the purpose of the paper is to provide an overview on wind turbine manufacturing sector in china the policy evolution in different stages achievements and challenges pertinent to the sector are addressed in the paper key findings are that the misleading industry policy which provides strong incentive to blind entrance and competition for scale and price and restrains innovation as well is the key obstacle for the sustainable development of the sector deficient technology standard and qualification system and the misplaced franchise bidding system also indulge vicious competition and oversupply creating a level playground for all turbine supplies providing strong incentive to innovative manufacturers establishing thorough and practicable standard and qualification system and fine tuning the directive of the franchise bidding system towards technology and service are the primary policy implications proposed by our study

the rural non farm sector issues and evidence from developing countries abstract the rural non farm sector has traditionally been viewed as a low productivity sector which produces low quality goods it is often expected to wither away as a country develops recent years have seen a shift away from this position towards recognition that the rural non farm sector can and often does contribute to economic growth rural employment poverty reduction and a more spatially balanced population distribution this paper reviews the literature on the conceptual and empirical underpinnings of this more recent perspective focussing on the experience in developing countries the paper documents the size and heterogeneity of the sector pointing to evidence that in many countries the sector is expanding rather than declining the issues associated with measuring the sector s economic contribution are discussed followed by empirical assessments for several countries and regions the distributional impact of non farm earnings is examined and it is found that a pro poor impact while by no means inevitable can be considerable the sector s trajectory over time in different settings is reviewed and the scope for and experience of various policy interventions is discussed

an ex ante evaluation of a white certificates scheme in the netherlands a case study for the household sector increased efficiency of energy demand is generally recognized as a very cost effective strategy to reduce energy requirements and the related environmental impacts e g the greenhouse effect in order to improve energy efficiency the use of innovative market mechanisms such as the white certificates whc has been proposed the basic idea underlying this policy instrument is that specific energy saving targets are set for energy suppliers or energy distributors these requirements must be fulfilled in a predefined time frame the focus of this paper is on the effect on energy efficiency improvement on the behavior of the end consumers and the market of energy efficiency measures furthermore we study the possible effects of whc in the netherlands by means of a theoretical analysis and an empirical bottom up model we compare concrete energy efficient technologies in terms of cost effectiveness and energy efficiency improvement in combination with existing dutch policies for energy efficiency improvement in the built environment the contribution of this innovative scheme could enhance the accomplishment of energy efficiency targets in this paper two packages of energy saving measures of a whc scheme are studied for dutch households the costs of these technologies are estimated through the use of different discount rates which imply overcoming of the market barriers through the use of the whc a scheme that includes all available technologies as flexible options appears as a realistic solution and can generate cost effectively up to 180 pj primary energy savings and 4550 m cumulative net savings in the year 2020 at a discount rate of 5 under the precondition that the policy and administrative costs can be kept low

how much do european households pay for green energy abstract the price of electricity for european end users typically fell until development of wind and solar energy began but has increased since then we estimate the savings in co2 emissions due to solar and wind energy and calculate what end users pay per tonne co2 assuming that price increases since the introduction of solar and wind power are due to these types of energy these payments are in most cases well above even high and unlikely estimates of the cost of carbon and in some cases several times as high

a critique of traditional agricultural credit projects and policies abstract authors critique the results assumptions and policies commonly associated with agricultural credit projects in low income countries a summary of new views on these projects is present these views emphasize voluntary savings mobilization and positive real rates of interest several explanations are given for why few of these new views have been adopted by policymakers

financial market efficiency in an agrarian economy microeconometric analysis of the pakistani punjab the shadow price of capital in production is a useful indicator of the efficacy of the rural financial system using data on participants and non participants in a small farm credit programme from the pakistani punjab this article estimates the shadow price of capital endogenous switching regressions techniques are employed to control for the likely heterogeneity of borrowers versus non borrowers results indicate that an individual selected at random from the population of small farmers would experience a 200 per cent rate of return on the first rupee borrowed from the small farm credit programme indicating a high shadow price of capital and a prima facie case for small farm credit programmes

an analysis of feed in tariff remuneration models implications for renewable energy investment recent experience from around the world suggests that feed in tariffs fits are the most effective policy to encourage the rapid and sustained deployment of renewable energy there are several different ways to structure a fit policy each with its own strengths and weaknesses this paper presents an overview of seven different ways to structure the remuneration of a fit policy divided into two broad categories those in which remuneration is dependent on the electricity price and those that remain independent from it this paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of these different fit models and concludes with an analysis of these design options with a focus on their implications both for investors and for society

capital market development in china abstract this paper examines why and how capital markets have developed in a low income socialist country it shows that the development is the response of economic agents operating under a more market oriented economic environment with a highly regulated and inefficient banking system this development has presented new policy challenges and opportunities the paper argues that the developmental effects of the emergence of capital markets in china can be as important as its impact on improving allocative efficiency and resource mobilization

white certificate schemes economic analysis and interactions with the eu ets this paper examines the economic environmental and distributional impacts of an idealised tradable white certificate twc scheme and shows how the impacts are modified when the scheme operates in parallel with the eu emissions trading scheme eu ets it uses simple graphical techniques to assess whether a twc scheme will increase decrease or have an ambiguous effect on electricity demand wholesale and retail electricity prices carbon emissions and investment in energy efficiency paying particular attention to the interpretation of additionality

export product diversification and co2 emissions contextual evidences from developing and developed economies abstract ascertaining cleaner production and sustainability is a major issue in the developed and developing world income and international trade are the predominant factors behind this this article explores the heterogeneous impacts of export product diversification extensive margin and intensive margins on the co2 emissions for developing and developed countries to this end the authors analyze the annual data of variables from 1971 to 2014 and employ unrestricted fixed effects and system gmm to solve the research problem the empirics suggest that all three indicators of export diversification significantly reduce co2 emissions in 63 developed and developing countries as a global sample the fixed effect models reveal that product diversification and intensive margin have a negative and significant impact in developed economies the negative impacts of product diversification show that economic sophistication is an important tool to reduce emissions further the chow test proved the statistical difference between developed and developing economies which contributes to policy recommendations based on the empirical outcomes the study suggests innovative policies for cleaner production and industrial manufacturing purposes making the policies more effective in achieving sustainable development goals sdgs

feed in tariff and tradable green certificate in oligopoly abstract feed in tariff fit and tradable green certificate tgc schemes are studied in a formal model and numerical example using the uk data we find that if the markets were perfectly competitive then feed in tariff and the certificate price would be the same however when the markets are imperfect they are generally different while both the tariff and certificate price fluctuate around the difference between the costs of green and black energy the tariff deviates more from the cost difference than the certificate price the supplies of both black and green energy under fit are higher than tgc obviously as a result of subsidies a troubling outcome is that the total energy supply increases under fit as the renewables quota increases which can negate other measures to mitigate climate changes such as demand management finally using the data from the uk market we find that social welfare under tgc is consistently higher than fit for a wide range of values of the parameters

implementing the eu renewable target through green certificate markets abstract the european parliament has agreed on a target of a 20 share of renewables in the eu s total energy consumption by 2020 to achieve the target the european council has adopted mandatory differentiated national targets for each of the member states in this paper we consider the use of green certificates to reach the renewable targets and we analyze the potential for cost reductions by allowing for trade in green certificates across member states we show that differentiated national targets cannot ensure a cost effective implementation of the overall target for the eu s renewable energy consumption trade in green certificates can ensure a cost effective distribution of renewable energy production but the national targets prevent a cost effective distribution of energy consumption nevertheless our numerical model indicates that eu wide trade in green certificates may cut the eu s total cost of fulfilling the renewable target by as much as 70 compared with a situation with no trade however the design of green certificate markets may have a large impact on the distribution of costs across countries

financial liberalization with imperfect markets indonesia during the 1970s a strong market orientation has pervaded the recent development economics literature in sharp contrast to the earlier conventional wisdom that focused on market failures and interventionism increasingly economists have adopted the position that government is the problem and markets are the solution a major manifestation of this market revival has been the surge of support for financial liberalization to promote a more efficient and more vigorous system of financial intermediation in the less developed countries ldcs government interventions in ldc financial markets have become equated with financial repression causing stagnant savings highly inefficient use of capital and retarded growth the purpose of this paper is to reconsider the issue of creditmarket interventions in the context of indonesia s experience during the 1970s by the beginning of this period indonesia had successfully introduced a series of financial liberalization measures as part of a sweeping program to overcome the chaotic legacy of the sukarno era while the reforms fell well short of full liberalization both e shaw and r mckinnon included indonesia as a case validating their arguments about the efficacy of financial liberalization 1 during the ensuing decade the new order technocrats who had designed the initial reforms introduced what appear to be increasingly heavy doses of financial repression yet the economy defied shaw s dictum that in all cases this strategy of financial repression has stopped or gravely retarded the development process 2 real gdp grew during the 1970s at an annual rate of 7 6 with an increase in real domestic investment of 14 4 per annum 3 indisputably oil was an exceptional factor however the oil windfall does not trivialize the issue of how financial policy affected economic performance were indonesia s interventions repressive to what extent should market forces have been per

how much market do market based instruments create an analysis for the case of white certificates in the context of economic instruments for more energy efficiency and climate protection tradable certificates have been investigated for renewable energy and for a number of emissions in contrast tradable energy efficiency or white certificates have only lately been considered as a market based tool to foster energy efficiency as compared to standards and labelling for example theoretically there is little doubt about the advantages in practice however some fundamental problems arise critical issues are the design of an efficient artificial market for white certificates its compatibility with the european emissions trading system the identification of a suitable target group for an energy efficiency obligation and the measurement of energy savings as compared to a reference use of energy we use the theoretical framework of transaction cost economics to elaborate these issues we conclude that transaction costs and investment specificity will restrict markets for white certificates in practise long term contracts rather than spot trade will be the prevailing form of governance for energy efficiency investments

the design of successful rural financial intermediaries evidence from indonesia abstract the success outreach and sustainability of eight rural financial intermediation systems in indonesia in profitably reaching large numbers of small individual clients is explained in terms of organizational design networks of semiautonomous units use local information and contract enforcement mechanisms to lower transaction costs reflecting basic concerns with institutional and financial viability elements of mechanism design have included compatible incentives such as performance based compensations profit sharing collection fees efficiency wages equivalent to quasi equity and system monitoring managerial discretion over transactions conducted at market terms policies to protect portfolio value and no dependency creating subsidies are important interventions have been appropriate for the problem at hand

co2 abatement from renewables in the german electricity sector does a co2 price help abstract the overlapping impact of the emission trading system ets and renewable energy re deployment targets creates a classic case of interaction effects whereas the price interaction is widely recognized and has been thoroughly discussed the effect of an overlapping instrument on the abatement attributable to an instrument has gained little attention this paper estimates the actual reduction in demand for european union allowances that has occurred due to re deployment focusing on the german electricity sector for the five years 2006 through 2010 based on a unit commitment model we estimate that co 2 emissions from the german electricity sector are reduced by 35 to 60 mtons or 10 to 18 of what estimated emissions would have been without any re policy but with the co 2 price remaining in place at the observed level furthermore we find that the abatement attributable to re injections is greater in the presence of an allowance price than otherwise the same holds for the ets effect in presence of re injection this interaction effect is consistently positive for the german electricity system at least for the considered years and on the order of 0 5 to 1 5 of emissions

imported inputs and invoicing currency choice theory and evidence from uk transaction data a significant proportion of international trade is in intermediate goods this paper considers theoretically and empirically how exporters dependence on imported inputs affects their choice of invoicing currency the model predicts that exporters that depend more on foreign currency denominated inputs are less likely to price in their home currency i test this and other theoretical results using a novel dataset that covers uk trade transactions with non eu countries i find considerable support for the model s predictions a 10 percentage point higher share of foreign currency denominated inputs is associated with a 20 percentage point higher probability of pricing in the same foreign currency relative to the producer s currency

impacts of a common green certificate market on electricity and co2 emission markets in the nordic countries abstract the purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of introducing a common nordic system for tradable green certificates tgcs on the electricity market and a future market for tradable co 2 emission permits teps in the analysis the energy system model generator markal was used to model the electricity and district heating supply systems in the four nordic countries sweden norway finland and denmark it is shown that the introduction of tgc quotas reduces wholesale electricity and tep prices the impact on the latter is very pronounced retail electricity prices may become lower or higher depending on the tgc quota than if obligations to fulfill tgc quotas were absent the tgc scheme s efficiency in reducing a specific amount of co 2 emissions is also compared to the corresponding efficiency of a tep scheme involving a broader range of technologies furthermore obligations to fulfill tgc quotas affect investment incentives for new non renewable electricity supply this seems especially true for gas fired power plants finally it is indicated that electricity supply based on biomass combustion dominates the tgc scheme at least in the short run

redefining recs part 1 untangling attributes and offsets abstract renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions markets are currently in a state of confusion regarding the treatment of renewable energy certificates recs should consumers buy recs or emission offsets after examining this question the author concludes that recs are not equivalent to emission offset credits and as currently defined the retiring of a rec may have no impact on emissions from electric power generation consumers who purchase recs in voluntary green power markets are providing financial assistance to renewable generators in the form of a production subsidy generators that sell recs are not transferring emission reductions since they are unlikely to have ownership or the ability to quantify reductions using a commonly accepted standard more importantly recs currently sold in voluntary markets do not pass credible additionality tests and can at best be expected to have a market demand effect which will be less than the supply of recs on the market rec definitions that use the term environmental attributes or environmental benefits are almost universally ambiguous providing the mistaken impression that consumers are purchasing a good instead of subsidizing a public good

towards a common renewable future the system gmm approach to assess the convergence in renewable energy consumption of eu countries abstract this paper investigates whether the contribution of renewable energy sources to primary energy consumption is characterized by a convergence process across core european union eu countries over the period from 1990 to 2014 the system generalized method of moments gmm methodology is employed for 5 year span panel data of 14 eu members the findings indicate strong evidence for both the absolute unconditional and conditional convergence of renewables share in primary energy consumption across eu 14 countries moreover the control variables namely co2 emissions per gdp fdi inward stock and electricity prices contribute to the speed of convergence hence the implicit rate of conditional convergence is higher than that of absolute convergence the empirical evidence suggests that the energy mixes of core eu members have a tendency to become similar in the long run as the shares of res in primary energy consumption converge to the average level nonetheless it does not necessarily imply that this average would be 20 target which is to be achieved by 2020 according to eu directive 2009 28 ec

market power in renewable portfolio standards abstract renewable portfolio standard rps which requires a certain percentage of electricity production from renewables has received considerable attention one emerging issue is the possibility of strategic behavior in the renewable energy certificate credit rec market and its spillover effects on the electricity market this paper develops dominant firm competitive fringe models that account for market power we show that market power could have significant impacts on the rec and power prices in particular when a nonrenewable generator is a dominant firm and a renewable generator is a competitive fringe the nonrenewable firm has a strong incentive to lower the rec price even to zero for avoiding rec costs the zero rec price would negate price impacts in the power market thereby mitigating market power of the dominant firm however this could lead to an underinvestment in renewables in the long run as subsidies received by renewables in form of recs vanish therefore regulatory agencies need to carefully oversee the market performance to ensure a healthy development of renewable industries under the rps policies

an overview of feed in tariffs premiums and tenders to promote electricity from biogas in the eu 28 abstract the eu has assumed objectives for energy sustainability and the fight against climate change in this regard the generation of biogas allows contributions to the 2020 established targets the eu is leader in the production of biogas representing 60 of total global production in 2011 the estimates of the contribution of biogas to electricity generation for 2020 in the eu 28 represent 1 5 within the total energy mix this paper analyzes the measures implemented in the eu 28 to promote biogas relating them to the country targets established in their national renewable energy action plans currently 19 countries apply some measure of price and or amount 14 use feed in tariffs 6 premium tariffs and 1 uses tenders a trend has been observed to reduce public financial support to promote biogas linked to the reduction of the cost of this technology and to the attempt to increasingly link it to the markets however excessive linking to the market hinders its development putting the attainment of 2020 targets at risk consequently the feed in tariff or premium tariff systems used in each country must be designed in agreement with the peculiarities of the development of their markets to be able to guarantee suitable development