consumer preference and willingness to pay for a renewable fuel standard rfs policy focusing on ex ante market analysis and segmentation abstract total energy consumption of oil in 2050 is expected to increase to 1 6 times its level in 2005 and greenhouse gas ghg emissions in the transportation sector will be second only to the electricity sector in order to reduce ghg emissions in transportation leading countries have started to implement renewable fuel standard rfs policies other countries such as korea have recently started implementing rfs policies in order to comply with the proposed global ghg reduction target however previous research did not consider the impact of rfs policy on consumer acceptance levels therefore this study analyzes consumer preferences and willingness to pay wtp for rfs to provide detailed policy strategies this study conducts additional analysis using market segmentation and sensitivity analysis the results indicate that consumers generally accept the cost of implementing an rfs policy if the cost falls between krw 101 78 liter usd 0 33 gal and krw 187 26 liter usd 0 60 gal in addition consumer wtp for implementing an rfs policy changes when the income exceeds krw 5 million usd 4229 1 in driver group and relatively lower income groups tend not to support rfs policies based on the results of this study we can suggest proper pricing policies for each income group and a public relations strategy to improve the level of policy acceptance

the optimal biopower capacity in co firing plants an empirical analysis abstract biomass fuels carry appealing features in replacing traditional fossil fuels especially coal in power generation due to the bulk sparse and low energy density drawbacks of biomass many studies implicitly indicate small and limited scale in biopower generation this study contributes to the bioenergy literature by explicitly studying the optimal biopower capacity of biopower co firing technology in coal fired power plants which has practical implications for potential biopower practitioners investors and policymakers this study indicates that the optimal biopower capacity of biomass co firing in coal powered plants is intermediate i e 12 mw on average in order to take advantage of economies of scale without incurring high transportation cost regional variations are also found in the aspects of production cost and optimal capacity due to local characteristics local biomass availability plays a critical role in shaping biopower s generation cost optimal capacity and cost changing patterns

supply of biomass bioenergy and carbon mitigation method and application this study develops an analytical framework for deriving the supply of biomass feedstock and subsequently electricity and co2 displacement generated from the biomass this systematic approach minimizes the total cost of both feedstock and electricity production and involves the determination of the optimal power plant size and the derivation of the supply curves the analytical framework is applied to the case of logging residues in the us both the theoretical and empirical results point to the importance of simultaneously considering feedstock production energy conversion and environmental benefits costs in bioenergy project development leading to useful policy implications for bioenergy development and deployment

citizens of the green world cosmopolitan orientation and sustainability contemporary consumer markets are characterized by both a heightened need for sustainability and an increasingly cosmopolitan lifestyle this article bridges these two trends and studies two untapped questions 1 how do cosmopolitan consumers relate to sustainable behavior and 2 how should environmental messages be framed to successfully target cosmopolitan consumers four studies in three countries show that high cosmopolitan consumers demonstrate environmental concern and engage in sustainable behavior to successfully target this promising segment with sustainable products or messages to promote sustainable behavior marketers and public policymakers should highlight the benefit of these products behaviors for the global rather than the local environment however the findings also show that high cosmopolitan consumers can be successfully targeted to support local environmental initiatives when activating their local identification the article offers implications for businesses non government organizations and public policymakers in designing effective messages to promote sustainable behavior

promotion policies for renewable energy and their effects in taiwan abstract taiwan is an interesting case in bioenergy development and its government has employed several subsidies to promote bioenergy such as released land compensation and energy crop subsidies however how farmers respond to these economic incentives is not clear the study employs the concept of big data by incorporating data on the input output of crop production demand elasticities international trade and tariffs processing technologies commodity prices and energy prices for more than 85 of taiwanese agricultural and forest commodities the study first utilizes a mathematical programming model to examine the effectiveness of these policies in terms of bioenergy production and ghg greenhouse gas emissions reduction and then applies the dynamic structural equation model to analyze the interactions among important input and output factors such as social welfare energy prices bioenergy production ghg emissions and co 2 trade prices the results show that 1 the ghg price is more effective than the coal price in the sense of reducing the ethanol production 2 the gasoline price has a negative impact on contemporary electricity production while the coal and ghg prices have positive impacts 3 current ethanol production has a negative influence on current ghg emissions reductions and 4 the gasoline price coal price ghg price and ghg emissions reductions have a significant positive impact on contemporary welfare

cosmopolitan consumers as a target group for segmentation for international companies the literature recommends directing segmentation efforts at customer characteristics rather than country characteristics consumers degree of cosmopolitan orientation has been suggested as a powerful segmentation base as this characteristic is expected to drive consumers tastes and preferences to advance research on this segmentation base this article offers a conceptualization of the consumer cosmopolitanism construct by 1 delineating its conceptual domain 2 highlighting its key dimensions namely open mindedness diversity appreciation and consumption transcending borders and 3 examining its links with theoretically relevant variables specifically consumer ethnocentrism and global consumption orientation based on the aforementioned conceptualization a consumer research specific and psychometrically sound measurement instrument the c cosmo scale is subsequently developed and tested in a series of complementary studies finally empirically based insights into the characteristics of cosmopolitan consumers are offered by 1 profiling them on consumption relevant variables innovativeness risk aversion susceptibility to normative influence consumer ethnocentrism and demographic characteristics 2 examining the link between consumer cosmopolitanism and willingness to buy foreign products and 3 developing an empirically based typology of cosmopolitan local consumers using a cluster analysis approach from a managerial perspective findings suggest that the identification and subsequent targeting of cosmopolitan consumers may well represent an appropriate strategy for internationally active companies

national price levels purchasing power parity and cointegration a test of four high inflation economies abstract the time series properties of exchange rates and wholesale prices from four high inflation countries show some evidence in support of purchasing power parity tests for stationarity of real exchange rates and cointegration among price and exchange rate variables are presented for argentina brazil chile and israel during the 1970s and 1980s error correction models describe the mechanism of adjustment to long run equilibrium

corporate socially responsible initiatives and their effects on consumption of green products corporate social responsibility csr research has focused often on the business returns of corporate social initiatives but less on their possible social returns we study an actual company consumer partnership csr initiative promoting ecologically correct and conscious consumption of bottled mineral water we conduct a survey on adult consumers to test the hypotheses that consumer skepticism toward the company consumer partnership csr initiative and the moral emotion of elevation mediate the relationship between company csr motives perceived by consumers and consumer behavioral responses following this csr initiative favorable consumer behavioral responses in turn relate positively to consumer support of other green products the results provide scholars and managers with means of improving their understanding and handling of company consumer partnership csr initiatives

sectoral implications of farm program modifications the overall and distributional effects of farm programs and selected revisions are examined using a mathematical programming sector model the model incorporates market distortions caused by price supports target prices program participation deficiency payments and marketing loans current farm programs are found to increase producer prices depress consumer prices and in turn result in excess production and higher consumption and exports domestic and foreign consumers as well as domestic producers are subsidized by farm programs social deadweight loss occurs as government payments exceed welfare benefits received by consumers and producers society as a whole benefits from reductions in program provisions

examining crop price effects on production decision and resource allocation an ex ante approach this article examines the output price effects on the us crop production employing an ex ante approach to the differential systems of input demand and output supply the estimation results of the

economic impacts of biofuels deployment in andalusia this paper aims to estimate the economic impacts of increasing the production capacity of the installed biofuel plants in andalusia southern spain a computable general equilibrium cge approach is used to calculate the changes in the economic sectors activity in employment as well as in gdp and other macroeconomic variables relevant to biofuel plants in andalusia under two distinct scenarios i based on an operating biodiesel plant with 90 ktoe year of installed capacity ii upgrading to 2174 ktoe by 2013 in compliance with the regional plan andaluz de sostenibilidad energetica pasener 2007 2013 results show that compliance with the pasener goal would increase the activity level of the economic sectors considered by 3 04 the total induced employment generated would reach 167 975 equivalent full time jobs lasting one year and the gdp would increase by 9 82

determinants of ghg reporting an analysis of global oil and gas companies corporate reporting on climate change is of increasing academic interest but is often considered solely from the firm perspective this article extends current knowledge by considering how institutional pressures influence the greenhouse gas ghg reporting practices of multinational oil and gas companies the results show that regulation under the eu emissions trading scheme and reporting according to the global reporting initiative gri guidelines leads to better quality and more extensive reporting although generally adopting proactive climate change strategies european companies do not have superior ghg reporting practices corporate media visibility does not impact ghg reporting practices which may be a reflection of the obscure portrayal of climate change in the print media or the fact that coverage is generally positive this article adds to the current literature on ghg reporting practices demonstrating that institutional theory along with stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory can give further insights into explaining the ghg reporting practices of multinational companies

global land use implications of first and second generation biofuel targets recently an active debate has emerged around greenhouse gas emissions due to indirect land use change iluc of expanding agricultural areas dedicated to biofuel production in this paper we provide a detailed analysis of the iluc effect and further address the issues of deforestation irrigation water use and crop price increases due to expanding biofuel acreage we use globiom an economic partial equilibrium model of the global forest agriculture and biomass sectors with a bottom up representation of agricultural and forestry management practices the results indicate that second generation biofuel production fed by wood from sustainably managed existing forests would lead to a negative iluc factor meaning that overall emissions are 27 lower compared to the no biofuel scenario by 2030 the iluc factor of first generation biofuels global expansion is generally positive requiring some 25 years to be paid back by the ghg savings from the substitution of biofuels for conventional fuels second generation biofuels perform better also with respect to the other investigated criteria on the condition that they are not sourced from dedicated plantations directly competing for agricultural land if so then efficient first generation systems are preferable since no clear technology champion for all situations exists we would recommend targeting policy instruments directly at the positive and negative effects of biofuel production rather than at the production itself

ethanol production food and forests this paper investigates the direct and indirect impacts of ethanol production on land use deforestation and food production a partial equilibrium model of a national economy with two sectors and two regions one of which includes a forest is developed it analyses how an exogenous increase in the ethanol price affects input allocation land and labor between sectors energy crop and food the total effect of ethanol prices on food production and deforestation is decomposed into three partial effects first the well documented effect of direct land competition between rival uses arises it increases deforestation and decreases food production second an indirect displacement of food production across regions possibly provoked by the reaction of international food prices increases deforestation and reduces the food sector s output finally labor mobility between sectors and regions tends to decrease food production but also deforestation the total impact of ethanol production on food production is negative while there is an ambiguous impact on deforestation

the importance of consumer trust for the emergence of a market for green products the case of organic food consumer trust is a key prerequisite for establishing a market for credence goods such as green products especially when they are premium priced this article reports research on exactly how and how much trust influences consumer decisions to buy new green products it identifies consumer trust as a distinct volition factor influencing the likelihood that consumers will act on green intentions and strongly emphasizes the needs to manage consumer trust as a prerequisite for the development of a market for green products specifically based on a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods it is found that lack of consumer trust is a barrier for the development of a market for organic food in thailand two focus groups and ten in depth interviews revealed low knowledge about and low trust in organic food certification control and labeling further a mall intercept survey n 177 revealed that lack of especially system trust reduces consumer expectations about benefits of buying organic food and it makes them less likely to buy organic food mistrust in the control system and in the authenticity of food sold as organic has a significant negative impact on self reported buying behavior implications for policy and future research are discussed

two crises inflationary inertia and credibility this paper provides a comparative analysis of the mexican currency crisis of 1994 and the chilean crisis of 1982 to assess to what extent exchange rate based stabilisation programmes are successful in reducing or even eliminating inflationary inertia the paper provides a brief overview of the chilean and mexican reform and stabilisation programmes a theoretical model that emphasises the role of credibility is developed to analyse the effects of exchange rate based stabilisation programmes on inflationary inertia according to the model less than credible stabilisations will not eliminate inertia and will generate major real exchange rate overvaluation detailed data are used to test the hypothesis

deeds not words a cosmopolitan perspective on the influences of corporate sustainability and ngo engagement on the adoption of sustainable products in china to make a business case for corporate sustainability firms must be able to sell their sustainable products the influence that firm engagement with non governmental organizations ngos may have on consumer adoption of sustainable products has been neglected in previous research we address this by embedding corporate sustainability in a cosmopolitan framework that connects firms consumers and civil society organizations based on the understanding of responsibility for global humanity that underlies both the sustainability and cosmopolitanism concepts we hypothesize that firms sustainability engagement and their ngo engagement influence consumer adoption of sustainable products empirically we investigate the adoption of sustainable eco circle products made from recycled fibers marketed by li ning a china based global sportswear brand we apply a stepwise regression approach to test our hypotheses with paper and pencil survey data from 217 chinese consumers we find adoption to be positively associated with consumers sustainability attitude but not with firms sustainability engagement for firm ngo engagement these relationships are reversed adoption is positively associated with firm ngo engagement but not with consumers related attitude our results present a picture of the chinese context in which there is a business case for corporate sustainability if firms words about sustainable product strategies are supported by signals from civil society about firm deeds the results imply that in a chinese context firms need to be particularly aware of the role of ngos when hoping to be rewarded for sustainability

welfare impacts of alternative biofuel and energy policies an open economy equilibrium model is derived to investigate the effects of energy policy on the u s economy with emphasis on corn based ethanol a second best policy of a fuel tax and ethanol subsidy is found to approximate fairly closely the welfare gains associated with the first best policy of an optimal carbon tax and tariffs on traded goods the largest economic gains to the u s economy from these energy policies arise from their impact on u s terms of trade particularly in the oil market conditional on the current fuel tax an optimal ethanol mandate is superior to an optimal ethanol subsidy copyright 2011 oxford university press

credence attributes voluntary organizations and social pressure abstract credence attributes of products are unobservable through search or experience some consumers are willing to pay a premium for their provision and in addition citizens can apply social pressure on firms to supply credence attributes firms have formed voluntary organizations to assure the provision of credence attributes and the credible provision provides product differentiation this paper provides a theory of the voluntary provision of credence attributes in the presence of demand pull from consumers and social pressure from ngos where an organization chooses a credence standard and firms compete given the standard the credence standard is lower the larger the organization and social pressure results in a higher standard

burning peat in ireland an electricity market dispatch perspective abstract this paper examines peat power production in ireland under the three pillars of energy policy security competitiveness and environment peat contributes to energy security as an indigenous fuel it reduces dependency on imports during a period of low capacity margins the operation of the peat plants is useful from a system security perspective peat generation is being financially supported by consumers through an electricity levy the fuel also has high carbon intensity it is not politically viable to consider peat on equal economic criteria to other plant types because of history and location this paper reviews electricity generation through combustion of peat in ireland and quantifies the costs of supporting peat utilising economic dispatch tools finding the subsidy is not insignificant from a cost or carbon perspective it shows that while peat is beneficial for one pillar of energy policy security the current usage of peat is not optimal from a competitiveness or environmental perspective by switching from the current must run mode of operation for peat to the dispatched mode used for the other generation significant societal savings in the range 21 m per annum can be achieved as well as reducing system emissions by approximately 5 per year

adjustment and social costs in chile during the 1980s abstract traditional analysis of adjustment programs tends to underestimate the welfare costs because it assumes that a contraction of nontradable production will close the expenditure income gap while the resulting excess supply of tradables will automatically be exported in chile however tradable output contracted sharply falling almost two thirds as much as nontradable output the conventional analysis also ignores the effect of adjustment on unemployment rates and on real wages this paper argues that the adjustment measures of the 1980s were regressive even though the government was successful in targeting its expenditures toward the very poor during the period of fiscal retrenchment among the regressive adjustment measures were the subsidies to holders of dollar denominated debt provided by the central bank in addition policies to reduce expenditures raised the unemployment rate over 26 reduced real wages by 20 for almost five years and reduced health housing and education budgets by 20 per capita finally the required real devaluation raised the cost of living for the poor

inward looking policies institutions autocrats and economic growth in latin america an empirical exploration this paper explores the institutionaldeterminants of economic growth in latinamerica by taking advantage of recentempirical research that employs subjectiveand objective measures to test for apossible northian explanation that linksinstitutional quality and economic growth we explore a simple framework that may helpbetter understand the policymakers choicesand persistence regarding inward lookingpolicies that were pursued between the1930s and the 1980s by arguing that in thelatin american case olson s 1982 idea ofencompassing interest should be expanded tocover not only the economic stakes of powerholders but in particular their psychicincome which includes their politicalstakes along the lines of recent work byrobinson 1997 coyne 2002 andothers

carbon abatement in the fuel market with biofuels implications for second best policies a carbon tax on fuel would penalize carbon intensive fuels like gasoline and shift fuel consumption to less carbon intensive alternatives like biofuels since biofuel production competes for land with agricultural production a carbon tax could increase land rents and raise food prices this paper analyzes the welfare effect of a carbon tax on fuel consisting of gasoline and biofuel in the presence of a labor tax with and without a biofuel subsidy the market impacts of a carbon tax are also compared with that of a subsidy findings show that if a carbon tax increases biofuel demand the tax interaction effect due to higher fuel prices is exacerbated by higher land rent and food prices and greater erosion of the carbon tax base thus the second best optimal carbon tax for fuel is lower with biofuel in the fuel mix especially if biofuel is subsidized

the alcohol program the rational for the launching of the alcohol program from sugarcane in brazil in the mid 1970 s is described as an answer to the first oil crisis as well as a solution to the problem of the fluctuating sugar prices in the international market the technical characteristics of ethanol as a fuel are given as well as a discussion of the evolution of the cost of production environmental and social consequences regarding costs ethanol production was close to 100 dollars a barrel in the initial stages of the program in 1980 falling rapidly due to economies of scale and technological progress to half that value in 1990 followed by a slower decline in recent years considering the hard currency saved by avoiding oil importation through the significant displacement of gasoline by ethanol and the decrease in the amount of external debt that the displaced oil importation was able to provide it is possible to demonstrate that the alcohol program has been an efficient way of exchanging dollar debt by national currency subsidies which are paid by the liquid fossil fuel users even with this economic gains for society the continuity of the program is difficult to maintain two solutions to this problem are discussed internal expansion of the use of ethanol and exports to industrialized countries where it could be used as an octane enhancer the main attractiveness of the program the reduction of co2 emissions as compared to fossil fuels is stressed mainly as a solution for industrialized countries to fulfill their commitments with the united nations framework climate change convention

removing distortions in the u s ethanol market what does it imply for the united states and brazil we analyze the impact of trade liberalization and removal of the federal tax credit in the united states on ethanol markets using a multimarket international ethanol model we find that u s trade barriers have been effective in protecting the ethanol industry under current policy there is separability of the u s ethanol market from world markets with trade liberalization the ethanol market deepens making it less susceptible to price volatility the effect of trade liberalization extends beyond ethanol markets affecting agricultural markets the results show that the impact of removal of the tax credit overrides the impact of the tariff removal copyright 2008 oxford university press

financial crises and balance of payments crises a simple model of the southern cone experience abstract this paper starts from a simple model of the domestic banking sector and develops the potentially destabilizing macroeconomic consequences of its role in intermediating foreign capital inflows both financial and balance of payments crises may result reminiscent of the southern cone experience

eco labeled products trend or tools for sustainability strategies the paper offers a point of view on credibility of eco labeled products analyzing the relationships among company s sustainable strategy eco label and no financial reports based on a cross sector study of 109 companies with the eu eco label licenses in italy the paper points out different behaviors among the companies investigated and explains the leadership of italy in the number of these licenses however the paper underlines that the use of sustainability tools is not always matched to the explanation of companies sustainable strategies the study identifies the significant drivers for the management of eco label within a sustainability strategy drawing attention to the weight and the hierarchical level of different decisions about sustainability this study contributes to strengthening the understanding promoting a discussion on the use of eco label and on its value and describing a desirable behavior that any company should tend in order to nourish the credibility that is an essential aspect for building strong associations with the brand

the regional economic impacts of biofuels a review of multisectoral modelling techniques and evaluation of applications allan g j the regional economic impacts of biofuels a review of multisectoral modelling techniques and evaluation of applications regional studies the regional economic impact of biofuel production depends upon a number of interrelated factors the specific biofuels feedstock and production technology employed the sector s embeddedness in the rest of the economy through its demand for local resources and the extent to which new activity is created these issues can be analysed using multisectoral economic models some studies use input output io and social accounting matrix sam modelling frameworks whilst a nascent computable general equilibrium cge literature has begun to examine the regional impact of biofuel development this paper reviews compares and evaluates these approaches for modelling the regional economic impacts of biofuels

renewable energy and macroeconomic efficiency of oecd and non oecd economies abstract this article analyzes the effects of renewable energy on the technical efficiency of 45 economies during the 2001 2002 period through data envelopment analysis dea in our dea model labor capital stock and energy consumption are the three inputs and real gdp is the single output increasing the use of renewable energy improves an economy s technical efficiency conversely increasing the input of traditional energy decreases technical efficiency compared to non oecd economies oecd economies have higher technical efficiency and a higher share of geothermal solar tide and wind fuels in renewable energy however non oecd economies have a higher share of renewable energy in their total energy supply than oecd economies

estimating the influence of u s ethanol policy on plant investment decisions a real options analysis with two stochastic variables abstract u s ethanol policies have contributed to changes in the levels and the volatilities of revenues and costs facing ethanol firms the implications of these policies for optimal investment behavior are investigated through an extension of the real options framework that allows for the consideration of volatility in both revenue and cost components as well as the correlation between them the effects of policy affecting plant revenues dominate the effects of those policies affecting production costs in the absence of these policies much of the recent expansionary periods would have not existed and market conditions in the late 1990s would have led to some plant closures we also show that regardless of plant size u s ethanol policy has narrowed the distance between the optimal entry and exit curves implying a more narrow range of inactivity and indicative of a more volatile evolution for the industry than would have existed otherwise

the impact of ethanol production on us and regional gasoline markets abstract this study quantifies the impact of increasing ethanol production on wholesale retail gasoline prices employing pooled regional time series data from january 1995 to march 2008 we find that the growth in ethanol production kept wholesale gasoline prices 0 14 gallon lower than would otherwise have been the case the negative impact of ethanol on retail gasoline prices is found to vary considerably across regions the midwest region has the biggest impact at 0 28 gallon while the rocky mountain region had the smallest impact at 0 07 gallon the results also indicate that the ethanol induced reduction in gasoline prices comes at the expense of refiners profits we find a net welfare loss of 0 5 billion from the ethanol support policies in multiple markets

the social costs of second best policies evidence from agricultural ghg mitigation abstract this paper investigates the social costs of second best agricultural greenhouse gas ghg mitigation policies adjustments along the land use and input intensity margins are represented within a regionalized optimization model of california crop production calibrated to economic and agronomic information second best policies relying on spatially aggregated ghg emission factors lead to small abatement efficiency losses while policies targeting a single ghg lead to moderate losses in contrast policies targeting a single input entail large abatement efficiency losses which nonetheless can be reduced by combining instruments

do food and oil prices co move abstract this paper studies co movements between world oil prices and global prices for corn soybean and wheat using copulas several copula models with different conditional dependence structures and time varying dependence parameters were considered empirical results for weekly data from january 1998 to april 2011 showed weak oil food dependence and no extreme market dependence between oil and food prices these results support the neutrality of agricultural commodity markets to the effects of changes in oil prices and non contagion between the crude oil and agricultural markets however dependence increased significantly in the last three years of the sampling period even though upper tail dependence remained insignificant indicating that food price spikes are not caused by positive extreme oil price changes these results have implications for policy design risk management and hedging strategies

the costs of carbon sequestration a revealed preference approach increased concem by policy makers with the threat of global climate change has brought with it considerable attention to the possibility of encouraging the growth of forests as a means of sequestering carbon dioxide national academy of sciences nas 1992 james p bruce et al 1996 1 the kyoto protocol to the united nations framework convention on climate change 1997 which establishes emission reduction targets for the united states and other industrialized nations states that carbon sequestration can be used by participating nations to achieve their targets moreover even before the kyoto agreement this approach had become an explicit element of both u s and intemational climate policies u s department of energy 1991 united nations general assembly 1992 william j clinton and albert gore 1993 this high level of interest has been due in part to suggestions that sufficient lands are available to use the approach to mitigate a substantial share of annual carbon dioxide c02 emissions greg marland 1988 daniel a lashof and dennis a tirpak 1989 mark c trexler 1991 and claims that growing trees to sequester carbon is a relatively inexpensive means of combating climate change roger a sedjo and allen m solomon 1989 daniel j dudek and alice leblanc 1990 nas 1992 in other words the serious attention given by policy makers to carbon sequestration can partly be explained by implicit assertions about respective marginal cost functions i develop and demonstrate a method by which the costs of carbon sequestration can be estimated on the basis of evidence from landowners behavior when confronted with the opportunity costs of alternative land uses the simplest of previous economic analyses derived single point estimates of average costs associated with particular sequestration levels marland 1988 sedjo and solomon 1989 dudek and leblanc 1990 edwin s rubin et al 1992 omar masera et al 1995 often it has been assumed that land opportunity costs are zero g van kooten et al 1992 j k winjum et al 1992 new york state energy office 1993 robert k dixon et al 1994 another set of studies essentially engineering costing models has constructed marginal cost schedules by using information on revenues and costs of production for altemative uses on representative types or locations of land and then sorting these in ascending order of cost robert j moulton and kenneth r richards 1990 richards et al 1993 simulation models include a model of the lost profits due to removing land from agricultural production peter j parks and ian w hardie 1995 a mathematical programming model of the agricultural sector and the timber market richard m adams et al 1993 a related model incorporating the effects of agricultural price support programs j m callaway and bruce mccarl 1996 and a dynamic simulation model of forestry susan swinehart 1996 lastly an analysis by andrew j plantinga 1995 adopts land use elasticities from an econometric study to estimate sequestration costs we draw on some of the best features of the previous studies including the carbon levelization method of moulton and richards john f kennedy school of government harvard university 79 john f kennedy street cambridge ma 02138 and resources for the future richard newell supplied excellent research assistance and valuable comments on a previous version were provided by lawrence goulder william nordhaus andrew plantinga kenneth richards two anonymous referees participants in seminars at the universities of california at los angeles and santa barbara the university of maryland the university of michigan the university of texas harvard university stanford university yale university resources for the future and the national bureau of economic research the author alone is resdonsible for any errors 1 after fossil fuel combustion deforestation is the second largest source of carbon dioxide emissions estimates of annual global emissions from deforestation range from 0 6 to 2 8 billion tons compared with slightly less than 6 0 billion tons annually from fossil fuel combustion cement manufacturing and natural gas flaring combined r a houghton 1991 t m smith et al 1993

environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability and price effects on consumer responses the lack of attention to sustainability as a concept with multiple dimensions has presented a developmental gap in green marketing literature sustainability and marketing literature for decades based on the established premise of customer corporate c c identification in which consumers respond favorably to companies with corporate social responsibility initiatives that they identify with we propose that consumers would respond similarly to companies with sustainability initiatives we postulate that consumers care about protecting and preserving favorable economic environments an economic dimension of sustainability as much as they care about natural environments thus we investigate how two sustainability dimensions i e environmental and economic and price can influence consumer responses using an experimental method we demonstrate that consumers favor sustainability in both dimensions by giving positive evaluations of the company and purchase intent in addition consumers respond more negatively to poor company sustainability than to high company sustainability in comparison consumers respond more negatively to the company s poor commitment to caring for the environment than to the company s poor commitment to economic sustainability we also find that consumers do not respond favorably to low prices when they have information about the firm s poor environmental sustainability finally we find support for an interaction effect between consumer support for sustainability and corporate sustainability that is consumers evaluate a company more favorably if the company shares the consumers social causes overall we conclude from our empirical study support for the idea that consumers do respond to multiple dimensions of sustainability

banks and macroeconomic disturbances under predetermined exchange rates abstract as the recent mexican crisis vividly illustrates latin american countries often go through boom bust cycles caused by both domestic policies and external shocks such cycles are typically magnified by weak banking systems which intermediate large capital inflows this paper develops a simple optimizing model to analyze how the banking sector affects the propagation of shocks in particular we show how the world business cycle and shocks to the banking system affect output and employment through fluctuations in bank credit we also analyze the countercyclical use of reserve requirements econometric evidence for chile and mexico supports the main predictions of the model

decompositions of corn price effects implications for feed grain demand and livestock supply this article examines how corn prices affect the demand for feed grains and the supply of livestock outputs the differential approach to the theory of the multiproduct firm is employed to examine ex ante decisions about feed grain demand and livestock supply the estimation results suggest that livestock producers have little flexibility in adjusting the demand for corn in response to an increase in corn prices the substitutable relationship between corn and distillers grains contributes to alleviating pressures on feed costs in response to high corn prices in addition the estimation results highlight that the composition of livestock supply can be altered by changes in livestock prices on the basis of the estimated elasticities the decompositions of profit maximizing input demand are conducted to examine the effects of changes in corn prices on feed grain demand and livestock supply the decomposition results reveal that an increase in corn prices reduces corn demand but raises the demand for distillers grains mainly due to the substitution effects of corn price changes the decomposition results also show that an increase in the price of corn reduces cattle supply but raises the supply of chicken and pork due to the output relationships in supply

food versus fuel what do prices tell us abstract sorting out the impacts of biofuels on global agricultural commodity prices is impossible without turning to data and distinguishing between the short run versus the long run impacts using time series prices on fuels and agricultural commodities the aim is to investigate the long run cointegration of these prices simultaneously with their multivariate short run interactions results indicate no direct long run price relations between fuel and agricultural commodity prices and limited if any direct short run relationships in terms of short run price movements sugar prices are influencing all the other agricultural commodity prices except rice with sugar the number one world input for ethanol results indicate increased ethanol production is potentially influencing short run agricultural commodity prices overall results support the effect of agricultural commodity prices as market signals which restore commodity markets to their equilibria after a demand or supply event shock

the spillover effects of biofuel policy on participation in the conservation reserve program abstract this paper studies the spillover effects of rising biofuel production on participation in the conservation reserve program landowner participation decisions are modeled using a real options framework we develop a land use decision model that captures biofuel driven structural changes in market demand and derive threshold conditions that trigger participation in the program we then quantify the impacts of biofuel production on participation at both the national and state levels using monte carlo simulations the model is also used to analyze how changes in the persistence of the biofuel production boom and in the volatility of farming returns affect conservation participation decisions policy implications of the results are discussed

the effects of militarization on biofuel consumption and co2 emission abstract the cointegration and causal relation among co2 emissions economic growth militarization and biofuel consumption were tested from 1984 to 2015 period for unite states us the autoregressive distributed lag and three supplementary long run estimators the dynamic ols canonical cointegration regression and fully modified ols were employed to reveal the long run impacts of economic growth militarization and biofuel consumption on co2 emissions toda and yamamoto s mwald and rao f tests were applied to find out the direction of causality the evidence of bi directional causality between biofuel consumption and economic growth between economic growth between militarization and biofuel consumption and co2 emissions and between biofuel consumption and co2 emissions was determined the results of forecast error variance determined 50 1 of the forecast error variance of co2 emissions is explained by the forecast error variance of militarization and 59 4 by energy consumption

does renewable and or non renewable energy consumption matter for total factor productivity tfp growth evidence from the brics abstract studies proved that output growth is mainly associated with the total factor productivity tfp growth and variables that affect the tfp have an important explanatory power on output in this regards the aim of this study is to examine the causal relationship between different types of energy consumption and tfp growth in the brics from 1992 to 2012 a panel bootstrap granger causality test by konya 2006 68 was employed to investigate the direction of possible connection between energy consumption and tfp growth results show that no remarkable causal link exists between renewable energy consumption and tfp growth in the brics however in the case of non renewables energy consumption creates a positive externality that contributes economic development in brazil and south africa by the growth of tfp as well as energy use itself in this respect policies that promote coal and non renewable electricity consumption in south africa and natural gas consumption in brazil may be beneficial for their economic development

is bioenergy trade good for the environment we analyze the impacts of bioenergy trade on greenhouse gas emissions using a two good three factor model bioenergy is an agricultural good used as a substitute for fossil fuels in industry governments tax domestic pollution without international coordination we assume that northern countries have higher labor productivity than southern ones and that agriculture is less pollution intensive than industry after taxation we show that whereas southern countries impose a lower tax rate than northern ones they do not necessary have a competitive advantage in industry and that compared to autarky trade liberalization either increases or decreases worldwide emissions depending on regional comparative advantages

world oil and agricultural commodity prices evidence from nonlinear causality abstract the increasing co movements between the world oil and agricultural commodity prices have renewed interest in determining price transmission from oil prices to those of agricultural commodities this study extends the literature on the oil agricultural commodity prices nexus which particularly concentrates on nonlinear causal relationships between the world oil and three key agricultural commodity prices corn soybeans and wheat to this end the linear causality approach of toda yamamoto and the nonparametric causality method of diks panchenko are applied to the weekly data spanning from 1994 to 2010 the linear causality analysis indicates that the oil prices and the agricultural commodity prices do not influence each other which supports evidence on the neutrality hypothesis in contrast the nonlinear causality analysis shows that i there are nonlinear feedbacks between the oil and the agricultural prices and ii there is a persistent unidirectional nonlinear causality running from the oil prices to the corn and to the soybeans prices the findings from the nonlinear causality analysis therefore provide clues for better understanding the recent dynamics of the agricultural commodity prices and some policy implications for policy makers farmers and global investors this study also suggests the directions for future studies

dynamic interfeed substitution implications for incorporating ethanol byproducts into feedlot rations abstractthis study examines interfeed substitution with a focus on the relationship between distiller s dried grain with solubles ddgs and traditional feed grains the dynamic linear logit model is used for the empirical analysis of interfeed substitution the estimation results reveal that an increase in livestock and poultry outputs reduces the relative shares of corn and soybean meal to ddgs the estimated adjustment rate indicates that the demand for feed grains is responsive in the short run with about 37 of the long run response this study also finds that the demand for corn and soybean meal remains inelastic even in the long run showing the possibilities that livestock and poultry producers face high feed costs in response to an increase in the prices of corn and soybean meal the pressures on feed costs can be alleviated by the substitutable relationship between ddgs and corn but the substitution of ddgs for corn has a potential to provide livestock and poultry with different nutritional con

short term forecasting of electricity prices for miso hubs evidence from arima egarch models this study estimates three time series models arima arima egarch and arima egarch m for hourly real time electricity prices for each of the five hubs of the midwest independent system operator miso and examines the in and out of sample forecasting performance of the respective models the results from the arima models reveal the presence of autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity recognizing the possibility of asymmetric time varying volatility the egarch specification for the variance equation demonstrates the presence of an inverse leverage effect in electricity prices for each hub with respect to forecasts no one model clearly dominates the others in terms of in sample forecasting performance based on four forecast evaluation statistics however the arima egarch m model outperforms the other models michigan hub is the exception in terms of the out of sample forecasting performance

economic potential of biomass based fuels for greenhouse gas emission mitigation use of biofuels diminishes fossil fuelcombustion thereby also reducing net greenhousegas emissions however subsidies are neededto make agricultural biofuel productioneconomically feasible to explore the economicpotential of biofuels in a greenhouse gasmitigation market we incorporate data onproduction and biofuel processing for thedesignated energy crops switchgrass hybridpoplar and willow in an u s agriculturalsector model along with data on traditionalcrop livestock production and processing andafforestation of cropland net emissioncoefficients on all included agriculturalpractices are estimated through crop growthsimulation models or taken from the literature potential emission mitigation policies ormarkets are simulated via hypothetical carbonprices at each carbon price level theagricultural sector model computes the newmarket equilibrium revealing agriculturalcommodity prices regionally specificproduction input use and welfare levels environmental impacts and adoption ofalternative management practices such asbiofuel production results indicate no rolefor biofuels below carbon prices of 40 perton of carbon equivalent at these incentivelevels emission reductions via reduced soiltillage and afforestation are more costefficient for carbon prices above 70 biofuels dominate all other agriculturalmitigation strategies

when does a carbon tax on fossil fuels stimulate biofuels a carbon tax is an efficient economic instrument to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide released from fossil fuel burning if designed properly it could also help significantly to promote renewable energy using a multi sector multi country computable general equilibrium model this study investigates under what circumstances a carbon tax would help stimulate penetration of biofuels into the energy supply mix for road transportation in various countries and regions around the world this study shows that a carbon tax cum biofuel subsidy policy where a carbon tax is introduced to fossil fuels and part of the tax revenue is used to finance the biofuel subsidy would significantly help stimulate market penetration of biofuels on the other hand a carbon tax alone policy where the entire tax revenue is recycled to households through a lump sum transfer does not help stimulate biofuels significantly even at higher tax rates although the carbon tax cum subsidy policy would cause higher loss in economic output at the global level as compared to the carbon tax alone policy the incremental loss is relatively small the key policy insight drawn from the study is that if a carbon tax were to be implemented in an economy for the purpose of climate change mitigation recycling part of its revenue to finance biofuel subsidies would significantly help stimulate biofuels

domestic currency appreciation and foreign capital inflows what comes first chile 1977 1982 abstract the purpose of this paper is to find granger causality relations between the real exchange rate the inflow of foreign capital interest rate arbitrage and the terms of trade in a representative indebted developing country chile this is done for a time period in which chile went from an unprecedented expansion 1977 1981 to a severe recession 1982 the paper confronts two competing hypotheses that purport to explain such behavior hypothesis one claims that causality went from the real exchange rate affected by nominal exchange rate policy to capital inflows in what could be termed a current account deficit induced demand for foreign funds hypothesis two posits a causality that ran the other way from capital inflows to the real exchange rate in which case the exogenous inflows of foreign money implied a current account deficit special attention is paid to the role played by two other related factors interest rate arbitrage and terms of trade variations by applying innovation accounting techniques based on estimated vector autoregressions support is found for the second of these hypotheses thus the real issue in chile and in many other currently indebted latin american countries should be the timing and extent of the capital account liberalization process carried out during the period

the pricing of manufactured goods during trade liberalization evidence from chile israel and korea this paper is an investigation of price setting behavior in chile israel and korea when each of these countries moved from a fairly closed to a more open international trade regime in some cases the intensification of the opening resulted from real appreciation rather than from a formal adjustment in tariff rates as in chile 1980 82 and israel 1983 84 the central thesis of this paper is that the structural price equation for import competing manufactured goods changes with the degree of openness to trade when the economy is fairly closed the main weight is commanded by domestic cost variables and excess demand and foreign prices only affect pricing through their effects on imported material prices during trade liberalization the rate of change of prices of an increasing proportion of manufacturing goods begins to be influenced by the landed cost of similar imports but domestic variables still have a role because selected domestic manufactured goods are considered imperfect substitutes for internationally traded products empirical results from time varying parameter estimation show that domestic currency prices of imports become progressively more important during the liberalization processes in the three countries

the economics of brazil s ethanol sugar markets mandates and tax exemptions sugarcane in brazil is processed into sugar and or ethanol often in flex plants that can switch between the two products we develop an economic model of flex plants export demands and two domestic fuel demand curves for a blend of ethanol with gasoline consumed by conventional cars and ethanol consumed only by flex cars we analyze the market impacts of the following policies the blend mandate fixing gasoline prices below world prices the high gasoline tax and a higher tax exemption for ethanol blended with gasoline because brazilian and u s ethanol prices have become linked a change in brazilian ethanol policy or a shock in world sugar markets can now impact u s ethanol and corn prices we show that in theory each policy analyzed has an ambiguous impact on ethanol and sugar prices empirically however a low gasoline tax and a high tax exemption for ethanol used in the fuel blend reduce ethanol and sugar prices this contradicts conventional wisdom overall we find that policy reforms implemented in 2010 offset the ethanol price increase by about 27 due to outward shifts in fuel transportation and sugar export demand curves and due to a reduced sugarcane supply caused by bad weather our model illustrates the importance of brazil s ethanol policies on world commodity markets it also provides insight into how the brazilian government can adjust policies to better control domestic inflation while minimizing impacts on investment

potential environmental impacts of increased reliance on corn based bioenergy this paper integrates economic and physical models to assess a how increases in agricultural commodity prices driven by ethanol production and other factors affect land use and cropping systems in the us midwest and b how the changes in land use and cropping systems in turn affect environmental quality in the region the empirical framework includes a set of econometric models that predict land conversion crop choices and crop rotations at the parcel level based on commodity prices land quality climate conditions and other physical characteristics at the sites the predictions are then combined with site specific environmental production functions to determine the effect of rising commodity prices on nitrate runoff and leaching soil water and wind erosion and carbon sequestration results suggest that increasing commodity prices will result in widespread conversions of non cropland to cropland fifty percent of the region s pasture and range land will be converted to cropland with 6 corn rising commodity prices will also result in dramatic changes in crop mix and rotation systems in the midwest with 6 corn the total acreage of corn will increase by 23 and 40 in the corn belt and lake states respectively the acreage of continuous corn will increase considerably in both regions as well these changes in land use and crop mix will have a large impact on agricultural pollution approaches to mitigating the environmental impacts are discussed

corporations and ngos when accountability leads to co optation interactions between corporations and nonprofits are on the rise frequently driven by a corporate interest in establishing credentials for corporate social responsibility csr in this article we show how increasing demands for accountability directed at both businesses and ngos can have the unintended effect of compromising the autonomy of nonprofits and fostering their co optation greater scrutiny of ngo spending driven by self appointed watchdogs of the nonprofit sector and a prevalence of strategic notions of csr advanced by corporate actors weaken the ability of civil society actors to change the business practices of their partners in the commercial sector to counter this trend we argue that corporations should embrace a political notion of csr and should actively encourage ngos to strengthen downward accountability mechanisms even if this creates more tensions in corporate ngo partnerships rather than seeing ngos as tools in a competition for a comparative advantage in the market place corporations should actively support ngo independence and critical capacity

oil price agricultural commodity prices and the dollar a panel cointegration and causality analysis abstract this study examines the dynamic relationship between world oil prices and twenty four world agricultural commodity prices accounting for changes in the relative strength of us dollar in a panel setting we employ panel cointegration and granger causality methods for a panel of twenty four agricultural products based on monthly prices ranging from january 1980 to february 2010 the empirical results provide strong evidence on the impact of world oil price changes on agricultural commodity prices contrary to the findings of many studies in the literature that report neutrality of agricultural prices to oil price changes we find strong support for the role of world oil prices on prices of several agricultural commodities the positive impact of a weak dollar on agricultural prices is also confirmed

the static and dynamic environmental efficiency of renewable energy a malmquist index analysis of oecd countries abstract in recent years renewable energy and environmental efficiency have been interesting issues for both academics and industry actors when discussing sustainable development against this background the present study examines the environmental efficiency of renewable energy from the static and the dynamic perspective in 31 oecd countries a study conducted to understand the impact of renewable energy across countries as a non parametric methodology data envelopment analysis is used to measure environmental efficiency through multiple inputs and outputs labor capital and renewable energy supply are the three inputs while gdp is the desirable output and carbon emissions are the undesirable output to measure the dynamic environmental efficiency of renewable energy the malmquist productivity index is applied to estimate the average efficiency change from 2004 to 2011 the results demonstrate geographical differences in environmental efficiency across the oecd countries in oecd america have the highest average environmental efficiency and those in oecd europe have the largest standard deviation we also find that dynamic efficiency is influenced by the global financial crisis triggered in the united states further we show that oecd countries implement both catch up and frontier shift strategies to improve environmental efficiency

impacts of a united states biofuel policy on new zealand s agricultural sector abstract the rise in oil prices has spurred interest in biofuels policies in the united states like the renewable fuel standard rfs have led to an expansion of ethanol production while the new zealand government has mandated a minimum level of biofuel sales the research used a partial equilibrium model of international trade to quantify the price and farmgate income effects of the us rfs policy the goal was to examine the competition between food and biofuel production and to quantify the impact of the policy on the agricultural sector in new zealand the rfs policy has a significant impact on corn prices but a small effect on livestock prices and production there thus appears to be little conflict between food and fuel uses for corn at the level of the rfs mandate new zealand s pasture based livestock sector benefits from the use of corn for ethanol production it receives better prices for its products but does not face the same input cost increases as competitors the results suggest that new zealand faces an interesting decision it could support investment in biofuels research or benefit from the biofuels boom through the indirect impacts on demand and prices for meat and milk

the influence of biofuels economic and financial factors on daily returns of commodity futures prices abstract biofuels production has experienced rapid growth worldwide as one of the several strategies to promote green energy economies indeed climate change mitigation and energy security have been frequent rationales behind biofuel policies but biofuels production could generate negative impacts such as additional demand for feedstocks and therefore for land on which to grow them with a consequent increase in food commodity prices in this context this paper examines the effect of biofuels and other economic and financial factors on daily returns of a group of commodity futures prices using generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity garch family models in univariate and multivariate settings the results show that a complex of drivers are relevant in explaining commodity futures returns more precisely the standard and poor s s p 500 positively affects commodity markets while the us euro exchange rate brings about a decline in commodity returns it turns out in addition that energy market returns are significant in explaining commodity returns on a daily basis while monetary liquidity is not this would imply that biofuel policy should be carefully monitored in order to avoid excessive first generation subsidization which would trigger a fuel vs food conflict

land allocation effects of the global ethanol surge predictions from the international fapri model we quantify the emergence of biofuel markets and its impact on world agriculture using the multimarket multicommodity international fapri model the model incorporates trade offs between biofuel feed and food production and consumption and international feedback effects of the emergence through world prices and trade we shock the model with exogenous changes in ethanol demand first in the united states then in brazil and other countries and compute shock multipliers for land allocation decisions for important crops and countries the brazilian ethanol expansion using sugarcane has fewer consequences on existing arable land allocation than the u s ethanol expansion does using corn feedstock

how costly is mitigation of non co2 greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture a meta analysis this text reviews the assessments of marginal abatement costs of methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture we use agricultural emissions and the corresponding prices collected from 21 studies that have assessed abatement potentials and costs using various modeling approaches and assumptions we first highlight the implications of the modeling approach for marginal abatement costs harmonized abatement rates for three emission prices 10 20 and 50 2005 tco2eq are regressed on variables that reflect various modeling assumptions and study characteristics in a second step the emission price is introduced as an explanatory variable when controlling for a few key characteristics of the studies the models explain an important share of the observed variability in abatement rates the type of modeling approach is found to have a significant effect in particular we find that equilibrium models lead to higher abatement rates for a given price the flexibility in nitrogen use and its effect on crop yields also plays a significant role in lowering marginal abatement costs the results of the second step indicate that the price elasticity of the abatement rate is about 0 6 this estimate is found to be robust to several specifications and consistent with previous assessments covering other economic sectors

three bubbles and a panic an explanatory review of recent food commodity price events abstract this paper is a summary of the behaviour of food commodity prices in 2007 2008 and a review of the causes of the price increases extracted from a report to the chief scientific advisor to her majesty s government thirtle c piesse j 2008 an explanatory review of the world food commodity price events of 2007 2008 a report to the chief scientific advisor department for innovation universities and skills london the historical background shows that the price spike was much less severe than in the 1970s the conventional wisdom that prices of the main food commodities were falling prior to 2006 is questioned most ceased falling and were quite stable from the 1980s the paper separates the causes of the spike from the underlying changes driving the long run trends the literature on the causes of the spike is critically reviewed and summarised there is a reasonably broad consensus on most of the causes but much less on the impact of the depreciation of the us dollar there are also concluding speculations on the future

opportunity for profitable investments in cellulosic biofuels research efforts to allow large scale conversion of cellulose into biofuels are being undertaken in the us and eu these efforts are designed to increase logistic and conversion efficiencies enhancing the economic competitiveness of cellulosic biofuels however not enough attention has been paid to the future market conditions for cellulosic biofuels which will determine whether the necessary private investment will be available to allow a cellulosic biofuels industry to emerge we examine the future market for cellulosic biofuels differentiating between cellulosic ethanol and drop in cellulosic biofuels that can be transported with petroleum fuels and have equivalent energy values we show that emergence of a cellulosic ethanol industry is unlikely without costly government subsidies in part because of strong competition from conventional ethanol and limits on ethanol blending if production costs of drop in cellulosic biofuels fall enough to become competitive then their expansion will not necessarily cause feedstock prices to rise as long as local supplies of feedstocks that have no or low valued alternative uses exist then expansion will not cause prices to rise significantly if cellulosic feedstocks come from dedicated biomass crops then the supply curves will have a steeper slope because of competition for land

biofuels policy and the us market for motor fuels empirical analysis of ethanol splashing low ethanol prices relative to the price of gasoline blendstock and tax credits have resulted in discretionary blending at wholesale terminals of ethanol into fuel supplies above required levels a practice known as ethanol splashing in industry parlance no one knows precisely where or in what volume ethanol is being blended with gasoline and this has important implications for motor fuels markets because refiners cannot perfectly predict where ethanol will be blended with finished gasoline by wholesalers they cannot know when to produce and where to ship a blendstock that when mixed with ethanol at 10 would create the most economically efficient finished motor gasoline that meets engine standards and has comparable evaporative emissions as conventional gasoline without ethanol blending in contrast to previous empirical analyses of biofuels that have relied on highly aggregated data our analysis is disaggregated to the level of individual wholesale fuel terminals or racks of which there are about 350 in the us we incorporate the price of ethanol as well as the blendstock price to model the wholesaler s decision of whether or not to blend additional ethanol into gasoline at any particular wholesale city terminal the empirical analysis illustrates how ethanol and gasoline prices affect ethanol usage controlling for fuel specifications blend attributes and city terminal specific effects that among other things control for differential costs of delivering ethanol from bio refinery to wholesale rack

yes but this other one looks better works better how do consumers respond to trade offs between sustainability and other valued attributes consumers are increasingly facing product evaluation and choice situations that include information about product sustainability i e information about a product s relative environmental and social impact in many cases consumers have to make decisions that involve a trade off between product sustainability and other valued product attributes similarly product and marketing managers need to make decisions that reflect how consumers will respond to different trade off scenarios in the current research we study consumer responses across two different possible trade off scenarios one in which consumers face a trade off between product sustainability and hedonic value and another in which they must trade off between product sustainability and utilitarian value our results suggest that overall consumers are more likely to trade off hedonic value e g esthetics for sustainability than to trade off utilitarian value e g functional performance for sustainability in studies 1a and 1b we presented participants with a product choice task and also measured their anticipatory emotions as they contemplated their options the results suggest that given a trade off consumers are more likely to choose a sustainable product when they have to trade off hedonic value than when they have to trade off utilitarian value further these studies provide some insight into the emotions underlying this effect in study 2 we use a different consumer response measure relative purchase likelihood and investigate the effect of trade off type across categories that vary in the degree to which hedonic and utilitarian attributes are perceived to be important referred to as product type our results suggest that the effect of trade off type still holds yet is moderated by product type such that consumers greater willingness to trade off hedonic value vs utilitarian value for sustainability is attenuated as the relative importance of hedonic vs utilitarian attributes increases in addition to building on our theoretical understanding of decision making given trade offs with moral attributes this research is also intended to support managers as they define and choose among various strategic product development and marketing promotion options

regional economic impacts of biomass based energy service use a comparison across crops and technologies for east styria austria abstract biomass action plans in many european countries seek to expand biomass heat and fuel supply mainly to be supplied by peripheral agricultural regions we develop a two plus ten region energy focused computable general equilibrium cge model that acknowledges land competition in analysing the sub state local regional economic implications of such a strategy embedded within a global context our model is based on a full cost analysis of selected biomass technologies covering a range of agricultural and forestry crops as well as thermal insulation the local regional macroeconomic effects differ significantly across technologies and are governed by factors such as net labour intensity in crop production the high land intensity of agricultural biomass products crowds out conventional agriculture and thus lowers employment and drives up land prices and the consumer price index the regional economic results show that net employment effects are positive for all forestry based biomass energy and also show for which agriculture based biomass systems this is true even when accounting for land competition when regional consumer price development governs regional wages or when the agricultural sector is in strong enough competition to the international market positive employment and welfare impacts vanish fully for agriculture based bio energy

how do crude oil prices co move a copula approach abstract this paper examines the dependence structure between crude oil benchmark prices using copulas by considering several copula models with different conditional dependence structures and time varying dependence parameters we find evidence of significant symmetric upper and lower tail dependence between crude oil prices these findings suggest that crude oil prices are linked with the same intensity during bull and bear markets thus supporting the hypothesis that the oil market is one great pool in contrast with the hypothesis that states that the oil market is regionalized our findings on crude oil price co movements also have implications for risk management hedging strategies and asset pricing

ethanol and trade an analysis of price transmission in the us market abstract this paper examines the price transmission mechanisms between domestic ethanol and imported ethanol in the us market using a multivariate johansen approach the data and model support one cointegrating relationship between the prices of domestically produced ethanol imported ethanol and other relevant products gasoline crude oil and corn the rejection of weak exogeneity of the imported ethanol price and corn price implies that these two prices would adjust to changes in the price linkage those empirical findings indicate that the impact of eliminating trade barriers on the imported ethanol price would spillover to the domestic ethanol price and subsequently to corn price

sustainability meta labelling an effective measure to facilitate more sustainable consumption and production abstract arguably one of the most prominent measures to facilitate more sustainable consumption and production has been the instrument of product labelling but with a plethora of labelling schemes having been implemented by various actors over the last decade many now accuse them of being confusing rather than facilitating as a result governments in france uk and germany as well as businesses such as walmart and non governmental organisations like wwf have begun to consider seriously the implementation of some form of meta scheme that condenses existing product labels and other communication measures into an overarching sustainability message yet so far in depth studies on the potential institutionalisation of a sustainability meta labelling scheme are missing drawing upon a novel theoretically integrative framework that combines theoretical arguments of constructivist institutionalism and institutional entrepreneurship with the concept of legitimacy this paper addresses this gap by exploring how the notion of sustainability meta labelling has so far been discussed and investigating the prospects for such an overarching scheme to become institutionalised empirically the paper bases on documentary analysis and elite interviews focussed on case studies of four existing product labelling schemes eu ecolabel eu energy label marine stewardship council and fairtrade label as well as the notion of sustainability meta labelling legitimacy constructions are demonstrated rather than shown to be highly dynamic and oftentimes inherently conflicting many of these conflicts thereby appear to be likely to increase rather than decrease with the implementation of an overarching sustainability meta labelling scheme in a sense this study shows that the very issue that is claimed to drive the establishment of a sustainability meta labelling scheme the different interpretations of the sustainable development concept through different product labels might in fact pose one of the main challenges for its institutionalisation and effectiveness in facilitating more sustainable consumption and production

the impacts of biofuel targets on land use change and food supply a global cge assessment this study analyzes the long term impacts of large scale expansion of biofuels on land use change food supply and prices and the overall economy in various countries or regions using a global computable general equilibrium model augmented by a land use module and detailed representation of biofuel sectors the study finds that an expansion of global biofuel production to meet currently articulated or even higher national targets in various countries for biofuel use would reduce gross domestic product at the global level however the gross domestic product impacts are mixed across countries or regions the expansion of biofuels would cause significant land re allocation with notable decreases in forest and pasture lands in a few countries the results also suggest that the expansion of biofuels would cause a reduction in food supply although the magnitude of the impact on food supply at the global level is not as large as perceived earlier it would be significant in developing countries like india and those in sub saharan africa agricultural commodities such as sugar corn and oil seeds which serve as the main biofuel feedstocks would experience significant increases in their prices in 2020 compared with the prices at baseline due to the expansion of biofuels to meet the existing targets

the long run impact of energy prices on world agricultural markets the role of macro economic linkages the world prices of some food and energy products have followed similar large swings in recent years we investigate the long run relationship between these prices using a world computable general equilibrium model with detailed representations of food and energy markets particular attention is paid to specifying macro economic linkages which have often been overlooked in recent analysis and debate we find that the omission of these macro economic linkages has a substantial bearing on this relationship a positive relationship due to the cost push effect has been identified in most analysis but we find that the introduction of the real income effect may indeed imply a negative relationship between world food and energy prices

market penetration of biodiesel abstract this research examines in detail the technology and economics of substituting biodiesel for diesel 2 this endeavor examines three areas first the benefits of biodiesel are examined and the technical problems of large scale implementation second the biodiesel production possibilities are examined for soybean oil corn oil tallow and yellow grease which are the largest sources of feedstocks for the united states examining in detail the production possibilities allows to identity the extent of technological change production costs byproducts and greenhouse gas ghg emissions finally a u s agricultural model fasomghg was used to predict market penetration of biodiesel given technological progress variety of technologies and feedstocks market interactions energy prices and carbon dioxide equivalent prices fasomghg has several interesting results first diesel fuel prices have an expansionary impact on the biodiesel industry the higher the diesel fuel prices the more biodiesel is produced however given the most favorable circumstances the maximum biodiesel market penetration is 9 in 2030 with a wholesale diesel price of 4 per gallon second the two dominant sources of biodiesel are from corn and soybeans sources like tallow and yellow grease are more limited because they are byproducts of other industries third ghg prices have an expansionary impact on the biodiesel prices because biodiesel is quite ghg efficient finally u s government subsidies on biofuels have an expansionary impact on biodiesel production and increase market penetration at least an additional 3

world oil prices and agricultural commodity prices evidence from an emerging market abstract oil prices are thought to have direct effect on agricultural prices followed by an indirect effect through the exchange rate this paper examines the short and long run interdependence between world oil prices lira dollar exchange rate and individual agricultural commodity prices wheat maize cotton soybeans and sunflower in turkey to this end the toda yamamoto causality approach and generalized impulse response analysis for identification of the long and short run interrelationships are applied to the monthly data spanning from january 1994 to march 2010 the impulse response analysis suggests the turkish agricultural prices do not significantly react to oil price and exchange rate shocks in the short run the long run causality analysis reveals that the changes in oil prices and appreciation depreciation of the turkish lira are not transmitted to agricultural commodity prices in turkey hence our results support neutrality of agricultural commodity markets in turkey to both direct and indirect effects of oil price changes

impacts of trade liberalizations under the uruguay round on the world sugar market the impacts of the uruguay round policy provisions on the world sugar market show that these policies will stabilize the world sugar price at slightly higher levels than in the baseline global sugar consumption will increase as a result of the income growth caused by the uruguay round economic resources will be allocated more efficiently among the sugar industries of the various countries however the impacts on the sugar industries in countries with strong producer supports will be rather small because the negotiation process of the uruguay round has accommodated the changes in sugar policies already implemented by individual countries in the past few years low cost sugar producing countries will benefit from the higher world sugar price and consumers in countries with protected markets will benefit from lower domestic prices

food vs fuel the effect of biofuel policies the rise in food commodity prices since 2004 which reached record highs in 2008 has coincided with the tripling of corn ethanol production from 15 billion liters bl to 50 bl over the 2004 2010 period this has spurred the food vs fuel debate and raised questions about the extent to which biofuels have contributed to the increase in food crop prices estimates of the impact of observed levels of biofuel production differ widely across studies and lie between 20 and 60 hochman et al 2011 biofuel production in the united states us has surged as a result of government policies like the renewable fuel standard rfs volumetric ethanol excise tax credit veetc for blenders of ethanol and tariffs that restrict the imports of sugarcane ethanol the rfs authorized by the energy independence and security act eisa of 2007 has set ambitious targets of increasing biofuel production sixfold to 136 bl by 2022 with over 60 of it to be met by advanced biofuels produced using non corn starch based feedstocks a 0 12 liter veetc is provided to blenders of ethanol to reduce their costs of meeting the rfs while a tariff of 0 14 liter and an ad valorem tariff of 2 5 were enacted to prevent transfer of the tax credit to ethanol producers in brazil the current veetc and import tariff expired in 2011 with increasing federal debt and concerns about the impact of these policies on food and feed prices political support for the

csr transparency and the role of intermediate organisations transparency is a crucial condition to implement a csr policy based on the reputation mechanism the central question of this contribution is how a transparency policy ought to be organised in order to enhance the csr behaviour of companies governments endorsing csr as a new means of governance have different strategies to foster csr transparency in this paper we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of two conventional policy strategies the facilitation policy and the command and control strategy using three criteria efficiency freedom and virtue we conclude that both strategies are defective most attention is paid to the facilitation strategy since governments nowadays mainly use this in evaluating this strategy we analyse the dutch case as an alternative we introduce a third government policy the development of a self regulating sub system by construing an analogy with the historical development of corporate financial disclosure we point out that the vital step in the creation of a self regulating subsys tem is the creation of strong informational intermediate organisations

testing capital account liberalization without forward rates another look at chile 1979 1982 abstract the paper offers a way to test the impact of capital account liberalization on domestic interest rates when proxies for expectations of depreciation are unavailable the model is tested on the well understood japanese experience in 1979 1980 and then applied to the chilean liberalization from 1979 1982 the evidence points to chilean monetary authorities retaining significant control over interest rates across the period and offers support to an evolving interpretation of the period that stresses the excessive optimism about the reforms rather than their lack of credibility as the source of their ultimate collapse

the impact of biofuel growth on agriculture why is the range of estimates so wide the rapid expansion of biofuel production has generated considerable interest within the body of empirical economic literature that has sought to understand the impact of biofuel growth on the global food economy while the consensus within the literature is that biofuel emergence is likely to have some effect on future world agricultural market there is a considerable range in the estimated size of the impact despite the importance of this topic to policy makers there has been no study that has tried to reconcile the differences among various outlook studies this paper undertakes an in depth review of some key outlook studies which quantify the impacts of biofuels on agricultural commodities and which are based on either general equilibrium ge or partial equilibrium pe modeling approaches we attempt to reconcile the systematic differences in the estimated impacts of biofuel production growth on the prospective prices and production of three major feedstock commodities maize sugar cane and oilseeds across these studies despite the fact that all models predict positive impacts on prices and production there are large differences among the studies our findings point to a number of key assumptions and structural differences that seem to jointly drive the variations we observe across these studies the differences among the pe models are mainly due to differences in the design of scenarios the presence or absence of biofuel trade and the structural way in which agricultural and energy market linkages are modeled the differences among the ge models are likely to be driven by model assumptions on agricultural land supply the inclusion of the byproducts and assumptions on crude oil prices and the elasticity of substitution between petroleum and biofuels