regulation and efficiency in transition the case of telecommunications in italy abstract in regulating the telecommunications industry the separation between network and retail functions which is designed to countervail the market power of incumbent operators is a relevant issue despite its importance little empirical research has addressed the effects of such a separation accordingly this paper provides insights into the consequences of the italian communications regulatory authority s agcom decision to impose this type of separation on the incumbent telecommunications operator telecom italia in particular the studied separation is between the firm s network related functions and those used for provision of its communication services the present research finds that the type of separation implemented by agcom allows a provider to maintain the advantages of operational scale in its network structure without dampening competition in the existing market for communications services the study also offers further empirical evidence on the advantages of a composite vs translog function in analyzing the multiproduct cost structure of a telecommunications operator

an empirical study on the rebound effect considering capital costs technological progress is one of the means of reducing energy usage and carbon dioxide co2 emissions however this reduction in turn leads to a reduction in the real cost of energy services per unit which results in an increase in the demand for energy services therefore a reduction in the anticipated co2 emissions caused by a technological improvement might be partially offset in response to the cost reduction previous studies have referred to this effect as the rebound effect a large amount of empirical evidence on the rebound effect exists however most of these studies assume an exogenous improvement in energy efficiency and thus capital costs that may decrease the magnitude of the rebound effect are not taken into account expressly this paper extends the scope of the research conducted by brannlund et al brannlund r ghalwash t nordstrom j 2007 increased energy efficiency and the rebound effect effects on consumption and emissions energy economics 29 1 17 in terms of two aspects i considering capital costs explicitly as additional capital costs and ii adapting an iterating procedure and estimating the rebound effect using japanese household data as a result of our empirical analysis we conclude that the rebound is approximately 27 however we also find that ignoring additional capital costs leads to an increase in the rebound effect in the case of japanese households the magnitude of the rebound effect increases to approximately 115 moreover our simulation study shows that only a one time iteration of brannlund et al brannlund r ghalwash t nordstrom j 2007 increased energy efficiency and the rebound effect effects on consumption and emissions energy economics 29 1 17 may lead to a biased result

rain and the democratic window of opportunity according to the economic approach to political transitions negative transitory economic shocks can give rise to a window of opportunity for democratic change we examine this hypothesis using yearly rainfall variation over the 1980 2004 period in 41 sub saharan african countries we find that a 25 drop in rainfall increases the probability of a transition to democracy during the following two years by around 3 percentage points a 5 fall in income due to low rainfall raises the probability of democratization by around 7 percentage points we also find that rainfall does not affect transitions from democracy to autocracy

some models for estimating technical and scale inefficiencies in data envelopment analysis in management contexts mathematical programming is usually used to evaluate a collection of possible alternative courses of action en route to selecting one which is best in this capacity mathematical programming serves as a planning aid to management data envelopment analysis reverses this role and employs mathematical programming to obtain ex post facto evaluations of the relative efficiency of management accomplishments however they may have been planned or executed mathematical programming is thereby extended for use as a tool for control and evaluation of past accomplishments as well as a tool to aid in planning future activities the ccr ratio form introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes as part of their data envelopment analysis approach comprehends both technical and scale inefficiencies via the optimal value of the ratio form as obtained directly from the data without requiring a priori specification of weights and or explicit delineation of assumed functional forms of relations between inputs and outputs a separation into technical and scale efficiencies is accomplished by the methods developed in this paper without altering the latter conditions for use of dea directly on observational data technical inefficiencies are identified with failures to achieve best possible output levels and or usage of excessive amounts of inputs methods for identifying and correcting the magnitudes of these inefficiencies as supplied in prior work are illustrated in the present paper a new separate variable is introduced which makes it possible to determine whether operations were conducted in regions of increasing constant or decreasing returns to scale in multiple input and multiple output situations the results are discussed and related not only to classical single output economics but also to more modern versions of economics which are identified with contestable market theories

rainfall and conflict a cautionary tale abstract there is evidence that in some contexts income shocks cause conflict the literature demonstrating this relationship uses rainfall shocks to instrument for income shocks arguing that in agriculturally dependent regions negative rain shocks lower income which incites violence this identification strategy relies on the assumption that rainfall shocks affect conflict only through their impacts on income this paper evaluates this exclusion restriction in the context of religious conflict in india using data on dam construction i identify districts that are downstream from irrigation dams and show that income in these areas is much less sensitive to rainfall fluctuations however rain shocks remain equally strong predictors of riot incidence in these districts i explore other channels through which rainfall might affect conflict

economic determinants of land invasions this study estimates the effect of economic conditions on redistributive conflict we examine land invasions in brazil using a panel data set with over 50 000 municipality year observations adverse eco nomic shocks instrumented by rainfall cause the rural poor to invade and occupy large landholdings this effect exhibits substantial heterogeneity by land inequality and land tenure systems but not by other observable variables in highly unequal municipalities negative income shocks cause twice as many land invasions as in municipalities with average land inequality cross sectional estimates using fine within region variation also suggest the importance of land inequality in explaining redistributive conflict i introduction c onflict over land is endemic to many rural econo mies in environments marked by a highly skewed distribution of property incomplete land and credit markets poorly or unevenly enforced property rights and weak political institutions agents often resort to extralegal means to improve their economic positions the poor frequently invade private properties and occupy them until either forcibly expelled or granted official titles land conflict which is prevalent in many countries such as brazil south africa uganda and venezuela may distort the allocation of resources in the agricultural sector away from productive uses and thereby contribute to the persistence of rural poverty how do economic conditions affect this redistrib utive conflict this paper explores this question using a rich municipal level data set of 5 299 land invasions from 1988 to 2004 in brazil we follow miguel satyanath and sergenti 2004 by using rainfall as a source of exogenous variation to study the relationship between income and conflict and we find that adverse economic shocks cause the rural poor to invade large landholdings this effect exhibits considerable het erogeneity by land inequality and land tenure systems in highly unequal municipalities negative income shocks cause twice as many land invasions as in municipalities with average land inequality the effect of income shocks is even stronger in highly polarized municipalities as measured by the degree of bimodality in the land distribution cross sectional estimates using fine within region variation also suggest the importance of land inequality in explaining redistributive conflict we also find that income shocks cause significantly more land invasions in municipalities with a greater proportion of land under fixed rent contracts by contrast we find no evidence of heterogeneity on a range of other political and socioeconomic variables including political competition sharecropping police expenditures and social welfare spending recent microeconometric studies have examined two

natural monopoly in portuguese telecommunications the purpose of this paper is to show an empirical test of subadditivity based on a sufficient condition namely transray convexity coupled with global economies of scale which has not been commonly used in the literature we use this sufficient condition to test the hypothesis of subadditivity of the cost function in the largest portuguese telecommunications firm ctt and find that the market for telecommunications services in portugal was a natural monopoly in the period analysed

energy savings and the rebound effect with multiple energy services and efficiency correlation abstract the rebound effect or the increased use of energy services following an increase in the efficiency of that service is widely studied in the literature but it is usually only considered in a single service environment such a framework ignores the potentially significant indirect rebound effects that occur through increased purchasing power for other services and does not allow for joint efficiency improvements across many services what we call efficiency correlation we develop a household production model with two energy services and distinct but simultaneous efficiency changes to test the implications of efficiency correlation on net energy elasticities and the rebound effect positively correlated efficiency choices across end uses not only increase technically feasible energy reductions but also drive additional rebound responses that erode these savings model simulations suggest that the rebound effects through the efficiency correlation channel are just as large as traditional direct and indirect rebound effects reported in the literature though they are offset by added technical energy savings moreover we find that negative correlation can significantly reverse any energy savings e g a household installs energy saving window panes but then trades in their sedan for a suv but current federal efficiency standards make this scenario unlikely this paper offers new insight into a host of additional behavioral responses to efficiency improvements particularly the incidence of efficiency correlation across different energy services and highlights its implication for realized energy savings

x efficiency in emerging competitive markets the case of u s telecommunications abstract whether or not the progressive introduction of competition in the u s telecommunications industry has induced firm level efficiencies is studied in this paper two sets of performance measures are computed for local operating companies using data envelopment analysis for the years 1973 1978 1981 1984 and 1987 the first set measures whether firms are able to augment output values the second set measures whether firms conserve resources or inputs both sets of measures improve between 1973 and 1987 the output value augmentation measures initially rise steeply and then plateau while the input conservation measures rise more steadily these indicate that firms have benefited from incumbency positions in early exploitation of opening markets but increasing pressures have induced firms to continuously strive towards frugality in resource consumption

from groundless universalism to grounded generalism improving ecological economic indicators of human environmental interaction abstract ecological economics occasionally makes universal claims about how to understand and measure change in systems of human environmental interaction in terms of environmental policy one of the most influential universal concepts that has come out of the ecological economics literature recently is ecological efficiency or eco efficiency this article uses eco efficiency as a vehicle to illustrate that universal indicators of human environmental interaction are theoretically unfounded and practically problematic population ecology and neo classical economics are identified as two theoretical approaches that have contributed to the emergence of universal concepts such as eco efficiency the limited applicability of the approaches is highlighted by putting them in comparative context with approaches that make less universal claims namely systems ecology and institutional economics investigating indicators of human environmental interaction from disciplinary perspectives that are rarely found in indicator literature offers novel insights on what indicators are for and how they should be applied the article concludes with a call for scale sensitive generalization in the development of future indicators

energy intensive lifestyles time use the activity patterns of consumers and related energy demands in finland time use survey data has been used to model household activities beyond market transactions accordingly measures such as the goods intensity of household activities and the energy and carbon intensity of household activities have been derived in this paper we build on this approach by using time use data to model the direct and indirect energy use of households from this we present a decomposition analysis of the changes in the embedded and direct energy consumption of finnish households from 1987 to 2009 relevant questions that arise include that of whether increases in total energy consumption are due to changes in activity patterns changes in the energy intensity of activities or due to demographic changes beyond the empirical work we suggest that time use approaches require a more explicit theorization of time

child schooling child health and rainfall shocks evidence from rural vietnam abstractwe study the effect of rainfall shocks on child schooling outcomes and on standardised height for age a measure of child health in rural vietnam we find that adverse rainfall shocks during pregnancy adversely affect children s school entry delay and progress through school adverse rainfall shocks in the third year of life adversely affect both schooling and child health these effects differ by region as a result of constraints that reflect regional economic heterogeneity we predict that policies that help rural families smooth income shocks will result in increases in human capital and in substantial cumulative returns over a worker s working life

estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for u s households with input output analysis part 1 theoretical framework abstract this is the first part of a two part paper providing an analytical model of the indirect rebound effect given a direct rebound estimate that integrates consumer demand theory with the embodied energy of household spending from environmentally extended input output analysis the second part applies the model developed in part one to simulate the direct and indirect rebound for the average u s household in terms of primary energy co2e nox and so2 emissions and for energy efficiency investments in electricity natural gas or gasoline services part one provides a critical review of the largely independent economic and industrial ecology literatures on the indirect rebound by studying the two goods case and the n goods case we demonstrate that the indirect rebound is bounded by the consumer budget constraint and inversely related to the direct rebound we also compare the common proportional spending and income elasticity spending assumptions with our model of cross price elasticities including both substitution and income effects for the indirect rebound by assuming zero incremental capital costs and the same embodied energy as conventional technologies for efficient appliances we model an upper bound of the indirect rebound future work should also consider the increase in consumer welfare possible through the rebound effect

the economic impacts of climate change evidence from agricultural output and random fluctuations in weather fisher et al 2012 hereafter fhrs have uncovered coding and data errors in our paper deschenes and greenstone 2007 hereafter dg we acknowledge and are embarrassed by these mistakes we are grateful to fhrs for uncovering them we hope that this reply will also contribute to advancing the literature on the vital question of the impact of climate change on the us agricultural sector fhrs main critiques of dg are as follows i there are errors in the weather data and climate change projections used by dg ii the climate change projections are based on the hadley 2 model and scenarios rather than the more recent hadley 3 model and scenarios iii standard errors are biased due to spatial correlation iv the inclusion of state by year fixed effects does not leave enough weather variation to obtain meaningful estimates of the relationship between agriculture profits and weather v storage and inventory adjustment in response to yield shocks invalidate the use of annual profit data and vi fhrs argue that a better specified hedonic model produces robust estimates unlike the results reported in dg four of these critiques have little basis and we respond to them here in the introduction specifically with respect to ii the more recent daily climate predictions were not available when we wrote dg nevertheless the most important issue is providing the reliable estimates of climate change and in this note we report estimates based on the climate model we used in dg and a more recent one that we gained access to in the meantime iii in the primary table on agricultural profits dg reports two sets of standard errors with the first clustered at the county level and the second based on a variance covariance matrix that accounts for spatial correlation using the method proposed in conley 1999 thus the claim of fhrs 2012 seems overblown nevertheless to ease comparisons of papers in this literature this note will adopt the fhrs convention of reporting estimated standard errors clustered at the county and state levels we find that inference is largely unaffected by the choice between these different assumptions about the variance covariance matrix

the dynamics of willingness to consume abstract it is increasingly acknowledged that the growing consumption in the north constitutes an important part of global environmental problems to improve the possibilities of dealing with this aspect of the problems this paper explores some of the driving forces behind the growth in consumption the first section introduces the environmental debate on consumption including the relationship between final consumption and the consumption of resources the recent political acceptance of dealing with consumption and the fundamental conditions for consumption growth in the north in the following sections a cross disciplinary approach is applied in a broad search for the driving forces behind the willingness to consume throughout the exposition two questions are explored 1 why are productivity increases largely transformed into income increases instead of more leisure 2 why is such a large part of these income increases used for the consumption of goods and services with a relatively high materials intensity instead of less material intensive alternatives the explanations are divided into three groups first the economic explanations including socio economic aspects related to the institutional set up of the economy second socio psychological explanations focusing on consumption from the perspective of the human being embedded in specific social relations third historical and socio technological explanations focusing on different aspects of everyday life the paper concludes with some reflections on the political implications of the analysis

empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect a review beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

technical efficiency and economies of scale in state owned enterprises the hellenic telecommunications organisation abstract in this paper we propose methodologies for assessing the relative efficiency of state owned enterprises that operate under monopolistic conditions irrespective of the ownership structure private or public monopolistic operation is often given unclear conflicting operating objectives by their principals or regulators and thus efficiency should be assessed using alternative objectives such as cost production and revenue on the methodological side the paper employs parametric functional forms using ordinary least squares and goal programming methods of estimation a secondary estimation stage was also pursued with the input output variables of the models being corrected for technical inefficiency the methodology was applied to examine the technical efficiency and economies of scale of the hellenic telecommunications organisation over the period 1971 1993

rethinking the economics of water an assessment water is rising on the policy agenda as population growth and climate change intensify scarcity shocks and access inequalities the conventional economic policy recommendations privatization pricing and property rights have struggled due to a failure to account adequately for the politics of water and the associated distributional conflicts we identify distinctive social and physical characteristics of water supply and demand and explore their implications for three central areas of water policy financing infrastructure pricing and property rights reform growing dependence on groundwater and non networked water supplies exacerbates these challenges and reinforces the need to rethink the economics of water and tackle the political challenges head on meeting the water sustainable development goals would require institutional and technological innovations to supply allocate and manage water as well as a sustained political and financial commitment to address those who might be left behind

productivity growth in canadian telecommunications canadian telecommunications firms do not price proportionately to marginal cost the prices of toll services tend to be above marginal costs whereas the prices of basic local services are typically set below marginal costs by regulators in such circumstances estimates of tfp growth using the conventional tornqvist divisia formula which weights outputs by revenue shares in determining the rate of growth of aggregate output is theoretically incorrect and needs to be replaced by a formula which uses cost elasticity weights empirically the conventional tornqvist index yields a very distorted picture of efficiency gains in the two largest canadian telephone companies during the 1980s for bell canada i calculate the upward bias to be approximately 75 percent over the period 1980 89 and 80 percent over the period 1985 89 for b c tel a similar calculation yields an upward bias of 37 percent over the period 1980 89 and 48 percent over the period 1985 89

does rainfall matter for economic growth evidence from global sub national data 1990 2014 much micro econometric evidence suggests that precipitation has wide ranging impacts on vital economic indicators such as agricultural yields human capital and even conflict and yet paradoxically most macro econometric evidence especially in the climate economy literature finds that precipitation has no robust and significant impact on various measures of aggregate economic output this paper argues that spatial aggregation of weather at the country level explains this result the paper uses annual subnational gross domestic product data to show a concave relationship between precipitation and local gross domestic product growth between 1990 and 2014 it then demonstrates that when the data are aggregated at larger spatial scales the impact decreases and eventually vanishes the impact of precipitation on aggregate economic activity is predominantly felt in developing countries it is insignificant in developed countries agriculture is found to be the dominant pathway the results have significant consequences for measuring the economic impacts of climate change

divestiture of nippon telegraph and telephone this article discusses whether the japanese government should break up ntt nippon telegraph telephone in 1995 as the u s federal government compelled at t american telephone telegram to break itself into toll and local telephone companies in 1984 the divestiture of ntt has long been a major industrial policy issue in japan since the common carrier was privatized in 1985 the governmental decision to divest it may influence not only the japanese telecommunications infrastructure but also the global telecommunications and information industries in the world where many common carriers are now facing an environmental change from regulation to competition a unique feature of this study is that it employs eight different estimation techniques to obtain a cost function of ntt so that this research avoids a methodological bias occurring in many empirical studies this study confirms that ntt has maintained cost subadditivity but it has failed to establish the status of a natural monopoly in the observed time period however it also finds that the ntt divestiture will not produce a price reducing benefit to japanese telecommunications consumers this research result will serve as empirical evidence for guiding the governmental review of this large scale industrial policy issue in japan

beyond the economics of more the place of consumption in ecological economics abstract the relation between consumption and welfare generally assumed by orthodox economists must be re examined by ecological economists present attitudes towards consumption among the latter are often ambiguous resulting in a modified form of consumerism yet questioning the often dubious benefits of consumption is as important for the environmental debate as emphasising its neglected costs beyond basic needs satisfaction it is at most one s consumption level relative to others which counts for welfare so that benefits from consumption cannot be increased in the aggregate thus there is much scope for reducing consumption and thus environmental costs while increasing or maintaining welfare identifying those goods the consumption of which adds little or nothing to welfare and assessing the effect of reducing their consumption on resource use natural and human should be a major concern of an ecological economics aimed at promoting sustainable welfare

dealing with environmental savings in a dynamical economy how to stop chasing your tail in the pursuit of sustainability abstract in most countries people are urged to change their pattern of consumption and lifestyle in a less energy consuming and more environmental friendly direction but gains in ecoefficiency are likely to be annihilated by a larger consumption the so called rebound effect resulting in an increased throughput in the economy here is an obvious contradiction another contradiction entails from the fact that most governments strive to promote economic growth which includes increased consumption the paper takes a look at various means to handle these contradictions in order to avoid or balance the rebound effect environmental policies including such measures as green taxes may redirect consumption from one kind to another but this demands that the alternative spending is less harmful than the one dissuaded from two other tested means are to alter the sector mix of the economy and to shorten the working hours work sharing to match the increasing efficiency

the rebound effect microeconomic definitions limitations and extensions abstract the rebound effect results in part from an increased consumption of energy services following an improvement in the technical efficiency of delivering those services this increased consumption offsets the energy savings that may otherwise be achieved if the rebound effect is sufficiently large it may undermine the rationale for policy measures to encourage energy efficiency the nature and magnitude of the rebound effect is the focus of long running dispute with energy economics this paper brings together previous theoretical work to provide a rigorous definition of the rebound effect to clarify key conceptual issues and to highlight the potential consequences of various assumptions for empirical estimates of the effect the focus is on the direct rebound effect for a single energy service indirect and economy wide rebound effects are not discussed beginning with khazzoom s original definition of the rebound effect we expose the limitations of three simplifying assumptions on which this definition is based first we argue that capital costs form an important part of the total cost of providing energy services and that empirical studies that estimate rebound effects from variations in energy prices are prone to bias second we argue that energy efficiency should be treated as an endogenous variable and that empirical estimates of the rebound effect may need to apply a simultaneous equation model to capture the joint determination of key variables third we explore the implications of the opportunity costs of time in the production of energy services and highlight the consequences for energy use of improved time efficiency the influence of time costs on the rebound effect and the existence of a parallel rebound effect with respect to time each of these considerations serves to highlight the difficulties in obtaining reliable estimates of the rebound effect and the different factors that need to be controlled for we discuss the implications of these findings for econometric studies and argue that several existing studies may overestimate the magnitude of the effect

strong sustainable consumption governance precondition for a degrowth path this paper aims to link two debates and literatures at the cutting edge of sustainable development research and governance sustainable consumption and degrowth interestingly these literatures have only recently started to exchange and integrate insights despite their similar interest in the fundamental systemic challenges to sustainable development the paper argues that this lack of connection is due to a predominance of perspectives in sustainable consumption governance that focus almost exclusively on questions of efficiency gains this weak sustainable consumption governance however is not able to address the challenges to sustainable development arising from overconsumption in general or the rebound effect and distributive issues in particular in contrast a strong sustainable consumption perspective provides a basis for a promising inquiry into the linkages between consumption and sustainable development as well as a fruitful exchange with degrowth specifically it allows the delineation of relevant insights on the role of values in governance obstacles to political reform and promising political strategies for the degrowth debate and literature

market and non market determinants of private consumption and their impacts on the environment abstract the view of consumption as an activity combining market and non market elements with the aim of attaining life enjoyment targets allows one to focus on the social and institutional determinants of the border between market and non market components of the consumption process and to consider the interrelations of market and non market domains of social life as a possible source of the environmental degradation which derives from consumption activities in this paper an analytical framework is proposed in which the view of consumption as a social process and the neo ricardian theory of prices and profits are combined to yield an evaluation of consumer efficiency and of its environmental effects the paper argues that the social and institutional framework in which consumption is embedded significantly determines the impact of human activities on the natural environment and that environmental degradation is intimately connected with a distortion in the consumption process towards a predominance of market relations and an excess of labour in industrial society two examples household energy conservation and private transportation illustrate the analytical framework and suggest the importance of redrawing the border between market and non market domains of social life in environmental policy

technological progress and sustainable development what about the rebound effect abstract sustainability concepts that rest on the idea of resource or energy efficiency improvements due to technological progress tend to overestimate the potential saving effects because they frequently ignore the behavioral responses evoked by technological improvements efficiency improvements also affect the demand for resources and energy and often an increase in efficiency by 1 will cause a reduction in resource use that is far below 1 or sometimes it can even cause an increase in resource use this phenomenon is commonly labeled the rebound effect which is well known among energy economists but never attracted much attention in ecological economics the paper starts with the traditional neoclassical analysis of the rebound effect in a partial equilibrium framework that concentrates on the demand of one particular energy service such as mobility or room temperature it also provides an overview of some of the main empirical studies based on this model that mostly confirm the existence of the rebound effect but are controversial about its actual importance however we have to go beyond the neoclassical single service model in order to take care of the variety of possible feedback affecting energy use the paper presents two important expansions of the single service model in order to show the potential relevance of the rebound effect to ecological economics first it is shown that in a multi services model it proves to be difficult to make general statements about the relevance of the rebound effect in this case the overall effect of an increase in energy efficiency on total energy use depends on the on the assumptions about the substitutability between the services considered and the direction of the income effect second the paper also tries to take care of the fact that changes in resource use or energy use are frequently just side effects of other forms of technological progress especially technological change of a time saving nature can have a large influence on energy use as many time saving devices for example faster modes of transport require an increase in energy consumption that is frequently reinforced by a rebound effect with respect to time this effect will be especially strong when wages are high and at the same time energy prices are low as is currently the case in most industrialized countries consequently the paper also provides a strong argument for the introduction of energy taxes

happy degrowth through more amateur economy abstract this paper outlines a simple aggregate descriptive model of what is here termed a whole economy covering all human involvement in the economy from ultimate means or ecological sacrifices to the ultimate ends of human satisfaction the model embraces not only the formal professional economy driven by money but also the parallel non paid voluntary economy here termed amateur economy driven by peoples affective motivations the input of work to the economy plays an essential role in the paper s analysis of options for reducing ecological sacrifices hence part of the paper is devoted to a brief historical overview of the role of work including turning points in the 1930s in the united states when work sharing was displaced by work creation through consumerism and in the post war economy when gdp became the dominant economic indicator the paper proposes the aim of a happy and sustainable degrowth for affluent countries implying the transfer of some activities from the professional economy to the less labor productive amateur economy this will tend to reduce overall labor productivity and hence resource throughput but increase satisfaction and happiness a key element in the analysis is combining a reduction in consumption with a reduction in production which is obtainable through lowering either working time or work productivity and turning some of the leisure time into voluntary activities economic growth is not a law of nature but the consequence of explicit political decisions taken hence growth is also open to new political decisions in recognition of physical limits to growth and the human quest for replacing economic growth with life satisfaction including increased free time

time saving innovations time allocation and energy use evidence from canadian households abstract time and energy are major inputs into the production of household goods and services as a result the market penetration of time saving technologies for general household use is expected to affect both a household s i allocation of time across home production and leisure activities and ii energy use for example with a household s adoption of a microwave or a dishwasher cooking food and washing dishes will require less time and therefore in home meal preparation may increase households with microwaves or dishwashers may also opt to spend more time undertaking other production activities inside or outside the home or engage in more leisure watching tv reading exercising to the extent that time is reallocated from less to more energy intensive activities in the home residential energy use will increase as households adopt appliances that embody time saving technology furthermore an adoption of time saving technologies for basic household chores such as meal preparation and laundry can impact energy use due to the fact that many time saving technologies are more energy intensive than alternative technologies that require larger time commitments in this paper we use the canadian survey of household energy use data from 2003 to examine the extent to which ownership of products that embody time saving innovations affects time allocation and energy use at the household level

environmentally sustainable household consumption from aggregate environmental pressures to priority fields of action unsustainable consumption patterns of the north or rather of the global affluent consumers class have been identified by agenda 21 as one of the key driving forces behind the unsustainable development however neither accounting based on the system of national accounts sna nor household economics provide the proper instruments to assess the environmental impact of household decision making eco efficiency assessments as familiar in the business sector provide no appropriate tool for households as an alternative an environmental space based assessment scheme is suggested covering the major pressures on the environment caused by household decisions the methodology is used twice once to analyse the environmental relevance of the main activity clusters of household consumption and once to identify the dominant acts of consumption within each cluster the latter provide the basis for deriving environmental performance indicators a rough analysis of household influence potentials permits to identify housing eating and mobility as the three priority fields for action for minimising the environmental impact of households extending the influence analysis actor matrixes are derived allocating influence and thus responsibility for environmental pressures to different groups of economic agents

a general equilibrium view of global rebound effects abstract how do energy efficiency gains affect energy consumption the effects are generally called rebound effects in the literature previous studies have extensively focused on only part of the global economy to study rebound effects e g energy consumption by households one industry or one country however since the global economy is highly connected among countries these studies may lead to misleading conclusions if the rebound effects in the rest of the economy are significant recently saunders 2008 analyzes the demand side by taking the global economy as a whole wei 2007 also provides a general analysis by using cobb douglas production functions for the global economy the present article expands wei 2007 general analysis to explore the rebound effects from an economist s viewpoint by taking the global economy as a whole and applying general forms of production functions the analysis provides new insights related to rebound effects we highlight the role of energy supply as a determinant of rebound we show that the substitution between energy resources and other productive resources is more relevant to long term rebound we predict that long term rebound may be lower than short term rebound and we also discover that super conservation can happen in both the short term and the long term

linking material and energy flow analyses and social theory the paper explores the potential of habermas theory of communicative action to alter the social reflexivity of material and energy flow analysis with his social macro theory habermas has provided an alternative critical justification for social theory that can be distinguished from economic libertarianism and from political liberalism implicitly most flow approaches draw from these theoretical traditions rather than from discourse theory there are several types of material and energy flow analyses while these concepts basically share a system theoretical view they lack a specific interdisciplinary perspective that ties the fundamental insight of flows to disciplinary scientific development instead of simply expanding micro models to the social macro dimension social theory suggests infusing the very notion of flows to the progress of disciplines with regard to the functional integration of society material and energy flow analyses can rely on the paradigm of ecological economics and at the same time progress the debate between strong and weak sustainability within the paradigm however placing economics at the centre of their functional analyses may still ignore the broader social integration of society depending on their pre analytic outline of research and the methods used

macro micro feedback links of water management in south africa cge analyses of selected policy regimes the pressure on an already stressed water situation in south africa is predicted to increase significantly under climate change plans for large industrial expansion observed rapid urbanization and government programs to provide access to water to millions of previously excluded people the present study employed a general equilibrium approach to examine the economy wide impacts of selected macro and water related policy reforms on water use and allocation rural livelihoods and the economy at large the analyses reveal that implicit crop level water quotas reduce the amount of irrigated land allocated to higher value horticultural crops and create higher shadow rents for production of lower value water intensive field crops such as sugarcane and fodder accordingly liberalizing local water allocation in irrigation agriculture is found to work in favor of higher value crops and expand agricultural production and exports and farm employment allowing for water trade between irrigation and non agricultural uses fueled by higher competition for water from industrial expansion and urbanization leads to greater water shadow prices for irrigation water with reduced income and employment benefits to rural households and higher gains for non agricultural households the analyses show difficult tradeoffs between general economic gains and higher water prices making irrigation subsidies difficult to justify

rejoinder natural monopoly and the bell system response to charnes cooper and sueyoshi our study of the bell system cost function shows that it is possible to reject the hypothesis that at t was a natural monopoly our study is based on a regression analysis of a translog cost function estimated on 1947 1977 data charnes cooper and sueyoshi charnes a w w cooper t sueyoshi 1988 a goal programming constrained regression review of the bell system breakup management sci 34 1 26 claim that they reverse our conclusion when they use goal programming estimators of a translog cost function estimated on exactly the same data that we use this claim is false there is no basis for comparing our estimates with their estimates because they in fact use different data than we use and estimate a different cost function than we estimate moreover when goal programming estimates and regression estimates based on the same data and similar cost function specifications are compared they yield similar estimates and produce the same inference about natural monopoly

economic structure and energy savings from energy efficiency in households when an energy efficiency improvement occurs at the household level several mechanisms grouped under the name of the rebound effect increase the available income and consumption increasing the total energy consumption of the economic structure the present research analyses the links between energy efficiency improvements in households consumption and the economic structure in an input output framework we examine from an empirical perspective the relationship between energy efficiency improvements and the economic structure and between the direct and the indirect rebound effect the limits of the input output methodology in assessing the direct and indirect rebound effect have been empirically tested with respect to efficiency improvements of electricity uses in households in catalonia

assessing the comparative spatial disadvantage csd of regions in the european union using non radial data envelopment analysis methods abstract in this paper we propose non radial data envelopment analysis models for assessing the comparative spatial disadvantage csd of the level ii regions of the european union eu csd is considered as a relatively new element of spatial efficiency which seeks to enhance the spectrum of the current methods used for assessing spatial inequality and dispersion the paper also proposes a goal programming formulation for assessing production function coefficients of the social cohesion among the regions of the eu assuming elimination of the levels of comparative disadvantage

dots to boxes do the size and shape of spatial units jeopardize economic geography estimations this paper evaluates in the context of economic geography estimates the magnitude of the distortions arising from the choice of zoning system which is also known as the modifiable areal unit problem maup we consider three standard economic geography exercises the analysis of spatial concentration agglomeration economies and trade determinants using various french zoning systems differentiated according to the size and shape of spatial units which are the two main determinants of the maup while size matters a little shape does so much less both dimensions seem to be of secondary importance compared to specification issues

can a water market avert the double whammy of trade reform and lead to a win win outcome abstract this paper focuses on the linkages between water and trade policies using morocco as a case this country is typical of many in that policy protects its import competing agricultural and industrial sectors while water in irrigated agriculture is priced below its marginal value product changing water policy without correcting for these other distortions leads to a more inefficient allocation of water on the other hand reforming trade policy alone can make farmers growing crops protected pre reform worse off using an intertemporal applied general equilibrium model we find that trade reform actually creates an opportunity to pursue water policy reform creating a water user rights market post trade reform not only compensates for the decline in farmers profits caused by the trade reform but also raises the efficiency of water allocation and hence benefits the economy as a whole

how technological efficiency improvements change consumer preferences towards a psychological theory of rebound effects abstract the use of technologies can influence consumer preferences and demand and hence impact on environmental sustainability this article contributes to research on rebound effects which focus on how energy efficiency improvements eei increase energy service demand most of 35 years of rebound research has been analyzed from micro and macro economic perspectives yet micro economic rebound research has so far investigated human behavior only on grounds of simple rational choice models and static assumptions about consumer preferences this article exposes the existing rebound discourse to psychological theories building on considerations of how eei can interfere with processes of decision making it develops a model of how eei via psychological processes may lead to motivational rebound effects as well as to beneficial effects which countervail rebounds the article then advances a typology of such rebound and beneficial effects that not only integrates the typology currently used in the micro economic rebound literature but goes beyond it model and typology explain how economic rebound research could benefit from psychological theory provide the basis for empirically investigating rebound effects on more solid theoretical grounds and empower a comprehensive discussion about policies and measures that aim at a sustainable use of technologies

stochastic frontier production analysis measuring performance of public telecommunications in 24 oecd countries abstract this study presents a new use of least absolute value lav estimation for obtaining parameter estimates of a stochastic frontier production function the lav estimation is combined with data envelopment analysis dea and the resulting dea lav estimates are examined by several statistical tests as an important application this study applies dea lav stochastic frontier production analysis for measuring and predicting the performance of public telecommunications in 24 oecd organization for economic cooperation and development countries this international comparison may serve as an empirical basis for understanding the telecommunications industries whose environments are now shifting from regulation to competition

a goal programming constrained regression review of the bell system breakup the recently implemented court decision to break up bell american telephone telegraph co to accord with u s anti trust laws represents a highly significant policy decision which is proving to be influential in other countries as well as the u s the telecommunication industry is of such size and importance that even relatively small economies that might be lost with bell s breakup as a natural monopoly could involve substantial welfare losses to consumers and producers studies commissioned by the u s justice department that approached this topic by econometric methods reported that the evidence failed to support the contention that bell was a natural monopoly here a goal programming constrained regression as developed in the management science literature uses the same functional form and the same data but nevertheless reverses the main findings of the econometric studies in every one of the 20 years covered this kind of difference in results obtained by two different methods of analysis poi

the economics of water scarcity and variability does the availability or variability of water matter for the economy does it meaningfully impact the growth and development trajectory of a country it may seem surprising that answers to these most basic of questions remain elusive the aim of this paper is to summarize recent work on the economic impacts of water scarcity and variability the paper finds that there is strong evidence that variations in rainfall and water availability have significant impacts on particular sectors such as agriculture human capital and even conflict but paradoxically evidence of impacts on economic growth and other measures of aggregate economic activity remains ambiguous the paper explains reasons for this anomaly and explores the pathways through which water impacts the economy the paper provides a synthesis of key developments in the literature identifies methodological gaps and suggests policy solutions

a comparative application of data envelopment analysis and translog methods an illustrative study of hospital production this paper compares inferences about hospital cost and production correspondences from two different estimation models 1 the econometric modeling of the translog cost function and 2 the application of data envelopment analysis dea while there are numerous examples of the application of each approach to empirical data this paper provides insights into the relative strengths of the estimation methods by applying both models to the same data the translog results suggest that constant reruns are operant whereas the dea results suggest that both increasing and decreasing returns to scale may be observed in different segments of the production correspondence in turn suggesting that the translog model may be averaging diametrically opposite behavior on the other hand by examining the rate of output transformation both models agree that patient days devoted to care of children are more resource intensive than those devoted to adults or to the elderly in addition we compare estimates of technical efficiencies of individual hospitals obtained from the two methods the dea estimates are found to be highly related to the capacity utilization but no such relationship was found for the translog estimates this comparative application of different estimation models to the same data to obtain inferences about the nature of underlying cost and production correspondences sheds interesting light on the strengths of each approach and suggests the need for additional research comparing estimation models using real as well as simulated data

water use and economic growth reconsidering the environmental kuznets curve relationship abstract predictions of national and global water use have been criticized for being inaccurate and for not taking into consideration economic development of the little research that does address water use as a function of economic development results are inconsistent but much claims to find clear evidence of an environmental kuznets curves ekc or inverted u type relationship this research attempts to elucidate the relationship between income growth and freshwater use by a evaluating a variety of cross sectional and panel datasets on water withdrawals and consumptive use b employing both traditional least squares and non parametric regression analysis the latter of which offers the advantage of not assuming a given functional form c testing both per capita and total water use and d comparing water withdrawals to consumptive use the research finds some support for the existence of an ekc but results are highly dependent on choice of datasets and statistical technique results are also sector specific and ekc curves prove to be poor indicators of individual country behavior as such the study points to limitations of ekcs in terms of water use policy and planning

thirty years after water privatization is the english model the envy of the world the paper considers whether water privatization 30 years ago has delivered the promised superior performance to nationalization which remains the dominant model in europe the paper sets out the arguments at privatization in particular in relation to efficiency the managerial incentives the role of private sector balance sheets in facilitating investment and the impacts on the cost of capital alternative explanations of relative performance notably the regulation model adopted are highlighted and the paper concludes by outlining an alternative model of water regulation which better marries up public responsibilities and private incentives

a time use perspective on the materials intensity of consumption abstract the ecological requirements to drastically increase the productivity of materials use call for improvements in the efficiency of consumption this eco efficiency discussion often takes a functional view on consumption noting that present consumption is inefficient and that it is not the products that the consumers want but the services that the products yield however contemporary consumption serves many needs that are not functional and universal but subjective and obscured from the producers this paper develops a time use approach towards consumption which makes allowance for the subjectivity of needs while still enabling the analysts to approach the concept of a sustainable lifestyle a distinctive premise of the analysis is that it assumes time and money not to be interchangeable and consumption to be limited by available consumption time instead of purchasing power this approach is demonstrated by linking the direct and the indirect energy use of finnish two person households to the data of a national time use survey the results are used to point out some of the potential time use rebound effects of such new eco efficient services that transfer activities from private households to the market actors

under the weather health schooling and economic consequences of early life rainfall life in rural areas of developing countries is prone to many kinds of risk such as illness or mortality of household members crop or other income loss due to natural phenomena weather insect infestations or fire for example and civil conflict in addition to their contemporaneous effects the effects of certain types of shocks may still be felt many years or even decades later from a public policy standpoint it is particularly important to identify shocks that have large long run effects moreover the mechanics underlying the persistence of shocks may be of con siderable interest for example a health shock may have a long run effect simply because the health shock itself persists over time alternately the health shock may not directly affect long run outcomes but it could affect some other outcome such as educational attainment that helps determine long run well being in this paper we focus on shocks that occur at the very beginning of life we ask how sensi tive long run individual well being is to environmental conditions around the time of birth in particular we examine the effect of weather shocks around the time of birth on the adult health education and socioeconomic outcomes of indonesian women and men born between 1953 and 1974 in addition we attempt to shed light on the intervening pathways connecting early life rainfall to adult outcomes illuminating the roles of health and educational attainment in deter mining adult socioeconomic status this investigation has considerable data requirements it necessitates information on weather shocks experienced by individuals several decades earlier as well as detailed current informa tion on adult outcomes we use information in the indonesian family life surveys ifls on an individual s year and location of birth and link each individual in that survey to locality specific rainfall data for their birth year for individuals born in rural areas on whom we focus rainfall variation across space and time should generate corresponding variation in agricultural output and thus household income to deal with measurement error in the rainfall data we run instrumental variables regressions where variables for rainfall measured at slightly more distant rainfall stations serve as instruments for rainfall in the individual s birthplace and birth year we examine the impact of early life rainfall on a range of adult outcomes observed in 2000 we find that higher early life rainfall leads to improved health schooling and socioeconomic status for women women with 20 percent higher rainfall relative to normal local rainfall in their year and location of birth are 3 8 percentage points less likely to self report poor or very poor health they attain 0 57 centimeters greater height attain 0 22 more completed grades of