input output analysis of alternative policies implemented on the energy activities an application for catalonia abstract the aim of this paper is to analyze the economic impact of alternative policies implemented on the energy activities of the catalan production system specifically we analyze the effects of a tax on intermediate energy uses a reduction in intermediate energy demand and a tax on intermediate uses combined with a reduction in intermediate energy demand the methodology involves two versions of the input output price model a competitive price formulation and a mark up price formulation the input output price framework will make it possible to evaluate how the alternative measures modify production prices consumption prices private real income and intermediate energy uses the empirical application is for the catalan economy and uses economic data for the year 2001 the combination of a tax on energy uses and an improvement in the energy efficiency of the production system is a measure that accomplishes both economic and environmental goals since it has no effects on prices it has a positive effect on private real income and finally energy consumption is considerably reduced

common trends the government s budget constraint and revenue smoothing abstract the requirement that the government s budget be balanced in present value terms is shown to be equivalent to the condition that government expenditures inclusive of interest tax receipts and seignorage be cointegrated the condition is in fact stronger requiring that the deficit inclusive of interest be stationary stationarity of the net of interest deficit is neither necessary nor sufficient for intertemporal budget balance however it does have implications for barro s tax smoothing hypothesis data for the period 1890 1986 are consistent with intertemporal budget balance but not with tax smoothing

energy consumption and economic development in sub sahara africa sub saharan african countries economic development is dependent on energy consumption this paper assesses total energy demand which is composed of traditional energy wood fuel and commercial energy electricity and petroleum in the central east south and west regions of sub saharan africa cross sectional time series data for 20 countries in 25 years are analyzed and the results of the study show that wood fuel accounts for 70 of energy consumption followed by petroleum with most industrial activities utilizing some form of wood fuel regression results suggest that energy demand is inversely related to the price of petroleum and industrial development but positively related to gdp population growth rate and agricultural expansion and that price elasticity is less than one the model results also show that there are regional differences in energy demand in addition the interaction of population growth rates by regions generates mixed results and there are regional differences in the use of commercial energy consumption and gdp growth the findings of this study suggest that countries must diversify their energy sources and introduce energy efficient devices and equipment at all levels of the economy to improve gdp growth rate and gdp per capita

international evidence on fiscal solvency is fiscal policy responsible abstract we conduct a cross country empirical analysis of fiscal solvency based on dynamic stochastic general equilibrium conditions the results show evidence of fiscal solvency in the form of a robust positive conditional response of the primary balance to changes in public debt in panels for emerging and industrial economies and in a combined panel emerging economies show a stronger response and hence converge to lower mean debt output ratios as observed in the data the results are weaker for countries with debt ratios exceeding panel means and medians hence we can separate countries where fiscal solvency holds from those where it remains in doubt

energy consumption and gdp in developing countries a cointegrated panel analysis in this paper we re investigate the co movement and the causality relationship between energy consumption and gdp in 18 developing countries using data for the period 1975 to 2001 recently developed tests for the panel unit root heterogeneous panel cointegration and panel based error correction models are employed the empirical results provide clear support of a long run cointegration relationship after allowing for the heterogeneous country effect the long run relationship is estimated using a full modified ols the evidence shows that long run and short run causalities run from energy consumption to gdp but not vice versa this result indicates that energy conservation may harm economic growth in developing countries regardless of being transitory or permanent

commodity price instability and economic goal attainment in developing countries abstract this paper reviews the theoretical and empirical micro and macro foundations for the frequent claims that instabilities in international commodity markets have deleterious effects on goal attainment in primary commodity exporting developing countries this review leads to the conclusion that the available evidence does not support these claims the paper concludes with speculation on why such claims are so strong despite the lack of supporting evidence perhaps it is because of measurement problems and perhaps because of small but articulate groups with vested interests in overstating the problem

the causality relationship between energy consumption and gdp in g 11 countries revisited abstract this paper explores whether energy conservation policies can be implemented in countries with the same level of development that is is restraining energy consumption without compromising economic growth feasible in all industrialized countries a new granger non causality testing procedure developed by toda and yamamoto 1995 journal of econometrics 66 225 250 is applied to re investigate the relationship if any between energy consumption and income in 11 major industrialized countries the results clearly do not support the view that energy consumption and income are neutral with respect to each other except in the case of the united kingdom germany and sweden where a neutral relationship is found bi directional causality in the united states and uni directional running from energy consumption to gdp in canada belgium the netherlands and switzerland are found this indicates that energy conservation may hinder economic growth in the latter five countries further the causality relationship appears to be uni directional but reversed for france italy and japan which implies that in these three countries energy conservation may be viable without being detrimental to economic growth

energy consumption and economic growth evidence from 11 sub sahara african countries abstract the paper examines the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for eleven countries in sub saharan africa using the autoregressive distributed lag ardl bounds test the study finds that energy consumption is cointegrated with economic growth in cameroon cote d ivoire gambia ghana senegal sudan and zimbabwe moreover this test suggests that energy consumption has a significant positive long run impact on economic growth in ghana kenya senegal and sudan granger causality test based on vector error correction model vecm shows bi directional relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for gambia ghana and senegal however granger causality test shows that economic growth granger causes energy consumption in sudan and zimbabwe the neutrality hypothesis is confirmed in respect of cameroon and cote d ivoire the same result of no causality was found for nigeria kenya and togo the result shows that each country should formulate appropriate energy conservation policies taking into cognizance of her peculiar condition

federal budget projections a nonparametric assessment of bias and efficiency as an important initial step in the annual budget process the president presents to congress each january his budget with details of federal spending activity and priorities our paper is a statistical assessment of the merit of the budget figures submitted to congress we investigate the overall budget as well as several important specific accounts an important aspect of our paper is the introduction of a nonparametric methodology which incorporates exact tests for assessing the unbiasedness and the internal and external consistency of forecasts the empirical evidence shows that the nonparametric results confirm the presence of bias in forecasts on the outlay side suggested by regression results but tends to find fewer series exhibiting bias on the revenue side on the other hand the nonparametric approach lends greater support to the conclusion that the government s budget projections do not fully exploit available information copyright 1995 by mit press

the liberalization of rice marketing in madagascar abstract madagascar s experience with rice marketing liberalization between 1985 and 1988 illustrates the many obstacles in the way of effective deregulation of agricultural markets the resistance of ambiguous regulation continuing limits on free entry attempts at cartelization and tenacious resistance of existing stakeholders and institutions at the same time the experience shows the ability of higher prices and freer markets to overcome much of this resistance and to stimulate production even in the presence of so called structural constraints such as poor roads weak extension services inadequate credit systems and input supply arrangements

cereal marketing liberalization in tanzania abstract there is considerable evidence that cereal market liberalization in tanzania has been a success in spite of poor roads shortage of capital and vehicles and lack of market infrastructure and standardized measures the legal status of the private sector is unclear however and public sector policies still favour a heavy official involvement in the marketing system farm gate prices for maize fall off rapidly as one moves away from the primary marketing centres but on farm storage of maize poses farmers no insuperable difficulties successful implementation of liberalization calls for clarity and consistency in government policy the reform of financial services the sale of unused storage capacity to the private sector the more active involvement of farmers in the liberalized system the strengthening of extension services and a policy for regulating interannual price variations

positive and normative analysis of the output opportunity costs of ghg emissions reductions a comparison of the six largest eu economies abstract any policy that aims at reducing ghg emissions by way of modulating the structure of an economy will entail resource reallocation and therefore an implicit economic cost in this paper we present a novel answer to this question using positive and normative analyses in such a way that they complement one another from a positive perspective we first propose a new look at the analysis of sectors distributed ghg forward emissions on the basis of absolute rather than marginal effects using this information we then move to a normative viewpoint using an environmental extended input output linear programming system and compute lower bounds for the potential gross and net output losses for each production unit when facing emissions reduction targets such as those proposed by the european union in their 20 20 20 directive the originality of our approach relies on two aspects namely the introduction of an armington assumption to link domestic and imported output and that differently to previous works total final demand drives the optimal adjustments to reach emissions cuts while minimizing output losses our empirical exercise compares the results of these normative and positive analyses for the six largest economies in the european union

liberalization and agricultural marketing recent causes and effects in third world economies abstract from merely being the dream of some economists a few years ago the liberalization of national marketing systems has suddenly taken a tangible form on a worldwide scale why have governments hitherto clinging to state participation and controls especially in their agricultural and currency trading systems changed their policies so swiftly are market structures entrepreneurial and private sector financing potentials capable of filling the gaps will the liberalization move lead of the envisaged competitive market and price mechanism with its resource mobilizing effects or will this move lacking efficient implementation get stuck somewhere in between inviting resurrection of interventionist policies this article provides both evidence and analysis on these questions in an introductory assessment of the dynamic process of radical policy changes faced by the food and agricultural marketing systems in most developing countries today

price transmission and trader entry in domestic commodity markets abstract using detailed data from three simultaneous surveys of producers traders and exporters this paper examines the transmission of international coffee prices through the domestic value chain in uganda we find that producer price fluctuations are inconsistent with constant transaction costs we investigate three possible explanations for this finding storage and contango marketing costs that increase with price and trader entry that raises search time we test and reject the storage and marketing costs explanation but we find some evidence of trader entry in response to a rise in export price our findings suggest that small itinerant traders enter in response to an export price increase probably taking advantage of farmers ignorance of the rise in wholesale price

trading responses to food market liberalization in tanzania abstract trading has been the only marketing function in tanzania to shift rapidly and efficiently from parastatal institutions to private institutions private traders have made a major contribution to the movement of maize from producing areas including to some extent remote surplus areas to urban consumer centres and to consumer price stabilization traders however do not keep interseasonal stocks and do not own means of transport there are very few or no barriers to entering the maize market but there is evidence of barriers to expansion above certain business levels larger traders may benefit from economies of scale in the form of lower transport costs and lower purchasing prices this article identifies the following as primary factors in accelerating the development of private trading the development of marketplaces and storage structures access to credit facilities for both traders and transporters and long term infrastructural policies to reduce transport costs

the growth of income and energy consumption in six developing countries this paper reexamines the inter temporal link between energy consumption and income in six developing countries with diverse economic backgrounds and energy statistics in a production function framework we employ the generalized variance decompositions and generalized impulse response techniques to see if the growth of income and energy consumption contains considerable information to predict each other in all countries energy appears as an essential factor of production results indicate that energy may be a relatively more important input than labor and or capital in some countries hence neutrality of energy does not seem to hold

sustainability of the deficit process with structural shifts this article discusses the condition for deficit sustainability and searches for shifts in the structure of u s deficit policy i show that contrary to the current literature cointegration between revenues and expenditures inclusive of debt payment is not a necessary but a sufficient condition for a strict interpretation of deficit sustainability the necessary condition requires that debt grow slower than the borrowing rate for tests on structural shifts i use a test for structural change that searches for shifts in the rank of the cointegrating matrix i find that there is a shift in deficit policy in the early 80s so that cointegration between revenue and expenditure inclusive of interest payments holds only up to 1980 i show however that the deficit process is still sustainable despite the failure of cointegration in the 80s the finding of shifts in the deficit process is more uncertain when i normalize by gross national product or population but the deficit is shown to be sustainable regard

the impact of mitigating co2 emissions on taiwan s economy abstract in this paper a computationally multi objective programming approach and a leontief inter industry model are used to investigate the impact of mitigating co 2 emissions on taiwan s economy the estimated result shows that taiwan s gdp will drop 34 off the targeted gdp growth rate for the year 2000 and taiwan s economy will be seriously weakened if annual co 2 emissions are stabilized at the 1990 level when taiwan maintains co 2 emissions at 128 of the 1990 level then taiwan s economy will be able to show a 5 37 average annual growth rate up to year 2000 a 157 co 2 emission level would mean a 5 92 annual gdp growth rate and a 213 co 2 emission level for a 6 85 annual gdp growth rate in addition policy implications are presented in order to provide policy makers in economic planning

energy gdp relationship revisited an example from gcc countries using panel causality abstract this work investigates the causality relationship between gross domestic product gdp and energy consumption in the six countries of the gulf cooperation council gcc recently developed panel cointegration and causality techniques are used to uncover the direction of energy gdp causality in the gcc empirical results indicate a unidirectional causality running from gdp to energy consumption evidence shows no support for the hypothesis that energy consumption is the source of gdp growth in the gcc countries such results suggest that energy conservation policies may be adopted without much concern about their adverse effects on the growth of gcc economies

on the limitations of government borrowing a framework for empiricaltesting this paper seeks to distinguish empirically between two views on the limitations of government borrowing according to one view nothing precludes the government from running a permanent budget deficit paying interest due on the growing debt load simply by issuing new debt an alternative perspective holds that creditors would be unwilling to purchase government debt unless the government made a credible commitment to balance its budget in present value terms we show that distinguishing between these possibilities is mathematically equivalent to testing whether a continuing currency inflation might be fueled by speculation alone or is instead driven solely by economic fundamentals empirical tests which have been developed for this economic question lead us to conclude that postwar u s deficits are largely consistent with the proposition that the government budget must be balanced in present value terms this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

does financial development lead economic growth a vector auto regression appraisal using a vector autoregression var approach several hypotheses are re examined suggested by the literature concerning the relationship between financial development and economic growth investment and productivity the models use quarterly time series data from ten oecd countries and china innovation accounting or variance decomposition and impulse response function analysis is applied to examine interrelationships between variables in the var system and therefore differs from the more usual granger causality approach in particular it examines the relationship between financial development proxied by total credit at best weak support is found for the hypothesis that financial development leads economic growth

choice of technology in small and large firms grain milling in tanzania abstract it is not uncommon to find many production units in low income labor abundant and capital scarce economies such as tanzania employing sophisticated and capital intensive production techniques in such circumstances a technology choice problem exists in the sense that the technologies in use and more often the products being produced are not compatible with the resource endowment of the economy and the income levels of the majority of the population this paper evaluates the relative performance of small and large scale grain milling techniques in tanzania to identify appropriate ones and explain why some firms select inappropriate techniques and products the consequences of technology choice are then discussed within the context of employment creation output expansion surplus generation skill formation economies of scale and overall resource use

low carbon energy scenarios for sub saharan africa an input output analysis on the effects of universal energy access and economic growth abstract meeting sub saharan african ssa human development goals will require economic development to be the priority over the coming decades but economic development at all cost may not be acceptable across these goals this paper aims to explore five development scenarios for the five largest economies in ssa to understand the implications to co 2 equivalent emissions co 2 e and off grid energy modernisation in 2030 within this scope gdp growth economic structure availability of energy resources international trade and the development of distributed generation for remote locations are considered regional co 2 emissions were studied using a multi regional input output model for africa under the scenarios analysed all five nations will be unable to reduce 2030 co 2 e emissions below 2012 levels whilst simultaneously achieving forecast gdp growth and universal access to modernised energy services 100 off grid modernisation is estimated to require a three fold increase in primary energy supply and a 26 1317 mt increase in 2030 co 2 e emissions total regional co 2 e emissions could be reduced from 45 to 35 by meeting a 50 renewable energy supply target by 2030 climate change policy would need to focus on multi sector reform to reduce regional emissions as the agricultural sector is the largest emitter in nigeria ethiopia and kenya

market reform and private trade in eastern and southern africa abstract this article reviews the experience of market reform in eastern and southern africa and highlights some key lessons learned a distinction is drawn between countries whose policy regime before reform was favourable to food production and those whose policies were unfavourable and alternative reform paths are described the two key issues emerging are the role of the public sector after reform for which there is still no clearly appropriate model and how the strong short term response of the private sector to trading opportunities can be transformed into investment post reform markets have been competitive but operate under tight constraints with little evidence of significant capital accumulation critical research issues to inform policy making are identified

the role of intermediaries in enhancing market efficiency in the ethiopian grain market this paper investigates the impact of the institution of brokerage on the optimal search behaviour and the welfare gains and losses of traders in the ethiopian grain market without brokers the privately optimal search diverges from the socially optimal search due to the positive spill over of individual search behaviour numerical analysis using the actual distribution of search costs and search efficiency obtained from primary data collected in ethiopia reveals that this externality is partially internalised by the presence of brokers and that total welfare increases significantly due to a more efficient allocation of search effort

a multiple objective model to deal with economy energy environment interactions abstract an economy energy environment multiple objective model based on the linear structure of inter industry production linkages is presented axes of evaluation consistent with sustainable energy strategies economic growth social welfare and environmental friendliness are explicitly considered the aim of this study is to provide decision makers with a comprehensive model which allows to assess environmental burdens global warming potential and acidification potential with respect to changes in economic activities consistent with distinct policy measures

industrial output restriction and the kyoto protocol an input output approach with application to canada the objective of this paper is to assess the economic impacts of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing industrial output in canada to a level that will meet the target set out in the kyoto protocol the study uses an ecological economic input output model combining economic components valued in monetary terms with ecologic components ghg emissions expressed in physical terms economic and greenhouse gas emissions data for canada are computed in the same sectoral disaggregation three policy scenarios are considered the first one uses the direct emission coefficients to allocate the reduction in industrial output while the other two use the direct plus indirect emission coefficients in the first two scenarios the reduction in industrial sector output is allocated uniformly across sectors while it is allocated to the 12 largest emitting industries in the last one the estimated impacts indicate that the results vary with the different allocation methods the third policy scenario allocation to the 12 largest emitting sectors is the most cost effective of the three as the impacts of the kyoto protocol reduces gross domestic product by 3 1 compared to 24 and 8 1 in the first two scenarios computed economic costs should be considered as upper bounds because the model assumes immediate adjustment to the kyoto protocol and because flexibility mechanisms are not incorporated the resulting upper bound impact of the third scenario may seem to contradict those who claim that the kyoto protocol would place an unbearable burden on the canadian economy c 2008 elsevier b v all rights reserved

fertilizer market liberalization and private retail trade in kenya this paper examined the factors influencing the entry and sales decision of private traders in fertilizer retail trade in a liberalized market using survey data from kenya a two stage econometric model is used to examine traders entry and sales decision the results provide insights into factors that are associated with private retail traders entry and sales decisions in an era of liberalized fertilizer markets it shows substantial entry into fertilizer retail trade following market liberalization relatively limited investments in trading assets and equipment are predicted to hold back firm expansion implications drawn from the study provide insights into likely research and policy interventions

a multivariate cointegration analysis of the role of energy in the us macroeconomy abstract this paper extends my previous analysis of the causal relationship of gdp and energy use in the usa in the post war period a majority of the relevant variables are integrated justifying a cointegration analysis the results show that cointegration does occur and that energy input cannot be excluded from the cointegration space the results are plausible in terms of macroeconomic dynamics the results are similar to my previous granger causality results and contradict claims in the literature based on bivariate models that there is no cointegration between energy and output

input output simulations of energy environment economy interactions in the uk this paper shows how a number of the complex interrelationships between energy environment and economic welfare can be investigated with the aid of a 10 sector input output i o model of the uk with pollution emission coefficients and a european sulphur deposition vector the paper reviews relevant past applications of i o analysis in the energy environment area and describes the endam program and its operation it is used to simulate the effects of a variety of policies and possibilities not only through changes in exogenous variables final demand and income taxes and transfers but also through changes in the structural matrices and their coefficients in each case the full effects direct indirect and income induced can be traced and the changes in comparative static equilibrium values discovered in this way policy issues connected with energy use and environmental impacts employment and economic welfare have been investigated

identifying strategies for mitigating the global warming impact of the eu 25 economy using a multi objective input output approach global warming mitigation has recently become a priority worldwide a large body of literature dealing with energy related problems has focused on reducing greenhouse gases emissions at an engineering scale in contrast the minimization of climate change at a wider macroeconomic level has so far received much less attention we investigate here how to mitigate global warming by performing changes in an economy to this end we make use of a systematic tool that combines three methods linear programming environmentally extended input output models and life cycle assessment principles the problem of identifying key economic sectors that contribute significantly to global warming is posed in mathematical terms as a bi criteria linear program that seeks to optimize simultaneously the total economic output and the total life cycle co2 emissions we have applied this approach to the european union economy finding that significant reductions in global warming potential can be attained by regulating specific economic sectors our tool is intended to aid policy makers in the design of more effective public policies for achieving the environmental and economic targets sought

food marketing liberalization and trader entry evidence from madagascar abstract food marketing liberalization was expected to induce massive trader entry and competitive markets in africa despite evidence of trader entry enterprise expansion remains difficult and many claim market power persists though perhaps in different hands this paper confronts this puzzle of substantial market entry that might not foster competition data from madagascar reveal distinct groups within rural food marketing channels separated by intraindustry mobility barriers that limit entry to a few niches moreover individuals place within the rural marketing network is defined largely by a priori social identity so the experience of food marketing liberalization varies across socially distinct subpopulations

are stationarity and cointegration restrictions really necessary for the intertemporal budget constraint abstract time series related to fiscal and external deficits are commonly subjected to stationarity and cointegration tests to assess if the deficits are sustainable such tests are incapable of rejecting sustainability the intertemporal budget constraint proves to be satisfied if either the debt series or the revenue and with interest spending series are integrated of arbitrarily high order i e stationary after differencing arbitrarily often revenues and spending do not have to be cointegrated rejections of low order difference stationarity and of cointegration are thus consistent with the intertemporal budget constraint error correction type policy reaction functions are suggested as more promising for understanding deficit problems

changing industrial structure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions a chinese application abstract increasing concern about carbon dioxide co2 emission reduction demands knowledge about the production structure of an economy information on productive linkages yields insight about forward and backward emission effects associated with sectoral inputs and outputs and serves as an essential starting point to identify the optimised industrial structure under the constraint of co2 emission this paper proposes a combined linkage analysis and multi objective programming approach to identify the key co2 emission sectors and the optimised production structure with respect to emission reduction target as a demonstration the proposed approach is applied to data from china in 2007 the result shows that to reduce co2 emissions from 5707 16 to 5452 12 million tonnes china needs to change its industrial structure by focussing on industrial groups as defined by linkage characteristics which would lead to a subsequent gdp decrease of 82 59 billion yuan from a policy standpoint the analytical techniques described in this paper can provide valuable information for planners and decision makers to formulate feasible and practical industrial polices with implications for co2 emissions

energy consumption economic growth and prices a reassessment using panel vecm for developed and developing countries this paper reinvestigates the energy consumption gdp growth nexus in a panel error correction model using data on 20 net energy importers and exporters from 1971 to 2002 among the energy exporters there was bidirectional causality between economic growth and energy consumption in the developed countries in both the short and long run while in the developing countries energy consumption stimulates growth only in the short run the former result is also found for energy importers and the latter result exists only for the developed countries within this category in addition compared to the developing countries the developed countries elasticity response in terms of economic growth from an increase in energy consumption is larger although its income elasticity is lower and less than unitary lastly the implications for energy policy calling for a more holistic approach are discussed c 2006 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

a goal programming model for environmental policy analysis application to spain abstract sustainable development has become an important part of international and national approaches to integrate economic environmental social and ethical considerations so that a good quality of life can be enjoyed by current and future generations for as long as possible however nowadays sustainable development is threatened by industrial pollution emissions which cause serious environmental problems due to a lack of adequate quantitative models for environmental policy analysis there is a strong need for analytical models in order to know the effects of environmental policies in the present paper a goal programming model based on an environmental input output linear programming model is developed and applied to the spanish economy the model combines relations between economic energy social and environmental effects providing valuable information for policy makers in order to define and examine the different goals that must be implemented to reach sustainability

economic growth and energy consumption revisited evidence from linear and nonlinear granger causality the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is considered as an imperative issue in energy economics previous studies have ignored the nonlinear behavior which could be caused by structural breaks in this study both linear and nonlinear granger causality tests are applied to examine the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for a sample of asian newly industrialized countries as well as the u s this study finds evidence supporting a neutrality hypothesis for the united states thailand and south korea however empirical evidence on philippines and singapore reveals a unidirectional causality running from economic growth to energy consumption while energy consumption may have affected economic growth for taiwan hong kong malaysia and indonesia policy implications are also discussed

unravelling zimbabwe s food insecurity paradox implications for grain market reform in southern africa abstract the organization of zimbabwe s grain market while stimulating production and incomes in high potential smallholder areas since independence has actually contributed to food insecurity among grain deficit households in semi arid areas results of an econometric model indicate that over 100 000 tonnes of expensive commercial maize meal flow annually into rural areas while grain flows out through the state marketing channel this circuitous movement of grain a symptom of poorly functioning intrarural grain trade has effectively reduced incomes among poor rural consumers by as much as 30 the promotion of intrarural trade will require the removal of government restrictions and other critical barriers to private investment in grain trading

energy consumption and economic growth the experience of african countries revisited abstract the aim of this paper is to re examine the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for seventeen african countries in a multivariate framework by including labor and capital as additional variables we apply the variance decomposition analysis due to pesaran and shin pesaran m h and shin y generalised impulse response analysis in linear multivariate models economics letters 1998 58 17 29 to evaluate how important is the causal impact of energy consumption on economic growth relative to labor and capital the results of our multivariate modified granger causality analysis due to toda and yamamoto toda h y and yamamoto t statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated process journal of econometrics 1995 66 225 250 tend to reject the neutrality hypothesis for the energy income relationship in fifteen out of the seventeen countries in contrast results of our variance decomposition analyses show that in eleven out of the seventeen countries energy is no more than a contributing factor to output growth and not an important one when compared to capital and labor labor and capital are the most important factors in output growth in fifteen out of the seventeen countries however these results should be interpreted with care as they may not be sufficiently robust enough to support the inference that energy consumption plays a minor role in the economic growth of african countries

does the need for economic growth influence energy consumption and co2 emissions in nigeria evidence from the innovation accounting test abstract developing economies like nigeria are competing strategically to ensure a rise in sustainable economic growth and reduction in co2 emission the question is could this be possible amidst the series of energy crises facing the country it is against this development that this paper investigates empirically if the nexus between economic growth energy consumption financial development trade openness and co2 emissions in nigeria could provide a clue the study used time series data from 1971 to 2011 to ensure a robust result the study applied the ardl bounds testing approach to cointegration the zivot andrew structural break test and the bayer hanck combine cointegration analysis the causality analysis was checked using the vecm model and this was validated using the innovative accounting and the impulse response test the findings of the study revealed that financial development stimulates energy demand but lowers co2 emissions economic growth lowers energy demand but increases co2 emissions in addition to that the study discovered how trade openness increases energy consumption but improves environmental quality by lowering co2 emissions energy consumption was on the other hand found to have significant increase on co2 emissions the granger causality analysis revealed a bidirectional causal relationship between financial development and energy consumption and the same inference was found in financial development and co2 emissions in this study trade led energy hypothesis and the existence of a feedback effect between economic growth and co2 emissions were discovered the study recommends massive investment in nigeria s financial sector with the motivation for these sectors to invest in efficient and sustainable renewable energy system how it should be done and why it should be done are carefully outlined in this study

multi criteria model for sustainable development using goal programming applied to the united arab emirates abstract sustainable development requires implementing suitable policies integrating several competing objectives on economic environmental energy and social criteria multi criteria decision analysis mcda using goal programming is a popular and widely used technique to study decision problems in the face of multiple conflicting objectives mcda assists policy makers by providing clarity in choosing between alternatives for strategic planning and investments in this paper we propose a weighted goal programming model that integrates efficient allocation of resources to simultaneously achieve sustainability related goals on gdp growth electricity consumption and ghg emissions we validate the model with application to key economic sectors of the united arab emirates to achieve sustainable development goals by the year 2030 the model solution provides a quantitative justification and a basis for comparison in planning future energy requirements and an indispensable requirement to include renewable sources to satisfy long term energy requirements

interpretation and limits of sustainability tests in public finance public debt is considered sustainable if discounted net repayments are expected to cover the initial debt issuance i e if the government s inter temporal budget constraint is expected to hold with risk averse lenders and an uncertain economic environment bohn 1995 stresses that this constraint relies on a stochastic discount factor which depends on lenders preferences to get round the difficulty related to the specification of private agents preferences in empirical analysis bohn 1998 suggests to estimate fiscal reaction functions describing how primary surplus reacts to indebtedness after having solved the econometric issues arising when primary surplus and debt have a very different persistence with a nonparametric approach or are both integrated with parametric tests we estimate fiscal reaction functions for france and greece there remain important limitations and interpretation difficulties that are common to all econometric sustainability tests

specialization patterns and reduction of co2 emissions an empirical investigation of environmental preservation and economic efficiency abstract we study the effects that different degrees of specialization in the production of the global net output of a group of countries might have on the emissions of co2 the analysis is based on the sraffian notion of subsystems which allows us to study what the input output table of a country would look like under different hypotheses on the allocation of the available resources we use the wiod input output tables and the related environmental accounts for 1995 2009 we show that the environmental benefits deriving from appropriate specialization patterns could be substantial moreover our results suggest that co2 reduction is not necessarily detrimental to economic activity on the contrary with the appropriate exploitation of suitable patterns of specialization co2 reduction and gdp growth may even be pursued jointly

the economics of renewable energy expansion in rural sub saharan africa accelerating development in sub saharan africa will require massive expansion of access to electricity currently reaching only about one third of households this paper explores how essential economic development might be reconciled with the need to keep carbon emissions in check the authors develop a geographically explicit framework and use spatial modeling and cost estimates from recent engineering studies to determine where stand alone renewable energy generation is a cost effective alternative to centralized grid supply the results suggest that decentralized renewable energy will likely play an important role in expanding rural energy access but it will be the lowest cost option for a minority of households in africa even when likely cost reductions over the next 20 years are considered decentralized renewables are competitive mostly in remote and rural areas while grid connected supply dominates denser areas where the majority of households reside these findings underscore the need to de carbonize the fuel mix for centralized power generation as it expands in africa

assessing the eco efficiency of u s manufacturing industries with a focus on renewable vs non renewable energy use an integrated time series mrio and dea approach abstract this study investigated the global supply chain linked renewable and nonrenewable energy use impacts and economic output of u s manufacturing industries over a twenty year period considering energy use impacts and economic outputs together within the scope of a global trade linked cradle to gate life cycle provides a comprehensive understanding of the environmental and economic impacts of industrial activities in the first phase of the methodology twenty multi region input output models were built to assess the energy and economic output nexus using a time series approach sixteen energy carriers were considered and aggregated in terms of renewable and nonrenewable energy use impacts the second phase of the methodology focused on benchmarking u s manufacturing industries eco efficiency considering renewable to nonrenewable energy use and economic output to accomplish this data envelopment analysis dea models were developed and two benchmarking eco efficiency measures were proposed namely renewability ratio rr and economic output induced renewability ratio e rr the results indicated that the economic output of the manufacturing industries exhibited a steady sustainable growth similar growth was observed in nonrenewable energy use in contrast the trend in renewable energy use was seen to be stagnant no statistically significant improvement was observed in either the rr or e rr measures which were found to parallel the multi region input output analysis mrio results although an increase in both the mean rr 0 3 0 4 and the mean e rr 0 38 0 52 scores was recorded from 1995 to 2014 this was concluded to be unsatisfactory since the majority of the industries eco efficiency results were still below 0 5 such an unsatisfactory result could be attributed to an imbalanced growth in nonrenewable energy use and economic output relative to renewable energy use the findings of this study suggest that substantial policy changes are required immediately to shift the negative trend in renewable energy use to comply with un sustainability development goals 7 and 13

energy income causality in oecd countries revisited the key role of capital stock abstract this paper applies a recent advance in panel analysis to estimate the panel cointegration and panel vector error correction models for a set of 22 oecd countries using annual data covering the period 1960 2001 we investigate the relationship between energy consumption and income using an aggregate production function and controlling for the capital stock as well as by exploring the dynamic directions of the causality among these three variables we firstly obtain solid and convincing evidence of a fairly strong long run equilibrium relationship among them secondly it is found that the capital stock is much more productive than energy consumption third it is observed that neglecting the impact of the capital stock on income tends to overestimate the effect of energy consumption finally the panel causality test shows bi directional causal linkages exist among energy consumption the capital stock and economic growth overall the findings reveal that the capital stock plays a critical role in realizing the dynamic relationship between energy and income

energy consumption and economic growth evidence from china at both aggregated and disaggregated levels using a neo classical aggregate production model where capital labor and energy are treated as separate inputs this paper tests for the existence and direction of causality between output growth and energy use in china at both aggregated total energy and disaggregated levels as coal oil and electricity consumption using the johansen cointegration technique the empirical findings indicate that there exists long run cointegration among output labor capital and energy use in china at both aggregated and all three disaggregated levels then using a vec specification the short run dynamics of the interested variables are tested indicating that there exists granger causality running from electricity and oil consumption to gdp but does not exist granger causality running from coal and total energy consumption to gdp on the other hand short run granger causality exists from gdp to total energy coal and oil consumption but does not exist from gdp to electricity consumption we thus propose policy suggestions to solve the energy and sustainable development dilemma in china as enhancing energy supply security and guaranteeing energy supply especially in the short run to provide adequate electric power supply and set up national strategic oil reserve enhancing energy efficiency to save energy diversifying energy sources energetically exploiting renewable energy and drawing out corresponding policies and measures and finally in the long run transforming development pattern and cut reliance on resource and energy dependent industries

energy use and output growth in canada a multivariate cointegration analysis using a neo classical one sector aggregate production technology where capital labor and energy are treated as separate inputs this paper develops a vector error correction vec model to test for the existence and direction of causality between output growth and energy use in canada using the johansen cointegration technique the empirical findings indicate that the long run movements of output labor capital and energy use in canada are related by two cointegrating vectors then using a vec specification the short run dynamics of the variables indicate that granger causality is running in both directions between output growth and energy use hence an important policy implication of the analysis is that energy can be considered as a limiting factor to output growth in canada

increasing returns and market efficiency in agricultural trade abstract using detailed trader surveys in benin madagascar and malawi this paper investigates the presence of increasing returns in agricultural trade after analyzing margins costs and value added we find little evidence of returns to scale motorized transport is found more cost effective for large loads on longer distances but transporters appear to pool quantities from multiple traders margin rates show little relationship with transaction size personal travel costs are a source of increasing returns but the effect is small consequently total marketing costs are nearly proportional to transaction size working and network capital are key determinants of value added constant returns to scale in all accumulable factors working capital labor and network capital cannot be rejected this implies that policies to restrict entry into agricultural trade are neither necessary nor useful governments should focus instead on technological and institutional innovations to upgrade agricultural markets

energy consumption and economic growth in central america evidence from a panel cointegration and error correction model abstract this study examines the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for six central american countries over the period 1980 2004 within a multivariate framework given the relatively short span of the time series data a panel cointegration and error correction model is employed to infer the causal relationship based on the heterogeneous panel cointegration test by pedroni pedroni p 1999 critical values for cointegration tests in heterogeneous panels with multiple regressors oxford bulletin of economics and statistics 61 653 670 pedroni p 2004 panel cointegration asymptotic and finite sample properties of pooled time series tests with an application to the ppp hypothesis new results econometric theory 20 597 627 cointegration is present between real gdp energy consumption the labor force and real gross fixed capital formation with the respective coefficients positive and statistically significant the granger causality results indicate the presence of both short run and long run causality from energy consumption to economic growth which supports the growth hypothesis