islamic economics and a third fundamental theorem of welfare economics the discipline of economics started as a moral science but became detached from moral concerns over time to emulate natural science and to adopt positivism consequently mainstream economics assumes people to be sordidly selfish the teachings of islam however promote social preferences where individuals should be other regarding and have preferences over social outcomes this paper replaces the selfish agent with a social agent and presents the results in a theorem referred to as the third fundamental theorem of welfare economics tftwe the tftwe states that when the selfish agents are replaced with the social agents market outcomes are pareto optimal equitable and unique this is an important result which has widespread implications we show that the tftwe holds under conditions where the first two fundamental theorems of welfare economics fail and that a walrasian equilibrium is more likely to exist when selfish preferences are non convex unlike the popular convention there is no equity efficiency trade off in fact we point to the possibility of reversal in equity efficiency trade off

behavioural development economics lessons from field labs in the developing world abstract explanations of poverty growth and development depend on the assumptions made about individual preferences and the willingness to engage in strategic behaviour economic experiments especially those conducted in the field have begun to paint a picture of economic agents in developing communities that is at variance with the traditional portrait we review this growing literature with an eye towards preference related experiments conducted in the field we also offer lessons on what development economists might learn from experiments we conclude by sharing our thoughts on how to conduct experiments in the field and then offer a few ideas for future research

the brazilian experience of rural electrification in the amazon with decentralized generation the need to change the paradigm from electrification to development abstract there are at least 607 thousand households in the brazilian amazon that need to be attended with some form of regular electricity service these households are not attended by the electricity sector through its electricity distribution companies and most of them have some form of precarious decentralized electricity generation that is not registered or regulated in the institutional framework diverse initiatives were taken by brazilian government to attend these household through alternatives that relied on locally available renewable energy this paper accesses this initiatives of rural electrification in the brazilian amazon first an overview of the problems of rural electricity are discussed and its specificities in the brazilian amazon then the brazilian institutional framework that organizes the decentralized electricity generation is described with its various limitations the diverse initiatives undertaken to attend the rural communities in the amazon since the 1990s are described as well as how these initiatives are linked to the policies for rural electrification the results shows that it can be inferred that sole market mechanisms are not sufficient to guarantee economic sustainability of these projects this can be one of the reasons why traditional electricity distribution companies showed the lack of interest in promoting rural electrification with other means than grid extension the most successful projects had financed efforts to integrate the generation of electricity into local development initiatives in order to guarantee sustainability and used substantial part of funding for local mobilization and organization it needs a paradigm chance by treating these initiatives as local development initiatives and promoting alternative ways for its implementation through partnership between local new actors in the electricity sector and government and implementing policy on a local municipal level

business models for model businesses lessons from renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries against the background of mounting research suggesting entrepreneurship as a means of increasing the uptake of renewable energy technologies rets in developing countries this paper presents the findings of an exploratory investigation into the business models used by renewable energy entrepreneurs in such countries forty three entrepreneurs were interviewed in 28 developing countries and secondary information about country and regional conditions was analysed we chose the business model canvas as an analytical tool and the findings shed new light on established renewable energy business types three different types of businesses were identified consultants distributors and integrators yet there is also some overlap between these types these business types appeared to parallel the life cycle progression of the business but this requires further research a key component of the study was to assess whether the types of businesses were related to country level conditions to assess the impact of regional differences these comparisons revealed consistencies between country level characteristics and the entrepreneurs choice of business model conclusions suggest that different regions may support certain business models more than others due to differing levels of government interest in renewables governance and policy support and the relative ease of doing business

towards a sustainable electrification in ghana a review of renewable energy deployment policies abstract ghana has been facing perennial power rationing over the years due to fuel supply challenges the country s energy system is likely to suffer additional strain from rising energy demand fueled by population growth rapid urbanization and economic development fortunately there are enormous renewable energy resources which can provide sustainable electrification as backbone to socioeconomic development while curbing global warming ghana s energy strategy targets 100 access to electricity and 10 share of sustainable power in national generation mix by 2020 despite the existence of numerous policies and a renewable energy act current contribution of non conventional renewable energy to electricity generation is less than 1 the right mix of policies to address the unique domestic conditions and achieve its specific development goals remains insufficient this study reviews the regulatory framework financing incentives and other provisions of ghana s renewable energy act it critically examines the policy s strengths weaknesses opportunities and treats based on comparative analysis and lessons drawn from failed and successful implementation of similar policies around the world the study also assesses the impact of policy on project development it was found that the performance of ghana s renewable energy policy on grid connected electricity has been poor compared to its target the fundamental reasons for this unsatisfactory performance may be attributed to partial implementation of policies lack of market driven support schemes lack of pricing policy framework weak grid network limited access to funds and inconsistencies in renewable energy development strategies this study proposes the following countermeasures i ghana should comprehensively harmonize renewable energy regulatory and fiscal policies with domestic electricity pricing regime ii market driven support schemes should be prioritized for cost effectiveness and minimum governmental influence these reforms can help eliminate some of the major barriers to sustainable electrification in ghana while the lessons provide a learning curve for other african countries

developing countries in need which characteristics appeal most to people when donating money paul hansen1 nicole kergozou2 stephen knowles1 and paul thorsnes2 1 department of economics university of otago 2 reserve bank of new zealand

renewable energy policies in promoting financing and investment among the east asia summit countries quantitative assessment and policy implications many countries have implemented various policies for renewable energy development ranging from setting power purchase agreements and the legislation of renewable energy requirements to providing incentives and imposing carbon taxes the evaluation of the effectiveness of such policies however is fragmented which raises a need for a comprehensive analysis this paper aims to assess whether and how policies promoting renewable energy investment have achieved the intended goals it employs five broadly defined criteria market uncertainty profitability technology and financial resources to build an index to assess respectively if such policies have helped create a market for renewable energy maximize potential profits reduce risks relating to the investment develop and adopt new technologies and improve the access to financial resources each criterion is reflected by three indicators values of each indicator are converted into ordinal values for analysis the index not only scans comprehensively all relevant renewable energy investment policies in the east asia summit countries but also provides systematic and quantitative measures to compare the effectiveness of policies in these countries with respect to the creation of market the degree of uncertainty the potential of profitability the development and adoption of technology and the accessibility of financial resources

cops and crime abstract the violent crime control and law enforcement act of 1994 established the community oriented policing services cops program that provided grants to states and localities to pay up to 75 of the cost for new police hires for 3 years to date the cops program has awarded almost 5 billion in hiring grants paying for 64 000 new police officers we use annual data from 1990 through 2001 from 2074 cities with populations in excess of 10 000 to show that for each officer paid for by grant funds the size of the force expands by 0 70 officers the size of cops grants are correlated with population and crime rates but not the pre cops time trends in crime rates or the size of the police force this allows us to use the size of cops grants as an instrument for the size of the police force in regressions where crime is the outcome of interest these models indicate that police added to the force by cops generated statistically significant reductions in auto thefts burglaries robberies and aggravated assaults

using electoral cycles in police hiring to estimate the effect of police on crime comment previous empirical studies have uncovered little evidence that police reduce crime possibly due to simultaneity problems this paper uses the timing of mayoral and gubernatorial elections as an instrumental variable to identify a causal effect of police on crime increases in the size of police forces are shown to be disproportionately concentrated in mayoral and gubernatorial election years increases in police are shown to substantially reduce violent crime but have a smaller impact on property crime the null hypothesis that the marginal social benefit of reduced crime equals the costs of hiring additional police cannot be rejected

powering africa meeting the financing and reform challenges africa faces chronic power problems including insufficient generation capacity low connectivity poor reliability and high costs all of which constrain development power capacity additions in sub saharan africa excl sa since the 1990 s were minuscule historically investments in the power sector in africa have come mostly from governments or public utilities with foreign aid support in recent years these sources of funding have been flat the fastest new sources of funding are from independent power producers ipps and from china to understand the determinant of the new sources the paper analyses the effect of several key factor and find non expected results such as there is no obvious correlation between unbundling or the presence of an independent regulator and the level of private investment through ipps or that there is no correlation between chinese investment in generation and resource rich countries dispelling the myth that chinese firms are only interested in africa s resources the paper delivers several recommendations that indicate that more attention needs to be given to issues related to planning procurement and contracting as well as securing revenue flows jel classification o13 o25 l94

renewable energy policies for sustainable development in cambodia in line with sustainable development path electrification with the aid of renewable energy resources is a key element for the developing countries cambodia with almost 85 rural population is one of the countries with high renewable energy resources but at the same time has a low installed capacity in the context of this study the potential and status of sustainable energy generation in cambodia are studied in detail the renewable energy policies strategies and programs are investigated and the implemented projects based on the determined policies are reviewed considering the existing governmental policy of enabling 70 of rural households to reach reliable electricity services by 2030 the renewable energy resources are found as the best option for rural electrification the economic regulatory financial and institutional barriers are shown as the main cause of the significant deviation between the potential and installed capacity it is essential to overcome the challenges in order to achieve a sustainable development in rural electrification in cambodia

poverty in dictator games awakening solidarity abstract this paper investigates the effect of recipient poverty and medicines on dictator game giving we develop a new design with three variants 1 subjects do not know they are participating in an experiment 2 dictators receive three 5 bills instead of 15 coins 3 three recipients are used instead of one we performed three different treatments regarding the information about recipients i no info condition ii poverty dictators were informed that their recipients were poor iii medicines donations were given in the form of medicines instead of money we found that 46 percent of the subjects gave the full endowment in the poverty treatment while in the medicines treatment this percentage increased to 72 percent

the effects of new public projects to expand urban rail transit abstract many us cities invest in large public transit projects in order to reduce private vehicle dependence and to reverse the downward trend in public transit use using a unique panel data set for five major cities that upgraded their rail transit systems in the 1980s we estimate new rail transit s impact on usage and housing values using distance as a proxy for transit access new rail transit has a small impact on usage and housing values this impact is enough to represent tangible benefits of new transit to nearby residents new transit s benefits are not uniformly distributed we document which demographic groups are over represented in transit growth areas and the changes in transit usage by different demographic groups

emphasising the problem or the solution in charitable fundraising for international development abstractwe conduct a laboratory experiment to test the effect on charitable donations to international development ngos ingos of emphasising current deprivation in a developing country versus emphasising the potential good a donation can achieve using a double blind dictator experiment with earned endowments we find that varying the information emphasis has no significant effect on total donations nor on the probability of donating we find suggestive evidence that an emphasis on current deprivation may raise the variance of donations and thus the size of donations conditional on donating but the effect is not significant in hurdle models that explicitly recognise this

push don t nudge behavioral spillovers and policy instruments abstract policy interventions are generally evaluated for their direct effectiveness little is known about their ability to persist over time and spill across contexts these latter aspects can reinforce or offset the direct impacts depending on the policy instrument choice through an online experiment with 1486 subjects we compare four widely used policy instruments in terms of their ability to enforce a norm of fairness in the dictator game and to persist over time i e to a subsequent untreated dictator game or spill over to a norm of cooperation i e to a subsequent prisoner s dilemma as specific policy interventions we employed two instances of nudges defaults and social information and two instances of push measures rebates and a minimum donation rule our results show that i rebates the minimum donation rule and social information have a positive direct effect on fairness although the effect of social information is only marginally significant and that ii the effect of rebates and the minimum donation rule persists in the second game but only within the same game type these findings demonstrate that within our specific design push measures are more effective than nudges in promoting fairness

bargaining in the shadow of the law divorce laws and family distress this paper exploits the variation occurring from the different timing of divorce law reforms across the united states to evaluate how unilateral divorce changed family violence and whether the option provided by unilateral divorce reduced suicide and spousal homicide unilateral divorce both potentially increases the likelihood that a domestic violence relationship ends and acts to transfer bargaining power toward the abused thereby potentially stopping the abuse in extant relationships in states that introduced unilateral divorce we find a 8 16 percent decline in female suicide roughly a 30 percent decline in domestic violence for both men and women and a 10 percent decline in females murdered by their partners

new estimates of the optimal tax on alcohol in this paper i use a new data set to estimate the optimal alcohol tax rate as a benchmark the empirical results imply that the optimal tax rate is over 100 percent of the net of tax price however alcohol taxation is a second best solution to the problems associated with alcohol abuse i conclude that the optimal alcohol tax rate would be much lower if punishment for drunk driving were more certain and severe government provision of information about the health consequences of heavy drinking would also remove part of the efficiency rationale for alcohol taxes

the role for low carbon electrification technologies in poverty reduction and climate change strategies a focus on renewable energy mini grids with case studies in nepal peru and kenya abstract as a potential poverty reduction and climate change strategy this paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of using renewable energy technologies for rural electrification in developing countries although each case must be considered independently given a reliable fuel source renewable energy mini grids powered by biomass gasifiers or micro hydro plants appear to be the favoured option due to their lower levelised costs provision of ac power potential to provide a 24 h service and ability to host larger capacity systems that can power a wide range of electricity uses sustainability indicators are applied to three case studies in order to explore the extent to which sustainable welfare benefits can be created by renewable energy mini grids policy work should focus on raising awareness about renewable energy mini grids improving institutional technical and regulatory frameworks and developing innovative financing mechanisms to encourage private sector investments establishing joint technology and community engagement training centres should also be encouraged

on the social desirability of urban rail transit systems despite a decline in its mode share investment to build new urban rail transit systems and extend old ones continues we estimate the contribution of each u s urban rail operation to social welfare based on the demand for and cost of its service we find that with the exception of bart in the san francisco bay area every system actually reduces welfare and is unable to become socially desirable even with optimal pricing or physical restructuring of its network we conclude rail s social cost is unlikely to abate because it enjoys powerful political support from planners civic boosters and policymakers

community based electric micro grids can contribute to rural development evidence from kenya summary in this paper we clarify the mechanisms through which rural electrification can contribute to rural development through a detailed case study analysis of a community based electric micro grid in rural kenya we demonstrate that access to electricity enables the use of electric equipment and tools by small and micro enterprises resulting in significant improvement in productivity per worker 100 200 depending on the task at hand and in a corresponding growth in income levels in the order of 20 70 depending on the product made access to electricity simultaneously enables and improves the delivery of social and business services from a wide range of village level infrastructure e g schools markets and water pumps while improving the productivity of agricultural activities we find that increased productivity and growth in revenues within the context of better delivery of social and business support services contribute to achieving higher social and economic benefits for rural communities we also demonstrate that when local electricity users have an ability to charge and enforce cost reflective tariffs and when electricity consumption is closely linked to productive uses that generate incomes cost recovery is feasible 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

one for the road public transportation alcohol consumption and intoxicated driving we exploit arguably exogenous train schedule changes in washington dc to investigate the relationship between public transportation the risky decision to consume alcohol and the criminal decision to engage in alcohol impaired driving using variation over time across days of the week and over the course of the day we provide evidence that overall there was little effect of expanded public transit service on dui arrests alcohol related fatal traffic and alcohol related arrests however we find that these overall effects mask considerable heterogeneity across geographic areas specifically we find that areas where bars are within walking distance to transit stations experience increases in alcohol related arrests and decreases in dui arrests we observe no sign of behavioral changes in neighborhoods without any bars within walking distance of transit stations

the role of unemployment insurance in an economy with liquidity constraints and moral hazard the potential welfare benefits of unemployment insurance along with the optimal replacement ratio are studied using a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model to provide a role for unemployment insurance agents in our economy face exogenous idiosyncratic employment shocks and are unable to borrow or insure themselves through private markets in the absence of moral hazard replacement ratios as high as 65 are optimal and the welfare benefits of unemployment insurance are quite large however if there is moral hazard and the replacement ratio is not set optimally but is instead set to an empirically plausible value the economy can be much worse off than it would be without unemployment insurance

connective power solar electrification and social change in kenya summary market based rural electrification with solar energy is increasingly common in developing countries this article revolves around three main claims about solar electrification in kenya s unsubsidized market 1 the benefits of solar electrification are captured primarily by the rural middle class 2 solar electricity plays a modest role in supporting economically productive and education related activities but connective applications such as television radio and cellular telephone charging often receive a higher priority 3 solar electrification is more closely tied to increased television use the expansion of markets more rural urban communication and other processes that increase rural urban connectivity than to poverty alleviation sustainable development or the appropriate technology movement

does school quality matter returns to education and the characteristics of public schools in the united states this paper estimates the effects of school quality measured by the pupil teacher ratio average term length and relative teacher pay on the rate of return to education for men born between 1920 and 1949 using earnings data from the 1980 census we find that men who were educated in states with higher quality schools have a higher return to additional years of schooling rates of return are also higher for individuals from states with better educated teachers and with a higher fraction of female teachers holding constant school quality measures however we find no evidence that parental income or education affects average state level rates of return

impact of energy efficiency policy to productive efficiency of electricity distribution industry in the philippines abstract the study analyzes the productive efficiency and simulates the effect of the energy efficiency policy on the productive efficiency of the electricity distribution industry in the philippines using data envelopment analysis dea the study finds that the main source of technical inefficiency in the distribution utilities is scale inefficiency moreover the study finds that with dsm electricity savings targets the technical efficiency of the industry would slightly improve significant improvement of technical efficiency is furthermore found with system loss reduction targets the paper concludes that the energy efficiency policy which benefits the overall economy and whole electricity supply industry results also in productive efficiency improvement in the distribution sector of the industry

operational performance of the bangladesh rural electrification program and its determinants with a focus on political interference abstract this article tries to quantitatively capture the effect of political intervention on the operational performance of the bangladesh rural electrification program rep firstly efficiency changes over the last 15 years of rural electric cooperatives in the rep are examined using data envelopment analysis dea then the critical determinants of the efficiency changes including political indicator are identified with an application of the tobit model results from the dea analysis show the overall efficiency score on a scale of zero to one changes in the 0 856 0 929 range in 15 years with two turnaround points in 1996 and 2001 these are the years that the national elections were held the results also find a gap between the efficient rural electric cooperatives and the inefficient rural electric cooperatives the results of the tobit model imply that political power has a negative impact on efficiency

renewable energy policy and electricity market reforms in china the article examines the potential effectiveness of the renewable energy policy in china and its regulatory law framework it frames the option of renewable energy technology within the background of the long lasting electricity problems that china has faced including serious supply shortages reliance on coal and severe environmental contamination its dual administrative and ownership system based on state and privately owned industry is discussed together with the market reform measures adopted in the sector current renewable energy policy is analysed and the scope of the 2005 renewable energy promotion law is investigated this is conducted within the context of the electricity sector reform that china adopted and its effects upon the prospects of encouraging as well as expanding the development of renewable energy this study draws upon primary information collected from interviews with stakeholders on the policy adequacy and identifies three main types of shortcomings that have interfered with a more successful expansion of renewable energy in china

global policy of rural electrification energy poverty and lack of electricity in the rural area exacerbate the poverty of the developing countries the sustainable renewable technologies can be considered as efficient tools to reduce energy poverty whenever they are conducted based on an appropriate policy electricity can improve the human s lifestyle by increasing the level of health education welfare and technology currently sub sahara africa with only 14 2 of rural electrification has the first rank in the world with lowest access to electricity in that region around 585 million citizens has almost no access to electricity the present study focuses on the general global policies to electrify the rural areas in this regard variety of plans and programs conducted by governmental and private institutes are investigated in the year 2011 the international energy agency iea has developed three global strategies based on the world energy market that defines the overall world energy approach in the present work different technologies for rural electrification are taken into account in two major categories of grid connected and off grid systems furthermore based on sustainable development with emphasis on environmental consideration the feasibility of electrification by using different types of renewable energies such as solar biomass hydro wind and wave have been studied despite reliability of grid connection results indicate that renewable energy sources are the best choice especially in areas far from grid connections challenges between financial institutes and executive agencies result in resource management and technology development in order to overcome existing barriers and issues

rural electrification and energy poverty empirical evidences from brazil the aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on the reduction of energy poverty in brazil through the analysis of 23 000 rural domiciles or rural properties between the years 2000 and 2004 the results indicate a fast change in the profile of energy consumption and a reduction of energy poverty this new approach works as a complement among other variables to analyze and quantify the real economic social and energy impacts in rural electrification programs generally applied in developing countries

tax design in the alcohol market abstract alcohol consumption generates negative externalities that are non linear in the total amount of alcohol consumed if tastes for products are heterogeneous and correlated with marginal externalities then varying tax rates on different products can lead to welfare gains we study this problem in an optimal tax framework and empirically for the uk market we find that heavy drinkers have systematically different patterns of alcohol demands and welfare gains from optimally varying rates are higher the more concentrated externalities are among heavy drinkers

meeting electrification s social objectives in south africa and implications for developing countries electrification programmes and projects are usually planned and evaluated on the basis of their economic financial and socio economic performance it is not usually recognised that electrification is often carried out for social objectives of poverty alleviation and political effect examination of electrification in south africa reveals clearly that initial electrification was to meet economic objectives later socio economic objectives were adopted and recently the objectives were social social electrification particularly rural electrification is not viable according to usual assessment methods which are frequently distorted to provide the justification for a project to proceed the technology of network electrification changed to meet the constraints challenging usual perceptions about the relative costs of urban and rural electrification and the potential for photovoltaic electrification adopting a specification for social electrification allows suitable tariffs for electrification to be identified indicates how capital investment decisions might be modified for social electrification and identifies implications for electricity industry restructuring a better understanding of electrification s social objectives has implications for projects and programmes in other developing countries

learning to lend for off grid solar power policy lessons from world bank loans to india indonesia and sri lanka abstract the world bank has sought to advance the diffusion of solar photovoltaic pv technology for off grid applications in the developing world as these systems are fundamentally different to centralised power stations and conventional rural electrification the world bank has been learning how best to lend for such technology this study seeks to highlight the lessons learnt from the world bank s first loans for off grid pv to india indonesia and sri lanka it uses lifetime cost analysis to justify continued intervention in this sector and it draws on theories of innovation diffusion to guide analysis and ultimately policy recommendations because of the special role of entrepreneurial start up companies in the rural pv sector the paper also uses a company cash flow model to demonstrate the efficacy of various supply side policies finally the study concludes with a checklist of policy lessons and a consideration of the role of the international finance corporation in this sector

rural electrification policy and institutional linkages some of the problems that have besieged rural electrification in most developing countries include inadequate policies weak institutional frameworks and limited financing in the last two decades governments in developing countries have been making various efforts both at the policy level and in financing to facilitate increased levels of rural electrification however the introduction of market based reforms in the power sector in the last decade has affected the institutional and financing arrangements for rural electrification the reforms have also affected the rate of electrification and affordability of electricity there is need therefore to establish the extent to which the reforms have affected access and affordability of electricity in rural areas and to develop appropriate policy and the supporting institutional structures to align rural electrification with reformed power sectors it is cardinal to establish how privatised and commercialised power companies in a reformed power sector could contribute to rural electrification and the role of governments and government agents in facilitating expanded access to electricity in rural areas

crime and economic incentives we explore the role that economic incentives particularly changes in wages at the bottom end of the wage distribution play in determining crime rates we use data on the police force areas of england and wales between 1975 and 1996 and find relative falls in the wages of low wage workers lead to increases in crime we carry out a number of experiments with different wage measures including a wage measure that accounts for the effects of changes in the composition of employment these reinforce the picture of a strong association between the low wage labor market and crime the result that incentives play a central role is reinforced further by the strong impact on crime of deterrence measures and of a measure of the returns to crime

some doubts about measuring self interest using dictator experiments the costs of anonymity abstract traditionally economists have assumed self interest governs economic choices recently some social scientists and economists especially those working in game theoretic and experimental areas have begun to treat self interest as a testable hypothesis one important vehicle for evaluating self interest has been a class of experiments called dictator experiments we believe that these experiments may have a flaw in their design which leads researchers to overstate systematically the role of self interest in individuals motivations double blind experiments designed to create conditions of privacy and anonymity may engender doubts in subjects regarding the existence of pairings and the disposition of any money they share moreover subjects may view the experiment as a game we test these conjectures using both traditional and modified dictator experiments

transaction costs the opportunity cost of time and procrastination in charitable giving abstract we conduct a laboratory experiment to study whether giving people more time to donate to charity reduces donations people may intend to donate but because of the transaction costs of doing so postpone making the payment until they are less busy and having postponed making the donation once keep postponing we conjecture that transaction costs will have a greater effect on donations if the solicitation is received when the opportunity cost of time is high we find evidence of a transaction cost reducing donations with the size of this effect depending on the opportunity cost of time but no statistically significant evidence that giving people more time to donate increases procrastination and thus reduces donations

rural electrification under liberal reforms the case of peru abstract liberal reform programmes in developing countries were not designed with the need to extend electricity supplies to rural areas this paper focuses on the peruvian experience examining the impact of electricity reform policies on the characteristics of rural electrification in rural areas electrification levels have traditionally been the lowest in the country making them less or non profitable for private firms only in 2002 did the government introduce a specific rural electrification law which was intended to promote electrification within the context of a liberalised market this paper draws upon an analysis of both this piece of legislation and stakeholder interviews indicating that there exists a need to look further into the evolving relationship between the private and public sectors and how it affects the rural poor this study forms part of the resurl international research project on renewable energy for sustainable rural livelihoods in developing countries funded by the uk government s department for international development dfid

hiv breakthroughs and risky sexual behavior recent hiv treatment breakthroughs have lowered hiv mortality in the united states but have also coincided with increased hiv incidence the authors argue that these trends are causally linked because new treatments have improved health and survival for the hiv increased their sexual activity and thus facilitated hiv s spread