conceptualising energy use and energy poverty using a capabilities framework in this article we conceptualise energy use from a capabilities perspective informed by the work of amartya sen martha nussbaum and others following them building on this we suggest a corresponding definition of energy poverty as understood in the capabilities space we argue that such an understanding provides a theoretically coherent means of comprehending the relationship between energy and wellbeing and thus conceptualising energy deprivation that makes sense across settings including both the global north and south a coherence which has previously been lacking at the same time it has the flexibility to be deployed in a way that is sensitive to local contexts understanding energy use in the capabilities space also provides a means for identifying multiple sites of intervention including some areas that are currently largely overlooked we argue that this is advantageous for attempts to address energy poverty in the context of climate change and imperatives for the containment of aggregate energy consumption

measuring the affordability of home ownership typical measures of the affordability of home ownership are based on aggregate data that ignore the distribution of incomes and wealth and the range of house prices an analysis of household survey

can pay won t pay or economic principles of affordability the term afford ability has been gaining currency in housing policy debates but neither government nor academic researchers have given much consideration to defining it this paper considers what meanings have been given to the term affordability in practice and suggests a range of analytically more useful definitions it argues from economic first principles that it is more logical to use some form of residual income definition than one based on a prescribed ratio of housing costs to income most researchers have been using a ratio definition the paper then uses data from a household survey in the glasgow travel to work area in 1988 89 to examine the incidence of unaffordability of housing costs according to a variety of definitions

empowered examining self disconnection in a postal survey of electricity prepayment meter consumers in new zealand abstract prepayment metering is an electricity payment method often used by low income consumers fuel poverty is an important public health problem in new zealand and is likely to be a particular problem for those using prepayment metering this paper details a nationwide postal survey of consumers undertaken with the support of three major electricity retailers which investigated the advantages and disadvantages of using prepayment metering from a consumer perspective the study surveyed a total pool of 359 randomly selected consumers across the three companies a response rate of 48 the study found that while almost all respondents felt the benefits of using prepayment outweighed the risks of running out of credit or self disconnection 53 of respondents experienced self disconnection in the past year of concern over a third of respondents experiencing self disconnection were without electricity for more than 12 h the frequency of self disconnection was also high with 17 of those disconnecting reporting six or more events in the past year government intervention could reduce the risks and disadvantages involved with using prepayment metering which could then support initiatives aimed at reducing fuel poverty

the terms of trade and the current account the harberger laursen metzler effect the paper examines the effect of terms of trade changes on a small country s spending and current account assuming optimizing behavior in an intertemporal framework with perfect international capital mobility a temporary future terms of trade deterioration implies a deterioration improvement of the trade balance whereas a permanent terms of trade deterioration has an ambiguous effect depending on the rate of time preference nominal and real variables are considered via exact price indexes two periods and an infinite horizon are examined

optimum responses of the current account when income is uncertain abstract how the current and capital accounts in the balance of payments should adjust when there are exogenous shocks has recently been examined in the context of optimal intertemporal choice of consumption and borrowing thus a fall in income will call forth a variety of responses depending on whether it is thought to be permanent or temporary long term or short term and on the form of the discount function in this paper uncertainty is introduced into the timing of the reversal of an income fall this being modelled by a poisson process phase diagrams are derived for the paths of consumption and debt

objective and subjective measures of fuel poverty as energy prices continue to rise to reflect the real cost of carbon the numbers of households in fuel poverty is increasing rapidly this paper uses a unique data set to explore one alternative measure of fuel poverty based on whether consumers feel able to afford their energy similar to one introduced by the government a few years ago we explore the links between an expenditure based and our subjective measure of fuel poverty and compare these differences with those between official measures amongst low income households 28 spent more than a tenth of their income on energy in the home and so would be likely to qualify as fuel poor under the most usual definition but only 16 felt unable to afford sufficient energy to keep their homes warm amongst this group who felt they had difficulty in affording sufficient energy less than half were expenditure fuel poor the paper argues that reintroduction of a self reported measure by the government would be a valuable aid to policy development

the rate of time preference and dynamic economic analysis strong restrictions on the structure of preferences are a central feature in the received theory of intertemporal allocation in fact most of the modern literature concerned with capital theoretic problems represents preferences by a functional in which an additive utility function is discounted by a constant rate of time preference this specification is attractive because it is analytically tractable in dynamic models and it clearly delineates how tastes and opportunities interact to determine an economy s household s paths of consumption and capital formation however its rigid structure constancy of time preference severely limits the conclusions and explanatory power of the corresponding models this paper considers a class of utility functionals in continuous time which have the appealing feature that the rate of time preference depends systematically on an index of aggregate future consumption the more flexible structure embodied in these functionals leads to important generalizations and

assessing the extent and intensity of energy poverty using multidimensional energy poverty index empirical evidence from households in india abstract in this paper we have made a comprehensive assessment of the extent and various socio economic implications of energy poverty in india amartya sens s capability approach to development underpins the analysis of household level data taken from the india human development survey ii ihds ii 2011 12 using the multidimensional energy poverty index mepi the overall results show that energy poverty is widespread in india and the existence of energy poverty also coincides with the other forms of deprivations such as income poverty and social backwardness for example dalits lower caste and adivasis tribal are found to be extremely energy poor compared to the other social groups in india the results also reveal that it is the responsibility of women to manage the domestic chores such as collection of firewood and making of dung cake in traditional indian households inefficient use of such biomass fuels is found to cause health hazards

subjective versus objective energy burden a look at drivers of different metrics and regional variation of energy poor populations abstract energy poverty is typically assessed using the energy expenditure to income ratio as a metric this metric fails to account though for residents demographics and regional variation in energy consumption in the united states policymakers dealing with energy poverty have faced challenges estimating the needs for energy assistance programs this study seeks to explore regional variations in energy poverty using texas as the region of study this work also explores differences in the populations captured via objective and subjective metrics i e those who are unable to pay their bill and those who state they struggle to do so drawing on survey data this work uses statistical analyses to 1 assess the regional variation of energy poverty defined as a ratio of household income spent on electricity bills 2 determine if there is an association between objective and subjective metrics of energy poverty and 3 identify statistical drivers of objective and subjective energy poverty metrics of respondents 51 of objectively energy burdened individuals indicated they struggled to pay electricity bills and 53 faced great stress due to the electricity bill if policymakers can use metrics that are more accurate in capturing populations facing energy poverty more effective energy poverty policies might be formulated

the mediating role of social workers in the implementation of regional policies targeting energy poverty abstract this paper aims to provide a socio political reflection of the role played by social workers in regional policies and of the real needs of households affected by energy poverty the paper also examines the impact of technical specialised training on the ability of social workers to prevent and mitigate conditions of household energy poverty in europe the adoption of a research action participation methodological framework and a training research approach has permitted the opinions of social workers to be collected through surveys and their central role in implementing regional policies to be highlighted the conclusions obtained have made possible the construction of a self diagnosis and data collection tool which increases the ability of social workers to mediate and implement urgent mitigation measures for energy poverty finally regional policies which aim to mitigate household energy poverty are examined from the professional perspective of social workers

ethnic diversity energy poverty and the mediating role of trust evidence from household panel data for australia abstract energy poverty is now a major concern on the public policy agenda in many countries however evidence on the determinants of energy poverty is relatively scant our study contributes to the debate on the determinants of energy poverty by being the first to examine the impact of ethnic diversity on household energy poverty using 12 waves of longitudinal data from the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey we find that in australia ethnic diversity is positively associated with energy poverty our preferred instrumented estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in ethnic diversity is associated with a 0 103 0 422 standard deviation increase in energy poverty depending on how energy poverty is measured this finding is generally robust to alternative ways of measuring ethnic diversity and energy poverty we identify trust as an important channel through which ethnic diversity operates and point to the need for policies that engender social capital in multicultural societies as a means to harness the benefits of diversity

the dynamics of low income in rural areas phimister e upward r and vera t oscano e 2000 the dynamics of low income in rural areas reg studies 34 407 417 this paper provides a picture of the dynamics of low income in rural areas by comparing a rural sample with a non rural sample using the british household panel survey the paper considers income distributions and inequality low income mobility the distribution of low income spells the characteristics of those on low incomes and possible trigger events associated with low income entry and exit across the two samples although in absolute terms somewhat less important than in non rural areas the results confirm that low income in rural areas is significant and emphasize a number of important dynamic aspects of the problem such as the extent of persistent low income among the rural poor phimister e upward r et vera toscano e 2000 la dynamique du faible revenu dans les zones rurales reg studies 34 407 417 a partir du british household panel survey un sondage aupres des m

the elephant in the energy room establishing the nexus between housing poverty and fuel poverty abstract this paper contributes to the literature on fuel poverty by bringing together the housing cost induced poverty definition and the low income high cost indicator relying on the housing cost induced poverty definition this paper identifies three dimensions of fuel poverty 1 income poverty high cost 2 housing cost induced poverty high cost and 3 fuel cost induced poverty high cost after breaking down the underlying structure of the low income high cost framework this paper proposes an alternative conceptual definition of fuel poverty and puts forward an empirical strategy which can help to identify the households most in need of financial and energy related support an application based on energy cost data in england allows us to identify several policy implications following from our proposed approach

the policy implications of energy poverty indicators abstract the methodologies and indicators that have been proposed in the literature to measure energy poverty are quite diverse some are subjective approaches based on personal or third parties perceptions of affordable warmth at home whereas others calculate objective indicators although these different proposals have already been theoretically compared an empirical comparative analysis that measures in a real case study the practical impact of the theoretical limitations detected for the different indicators was still pending the goal of this paper is thus to contribute to this debate by comparing critically the different approaches used to measure energy poverty in a real case spain in 2015 and to propose a new methodology that might be able to overcome some of the major problems that affect current methods

dynamic properties of energy affordability measures measures of affordability are applied in practice e g to assess the affordability of energy services water or housing they can be interpreted as measures of deprivation in a specific domain of consumption the large body of literature on affordability measure has little overlap with the existing literature on poverty measurement a comprehensive assessment of the response of affordability measures as a result of changes in the distribution of income or expenditure is missing this paper aims to fill this gap by providing a conceptual discussion on the dynamics of energy affordability measures several types of measures are examined in a microsimulation framework to assess their dynamic properties our results indicate that some measures exhibit odd dynamic behavior this includes measures used in practice such as the low income high cost measure and the double median of expenditure share indicator odd dynamic behavior is attributed to definitions made with respect to higher moments of the expenditure distribution definitions that rely on a percentage share of expenditure relative to income or an absolute or relative income poverty line fare well from a dynamic perspective

optimum borrowing and the current account when there are fluctuations in income abstract current account issues are examined in a context in which expenditure and borrowing are chosen optimally permanent falls in income are first discussed and the analysis deals with fixed and endogenous discount rates and interest rates a smoothing response in consumption producing a current account deficit is shown to follow a short term income fall however a long term fall can call forth an adjustment response with consumption and debt first moving toward the equilibrium which would obtain if the income fall were permanent

ecological sufficiency individual liberties and distributive justice implications for policy making we investigate the prospects of voluntary ecological sufficiency for environmental and climate policy under the constraints implied by political liberalism we find that freedom of choice restricts sufficiency to rather wealthy societies and that a sufficiency threshold cannot be derived by referring to the poor sufficiency can be in conflict with the demands of social justice i e if the sufficiency threshold is below the social minimum implied by social justice benefits from sufficiency are highly related to individual perceptions such benefits cannot be expressed in a standard preference framework consequently alternative measures of welfare and inequality are required if sufficiency is a significant phenomenon in society standard environmental policies can have a pronounced interaction with voluntary sufficiency i e if quantity regulation is present overall the voluntary notion of sufficiency causes a dilemma as sufficiency is largely a matter of civil society however voluntary sufficiency is expected to make important contributions to the preservation of ecological resources if properly balanced with social and environmental policies and framed by public discursive control

price and income elasticities of residential energy demand in germany we apply a quadratic expenditure system to estimate price and expenditure elasticities of residential energy demand electricity and heating in germany using official expenditure data from 1993 to 2008 we estimate an expenditure elasticity for electricity of 0 3988 and of 0 4055 for space heating the own price elasticity for electricity is 0 4310 and 0 5008 in the case of space heating disaggregation of households by expenditure and demographic composition reveals that the behavioural response to energy price changes is weaker stronger for low income top income households there are considerable economies of scale in residential energy use but scale effects are not well approximated by the new oedc equivalence scale real increases in energy prices show a regressive pattern of incidence implying that the welfare consequences of direct energy taxation are larger for low income households the application of zero elasticities in assessments of welfare consequences of energy taxation strongly underestimates potential welfare effects the increase in inequality is 22 smaller when compared to the application of rich and disaggregated behavioural response patterns as estimated in this paper

delivering energy efficiency and carbon reduction schemes in england lessons from green deal pioneer places against a background of growing international and national carbon reduction legislation the uk government introduced the green deal to deliver a significant increase in housing energy efficiency and reduction in carbon emissions this paper reflects on one english local authority s experience delivering a programme intended to foster local interest in the green deal drawing on social surveys and pre and post green deal intervention interviews with five demonstrator homes households that applied to receive a green deal package fully funded by the scheme providing a test bed for the green deal recruitment and installation process this paper shows that awareness and understanding of the green deal scheme is low there is opposition to the cost of finance offered but a strong interest in improving household warmth and for funding improvements through payments added to the electricity bill demonstrator home residents perceived green deals had improved the warmth and quality of their home but saving money was the primary motivator for their involvement not increasing warmth whilst green deal has not delivered the level of success that was hoped much can be learned from the scheme to improve future energy efficiency schemes that will be necessary to deliver emission reduction commitments

trapped in the heat a post communist type of fuel poverty abstract fuel poverty is a still insufficiently researched social and energy challenge with significant climate change implications based on evidence from hungarian panel apartment blocks connected to district heating this paper introduces a new variant of fuel poverty that may not be properly captured by existing fuel poverty indicators this newly defined variant can be largely attributed to post communist legacies though it might also exist in other contexts and assumes that consumers living in poor efficiency district heated buildings are trapped in dwellings with adequate indoor temperatures but disproportionately high heating costs because a changing supplier or fuel is difficult because of the existing technical and institutional constraints and b they do not realistically have the option to reduce individually their heating costs through individual efficiency improvements this situation often translates into payment arrears indebtedness risk of disconnection or reduced consumption of other basic goods and services state supported policy responses to date have favoured symptomatic solutions direct consumer support combined with superficial retrofits though it is argued that only state of the art retrofits such as the passive house based solanova pilot project in dunaujvaros can fully eradicate fuel poverty in this consumer group

does energy poverty really exist in china from the perspective of residential electricity consumption abstract china is undergoing a market oriented reform in energy and the residential sector will be involved in the near future the analysis of energy poverty is crucial in breaking the illusion of the dilemma between enhancing energy efficiency and controlling poverty based on chinese residential energy consumption survey we firstly estimated the energy poverty in china by the 10 indicator and lihc indicators and then proposed a minimum end use method to classify the energy poor households into lifeline and consumption energy poverty results show that energy poverty exists in china at the proportion of 18 9 and 46 of the energy poor houses are in short of modern energy consumption and are sensitive to tariffs with a level of electricity consumption lower than the basic demand the energy poverty rate is highest in central china while the lifeline energy poor are relatively concentrated in the western region in terms of public policy we suggest focusing on heterogeneity by considering different groups of households when implementing energy efficiency measures and targeting more on the consumption energy poor in poverty alleviation we also suggest paying particular attention to targeting households with low income by supporting practices such as coupons for energy consumption and appliance purchasing

a note on merton s optimum consumption and portfolio rules in a continuous time model in the paper optimum consumption and portfolio rules in a continuous time model by r c merton j econ theory 3 1971 373 413 solutions obtained in cases when marginal utility at zero consumption is finite are not feasible while they do satisfy the hamilton jacobi bellman equations they do not represent appropriate value functions because the boundary behavior near zero wealth is not satisfactorily dealt with in this note we specify the boundary behavior and characterize optimal solutions journal of economic literature classification numbers 022 213

measuring fuel poverty in france which households are the most fuel vulnerable fuel poverty is a growing concern in france following the hike in energy prices that started in 2004 the problem of energy affordability for low income households entered the political debate with the grenelle de l environnement in 2007 according to the standard uk definition 10 ratio 3 8 million households were subject to fuel poverty in france in 2006 we question the way fuel poverty is currently measured and compare the impact of alternative measurement approaches on the extent and composition of fuel poverty in france then we identify and characterize vulnerable households that are not ordinarily poor but can be pushed into poverty because of their fuel bills a logit a clog log and a mixed effect logit model are used to analyze which factors influence the probability of vulnerable households to fall into poverty the study indicates that the proportion of fuel poor people and their characteristics differ significantly depending on the fuel poverty measure chosen the econometric results show that the probability of falling into poverty is higher for those who are retired living alone rent their home use an individual boiler for heating cook with butane or propane and have poor roof insulation current french fuel poverty reduction policies appear to be inappropriate given our conclusions

housing wealth and residential energy consumption abstract the housing wealth effect often manifests as a positive relationship between consumption and perceived housing wealth e g the perceived value of houses when the perceived value of a property rises homeowners may feel more comfortable and secure about their wealth causing them to spend more this study adopts a behavioural approach to verify if this relationship holds true for residential energy consumption in the uk while controlling for property characteristics and a large number of demographic socioeconomic and energy use behaviour variables we identified a significant relationship between housing wealth and energy consumption our models also considered psychological biases in energy consumption behaviours such as the framing effect our findings shed light on the behavioural aspects of housing wealth effect on residential energy consumption and demonstrate the potential to nudge households towards energy conservation most importantly we provide empirical evidence on the intriguing relationship among housing wealth residential energy consumption and fuel poverty the findings of this study are particularly helpful in designing and implementing energy consumption policies that can strike a balance between social justice and economic efficiency

quantifying the severity of fuel poverty its relationship with poor housing and reasons for non investment in energy saving measures in ireland fuel poverty has generally been calculated by quantifying the number of households spending in excess of 10 of income on home heating this definition has a number of significant practical and scientific limitations this paper employs self reported data to calculate the severity of fuel poverty in ireland to identify chronic fuel poor households from occasional sufferers it also assesses domestic energy efficiency levels ireland is a useful case study as it demonstrates the highest variations in seasonal mortality and morbidity in northern europe both of which are associated with fuel poverty ireland is also experiencing extreme difficulties meeting its environmental emissions targets in light of recent spectacular economic growth reducing fuel poverty would lower energy related emissions assisting policy makers achieve these challenging targets furthermore little empirical research has been undertaken on fuel poverty in ireland this paper identifies key social groups at risk by conducting detailed socio economic and socio demographic analyses the relationship between fuel poverty and adverse housing conditions damp condensation is also examined moreover the reasons behind householders not investing in energy saving measures are reported the results show that ireland suffers from similar levels of fuel poverty as the uk with low income households suffering the greatest the key policy implications are outlined

measuring energy poverty in greece a comprehensive research in the field of energy poverty is undertaken in this paper in an attempt to highlight the great vulnerability of greek households on energy poverty in the middle of a severe economic crisis till now greek energy policy has been considered insufficient to tackle energy poverty issues as focusing mainly on short term rather than permanent solutions a primary survey has been conducted recording objective data of energy expenses as well as subjective perceptions about housing conditions the findings showed that under the objective expenditure based method 58 of greek households are energy poor among households under the poverty threshold the energy poverty rate exceeds 90 existing and new subjective indicators shed light on other aspects of energy poverty such as the level of thermal comfort at home damp problems detected restriction of other essential needs in order to manage energy payments etc some interesting conclusions are also drawn by exploring the relationship between various indicators it appears that households considered energy poor are not identical when examined by objective and subjective indicators however different indicators complement each other by capturing different aspects of the problem and provide a broader overview of the issue

does france have a fuel poverty trap abstract in this article we focus on fuel poverty dynamics by answering two questions does france have a fuel poverty trap and what are the determinants of staying in or moving out of fuel poverty first we define three states into which individuals may be placed which are as follows the non fuel poverty state the fuel poverty state and the severe fuel poverty state second we use a mover stayer model that divides the population into the following two types of individuals those who remain in the same state during the observation period the stayers and those who move across states the movers this model applies to longitudinal data from mainland france showing that fuel poverty is not an absorbing state indeed a majority of the fuel poor and the severely fuel poor move to another better state therefore we can argue that france has no fuel poverty trap using two econometric models logit and multinomial logit we identify the stability and mobility determinants in different states as expected there is a relationship between income and the likelihood of an individual remaining in a particular state furthermore poor housing implies a greater likelihood of stability in fuel poverty or severe fuel poverty another result is that deterioration in fuel poverty status seems to stem more from difficult financial situations than from bad dwelling conditions

densification what does it mean for fuel poverty and energy justice an empirical analysis energy is increasingly at the forefront of the global political agenda while there is a longstanding literature relating to fuel poverty and increasingly energy justice there remains little evidence which explores its link with the urban form specifically the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the urban consolidation hypothesis and the cultivation of energy justice in australia this study uses data from the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey years 2007 2014 a national probability sample and indefinite life panel the substantive findings of this study demonstrate that for low income and renting households greater urban density corresponds to a higher likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty further for households with a dwelling type described as an apartment two or three storeys there is a separate and quite generalisable indication that this type of dwelling is associated with a lower likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty this study connects the debate regarding urban consolidation and energy consumption to the fuel poverty and energy justice literature alongside this contribution this study also provides policymakers and planners with new evidence to inform remediation policies that are directed at supporting the fuel poor

on the power of indicators how the choice of fuel poverty indicator affects the identification of the target population in light of the creation of the eu energy poverty observatory epov in january 2018 and the increase in debates on how fuel poverty is measured we propose a critical analysis of fuel poverty indi

can the green deal be fair too exploring new possibilities for alleviating fuel poverty abstract energy efficiency and social programmes have failed to stem the dramatic increase in the number of fuel poor households in recent years as the 2016 deadline for eradicating fuel poverty nears energy efficiency and fuel poverty programmes are undergoing significant changes the ambitions for britain s green deal the overhaul of supplier obligations alongside the winding down of warm front and the introduction of an incentive for renewable heat combine to form a sea change in how energy efficiency and fuel poverty objectives are financed and delivered green deal finance gdf eliminates the up front capital cost of energy efficiency measures to the household by linking repayments to energy savings and spreading them over many years this paper asks whether and how gdf could be beneficial to fuel poor households using scenarios modelled on the english house condition survey it explores the extent to which fuel poverty could be reduced allowing for repayments incurred by gdf it examines how much further fuel poverty could be alleviated were the capital cost subsidised or repayments supported and concludes that a flexible design for gdf is necessary if it is to contribute to alleviating fuel poverty

a hybrid simulation optimisation scenario model for asset liability management abstract in this paper we desciibe a decision support model to sustain management of pension funds in the strategic planning of the available asset and liability policy instruments a main characteristic of the approach is that the relevant risk drivers are modelled by scenarios rather than by probability distributions we will describe the scenario generation methodology and how the scenarios are used by pension fund managers to simulate and improve asset liability strategies until a strategy is identified which is agreed upon by all who carry responsibility for the pension fund and her sponsors and trustees next we will describe how this process of managerial learning can be improved by a hybrid simulation optimisation method which applies concepts from the field of non linear global optimisation to determine the asset allocations which determine efficient frontiers of contribution rates and downside insolvency risks we will conclude by showing that the application of the developed models to a particular pension fund leads to the annulment of the infeasibility of the current asset liability policy on the one hand and to a reduction of the expected yearly contributions of us 100 million on the other

from targeting to implementation the role of identification of fuel poor households this paper proposes to evaluate the efficiency of fuel poverty policies by looking at them as a three step process these steps are policy targeting identification of households and implementation of measures each of these steps are costly and can face feasibility problems this is particularly true in the case of fuel poverty policies because of the multidimensional aspect of fuel poverty therefore public policies in that field are necessarily imperfect and this should be taken into account in the analysis of policies this three step framework is applied to the french fuel poverty policy which has been developed in 2010 as its practical modalities of implementation are still under discussion we mainly discuss the choices made in terms of targeting and highlight the role of identification of fuel poor households as a key factor for the success of that policy the general idea behind this discussion is that the efficiency of such policies has to be viewed in a comprehensive way which includes the three policy steps

energy poor or fuel poor what are the differences abstract energy poverty and fuel poverty are descriptors of problems of households energy consumption they are both distinct problems and have been addressed by many researchers organizations and governments cross use of the terms of energy poverty and fuel poverty in published papers is common as an accurate descriptor is the presupposition of research and policy development especially for those who just started to pay attention to this issue this paper compares the definitions research priorities status quo and problems of these two concepts and summarizes the relationship between them the paper suggests that only when the research targets are households who are living in a cold climate and have difficulty in getting access to electricity or modern cooking facilities and in supplying indoor heating with appropriate cost the concepts of energy poverty and fuel poverty have the chance to be broadened and mutually integrated

hedging in incomplete markets with hara utility in the context of merton s original problem of optimal consumption and portfolio choice in continuous time this paper solves an extension in which the investor is endowed with a stochastic income that cannot be replicated by trading the available securities the problem is treated by demonstrating using analytic and in particular viscosity solutions techniques that the value function of the stochastic control problem is a smooth solution of the associated hamilton jacobi bellman hjb equation the optimal policy is shown to exist and given in a feedback form from the optimality conditions in the hjb equation at zero wealth a fixed fraction of income is consumed for large wealth the original merton policy is approached we also give a sufficient condition for wealth under the optimal policy to remain strictly positive

poor energy poor energy saving obligations distributional effects and the malfunction of the priority group abstract the european union s energy efficiency directive forces the member states to install energy efficiency obligation schemes in a first step this paper identifies the distributional effects caused by this policy instrument which occur when energy efficiency measures are implemented phase of delivery and when its costs are passed on to the society phase of financing in the phase of delivery suppliers prefer to implement measures at the property of those customers which enable them to minimise their costs i e enterprises with large energy savings potentials and high income households who can contribute a greater share of the costs in the phase of financing distributional effects occur when the costs of the scheme are passed on from the obliged suppliers to their customers primarily affecting less competitive customers i e households and small enterprises in the british scheme the so called priority group was installed in order to decrease distributional effects and to support energy poor households in a second step this paper evaluates approaches to reduce energy poverty and indicates ineffectiveness high transaction costs and incoherency with the aims of the obligation scheme alternative approaches to tackle energy poverty are briefly described

stochastic pension funding when the benefit and the risky asset follow jump diffusion processes we study the asset allocation of defined benefit pension plans of the type designed and sponsored by firms with the aim of providing a lifetime pension to the employees at the age of retirement benefits are stochastic combining poisson jumps with brownian uncertainty the sponsor dynamically forms portfolios where the risky asset is also subjected to poisson jumps and brownian uncertainty possibly correlated with the evolution of benefits the objective is to assure future benefits while controlling the contribution made to the fund reserves the problem is solved analytically using dynamic programming techniques

pricing and depletion of an exhaustible resource when there is anticipation of trade disruption this paper considers pricing and depletion of an exhaustible nonrenewable resource in an economy wherein domestic consumption is provided for by supplementing extraction from the economy s own resource stock with imports the future supply of which is not assured the socially optimal response to threat of trade disruption is a more conservationist depletion program for the domestic resource stock than would be called for if import supplies were assured to persist competitive domestic firms adopt the socially optimal conversationist program however firms anticipating domestic market power after the disruption of import supplies are revealed to overextract the domestic resource stock 33 references 2 figures

consumption and portfolio policies with incomplete markets and short sale constraints the infinite dimensional case abstract we employ a martingale approach to study a dynamic consumption portfolio problem in continuous time with incomplete markets and short sale constraints we introduce a notion of minimax local martingale and transform the dynamic problem into a static problem of maximizing expected utility over the consumption bundles that satisfy a single budget constraint formed using that measure we establish the existence of and characterize the minimax local measure provide sufficient conditions for the dynamic consumption portfolio problem to have a solution and relate the optimal policies to the solution of quasi linear partial differential equation

climbing out of poverty falling back in measuring the persistence of poverty over multiple spells this paper investigates the persistence of poverty over individuals life times using a hazard rate approach that accounts for multiple spells of poverty and incorporates spell duration individual and household characteristics and unobserved heterogeneity the findings highlight the importance of considering multiple spells in an analysis of poverty persistence with half of those who end poverty spells returning to poverty within four years accounting for multiple spells shows that approximately 50 percent of blacks and 30 percent of whites falling into poverty in some year will have family income below the poverty line in five or more of the next ten years

macroeconomic policy exchange rate dynamics and optimal asset accumulation the paper develops a model of exchange rate and current account determination for a small economy peopled by infinitely lived utility maximizing households in this setting a central bank purchase of foreign exchange has no real effects when central bank foreign reserves earn interest at the world rate and proceeds are returned to the public in contrast an increase in the monetary growth rate does have real effects even in the long run the model developed here implies that an increase in government spending may lead to a surplus on current account the external adjustment process predicted by the model is one in which consumption real balances and external assets all rise or fall simultaneously

engendering an inclusive low carbon energy transition in japan considering the perspectives and awareness of the energy poor abstract engendering a low carbon energy transition is necessary to limit climate change impacts and temperature rises ideally this transition would be inclusive incorporating all stakeholders however the issue of energy or fuel poverty is a major obstacle to this goal this research investigates energy poverty in japan using a subjective multidimensional energy poverty measure clarifying the linkages between energy poverty and an inclusive just transition in terms of energy system and policy awareness behavior and preferences through the analysis of an original survey we uncover that there is a marked difference between low income and energy poverty households environmental awareness and their subsequent attitude toward the low carbon energy transition currently the energy poor have a negative attitude toward the low carbon energy transition in japan causing a lack of self reported engagement which will not engender an inclusive just transition our findings suggest that if the japanese low carbon energy transition were to be inclusive a further 5 percent of households could participate in the low carbon energy transition through access to solar or renewable energy capital findings identify the need for policies targeted at the energy poor specifically promoting access to solar capital and low carbon technologies in addition to existing policies targeted at low income households

fuel poverty in the uk is there a difference between rural and urban areas abstract fuel poverty is a significant policy issue an argument often made is that rural households are more likely to be fuel poor due to the nature of rural housing stock and the more limited choice of energy sources in rural areas this paper uses panel data to compare the level and dynamics of fuel poverty in rural and urban areas of the uk in addition to descriptive analysis discrete hazard models of fuel poverty exit and re entry are estimated and used to assess the influence of housing and personal characteristics on the time spent in fuel poverty the results indicate that on average the experience of fuel poverty in urban areas is longer with a higher probability of fuel poverty persistence however on average the rural fuel poor appear more vulnerable to energy price increases while living in private accommodation or a flat increases their probability of remaining fuel poor relative to their urban counterparts these results indicate policy effectiveness may differ across rural and urban space however they also emphasise the limits of spatial targeting monitoring the dynamics of fuel poverty is important for ensuring that policy targets are effective and reaching those most in need

fair demographic risk sharing in defined contribution pension systems in this article we formulate and solve the optimal design problem of a defined contribution public pension fund in a highly stylized but still rather general non stationary framework we adopt the viewpoint of a benevolent social planner who aims at treating in a fair manner the successive overlapping generations participating to such a long term mandatory system using the approach of el karoui and jeanblanc 1998 for the optimal consumption and portfolio choice problem with random income in a complete market we exhibit a solution to our intertemporal stochastic control problem where each generation receives a fair lumpsum retirement benefit it is proportional to the contributions she has paid during her active worklife and follows a fixed common rule although her pension value itself may depend on variables only observable at her retirement time we next relax the assumption that the collective pension system is mandatory and investigate the performance of individual investment plans in the market comparing the outcomes of both alternatives we derive a condition under which the collective fund can be expected to overperform the individual plan in the special case of a stationary economy such a possibility has been pointed out by gollier 2008 in fact this effect results from the possibility for the collective fund to borrow today against contributions of future generations which allows to implement riskier strategies and may improve its performance

energy poverty policies in the eu a critical perspective abstract once confined to the uk context where it was struggling to receive political recognition for years the concept of energy or fuel poverty is slowly entering the eu s agenda where it has crept into a number of regulatory documents and policy proposals using evidence gathered from an international workshop and semi structured interviews with decision makers experts and advocacy activists in brussels and sofia this paper explores the adoption of policies aimed at addressing energy poverty within i the organisational context of the eu and ii national state institutions in bulgaria a member state facing considerable problems at the energy affordability social inequality nexus while the former are largely nascent and poorly co ordinated the latter have already been implemented de jure to a significant extent however many unresolved issues surrounding their de facto implementation remain at the same time national policy makers remain largely unaware of the existence of direct energy poverty related initiatives at the eu level

retirement saving with contribution payments and labor income as a benchmark for investments abstract in this paper we study the retirement saving problem from the point of view of a plan sponsor who makes contribution payments for the future retirement of an employee the plan sponsor considers the employee s labor income as investment benchmark in order to ensure the continuation of consumption habits after retirement we demonstrate that the demand for risky assets increases at low wealth levels due to the contribution payments we quantify the demand for hedging against changes in wage growth and find that it is relatively small we show that downside risk measures increase risk taking at both low and high levels of wealth

measuring energy poverty in japan 2004 2013 abstract this paper first examines energy or fuel poverty in japan from 2004 to 2013 especially around the time of the 2011 great east japan earthquake geje to analyze the issue the paper employs various poverty and vulnerability measures with the assistance of our unique dataset the results indicate the aggravation of energy poverty among lower income and vulnerable households during the past decade resulting from both the escalation of energy prices and lowering of income the analysis also employs a new decomposition technique and identifies the explanatory factors associated with the increase in energy poverty these results suggest there were major changes in the forces driving the increase in energy poverty before and after the geje after 2011 income alleviates energy poverty in japan with energy prices becoming the main driving factor

constructing energy poverty profiles for an effective energy policy abstract energy poverty is becoming ever more important for academia and policymakers this study conducts fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis fsqca with the aim of constructing energy poverty profiles fsqca was performed on 150 households the results show that energy poor households are characterised by the interdependence and intertwining of socio demographic ownership status education level labour force status and household size and housing type of building central heating system and solar collectors heat pump characteristics the conditions form eight equifinal configurations related to energy poor households none of the individual characteristics is able to explain energy poverty alone although strong interrelations are present in the outcomes the study also highlights that the conditions play different roles in the presence or absence of energy poverty giving policymakers the necessary leeway to formulate effective policies as part of agendas covering poverty in general poor health climate change and domestic energy inefficiency this study suggests that energy poverty is a structural issue mainly arising from poor energy efficient buildings and or labour market inefficiencies

a stochastic model for energy poverty analysis abstract so far the lack of a common effective way of measuring energy poverty has been detected as a major weakness in handling the energy poverty problem one of the main causes has been the complexity of modeling the required energy consumption of households as demanded by the official 10 indicator and its replacement in calculations by the actual energy consumption which as is well known underestimates the real needs of households this weakness is addressed in this paper through the development of the stochastic model of energy poverty smep the development of the model includes firstly the modeling of energy consumption at household level and subsequently the transition from household level to country level through stochastic analysis monte carlo simulation through sensitivity analysis the impact of various parameters on energy poverty is quantified for the first time by determining their weighting factors applied to the case of greece it is found that energy poverty reaches 70 4 with income being the decisive factor affecting energy poverty at 63 while other variables htot etc follow at significantly lower percentages the findings can be used in order to assess in advance the effectiveness of energy poverty measures making the model a valuable policy tool

fuel poverty and well being a consumer theory and stochastic frontier approach abstract evidence and conventional wisdom suggest that general poverty has a negative effect on the well being of individuals however the mechanisms through which this effect occurs are not well understood through economic approach in this paper we analyse the influence of general and fuel poverty as well as the social dimension through peer comparison on the subjective well being of households we develop a novel approach to analyse fuel poverty and well being based on consumer theory individual preferences are modelled using indifference curves and a distance function where the preferences of individuals are affected by their poverty status we use the survey data from the official spanish life condition survey for 2013 which contains over 16 608 observations on household members the results show that both general and fuel poverty influence the reference indifference curve but that individuals also compare themselves with their peers the proposed model also allows us to corroborate how general and fuel poverty affect well being and how effective policies can be designed to improve social welfare

analysis of energy poverty intensity from the perspective of the regional administration empirical evidence from households in southern europe abstract the current economic situation has increased the number of households in europe experiencing restrictions and or limitations of affordability of energy services demonstrating the urgent need to intervene in those extreme cases in which households suffer the daily consequences of what is internationally defined as energy poverty in such a context this paper presents the results obtained in a case study characterising a sample of 615 households with demonstrated energy poverty in the region of aragon spain in parallel the intensity of energy poverty in the studied cases is examined by measuring the percentage of energy expenditures with respect to income in the households that suffer it and a descriptive analysis of the main determinants of energy poverty in the homes studied is presented as well as the policy implication at regional level

definitions of fuel poverty implications for policy abstract this paper outlines why the definition of fuel poverty is important in policy formulation and describes how the government s current definitions evolved from the original concept it discusses the determination of income and fuel costs and the possibilities for a relative and common european measure it examines problems inherent in assessing fuel costs as a percentage of income and puts forward the arguments for a budget standard approach the paper illustrates how the size of the problem depends on the definition and chosen threshold and suggests advantages for a rating scale it illustrates how the income composition and thresholds also govern the distribution of the target populations and the relative importance of the main causal factors and examines the consequent policy implications it explores the definition of vulnerable households and the importance of severity and questions whether the uk fuel poverty strategy is targeted at households least able to afford their fuel costs as the name implies or primarily those at risk from excess winter and summer mortality and morbidity finally after examining the role of supplementary indicators it looks at the opportunities for changing the definition and comments on the government review of the definition and targets

a new measure of italian hidden energy poverty abstract as highlighted by european policymakers and academic research the global economic crisis of 2008 emphasized the energy poverty phenomenon a number of households have had to considerably reduce their energy expenditure but the traditional criteria adopted to calculate energy poverty are not able to measure their number placed in this framework the paper aims to define a new measure of hidden energy poverty suitable to identify which italian households restrain their energy consumption due to their inability to afford energy services a review of the available energy poverty metrics supports the definition of a new indicator that is able to include hidden energy poor consumers considering some key peculiarities such as the poor energy efficiency of buildings the poverty situation low energy consumption and sensitivity to the climate using data from the household budget survey provided by the italian national institute of statistics in 2018 the newly identified indicator supports the assessment of the percentage of italian households in hidden energy poverty and supplies useful insight to policymakers in their effort to support vulnerable consumers

contrasting approaches to fuel poverty in new zealand we contrast two measures of fuel poverty in new zealand the first is based on estimated expenditure of over 10 of household income on fuel the second is self reported deprivation of fuel because of an inability to afford it households denoted as fuel poor on the two measures are mostly different and the findings suggest that research is needed to investigate if different households make different trade offs between expenditure on fuel and other necessities

experiencing fuel poverty coping strategies of low income households in vienna austria abstract until the present day research on fuel poverty focussing on the point of view of those concerned is few and far between the present paper aims at filling this gap analysing experiences with and behavioural responses to fuel poverty it examines the day to day energy situation of households which are poor at risk of poverty and or suffering from fuel poverty in a case study conducted in the austrian capital vienna qualitative interviews provide the data for investigating the relevant factors in causing fuel poverty among those bad housing conditions outdated appliances financial problems and provide a basis for discussion about the respective behavioural strategies of the people concerned the results show that the ways of handling this problematic situation vary greatly and that people follow different strategies when it comes to inventing solutions for coping with the restrictions and finding ways of satisfying at least a part of their basic energy needs nonetheless it also clearly surfaces that the scope of action is limited in many cases which in turn only supports the claim that changes in the overall conditions are essential

assessing the fuel poverty vulnerability of urban neighbourhoods using a spatial multi criteria decision analysis for the german city of oberhausen abstract tackling fuel poverty has become an increasingly important issue on many european countries political agendas consequently national governments local authorities and ngos have established policies and programmes to reduce the fuel poverty vulnerability of households however evaluations of such policies and programmes show that they barely reach those who are most in need the reasons for this failure are diverse and include fuel poverty measurement metrics local scale data availability and policy design this raises the question of how fuel poor homes can be more effectively identified and targeted to ensure that limited local and national budgets are used to benefit those who most need help area based approaches which pinpoint spatial units highly affected by fuel poverty due to their specific characteristics offer an opportunity for creating more tailored policies and programmes in this study the author developed a gis mcda multi criteria decision analysis using an ahp analytical hierarchy process and applied the approach to the german city of oberhausen the overall issue of fuel poverty was broken down into three vulnerability dimensions heating burden socio economic and building vulnerability the relative importance of fuel poverty criteria and the dimensions were evaluated by experts and an overall fuel poverty index was created to assess the relative fuel poverty vulnerability of 168 urban neighbourhoods the analysis offers insights into the spatial pattern of fuel poverty within a city and thus provides an opportunity to channel efforts towards households in those neighbourhoods most in need it also demonstrates that a trade off between ecological and social targets should be considered in the development of future policies for tackling fuel poverty

aggregate poverty measures the way poverty is measured is important for an understanding of what has happened to poverty as well as for anti poverty policy evaluation sen s 1976 pathfinding work has motivated many researchers to focus on the way poverty should be measured a poverty measure argued by sen should satisfy certain properties or axioms and the desirability of a poverty measure should be evaluated by these axioms during the last two decades many researchers have adopted the axiomatic approach pioneered by sen to propose additional axioms and develop alternative poverty measures the objective of this survey is to provide a clarification on the extensive literature of aggregate poverty measures in this survey we first examine the desirability of each axiom the properties of each poverty measure and the interrelationships among axioms the desirability of an axiom cannot be evaluated in isolation and some combination of axioms may make it impossible to devise a satisfactory poverty measure some axioms can be implied by other axioms combined and so are not independent some others are ad hoc and are disqualified as axioms for poverty measurement based on the interactions among axioms we identify the core axioms which together have a strong implication on the functional form of a poverty measure we then review poverty measures that have appeared in the literature evaluating the interrelationships among different measures and examining the properties of each measure the axioms each measure satisfies violates are also summarized in a tabular form several good poverty measures which have not been documented by previous surveys are also included

measurement of spatial socioeconomic impact of energy poverty abstract this article presents a spatial analysis of the evolution of energy poverty in spanish households and aims to measure the socioeconomic impact of energy poverty the economic financial measurement of palliative measures implemented and social perceptions of energy poverty are also dimensioned in order to analyse holistically the economic financial and social impact of energy poverty at a territorial level a statistical analysis of the financial aids has been conducted and the perception of technicians employed by both the public and the private sectors who work with affected households has been compiled in addition this paper explores the relationship between media coverage and the economic financial impact at territorial level to this goal 259 newspaper articles about energy poverty were classified and analysed to examine the socio genesis of the problem of energy poverty the measurement of the socio economics impact of energy poverty in households in a territory represents the spatial dimension of the problem for the definition of local energy policies taking into consideration the evolution of different measures implemented over time their limitations scope and flexibility

the structure of energy efficiency investment in the uk households and its average monetary and environmental savings abstract socioeconomic and behavioural variables that influence the household s adoption of energy efficiency measures such as cavity and loft insulation and upgrades to the boiler are identified contrary to previous literature by extending brechling and smith s 1994 and hassett and metcalf s 1995 models it is shown that the application of the energy act 2011 which contains provisions on the green deal the new energy company obligation eco and the private rented sector needs to follow a tailored strategy to reach the low adoption households identified by my model moreover for the current adopters of the analysed measures average monetary and environmental adoption benefits are estimated based on parti and parti s 1980 demand model these estimates are smaller than their expected values showing an important energy efficiency gap in the sector particularly low cost measures can bring important savings that can help to meet the pay as you save rule i e the golden rule of the new regulation my model also shows that a poor state of dwelling repair can reduce the adoption benefits increasing the need of subsidies that will be financed through consumer s energy bills however this can increase the number of households in fuel poverty

an economic approach to the study of the relationship between housing hazards and health the case of residential fuel poverty in france abstract the impact of housing hazards on health outcomes is becoming a major issue especially given the recent and on going reviews of energy legislation in many european countries a large body of epidemiological literature argues that fuel poverty a frequently debated example of a housing hazard involving low indoor temperatures is associated with heightened health risks by using a large scale nationally representative dataset i seek in this article to delve into this alleged association and uncover a causal relationship between fuel poverty and self assessed health coming from an economics standpoint i used a panel approach based on an instrumental fixed effects model which allow me to analyse causality i used both objective and subjective fuel poverty indicators the results show that there is a significant causal relationship between fuel poverty and self assessed health status the estimated causality is exacerbated when subjective fuel poverty indicators are used the results also show that the negative impact of fuel poverty on health is deferred meaning that fuel poverty takes time to manifest itself in terms of poor health in policy terms this study adds to the debate on investing in housing energy efficiency schemes to reduce fuel poverty and thereby improve health outcomes it also lends support to the argument according to which improving housing conditions to curb fuel poverty is a lever for reducing pubic expenditures on health care

objective vs subjective fuel poverty and self assessed health abstract identification of fuel poverty and its impact on individuals is a growing social issue classifying households using subjective measures of fuel poverty yields different results than when objective measures are used moreover there are assessment related difficulties in establishing the effects on health and wellbeing which hinders policy design to tackle this problem in this paper we propose a latent class ordered probit model to control for subjectivity when analysing the influence of fuel poverty on self reported health this methodology is applied to a sample of 25 000 individuals in 11 000 households for the 2011 2014 period in spain where 5 1 million people 11 of the population could not afford to heat their homes to an adequate temperature in 2014 the results show that poor housing conditions low income material deprivation and fuel poverty have a negative impact on health we also find that the effect of objective fuel poverty and other poverty related factors on health are stronger when we control for unobserved heterogeneity among individuals since objective measures alone may not fully capture the adverse effect of fuel poverty on health we advocate policy approaches that combine both objective and subjective measures and its application by policymakers

optimal portfolio choice for long horizon investors with nontradable labor income this paper examines how risky labor income and retirement affect optimal portfolio choice with idiosyncratic labor income risk the optimal allocation to stocks is unambiguously larger for employed investors than for retired investors consistent with the typical recommendations of investment advisors increasing idiosyncratic labor income risk raises investors willingness to save and reduces their stock portfolio allocation towards the level of retired investors positive correlation between labor income and stock returns has a further negative effect and can actually reduce stockholdings below the level of retired investors financial advisors typically recommend that their customers invest more in stocks than in safe assets when they are working and to shift their investments towards safe assets when they retire jagannathan and kocherlakota 1996 malkiel 1996 by contrast the standard academic models of portfolio choice merton 1969 1971 samuelson 1969 show that retirement is irrelevant for portfolio decisions if investment opportunities are constant and human capital is tradable in this case the fraction of wealth optimally invested in risky assets should be constant over the lifetime of an individual recent research building on the pioneering work by merton 1971 shows that time varying investment opportunities result in portfolio rules with an intertemporal hedging component whose magnitude depends on the investment horizon of the investor kim and omberg 1996 balduzzi and lynch 1997 brennan schwartz and lagnado 1997 brandt 1999 campbell and viceira 1999 2001 barberis 2000 with time variation in investment opportunities retirement and death play an instrumental role as events that exogenously fix the individual s investment horizon more importantly retirement also marks the time at which individuals stop working and thereafter must live off their lifetime savings and possibly transfers from this perspective retirement matters for portfolio choice

energy affordability in the eu the risks of metric driven policies abstract this paper provides a pan eu mapping of energy affordability using energy expenditure shares large variations in energy expenditure shares are identified with the shares being significantly higher in new member states than the eu15 first these variations indicate that a single expenditure based pan eu fuel poverty metric is problematic there is a trade off between a metric identifying households in most need within individual member states and one identifying households in a similar position across member states second household level data from the uk france and the republic of ireland are used to simulate the impact of policy interventions involving energy expenditure reductions or income increases on the recorded rate of fuel poverty these simulations highlight that emphasising high level fuel poverty metrics may distort policymakers choices towards improving the picture of fuel poverty rather than maximising welfare improvements robust impact assessments identifying the fuel poverty interventions which deliver the greatest welfare increases for a given cost offer a better means of policy evaluation

fuel poverty and access to electricity comparing households when they differ in needs although sequential stochastic dominance techniques have been used in the literature to make comparisons of income poverty which are robust to the assumptions made about the economies of scale within households the techniques could be applied to a much wider set of issues in this paper these techniques are applied to energy deprivation in guatemala fuel poverty is compared among households with and without access to electricity and it is assessed whether access to electricity for those who do not have access currently would eliminate the observed difference in fuel poverty between the two groups of households

functional form and aggregate energy demand elasticities a nonparametric panel approach for 17 oecd countries this paper studies whether the commonly used linear parametric model for estimating aggregate energy demand is the correct functional specification for the data generating process parametric and n

counting and multidimensional poverty measurement this paper proposes a new methodology for multidimensional poverty measurement consisting of an identification method k that extends the traditional intersection and union approaches and a class of poverty measures m our identification step employs two forms of cutoff one within each dimension to determine whether a person is deprived in that dimension and a second across dimensions that identifies the poor by counting the dimensions in which a person is deprived the aggregation step employs the fgt measures appropriately adjusted to account for multidimensionality the axioms are presented as joint restrictions on identification and the measures and the methodology satisfies a range of desirable properties including decomposability the identification method is particularly well suited for use with ordinal data as is the first of our measures the adjusted headcount ratio we present some dominance results and an interpretation of the adjusted headcount ratio as a measure of unfreedom examples from the us and indonesia illustrate our methodology

spatializing energy justice this paper introduces the concept of spatial justice and inequality to understandings of energy poverty and vulnerability by applying an explicitly spatial lens to conceptualize energy poverty as a form of injustice it contributes to debates in the domain of energy justice where previous examinations of energy deprivation through a justice framing have focused on inequalities between social groups and often marginalized questions of spatial difference we start from the premise that geographic disparities in the risk and incidence of domestic energy deprivation are a key component of energy justice an extensive literature review has allowed us to highlight the spatial and temporal variation of cross sectoral and entire energy chain injustices that lead to elevated energy poverty risks these processes contribute to the rise of energy injustices via four mechanisms which we term landscapes of material deprivation geographic underpinnings of energy affordability vicious cycles of vulnerability and spaces of misrecognition operating at a multiplicity of scales while lending some support to area based approaches towards energy poverty alleviation our findings also suggest that such policies alone may marginalize the underlying structural dynamics that re produce spatial inequalities therefore achieving energy justice necessitates broader interventions in the fundamental driving forces of spatial inequality

quantifying the prevalence of fuel poverty across the european union abstract the literature and policy base for fuel poverty in the uk and ireland is well established and there is a growing body of single country studies beyond these two eu member states for example brunner et al 2012 dubois 2012 robine et al 2008 however on a european level the last analysis of fuel poverty was conducted in 2004 prior to the enlargement of the eu using survey data this paper presents an updated overview of the prevalence of european fuel poverty in the context of the accession of numerous former social states and rising fuel prices analysis reveals the phenomenon of fuel poverty is occurring across the eu with particularly high levels of fuel poverty found in eastern and southern european states it is argued that there are both eu and national policy frameworks in place that address climate change and these could be used as a starting point for countries to address fuel poverty through improved domestic energy efficiency measures this paper reflects research undertaken in 2011 supported by eaga charitable trust within the umbrella of work examining issues of poverty and social exclusion across the eu which has enabled access to the eu silc dataset

energy poverty an overview abstract in the coming decades the energy sector will have to face three major transformations concerned with climate change security of supply and energy poverty the first two have been extensively analysed but less attention has been paid to the third even though it has a great influence on the lives of millions of people this paper presents an overview on energy poverty different ways of measuring it and its implications according to the who indoor pollution causes an estimated 1 3 million deaths per annum in low income countries associated with the use of biomass in inadequate cookstoves although energy poverty cannot be delinked from the broader more complex problem of poverty in general access to energy infrastructures would avoid its most serious consequences and would help to encourage autonomous development according to the iea the cost of providing universal access to energy by 2030 would require annual investment of 35 billion i e much less than the amount provided annually in subsidies to fossil fuels finally the paper argues that energy and energy poverty need to be incorporated into the design of development strategies

optimal consumption and portfolio policies when asset prices follow a diffusion process abstract we consider a consumption portfolio problem in continuous time under uncertainty a martingale technique is employed to characterize optimal consumption portfolio policies when there exist nonnegativity constraints on consumption and on final wealth we also provide a way to compute and verify optimal policies our verification theorem for optimal policies involves a linear partial differential equation unlike the nonlinear partial differential equation of dynamic programming the relationship between our approach and dynamic programming is discussed we demonstrate our technique by explicitly computing optimal policies in a series of examples in particular we solve the optimal consumption portfolio problem for hyperbolic absolute risk aversion utility functions when the asset prices follow a geometric brownian motion the optimal policies in this case are no longer linear when nonnegativity constraints on consumption and on final wealth are included by these examples one can see that our approach is much easier than the dynamic programming approach

electricity consumption in g7 countries a panel cointegration analysis of residential demand elasticities this article applies recently developed panel unit root and panel cointegration techniques to estimate the long run and short run income and price elasticities for residential demand for electricity in g7 countries the panel results indicate that in the long run residential demand for electricity is price elastic and income inelastic the study concludes that from an environmental perspective there is potential to use pricing policies in the g7 countries to curtail residential electricity demand and thus curb carbon emissions in the long run

measuring and monitoring fuel poverty in the uk national and regional perspectives abstract throughout the industrialised world fuel poverty is the most commonly accepted term with which to describe a household s inability to afford basic standards of heat power and light whilst the term gained widespread acceptance with the publication of the uk s fuel poverty strategy in 2001 little is known about the origins of the term itself this paper traces the earliest formulations of the concept focusing particularly on the 10 needs to spend threshold which was adopted in 1991 and remains in place some 20 years later this paper argues that understanding more about the origins of this threshold yields a more critical understanding of why fuel poverty targets in the uk have not been reached and enables a more informed approach to setting realistic targets for the future it also provides an opportunity to explore regional disparities in uk fuel poverty prevalence highlighting the extent to which rigid adherence to a 10 threshold has created an unstable regional mosaic of over estimation and under estimation

scenario generation and stochastic programming models for asset liability management in this paper we develop and test scenario generation methods for asset liability management models we propose a multi stage stochastic programming model for a dutch pension fund both randomly sampled event trees and event trees fitting the mean and the covariance of the return distribution are used for generating the coefficients of the stochastic program in order to investigate the performance of the model and the scenario generation procedures we conduct rolling horizon simulations the average cost and the risk of the stochastic programming policy are compared to the results of a simple fixed mix model we compare the average switching behavior of the optimal investment policies our results show that the performance of the multi stage stochastic program could be improved drastically by choosing an appropriate scenario generation method

managing the energy trilemma the case of indonesia abstract this article argues that a central challenge for energy governance is how to manage a complex energy trilemma involving the sometimes competing demands of energy security climate change mitigation and particularly in developing countries energy poverty it suggests that tensions between the horns of the trilemma in large part explain indonesia s current profoundly suboptimal energy policy while these tensions are not inherently incapable of resolution such resolution would require good governance at both state and global levels the possibilities for and obstacles confronting such governance are explored and provisional solutions canvassed

energy affordability and the benefits system in italy abstract in this paper we discuss a number of ways to define and measure the affordability of energy consumption and we examine the emergence of energy poverty in italy in the period from 1998 to 2011 the paper examines the eligibility criteria for claiming the benefits available to support energy consumption for vulnerable families and it identifies the potential beneficiaries the study assesses the appropriateness of the eligibility criteria by comparing the population targeted by the policy with the population actually facing affordability problems a simulation exercise using the hypothetical scenario most likely to result in energy benefits being made available shows that regardless of the affordability index adopted the provision of state energy benefits has little impact on fuel poverty

fuel poverty potential risk index in the context of climate change in chile abstract public housing policies face a challenge in order to meet not only the right to housing but also an affordable and comfortable use for them in this context most of the studies related to fuel poverty are based on a diagnosis of existing conditions but there is a lack of information focusing on how to predict the risk of fuel poverty in future dwellings considering a context of climate change this research develops an index to assist policymakers in the decision making process during the early stages of social housing allocation the analysis is based on the applicability of adaptive comfort the influence of climate change the urban context and the building features energy use patterns and the ability to pay utility bills have been also considered for social housing in the central south of chile after that several future scenarios are discussed considering the probable income and energy inflation rates the potential risk variables that influence the early stages of design are also discussed the results reveal that the fuel poverty potential risk index is an effective tool to select appropriate housing for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable segments of society considering the future climate income and energy price trends

occupant behaviour as a fourth driver of fuel poverty aka warmth energy deprivation a conceptual framework for occupant behaviour as a driver of fuel poverty is presented comprising housing and use of the home heating and energy arrangements and thermal comfort household structure and dynamics health and well being household finances and social activity and relations this framework informs longitudinal analysis of movements into and out of fuel poverty among households in deprived communities in glasgow household surveys across ten years yielded a longitudinal sample of 3297 cases where initial and subsequent fuel poverty status was recorded using an experiential measure a third of households changed their fuel poverty status over time 18 moving out of fuel poverty and 16 moving in factors strongly associated with movements into fuel poverty included being a single parent or 2 27 experiencing a mental health problem or 2 74 and remaining out of work or 1 89 movement out of fuel poverty was less likely among those with infrequent family contact or 0 55 and who moved home or 0 66 home improvements had no effect upon the experience of fuel poverty it is argued that the policy problem should be considered one of warmth and energy deprivation accompanied by a broader interpretation of vulnerability to as well as from fuel poverty

disinflation programs under policy uncertainty abstract this paper uses a model with endogenous labor supply to study exchange rate based inflation stabilization programs under uncertainty regarding the duration of the program the paper finds that the output and consumption dynamics induced by these programs are extremely sensitive to whether the programs are perceived to have a chance of continuing permanently or whether they are expected to end in finite time it is shown that the business cycle dynamics for output that are typically associated with these programs arise only when the policy is expected to collapse in finite time furthermore for the purposes of rationalizing the stylized facts the uncertain duration channel appears to induce a fundamental tension between the consumption dynamics and the current account dynamics these results raise doubts regarding the explanatory power of the uncertain duration channel in particular and the credibility channel in general