economic growth and pollutant emissions in tunisia an empirical analysis of the environmental kuznets curve abstract this paper investigates the relationship between economic growth and pollutant emissions for a small and open developing country tunisia during the period 1961 2004 the investigation is made on the basis of the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis using time series data and cointegration analysis carbon dioxide co 2 and sulfur dioxide so 2 are used as the environmental indicators and gdp as the economic indicator our results show that there is a long run cointegrating relationship between the per capita emissions of two pollutants and the per capita gdp an inverted u relationship between so 2 emissions and gdp has been found with income turning point approximately equals to 1200 constant 2000 prices or to 3700 in ppp constant 2000 prices however a monotonically increasing relationship with gdp is found more appropriate for co 2 emissions furthermore the causality results show that the relationship between income and pollution in tunisia is one of unidirectional causality with income causing environmental changes and not vice versa both in the short run and long run this implies that an emission reduction policies and more investment in pollution abatement expense will not hurt economic growth it could be a feasible policy tool for tunisia to achieve its sustainable growth in the long run

bounds testing approach to analyzing the environment kuznets curve hypothesis with structural beaks the role of biomass energy consumption in the united states abstract this paper re examines the specification of the environmental kuznets curve ekc for the us economy by accounting for the presence of a major renewable energy source and trade openness over the period 1960 2016 biomass energy consumption and trade openness as well as oil prices are considered as additional determinants of economic growth and consequentially of co 2 emissions the bounds testing approach to cointegration is used to examine the long run relationship between the variables in the presence of structural breaks the causal relationship between the variables is investigated by applying the vecm granger causality test and accommodating structural breaks the results confirm the presence of cointegration between the variables moreover the relationship between economic growth and co 2 emissions is not only inverted u shaped but also n shaped in the presence of structural breaks and biomass biomass energy consumption lowers co 2 emissions exports imports and trade openness are also environment friendly the causality analysis underscores a feedback effect between biomass energy consumption and co 2 emissions economic growth still granger causes co 2 emissions in this new setup

environmental kuznets curve in romania and the role of energy consumption abstract the aim of present study is to probe the dynamic relationship between economic growth energy consumption and co 2 emissions for period of 1980 2010 in case of romania in doing so ardl bounds testing approach is applied to investigate the long run cointegration between these variables our results confirm long run relationship between economic growth energy consumption and energy pollutants the empirical evidence reveals that environmental kuznets curve ekc is found both in long and short runs in romania further energy consumption is major contributor to energy pollutants democratic regime shows her significant contribution to decline co 2 emissions through effective implementation of economic policies and financial development improves environment i e reduces co 2 emissions by redirecting the resources to environment friendly projects

a food demand system based on demand for characteristics if there is curvature in the slutsky matrix what do the curves look like and why abstract a food demand system is proposed based on demand for energy variety and tastes of foods by specifying utility as an explicit function of these characteristics the entire matrix of demand elasticities can be derived for n foods and one non food from prior specification of just four elasticities while avoiding any assumption of separability between foods this framework can explain why poorest groups often are most price responsive but also can account for highest price responsiveness by middle income groups the system is applied to published food consumption data for urban and rural populations in pakistan elasticities are compared with those obtained in a published pakistan study applying an almost ideal demand system aids

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

indicators for sustainable energy development a multivariate cointegration and causality analysis from tunisian road transport sector this paper studies causal mechanism between indicators for sustainable energy development related to energy consumption from tunisian road transport sector the investigation is made using the johansen cointegration technique and the environmental kuznets curve ekc approach it examines the nexus between transport value added road transport related energy consumption road infrastructure fuel price and co2 emissions from tunisian transport sector during the period of 1980 2010 empirical results show that road transport related energy consumption transport value added transport co2 emissions and road infrastructure are mutually causal in the long run these results do not support the hypothesis of neutrality between energy and income for the tunisian road transport sector also there is a unidirectional causality running from fuel price to road transport related energy consumption with no feedback in both the short and long runs the fuel price and the road infrastructure are significant in the causal chain though the estimated long run cointegrated equation we conclude that there is an inverse n shaped relation between transport value added and transport co2 emissions with income turning point respectively equal to 75 and 579 constant 2000 tnd prices therefore our empirical findings refute the hypothesis of an inverted u shaped ekc for transport co2 emissions in tunisia the findings of this study have a number of policy implications economic growth environmental degradation energy and transportation policies should be recognized in order to improve the energy efficiency in transport sector all measures that should reduce petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas emissions without affecting economic growth may be undertaken the policymakers in tunisia should plan urban transport relocate production units improve fuel efficient vehicles and reinforce legislation on controlling emissions in order to copying with policies based on low carbon development and climate resilient strategies

useful exergy is key in obtaining plausible aggregate production functions and recognizing the role of energy in economic growth portugal 1960 2009 abstract the role of energy in economic growth is controversial models based on aggregate production functions apf range from the neoclassical which downplay energy due to a cost share theorem but typically rely on exogenous total factor productivity tfp to the ecological economic which acknowledge energy s importance the validity of the apf concept itself is questioned here we apply cointegration analysis to identify apfs between output capital labor and possibly energy measured as primary energy or useful exergy we test for tfp growth by including a time trend we require that plausible apfs verify cointegration non negative output elasticities and granger causality linking inputs to output our method recognizes cases where a plausible apfs do not exist thereby addressing the apf critique b energy impacts growth directly c energy impacts growth indirectly through capital and labor we apply the method to portugal 1960 2009 considering standard and quality adjusted capital labor measures with a time trend or disregarding energy plausible apfs are never found without a trend plausible apfs are found only when considering capital energy labor combinations within these with quality adjusted capital and labor and useful exergy results are consistent with the cost share theorem but energy plays a central role through a constraint on all factors of production

political power and the credibility of government debt abstract if political power and motives to invest in government bonds are positively correlated across voting groups then a self selection equilibrium can arise where the government s promise to repay its debt is credible we illustrate this using a formal model where the alternative use of wealth is to acquire human capital journal of economic literature classification numbers d72 e60 h63

the dynamics of sovereign default risk and political turnover abstract this paper develops a stochastic dynamic politico economic model of sovereign debt to analyze the interaction of sovereign default risk and political turnover two parties differ in their preferred size of unproductive public spending which is financed by taxes and external debt electoral outcomes are characterized by the economic benefits from the incumbent s policies and stochastic idiosyncratic ideological aspects quantitative findings suggest that endogenous political turnover increases the discrepancies between the optimal borrowing and default policies of the two parties prior to a debt crisis the incumbent government accumulates external debt to foster the probability of remaining in power the dynamic interaction of electoral outcomes external debt and sovereign default supports arguments for imposing institutional constraints on incumbent governments

external debt capital flight and political risk abstract this paper explains the simultaneous occurence of large external debts private capital outflows and low domestic capital formation we consider a general equilibrium model in which two government types with conflicting distributional goals randomly alternate in office uncertainty over the fiscal policies of future governments generates capital flight and small domestic investment and induces the government to overaccumulate external debt the model also predicts that left wing governments are more inclined to restrict capital outflows than right wing governments finally we examine how political uncertainty affects the risk premium and how debt repudiation may occur after a regime change

financial crises and political crises abstract the simultaneous determination of financial default and political crises is studied in an open economy model political crises accompany default in equilibrium because of an information transmission conflict between the government and the public multiple equilibria are possible if foreign lenders are pessimistic about the country s stability they demand a high interest on the debt exacerbating distortions and possibly leading to political crisis but if lenders are optimistic the cost of the debt falls and political crises disappear in such a case international liquidity packages can select the best equilibrium and rule out political crises at negligible cost

how economic growth affects emissions an investigation of the environmental kuznets curve in portuguese and spanish economic activity sectors abstract it is a disquieting reality that increased economic growth for many years now in the western world is at odds with environmental degradation in this paper the relationship between economic growth and environmental variables is analyzed under two non linear specifications a quadratic and a cubic specification the study is conducted for portugal and spain in the period 1975 2012 using data for 13 sectors gva is used as proxy for income while energy use and carbon dioxide account for environmental degradation there is evidence for an inverted u shaped ekc however there are also other inverted n shaped functions that explain the relationship between economic growth and emissions altogether empirical results do indicate particular differences between portuguese and spanish sectors the results are of interest not only for researchers but also for policy makers political mitigation measures are also analyzed

the case for restricting fiscal policy discretion this paper studies the effects of discretionary fiscal policy on output volatility and economic growth using data for 91 countries we isolate three empirical regularities 1 governments that use fiscal policy aggressively induce significant macroeconomic instability 2 the volatility of output caused by discretionary fiscal policy lowers economic growth by more than 0 8 percentage points for every percentage point increase in volatility 3 prudent use of fiscal policy is explained to a large extent by the presence of political constraints and other political and institutional variables the evidence in the paper supports arguments for constraining discretion by imposing institutional restrictions on governments as a way to reduce output volatility and increase the rate of economic growth

economic growth and transport energy consumption in the latin american and caribbean countries abstract transport is a strategic sector for economic development whilst being one of the most polluting sectors of the economy the latin american and caribbean countries have been consolidated as the region with significantly faster energy consumption growth this paper analyzes how the gdp per capita affects the transport energy consumption testing possible non linear relationships between variables a transport energy consumption function depending on gdp and its squared and cubed value is estimated for 22 lac countries over the period 1990 2014 the results support an n shaped curve while the elasticity values of transport energy consumption with respect to gdp per capita do not show a tendency to decrease in the long term fourteen lac countries show absolute coupling levels at the end of the period while the rest exhibit partial couplings likewise trade openness population density degree of urbanization and structural changes in the economy have positive effects on the transport energy consumption this paper proposes some energy efficiency measures to control the growing energy use and the promotion of biofuels and electric vehicles is also considered necessary to reduce the negative effects of transport energy use

oil and the macroeconomy since world war ii all but one of the u s recessions since world war ii have been preceded typically with a lag of around three fourths of a year by a dramatic increase in the price of crude petroleum this does not mean that oil shocks caused these recessions evidence is presented however that even over the period 1948 72 this correlation is statistically significant and nonspurious supporting the proposition that oil shocks were a contributing factor in at least some of the u s recessions prior to 1972 by extension energy price increases may account for much of post opec macroeconomic performance

energy and economic growth in the usa a multivariate approach abstract this paper examines the causal relationship between gdp and energy use for the period 1947 90 in the usa the relationship between energy use and economic growth has been examined by both biophysical and neoclassical economists in particular several studies have tested for the presence of a causal relationship in the granger sense between energy use and economic growth however these tests do not allow a direct test of the relative explanatory powers of the neoclassical and biophysical models a multivariate adaptation of the test vector autoregression var does allow such a test a var of gdp energy use capital stock and employment is estimated and granger tests for causal relationships between the variables are carried out although there is no evidence that gross energy use granger causes gdp a measure of final energy use adjusted for changing fuel composition does granger cause gdp

is there an environmental kuznets curve for deforestation abstract this paper examines the relationship between deforestation and gross domestic product gdp per capita in particular whether an inverted u relationship indicative of worsening then improving deforestation exists between them we note that previous work has used models with restrictive assumptions and recommend a more flexible random coefficients specification which allows for a greater degree of cross country heterogeneity empirical results using data for 76 developing countries between 1961 1992 suggest that the inverted u shaped relationship observed in other studies does not appear to be an empirical regularity with our less restrictive specification statistical tests indicate that this specification is supported by the data we argue that such results are not surprising in view of the wide diversity of physical and social characteristics that exist across countries

a positive theory of fiscal deficits and government debt this paper considers an economy in which policymakers with different preferences alternate in office as a result of elections government debt is used strategically by each policymaker to influence the choices of his successors if different policymakers disagree about the desired composition of government spending between two public goods the economy exhibits a deficits bias that is debt accumulation is higher than it would be with a social planner the equilibrium level of debt is larger the larger is the degree of polarization between alternating governments and the less likely it is that the current government will be re elected

economic growth and atmospheric pollution in spain discussing the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis abstract the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis posits an inverted u relationship between environmental pressure and per capita income recent research has examined this hypothesis for different pollutants in different countries despite certain empirical evidence showing that some specific environmental pressures have diminished in developed countries the hypothesis could not be generalized to the global relationship between economy and environment at all in this article we contribute to this debate analyzing the trends of annual emission flux of six atmospheric pollutants in spain the study presents evidence that there is not any correlation between higher income level and smaller emissions except for so2 whose evolution might be compatible with the ekc hypothesis the authors argue that the relationship between income level and diverse types of emissions depends on many factors thus it cannot be thought that economic growth by itself will solve environmental problems

on the causal nexus of road transport co2 emissions and macroeconomic variables in tunisia evidence from combined cointegration tests abstract this paper investigates the causal relationship between road transportation energy consumption fuel prices transport sector value added and co2 emissions in tunisia for the period of 1980 2012 we apply the newly developed combined cointegration test proposed by bayer c hanck c combining non cointegration tests j time ser anal 2013 34 1 83 95 and the ardl bounds testing approach to cointegration for establishing the existence of long run relationship in presence of structural breaks the direction of causality between these variables is determined via vector error correction model vecm our empirical exercise reveals that cointegration is present energy consumption adds in co2 emissions fuel prices decline co2 emissions road infrastructure boosts co2 emissions transport value added also increases co2 emissions the causality analysis indicates the bidirectional casual relationship between energy consumption and co2 emissions road infrastructure causes co2 emissions and similar is true from opposite side in granger sense the bidirectional causality is also found between transport value added and co2 emissions fuel prices cause co2 emissions energy consumption road infrastructure and transport value added in granger sense this paper provides new insights to policy makers for designing a comprehensive energy transport and environment policies for sustainable economic growth in long run

endogenous political turnover and fluctuations in sovereign default risk abstract a sovereign default model in which the sovereign derives private benefits from public office and contests elections to stay in power is developed the economy s growth process is modeled as a markov switching regime which is shown to be a better description of the data for our set of emerging economies in the model consistent with evidence the sovereign is less likely to be reelected if economic growth is weak in the low growth regime there is higher probability of loss of private benefits due to turnover which makes the sovereign behave more myopically this growth linked variation in effective discount factor is shown to be important in generating volatility in sovereign spreads

income and emission a panel data based cointegration analysis this paper presents the results of an investigation of the causality issue of incomeemission relationship based on time series econometric techniques of unit root test cointegration and related error correction model for a panel data set here the nature of causality between per capita co2 emission pcco2 and per capita gdp pcgdp has been examined using a cross country panel data set covering 88 countries for the period 1960 90 using the panel unit root test procedure of im et al 1997 ips we have found that the hypothesis of unit root i e non stationarity of the time series of pcgdp and pcco2 can not be rejected for individual country groups as both the variables are found to follow i 1 process we next have performed the panel data co integration test and finally we have estimated the ecm for these country groups for which significant income emission cointegration was obtained to explore the nature of dynamics implicit in the given panel data set our findings suggest that there is more or less a bi directional causal relationship between income pcgdp and co2 emission pcco2 for africa central america america as a whole eastern europe western europe europe as a whole and the world as a whole that means the movement of the one variable directly affects the other variable through a feedback system thus the policy makers should be cautious to make proper decision about the control of emission level

estimating consumer preferences using market data an application to us automobile demand this paper explores the possibility of using market data to identify consumer preferences a utility function composed of homogeneous characteristics and goods specific effects is used as a basic link between the goods space and the characteristics space the functional form for the hedonic price equation the data requirements and issues of measurement errors for estimating demand and supply of characteristics are discussed we illustrate the methodology by considering the us automobile demand using 1969 86 data compiled from consumer reports and ward s automotiveyearbook

causal relationship between energy consumption and gdp growth revisited a dynamic panel data approach abstract this paper uses the panel data of energy consumption and gdp for 82 countries from 1972 to 2002 based on the income levels defined by the world bank the data are divided into four categories low income group lower middle income group upper middle income group and high income group we employ the gmm sys approach for the estimation of the panel var model in each of the four groups afterwards the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth is tested and ascertained we discover a in the low income group there exists no causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth b in the middle income groups lower and upper middle income groups economic growth leads energy consumption positively c in the high income group countries economic growth leads energy consumption negatively after further in depth analysis of energy related data the results indicate that in the high income group there is a great environmental improvement as a result of more efficient energy use and reduction in the release of co2 however in the upper middle income group countries after the energy crisis the energy efficiency declines and the release of co2 rises since there is no evidence indicating that energy consumption leads economic growth in any of the four income groups a stronger energy conservation policy should be pursued in all countries

cointegration and unit roots this paper provides an updated survey of a burgeoning literature on testing estimation and model specification in the presence of integrated variables integrated variables are a specific class of non stationary variables which seem to characterise faithfully the properties of many macroeconomic time series the analysis of cointegration develops out of the existence of unit roots and offers a generic route to test the validity of the equilibrium predictions of economic theories special emphasis is put on the empirical researcher s point of view

rules of thumb for sovereign debt crises abstract this paper investigates the economic and political conditions that are associated to the occurrence of a sovereign debt crisis we use a new statistical approach classification and regression tree that allows us to derive a collection of rules of thumb that help identify the typical characteristics of defaulters we find that not all crises are equal they differ depending on whether the government faces insolvency illiquidity or various macroeconomic risks we also characterize the set of fundamentals that can be associated with a relatively risk free zone this classification is important for discussing appropriate policy options to prevent crises and improve response time and prediction

energy consumption employment output and temporal causality evidence from taiwan based on cointegration and error correction modelling techniques in this study a cointegration analysis and a vector autoregressive model var are used to examine the causal relationships among energy consumption employment and output for taiwan over the period january 1982 to november 1997 johansen 1988 and johansen and juselius 1990 cointegration test result indicates these three variables are cointegrated with one cointegrating vector the results from granger causality tests based on vector error correction models vecm suggest bidirectional grange causality for employment output and employment energy consumption but only unidirectional causality running from energy consumption to output furthermore the impulse responses and variance decompositions are also incorporated into the analysis the results from impulsive response and variance decomposition analysis tell similar stories energy consumption appears to have led to output growth in taiwan over this period the policy implication of this finding is that energy conservation will restrain the outpu

testing the transport energy environmental kuznets curve hypothesis in the eu27 countries abstract transport activities are essential for economic and social development nevertheless the transport sector has also shown the fastest growth in energy consumption in the european union and its contribution to increasing greenhouse gas emissions merits the thorough attention of academics and policy makers in this paper we analyze the relationship of economic growth and transport activities with transport final energy consumption energy kuznets curves are estimated for a panel data set covering the eu27 countries in the period 1995 2009 for total transport energy use household transport energy use and productive transport energy use all three in absolute and per capita energy use terms the productive transport energy use and gross value added relationship are further considered as per hour worked finally the control variables of energy prices and differences in the economic structures are tested empirical results show that the elasticity of transport energy use with respect to gross value added in per capita terms decreases from a threshold for the three transport energy consumption variables but the turning point of improved environmental quality is not reached in any instance

long duration bonds and sovereign defaults abstract this paper extends the baseline framework used in recent quantitative studies of sovereign default by assuming that the government can borrow using long duration bonds this contrasts with previous studies which assume the government can borrow using bonds that mature after one quarter we show that when we assume that the government issues bonds with a duration similar to the average duration of sovereign bonds in emerging economies the model generates an interest rate that is substantially higher and more volatile than the one obtained assuming one quarter bonds this narrows the gap between the predictions of the model and the data which indicates that the introduction of long duration bonds may be a useful tool for future research about emerging economies our analysis is also relevant for the study of other credit markets

is there an environmental kuznets curve for sulfur abstract most existing estimates of the environmental kuznets curve ekc for sulfur which use samples of mainly high income countries indicate a maximum emissions turning point at middle to lower high income levels of gdp per capita we use a larger and more globally representative sample than previous sulfur ekc studies we find that sulfur emissions per capita are a monotonic function of income per capita when we use a global sample and an inverted u shape function of income when we use a sample of high income countries a model estimated in first differences results in a monotonic ekc when estimated with both high income and global samples reductions in emissions are time related rather than income related

an analysis of the driving forces of energy related carbon dioxide emissions in china s industrial sector abstract both energy consumption and the growth of carbon dioxide co2 emissions in china are attributed to the industrial sector energy conservation and co2 emissions reduction in china s industrial sector is decisive for achieving a low carbon transition we analyze the change of energy related co2 emissions in china s industrial sector from 1991 to 2010 based on the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi method results indicate that industrial activity is the major factor that contributes to the increase of industrial co2 emissions while energy intensity is the major contributor to the decrease of co2 emissions industry size shows a varying trend interchanging intervals of growth along the study period moreover both energy mix and carbon intensity of energy use have negative effects on the increase of co2 emissions the cointegration method is adopted to further explore determinants of co2 emissions in china s industrial sector results show that there exists a long run relationship between industrial co2 emissions and affecting factors such as co2 emissions per unit of energy consumption industrial value added labor productivity and fossil fuel consumption china s industrial co2 emissions are mainly attributed to the coal dominated energy structure policy suggestions are thus provided to reduce industrial co2 emissions in china

china s energy consumption and sustainable development comparative evidence from gdp and genuine savings this paper employs the structural vector autoregressions framework and the generalized impulse response function to study the long term dynamic relation between china s energy consumption and sustainable economic growth in addition to the conventional economic indicators gdp growth rates genuine savings rates are particularly examined to indicate sustainable economic development results show that the high elasticity of energy consumption dramatically undermines the capacity of china s sustainability in terms of reducing genuine savings rates we also use variance decomposition to calculate relative variance contribution rates in order to identify the most important factor affecting gdp growth as well as genuine savings rates the analysis finds that clean and renewable energy increase the country s genuine savings significantly that is renewable energy consumption promotes sustainable development for both natural and economic societies however increase in traditional solid energy consumption is more likely to benefit only the growth of gdp

energy consumption and gdp causality relationship in g 7 countries and emerging markets abstract the causality relationship between energy consumption and income is a well studied topic in energy economics this paper studies the time series properties of energy consumption and gdp and reexamines the causality relationship between the two series in the top 10 emerging markets excluding china due to lack of data and g 7 countries we discover bi directional causality in argentina causality running from gdp to energy consumption in italy and korea and from energy consumption to gdp in turkey france germany and japan hence energy conservation may harm economic growth in the last four countries

sovereign and private default risks over the business cycle abstract sovereign debt crises are often accompanied by deep recessions with sharp declines in external credit to the private sector in a sample of emerging economies we find that both sovereign and private interest rate spreads are countercyclical this paper presents a model of a small open economy that accounts for these empirical regularities it includes private firms which finance a fraction of imports by external debt and are subject to idiosyncratic productivity risk and a government which borrows internationally and taxes firms to finance public expenditures the model gives rise to endogenous private and sovereign interest rate spreads and a dynamic feedback mechanism between sovereign and private default risks through the endogenous response of fiscal policy to adverse productivity shocks

reexamining the empirical evidence for an environmental kuznets curve this paper uses an updated and revised panel data set on ambient air pollution in cities worldwide to examine the robustness of the evidence for the existence of an inverted u shaped relationship between national income and pollution we test the sensitivity of the pollution income relationship to functional forms to additional covariates and to changes in the nations cities and years sampled we find that the results are highly sensitive to these changes and conclude that there is little empirical support for an inverted u shaped relationship between several important air pollutants and national income in these data

exploring the relationship between energy use and economic growth with bivariate models new evidence from g 7 countries abstract there is a rapidly growing literature on the interaction between energy use and economic development with many analysts drawing policy conclusions on the basis of granger causality tests that involve only an energy and an economic variable this paper attempts to demonstrate empirically that such studies although useful for certain applications may be of limited use for policy purposes after outlining theoretical and methodological issues associated with such approaches i apply bivariate energy economy causality tests for canada france germany italy japan the united kingdom and the united states using aggregate and sectoral data and three different modern econometric methods the results which are often contradictory or economically implausible illustrate explicitly that one should be cautious when drawing policy implications with the aid of bivariate causality tests on small samples i therefore underline the importance of utilizing as large sample sizes as possible and using multivariate models which are closer to economic theory accommodate several mechanisms and causality channels and provide a better representation of real world interactions between energy use and economic growth

distributional incentives in an equilibrium model of domestic sovereign default the european debt crisis shares features of historical episodes of outright default on domestic public debt about which little research has been done this paper proposes a theory of domestic sovereign default in which a government chooses debt and default optimally responding to distributional incentives affecting the welfare of risk averse agents who are split into debt holders and non holders equilibria with debt do not exist if the government is utilitarian and default is costless adding exogenous default costs the model supports equilibria with debt exposed to default risk in which debt falls as the fraction of agents who own the debt falls debt can also be sustained if the government s welfare weights are biased in favor of bond holders resulting in equilibria in which debt rises as debt ownership is more concentrated these results are robust to adding a second asset opening the economy to foreign investors or introducing taxes as an alternative redistributive policy instrument

the demand for gasoline in south africa an empirical analysis using co integration techniques abstract using the recently developed autoregressive distributed lag ardl bound testing approach to co integration suggested by pesaran et al pesaran m h shin y smith r j bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships journal of applied econometrics 2001 16 3 289 326 we empirically analyzed the long run relationship among the variables in the aggregate gasoline demand function over the period 1978 2005 our study confirms the existence of a co integrating relationship the estimated price and income elasticities of 0 47 and 0 36 imply that gasoline demand in south africa is price and income inelastic

aggregate unemployment in italy 1960 1983 when compared with other countries experiences the italian performance on the unemployment front is interesting in many respects as indicated in table 1 the italian unemployment rate has been consistently above that of major western countries since the 1960s the differential in unemployment rates tended to decrease between the second half of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s because the initial rise in unemployment following the oil shock was less pronounced in italy than in most other countries since that time the rise in unemployment has been pretty universal and steady but italian unemployment has risen somewhat faster than the average thus the differential with the oecd has grown from 1 percentage point to over 2 by the early 1980s though the eec as a whole has performed even worse in assessing these trends one should keep in mind that unemployment as well as many other italian statistics is subject to an unusual margin of error reflecting in part the large role played by the underground economy furthermore as for other countries the aggregate italian unemployment rate hides substantial differences in unemployment rates for different groups of people in society see section i below though extremely important such

estimating the effect of urban density on fuel demand much of the empirical literature on fuel demand presents estimates derived from national data which do not permit any explicit consideration of the spatial structure of the economy intuitively we would expect the degree of spatial concentration of activities to have a strong link with transport fuel consumption the present paper addresses this theme by estimating a fuel demand model for urban areas to provide a direct estimate of the elasticity of demand with respect to urban density fuel demand per capita is decomposed into car stock per capita fuel consumption per kilometre and annual distance driven per car per year urban density is found to affect fuel consumption mostly through variations in the car stock and in the distances travelled rather than through fuel consumption per kilometre

revealed preference analysis of characteristics models characteristics models have been found to be useful in many areas of economics however their empirical implementation tends to rely heavily on functional form assumptions in this paper we develop a revealed preference approach to characteristics models we derive the necessary and su cient empirical conditions under which data on the market behaviour of heterogeneous price taking consumers are nonparametrically consistent with the consumer characteristics model where these conditions hold we show how information may be recovered on individual consumer s marginal valuations of product attributes in some cases marginal valuations are point identi ed and in other cases we can only recover bounds where the conditions fail we highlight the role which the introduction of unobserved product attributes can play in rationalising the data we implement these ideas using consumer panel data on the danish milk market

the relationship between energy consumption energy prices and economic growth time series evidence from asian developing countries this paper estimates the causal relationships between energy consumption and income for india indonesia the philippines and thailand using cointegration and error correction modelling techniques the results indicate that in the short run unidirectional granger causality runs from energy to income for india and indonesia while bidirectional granger causality runs from energy to income for thailand and the philippines in the case of thailand and the philippines energy income and prices are mutually causal the study results do not support the view that energy and income are neutral with respect to each other with the exception of indonesia and india where neutrality is observed in the short run c 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classifications c22 q43 q48

hedonic prices goods specific effects and functional form inferences from cross section time series data tests for two key elements of the hedonic model of price determination for differentiated goods are proposed when cross sectional time series data are available first the hedonic hypothesis that price is determined by sellers and buyers valuations of characteristics bundled in a good is tested against the alternative that consumers demand specific goods the sensitivity of the outcome of the test to unmeasured characteristics serial correlation or heteroscedasticity and misspecification of functional form is assessed second a novel approach to testing functional form illustrates limitations of testing hedonic specifications only against alternatives nested in the box cox functional form

co2 emissions energy consumption and output in france abstract this paper examines the dynamic causal relationships between pollutant emissions energy consumption and output for france using cointegration and vector error correction modelling techniques we argue that these variables are strongly inter related and therefore their relationship must be examined using an integrated framework the results provide evidence for the existence of a fairly robust long run relationship between these variables for the period 1960 2000 the causality results support the argument that economic growth exerts a causal influence on growth of energy use and growth of pollution in the long run the results also point to a uni directional causality running from growth of energy use to output growth in the short run

a dynamic approach to the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis abstract the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis states that pollution levels increase as a country develops but begin to decrease as rising incomes pass beyond a turning point in ekc analyses the relationship between environmental degradation and income is usually expressed as a quadratic function with the turning point occurring at a maximum pollution level other explanatory variables have been included in these models but income regularly has had the most significant effect on indicators of environmental quality one variable consistently omitted in these relationships is the price of energy this paper analyzes previous models to illustrate the importance of prices in these models and then includes prices in an econometric ekc framework testing energy income and co2 income relationships these long run price income models find that income is no longer the most relevant indicator of environmental quality or energy demand indeed we find no significant evidence for the existence of an ekc within the range of current incomes for energy in the presence of price and trade variables

environmental kuznets curve hypothesis in pakistan cointegration and granger causality abstract the paper is an effort to fill the gap in the energy literature with a comprehensive country study of pakistan we investigate the relationship between co2 emissions energy consumption economic growth and trade openness in pakistan over the period of 1971 2009 bounds test for cointegration and granger causality approach are employed for the empirical analysis the result suggests that there exists a long run relationship among the variables and the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis is supported the significant existence of ekc shows the country s effort to condense co2 emissions and indicates certain achievement of controlling environmental degradation in pakistan furthermore we find a one way causal relationship running from economic growth to co2 emissions energy consumption increases co2 emissions both in the short and long runs trade openness reduces co2 emissions in the long run but it is insignificant in the short run in addition the change of co2 emissions from short run to the long span of time is corrected by about 10 yearly

an econometric study of co2 emissions energy consumption income and foreign trade in turkey abstract this study attempts to empirically examine the dynamic causal relationships between carbon emissions energy consumption income and foreign trade in the case of turkey using the time series data for the period 1960 2005 this research tests the interrelationship between the variables using the bounds testing to cointegration procedure the bounds test results indicate that there exist two forms of long run relationships between the variables in the case of first form of long run relationship carbon emissions are determined by energy consumption income and foreign trade in the case of second long run relationship income is determined by carbon emissions energy consumption and foreign trade an augmented form of granger causality analysis is conducted amongst the variables the long run relationship of co2 emissions energy consumption income and foreign trade equation is also checked for the parameter stability the empirical results suggest that income is the most significant variable in explaining the carbon emissions in turkey which is followed by energy consumption and foreign trade moreover there exists a stable carbon emissions function the results also provide important policy recommendations

tax base variability and procyclical fiscal policy in developing countries abstract based on a sample of 56 countries we show that fiscal policy in the g7 countries appears to be acyclical while fiscal policy in developing countries is procyclical i e fiscal policy is expansionary in good times and contractionary in bad times to explain this puzzle we develop an optimal fiscal policy model in which running budget surpluses is costly because they create pressures to increase public spending given this distortion a government that faces large fluctuations in the tax base as is the case for developing countries will find it optimal to run a procyclical fiscal policy

the relation between marginal product and price in us energy markets implications for climate change policy abstract this paper reports an empirical test of the axioms that describe the relationship between the marginal product and price of factor inputs in us energy markets to do so i estimate a reduced form of a production function that represents the amounts of various energy types that are required to produce a given level of output the partial derivative of this production function is used to calculate the change in output that is generated by a marginal change in the use of coal oil natural gas or electricity a partial adjustment model is used to estimate the relation between the marginal product and price of coal oil natural gas and electricity the results indicate that rational agents manipulate their use of coal oil natural gas and electricity so that the marginal product of these energies adjust to changes in the relative prices of these energies because the marginal products of oil and natural gas are greater than coal less than one heat unit of oil or natural gas is needed to substitute for one unit of coal and this increases the quantity of carbon emissions that can be abated by interfuel substitution the time required to achieve these reductions may be longer than thought previously because of the slow rate at which the relative marginal product adjusts to relative price

an investigation of co integration and causality between energy consumption and economic activity in taiwan applying hsiao a version of the granger causality method this paper examines the causality between energy and gnp and energy and employment by applying recently developed techniques of co integration and hsiao s version of the granger causality to taiwanese data for the 1955 1993 period the phillips perron tests reveal that the series with the exception of gnp are not stationary and therefore differencing is performed to secure stationarity the study finds causality running from gdp to energy consumption without feedback in taiwan it is also found that causality runs from gdp to energy but not vice versa

energy conservation and emissions reduction in china progress and prospective abstract energy conservation ec has been taken as basic state policy in china for more than 20 years and china achieves 3 9 annual energy saving from 1980 to 2005 in 2006 china central government firstly set up a binding target of reducing gdp energy intensity by 20 in its 11th five year plan fyp at the end of 2010 19 1 reduction in energy intensity has been achieved which is 95 of the target and means 608 million tons stand coal equivalence sce saved 1510 million tons co 2 emission reduced 300 billion rmb saving in energy bill and vast saving in infrastructure investment this paper is systematical review and prospective analysis on energy policy issue in china review on policy evolution and progress of ec and emission reduction er in china during the 11th fyp periods is presented in detail outlook of energy demand and supply into 2050 is presented and the roadmap to realize sustainable energy development is drafted to set the framing constraints for china s energy policy options rationality and feasibility analysis on newly formulated 12th fyp ec and er target is also addressed then lessons from the 11th fyp periods are drawn and factors underlying and limiting the policy formulation and implementation are discussed in details to probe the policy predicament and solutions finally policy suggestions are proposed for long term successful implementation of ec and er in china

the relationship between energy and gnp further results this paper reexamines the casuality between gnp and energy consumption by using updated us data for the period 1947 1979 as a secondary contribution we investigate the causal relationship between energy consumption and employment applying sims technique we find no causal relationship between gnp and energy consumption we find further that there is a slight unidirectional flow running from employment to energy consumption economic interpretations of the empirical results are also presented

a household level environmental kuznets curve abstract richer households may create more vehicle emissions because they own more vehicles and drive more poorer households may pollute more because they use high polluting vintages and maintain them less well this paper uses 1993 california vehicle microdata to show that there is a kuznets u shaped hydrocarbon emissions relation

examining carbon emissions economic growth nexus for india a multivariate cointegration approach abstract the study probes cointegration and causality between carbon emissions and economic growth for india using ardl bounds testing approach complemented by johansen juselius maximum likelihood procedure in a multivariate framework by incorporating energy supply investment and employment for time span 1971 2006 the study fails to establish long run equilibrium relationship and long term causality between carbon emissions and economic growth however there exists a bi directional short run causality between the two hence in the short run any effort to reduce carbon emissions could lead to a fall in the national income this study also establishes unidirectional short run causality running from economic growth to energy supply and energy supply to carbon emissions the absence of causality running from energy supply to economic growth implies that in india energy conservation and energy efficiency measures can be implemented to minimize the wastage of energy across value chain such measures would narrow energy demand supply gap absence of long run causality between carbon emissions and economic growth implies that in the long run focus should be given on harnessing energy from clean sources to curb carbon emissions which would not affect the country s economic growth

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

energy consumption and gdp in tunisia cointegration and causality analysis abstract in this paper the johansen cointegration technique is used to examine the causal relationship between per capita energy consumption pcec and per capita gross domestic product pcgdp for tunisia during the 1971 2004 period in order to test for granger causality in the presence of cointegration among the variables a vector error correction model vecm is used instead of a vector autoregressive var model our estimation results indicate that the pcgdp and pcec for tunisia are related by one cointegrating vector and that there is a long run bi directional causal relationship between the two series and a short run unidirectional causality from energy to gross domestic product gdp the source of causation in the long run is found to be the error correction terms in both directions hence an important policy implication resulting from this analysis is that energy can be considered as a limiting factor to gdp growth in tunisia conclusions for tunisia may also be relevant for a number of countries that have to go through a similar development path of increasing pressure on already scarce energy resources

why a stubborn conservative would run a deficit policy with time inconsistent preferences a conservative government in favor of a low level of public consumption knows that it will be replaced by a government in favor of a larger level of public consumption we show that the resulting level of public consumption is in between the levels the two governments would choose if each were in power both in the present and in the future in particular we show that if the conservative government is more stubborn in a particular sense than the succeeding government the conservative government will borrow more than it would had it remained in power in the future

growth in the shadow of expropriation we propose a tractable variant of the open economy neoclassical growth model that emphasizes political economy and contracting frictions the political economy frictions involve a preference for immediate spending while the contracting friction is a lack of commitment regarding foreign debt and expropriation we show that the political economy frictions slow an economy s convergence to the steady state due to the endogenous evolution of capital taxation the model rationalizes why openness has different implications for growth depending on the political environment why institutions such as the treatment of capital income evolve over time why governments in countries that grow rapidly accumulate net foreign assets rather than liabilities and why foreign aid may not affect growth

a dynamic theory of public spending taxation and debt this paper presents a dynamic political economy theory of public spending taxation and debt policy choices are made by a legislature consisting of representatives elected by geographically defined districts the legislature can raise revenues via a distortionary income tax and by borrowing these revenues can be used tofinance a national public good and district specific transfers interpreted as pork barrel spending the value of the public good is stochastic reflecting shocks such as wars or natural disasters in equilibrium policy making cycles between two distinct regimes business as usual in which legislators bargain over the allocation of pork and responsible policy making in which policies maximize the collective good transitions between the two regimes are brought about by shocks in the value of the public good in the long run equilibrium tax rates are too high and too volatile public good provision is too low and debt levels are too high in some environments a balanced budget requirement can improve citizen welfare

causality between energy consumption and economic growth in india a note on conflicting results abstract this note examines the different direction of causal relation between energy consumption and economic growth in india applying engle granger cointegration approach combined with the standard granger causality test on indian data for the period 1950 1996 we find that bi directional causality exists between energy consumption and economic growth further we apply johansen multivariate cointegration technique on the different set of variables the same direction of causality exists between energy consumption and economic growth this is different from the results obtained in earlier studies

energy consumption carbon emissions and economic growth in china abstract this paper investigates the existence and direction of granger causality between economic growth energy consumption and carbon emissions in china applying a multivariate model of economic growth energy use carbon emissions capital and urban population empirical results for china over the period 1960 2007 suggest a unidirectional granger causality running from gdp to energy consumption and a unidirectional granger causality running from energy consumption to carbon emissions in the long run evidence shows that neither carbon emissions nor energy consumption leads economic growth therefore the government of china can purse conservative energy policy and carbon emissions reduction policy in the long run without impeding economic growth

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

heterogeneous borrowers in quantitative models of sovereign default we extend the model used in recent quantitative studies of sovereign default allowing policymakers of different types to stochastically alternate in power we show that a default episode may be triggered by a change in the type of policymaker in office and that such a default is likely to occur only if there is enough political stability and if policymakers encounter poor economic conditions under high political stability political turnover enables the model to generate a weaker correlation between economic conditions and default decisions a higher and more volatile spread and lower borrowing levels after a default episode

decomposing road freight energy use in the united kingdom applying the techniques of decomposition analysis we estimate the relative contribution of ten variables termed key ratios plus gdp to the change in uk road freight energy use over the period 19892004 inclusive the results are best interpreted as an estimate of the percentage growth in energy consumption that would have resulted from the change in the relevant factor e g length of haul had the other factors remained unchanged the results demonstrate that the main factor contributing to the decoupling of uk road freight energy consumption from gdp was the decline in the value of domestically manufactured goods relative to gdp over the period 19892004 this largely offset the effect of increases in gdp on road freight energy consumption while the decline in domestic manufacturing was to some extent displaced by increases in imports the net effect of these supply factors together with shifts in the commodity mix has been to reduce uk road freight energy consumption by 30 1 the net effect on global carbon dioxide co2 emissions is likely to be somewhat less beneficial since many freight movements associated with the manufacture of imported goods have simply been displaced to other countries

energy consumption and gdp in turkey is there a co integration relationship energy consumption and gdp are expected to grow by 5 9 and 7 annually until 2025 in turkey this paper tries to unfold the linkage between energy consumption and gdp by undertaking a co integration analysis for turkey with annual data over the period 1970 2003 the analysis shows that energy consumption and gdp are co integrated this means that there is a possibly bi directional causality relationship between the two we establish that there is a unidirectional causality running from gdp to energy consumption indicating that energy saving would not harm economic growth in turkey in addition we find that energy consumption keeps on growing as long as the economy grows in turkey

energy consumption income and carbon emissions in the united states abstract this paper investigates the effect of energy consumption and output on carbon emissions in the united states earlier research focused on testing the existence and or shape of an environmental kuznets curve without taking energy consumption into account we investigate the granger causality relationship between income energy consumption and carbon emissions including labor and gross fixed capital formation in the model we find that income does not granger cause carbon emissions in the us in the long run but energy use does hence income growth by itself may not become a solution to environmental problems

energy consumption real income and temporal causality results from a multi country study based on cointegration and error correction modelling techniques abstract unlike previous studies on the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth this paper illustrates how the finding of cointegration i e long term equilibrium relationship between these variables may be used in testing granger causality based on the most recent johansen s multivariate cointegration tests preceded by various unit root or non stationarity tests we test for cointegration between total energy consumption and real income of six asian economies india pakistan malaysia singapore indonesia and the philippines non rejection of cointegration between variables rules out granger non causality and imples at least one way of granger causality either unidirectional or bidirectionial secondly by using a dynamic vector error correction model we then analyse the direction of granger causation and hence the within sample granger exogeneity or endogeneity of each of the variables thirdly the relative strength of the causality is gauged through the dynamic variance decomposition technique by decomposing the total impact of an unanticipated shock to each of the variables beyond the sample period into proportions attributable to shocks in the other variables including its own in the bivariate system results based on these tools of methodology indicate that while all pair wise relationships shared common univariate integrational properties only relationships for three countries india pakistan and indonesia were cointegrated for these countries temporal causality results were mixed with unidirectional causality from energy to income for india exactly the reverse for indonesia and mutual causality for pakistan the vdcs were not inconsistent with these results and provided us with an additional insight as to the relatively more dominant direction of causation in pakistan simple bivariate vector autoregressive models for the three non cointegrated systems did not indicate any direction of causality significantly in either direction

stoking the fires co2 emissions and economic growth abstract we examine the relationship between economic development and carbon dioxide emissions a greenhouse gas central to global warming predictions estimates derived from global panel data suggest a diminishing marginal propensity to emit mpe carbon dioxide as gdp per capita rises despite this global carbon dioxide emissions growth will continue at 1 8 percent per annum for the foreseeable future a result that is not sensitive to average output growth instead emissions growth continues because output and population will grow most rapidly in lower income nations with high mpes this latter feature emphasizes the distributional consequences of policies to reduce emissions

economic growth and emissions reconsidering the empirical basis of environmental kuznets curves abstract recent empirical research indicates that certain types of emissions follow an inverted u or environmental kuznets curve ekc as income grows this regularity has been interpreted as a possible de linking of economic growth and patterns of certain pollutants for developed economies in this paper the empirical basis of this result is investigated by considering some statistical particularities of the various ekc studies performed it is argued that the inverted u relationship between income and emissions estimated from panel data need not hold for specific individual countries over time based on insights from intensity of use analysis in resource economics an alternative growth model is specified and estimated for three types of emissions co2 nox and so2 in four countries netherlands uk usa and western germany it is found that the time patterns of these emissions correlate positively with economic growth and that emission reductions may have been achieved as a result of structural and technological changes in the economy sustainable growth is defined as the rate of economic growth that does not lead to growth in emissions its rate is calculated for each type of emission and country based on estimated parameter values the resulting indicators reflect a balance between the positive influence of growth and negative influence of structural change and technological progress on emission levels

constitutional rules and fiscal policy outcomes we investigate the effect of electoral rules and forms of government on fiscal policy outcomes in a large sample of democracies we rely on different estimation methods to address prospective problems of statistical inference due to non random selection of these constitutional rules the findings are consistent with our theoretical priors presidential regimes induce smaller governments than parliamentary democracies while majoritarian elections lead to smaller governments and smaller welfare programs than proportional elections

relationship between level of economic development and motorcycle and car ownerships and their impacts on fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emission in thailand abstract an increase in road vehicles secondary to economic development has strongly pushed up energy demand and adversely impact the environment by the emission of greenhouse gases and pollutants this paper aims to analyse the relationship between motorcycle and car ownerships and level of economic development in thailand in addition an overall private vehicle ownership which is a sum of both types of private vehicle ownership is also studied an understanding of these relationships due to the economic development is a key knowledge for the sustainable transport policy in the future the results of this study revealed that at the early stage of economic development of developing countries like thailand the number of motorcycles predominates over private cars economic development strongly affects the ownership of private vehicles in two ways 1 overall private vehicle ownerships increase as the income levels grow and 2 after personal income grows up to a certain level people will shift from motorcycle to car ownerships for their prestige convenience comfort and safety because of continuing economic development and population growth the expected increase in overall private vehicle ownership is projected to push up the total private vehicle stock of thailand in the year 2050 to about twice of the present level this will drive fuel demands in 2050 to about 2 4 times and the greenhouse gases ghg emission to about 2 5 times of the current levels hence policy makers in developing countries should not overlook the impacts on the consequences of increasing overall private vehicle stock in the near future the best and most appropriate policies should be given to the development of public transport as the first priority rather than the traditional one which gives highest priority to traffic mobility of private vehicles by road transport neglecting the effectiveness of passengers mobility of the public transport in addition policies to promote high efficiency vehicle technologies particularly for motorcycles should also be taken into consideration particularly for a low income country due to a high share of the motorcycles in the overall private vehicle stock

politicians taxes and debt the standard analysis of the efficient management of income taxes and debt assumes a benevolent government and ignores potential distortions arising from rent seeking politicians this paper departs from this framework by assuming that a rent seeking politician chooses policies if the politician chooses extractive policies citizens throw him out of power we analyse the efficient sustainable equilibrium unlike in the standard economy temporary economic shocks generate volatile and persistent changes in taxes along the equilibrium path this serves to optimally limit rent seeking by the politician and to optimally generate support for the politician from the citizens taxes resembling those of the benevolent government are very costly since the government over saves and resources are wasted on rents political distortions thus cause the complete debt market to behave as if it were incomplete however in contrast to an incomplete market economy in the long run taxes do not converge to zero and under some conditions they resemble taxes under a benevolent government

investigating the causal relationship between transport infrastructure transport energy consumption and economic growth in tunisia this study investigates the causal relationships between transportation infrastructure rail and road the transport value added gross capital formation transportation energy consumption and transport co2 emissions in tunisia over the period of 1971 2012 we use the johansen multivariate cointegration approach generalized impulse response functions and variance decomposition technique to examine the effect of transportation infrastructure on economic growth and the environment these findings show the existence of unidirectional long run causality running from transport value added road transport related energy consumption transport co2 emissions and gross capital formation to road infrastructure it also finds a unidirectional long run causality running from railway infrastructure the transport value added gross capital formation and transport co2 emissions to rail transport related energy consumption besides we find a unidirectional short run causality running from the road infrastructure to transport value added and a unidirectional short run causality running from road transport related energy consumption to transport co2 emissions furthermore there are unidirectional short run causality running from railway infrastructure to rail transport related energy consumption and a unidirectional short run causality running from transport co2 emissions to rail transport related energy consumption these results are very important in terms of the choice of government policy decisions our results cast a new dimension to the importance of investing in infrastructure as a promising device to generate higher economic growth

energy consumption and economic growth the case of oil exporting countries this paper examines the causal relationship between the per capita energy consumption and the per capita gdp in a panel of 11 selected oil exporting countries by using panel unit root tests and panel cointegration analysis the results show a unidirectional strong causality from economic growth to energy consumption for the oil exporting countries the findings have practical policy implications for decision makers in the area of macroeconomic planning in most major oil exporting countries government policies keep domestic prices bellow free market level resulting in high levels of domestic energy consumption the results imply that the energy conservation through reforming energy price policies has no damaging repercussions on economic growth for this group of countries

elections capital flows and politico economic equilibria we study an open economy where a pro labor and a pro business candidate compete in an election the winner chooses taxes which affect investment returns electoral outcomes depend on the size of the foreign debt but the debt itself reflects expectations about the election the resulting interaction is novel and has several implications elections are associated with increased volatility politico economic crises can occur inefficiencies vanish if the candidates commit to an appropriate tax policy but such commitments have predictable effects on the election empirical evidence supporting the theory is discussed jel d72 f34 o17 o19

energy consumption and gdp revisited a panel analysis of developed and developing countries this paper applies a new panel data stationarity testing procedure first developed by carrion i silvestre et al 2005 econometrics journal 8 159 175 with panel vars that employ the generalized method of moment techniques in order to re investigate the dynamic interactions between energy consumption per capita lec and real gdp per capita lry in 22 developed and 18 developing countries when multiple breaks in the series are taken into account there is convincing evidence of panel stationarity for lec and lry in both groups the energy crises evidently had a substantive impact on both lec and lry in all sample countries furthermore our panel vars attest to bidirectional causality between lec and lry in developed countries but there is uni directional causality from lry to lec in developing countries finally from the orthogonalized impulse response functions all of the variables in the panel vars have a positive effect on each other but their impact is greater and more persistent in developing countries some important policy implications do emerge

sovereign default interest rates and political uncertainty in emerging markets abstract a large body of the empirical literature shows that high turnover rates length of tenure of policymakers and the degree of conflict within a country affects sovereign spreads debt and default rates we help to rationalize such claims by including these political features in a dynamic stochastic small open economy model of sovereign debt and default in this way we offer a complementary approach to the econometric analyses in the literature consistent with the data the quantitative analysis shows that politically unstable and more polarized economies experience higher default rates and larger level and volatility of sovereign interest rate spreads