where do markets come from production markets have two sides producers are a fully connected clique transacting with buyers as a separate but aggregated clique each producer is a distinctive firm with a distinctive product each side continually monitors reactions of the other through the medium of a joint social construction the schedule of terms of trade each producer is guided in choice of volume by the tangible outcomes of other producers not by speculation on hypothetical reactions of buyers to its actions each producer acts purely on self interest based on observed actions of all others summarized through a feedback process the summary is the terms of trade schedule which reduces to constant price only in limiting cases the market emerges as a structure of roles with a differentiated niche for each firm explicit formulae both for firms and for market aggregates are obtained by comparative statics methods for one family of assumptions about cost structures and about buyers evaluations of differentiated products not just any set of firms can sustain terms of trade with any set of buyers there prove to be three main kinds of markets and three sorts of market failure within a parameter space that is specified in detail one sort of market paradox has a madison avenue flavor another is more conventional grind and a third crowded is a new form not included in any existing theory of markets current american industrial markets are drawn on for 20 illustrations of which three are presented in some detail inequality in firms market shares measured by gini coefficients is discussed

cash transfer programs with income multipliers procampo in mexico abstract cash transfer programs create multiplier effects when recipients put the money they receive to work to generate further incomes when this is the case the ultimate income effects are multiples of the amounts transferred we analyze the procampo program in mexico that was introduced to compensate farmers for the anticipated negative effect of nafta on the prices of basic crops the transfer rules and the timing of the panel data collected allow unique control of biases in this impact analysis we find that the multiplier among ejido sector recipients is in the range 1 5 2 6 multipliers are higher for households with medium and large farms low numbers of adults in the household nonindigenous backgrounds and located in the center and gulf regions high multipliers reflect income opportunities that had remained unrealized due to liquidity constraints that are relaxed by the transfers opportunities come from the asset endowments that these households received through the land reform particularly irrigated land and they are enhanced by access to technical assistance

are consumption taxes really better than income taxes abstract we use political equilibrium theory and the neoclassical growth model to compare consumption and income tax systems if government outlays are used for redistribution through transfers then steady state equilibria in societies that use income taxes are not necessarily worse in welfare terms and may even be better income taxes are attractive precisely because they are more distortionary since this implies low equilibrium transfer levels we also find that switching tax systems typically does not benefit the median voter moreover a change from income to consumption taxes may make everybody worse off

understanding systemic analysis in the governance of sustainability transition in renewable energies the case of fuel cell technology in iran abstract considering the complex and evolutionary process of renewable energy development it is imperative to have a framework for its governance the governance of transition toward renewable energies can be divided conceptually into two phases namely systemic analysis and policy making this paper focuses on identifying different methodological steps in the systemic analysis phase these steps provide requisite inputs for the second phase policy making by attaining a concrete understanding of the current status in the first step the boundaries of the transition process are defined by specifying the unit of analysis and identifying the system s components and relations in the second step and in order to have a big picture of the system s transformation the dynamism of technological development is mapped through time in the third step an approach for analyzing and policy making of sustainability transition is chosen by comparing various approaches and selecting the most fitted one all of these methodological steps are finally applied in the case of the iran fuel cell technology development program to show the practicality of the proposed conceptual framework in a real case problem and to provide some insights for practitioners

supply side interventions and redistribution we evaluate the eect on welfare of shifting the burden of capi tal income taxes to labor taxes in a dynamic equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents and constant tax rates we calibrate and simu late the economy we nd that lowering capital taxes has two eects i it increases e ciency in terms of aggregate production and ii it redistributes wealth in favor of those agents with a low wage wealth ratio when the parameters of the model are calibrated to match the distribution of income in terms of the wage wealth ratio the redis tributive eect dominates and agents with a high wage wealth ratio would experience a large loss in utility if capital income taxes were eliminated

sustainable innovation business models and economic performance an overview sustainable development requires radical and systemic innovations such innovations can be more effectively created and studied when building on the concept of business models this concept provides firms with a holistic framework to envision and implement sustainable innovations for researchers the concept provides an analytical tool that allows them to assess the interplay between the different aspects that firms combine to create ecological economic and social value in addition the business model concept provides a link between the individual firm and the larger production and consumption system in which it operates this paper provides an introduction to the special issue which emerged from selected papers presented at the erscp emsu 2010 conference held in delft the netherlands papers in the special issue cover a broad range from a conceptual discussion resulting in a research agenda the assessment of diffusion of specific business models such as product service systems the introduction of new management tools for business transition management to case studies on how specific business models evolved in specific communities together these papers provide insight into the promise of the business model concept for understanding and advancing sustainable innovation

time consistent consumption taxation abstract we characterise optimal tax policies when the government has access to consumption taxation and cannot credibly commit to future policies we consider a neoclassical economy where factor income taxation is distortionary within the period due to endogenous labour and capital utilisation and non tax deductibility of depreciation contrary to the case where only labour and capital income are taxed the optimal time consistent policies with consumption taxation are remarkably similar to their ramsey counterparts the welfare gains from commitment are negligible while they are substantial without consumption taxation further the welfare gains from taxing consumption are much higher without commitment

comparing systems approaches to innovation and technological change for sustainable and competitive economies an explorative study into conceptual commonalities differences and complementarities this paper makes a distinction between three theoretical frameworks that have been highly influential in the discourse on innovation competitiveness and sustainability sectoral systems of innovation ssi technological innovation systems tis and socio technical systems st systems these frameworks share a common systems approach to innovation but are often positioned as different bodies of literature that correspond to different epistemic communities this paper is explorative and conceptual in nature it presents a systematic comparative review of ssi tis and st systems based on the following analytical dimensions 1 system boundaries 2 actors and networks 3 institutions 4 knowledge 5 dynamics and 6 policy approach in the concluding section commonalities and differences of the three approaches are presented and suggestions for complimentarily are made c 2010 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the impact of natural disaster on energy consumption international evidence abstract this research shows that natural disasters may hurt energy consumption by using data on 123 countries over the period 1990 2015 and classifying them according to their economic development level and region based on world development indicators we employ a two step system gmm method to examine the effect of natural disasters on energy consumption presenting findings that support our hypotheses in the models and show a strong negative effect for low income countries or those in the africa region after considering an alternative proxy for natural disaster we implement quantile regression methods their results find that natural disasters exhibit a negative and significant impact on oil renewable and nuclear energy consumptions the quantile regression models used in the robustness check present that the effects are stronger for low level energy consumption economies

unpacking policy processes for addressing systemic problems in technological innovation systems the case of offshore wind in germany while empirical studies on technological innovation systems tis usually focus on policy instruments and their suitability for curing identified weaknesses of such emerging systems the underlying policy processes and their effects have been largely disregarded we address this gap by exploring the style of two crucial policy making processes and how it influences the functioning and performance of a tis taking the case of offshore wind in germany our findings indicate important positive and negative impacts of the policy style on the tis for example the muddling through character apparent in one of the policy processes negatively influenced entrepreneurial activities knowledge development and finally technology diffusion whereas the participatory nature of both processes had a positive impact both on tis functioning and performance based on our findings we derive implications on how to improve policy making so as to foster the development of an emerging tis

lock in of mature innovation systems the transformation toward clean concrete in the netherlands energy intensive processing industries like the concrete industry form the base of the economy and account for a large part of global greenhouse gas emissions sectoral transformation to cleaner basic materials is therefore crucial and institutional pressure to do so is increasing however socio technical studies have not sufficiently addressed these sectors this paper therefore sets out to analyze the systemic problems that inhibit the transformation of the mature innovation system of the concrete sector toward the development and diffusion of clean concrete innovations for the case of the netherlands a structural functional approach has been frequently applied to identify such systemic problems but has been limited to emerging technological innovation systems consequently the approach tends to overlook the systemic lock in that arises from closed cycles of interdependent systemic problems and vested interests that characterize mature innovation systems and that hamper system transformation this paper analyzes these characteristics to extend the application of the structural functional approach to the transformation of mature innovation systems interviews with 28 stakeholders were conducted and triangulated with reports websites and other documents a list of systemic problems was identified that originate within actors institutions networks technology and infrastructure and that impaired the performance of all system functions except knowledge development systemic problems are indeed found to be sustained through systemic lock in i e closed cycles of interdependent systemic problems through strategic often collective action established firms with vested interests were able to reinforce these interdependent systemic problems to inhibit clean concrete innovation the study concludes that systemic lock in inhibits the sustainability transformation of the mature innovation system of concrete in the netherlands and confirms that the application of the structural functional approach can be extended from emerging to mature innovation systems overcoming systemic lock in requires a series of well coordinated policy measures that should be implemented in a specific order to prevent reverting back to the lock in around the original system configuration

identifying barriers in the diffusion of renewable energy sources abstract rapid diffusion of renewable energy sources res in the electricity power sector is crucial if the eu wants to fulfill its 2050 co2 reduction commitments for this reason identifying and alleviating all barriers that hinder the development of res is necessary to the successful deployment of these technologies this paper discusses the main barriers in the diffusion of wind and photovoltaic pv solar power in the greek electricity sector by drawing on the literature of technological innovation systems and system functions furthermore we provide an explanation of the different diffusion rates between the two technologies inadequate financial resources low grid capacity delays in the issuance of building permits opposition from local communities to the construction of wind farms and the lack of a stable institutional framework are among the most important barriers that inhibit the diffusion of the wind and pv solar power the nature of the barriers identified in this study calls for policy intervention

reducing child malnutrition how far does income growth take us how rapidly will child malnutrition respond to income growth this article explores that question using household survey data from 12 countries as well as data on malnutrition rates in a cross section of countries since the 1970s both forms of analysis yield similar results increases in income at the household and national levels imply similar rates of reduction in malnutrition using these estimates and better than historical income growth rates the article finds that the millennium development goal of halving the prevalence of underweight children by 2015 is unlikely to be met through income growth alone what is needed to accelerate reductions in malnutrition is a balanced strategy of income growth and investment in more direct interventions

how important is improving food availability for reducing child malnutrition in developing countries abstract do increases in the food supply per person in a country i e national food availability contribute substantially to reductions in malnutrition among its children this paper sets out to answer this controversial question using panel data from 63 developing countries over 1970 1996 this paper gives evidence in support of a statistically significant and strong positive impact of national food availability on child nutrition finding that increased food supplies have resulted in significant reductions in malnutrition since the 1970s despite population increases over the period however per capita food supplies have a declining marginal impact their effect is quite strong for countries with very low food availability e g most countries in sub saharan africa and south asia but weak or non existent for those with high levels e g most countries in the near east and north africa further non food factors such as women s education and status and the quality of health environments are also important determinants of children s nutritional status depending on the state of food availability in any particular geographic area and relative costs these factors may merit greater priority in policies to reduce malnutrition

entrapment in large technology systems institutional commitment and power relations abstract large technology systems cannot be developed without social commitments usually including legal especially in the form of contracts organisational involving producers users and financiers and political involving various actors associated with the state commitments without such commitments there can be no innovation and no investment given the high risks that are entailed however embedded commitments can create inertia causing inferior technologies and technology paths to survive long after they should have been abandoned this form of technological lock in may be reinforced when there are close relations between producers and states which prevent markets and democratic processes from operating effectively these phenomena are illustrated through study of the thermal oxide reprocessing plant thorp a nuclear reprocessing plant in the uk the lesson for technology policy is that much more attention needs to be given to the maintenance of reversibility and adaptability in infrastructural development

foreign direct investment as a way to guide the innovative process towards sustainability abstract in 1972 for the first time the term sustainable development was coined at the stockholm conference and in 1987 the brundtland report established the sustainability innovation binomial since then extensive research into sustainability oriented innovation has been conducted focused during the last decade on smes and recognizing these as the main actor of sustainable development for which foreign direct investment fdi is considered from a research and institutional point of view as a vital source although academic literature presents conflicting conclusions in this context this paper aims to perform a microeconomic analysis of how fdi influences the innovative process of smes and how this can lead to a process oriented towards sustainability to this end a panel of 4667 smes has been analyzed spanning a sample period between 2004 and 2013 through a binary logit model which compares and contrasts smes with fdi and equivalent smes without fdi over time and therefore exposed to a changing economy the most significant results are that fdi is attracted mainly by factors associated with technological supply which when coupled with being of medium size and located in a manufacturing sector of medium high technology generates positive spillovers these depend to a large extent on public funding which allows these companies to be more innovative and makes it more likely they focus their innovative process on sustainability

a comprehensive review of the evolving and cumulative nature of eco innovation in the chemical industry different bodies of literature have attempted to explain what factors and events drive industries throughout processes of environmental change the latter is a gradual historical process of evolution from lower to higher degrees of development based on concepts derived from evolutionary economics greening technological progress and resource based view of the firm this article informs the sustainability transitions literature by providing an account of the evolution in the chemical industry s striving for the design use and production of environmentally sound chemical processes and products based upon eco innovation a conceptual model was elaborated depicting five stages of environmental change in the chemical industry in the period 1901 2030 the authors empirically tested this model by conducting a longitudinal computer aided content analysis of 255 documents addressing different environmental and innovation aspects in this industry in the same period of time the results of this article advance our modern understanding of the different stages of evolution of the chemical industry in terms of environmental change consistent with the conceptual model hitherto presented the findings of this article highlight a number cumulative of factors that enabled the evolution of the chemical industry throughout time supporting eco innovation highlighting the intertwined nature of regulation innovation and technological change it is plausible that the future development of this industry might be shaped by the policy driven paradigms of sustainability and resource efficiency 2015 the authors

does globalization affect growth evidence from a new index of globalization the study develops an index of globalization covering its three main dimensions economic integration social integration and political integration using panel data for 123 countries in 1970 2000 it is analysed empirically whether the overall index of globalization as well as sub indexes constructed to measure the single dimensions affect economic growth as the results show globalization indeed promotes growth the dimensions most robustly related with growth refer to actual economic flows and restrictions in developed countries although less robustly information flows also promote growth whereas political integration has no effect

tariffs and growth an empirical exploration of contingent relationships abstract a large body of empirical research indicates that countries with low policy induced trade barriers tend to enjoy rapid growth ceteris paribus in contrast alternative theoretical models suggest that the relationship between trade barriers and growth may be contingent on the level of development employing a direct trade barrier measure ad valorem tariff rates we find evidence of such a contingency the marginal effect of tariffs on growth is declining in the level of per capita income moreover evidence of a negative relationship between tariffs and growth is apparent only among the world s rich countries

comparing innovation systems a framework and application to china s transitional context abstract this paper proposes a generic framework for analyzing innovation systems anchored around five fundamental activities r d implementation end use education linkage and focused on the performance implications of a system s structure and dynamics rather than simply describing the role and performance of particular actors institutions and policies this approach focuses on system level characteristics including the distribution of these activities within the system the organizational boundaries around them coordination mechanisms evolutionary processes and the effectiveness of the system in introducing diffusing and exploiting technological innovations the framework is applied to a comparison of china s national innovation system under central planning and since reforms revealing the evolving structure and dynamics of this system and current inconsistencies and perverse incentives that policymakers must address to realize their development goals more generally it provides a basis for addressing the implicit assumptions of organizational types roles and convergence among innovation systems emerging in very different contexts whether national regional or industrial

the dynamic capabilities of firms an introduction an expanded paradigm is needed to explain how competitive advantage is gained and held firms resorting to resource bas ed strategy attempt to accumulate valuable technology assets and employ an aggressive intellectual property stance however winners in the global marketplace have been firms demonstrating timely responsiveness and rapid and flexible product innovation along with the management capability to effectively coordinate and redeploy internal and external competences this source of competitive advantage dynamic capabilities emphasizes two aspects first it refers to the shifting character of the environment second it emphasizes the key role of strategic management in appropriately adapting integrating and re configuring internal and external organizational skills resources and functional competences toward changing environment 3 only recently have researchers begun to focus on the specifics of developing firm specific capabilities and the manner in which competences are renewed to respond to shifts in the business environment the dynamic capabilities approach provides a coherent framework to integrate existing conceptual and empirical knowledge and facilitate prescription this paper argues that the competitive advanis tage of firms stems from dynamic capabilities rooted in high performance routines z operating inside the firm embedded in the firm s processes and conditioned by its history it offers dynamic capabilities as an emerging paradigm of the modern business j firm that draws on multiple disciplines and advances with the help of industry studies in the usa and elsewhere

a comparative analysis of photovoltaic technological innovation systems including international dimensions the cases of japan and the netherlands this paper investigates the development and diffusion of photovoltaic pv technology in japan and the netherlands both cases are analysed with the technological innovation systems tis framework which focuses on a particular technology and includes all those factors that influence the development and diffusion of a technology this framework proposes seven system functions key processes that need to be fulfilled for a tis to function well we include international factors in the framework such as import share export activities foreign direct investment and international knowledge exchange japan is found to have a well functioning pv tis with a strong industry and a large market for pv whereas the dutch have so far established considerably less based on the differences in the cases we formulate a number of lessons for the dutch pv tis 1 system functions such as guidance of the search f4 and advocacy coalitions f7 need to be strengthened in order to reinforce each other in a positive way 2 formulate maintain and translate consistent long term goals into long term policies and stimulation measures in order to allow a gradual build up of networks and skills expertise 3 build up and maintain legitimacy within the institutional setting and 4 strengthen the tis in order for the smes to grow in terms of capital and capabilities

macroeconomic adjustment and the poor analytical issues and cross country evidence the author studies the links between macroeconomic adjustment and poverty first he summarizes some of the recent evidence on poverty in the developing world second he reviews the various channels through which macroeconomic policies affect the poor third the author emphasizes the role of the labor market he develops an analytical framework that captures some of the main features of the urban labor market in developing countries and studies the effects of fiscal adjustment on wages employment and poverty fourth he presents cross country regressions linking various macroeconomic and structural variables to poverty the author finds that output growth and real exchange rate depreciations tend to lower poverty while illiteracy income inequality and macroeconomic volatility tend to increase poverty in addition the impact of growth on poverty appears to be asymmetric and to result from a significant relationship between episodes of increasing poverty and negative growth rates

biofuels and the role of space in sustainable innovation journeys this paper aims to identify the lessons that should be learnt from how biofuels have been envisioned from the aftermath of the oil shocks of the 1970s to the present and how these visions compare with biofuel production networks emerging in the 2000s working at the interface of sustainable innovation journey research and geographical theories on the spatial unevenness of sustainability transition projects we show how the biofuels controversy is linked to characteristics of globalised industrial agricultural systems the legitimacy problems of biofuels cannot be addressed by sustainability indicators or new technologies alone since they arise from the spatial ordering of biofuel production in the 1970 80s promoters of bioenergy anticipated current concerns about food security implications but envisioned bioenergy production to be territorially embedded at national or local scales where these issues would be managed where the territorial and scalar vision was breached it was to imagine poorer countries exporting higher value biofuel to the north rather than the raw material as in the controversial global biomass commodity chains of today however controversy now extends to the global impacts of national biofuel systems on food security and greenhouse gas emissions and to their local impacts becoming more widely known south south and north north trade conflicts are also emerging as are questions over biodegradable wastes and agricultural residues as global commodities as assumptions of a food versus fuel conflict have come to be challenged legitimacy questions over global agri business and trade are spotlighted even further in this context visions of biofuel development that address these broader issues might be promising these include large scale biomass for fuel models in europe that would transform global trade rules to allow small farmers in the global south to compete and small scale biofuel systems developed to address local energy needs in the south

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

the effectiveness of consumption taxes and transfers as insurance against idiosyncratic risk we quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of a consumption tax and transfer program as insurance against idiosyncratic earnings risk our framework is a heterogeneous agent incomplete market model with idiosyncratic wage risk and indivisible labor the model is calibrated to the u s economy we find a weak insurance effect of the transfer program extending the transfer system from the current scale raises consumption uncertainty which increases aggregate savings and reduces the interest rate furthermore consumption inequality shows a small decrease

welfare and optimum dynamic taxation of consumption and income abstract this paper estimates that the us could attain large welfare gains by implementing an optimal ramsey tax policy that taxes consumption and income it is also found that the welfare implications associated with taxing consumption are quantitatively more important than those associated with dynamically taxing income indeed replacing income taxes with a constant consumption tax leads to a welfare gain that is only slightly lower than that attained by a dynamic policy that taxes consumption and income in computing these welfare gains careful attention is given to the dynamic path of tax rates and the transitional dynamics associated with how the economy responds to a new tax policy

accounting for the u s earnings and wealth inequality we show that a theory of earnings and wealth inequality based on the optimal choices of ex ante identical households that face uninsured idiosyncratic shocks to their endowments of efficiency labor units accounts for the u s earnings and wealth inequality almost exactly

innovation networks and vertical integration abstract a central debate in industrial policy today is that between proponents of large vertically integrated firms on the one hand and those of networks of small specialized producers on the other this paper argues that neither institutional structure is the panacea its supporters claim the menu of institutional alternatives is in fact quite large and both firms and networks of which there are several kinds can be successful growth promoting adaptations to the competitive environment industrial structures vary in their ability to coordinate information flows necessary for innovation and to overcome power relationships adverse to innovation the relative desirability of the various structures then depends on the nature and scope of technological change in the industry and on the effects of various product life cycle patterns the principal policy conclusion of this analysis is that the government s role ought to be facilitating rather than narrow and prescriptive allowing scope for firms to develop organizational forms that are best adapted to their particular environments

expert inquiry on innovation options for cleaner production in the chemical industry abstract the prospects of further progress in cleaner production in the chemical industry are explored by means of an expert inquiry which looks at the ecological and economic potentials of different technological and business innovation options as well as barriers to their development the outcome of the inquiry is analysed with a view to identify prospective priority areas for innovation support policies the analysis shows that innovation leading to alternative synthetic pathways and a shift to selling services instead of products have especially high potentials for both strong positive ecological effects and to be important factors for competitiveness the utilisation of these potentials depends however on whether different types of innovation barriers can be overcome suggestions are made as to how to develop policy measures to facilitate this

analyzing the functional dynamics of technological innovation systems a scheme of analysis various researchers and policy analysts have made empirical studies of innovation systems in order to understand their current structure and trace their dynamics however policy makers often experience difficulties in extracting practical guidelines from studies of this kind in this paper we operationalize our previous work on a functional approach to analyzing innovation system dynamics into a practical scheme of analysis for policy makers the scheme is based on previous literature and our own experience in developing and applying functional thinking it can be used by policy makers not only to identify the key policy issues but also to set policy goals

overcoming barriers to innovation and diffusion of cleaner technologies some features of a sustainable innovation policy regime despite a deepening understanding of systems and processes by which the innovation and diffusion of cleaner technologies occurs relatively little attention has been given to the development of policy processes that reflect this deeper understanding a set of guiding principles for improving sustainable innovation policy processes has been formulated and disseminated by the authors and colleagues in research drawing on theoretical and empirical analysis including a case study of low carbon energy innovation in the uk and interactions with policy makers and other stakeholders through a series of workshops this paper elaborates on two of the guiding principles 1 stimulating the development of a sustainable innovation policy regime bringing together innovation and environmental policy regimes 2 applying systems thinking engaging with the complexity and systemic interactions of innovation systems and policy making processes to promote a transition to sustainability

focal organisations and eco innovation in consumption and production systems this paper explores the role of focal organisations in stimulating eco innovation at the locus of greatest environmental impacts within a consumption and production system cps focal organisations by definition have considerable power in these systems we combine insights from the innovation studies literature with the sustainable green supply chain literature to explore how focal organisations exercise this power in pursuit of system wide sustainability through a case study of the milk cps in the uk we illustrate different strategies of the focal organisations to stimulate incremental eco innovation along existing trajectories we also show how despite focal organisation support radical eco innovation is inhibited by inherent path dependencies and other institutional dimensions of the cps by demonstrating the complementarities of positioning the case study findings within two synergistic literatures this paper contributes theoretically by extending and elaborating eco innovation studies it also has a practical utility for policy makers seeking to chart a path to more sustainable cps by relying on focal organisations

optimal fiscal policy with consumption taxation we characterise optimal fiscal policies in a general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition and endogenous public spending the government can tax consumption as alternative to labour income taxes consumption taxation acts as indirect taxation of prots intratemporal gains of taxing consumption and enables the policy maker to manage the burden of public debt more efficiently intertemporal gains of taxing consumption we show analytically that these two gains imply that the optimal share of government spending is higher under consumption taxation than with labour income taxation then we quantify numerically each of these gains by calibrating the model on the us economy

addressing barriers in the water recycling innovation system to reach water security in arid countries abstract as arid regions face increasing pressures on their water resources the challenge of securing an adequate supply of good quality water to meet growing demands calls for innovative approaches that involve a diversification of water supply options and improved management of wastewater water recycling is a disruptive innovation that can help to achieve this goal in arid countries if the appropriate technical and institutional barriers are broken down within the water innovation literature key questions remain as to the nature of the process and of the temporal dynamics of a shift towards decentralized wastewater infrastructure this study offers insights into these mechanics using the framework for analyzing a multi level innovation system famis a cross sectoral model that draws on the theories of technological innovation systems system dynamics transitions of socio technical regimes and evolutionary theories of technology cases from three water scarce countries with distinct political economies australia the united arab emirates u a e and jordan were used to document the dynamics of innovation in the water recycling system and identify policy solutions despite important contextual differences in the three cases examined actors and institutions have dynamically interacted to create a small niche where water recycling has emerged as a viable technology yet the application of the famis model revealed that the dominant regime of water management has not been fundamentally altered due to blockages mainly at two stages of the famis innovation lifecycle the selection and adoption stages we identified cross geographical socio technical and environmental characteristics and common mechanisms that strongly influence the evolution of water recycling technology through the innovation system we find that the water recycling technology evolves into the later stages of the innovation system in australia with the chokepoint occurring most importantly within the sophisticated but fragmented institutions that regulate water recycling in the u a e while agricultural reuse is widespread to a larger extent than in australia major barriers occur earlier in the system leaving mainly the water recycling technologies in the early stages of the system where policy induced path dependency block most selection mechanisms with a wider infrastructural and institutional gap jordan may actually face less stringent barriers to water recycling developments throughout all stages of the innovation system namely influenced by international donors policy recommendations derived from this work to address barriers at the selection and adoption stages include favoring a coordinated institutional long term vision and planning to overcome path dependence enhancing social acceptance and adequate implementation of laws and regulations and supporting data acquisition and model developments to build a stronger business case for water recycling

governance quality remittances and their implications for food and nutrition security in sub saharan africa abstract despite impressive progress in the fight against malnutrition and hunger in recent years food and nutrition insecurity remains a major concern in sub saharan africa ssa countries in this study we employ a panel data covering 15 ssa countries from 1996 to 2015 to investigate the growth effects of remittances and quality of governance on food and nutrition security proxied by the average value of food production and the average dietary energy supply adequacy respectively we use a dynamic empirical model based on system gmm to control for unobserved heterogeneity and potential endogeneity of the explanatory variables the empirical results emanating from our analysis show that the interaction of remittances and the composite index of governance quality exerts positive and significant effects on the average value of food production and also contributes to the improvement of average dietary energy supply adequacy in ssa in addition the control of corruption government effectiveness political stability and rule of law scores increase both measures of food and nutrition security albeit the contribution of control over corruption score is relatively the largest as compared to other indicators of governance

assessing policy strategies for the promotion of environmental technologies a review of india s national solar mission abstract there is widespread consensus that no individual policy instrument but rather a policy mix is needed to effectively drive the development and diffusion of environmental technologies however what exactly constitutes such a policy mix remains largely undefined this paper takes this discussion a step further by developing a comprehensive framework for assessing and comparing policy approaches for the promotion of environmental technologies it begins with a critical review of existing policy mix concepts pointing out key shortcomings to address the identified challenges it proposes the concept of a policy strategy as an alternative framework for policy assessment and comparison this serves as the basis for integrating findings from the literature on environmental innovation and technological change in a comprehensive framework for assessing policy strategies for the promotion of environmental technologies the framework is then applied for the assessment of india s national solar mission the country s strategy for promoting solar energy technologies based on the resulting findings the potential and limitations of the proposed framework are discussed

tax analysis in a real business cycle model on measuring harberger triangles and okun gaps abstract a tax distorted real business cycle model is parameterized calibrated and solved numerically in an attempt to measure the size of harberger triangles relative to okun gaps in particular the model constructed is used to study quantitatively the impact of various distortional government tax and subsidy schemes it is shown that the government can use tax policy to stabilize cyclical fluctuations and this is done for the economy being studied the benefits of implementing such a stabilization policy are calculated and compared with the size of the welfare gains realized from reducing various tax distortions

the effects of price deregulation on maize marketing margins in south africa abstract there has been continuous controversy over the impact of food market reforms on food security in africa in south africa the government and media have often questioned the effects of price deregulation of maize meal the major staple food on consumers this article determines the effect of retail price deregulation on the size of maize milling retail margins in south africa regression models of monthly milling retail margins are run from the period may 1976 to december 2004 to assess the robustness of our findings we estimate several different models of structural change vary the sample period to examine the sensitivity of findings to unusual weather and market conditions in the region during episodes between 2001 and 2004 and run the models using different estimation techniques ols with newey west robust estimators and feasible general least squares in virtually all models the results indicate that real maize milling retailing margins in south africa have increased by at least 20 since the deregulation of retail prices in 1991 moreover there is evidence of trend growth in the size of the milling margin over time simulations indicate that the deregulation of maize meal prices has entailed a transfer of at least us 179 million year from consumers to agents in the marketing system further study is needed to understand why this outcome in south africa differs from findings in other countries in the region concerning the effects of reform on food marketing margins

trade liberalization and food security in nepal among south asian countries nepal liberalized most extensively during the 1980s and 1990s on both domestic and external fronts in south asia nepal has the lowest per capita income highest dependence of population on agriculture and second highest poverty rate at the same time nepal has the lowest average tariffs in south asia and has taken several steps to downsize its public food distribution system and remove a host of agricultural subsidies the outcomes from these policy reforms in nepal are mixed aggregate indicators of food sufficiency and security per capita food availability extent of malnourishment show improvement in nepal since liberalization relative to other south asian countries nepal is doing better on some indicators like extent of undernourished population while on other indicators like stunting of children nepal is actually doing the worst more importantly the gains from liberalization across regions in nepal have been uneven the reason for such an uneven outcome is lack of complementary policies from the government that would lead to spatial integration of markets e g the creation of physical and marketing infrastructure liberalization has in effect reinforced the ex ante hierarchy across regions in nepal the paper then reviews the role and reform of the nepal food corporation nfc within this broader context

optimal fiscal and monetary policy equivalence results in this article we analyze the implications of price setting restrictions for the conduct of cyclical fiscal and monetary policy we consider standard monetary economies that differ in the price setting restrictions imposed on the firms we show that independently of the degree or type of price stickiness it is possible to implement the same efficient set of allocations and that each allocation in that set is implemented with policies that are also independent of the price stickiness in this sense environments with different price setting restrictions are equivalent

public policy markets and household coping strategies in bangladesh avoiding a food security crisis following the 1998 floods abstract at their peak the 1998 floods covered two thirds of bangladesh causing severe damage to the major rice crop and threatening the food security of tens of millions of households in this paper we first highlight the contribution of government policy interventions including trade liberalization in the early 1990s to stabilization of rice markets during and after the flood then using a panel data set covering 750 households in three rounds over a 13 month period we analyze impacts of the flood on household assets consumption and nutritional outcomes finally we present empirical estimates of the contribution of rice market stabilization and government transfers to household food consumption

ecological modernisation new perspectives abstract ecological modernisation understood as systematic eco innovation and its diffusion has by far the largest potential to achieve environmental improvements in general the market logic of modernisation and competition for innovation combined with the market potential of global environmental needs serve as important driving forces behind ecological modernisation in recent times however additional factors like rising energy prices or fears from climate change have favoured the rise of this innovation based approach to environmental policy the article deals with two special driving forces first there is growing evidence for the importance of smart environmental regulation secondly the increasingly complex actor constellation of global environmental governance leads to mounting business risks for polluters and thereby exerts pressure for eco innovation despite these favourable framework conditions the strategy of ecological modernisation nonetheless faces a number of inherent limitations these include the unavailability of marketable technological solutions for relevant environmental problems like the loss of species the rebound effect neutralising the incremental environmental improvements through economic growth the dilemma of the n curve as well as resistance by modernisation losers against this background structural solutions seem indispensable here eco innovations should be supported by transition management or ecological structural policy

general wisdom concerning the factors affecting the adoption of cleaner technologies a survey 1990 2007 abstract cleaner technologies ct have recently received much attention in diverse media and policy agendas this comes out of the clear role they play in environmental protection and sustainability and the large potential to contribute to economic growth and competitiveness the realization of both potentials depends on the level diffusion and exploitation achieved today very low this article presents a selective survey of papers that today represent the general wisdom concerning the factors affecting adoption as a primary condition to diffusion and exploitation of ct the paper helps to clarify the challenges facing diffusion modelers and policy makers when dealing with policy design assessing the levels of diffusion achieved as well as the factors affecting diffusion of a particular technology the paper ends outlining further research need in the field

diversity and economic performance in a model with progressive taxation is a more heterogeneous population beneficial or harmful to long term economic performance this paper addresses this and other questions in a dynamic general equilibrium model where consumers have different labour productivity and time preference we show how differences in the cross sectional distribution of these characteristics can affect the economy via two channels the first one involves changing the composition of the labour force and the second one involves changing the cross sectional distribution of marginal tax rate we show how these channels are respectively determined by the shape of the labour supply function and the curvature of the marginal tax function

flat tax reform a quantitative exploration abstract this paper explores quantitatively the general equilibrium implications of a revenue neutral tax reform in which the current income and capital income tax structure in the u s is replaced by a flat tax as proposed by hall and rabushka 1995 the flat tax 2nd ed hoover the central aspects of such reform the impact of tax reform on capital accumulation and labor supply as well as its distributional consequences are analyzed in a dynamic general equilibrium model main results are that i the elimination of the actual taxation of capital income has an important and positive effect on capital accumulation ii mean labor hours are relatively constant across tax systems but aggregate labor in efficiency units increases iii in all circumstances analyzed the distributions of earnings income and especially wealth become more concentrated

public debt in economies with heterogeneous agents abstract we study public debt in competitive equilibria in which a government chooses transfers and taxes optimally and in addition decides how thoroughly to enforce debt contracts if the government enforces perfectly asset inequality is determined in an optimum competitive equilibrium but the level of government debt is not welfare increases if private debt contracts are not enforced borrowing frictions let the government gather monopoly rents that come from issuing public debt without facing competing private borrowers regardless of whether the government chooses to enforce private debt contracts the level of initial government debt does not affect an optimal allocation

spatial processes in urban energy transitions considering an assemblage of socio energetic nodes urban and energy transitions are increasingly seen as being deeply intertwined the way this relation impacts our approach to energy transition is a current issue for research implementing renewable energy sources in built up areas challenges incumbent supply chains and large technical systems especially for electricity gas and heat approaches to transition such as the multi level perspective mlp highlight the transformation of socio technical regimes but have been criticised for overstating stability of regime and for overlooking spatial and consequently urban processes other concepts are required in order to understand local and non local relationships between niches and regimes this paper suggests a constructivist and pragmatic concept for urban energy transition the socio energetic node sen thanks to which actors and artefacts can be traced within energy networks the sen is a group of elements which collects converts and or supplies energy built by a decision maker interacting with stakeholders and regime rules having identified sens in four french eco districts we observed how they took shape around continuous energy flows and across decision making boundaries highlighting how spatial scale and place specificity impact on energy transition

comparing the innovation effects of support schemes for renewable electricity technologies a function of innovation approach abstract the aim of this paper is to provide a comparative assessment of the innovation effects of instruments which support the diffusion of renewable electricity technologies with a functions oriented technological innovation system perspective the paper provides a link between two major streams of the literature the functions of innovation systems and the literature on renewable electricity support schemes we show that when a functional perspective is adopted feed in tariffs are likely to be superior to other policy instruments quotas with tradable green certificates and tendering although they still need to be complemented with other instruments most importantly direct r d support furthermore those innovation effects are affected by the specific design elements of the instruments chosen

on the size of u s government political economy in the neoclassical growth model we study a dynamic version of meltzer and richard s median voter model of the size of government taxes are proportional to total income and they are redistributed as equal lump sum transfers voting takes place periodically over time and each consumer votes for the tax rate that maximizes his equilibrium utility we calibrate the model to u s data key elements in the calibration are the income and wealth distribution and the parameters governing the leisure and consumption choices the total size of transfers predicted by our political economy model is quite close to the size of transfers in the data

welfare implications of switching to consumption taxation abstract we evaluate a reform of the us tax system switching to consumption taxation instead of income taxation we do so in an environment that allows for progressivity of consumption taxes through differential tax rates between basic and non basic consumption goods the consumption tax system that maximizes aggregate welfare involves a 4 subsidy on basic consumption goods and a 68 tax on non basic goods such a tax scheme generates 10 higher output in the long run with a small increase in inequality nonetheless the benchmark with progressive income taxes and mild consumption taxes provides higher welfare on aggregate in the steady state and even more so if we consider the transition

regional trade government policy and food security recent evidence from zambia given heavy dependence on rainfed maize production countries in east and southern africa must routinely cope with pronounced production and consumption volatility in their primary food staple typical policy responses include increased food aid flows government commercial imports and stock releases and tight controls on private sector trade this paper examines recent evidence from zambia using a simple economic model to assess the likely impact of maize production shocks on the domestic maize price and on staple food consumption under alternative policy regimes in addition to an array of public policy instruments the analysis evaluates the impact of two key private sector responses in moderating food consumption volatility private cross border maize trade and consumer substitution of an alternate food staple cassava for maize the analysis suggests that given a favorable policy environment private imports and increased cassava consumption together could fill roughly two thirds of the maize consumption shortfall facing vulnerable households during drought years

developmental drivers of nutritional change a cross country analysis summary we utilize a rich cross country data set to understand within country changes in nutrition with a focus on the role of general developmental factors we find that economic growth is a strong predictor of nutritional performance as is growth in food production although only in more food insecure countries we find no evidence that infrastructure is directly important but greater asset ownership improved access to health services higher rates of female secondary education and lower fertility rates are all strong predictors of improvements in nutrition we show that national success stories are largely consistent with these findings

a lower vat rate on electricity in portugal towards a cleaner environment better economic performance and less inequality abstract this article addresses the budgetary economic distributional and environmental impact of increasing the vat on electricity in portugal the analysis is carried out in the context of a new multi sector multi household dynamic general equilibrium model simulation results suggest that a permanent increase from 6 to 23 improves the public budget and albeit marginally co2 emissions but it leads to detrimental economic and distributional effects as the economy in portugal begins to recover after the great financial crisis and the budgetary situation becomes less constraining pressure is mounting for this vat increase to be reversed this mixed bag of results is an important element for the debate reverting to a lower vat is desirable as it would improve economic performance and have positive distributional effects the question is how to compensate for the loss of tax revenues to offset the adverse budgetary effects of a lower vat we consider several revenue raising strategies our simulation results suggest that an offsetting increase in either the general vat tax rate or the tax on petroleum products would yield more favorable effects from all relevant perspectives economic distributional and environmental while mostly keeping intact the budgetary benefits

shining a light on the resource curse an empirical analysis of the relationship between natural resources transparency and economic growth summary one of the most common policy prescriptions for overcoming the so called resource curse particularly for extractive industries has been to call for greater transparency and accountability from governments however despite the conceptual attraction of this policy it has never been empirically proven that resource rich countries are actually less transparent than other countries and whether this lack of transparency has had a significant negative effect on economic growth using a relatively new index of transparency that has extensive coverage both across countries and time the results suggest a strong and robust negative causal association running from point resource export revenues to transparency furthermore there is also some evidence that this lack of transparency is associated with a subsequent decrease in economic growth

the impact of market liberalisation on food security in zambia abstract the main elements in agricultural market liberalisation have been the dismantling of the state institutions for marketing and distribution of agricultural produce the abolition of subsidies the liberalisation of import and export trade and the market determination of input and output prices economic policy reforms on the monetary fiscal and other fronts also impinged on the variables influencing production trade and consumption this paper highlights some of the undesirable offshoots of the previous policy regime and enumerates the specific policies that have been introduced since 1992 it describes the positive and negative outcomes witnessed so far finally it suggests what needs to be done to eliminate the prevailing major constraints to growth in food production and consumption

enhancing food security in south sudan the role of markets and regional trade south sudan faces serious problems of food insecurity due to low levels of domestic food production periodic droughts widespread poverty and since late 2013 renewed armed conflict this article explores market price behavior using cointegration analysis and estimates the effects of production and trade shocks through multimarket model simulations we show that market prices in the capital city juba of both maize and sorghum are cointegrated with import parity prices of these cereals sourced from uganda consistent with observed trade flows model simulations using econometrically estimated demand parameters suggest that private sector imports of maize and wheat would greatly mitigate the potential fall in consumption in the case of a decline in domestic cereal production other simulations indicate that if total imports of cereals are reduced by one third still more than two times the levels of food aid in 2013 because of disruptions to private market flows domestic prices of cereals could rise by 45 or more the article concludes that whatever measures are taken involving national food security reserves it is crucial that government policy serves to maintain incentives for private sector imports to avoid destabilizing market supplies domestic prices and ultimately food consumption of the poor

sectoral systems of innovation and production the concept sectoral system of innovation and production provides a multidimensional integrated and dynamic view of sectors it is proposed that a sectoral system is a set of products and the set of agents carrying out market and non market interactions for the creation production and sale of those products a sectoral systems has a specific knowledge base technologies inputs and demand agents are individuals and organizations at various levels of aggregation they interact through processes of communication exchange co operation competition and command and these interactions are shaped by institutions a sectoral system undergoes change and transformation through the co evolution of its various elements 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

on the efficiency and equity trade off abstract the concept of policy measures that create a potential pareto improvement has dominated normative economics the use of this concept in welfare economics relies on the availability of discriminatory lump sum transfers in such a way that the implementation of the efficient policy measure leads to a pareto movement in the economy however most studies of efficient policies preclude by assumption the existence of lump sum taxation this paper proposes in economies amenable to gorman aggregation one simple methodology to rank alternative allocations in terms of their distributional implications in a world with no lump sum transfers this methodology is simple because it is independent of the distribution of characteristics in the economy then for a specific policy measure it can be easily identified whether it implies an equity efficiency trade off the method is illustrated by analyzing the effects on inequality of the elimination of capital taxation the reduction of the inflation tax and the liberalization of capital movements in a small open economy

consumption taxes and precautionary savings financing government spending through lump sum taxes does not distort capital when markets are complete but tends to increase precautionary savings under market incompleteness using flat consumption taxes instead leaves precautionary savings unaffected provided certain conditions on utility are met

on and off the beaten path the evolution of four technological systems in sweden abstract this paper examines four swedish case studies of technological systems from the perspective of path dependence what are the similarities and differences in this regard between factory automation electronics and computers biotechnology and powder technology what are the distinctive features in each system which set it apart from similar systems elsewhere and what role does path dependence play in explaining these features the essential function of technological systems is to capture diffuse and magnify spillovers of technical and organizational knowledge therefore the nature of knowledge i e the characteristics of knowledge and how it can be transmitted in each system determines what types of spillovers are likely to occur as well as the mechanisms through which they occur other important influences are the initial conditions and the institutions including both organizations and rules of the game

the dynamics of innovation from national systems and mode 2 to a triple helix of university industry government relations abstract the triple helix of university industry government relations is compared with alternative models for explaining the current research system in its social contexts communications and negotiations between institutional partners generate an overlay that increasingly reorganizes the underlying arrangements the institutional layer can be considered as the retention mechanism of a developing system for example the national organization of the system of innovation has historically been important in determining competition reorganizations across industrial sectors and nation states however are induced by new technologies biotechnology ict the consequent transformations can be analyzed in terms of neo evolutionary mechanisms university research may function increasingly as a locus in the laboratory of such knowledge intensive network transitions

the long run dynamics of fundamental tax reform in this paper we analyze the impact of fundamental tax reform on the dynamics of u s economic growth over the next quarter century we consider two alternative approaches to tax reform the first is a flat rate consumption tax similar to the one introduced by majority leader dick armey and senator richard shelby in the 104th congress the second is an income base value added tax also with a flat rate these taxes would be substituted for existing individual and corporate income taxes at federal state and local levels a full description of the two proposals is given by the joint committee on taxation 1996 our simulations of u s economic growth under alternative tax policies are based on an intertemporal equilibrium model of the u s economy we have continuously revised and updated this model since it was first published in 1990 version 9 incorporates the detailed representation of the u s tax structure presented by jorgenson and kun young yun 1991 in tax reform and the cost of capital we present a detailed description of the model and summarize more than a dozen applications in jorgenson and wilcoxen 1993 our model of u s economic growth is disaggregated to the 35 industries listed below in addition the model distinguishes among 1 344 types of households disaggregated by family size age and gender of household head region of residence race and urban versus rural location the model is built around submodels of investment and saving based on rational expectations the price of investment goods in every period is based on expectations of future capital service prices and discount rates that are fulfilled by the solution of the model in order to analyze the economic impact of changes in tax policy we simulate the growth of the u s economy with and without changes

consumption taxes and redistribution this study considers replacing the current us tax system with only aflat tax con sumption tax showing in contrast to the literature that such a reform leads to a decline in inequality and increase in welfare for the welfare poor the results are obtained from a simple model that identifies the main channels through which the reform affects the economy it is shown also that these novel results depend on the distribution of wealth and earnings and that they hold for the relevant

cleaner technology diffusion case studies modeling and policy abstract the development and application of cleaner technologies environmental technologies offer multiple benefits for the adopter reduced emissions less waste and cost savings from reduced resource use and savings on waste costs the question here is if cleaner technologies offer such great benefits why they are diffusing so slowly across the economy this special issue is about answering this question by presenting a collection of contributions that lay down a good foundation for students scholars practitioners and policy makers interested in making sustainable development more than a metaphor the contributions range from surveys of literature identifying gaps and directions in the field cleaner technology diffusion case studies advances in diffusion modeling and diffusion policy issues and recommendations in general the set of papers present an overview of the advances in the field of cleaner technologies diffusion research

multi regime dynamics in the analysis of sectoral transformation potentials evidence from german utility sectors abstract network bound infrastructure systems as electricity gas water and telecommunications are currently undergoing transformations on various levels and dimensions liberalization technological innovations and socio cultural dynamics are part of this for analyzing these ongoing transformation dynamics as well as exploring future developments of utility systems a theoretical concept is necessary which spans production consumption and governance different levels and also different sectors this paper argues that the multi level perspective is a fruitful starting point allowing the identification of interrelated transformation dynamics in production consumption and governance but that multi regime dynamics need more emphasis particularly in a future oriented analysis

simulating fundamental tax reform in the united states this paper uses a new large scale dynamic life cycle simulation model to compare the welfare and macroeconomic effects of transitions to five fundamental alternatives to the u s federal income tax including a proportional consumption tax and a flat tax the model incorporates intragenerational heterogeneity and a detailed specification of alternative tax systems simulation results project significant long run increases in output for some reforms for other reforms namely those that seek to insulate the poor and initial older generations from adverse welfare changes long run output gains are modest

the jatropha biofuels sector in tanzania 2005 9 evolution towards sustainability abstract biofuel production has recently attracted much attention some anticipate substantial social and environmental benefits while at the same time expecting sound profitability for investors others are doubtful envisaging large trade offs between the pursuit of social environmental and economic objectives particularly in poor countries in the tropics the paper explores these issues in tanzania which has been an african forerunner in the cultivation of a bio oil shrub called jatropha curcas l we trace how isolated jatropha biofuel experiments developed since early 2005 towards a sectoral production and innovation system and we investigate to what extent that system has been capable of developing and maintaining sustainable practices and producing sustainable outcomes the application of evolutionary innovation theory allows us to view the developments in the sector as a result of evolutionary variation and selection on the one hand and revolutionary contestation between different coalitions of stakeholders on the other both these processes constitute significant engines of change while variation and selection are driven predominantly by localised technical and agronomic learning the conflict driven dynamics are highly globalised and occur primarily as a result of reflexive learning about problematic sustainability impacts the sector is found to have moved some way towards a full sectoral innovation and production system but it is impossible to predict whether a viable sector with a strong triple bottom line orientation will ultimate emerge since many issues surrounding the social environmental and financial sustainability still remain unresolved especially relating to local and global governance

does trade openness contribute to food security a dynamic panel analysis abstract despite significant progress in the fight against hunger during the last decades food insecurity remains a major problem in many countries especially developing ones in this study we use a large cross country data to investigate the impact of trade openness and other factors on food security measured by dietary energy consumption we employ a system gmm approach to account for unobserved heterogeneity correlated individual effects and potential endogeneity of the explanatory variables the empirical results reveal that trade openness and economic growth exert positive and significant impacts on dietary energy consumption and also contribute to improvements in dietary diversity the results are robust to the inclusion of additional variables capturing specific agro climatic constraints e g weather related and regional country characteristics and to the sample composition most geographical regions are found to have significantly higher food security levels compared to sub saharan africa additional results indicate that besides calorie consumption trade openness also improves dietary diversity and diet quality related aspects of food security

determinants of food security in southern ethiopia at the household level in the early 1980s a paradigm shift occurred in the field of food security following amartya sens 1981 claims that food insecurity is more of a demand concern affecting the poor s access to food than a supply concern affecting availability of food at the national level despite the wide acceptance of sen s thinking many controversies including the relative importance of supply side versus demand side variables in causing and solving food insecurity have remained in academic and policy circles this study develops a recursive household food security model within the framework of consumer demand and production theories following singh et al 1986 and parses out the relative importance of supply side versus demand side variables in determining household food security in southern ethiopia based on results of a test of full reduced model and the magnitude of changes in conditional probabilities of food security we conclude that the supply side variables are more powerful determinants of food security than the demand side variables

nit picking the macroeconomic effects of a negative income tax i study a revenue neutral reform of the u s income tax and welfare system that involves the adoption of a negative income tax nit the reform is undertaken in a life cycle economy with individual heterogeneity and uninsurable idiosyncratic labor risk the optimal nit consists of a 22 rate and a transfer equivalent to 11 of per capita gdp the ex ante average welfare gain is a 2 1 annual increase of individual consumption i show that a nit outperforms a flat tax reform income tax plus deduction by a considerable margin the key consequence of the reform is that high productivity agents increase their relative importance in the labor supply at the expense of low productivity agents