the impact of population on co2 emissions evidence from european countries this paper analyses the impact of population growth on co2 emissions in european union countries traditionally researchers have assumed a unitary elasticity of emissions with respect to population growth in this study population is treated as a predictor in the model instead of being included as part of the dependent variable per capita emissions thus relaxing the above mentioned assumption of unitary elasticity we also contribute to the existing literature by taking into account the presence of heterogeneity in the sample and considering a dynamic specification the sample covers the period 1975 1999 for the current european union members our results show that the impact of population growth on emissions is more than proportional for recent accession countries whereas for old eu members the elasticity is lower than unity and non significant when the properties of the time series and the dynamics are correctly specified the different impact of population change on co2 emissions for the current eu members should therefore be taken into account in future discussions of climate change policies within the eu

residential energy use and conservation economics and demographics energy consumption in the residential sector offers an important opportunity for conserving resources however much of the current debate regarding energy efficiency in the housing market focuses on the physical and technical determinants of energy consumption neglecting the role of the economic behavior of resident households in this paper we analyze the extent to which the use of gas and electricity is determined by the technical specifications of the dwelling as compared to the demographic characteristics of the residents our analysis is based on a sample of more than 300 000 dutch homes and their occupants the results indicate that residential gas consumption is determined principally by structural dwelling characteristics such as the vintage building type and characteristics of the dwelling while electricity consumption varies more directly with household composition in particular income and family composition combining these results with projections on future economic and demographic trends we find that even absent price increases for residential energy the aging of the population and their increasing wealth will roughly offset improvements in the energy efficiency of the building stock resulting from policy interventions and natural revitalization

the response of the beijing carbon emissions allowance price bjc to macroeconomic and energy price indices in 2013 china opened pilot carbon emission trading markets in seven provinces where carbon emission allowances have now been traded for more than two years in this paper we employ a structural var model and the price of the beijing carbon emission allowance to study the dynamic relationships among the price of the carbon emission allowance economic development and the price of energy this paper s data cover the period from april 2 2014 to november 6 2015 this paper provides information that will be helpful to both investors and governmental policy makers the results show that 1 an increase of one standard deviation in the coal price leads to an initial increase of approximately 0 1 in the beijing carbon price after 2 days there is a decrease of less than 0 1 and the price gradually increases by approximately 0 1 after 30 days 2 the price of the beijing carbon emission allowance is mainly affected by its own historical price 3 the beijing carbon emission allowance price crude oil price natural gas price and economic development have positive albeit non significant correlations

urbanization and co2 emissions a semi parametric panel data analysis this paper investigates the relationship between urbanization and co2 emissions in a sample of 20 emerging countries over the period 1992 2008 using the semi parametric panel data model with fixed effects proposed by baltagi and li 2002 we find little evidence in support of an inverted u curve and thus the kuznets hypothesis is not confirmed by our analysis our findings shed new light on the urbanization co2 emissions nexus

interactions among energy consumption economic development and greenhouse gas emissions in japan after world war ii abstract the long term dynamic changes in the triad energy consumption economic development and greenhouse gas ghg emissions in japan after world war ii were quantified and the interactions among them were analyzed based on an integrated suite of energy emergy and economic indices the results quantitatively showed that two different energy strategy periods one before 1973 using new sources of higher quality energy and one after 1973 focused on improving the efficiency of energy generation methods could explain the linear increase in national economic development in japan over the 66 years from 1946 to 2011 japan benefited both ecologically and economically from importing fossil fuels which accounted for 8 7 of the nominal gdp of japan averaged over the entire study period the total environmental impacts of ghg i e co 2 ch 4 and n 2 o emissions measured by emergy decreased after 1997 and since 2009 they have remained lower than 76 of the emissions in 1990 even though no decrease in the global warming impact based on the weight of co 2 was observed emergy methods and energy systems models revealed aspects of the complicated interactions among energy consumption economic development and the potential environmental impact of ghg emissions which formerly had not been recognized

institutional theory and the cross national transfer of employment policy the case of workforce diversity in us multinationals this paper uses a comparative institutionalist approach combined with a power interests perspective to examine the processes whereby diversity policy is internationalised by us multinational companies it argues that the process of policy transfer to uk subsidiaries is complicated by incomplete and contested institutionalisation of diversity within the us itself and by differing conceptions of diversity between the us and the uk the ability of actors within the uk subsidiaries to mobilise and deploy specific power resources allows them to resist the full implementation of corporate diversity policy leading to a range of compromise accommodations it is argued that the findings have more general implications for analysing the transfer of hr practices between national business systems

demographic effects on residential electricity and city gas consumption in the aging society of japan abstract japan has been confronted with two demographic forces declining fertility rates and lengthening life spans which give rise to the increasing ratio of the elderly aging society the decline in population and the prevalence of nuclear families this study empirically analyzes the demographic effects on residential electricity and city gas consumption in japan our analysis presents the following main results first the aging of the society decreases the electricity demand but does not affect the city gas demand significantly second the decrease in population with the prevalence of nuclear families increases the electricity demand but decreases the city gas demand the direction of the demand for each alternative depends on the balancing of the first and second effects third the analysis also shows clear results about the own and cross price effects ongoing energy market reforms for price suppression would increase energy demand with possible substitutability between the two energy sources our case study of japan is also applicable to other countries that will have just started to experience the similar demographic pattern of an aging society with energy market deregulation

evolution of an aging society and effect on residential energy demand the development of an aged society paired with a growing number of elderly households is expected to increase residential energy demand this study is designed to analyze various factors which determine the energy demand of elderly households and to predict the future of residential energy consumption in an aging society in addition comparing the factors with those in western countries which contain a population of increasing age we try to clarify characteristics of the elderly and residential energy demand then propose possible future subjects for study

regulatory reforms and productivity an empirical analysis of the japanese electricity industry the japanese electricity industry has experienced regulatory reforms since the mid 1990s this article measures productivity in japan s steam power generation sector and examines the effect of reforms on the productivity of this industry over the period 1978 2003 we estimate the luenberger productivity indicator which is a generalization of the commonly used malmquist productivity index using a data envelopment analysis approach factors associated with productivity change are investigated through dynamic generalized method of moments gmm estimation of panel data our empirical analysis shows that the regulatory reforms have contributed to productivity growth in the steam power generation sector in japan

the determinants of household energy demand in rural beijing can environmentally friendly technologies be effective with the recent rapid economic growth total energy demand in rural china has increased dramatically and the energy structure is in the transition from non commercial to commercial sources simultaneously it is expected that households in rural areas will face energy shortages and additional environmental problems unless they have more access to renewable energy technologies however little is known about i the transition of energy use patterns and ii whether introduced technologies have been effective to analyze these issues we estimated the energy demands of rural households by using survey data taken from beijing s ten suburban districts the data contain information on both non commercial and commercial energy use key characteristics of the households and several renewable energy technologies our empirical analysis yielded three main results first the per capita income is a key factor in the per capita energy consumption more specifically the marginal increase or marginal change in per capita coal consumption strongly diminishes or declines as per capita income increases second coal and liquefied petroleum gas lpg prices do not exhibit substitution effects but an increase in these prices has strong negative effects on the use of these energy resources third renewable energy technologies are identified to reduce coal consumption and to improve energy efficiency overall these findings suggest a positive perspective if the chinese government were to design appropriate policies associated with renewable energy technologies and related energy prices then coal consumption can be reduced in the near future and the substitution to cleaner energy use will accelerate therefore a smooth energy transition in rural china could be made in a more environmentally sustainable manner

are the economy and the environment decoupling a comparative international study 1960 20051 ecological modernization theory posits that even though economic development harms the environment the magnitude of the harmful link decreases over the course of development in contrast the treadmill of production theory argues that the strong relationship between environmental harms and economic development will remain constant or possibly increase through time to evaluate these competing propositions interactions between economic development and time are used in cross national panel analyses of three measures of carbon dioxide emissions the results vary across the three outcomes as well as between developed and less developed countries providing mixed support for both theoretical perspectives the authors conclude by discussing how both theories could benefit from engaging contemporary research concerning changes within the transnational organization of production and the structure of international trade and how these global shifts influence environment economic development relationships

productivity growth and deregulation of japanese electricity distribution deregulation of japanese electric power industry began in 1995 after the amendment of electricity utility industry law in 1995 competition was partially introduced in a generation sector and retail competition started from 2000 eligibility to choose suppliers was gradually extended from larger to smaller customers as of 2008 almost all customers except households can choose their electricity suppliers based upon both previous implementation result of competition policy and review on their achievement japanese government will begin new policy debate in 2013 to assess further retail competition which includes household customers to prepare for policy suggestion on the future electric power industry this study examines the cost structure of japanese electricity distribution for the purpose we estimate a multi product translog cost function of japanese electricity distribution from 1983 to 2003 using the estimated cost function we calculate several economic measures such as productivity growth technical change and economies of scale and scope the empirical results of this study indicate the improvement in productivity growth after deregulation

a review of renewable energy investment in the brics countries history models problems and solutions abstract this paper reviews the history of renewable energy development in the brics countries the financing models for renewable energy development of brics countries include bank financing institutional loans industry funds and international financing this paper identified several problems with financing in brics countries including a lack of financing channels investment shortage for small and medium sized enterprises and imperfect government policies the solutions to these problems include expanded capital markets the financing of leasing services and build operate transfer and build own operate projects further a financial citizen participation model should be employed similar to that as germany and european union emissions trading system eu ets a financial citizen participation model means that legal entities private individuals and agricultural enterprises invest in renewable energy infrastructure through equity a regional reserve ratio monetary policy is suggested to allow regions to develop renewable energy

does urbanization lead to less energy use and lower co2 emissions a cross country analysis despite the relationship between urbanization energy use and co2 emissions has been extensively studied in recent years little attention has been paid to differences in development stages or income levels most previous studies have implicitly assumed that the impact of urbanization is homogenous for all countries this assumption can be questionable as there are many characteristic differences among countries of different levels of affluence this paper investigates empirically the effects of urbanization on energy use and co2 emissions with consideration of the different development stages using the stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stirpat model and a balanced panel dataset of 99 countries over the period 1975 2005 the findings suggest that the impact of urbanization on energy use and emissions varies across the stages of development surprisingly urbanization decreases energy use in the low income group while it increases energy use in the middle and high income groups the impact of urbanization on emissions is positive for all the income groups but it is more pronounced in the middle income group than in the other income groups these novel findings not only help advance the existing literature but also can be of special interest to policy makers and urban planners

multiplicative structural decomposition analysis of aggregate embodied energy and emission intensities abstract aggregate intensity indicators such as the ratio of a country s energy and emissions to its gdp are often used by researchers and policymakers to study energy and environmental performance this paper analyzes the relationship between energy or emissions and value added or gdp from a different viewpoint namely from the demand rather than the production perspective using the input output i o framework the aggregate embodied intensity aei defined as the ratio of embodied energy or emissions to embodied value added can be defined at the aggregate final demand category and sectoral levels the total aggregate intensity can be presented as a weighted sum of the aeis at the final demand category or sectoral level changes of the aei at different levels can be decomposed to identify the driving forces using multiplicative sda a study using the latest 2007 and 2012 datasets of china indicates that a its aggregate intensity of co 2 emissions was mainly determined by the aei in investment and b the emission intensity effect generally contributed the most to the aei ratio changes at different levels the proposed framework can be applied to other aggregate intensity indicators and extended to multi country region analysis

the impact of urbanization on co2 emissions evidence from developing countries abstract this paper analyzes the impact of urbanization on co2 emissions in developing countries from 1975 to 2003 it contributes to the existing literature by examining the effect of urbanization taking into account dynamics and the presence of heterogeneity in the sample of countries the results show an inverted u shaped relationship between urbanization and co2 emissions indeed the elasticity emission urbanization is positive for low urbanization levels which is in accordance with the higher environmental impact observed in less developed regions among our contributions is the estimation of a semi parametric mixture model that allows for unknown distributional shapes and endogenously classifies countries into homogeneous groups three groups of countries are identified for which urbanization s impact differs considerably for two of the groups a threshold level is identified beyond which the emission urbanization elasticity is negative and further increases in the urbanization rate do not contribute to higher emissions however for the third group only population and affluence but not urbanization contribute to explain emissions the differential impact of urbanization on co2 emissions should therefore be taken into account in future discussions of climate change policies

cyclical fluctuations and sectoral reallocation evidence from the psid abstract this paper documents the correlation between permanent sectoral reallocation and the business cycle using data from the michigan panel study of income dynamics we find that the outflow of workers from goods to services accelerates during recessions the flow from services to stable employment in surables accelerates during booms we also document the contribution of sectoral reallocation to total unemployment permanent switchers account for about a quarter of the total weeks of unemployment during booms this proportion rises to nearly 40 duing recessions

the impact of demographic change on energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in germany abstract this paper estimates the impact of demographic change on energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in germany since old people display different consumption patterns than young people an increase in the proportion of old people affects overall consumption patterns micro data from a household survey are used to identify age specific consumption patterns and to project the impact of demographic change on the structure of total consumption expenditure up to the year 2030 the resulting final demand vectors are entered into an environmental input output model which allows the calculation of sectoral production energy use and greenhouse gas emissions the model results suggest that until 2030 demographic change raises the share of methane in total greenhouse gas emissions and does not contribute to reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in germany the model is also used to explore the effects of redistributing income between age groups and a policy induced switch from motor vehicle use to public transport

sectoral shifts and the mobility of displaced workers when are microdata useful we show that reallocation shocks that change sectoral job offer probabilities can induce negative sectoral mobility unemployment co movements this challenges murphy and topel s nber macroeconomics annual 1987 2 11 58 interpretation that such patterns in us microdata constitute evidence against sectoral shifts in driving unemployment

an analysis of monthly household energy consumption among single family residences in texas 2010 demographic socioeconomic and housing characteristics influence variation in household energy consumption by combining household level utility public and proprietary data we examine predictors of household energy consumption in a texas urban area using quantile regression this analysis assesses the relationship between energy consumption and predictors at the middle and both ends of the distribution 10th and 90th percentiles results indicate potential opportunities to lower consumption among the highest energy consuming households including those with pools with non central cooling with people working from home those built on pier post foundation and those that are renter occupied these findings suggest significant opportunities to reduce consumption and demand as in the study area almost 10 of housing units are renter occupied 18 percent are without central cooling and 7 have pools capturing a significant portion of these homes for retrofit conservation efforts through marketing has potential to produce substantial results producing a better understanding of determinants of household energy consumption using the methods presented has potential to assist development and implementation of strategies to reduce consumption and increase efficiency

the japanese energy sector current situation and future paths abstract as the world s third leading economy and a major importer of fuels the choice of future energy paths and policies that japan makes in the next few years will have a significant influence on the energy security of the world as a whole and of the northeast asia region in particular in this article we describe the current status of and recent trends in the japanese energy sector including energy demand and supply by fuel and by sector we then discuss the current energy policy situation in japan focusing on policies related to climate change targets renewable energy development and deployment liberalization of energy markets and the evolution of the japanese nuclear power sector the final section of the article presents the structure of the japan leap long range energy alternatives planning software system dataset describes several alternative energy paths for japan with an emphasis on alternative paths for nuclear power development and ghg emission abatement and touches upon key current issues of energy policy facing japan as reflected in the modeling inputs and results