dealing with consumer default bankruptcy vs garnishment abstract what are the positive and normative implications of eliminating bankruptcy protection for indebted individuals without bankruptcy protection creditors can collect on defaulted debt to the extent permitted by wage garnishment laws the elimination lowers the default premium on unsecured debt and permits low net worth individuals suffering bad earnings shocks to smooth consumption by borrowing there is a large increase in consumer debt financed essentially by super wealthy individuals a modest drop in capital per worker and a higher frequency of consumer default average welfare rises by 1 of consumption in perpetuity with about 90 of households favoring the change

the impact of rural electric access on deforestation rates summary overpopulation and economic industrialization are two common explanations for deforestation political ecology however highlights that good governance and effective land management at the local level can offset the impact of population growth and development on environmental degradation in this paper we provide an innovative argument derived from political ecology to explain deforestation but rather than pursing a bottom up approach to governance we take a top down approach we argue that the state can ease deforestation rates by weaning rural populations off of the consumption of biomass for their energy needs by expanding rural electrification access using a panel analysis of 158 countries for the years 1990 2000 and 2010 we find that not only does rural electrification cause deforestation rates to decrease but also that it is more robust in explaining deforestation than population growth or development our study provides two innovations to political ecology it highlights that the state can help rather than hinder local populations with managing their local environments in a more sustainable way by providing them with public goods based energy alternatives and it supplements political ecology s qualitative focus on environmental degradation with a generalized quantitative analysis of state based initiatives on deforestation our results suggest that current global initiatives addressing deforestation specifically the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation redd agenda of the united nations framework convention on climate change should not only assist local land managers but also work with the state to ensure universal access to electricity

the energy ladder theoretical myth or empirical truth results from a meta analysis abstract modern fuels are an important enabler of social and economic development still over 2 billion people rely on traditional biomass for their daily energy needs to overcome the negative effects of traditional energy on human health and the environment and to enhance the livelihood conditions of the poor a transition towards cleaner and more efficient forms of energy is needed understanding household fuel choice and fuel switching behaviour is of vital importance in search for policies to support such a transition process this paper adds to the existing energy transition literature in two ways first we provide a novel conceptual framework to analyze the decision environment underlying energy and fuel choices second we apply this framework in a meta analysis of existing choice models investigating energy switching and stacking behaviour in urban and rural areas in developing countries the meta analysis shows that socio economic household characteristics appear to receive most attention so far in identifying groups of fuel users while relatively little information is available on the impact of the external decision context on household energy choices

stacking up the ladder a panel data analysis of tanzanian household energy choices energy use statistics in tanzania reflect the country s low level of industrialization and development in 2016 only 16 9 of rural and 65 3 of urban inhabitants in mainland tanzania were connected to some form of electricity we use a nationally representative three wave panel dataset 2008 2013 to contribute to the literature on household energy use decisions in tanzania in the context of the stacking and energy ladder hypotheses we firstly adopt a panel multinomial logit approach to model the determinants of household cooking and lighting fuel choices secondly we focus explicitly on energy stacking behaviour proposing various ways of measuring what is inferred when stacking behaviour is thought of in the context of the energy transition and presenting household level correlates of energy stacking behaviour thirdly since fuel uses have gender differentiated impacts we investigate women s bargaining power in the decision making process of household fuel choices we find that whilst higher household incomes are strongly associated with a transition towards the adoption of more modern fuels especially lighting fuels this transition takes place in a context of significant fuel stacking in tanzania government policy has been aimed mostly at connecting households to the electric grid however the public health environmental and social benefits of access to modern energy sources are likely to be diminished in a context of significant fuel stacking lastly we present evidence that the educational attainment of women in the household is an important aspect of household fuel choices

energy demand substitution from biomass to imported kerosene evidence from tanzania abstract we analyze domestic household energy demand and use patterns in tanzania using a detailed household survey of purchase transactions a multivariate probit model and the quaids modeling framework the main fuel sources that we study are kerosene charcoal and firewood these three accounted for 96 5 of spending on energy by households charcoal and firewood are used for cooking while kerosene is used for lighting and cooking kerosene is almost exclusively imported while charcoal and firewood are produced domestically these fuel sources are important given the impacts of wood harvesting on the environment and kerosene imports on public finances we find a statistically significant response in kerosene demand to charcoal prices suggesting a pattern of substitution but no strong substitution relationships between other fuel pairs these results which we use in a simulation of tariff change imply that policies centered on price changes may not be effective in changing consumer behavior unless alternative sources of energy are readily accessible

wealth distribution in life cycle economies abstract this paper compares the age wealth distribution produced in life cycle economies to the corresponding distribution in the us economy the idea is to calibrate the model economies to match features of the us earnings distribution and then examine the wealth distribution implications of the model economies the findings are that the calibrated model economies with earnings and lifetime uncertainty can replicate measures of both aggregate wealth and transfer wealth in the us furthermore the model economies produce the us wealth gini and a significant fraction of the wealth inequality within age groups however the model economies produce less than half the fraction of wealth held by the top 1 percent of us households

explaining the non implementation of health improving policies related to solid fuels use in south africa in 1998 the south african government developed an energy policy that focused on a pro poor agenda its objectives included addressing the health impacts of solid fuel use in households fourteen years later and with household electrification at over 80 millions still use solid fuels and yet ambitious policy objectives to address this situation are not being met using three theoretical frameworks institutional capacity policy inheritance and the symbolic use of policy this paper analyses the reasons why household energy policy objectives related to solid fuels and health as stated in the 1998 south african energy policy have not been implemented the results of the analysis show that the symbolic use of policy including meanings of objects used for meeting policy objectives is the most critical explanation the paper illustrates that political and historical contexts are critical to understanding policy outcomes in developing and transition countries which often experience tensions between implementing what may seem as objective policies and that matches their political and historical experiences and aspirations we recommend that policy analysts in the energy sector complement currently common methods to include political contexts of policy development and implementation in order to better understand why policy makers chose to implement certain policies over others

the un importance of chapter 7 wealth exemption levels this paper examines the effects of the chapter 7 wealth exemption level on welfare bankruptcy filings debt and on asset holdings i build a heterogeneous agent life cycle model which features uninsurable income and expense shocks moreover households can borrow and save simultaneously when a borrower defaults on her debt by filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy she can keep her assets up to the wealth exemption level wealth exemption levels are important for two reasons first they explain the extensive and intensive margin of the credit card debt puzzle around thirty percent of borrowers both in the model and in the data who borrow at high interest rates simultaneously save at low interest rates however these borrowers borrow and save only relatively small amounts a few thousand u s dollars second ignoring the exemption level biases results because it overstates the costs of defaulting the welfare gains from chapter 7 compared to the european system where debt is not discharged are twice as high when exemption levels are positive compared to when they are ignored at the same time wealth exemption levels are unimportant in the sense that they have an impact only at low exemption levels the effects of increases in the exemption level fade out very quickly there is no strong positive relationship between exemption levels which vary across u s states and default rates in the model this is in contrast to the previous literature but consistent with the data the reason is that those borrowers who might default do not own much wealth therefore only very few households are affected by increases in the exemption level

unsecured credit markets are not insurance markets abstract we study the extent to which unsecured credit markets have altered the transmission of increased income risk to consumption variability over the past several decades we find that unsecured credit markets pass through increased income risk to consumption irrespective of bankruptcy policy and the information possessed by lenders if risk sharing has indeed improved over this period the reasons do not therefore lie in the unsecured credit market

country level analysis of household fuel transitions abstract solid fuel combustion remains a dominant energy source for household heating and cooking in less developed countries as a result almost three billion people are exposed to household air pollution causing four million premature deaths annually primarily among poor women and children we analyze data from demographic and health surveys in 69 countries to identify determinants of transition from solid to cleaner fuel estimates from a population averaged linear model show that population density and size rural population share income inequality and charcoal production are positively associated with countries solid fuel use while gdp per capita electricity and natural gas production have the opposite effect economic development measured as gdp per capita has the strongest link to solid fuel use a standard deviation increase in per capita gdp above its mean reduces solid fuel use from 70 to 57 of households electricity production is another strong predictor solid fuel use drops by 11 when electricity production increases by one standard deviation above the mean in addition in a fixed effects linear model population size has a positive association with solid fuel use while increases in gdp per capita and the number of governments renewable energy incentives are associated with lower dependence on solid fuels

risk based pricing of interest rates for consumer loans abstract by focusing on observable default risk s role in loan terms and the subsequent consequences for household behavior this paper shows that lenders increasingly used risk based pricing of interest rates in consumer loan markets during the mid 1990s it tests three resulting predictions first the premium paid per unit of risk should have increased over this period second debt levels should have reacted accordingly third fewer high risk households should have been denied credit further contributing to the interest rate spread between the highest and lowest risk borrowers for people obtaining loans the premium paid per unit of risk did indeed become significantly larger after the mid 1990s for example for a 0 01 increase in the probability of bankruptcy the corresponding interest rate increase tripled for first mortgages doubled for automobile loans and rose nearly six fold for second mortgages additionally changes in borrowing levels and debt access reflected these new pricing practices particularly for secured debt borrowing increased most for the low risk households who saw their relative borrowing costs fall furthermore while very high risk households gained expanded access to credit the increases in their risk premiums implied that their borrowing as a whole either rose less or sometimes fell

bankruptcy and delinquency in a model of unsecured debt this article documents and interprets a fact central to the dynamics of informal consumer debt default we observe that for individuals 60 90 days late on payments i 85 make payments during the next quarter and ii 40 reduce their debt to understand these facts we develop a quantitative model of debt delinquency and bankruptcy our model reproduces the dynamics of delinquency and suggests an interpretation of the data in which lenders frequently reset loan terms for delinquent borrowers typically offering partial debt forgiveness instead of a blanket imposition of the penalty rates most unsecured credit contracts specify

rural electrification in developing countries abstract rural electrification programmes take up significant proportions of energy investment expenditures in developing economies conventional economic criteria for judging investments are not always thought appropriate for rural electrification because of the largely non quantifiable benefits that are thought to ensue including its bias towards helping the poor its catalytic role in stimulating rural development its role in reducing the adverse consequences of rural urban migration and the enabling of improved literacy rates and its general contribution to political stability this paper looks at each of these benefits in turn and asks what evidence there is to substantiate them the paper argues that conventional rate of return criteria should play a stronger role in determining rural electrification expenditures and that some of the non monetary benefits appear neither to be widespread nor as strong as supporters of rural electricity suggest while rural electrification is nonetheless important in the development process it is more usefully integrated into wider rural energy development schemes

the nature of precautionary wealth abstract this paper uses the panel study of income dynamics to provide some of the first direct evidence that wealth is systematically higher for consumers with predictably greater income uncertainty however the apparent pattern of precautionary wealth is not consistent with a standard parameterization of the life cucle model in which consumers are patient enough to begin saving for retirement early in life wealth is estimated to be far less sensitive to uncertainty than implied by that model instead our results suggest that over most of their working life time consumers behave in accordance with the buffer stock models of saving described in carroll 1992 1997 or deaton 1991 in which consumers hold wealth principally to insulate consumption against near term fluctuations in income

fuel choices for cooking in china analysis based on multinomial logit model abstract ensuring household access to affordable reliable sustainable and modern energy for all the people is one of the 17 united nations sustainable development goals sdgs china has achieved 100 electricity access while the traditional solid fuels such as firewood are still widely used in its rural area this paper using a long term and large micro dataset and multinomial logit model investigates quantitatively the determinants of cooking fuel choice in rural china the results show that in addition to the previous knowledge on household income occupation is crucial to the cooking fuel transition in average if the head of household changes its occupation from farm to non farm the possibility of using firewood would reduce by around 14 21 the impact of income is slightly small a 10 increase in income may result in 0 5 of possibility of firewood use these conclusions are robust after considering the possible energy ladders using ordered logit regressions olr and generalized olr after controlling other factors such as income and occupation we have not found concrete evidence on the influences of education and gender of the household head and household member numbers to accelerate the fuel transition in addition to increase the household income the government should pay attention to create more non farm work opportunities for the rural

evaluating the relative strength of product specific factors in fuel switching and stove choice decisions in ethiopia a discrete choice model of household preferences for clean cooking alternatives switching from conventional stoves to modern clean safe and efficient stoves will improve health and social welfare for the 2 7 billion people worldwide that lack reliable access to modern energy services in this paper we critically review some key theoretical dimensions of household consumer behaviour in switching from traditional biomass cooking stoves to modern efficient stoves and fuels we then describe the results of empirical research investigating the determinants of stove choice focusing on the relative strength of product specific factors across three wealth groups a stated preference survey and discrete choice model were developed to understand household decision making associated with cooking stove choice in addis ababa ethiopia the study found that with the exception of price and usage cost factors for the high wealth group the product specific factors that were investigated significantly affect stove and fuel choices the relative strength of factors was assessed in terms of marginal willingness to pay and provides some evidence that consumer preference for higher quality fuels and stoves tends to increase with increasing wealth

the choice theory approach to market research this paper surveys economic choice theory stressing developments that permit use of data from psychometric and conjoint experiments to produce market demand forecasts alternatives to the widely used multinomial logit model are summarized and a new method for estimating multinomial probits is described an integration of choice models with attitudinal scaling and perceptual mapping within a latent variable system is described estimation of such systems under either random effects or fixed effects descriptions of heterogeneity across individuals is discussed issues in the use of choice models to describe responses from conjoint experiments are presented new regression diagnostic tests for the consistency of multinomial logit representations are discussed

from linear fuel switching to multiple cooking strategies a critique and alternative to the energy ladder model abstract promoting sustainable development requires evaluating the technical and policy options that will facilitate the adoption and use of energy efficient and less polluting cooking stoves and practices the transition from traditional to modern fuels and devices has been explained by the energy ladder model that suggests that with increasing affluence a progression is expected from traditional biomass fuels to more advanced and less polluting fuels in this paper we evaluate the energy ladder model utilizing data from a four year 1992 96 case study of a village in mexico and from a large scale survey from four states of mexico we show that an alternate multiple fuel model of stove and fuel management based on the observed pattern of household accumulation of energy options rather than the simple progression depicted in the traditional energy ladder scenario more accurately depicts cooking fuel use patterns in rural households the multiple fuel model integrates four factors demonstrated to be essential in household decision making under conditions of resource scarcity or uncertainty a economics of fuel and stove type and access conditions to fuels b technical characteristics of cookstoves and cooking practices c cultural preferences and d health impacts this model also allows better estimates of the expected fuelwood demand and indoor air pollution in rural households

structural breaks in renewable energy in south africa a bai perron break test application abstract in order to remedy the continuous problem of sustainable energy supply the south african government committed itself to pursuing renewable energies re as a viable alternative to traditional sources such as fossil fuels the aim of this study is to understand whether the policies pursued by the south african government in the period 1990 2010 have had any effect on the consumers and producers of re to do so the bai perron 1998 2003 break test methodology is employed to examine the evolution of re production and consumption deviations from the base case are then explained in the south african economic and policy context

hub and spoke free trade areas theory and evidence from israel we study how the sequential formation of free trade areas affects trade flows between member countries in a three country three good model of comparative advantage if two countries have an fta and both sign a similar agreement with the third trade between the two decreases however if only one of them signs an additional fta a hub and spoke pattern arises and trade between the initial members increases israel s experience lends strong support to our model trade between israel and the eu subject to an fta since 1975 increased by an additional 29 after the introduction of the us israel fta in 1985 on etudie comment la formation sequentielle de zones de libre echange affecte les flux commerciaux entre les pays membres dans un modele d avantage comparatif avec trois pays et trois biens si deux pays ont un accord de libre echange et qu ils signent tous deux un accord similaire avec un tiers pays le commerce entre les deux pays originaux decroit cependant si seulement un des deux pays originaux signe un accord avec le troisieme un reseau en etoile emerge et le commerce entre les deux payx d origine s accroit l experience d israel donne un fort support au modele le commerce entre israel et l union europeenne sujet a un accord de libre echange depuis 1975 s est accru de 29 apres l introduction de l accord de libre echange entre israel et les etats unis en 1985

key sectors in input output production networks an application to brexit this paper presents the first detailed and holistic description of the european production network epn and provides different rankings of the most systemically important industries involved in brexit employing techniques of complex networks analysis and input output traditional tools the study identifies those industries that are key in the complex structure of the uk eu trade relationships the method developed would help policy makers to better understand which tariff would have a more distortive impact which export sector should be pushed which imports should be safeguarded such information may have foremost importance in the negotiations between the uk and eu our findings suggest that brexit would be not just a problem for the uk as it is often portrayed but any form of brexit could propagate affecting the global production system further by inspecting industries centrality within the epn we find that the uk could be less exposed to trade barriers than eu countries

on measuring energy poverty in indian households summary the relationship between energy and poverty is obvious and goes both ways recognizing this this paper provides a short overview of different approaches to measuring energy poverty it then presents a novel two dimensional measure of energy poverty and energy distribution that combines the elements of access to different energy types and quantity of energy consumed an assessment of the extent of energy poverty and changes in energy distribution pattern are analyzed by applying this measure to indian household survey data for 1983 2000 the analysis shows a significant reduction in the level of energy poverty and a rapidly developing subcontinent the new measure is a good complement to conventional monetary measures and is general enough to be applied to other developing countries

preferences for domestic fuel analysis with socio economic factors and rankings in kolkata india abstract the choice of domestic fuel is a matter of great concern for households and policy makers in india this paper investigates the demand for domestic fuels when households face four choices fuelwood coal kerosene and lpg the study is based on a survey of 500 households in kolkata india the demand estimates are conducted using a two stage process where the first stage investigates choice and the second the quantity used determinants of fuel demand are identified and their relative importance shown extending the study the paper also analyses the choice of the main cooking fuel in terms of the households stated rankings of six fuels for five attributes the policy discussion indicates that subsidies have less potential to reduce polluting fuels such as coal and fuelwood due to weak cross price elasticities while increased availability of lpg and potentially also increased awareness of indoor air pollution have greater prospect

the impact of unconditional cash transfer on fuel choices among ultra poor in pakistan quasi experimental evidence from the benazir income support program abstract we analyze the impact of the unconditional cash transfer program namely the benazir income support program bisp on fuel choices among ultra poor in pakistan using two rounds of household level data collected in 2011 and 2016 the analysis based on regression discontinuity design shows that bisp cash transfer has a significant impact on interfuel substitution cash transfer increases the use of modern fuels among bisp beneficiaries besides cash transfer also encourages the use of intermediate fuels even in some cases traditional fuels cash transfer also increases the share of fuel expenses in total household expenses therefore the fuel stacking theory provides a better explanation of interfuel substitution than the energy ladder theory of the cash transfer program the provincial analysis shows that interfuel substitution exists due to cash transfer but varies from province to province signifying the role of regional heterogeneities the net impact on fuel choices may depend on the availability of different fuel components from policy perspective the expansion of the cash transfer program as planned by the government would require a reasonable investment in the energy sector to ensure an uninterrupted supply of modern fuels

the cyclical and secular behaviour of the labour input comparing efficiency units and hours worked summary a monthly labour input series designed to correct for the fact that all hours worked are not of the same quality is constructed and its properties compared with unadjusted hours worked this efficiency units series is constructed from bls data on hours worked and earnings by age and sex the cyclical fluctuations displayed by the efficiency units series are smaller on average than those displayed by hours worked although the difference is not large however the secular behaviour of the series is quite different hours worked per capita displays a significant positive trend while efficiency units per capita does not

factors underlying rural household energy transition a case study of china abstract this paper identifies factors underlying the energy transition of rural households in china based on province level panel data for years of 1991 2014 it indicates that there exists the energy stacking process of rural household energy transition characterized by the significant consumption inertia effects of traditional biomass energy tbe traditional commercial energy tce and advanced commercial energy ace respectively the insignificant substitution effect of tce and ace for tbe and the significant partial substitution of ace for tce with regard to the factors underlying rural household energy transition 1 per capita disposal income is negatively correlated with tbe tce and ace consumption 2 the number of motorcycles is positively correlated with tce and ace consumption 3 the number of firewood saving stoves and the price for ace are positively correlated with tbe consumption 4 household size and the number of motorcycles and the number of appliances are positively correlated with ace consumption 5 education level is positively correlated with tbe but negatively with tce consumption 6 the number of rural energy management institutions is positively correlated with tbe but negatively correlated ace consumption therefore some policy implications are discussed

overlapping free trade agreements and international trade a network approach in our work we have analysed the effect of the hub and spoke nature of free trade agreements ftas on trade contrary to previous analyses we have considered the effects of the country s position in the fta network on the bilateral trade of the hub country we have conducted an in depth analysis of the global network of ftas focusing particularly on its evolution in the last 15 years we have utilised a panel data set covering the period 1960 2010 to investigate the effects of the hub and spoke on trade our results show that the countries that are more connected to ftas export more than those that are less involved although not all the partner countries you can connect with are the same an increase in the number of spokes that have no link between them has on average a negative effect on the trade of the hub which indicates that signing ftas with every country is not the optimal strategy for increasing trade however if we consider the way new ftas change the relative position of a country we can see that if new ftas make the country more central or less constrained in the network these new agreements have a strongly positive and significant pro trade effect

consumer bankruptcy a fresh start consumer bankruptcy provides partial insurance against bad luck but by driving up interest rates makes life cycle smoothing more difficult we argue that to assess this trade off one needs a quantitative model of consumer bankruptcy with three key features life cycle component idiosyncratic earnings uncertainty and expense uncertainty exogenous negative shocks to household balance sheets we find that transitory and persistent earnings shocks have very different implications for evaluating bankruptcy rules more persistent shocks make the bankruptcy option more desirable larger transitory shocks have the opposite effect our findings suggest the current us bankruptcy system may be desirable for reasonable parameter values jel d14 d91 k35

two views of inequality over the life cycle data on the life cycle profiles of inequality in wages earnings hours worked and consumption contain precious information for answering questions about the ability of households to insure labor market risk and about the sources of this risk this paper demonstrates that the choice of whether to control for cohort effects or for time effects has a drastic impact on the estimated age profiles for inequality and thus on the answers to those questions it also shows that time effects are required to account of the observed trends in inequality in 30 years of u s data whereas there is no evidence that cohort effects have been important jel c13 d31 d91 j22 j31

social security and unsecured debt abstract in this paper we use a calibrated life cycle model to explore quantitatively ways of reducing the burden of social security in a world populated by both optimizing and rule of thumb consumers social security contributions force young households with upward sloping income profiles to save a sizeable portion of their income for retirement when their optimal consumption plan would likely have them either saving little or borrowing we first use household data to document that young households have accumulated social security contributions that are large relative to debt holdings then using a calibrated life cycle model we show that both allowing households to use social security wealth to pay off their debt and exempting young households from social security contributions but in both cases requiring higher contributions later mitigate many of the inefficiencies of social security from the perspective of life cycle financial planning specifically in our preferred experiment which exempts households whose heads are under 30 from making social security contributions we find that certainty equivalent consumption increases by 3 4 for optimizing households and by 3 3 for rule of thumb households

reassessing the energy ladder household energy use in maun botswana abstract in the context of sub saharan africa s rapid urbanization improved insight into urban energy use is increasingly important based on the predictions of energy transition theory a regional shift from biomass to modern fuels has long been expected to occur in tandem with urban growth however trends observed in the region s towns and cities have often not followed such patterns and fuelwood continues to be important in most areas this paper examines the practical relevance of transition theory using a recent case study conducted by the authors in maun botswana and results previously reported in the literature it finds that despite the long term link between socio economic development and increased modern fuel consumption at the national scale the notion of transition does not accurately reflect ongoing energy use patterns at lower levels of aggregation this is chiefly because its model of household fuel switching largely dismisses the importance of active and strategic decision making by urban consumers and their responsiveness to structural factors such as relative fuel prices as the botswana case illustrates this weakness can significantly distort expectations and policies around urban fuelwood use

proliferating regional trade arrangements why and whither this paper investigates why regional trade arrangements rtas are proliferating extensively and how the effects of multiple rtas by interacting with each other evolve over time our empirical analysis based on an extended gravity model utilising a large panel dataset of 175 countries from 1948 to 1999 shows that rtas on average increase global trade by raising intra bloc trade without damaging extra bloc trade the net trade effects however heavily depend on the types of rta strategic evolution over time which we categorise as expansionary rtas duplicate rtas or overlapping rtas we find that countries excluded from an rta can benefit more from duplicating a separate rta than from joining an existing rta this result explains why the number of bilateral trade blocs rather than the membership size of existing rtas is currently exploding we also find that the net trade creating effects of rtas are substantially lower for countries participating in overlapping rtas this result suggests that it is less likely that the currently proliferating rtas will completely merge and lead the world economy to global free trade our empirical results are robust to controlling for the characteristics of countries that may influence the impact of rtas

household fuel use in developing countries review of theory and evidence because of recent concerns about the negative externalities of traditional fuel use on the environment and health the issue of the household fuel transition in developing countries from dirty fuels towards clean fuels has received growing research attention this paper provides an up to date survey of the economic literature on household fuel use in these countries first we present the conceptual and theoretical frameworks then we discuss the empirical results that show how a wide range of factors drive the household fuel transition finally we suggest priorities for policy initiatives and highlight areas of future research

the persistence of financial distress using recently available proprietary panel data we show that while many 35 us consumers experience financial distress at some point in the life cycle most of the events of financial distress are primarily concentrated in a much smaller proportion of consumers in persistent trouble roughly 10 of consumers are distressed for more than a quarter of the life cycle and less than 10 of borrowers account for half of all distress events these facts can be largely accounted for in a straightforward extension of a workhorse model of defaultable debt that accommodates a simple form of heterogeneity in time preference but not otherwise

rural residential energy transition and energy consumption intensity in china abstract this paper examines the impact of residential energy transition on residential energy consumption per capita recpc and identifies the underlying drivers in rural china based on province level panel data for years 1991 2014 in rural china it is shown that energy transition from traditional biomass energy tbe to traditional commercial energy tce significantly decreases recpc while energy transition from tbe or tce to advanced commercial energy ace significantly increases recpc as is revealed by the energy stacking model per capita income has a significantly negative impact on recpc and the impact of lagged recpc is opposite due to the regulation of energy price there exists price distortion in china s rural energy market and the price mechanism functions poorly besides factors including juvenile dependency ratio and education level significantly reduce recpc therefore it is vital to integrate rural energy into national energy strategic system facilitate energy transition process and introduce the market system reform of rural energy and continue to improve the education level of rural residents in rural china

unsecured debt with public insurance from bad to worse abstract in u s data income interruptions the receipt of public insurance and the incidence of personal bankruptcy are all closely related the central contribution of this paper is to evaluate bankruptcy protection and public insurance in a unified setting where each program alters incentives in the other our analysis delivers two striking conclusions first we find that u s personal bankruptcy law is an important barrier that prevents the public insurance system from improving welfare second contrary to popular belief we find that increases in the generosity of public insurance will lead to more not less bankruptcy

startup costs and the decision to switch from firewood to gas fuel firewood remains a key source of energy for households in developing countries contributing to forest degradation and deforestation the adoption of alternative fuels may be hindered by high startup costs and this problem may be compounded by restrictions in credit availability we use survey data to examine how credit access affects firewood consumption in guatemala our results suggest that access to credit plays a statistically significant role in determining firewood consumption through its effect on the ability to purchase a gas stove however simulations suggest that these effects are small and that subsidizing stoves would be amore promising policy for reducing firewood consumption

understanding why high income households save more than low income households abstract we use a calibrated life cycle model to evaluate why high income households save as a group a much higher fraction of income than do low income households in us cross section data we find that 1 age and relatively permanent earnings differences across households together with the structure of the us social security system are sufficient to replicate this fact 2 without social security the model economies still produce large differences in saving rates across income groups and 3 purely temporary earnings shocks of the magnitude estimated in us data alter only slightly the saving rates of high and low income households

economic evaluation of environmental externalities in china s coal fired power generation abstract serious environmental externalities exist in china s power industry environmental economics theory suggests that the evaluation of environmental externality is the basis of designing an efficient regulation the purposes of this study are 1 to identify chinese respondents preferences for green development of electric power industry and the socio economic characteristics behind them 2 to investigate the different attitudes of the respondents towards pollution and co2 reduction 3 to quantitatively evaluate the environmental cost of china s coal fired power generation based on the method of choice experiments ce and the 411 questionnaires with 2466 data points we found that chinese respondents prefer pm2 5 so2 and nox reduction to co2 reduction and that the environment cost of coal fired power plants in china is 0 30 yuan per kwh in addition we found that the socio economic characteristics of income education gender and environmental awareness have significant impacts on respondents choices these findings indicate that the environmental cost of coal fired power generation is a significant factor that requires great consideration in the formulation of electric power development policies in addition importance should also be attached to the implementation of green power price policy and enhancement of environmental protection awareness

estimating the gravity model without gravity using panel data this article examines the effects of zero trade on the estimation of the gravity model using both simulated and real data with a panel structure which is different from the more conventional cross sectional structure we begin by showing that the usual log linear estimation method can result in highly deceptive inference when some observations are zero as an alternative approach we suggest using the poisson fixed effects estimator this approach eliminates the problems of zero trade controls for heterogeneity across countries and is shown to perform well in small samples

the energy transition in action urban domestic fuel choices in a changing zimbabwe two questionnaire surveys of fuel use by low income households in zimbabwe were conducted in four small towns in 1994 and in these towns plus four larger towns in 1999 an energy transition from wood through kerosene to electricity occurred a with rising household income b with increasing electrification status among towns and c over time in the smaller towns in spite of falling household incomes in two of the towns increasing discrepancy in the incomes of higher and lower income groups over time was not associated with greater divergence in their fuel choices by 1999 electricity was used by almost all households in towns with good electricity supplies while use of firewood in these towns was infrequent however even the wealthiest households continued to combine electricity with other fuels usually kerosene electricity use by less affluent households is apparently limited by lack of connections in the home and by access to appliances while fuel prices which are subject to government subsidies and fell in real terms over 5 years have been less important zimbabwe s urban domestic energy policy has had considerable success in terms of equity but this is increasingly difficult to maintain given present economic and political uncertainty

identifying a sustained pathway to multidimensional poverty reduction evidence from two chinese provinces poor rural households in developing countries often endure many faceted burdens including monetary poverty nutrition deficiency and energy shortage due to reliance on limited local natural resourc

choice modelling approaches a superior alternative for environmental valuation in this paper we examine some popular choice modelling approaches to environmental valuation which can be considered as alternatives to more familiar valuation techniques based on stated preferences such as the contingent valuation method a number of choice modelling methods are consistent with consumer theory and its focus on an attribute based theory of value permits a superior representation of many environmental management contexts however choice modelling surveys can place a severe cognitive burden upon respondents and induce satisficing rather than maximising behavioural patterns in this framework we seek to identify the best available choice modelling alternative and investigate its potential to solve some of the major biases associated with standard contingent valuation we then discuss its use in the light of policy appraisal needs within the eu an application to the demand for rock climbing in scotland is provided as an illustration

default risk and private student loans implications for higher education policies abstract in recent years the proportion of students facing a binding constraint on government student loans has grown this has led to substantially increased use of private loans as a supplementary source of finance for households higher education investment a critical aspect of the private market for student loans is that loan terms must reflect students risk of default college investment will therefore differ from a world in which government student loans whose terms are not sensitive to credit risk are expanded to no longer bind moreover beyond simply crowding out private lending expansions of the government student loan program will feed back into default risk on private loans the goal of this paper is to provide a quantitative assessment of the likely effects of the private market for student loans on college enrollment we build a model of college investment that reflects uninsured idiosyncratic risk and a well defined life cycle that is consistent with observed borrowing and default behavior across family income and college preparedness we find that higher government borrowing limits increase college investment but lead to more default in the private market for student loans while tuition subsides increase college investment and reduce default rates in the private market consequently higher limits on government student loans have small negative welfare effects while tuition subsidies increase aggregate welfare

are women more predictable than men during the ncaa basketball tournaments from 2002 to 2005 men s games produced 27 more upsets than women s games to test whether these unpredictable results were due to gender differences we conduct logit analysis to explain upsets by gender and other potentially significant variables including differences in competing teams i rpi scores ii percentage of freshmen iii percentage of seniors iv top scorer s total points and v top three scorers total points these analyses suggest that gender plays a significant role in explaining predictability

arm breaking consumer credit and personal bankruptcy the consumer credit transaction is analyzed as a contract which provides insurance as well as present consumption for the borrower creditors remedies such as arm breaking are shown to facilitate provision of insurance forgiveness of debts when lenders cannot monitor outcomes alternatively if outcomes are observable but lenders do not ex ante know the risk associated with each borrower the market may generate an excessive amount of arm breaking and agreements to forgo discharge following bankruptcy as low risk borrowers signal their characteristics suggesting that government limitations on such provisions might be efficient the secured credit transaction is shown to be a complex contract which attempts to provide efficient repayment seller incentives for performance and mitigation following default and insurance for the borrower garnishment and discharge of debts following bankruptcy are also considered

rural household energy consumption the effects of access to electricity evidence from south africa this paper examines household energy consumption patterns in rural areas in the light of energy transition theories in particular the study aims to identify the effects of access to electricity on fuel choice the analysis uses data from an extensive household survey conducted in south africa and examines the prevalence of different fuels energy expenditure the end uses of fuels and multiple fuel use patterns it is concluded that evidence exists for the presence of an energy transition in rural households largely driven by income access to electricity affects the nature of this transition and there is weak evidence to suggest that it accelerates the process

domestic technology consumption economies of scale and poverty evidence from sri lanka while it is well known that new technologies enhance consumer welfare the manner in which these technologies impact the ability to realize economies of scale in consumption is not well understood we use sri lankan household data to examine how the adoption of new technologies by households positively impacts their ability to achieve household economies of scale this suggests that new technologies not only deliver a greater variety of consumption goods to consumers but they may also play an important role in enabling large households to escape poverty by lowering the per capita costs of maintaining a given standard of living given the importance of consumption economies of scale in the measurement of poverty this study provides some insights on the extent to which the number of poor households changes when food consumption scale economies due to technology adoption in the domestic sphere are incorporated

asymmetric information in securitization an empirical assessment abstract asymmetric information in securitization deals is analyzed based on a unique dataset comprising a million mortgages both securitized and not and using a methodology previously applied to insurance data that looks at the correlation between risk transfer and default probability the main finding is that for given observable characteristics securitized mortgages have a lower default probability than non securitized ones we show that this finding is consistent with banks caring about their reputation for not selling lemons

household energy preferences for cooking in urban ouagadougou burkina faso abstract an extensive survey on household expenditures in ouagadougou the capital of burkina faso was used to analyze the factors determining urban household energy choices using a multinomial logit model wood energy remains the preferred fuel of most urban households in the country though rational the choice is not sustainable as it portends a threat to the savanna woodlands and the economy many important policies have been adopted by public authorities to minimize household wood energy consumption and to substitute it by alternative fuel despite the magnitude of all these policies the depletion rate of the forest resource is increasing a kind of inertia is thus observed for household preferences for cooking fuel this model analyzes the sociological and economic variables of household energy preferences for cooking in ouagadougou the analyses show that the inertia of household cooking energy preferences are due to poverty factors such as low income poor household access to electricity for primary and secondary energy low house standard household size high frequency of cooking certain meals using woodfuel as cooking energy the descriptive analyses show that the domestic demand for wood energy is strongly related to household income the firewood utilization rate decreases with increasing household income in other words this fuel appears as a transition good for these households which aim for other sources of energy for cooking that are more adapted for urban consumption this implies that a price subsidy policy for liquid petroleum gas lpg and its cook stoves could significantly decrease the utilization rate of wood energy

preferences for improved cook stoves evidence from rural villages in north india abstract because emissions from solid fuel burning in traditional stoves impact global climate change the regional environment and household health there is today real interest in improved cook stoves ics nonetheless surprisingly little is known about what households like about these energy products we report on preferences for biomass burning ics attributes in a large sample of 2120 rural households in north india a global hotspot for biomass fuel use and the damages that such use entails households have a strong baseline reliance and preference for traditional stoves a preference that outweighs the 10 and 5 willingness to pay wtp for realistic 33 reductions in smoke emissions and fuel needs on average respectively preferences for stove attributes are also highly varied and correlated with a number of household characteristics e g expenditures gender of household head patience and risk preferences these results suggest that households exhibit cautious interest in some aspects of ics but that widespread adoption is unlikely because many households appear to prefer traditional stoves over ics with similar characteristics the policy community must therefore support a reinvigorated supply chain with complementary infrastructure investments foster experimentation with products encourage continued applied research and knowledge generation and provide appropriate incentives to consumers if ics distribution is to be scaled up

urban fuelwood challenges and dilemmas abstract this paper explores the use of fuelwood in third world cities the importance of fuelwood and the factors which condition its use in cities are set out and three fuelwood problems are identified the cost to urban consumers fuel supply security and the impact of urban fuelwood markets on rural areas urban fuelwood interventions are evaluated with four categories identified interventions in marketing conservation increased wood production and fuel switching of these fuel switching by improved supply systems and increased production from smallholders and better management of natural woodlands appear to have the greatest potential the need for flexibility community participation in planning is stressed

connecting political economies of energy in south africa abstract the south african energy debate is and will remain a heated one given south africa s history of racial inequality and contemporary concerns around sustainability much of it rightly focuses on the links between energy poverty and the environment yet many contributions to the mainstream debate seem to have a somewhat one sided focus that might hamper rather than stimulate the understanding of these links they either display a strong technical quantitative bias and or lean towards rather simplistic ideas about policy processes and dynamics the article argues that many of these analyses could benefit greatly from a critical focus on the political economy of energy the political economic power structures that influence both many energy policies and the issues of energy equality and sustainability two major global developments emphasise the importance of this focus the recent financial crisis and south africa s role in the increasingly tense geopolitics of energy in africa the article concludes with some suggestions on how currently disparate political economies of energy could be better connected

woodfuels livelihoods and policy interventions changing perspectives in the 1970s it appeared that fuelwood use was growing rapidly and this could have major adverse impacts on the resource and poor users by the mid 1980s revised assessments indicated that there was less of a problem than had been foreseen and much less of a need for forestry interventions to maintain supplies as a result many of the latter were sharply scaled back additional information and analysis that has become available since the 1980s support the view that there is no need for large scale interventions devoted just to provision of fuelwood however declining access to supplies or markets can raise significant problems in some areas and for particular categories of user growing urban demand for charcoal can also cause local problems in particular in africa the potentials for appropriate forms of intervention are discussed

determinants of electricity demand for newly electrified low income african households access to clean affordable and appropriate energy is an important enabler of development energy allows households to meet their most basic subsistence needs it is a central feature of all the millennium development goals mdgs and while a lack of access to energy may not be a cause of poverty addressing the energy needs of the impoverished lets them access services which in turn address the causes of poverty while much is known about the factors affecting the decisions made when choosing between fuel types within a household few quantitative studies have been carried out in south africa to determine the extent to which these factors affect energy choice decisions it is assumed that the factors traditionally included in economic demand such as price and income of the household affect choice tastes and preferences as well as external factors such as distance to fuel suppliers are expected to influence preferences this study follows two typical low income rural sites in south africa antioch and garagapola where the electricity basic services support tariff ebsst was piloted in 2002 the ebsst is set at 50 kwh month per household for low domestic consumers this is worth approximately r20 1 7us 3 this subsidy is a lifeline tariff where households receive the set amount of units per month free of charge irrespective of whether more units are purchased these data collected in 2001 and 2002 recently collated with detailed electricity consumption data allow us to determine the drivers of electricity consumption within these households the sample analysed is taken from the initial phase of the study when no fbe had been introduced to the households this enabled the study presented here to make use of the well populated datasets to assess what affects the electricity use decision in these households this paper attempts to assess which factors affected the decision making process for electricity consumption within these households a brief history of the electricity industry and the electrification is provided and the theoretical background for the electricity consumption model is provided it was found that income woodfuel usage iron ownership and credit obtained were significant in determining consumption levels within these households price and cross price elasticities were difficult to assess due to lack of data within the sample the results have many possible implications for policy including the effect that easily obtained credit has for low income households

consumption and risk sharing over the life cycle a striking feature of u s data on income and consumption is that inequality increases with age this paper asks if individual specific earnings risk can provide a coherent explanation we find that it can we construct an overlapping generations general equilibrium model in which households face uninsurable earnings shocks over the course of their lifetimes earnings inequality is exogenous and is calibrated to match data from the u s panel study on income dynamics consumption inequality is endogenous and matches well data from the u s consumer expenditure survey the total risk households face is decomposed into that realized before entering the labor market and that realized throughout the working years in welfare terms the latter is found to be more important than the former

the impact of the household decision environment on fuel choice behavior abstract consumer preferences for fuels and alternative cookstove technologies in kenya are examined focusing on household internal and external determinants driving choice behavior in a choice experiment the potential for a transition towards cleaner and more efficient fuels and technologies is assessed by zooming in on three fuel stove combinations we find substantial demand and positive willingness to pay for the fuel stove combinations in three locations representing different decision environments demand is significantly higher in the peri urban and the resource abundant rural location than in the resource scarce rural location the presence of better developed consumer markets for fuels in these locations functions as an important driver for cookstove adoption although charcoal and ethanol stoves are preferred over improved firewood stoves continued firewood usage is expected energy switching behavior cannot be substantiated instead energy stacking is more likely where charcoal and ethanol add to and extend a household s energy portfolio

who adopts lpg as the main cooking fuel and why empirical evidence on ghana based on national survey the aim of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the probability of adopting lpg as the main cooking fuel in ghana using household level data gleaned from last two nationwide household surveys glss 5 glss 6 using a flexible semi parametric specification the following were uncovered first we find socioeconomic and demographic factors such as income education access to urban infrastructure and location of household as key drivers of households choice of lpg as main cooking energy source again the influences of these factors are stable across time and with a strong price effect the evidence shows that urban households with better socioeconomic and demographic factors are likely to adopt lpg as the main cooking fuel relative to households in rural areas and also urban households with poor socioeconomic and demographic factors finally we observe that the imposition of fully parametric structure functional form prior to estimation on factors such as age of household head income and household size as done in the literature is inappropriate at least in the case of ghana and tend to bias the marginal effects there is strong evidence of variations in the response rate of lpg adoption over the domains of income household size and the age of the household head the results suggest a policy dichotomy between rural and urban dwellers for it to be effective

one off subsidies and long run adoption experimental evidence on improved cooking stoves in senegal free technology distribution can be an effective development policy instrument if market driven adoption is socially inefficient and hampered by affordability constraints yet policy makers often oppose free distribution arguing that reference dependence lowers the willingness to pay wtp and thus market potentials in the long run for improved cookstoves this paper studies the wtp six years after a randomized one time free distribution in 2009 we demonstrate that the cookstoves were intensely used by the treatment group households in the years after randomization until they reached their designated lifetime using a real purchase offer we find that both treatment and control households reveal a remarkably high wtp in 2015 the estimated confidence interval suggests that we can exclude a substantial negative effect on the treatment group the policy implication is that one time free distribution does not necessarily undermine future market establishment and thus can be an effective policy instrument if rapid dissemination is the objective

default insurance and debt over the life cycle abstract the widespread use of debt and default suggests that unsecured credit markets play an important role in consumption smoothing in this paper i address two previously unanswered questions first how does policy towards debt default affect the evolution of consumption and net worth over the life cycle second how does debt default policy interact with social insurance over the life cycle the findings are as follows first us default policy appears lax in the sense that it creates severe credit constraints especially for the young second eliminating default will lower consumption inequality among the young but will increase it among the old third social insurance alters default risk and in turn loan pricing and therefore matters for purely intertemporal smoothing

effects of hub and spoke free trade agreements on trade a panel data analysis summary we use panel data consisting of 96 countries and covering the period 1960 2000 to investigate the effects of free trade agreements ftas and hub and spoke systems of fta on exports our empirical results imply an annual growth rate of 5 57 in exports and hence a doubling of exports after 12 4 years between fta partners non overlapping ftas account for 4 12 while hub and spoke ftas account for 1 45 of the estimated export growth rate this indicates that in addition to the direct trade liberalizing effect of ftas the hub and spoke nature of ftas has an additional positive effect on trade