the political economy of urban food security in sub saharan africa abstract sub saharan african cities in the late 1990s face a daunting set of problems including rapid growth increasing poverty deteriorating infrastructure and inadequate capacity for service provision even as a renewed debate is shaping up around issues of urban development there is little attention given to the question of urban food security whereas in the 1970s and 1980s urban food problems in africa commanded political attention the nature of urban food insecurity in the 1990s is such that it has tended to lose political importance this is largely because in the 1970s the problem was one of outright food shortages and rapid price changes that affected large portions of the urban population simultaneously the impact of structural adjustment continued rapid growth and an increase in poverty make urban food insecurity in the 1990s primarily a problem of access by the urban poor under circumstances where the urban poor spend a very large portion of their total income on food urban poverty rapidly translates into food insecurity the lack of formal safety nets and the shifting of responsibility for coping with food insecurity away from the state towards the individual and household level has tended to atomize and muffle any political response to this new urban food insecurity this paper briefly reviews urban food insecurity and generates a set of empirical questions for an analysis of food and livelihood security in contemporary urban sub saharan africa and then examines historical and contemporary evidence from kampala uganda and accra ghana to suggest some tentative conclusions

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

employment based analysis an alternative methodology for project evaluation in developing regions with an application to agriculture in yucatan abstract governmental and non governmental organizations ngos in developing regions increasingly recognize the links between sustainable development and environmental protection for this reason environmental protection efforts in these regions increasingly include sustainable community development projects unlike most traditional large scale development projects the objective of such projects is to give local inhabitants sustainable economic alternatives to environmentally degrading activities rather than to maximize the flow of discounted net benefits the traditional method of project evaluation cost benefit analysis cba does not provide useful information regarding the meeting of such objectives the purpose of this paper is to introduce discuss and provide a brief example of employment based analysis eba as a means of project evaluation in developing countries in contrast to the cba approach of measuring a discounted flow of net benefits from economic options eba measures the number of jobs or population support provided by alternative activities using a given resource typically land over a given period of time eba better incorporates sustainability into project analysis by avoiding the use of discounting directly linking project success with environmental sustainability and penalizing economic activities that involve income inequality and income capital flight eba is particularly illuminating when applied to small scale sustainable development projects that are part of environmental conservation programs after a brief description of the methodology the motivation strengths and weaknesses of eba are discussed a simple application of eba and cba to alternative agricultural activities traditional farming improved farming and cattle ranching in yucatan mexico is then provided this analysis indicates that while cattle ranching has a higher benefit cost ratio both traditional and improved farming provide more population support and greater contributions to sustainability this example serves to highlight the potential benefits to using eba instead of or in conjunction with cba in developing regions along with highlighting some of the strengths and challenges of eba

co2 emissions and income dynamics what does the global evidence tell us this paper analyzes the co evolution of two major determinants of social welfare namely income and carbon emissions in particular by using a distribution dynamics approach based on markov chains we investigate the shape and behavior of the joint distribution of per capita income and carbon dioxide emissions we arrive at several interesting conclusions especially in the context of international negotiations on climate change first evidence does not support theoretical models predicting the existence of a poverty environment trap specifically in the long run two main groups of countries will emerge poor versus polluting countries second the typical development path leads initially to high emission levels and subsequently to high income third the convergence process towards the stationary distribution is very slow finally for carbon emissions whenever it is observed the environmental kuznets curve seems to be only a transitory phenomenon

environmental significance of development theory abstract after briefly summarizing the reason for concluding that conventional development has been a failure and analysing the central mechanisms responsible this paper outlines some of the main ways in which this approach has led to serious environmental impacts it is argued that an approach to development based on market forces and growth maximisation is one of the most significant causes of global ecological destruction appropriate and ecologically sustainable development require a shift to principles of development which focus on local economic self sufficiency independence from global economic forces and the abandonment of rich world living standards as the goal of development

growth and environmental quality testing the double convergence hypothesis abstract this paper discusses the double convergence hypothesis dch that the uncritical analysis of the so called environmental kuznets curve ekc implicitly implies according to the ekc empirical evidence would support the hypothesis that economic growth through a deterministic sequence of phases would produce cross country convergence in per capita output and as a by product convergence in the demand for environmental quality however factual analysis seems to reject the general hypothesis of convergence in per capita output limiting the validity of such an assessment to the case of homogeneous groups of countries this is why to test the dch the paper focuses on the original group of oecd countries for which the economic convergence turned out to be true this allows us to verify whether green and convergence follows as a consequence of economic convergence the paper also tests for a more equitable distribution of protection policies among countries unlike other studies which do not make the dch explicit and have focused on pollutant emissions this research explicitly tests for the double convergence using as a proxy for the demand for environmental quality the territory set aside for protected areas the results confirm that for the selected homogenous group of countries growth has accompanied the demand for environmental quality this happens both in terms of conditional and stochastic convergence

conditional convergence in australia s energy consumption at the sector level abstract we examine the convergence of energy consumption per capita at the sector level in australia over the period 1973 74 to 2013 14 to do so we employ recently developed lm and rals lm unit root tests that accommodate up to two endogenously determined structural breaks we find support for energy consumption per capita convergence for six of seven sectors in australia

can fao s measure of chronic undernourishment be strengthened abstract in its sixth world food survey released at the 1996 world food summit the food and agriculture organization of the united nations fao reported that 841 million people in developing countries are chronically undernourished this number and its country and regional level disaggregations have proved tremendously useful to countless development aid agencies and researchers in the context of a recent wave of new nationally representative household food consumption and expenditure surveys this paper examines the estimation methodology underlying the food insecurity measure which relies on national aggregate measures of food availability and distribution the paper finds that the measure largely reflects national food availabilities and does not adequately capture people s ability to gain access to food the ultimate key to food security the implications for the indicator s use by policy makers in geographical targeting and tracking changes in food insecurity over time are drawn out the paper concludes by arguing that the time has come to review the potential for employing the new household survey data along with new methods to strengthen the empirical foundations of fao s measure

energy consumption and co2 emissions convergence in european union member countries a tonneau des danaides abstract as the consumption of energy is responsible for approximately 80 of ghg in eu iea 2008 the impact of energy activity on the environment has received increasing attention over the last decades from scholars researchers politicians and society as a whole within eu member countries it is commonly accepted that the design of energy and mitigation policies either at national or at european level require a detailed and integrated investigation of convergence divergence pattern among the participating countries in this paper we examine the distribution dynamics of energy consumption and co2 emissions their intensities as well as the carbonization index in 23 european countries over a forty one year period in particular from 1970 to 2010 for this purpose we used quah s methodology which is based on the dynamics of cross section distributions the main conclusion is that for all the examined variables the hypothesis of convergence patterns for the eu sample is not valid moreover regarding each examined variable different groups of polarization established important differences occur across eu countries according to the climate type with respect to the examined variables our analysis provides strong evidence supporting the fact that national and european energy and mitigation policies should be implemented according to the non convergence paradigm the body of evidence provided by our analysis is of great importance to energy policy makers and for issues related to climate change

the impact of changes in common property resource management on intrahousehold allocation abstract in developing countries common property resources cprs can be an important source of income for certain individuals within households this paper demonstrates that if changes in the management of cprs impose fixed costs on them or cause a decline in the prices of goods produced from it the intrahousehold allocation of resources may alter in a manner detrimental to those individuals the paper also shows that the assumption of a unitary household model causes the detrimental effects of certain cpr policy interventions to be overlooked although the model is narrowly conceived the results can be generalised to examples where households have members who specialise in different economic activities outside the home

persistence mean reversion and non linearities in emissions evidence from the brics and g7 countries the ministerio de economia y competitividad eco2014 55236 juncal cunado gratefully acknowledges financial support from the ministerio de economia y competitividad eco2014 55496

club convergence in carbon dioxide emissions we examine convergence in carbon dioxide emissions among 128 countries for the period 1960 2003 by means of a new methodology introduced by phillips and sul econometrica 75 6 1771 1855 2007a contrary to previous studies our approach allows us to examine for evidence of club convergence i e identify groups of countries that converge to different equilibria our results suggest convergence in per capita co2 emissions among all the countries under scrutiny in the early years of our sample however there seem to be two separate convergence clubs in the recent era that converge to different steady states interestingly we also find evidence of transitioning between the two convergence clubs suggesting either a slow convergence between the two clubs or a tendency for some countries to move from one convergence club to the other

a club convergence analysis of per capita energy consumption across australian regions and sectors we examine convergence in per capita energy consumption across nine sectors and seven states and territories in australia over the period 19902016 using the phillips sul club convergence approach we find evidence of multiple convergence clubs for aggregate energy consumption per capita and for energy consumption per capita in eight of the nine sectors with full club convergence in the case of electricity the presence of multiple equilibria for most sectors reflect that states with similar features in terms of climate economic activities and population size among others tend to exhibit similar energy consumption patterns our results highlight the need to tailor policies designed to reduce energy consumption in specific sectors to the consumption convergence paths unique to particular clusters of states

non hbox co _2 co 2 generating energy shares in the world cross country differences and polarization the aim of this paper is to examine the spatial distribution of non hbox co 2 generating energy sources in the world for the period 1990 2009 paying special attention to the evolution of cross country disparities to this end after carrying out a classical convergence analysis a more thorough investigation of the entire distribution is presented by examining its external shape the intra distribution dynamics and the long run equilibrium distribution this analysis reveals the existence of a weak rather insignificant convergence process and that large cross country differences are likely to persist in the long run next as polarization indicators are a proper way of appraising potential conflict in international environmental negotiations we test whether or not the distribution dynamics concurs with the presence of polarization our results indicate that two poles can be clearly differentiated one with high and other with low non hbox co 2 generating energy shares in view of these findings and to ensure a fair transition to a sustainable energy system the paper calls for the development of an ambitious clean energy agenda especially in countries with low non hbox co 2 generating energy shares

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

testing for convergence in carbon dioxide emissions using a bayesian robust structural model we address international convergence in carbon dioxide emissions per capita and per value added derived from emission inventories based on production and consumption patterns we propose a bayesian structural model that accounts for heteroscedasticity and endogeneity between emissions and economic growth and tests for the existence of group specific convergence via shrinkage priors we find evidence for country specific conditional convergence in all emission inventories implying a half life of 2 7 3 1 years for production based emissions and 3 6 4 7 years for consumption based emissions when testing for global convergence without allowing for individual specific convergence paths the half life of hbox co 2 per capita increases to 15 26 years whereas emission intensities show a half life of 44 45 years our results highlight the current incompatibility between emission targets and economic growth and the need for faster diffusion of green technologies moreover there is no evidence for specific convergence dynamics in the european union the oecd or the countries that are subject to binding emission constraints specified in the kyoto protocol the institutional frameworks implemented in industrialized countries did not induce faster convergence among developed economies

gender differentials in farm productivity implications for household efficiency and agricultural policy abstract within many african households agricultural production is simultaneously carried out on many plots controlled by different members of the household detailed plot level agronomic data from burkina faso provides striking evidence of substantial inefficiencies in the allocation of factors of production across the plots controlled by different members of the household production function estimates imply that the value of household output could be increased by 10 15 by reallocating currently used factors of production across plots this finding contradicts standard models of agricultural households a richer model of behaviour which recognizes that the individuals who comprise a household compete as well as co operate has important implications for the structure of agricultural production and for the design of agricultural policy

convergence of per capita co2 emissions across the globe insights via wavelet analysis abstract this paper examines the convergence of per capita carbon dioxide co2 emissions for 162 countries across the globe covering all income groups high income oecd high income non oecd middle income and low income countries as categorized by the world bank the incidence of stochastic convergence is analysed by making use of recently developed wavelet based unit root tests the existing studies on this subject make use of conventional unit root tests using time series and or panel data a serious drawback of these tests is that they analyse the stochastic behaviour of any series in time domain only whereas the stochastic process may behave differently across different frequencies as well thus wavelet methods are an obvious solution as they consider frequency dimension as well in addition to time dimension when analyzing the stochastic behaviour of any data series and hence these methods encompass the conventional unit root testing methodologies by providing a clear and complete picture of the stochastic process our empirical findings based on latest available time series annual data from 1960 to 2010 lend support in favor of convergence among 38 countries including 18 high income oecd countries 2 high income non oecd countries 13 middle income countries and 5 low income countries while for the rest of 124 countries the co2 emission series is found to be non stationary suggesting the divergence in these countries these findings are in contrast with the most of the existing studies which may be due to the use of wavelet based unit root tests that are of course better alternatives some policy implications evolve from the empirical findings

divergence in technical efficiency of electric utilities evidence from the sapp abstract this paper investigates the convergence pattern of technical efficiency of the south africa power pool sapp utilities over the period april 2003 march 2010 by means of parametric and non parametric techniques technical efficiency scores are computed via both stochastic frontier analysis and data envelopment analysis mixed results are obtained from the neoclassical convergence approaches in addition distribution dynamics methods reveal some evidence of club formation and this result is supported with the occurrence of divergence taken as a whole technical efficiency is found to diverge among the utilities operating in the power pool

examining the link between carbon dioxide emissions and the share of industry in gdp modeling and testing for the g 7 countries abstract in this paper the relationship between per capita co 2 emissions and the share of industrial value added in gross domestic product gdp for the g 7 countries is discussed using a novel approach it is assumed that per capita co 2 emissions are correspondent to the share of industrial value added in gdp a model is developed using hidden markov process to search this initial assumption in the model the data for industrial share in gdp are assigned to be the observations while the data for per capita co 2 emissions represent the hidden process which may be then predicted using the ratio of industrial value added to gdp the data set covers the period from 1970 to 2008 and the model is tested for the g 7 countries the study findings show that except in the case of canada the hidden markov model performs reasonably well in tracking per capita co 2 emissions the study results provide also a basis for a number of policy implications

oil consumption and economic efficiency a comparative analysis of advanced developing and emerging economies abstract this paper investigates the economic efficiency oil consumption relationship in 42 countries during the period 1986 2006 in a first stage by using dea window analysis countries economic efficiencies are obtained in a second stage an econometric analysis based on robust gmm estimators reveals an inverted u shape relationship between oil consumption and economic efficiency in order to capture heterogeneities among countries development stages the analysis has been separated into two groups advanced economies and developing emerging economies the results show that advanced economies have much higher turning points compared to emerging and developing economies it appears that oil consumption increases countries economic efficiency in addition the consumption patterns of oil products and its derivatives have changed through years and among countries the different turning points from the econometric analysis indicate the dependence of oil consumption in advanced economies higher turning points is driven mainly by household purchasing activities and their standards of living transport housing and water food etc finally it appears that oil consumption is the main driver behind the progress of industrialization and urbanization regardless of the country s development stage

oil exploitation and the environmental kuznets curve abstract this study refers to a panel estimation of an environmental kuznets curve ekc for oil to determine the factors most affecting oil exploitation in 38 oil producing countries during 1990 2000 control variables such as oil reserves oil price population political rights and the gini index were used to determine its contribution to the main ekc model the empirical results fully support the existence of an ekc for oil exploitation furthermore the result indicates that the proved oil reserves has a significant and positive role in oil production but oil price and population do not significantly affect crude oil production also increased freedoms and a better income distribution will reduce the rate of oil exploitation thus policies aiming at enhancing democratic society and better income distribution would be more compatible with sustainability

are urban poverty and undernutrition growing some newly assembled evidence abstract the population of the developing world is becoming more urban are poverty and undernutrition beginning to relocate to urban areas as well we use survey data on poverty from eight countries and on child undernutrition from 14 countries to address this question using data from the past 15 20 years we find that in a majority of countries the absolute number of poor and undernourished individuals living in urban areas has increased as has the share of overall poverty and undernourishment coming from urban areas given these trends and the current stock of knowledge as to the levels determinants and solutions to urban poverty and undernutrition we argue for more research on these issues

measuring food insecurity the frequency and severity of coping strategies abstract defining and interpreting food security and measuring it in reliable valid and cost effective ways have proven to be stubborn problems facing researchers and programs intended to monitor food security risks this paper briefly reviews the conceptual and methodological literature on food insecurity measurment describes a particular method for distinguishing and measuring short term food insecurity at the household level and discusses ways of generalizing the method the method developed enumerates the frequency and severity of strategies relied on by urban households when faced with a short term insufficiency of food this method goes beyond more commonly used measures of caloric consumption to incorporate vulnerability elements of food insecurity as well as the deliberate actions of household decision makers when faced with food insufficiency

convergence in carbon dioxide emissions among industrialised countries revisited this paper examines the existence of stochastic and deterministic convergence of carbon dioxide co2 emissions in 23 countries over the period 1960 2002 for that purpose we conduct unit root testing by employing the recently developed panel stationarity test of carrion i silvestre et al carrion i silvestre j l del barrio castro t lopez bazo e 2005 breaking the panels an application to the gdp per capita econometrics journal 8 159 175 which assumes a highly flexible trend function by incorporating an unknown number of structural breaks we accommodate general forms of cross sectional dependence as well as control for finite sample bias through bootstrap methods overall our analysis provides strong evidence supporting both stochastic and deterministic convergence in co2 emissions thus confirming strazicich and list strazicich m c list j a 2003 are co2 emission levels converging among industrial countries environmental and resource economics 24 263 271 and westerlund and basher westerlund j basher s a 2007 testing for convergence in carbon dioxide emissions using a century of panel data environmental and resource economics forthcoming findings of convergence

project evaluation for sustainable rural development plan sierra in the dominican republic abstract a methodology of project appraisal combining the criteria of economic feasibility acceptability and sustainability is developed and applied to plan sierra a watershed development project in the dominican republic feasibility is measured by the change in sustainable income due to the project acceptability by the change in average annual income for the present generation and sustainability by the difference between changes in sustainable and charges in average annual incomes these three criteria may be achieved by schemes of tax and subsidy between project and non project households and between present and future generations

convergence of per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the eu legend or reality abstract designing appropriate environmental and energy policies in order to meet the kyoto protocol s carbon dioxide co 2 reduction targets in the european union eu requires a detailed examination and thorough understanding of co 2 emission trends across the eu member states this paper investigates whether co 2 emissions have converged across 22 european countries over the 1971 to 2006 period the bayesian shrinkage estimation method is employed to do this work and the results reveal the following first the hypothesis of absolute convergence in per capita co 2 emissions is supported and a slight upward convergence is observed second the fact that countries differ considerably in both their speed of convergence and volatility in emissions makes it possible to identify different groups of countries third the results with respect to convergence do not vary much once the share of industry in gdp is accounted for in a conditional convergence analysis however a decreasing share of industry in gdp seems to contribute to a decline in per capita emissions these findings may carry important implications for both national and eu environmental policies

the case for methodological pluralism abstract ecology and economics share the same greek root both address complex systems ecology consists of numerous approaches to understanding natural systems energetics population biology food web models hierarchy theory to mention just a few within ecology field knowledge and the reporting of new observations are well respected economics on the other hand is dominated by one pattern of thinking and standard of proof the market model and econometrics within economics field knowledge and observations per se are little valued agreement on a correct method is frequently taken as an indication of the maturity of a science the argument is developed in this paper that all the aspects of complex systems can only be understood through multiple methodologies the agreement on method within economics however seems to reflect stronger pressures within the discipline for conformity than for truth relative to ecology since ecological economics seeks to understand a larger system than either economics or ecology seeks to understand a diversity of methodologies is appropriate and pressures to eliminate methodologies for the sake of conformity should be avoided

stochastic convergence in per capita co2 emissions evidence from emerging economies 1921 2014 abstract we employ the recently developed lm and rals lm unit root tests that allow for endogenously determined structural breaks to study stochastic convergence in relative per capita co2 emissions over the period 1921 to 2014 for a balanced panel of emerging market economies the results provide mixed evidence of the presence of stochastic convergence in particular stochastic convergence is achieved for eleven out of the seventeen countries under investigation this implies that the energy regulatory framework in these countries needs to be revaluated in order to reduce the carbon footprint to further comprehend the factors behind the observed disparities in emission stability we analyse the determinants of the identified groups an examination of the determinants of the observed behaviour in relative per capita co2 emissions reveal that income population financial development and trade are significant drivers with trade predominantly playing a larger role in emission growth also weak evidence is found in terms of a catching up effect in the growth of relative per capita co2 emissions

have air pollutant emissions converged among u s regions evidence from unit root tests previous studies of income distribution have found evidence indicating that incomes across u s regions have converged supporting the prediction of the neoclassical growth model a potential shortcoming in these studies is that only one measure of well being is considered a measure of wealth linked to incomes or production this paper examines whether income convergence was accompanied by air pollutant emission convergence results from unit root tests provide some evidence that indicators of environmental quality have converged across u s regions during the 1929 1994 period

premiums to employment in larger establishments evidence from peru abstract examination of the employer size wage effect for males in urban peru suggests the following higher wages in larger establishments do not merely compensate for higher worker quality or inferior working conditions size differences in the use of rising wage tenure profiles cannot provide a market clearing explanation for the employer size wage effect unless workers are extremely impatient thus larger employers appear to pay premiums unionization explains none of the premiums and minimum wage compliance explains at best a small fraction shirking based efficiency wage explanations for premiums are implausible because peruvian job security legislation greatly inhibits dismissals in larger establishments explanations meriting further research involve the use of high wages to reduce turnover and to improve productivity enhancing morale

capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development an indicator of weak sustainability the measurement of sustainable development is not without considerable difficulties yet this should not detract from the positive advances that can be made in this direction in this paper we present one form that a weak sustainability indicator can take derived from a simple but intuitive savings rule it incorporates the idea that the level of overall capital stock should be non decreasing although subject to qualification at this stage some interesting results emerge from the application of the rule to 18 countries

carbon intensity and economic development 1962 1991 a brief exploration of the environmental kuznets curve the relationship between national carbon dioxide emissions intensity co2 emitted per unit of gross domestic product and level of economic development has changed from essentially linear in 1962 to strongly curvilinear in 1991 the inverted u curve reached statistical significance briefly in the early 1970s and increasingly since 1982 this is the result not of groups of countries passing through stages of development but of efficiency improvements in a small number of wealthy countries combined with worse performance in poor and middle income countries the curvilinear relation is deepening and is likely to persist due to constraints on poorer countries in the world economy

project analysis and the world bank the world bank has been the single most important international institution to promote the practice of professional project appraisal over the past five decades although at times conventional project lending has been a relatively small share of total lending by the world bank key members of the bank staff have continued to be active in improving the understanding of what creates success or failure in the performance of development projects their influence on governments and practitioners in this field has been significant and widespread this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

social security and private transfers in developing countries the case of peru do social security systems crowd out private transfers from younger to older generations this question has generated much theoretical discussion but little empirical work exists to confirm or refute this crowding out hypothesis we investigate the connection between social security and private transfers in peru using the peruvian living standards survey and find that private transfers from young to old would have been nearly 20 percent higher without social security benefits this indicates that the peruvian social security system is less effective at delivering benefits to the elderly than a simple assignment of government expenditures would suggest social security s displacement of private transfers while significant is less than that predicted by models with widespread altruistic transfers

divergence in state level per capita carbon dioxide emissions this paper addresses the question of whether income convergence is sufficient for per capita carbon dioxide co2 emissions convergence by focusing on a set of advanced economies the u s states i undertake a variety of cross sectional and stochastic convergence tests with two novel measures of 1960 to 1999 state level co2 emissions per capita production pre electricity trade co2 and consumption post electricity trade co2 and with income per capita although incomes continue to converge i find stark divergence in production co2 per capita and no evidence of convergence for consumption co2 per capita forecasts of future distributions show little convergence in emissions

quantifying the external cost of oil consumption within the context of sustainable development the concept of sustainability implies that the flow of services derived from the use of natural capital must be constant over time and should be obtained at a constant price for a depletable resource such as oil the future generations are highly impacted due to the consumption behavior of the current generation since the ultimate oil stock within the earth declines with cumulative consumption excessive consumption of oil now reduces the availability of oil for future needs moreover since oil reserves are normally extracted in the order of ascending cost and descending quality excessive consumption of relatively high quality cheap oil reserves by the current generation raises the cost at which future generations can meet their needs of oil and hence imposes an external cost on the future generations this study aims to quantify the external cost of consuming a barrel of oil within the context of sustainable development an option pricing model is developed to quantify this external cost assuming that the external cost of consuming a barrel of oil now equals the value of the option to get a barrel of oil in the future at the same current cost then the total cost of consuming a barrel of oil now that should be used in lifecycle costing to design more sustainable products is the summation of the oil price and the external cost

motives for private transfers over the life cycle an analytical framework and evidence for peru abstract this paper tests for the motives for private income transfers we consider two motives altruism and exchange the question of private transfer motives is important because such motivation can influence the effects of public income transfers on the distribution of income using a household survey for peru we find that transfer amounts received increase with recipient pre transfer income which contradicts a key prediction of the strong form of the altruism hypothesis but is consistent with exchange we also find that capital market imperfections are likely to be an important cause of private transfers and that social security benefits crowd out the incidence of private transfers

decomposing inequality in energy related co2 emissions by source and source increment the roles of production and residential consumption abstract using provincial data on energy related co2 emissions in china from 1997 to 2014 and the co2 emission gini coefficient ceg this study evaluates china s spatial inequality in energy related co2 emissions further we decompose this inequality and its variation from the perspectives of production and residential energy consumption using the source decomposition and source increment decomposition methods this paper presents a new ceg source increment decomposition method that can achieve complete decomposition the results reveal a downward trend in china s overall production sector and residential sector co2 emissions inequality although the gini coefficient of co2 emissions from the residential sector is larger than that from the production sector the contribution of the latter to the overall ceg is higher the impacts of the spatial inequality of co2 emissions from china s production and residential sectors depend on the type of energy the concentration effect is the primary factor responsible for inducing changes in china s overall and production sector co2 emissions inequality but it is not the only dominant factor for the residential sector co2 emissions inequality

international ecological footprint inequality a methodological review and some results scarcities of environmental services are no longer merely a remote hypothesis consequently analysis of their inequalities between nations becomes of paramount importance for the achievement of sustainability this paper aims on the one hand at revising methodological aspects of the inequality measurement of certain environmental data and on the other at extending the scarce empirical evidence relating to the international distribution of ecological footprint ef most of the techniques currently important in the literature are revised and then tested on ef data with interesting results we consider the underlying properties of different inequality indices those indices which fit best with environmental inequality measurements are cv 2 and ge 2 because of their neutrality property subgroup and source decompositions are also discussed from a methodological perspective empirically this paper contributes to the environmental inequality measurement of ef this inequality has been quite stable subgroup decomposition by using exogenous country groups world bank classification conclude that between group inequality explains almost the totality of international ef inequality source decomposition warns of the dangers of confining co 2 emissions reduction to crop based energies because of the implications for basic needs satisfaction

are co2 emission levels converging among industrial countries time paths of carbon dioxide emissions intwenty one industrial countries are examinedfrom 1960 1997 to test for stochastic andconditional convergence both panel unit roottests and cross section regressions areperformed overall we find significantevidence that co2 emissions haveconverged

the building blocks of international ecological footprint inequality a regression based decomposition this paper carries out an empirical decomposition of international inequality in the ecological footprint with a view to quantifying the extent of the contribution of explanatory variables such as countries affluence economic structure demographic characteristics climate and technology using data for the period 1993 2007 the regression based inequality decomposition methodology we use allows us to extend the results obtained in standard environmental impact regressions stirpat models and to deal with an often neglected aspect of such models that of equity within generations the results obtained point towards the prioritization of policies which take into account both future and present generations in this regard economic redistribution should be considered as a primary environmental policy

is the environmental performance of industrialized countries converging a sure approach to testing for convergence abstract in this paper we test for convergence in the environmental performance of a sample of oecd countries with data ranging from 1971 to 2002 first we use data envelopment analysis dea to compute two environmental performance indicators epis in the production theory framework second we propose the use of a sequential multivariate approach to test for convergence in environmental performance these tests allow us to reconcile the time series literature with the cross sectional dimension which is basic when testing for convergence in regional blocs the sure technique is used which allows for the existence of correlations across the series without imposing a common speed of mean reversion the empirical results show that the group of countries as a whole as well as the majority of countries considered on an individual basis results for some countries vary between epis are catching up with switzerland the benchmark country

searching for a kuznets curve in environmental efficiency using kernel estimation abstract the paper constructs environmental efficiency indexes for a sample consisting of high and low income countries using nonparametric production frontier techniques and then establishes an environmental kuznets relationship for environmental efficiency by nadaraya watson kernel estimation methodology

income and co2 emissions evidence from panel unit root and cointegration tests abstract this paper re investigates the stationarity properties of per capita carbon dioxide co 2 emissions and real gross domestic product gdp per capita for 109 countries within seven regional panel sets covering 1971 2003 we apply the recent unit root test of the panel seemingly unrelated regressions augmented dickey fuller suradf test developed by breuer et al 2001 misleading inferences from panel unit root tests with an illustration from purchasing power parity review of international economics 9 482 493 2002 series specific unit root tests with panel data oxford bulletin of economics and statistics 64 527 546 the panel suradf test accounts for the presence of cross country correlations in the data and the parameters in the panel specification vary across countries more importantly this test allows us to identify how many and which members of the panel contain a unit root overall our empirical results illustrate that real gdp and co 2 emissions in these countries are a mixture of i 0 and i 1 processes and that the traditional panel unit root tests could lead to misleading inferences as well as the conduct of cointegration analysis being perhaps inappropriate the results of our analysis carry critical implications for the modeling of co 2 emissions and gdp because of the different orders of integration for the two variables

resource depletion and sustainability in small open economies abstract exogenous price changes affect the amount that a small country exporting natural resource commodities must invest to sustain its consumption level the necessary amount is given by the difference between hotelling rent and the discounted sum of future terms of trade effects capital gains the latter term is found to be large relative to the former in the case of petroleum depletion in indonesia this suggests that resource rich countries will need to invest more than previously expected to sustain their consumption levels if natural resource prices continue their long term historical decline

the causal factors of international inequality in hbox co _ 2 emissions per capita a regression based inequality decomposition analysis this paper uses the possibilities provided by the regression based inequality decomposition fields in res labor econ 22 1 38 2003 to explore the contribution of different explanatory factors to international inequality in hbox co 2 emissions per capita in contrast to previous emissions inequality decompositions which were based on identity relationships this methodology does not impose any a priori specific relationship thus it allows an assessment of the contribution to inequality of different relevant variables in short the paper appraises the relative contributions of affluence sectoral composition demographic factors and climate the analysis is applied to selected years of the period 1993 2007 the results show the important though decreasing share of the contribution of demographic factors as well as a significant contribution of affluence and sectoral composition

dynamics and drivers of per capita co2 emissions in asia abstract the aim of this paper is to document recent trends in asia s co2 emissions and explore the mechanisms that drive those emissions for fourteen countries over the period 1971 to 2017 we apply a sequential method which has a strong relationship to policy indicators first an analysis of the dynamics is undertaken to identify if convergence is occurring followed by a study of the determinants of those dynamics this approach overcomes some of the limitations of previous work analyzing emission convergence by focusing on country specific characteristics such as energy mix and energy efficiency the analysis reveals per capita co2 emissions energy intensity carbonization and per capita incomes are slowly converging over the full sample yet this behavior is not uniform there were differences in transition paths prior to and after the asian financial crisis the per capita income driver was the most important driver in explaining the dynamics and variation of emissions while carbonization and energy intensity drivers were less pronounced the analysis reveals that the energy needs of the region s extraordinary economic growth favored fossil fuels and a surprising revelation is that despite having different per capita income levels china korea and vietnam all share a common convergence path this paper provides further evidence against using carbon intensity solely as a target for climate policy

distribution dynamics of co2 emissions this paper uses nonparametric methods to examine the convergence in co2 emissions per capita on a sample of 100 countries for the period 1966 1996 industrial countries show a convergence pattern however there is little evidence of convergence for the whole sample

convergence of carbon dioxide performance across swedish industrial sectors an environmental index approach the overall objective of the paper is to analyze convergence of co2 emission intensity across manufacturing sectors in sweden our approach differs from previous work on carbon convergence in that

convergence of per capita sulphur dioxide emissions across us states this study examines the stochastic conditional convergence of sulphur dioxide so2 emissions using the residual augmented least squares lagrange multiplier rals lm unit root test with structural breaks this procedure allows the data to account for trend breaks and nonnormal errors that have been ignored or deemphasized in previous studies the study finds that per capita sulphur dioxide emissions exhibits stochastic conditional convergence across us states

co fluctuation patterns of per capita carbon dioxide emissions the role of energy markets abstract this paper applies principal component analysis to investigate the linkages or dominant co fluctuation patterns of per capita carbon dioxide emissions across countries for the time period 1950 2000 energy resource world markets are investigated as an offsetting mechanism possibly coordinating emission fluctuations between countries the results of the analysis provide evidence that world energy resource markets are acting as a coordinating mechanism for emission fluctuations in most cases the results also suggest that until recently the dominant emission co fluctuation pattern for developed countries differs from the dominant emission co fluctuation pattern for developing countries the common fluctuation pattern found in the 1984 2000 time period suggests that an offsetting mechanism does exist and will help contain global per capita emissions into the future the strong degree that emissions are linked between countries and energy markets acting as an offsetting mechanism suggests that to be successful a global agreement to address climate change must require emission reductions by all major emitters not just the developed countries

growth and pollution convergence theory and evidence stabilizing pollution levels in the long run is a pre requisite for sustainable growth we develop a neoclassical growth model with endogenous emission reduction predicting that along optimal sustainable paths pollution growth rates are i positively related to output growth scale effect and ii negatively related to emission levels defensive effect this dynamic law reduces to a convergence equation that is empirically tested for two major and regulated air pollutants sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides with a panel of 25 european countries spanning the years 1980 2005 traditional parametric models are rejected by the data more flexible regression techniques confirm the existence of both the scale and the defensive effect supporting the model predictions

working women in an urban setting traders vendors and food security in accra abstract data collected from a 1997 household survey carried out in accra ghana are used to look at the crucial role that women play as income earners and securing access to food in urban areas one third of the households surveyed are headed by women for all households women s labor force participation is high with 75 of all households having at least one working woman the high number of female headed households and the large percentage of working women in the sample provide a good backdrop for looking at how women earn and spend income differently than men in an urban area livelihood strategies for both men and women are predominantly labor based and dependent on social networks for all households in the sample food is still the single most important item in the total budget yet important and striking differences between men s and women s livelihoods and expenditure patterns exist compared to men women are less likely to be employed as wage earners and more likely to work as street food vendors or petty traders women earn lower incomes but tend to allocate more of their budget to basic goods for themselves and their children while men spend more on entertainment for themselves only despite lower incomes and additional demands on their time as housewives and mothers female headed households petty traders and street food vendors have the largest percentage of food secure households women may be achieving household food security but at what cost this paper explores differences in income expenditure and consumption patterns in an effort to answer this question and suggests ways that urban planners and policy makers can address special concerns to working women in urban areas

global convergence in per capita co2 emissions national social science foundation of china 12zd059 ministry of education 10gbj013 new huadu business school research fund

a nonparametric analysis of income convergence across the us states abstract in this paper i apply the nonparametric methods proposed by quah to data on us state relative income levels in contrast to quah s results using cross country data i find no evidence of polarization in the cross state income distribution the long run density implied by the estimates is strongly unimodal this finding is consistent with the results of previous analyses of convergence in state income levels using other methods

market access by smallholder farmers in malawi implications for technology adoption agricultural productivity and crop income abstract in malawi maize is the major crop and food staple given limited off farm employment opportunities much needed increases in household income for improving food security must come from gains in agricultural productivity through better technology and more profitable crops in the past hybrid maize and more recently tobacco were promoted by policy for increasing smallholder income an analysis of determinants of adoption of these two crops and related income effects is presented apart from factor endowment and exposure to agroecological risks differences in the household s access to financial and commodity markets significantly influence its cropping shares and farm income