stabilization policy a reconsideration i introduction in 1936 keynes s general theory explained how fiscal and monetary policy could be used to end depressions since that time no developed country has ever seen a downturn on the scale of the 1930s the general theory was not just a how to book on the avoidance of depressions it was an argument for stabilization policy itself the years since the general theory have seen a revolt against keynesian economics in a revisionist mode milton friedman argued that countercyclical policy cannot affect the average level of unemployment and output robert lucas and thomas sargent 1979 went further contending that it is not only impossible to increase average output it is also impossible to stabilize it more recently lucas 1987 2003 has argued that policies to stabilize output even if effective would yield negligible welfare gains thus stabilization policy should not be a macroeconomic priority lucas s conclusion notwithstanding stabilization policy has long been an explicit or implicit objective of monetary policy in most industrial countries even including those countries with inflation targets the volatility of output has in fact declined in most major industrial countries since the mid 1980s and monetary policy arguably deserves at least partial credit see bernanke 2004 mirroring practice monetary policy research commonly takes it as given that along with price stability stabilization policy the minimization of squared deviations of output around potential is an appropriate policy objective see for example clarida et al 1999 in this article we explore the economic rationale for stabilization as a policy goal concluding that it does in fact deserve high policy priority we survey a large body of literature that critiques the validity of key assumptions in lucas s argument we also offer suggestive evidence that stabilization policy can significantly reduce average levels of unemployment by providing stimulus to demand in circumstances where unemployment is high but underutilization of labor and capital does little to lower inflation a monetary policy that vigorously fights high unemployment should however also be complemented by a policy that equally vigorously fights inflation when it rises above a modest target level the federal reserve act thus wisely enunciated price stability and maximum employment as twin goals for monetary policy ii the case against stabilization policy macroeconomic analysis typically assumes that social welfare depends negatively on both inflation above a modest target level here assumed zero and unemployment above some minimum socially efficient level for example a standard social welfare function is the discounted sum of period losses l sub t of the form see among others barro and gordon 1983 pp 592 93 1 l sub t a u sub t 1 k u sup 2 b pi sup 2 sub t where u sub t and pi sub t are the unemployment and inflation rates in period t and u sup is the natural rate of unemployment the coefficient k is positive reflecting the desirability of unemployment below the natural rate because real economies deviate in many respects from perfect competition the natural rate of unemployment is likely to exceed the socially optimal unemployment rate for example with monopolistic competition goods are underproduced because they are priced above marginal cost so potential output is inefficiently low and equilibrium unemployment is too high standard macroeconomic analysis additionally assumes that inflation is determined by an expectations augmented accelerationist phillips curve of the form 2 pi sub t pi sup e sub t f u sub t u sup epsilon sub t where pi sup e sub t is the expected inflation rate at time t with expectations formed at t 1 and epsilon sub t captures supply shocks to the phillips curve at t

measuring ecological efficiency with data envelopment analysis dea abstract the measurement of ecological efficiency provides some important information for the companies environmental management ecological efficiency is usually measured by comparing environmental performance indicators data envelopment analysis dea shows a high potential to support such comparisons as no explicit weights are needed to aggregate the indicators in general dea assumes that inputs and outputs are goods but from an ecological perspective also bads have to be considered in the literature bads are treated in different and sometimes arbitrarily chosen ways this article aims at the systematic derivation of ecologically extended dea models starting from the assumptions of dea in production theory and activity analysis a generalisation of basic dea models is derived by incorporating a multi dimensional value function f extended preference structures can be considered by different specifications of f e g specifications for ecologically motivated applications of dea

a developing asia emission trading scheme asia ets abstract this paper provides a model assessment of the role of developing asia in the context of climate change policies we diagnose the potential response of asian economies to the imposition of various climate policies showing that if we were to equally price carbon across the world roughly half of the abatement would occur in developing asia we show that such autarkic measures would be consistent with the policy targets put forward by the major economies forum but would not necessarily be equitable we thus propose a fragmented cap and trade scheme with a specific regional market for developing asia the asian emission trading scheme asia ets we assess the role of the asia ets on the macro economy and international transfers vis a vis the standard case of global trading our results indicate that creating two large trading markets would result in small global efficiency losses while at the same time generating more reasonable regional incentives and transfers

a multi model study of energy supply investments in latin america under climate control policy in this paper we investigate energy supply investment requirements in latin america until 2050 through a multi model approach as jointly applied in the climacap lamp research project we compare a business as usual scenario needed to satisfy anticipated future energy demand with a set of scenarios that aim to significantly reduce co2 emissions in the region we find that more than a doubling of annual investments in absolute terms occurs in the business as usual scenario between 2010 and 2050 while investments may treble over the same time horizon when climate policies are introduced investment costs as share of gdp however decline over time in the business as usual scenario as well as the climate policy scenarios as a result of the fast economic growth of the region in the business as usual scenario cumulative investments of 1 4 trillion us are anticipated between 2010 and 2050 in electricity supply these investments increase when additional climate policies are introduced under a carbon tax of 50 tco2e in 2020 growing with a rate of 4 yr an additional 0 6 trillion us 45 of cumulative investment is needed climate control measures lead to increased investment in low carbon electricity technologies primarily based on wind and solar resources as well as ccs applied to fossil fuels and biomass our analysis suggests that in comparison to the business as usual case an average additional 21 billion us yr of electricity supply investment is required in latin america until 2050 under a climate policy aiming at 2 c climate stabilisation conversely there is a disinvestment in fossil fuel extraction and transformation for oil production a growth to 130 billion us annual investment by 2050 is anticipated in a business as usual scenario ambitious climate policy reduces this to 28 billion us mobilising the necessary additional investment capital in particular for low carbon energy technologies will be a challenge suitable frameworks and enabling environments for a scale up of public and private investment will be critical to help reach the required low carbon energy deployment levels

on the relationship between firm size and export intensity export marketing literature supports the view that firm size is positively related to export intensity although the empirical findings have been mixed a number of theoretical arguments are used to support this proposition i e international marketing economies of scale limited managerial and financial resources of small firms decisionmaker s risk perception based on a large survey of the italian manufacturing industry the article falsifies the proposition and challenges some widely held assumptions in export marketing literature

emissions reduction scenarios in the argentinean energy sector in this paper the leap tiam ecn and gcam models were applied to evaluate the impact of a variety of climate change control policies including carbon pricing and emission constraints relative to a base year on primary energy consumption final energy consumption electricity sector development and co2 emission savings of the energy sector in argentina over the 2010 2050 period the leap model results indicate that if argentina fully implements the most feasible mitigation measures currently under consideration by official bodies and key academic institutions on energy supply and demand such as the probiomass program a cumulative incremental economic cost of 22 8 billion us 2005 to 2050 is expected resulting in a 16 reduction in ghg emissions compared to a business as usual scenario these measures also bring economic co benefits such as a reduction of energy imports improving the balance of trade a low co2 price scenario in leap results in the replacement of coal by nuclear and wind energy in electricity expansion a high co2 price leverages additional investments in hydropower by way of cross model comparison with the tiam ecn and gcam global integrated assessment models significant variation in projected emissions reductions in the carbon price scenarios was observed which illustrates the inherent uncertainties associated with such long term projections these models predict approximately 37 and 94 reductions under the high co2 price scenario respectively by comparison the leap model using an approach based on the assessment of a limited set of mitigation options predicts an 11 3 reduction the main reasons for this difference include varying assumptions about technology cost and availability co2 storage capacity and the ability to import bioenergy an emission cap scenario 2050 emissions 20 lower than 2010 emissions is feasible by including such measures as ccs and bio ccs but at a significant cost in terms of technology pathways the models agree that fossil fuels in particular natural gas will remain an important part of the electricity mix in the core baseline scenario according to the models there is agreement that the introduction of a carbon price will lead to a decline in absolute and relative shares of aggregate fossil fuel generation however predictions vary as to the extent to which coal nuclear and renewable energy play a role

achieving co2 reductions in colombia effects of carbon taxes and abatement targets in this paper we investigate co2 emission scenarios for colombia and the effects of implementing carbon taxes and abatement targets on the energy system by comparing baseline and policy scenario results from two integrated assessment partial equilibrium models tiam ecn and gcam and two general equilibrium models phoenix and meg4c we provide an indication of future developments and dynamics in the colombian energy system currently the carbon intensity of the energy system in colombia is low compared to other countries in latin america however this trend may change given the projected rapid growth of the economy and the potential increase in the use of carbon based technologies climate policy in colombia is under development and has yet to consider economic instruments such as taxes and abatement targets this paper shows how taxes or abatement targets can achieve significant co2 reductions in colombia though abatement may be achieved through different pathways taxes and targets promote the entry of cleaner energy sources into the market and reduce final energy demand through energy efficiency improvements and other demand side responses the electric power sector plays an important role in achieving co2 emission reductions in colombia through the increase of hydropower the introduction of wind technologies and the deployment of biomass coal and natural gas with co2 capture and storage ccs uncertainty over the prevailing mitigation pathway reinforces the importance of climate policy to guide sectors toward low carbon technologies this paper also assesses the economy wide implications of mitigation policies such as potential losses in gdp and consumption an assessment of the legal institutional social and environmental barriers to economy wide mitigation policies is critical yet beyond the scope of this paper

methods for including income distribution in global cge models for long term climate change research abstract the consequences of climate policy and the impacts of climate change vary among different types of households depending on their income level expenditure pattern and other socioeconomic characteristics global economy environment models that are used to assess climate change issues traditionally do not distinguish households by income or other attributes to facilitate progress in this area we review and assess literature on methods to include household heterogeneity in global long term computable general equilibrium cge models we distinguish among three categories of approaches 1 the explicit modeling of multiple household types within the cge framework 2 micro simulation modeling and 3 direct modeling of income distribution for each of these approaches we describe the method key assumptions limitations and several prominent examples from the literature moreover we discuss data needs including the contents of household survey data their availability and processing we conclude with an overview of what each method could provide for global long term climate related research

distributional implications of climate change in rural india a general equilibrium approach we develop a general equilibrium framework based on a specific factors trade model to quantify the medium term household welfare impacts of global warming in rural india using an hedonic approach grounded in the theory combined with detailed microdata we estimate that three decades of warming will reduce agricultural productivity in the range of 7 13 with the arid northwest of india especially hard hit our analysis shows that the proportional welfare cost of climate change is likely to be both modest and evenly distributed across percentiles of the per capita income distribution but this latter conclusion emerges only when the flexibility of rural wages is taken into account

efficiency evaluation and dynamic evolution of china s regional green economy a method based on the super pebm model and dea window analysis abstract given the current circumstances of increasingly serious resource consumption and environmental pollution the development of china s green economy will profoundly impact the nation s future economic prosperity and even global economic development based on panel data from 2008 to 2017 this paper measures the green economic efficiency gee of chinese regions and analyzes its dynamic evolution using time series based on a novel data envelopment analysis dea model using environmental dea techniques this paper introduces the super pebm ebm based on pearson correlation coefficient model which is developed from the epsilon based measure ebm model and combines super pebm with the window analysis method firstly environmental dea technology is used to analyze gee at the regional level in china secondly based on panel data the window analysis method is used to analyze the regional differences of china s regional gee finally the development trend of china s regional gee in different time windows is obtained by combining the super pebm model and window analysis the empirical analysis results using panel data for regions in china from 2008 to 2017 show that 1 the overall gee of china is slowly increasing and the regional differences are still significant and 2 the improvement of gee can help to reduce regional differences

downward nominal wage rigidity evidence from canada 1901 1950 this paper tests for the presence of downward nominal wage rigidity in canadian wage data for 26 occupations in 38 cities from the first half of the 20th century the sample is of particular interest as it contains periods with average inflation rates that are close to zero as well as two sharp deflations results from a variety of different tests indicate that wage change distributions are consistent with the presence of downward nominal wage rigidity however for two subsamples containing sharp declines in output and prices estimates of the extent of downward nominal wage rigidity are much lower this suggests that downwards adjustments did occur during times of severe depression and deflation

climate change policy in brazil and mexico results from the mit eppa model based on an in depth analysis of results from the mit economic projection and policy analysis eppa model of climate policies for brazil and mexico we demonstrate that commitments by mexico and brazil for 2020 made during the un climate meetings in copenhagen and cancun are reachable but they come at different costs for each country we find that brazil s commitments will be met through reduced deforestation and at no additional cost however mexico s pledges will cost 4 billion us dollars in terms of reduced gdp in 2020 we explore short and long term implications of several policy scenarios after 2020 considering current policy debates in both countries the comparative analysis of these two economies underscores the need for climate policy designed for the specific characteristics of each country accounting for variables such as natural resources and current economic structure our results also suggest that both brazil and mexico may face other environmental and economic impacts from stringent global climate policies affecting variables such as the value of energy resources in international trade

measuring macroeconomic performance in the oecd a comparison of european and non european countries abstract we study the macroeconomic performance of 19 oecd countries over the period 1970 1990 performance is defined in terms of the ability of a country s macroeconomic managers to provide four services to their citizens a high level of real gdp per capita a low rate of inflation a low rate of unemployment and a favorable trade balance we use linear programming techniques to construct a best practice macroeconomic performance frontier and to measure the performance of each country in each year relative to the frontier we then add two environmental disamenities carbon and nitrogen emissions to the service list and repeat the analysis to see if the performance rankings change throughout the analysis emphasis is placed on a comparison of the performance of 14 european oecd countries with that of five non european oecd countries we find that performance rankings do change and that the relative performance of the european countries declines when the environmental disamenities are added to the service list

autonomous efficiency improvement or income elasticity of energy demand does it matter observations of historical energy consumption energy prices and income growth in industrial economies exhibit a trend in improving energy efficiency even when prices are constant or falling two alternative explanations of this phenomenon are a productivity change that uses less energy and a structural change in the economy in response to rising income it is not possible to distinguish among these from aggregate data and economic energy models for forecasting emissions simulate one as an exogenous time trend or the other as energy demand elasticity with respect to income or both processes for projecting energy demand into the future in this paper we ask whether and how it matters which process one uses for projecting energy demand and carbon emissions we compare two versions of the mit emissions prediction and policy analysis eppa model one using a conventional efficiency time trend approach and the other using an income elasticity approach we demonstrate that while these two versions yield equivalent projections in the near term that they diverge in two important ways long run projections and under uncertainty in future productivity growth we suggest that an income dependent approach may be preferable to the exogenous approach

fiscal policy in an unemployment crisis this paper shows that large scal multipliers arise naturally from equilibrium unemployment dynamics in response to a shock that brings the economy into a liquidity trap an expansion in government spending increases output and causes a fall in the unemployment rate since movements in unemployment are persistent the eects of current spending linger into the future leading to an enduring rise in income as an enduring rise in income boosts private demand even a temporary increase in government spending sets in motion a virtuous employment spending spiral with a large associated multiplier this transmission mechanism contrasts with the conventional view in which scal policy may be ecacious only under a prolonged and committed rise in government spending which engineers a spiral of increasing ination

evaluating environmental performance using data envelopment analysis the case of european countries abstract environmental efficiency is considered to be a critical pillar of sustainable development consequently improving environmental performance has aroused attention at both the local and global level this study evaluated the environmental performance of european union eu countries using the data envelopment analysis dea approach and the global malmquist luenberger index although literature using the dea approach to measure environmental performance exists this study s main contribution was considering different types of undesirable outputs and using long term panel data on eu countries in particular the dea window analysis technique was applied to evaluate the environmental performance of 27 eu countries in cross sectional and time varying data during the period 2000 2017 three dea models were examined labor capital and energy were used as common inputs with a combination of different outputs including gross domestic product carbon dioxide and particulate matter emissions and waste the empirical results revealed that the trends in the environmental performance of the entire eu and its individual countries were similar under all examined models environmental performance was indeed negatively affected by the financial crisis of 2007 2008 this impact was mainly observed in eastern eu countries furthermore both economic and environmental variables significantly influenced countries overall efficiency the analysis using the global malmquist luenberger index elucidated that overall eu countries experienced the efficiency improvement during the study period although fluctuations were observed these results enable countries and policymakers to understand their environmental performance identify strengths and weaknesses and set targets for further improvement based on the current best practices of comparable peers

firm size and efficiency in innovation comment on van dijk et al van dijk et al found different results for some variables explaining the large small firm innovation advantage in a number of acs and audretsch publications their own research adds to this variety however the differences van dijk et al found between the acs and audretsch studies can be largely attributed to specification and sample differences the same applies to the observed differences between acs and audretsch and van dijk et al

downscaling heterogeneous household outcomes in dynamic cge models for energy economic analysis abstract downscaling methods for dynamic computable general equilibrium models are developed and analyzed the methods produce outcomes for a variety of different household types by downscaling the aggregate quantities from an economic growth model with a representative household this approach uses household survey data and long term population projections for different household types to compare the performance of the downscaling methods vs a general equilibrium model with multiple household groups under a variety of conditions including demographic change technological change and a carbon tax both recursive dynamic and forward looking downscaling methods produce results that approximate well a multiple household model run the recursive dynamic downscaling method is applied to an illustrative example estimating impacts of a carbon tax on aggregate co 2 emissions and the energy demand of different household groups for a middle of the road development scenario

cost efficiency of electric grid utilities in china a comparison of estimates from sfa mle sfa bayes and stoned cnls with the purpose of estimating the range of cost efficiency levels of the power grid sector in china we assembled a data set including 23 provincial power grid companies spanning from 2005 to 2009 and conducted an empirical study based on the sfa mle sfa bayes and stoned cnls methodologies empirical results show that the average values of efficiency from different models vary from 0 85 to 0 92 depending especially on the assumptions underlying inefficiency content further results demonstrate that there is exogenous technical progress during the sample period and per capita gdp of the province is negatively related to the costs of the electric grid company located in the corresponding province we hope this empirical study will contribute to the debate on an efficiency based regulation scheme which was introduced to the chinese electric grid sector on a pilot base in 2014

relative wages efficiency wages and keynesian unemployment while modern economic theorists have produced a variety of explanations for the failure of wages to fall in the face of unemployment keynes emphasis on relative wages has not been reflected in most contemporary discussions this short paper suggests that relative wage theories in which workers productivity depends primarily on their relative wage provide the best available apparatus for understanding actual unemployment and its fluctuations such theories are very closely related to the efficiency wage theories that have received widespread attention in recent years this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

size age and firm growth in an infant industry the computer hardware industry in india abstract in contrast to the existing studies on the relationship of firm growth with size and age of the firm which typically focus on relatively mature industries in developed economies this study analyses firm growth patterns for an infant industry in a developing economy it is found that a age positively impacts growth which is the opposite of the result in previous studies b as in previous studies current size negatively impacts growth but the magnitude is much higher and c lagged size negatively impacts growth suggesting that fixed factors become a hindrance to growth in rapidly growing infant industries

nominal and real wage cyclicality during the interwar period although there have been numerous attempts to study the cyclicality of real wages in the u s no consensus has formed as to the implications of the various findings for business cycle theory this paper will demonstrate that separating the real wage into its nominal and price level components can shed new light on the interwar u s labor market more specifically we will show that an evolution from a relatively laissez faire labor market during the 1920s to a more highly regulated labor market during the 1930s may have resulted in a more countercyclical real wage rate if we could be certain that equilibrium business cycle models provided the correct specification of the labor market then interpretation of real wage cyclicality would be relatively straightforward during periods dominated by labor demand shocks real wages would move procyclically and during periods dominated by labor supply shocks real wages would move countercyclically in a disequilibrium model context however interpretation of real wage cyclicality is much more problematic if nominal wages are sticky then unanticipated price level changes can induce countercyclical real wage movements that mimic the real wage movements generated by shifts in the supply of labor perhaps the most famous and controversial example occurred during the first three years of the great depression when a massive decline in hours worked and production was associated with a sharp increase in the aggregate real wage rate see figure 1 even greater complexity results from governmental attempts to influence the aggregate nominal wage policies that attempt to artificially change the nominal wage rate can result in either procyclical or countercyclical real wages depending on whether the direct impact of changes in the price of labor on the quantity of labor demanded outweighs the impact of wage changes on aggregate demand and output separating the aggregate real wage rate into its nominal and price level components will allow us to discriminate between these two hypotheses if labor markets are correctly characterized by equilibrium models then the price level and real wage are determined independently and separating the real wage into its nominal and price

note ranking dmus with infeasible super efficiency dea models it has been suggested in the data envelopment analysis dea literature that it is impossible to obtain a full ranking of decision making units dmus when infeasible subproblems arise in the so called super efficiency dea models under different returns to scale rts assumptions other than constant returns to scale crs andconsequently the application of the super efficiency dea models under different rts conditions other than crs should be restricted the implications of the infeasibility in super efficiency dea models with respect to the efficiency ranking of the dmus is explored based on the analysis we show that it is still possible to obtain the full ranking of the entire observation set when infeasibilities arise in super efficiency dea models

real wages over the business cycle evidence from panel data one topic on which keynes did not disagree with classical economists was the cyclical behavior of real wages keynes 1936 as well as various classical writers predicted that real wages should move countercyclically quoting the general theory p 17 in general an increase in employment can only occur through the accompaniment of a decline in real wages thus i am not disputing this vital fact which the classical economists have rightly asserted as indefeasible this prediction is based on the premise of competition and a given short run capital stock increases in employment then correspond to more intensive use of capital and through diminishing product lower real wages for this reason evidence by dunlop 1938 and tarshis 1939 that real wages move procyclically was viewed as paradoxical both dunlop and tarshis based their findings on an observed positive correlation between real and money wages which given the procyclical movement of money wages implies a positive correlation between

share green growth regional evaluation of green output performance in china abstract reducing carbon emissions is much more difficult than reducing other pollutants through current technology promoting the efficiency of energy use and developing clean energy are the only two economically feasible approaches for the future however without low carbon technology pursuing green growth could negatively affect production activities in this study we develop a directional distance function ddf model based on the slacks of the output oriented slack based measure along an endogenously determined directional vector we can calculate the efficiency scores by reducing the undesirable output and expanding desirable output simultaneously the global malmquist index is integrated with the ddf model to capture the dynamic change of output performance based on the output performance of green growth we use counterfactual thinking to evaluate gdp losses caused by limiting carbon emissions the empirical study using the provincial data of china shows that technological progress not efficiency change pushes green growth in china we also find that pursuing green growth in china would lead to a gdp loss of 7 8 furthermore a sub regional analysis shows that the eastern regions were almost immune to the strict carbon control policy while the midwestern regions were affected severely to alleviate the gdp loss we offer suggestion on setting up a green growth sharing mechanism among regions

dynamically estimating the distributional impacts of u s climate policy with nems a case study of the climate protection act of 2013 we present a new method that enables users of the federal government s flagship energy policy model nems to dynamically estimate the direct energy expenditure impacts of climate policy across u s household incomes and census regions our approach combines nems output with detailed household expenditure data from the consumer expenditure survey improving on static methods that assess policy impacts by assuming household energy demand remains unchanged under emissions pricing scenarios to illustrate our method we evaluate a recent carbon fee and dividend proposal introduced in the u s senate the climate protection act of 2013 s 332 our analysis indicates this bill if enacted would have cut co2 emissions from energy by 17 below 2005 levels by 2020 at a gross cost of less than 0 5 of gdp while offering rebates sufficient to offset increased direct energy expenditures for typical households making less than 120 000 per year and average households in all regions of the united states

wages productivity and work intensity in the great depression we show that u s manufacturing wages during the great depression were importantly determined by forces on firms intensive margins short run changes in work intensity and the longer term influence of potential productivity combined to influence real wage growth by contrast the external effects of unemployment and replacement rates had much less impact empirical work is undertaken against the background of a simple efficient bargaining model that embraces earnings employment hours of work and work intensity

the future of u s natural gas production use and trade two computable general equilibrium models one global and the other providing u s regional detail are applied to analysis of the future of u s natural gas the focus is on uncertainties including the scale and cost of gas resources the costs of competing technologies the pattern of greenhouse gas mitigation and the evolution of global natural gas markets results show that the outlook for gas over the next several decades is very favorable in electric generation given the unproven and relatively high cost of other low carbon generation alternatives gas is likely the preferred alternative to coal a broad ghg pricing policy would increase gas use in generation but reduce use in other sectors on balance increasing its role from present levels the shale gas resource is a major contributor to this optimistic view of the future of gas gas can be an effective bridge to a lower emissions future but investment in the development of still lower co2 technologies remains an important priority international gas resources may well prove to be less costly than those in the u s except for the lowest cost domestic shale resources and the emergence of an integrated global gas market could result in significant u s gas imports

efficiency evaluation of china s provincial power systems based on the dynamic network slacks based measure model abstract a power system contains generation transmission and distribution divisions policy reforms and management mechanisms may affect the environmental efficiency of certain divisions or the integrated power system this study applied the dynamic network slacks based measure dnsbm model to analyze the environmental efficiency of both the power systems and their divisions of provincial administrative areas in china and investigated the effects of the external environmental factors it employed scenario analysis to further explore the feasibility of separating the distribution from the transmission division the results indicate that 1 the dnsbm model takes the internal structure of the power system into account and provides a new perspective to seek the sources of the system and division efficiencies 2 customer density and energy consumption intensity have significant impacts on the system and division efficiencies while the power generation structure only affects the environmental efficiency of the generation division 3 the scenario analysis shows that the policy of separating power plants from grids improved the system efficiency to which the improvement in generation division is the main contributor and separating distribution from transmission may have great potential for enhancing the efficiencies of power systems

the relationship between firm growth size and age estimates for 100 manufacturing industries this study uses a sample of all firms operating in 100 manufacturing industries to examine some aspects of firm dynamics it finds that firm growth the variability of firm growth and the probability that a firm will fail decrease with firm age it also finds that firm growth decreases at a diminishing rate with firm size even after controlling for the exit of slow growing firms from the sample gibrat s law therefore fails although the severity of the failure decreases with firm size copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

developing green purchasing relationships for the manufacturing industry an evolutionary game theory perspective abstract green purchasing plays an increasingly significant role in today s supply chain management recycling as a key factor in sustainable development is seriously considered by many manufacturers during the process of procurement in order to establish long term green purchasing relationships between multi stakeholders suppliers and manufacturers in this study the supplier selection concept model suggested by de boer is updated and an evolutionary game model is developed to observe the cooperation tendency of multi stakeholders the newly proposed game model intensively studies the trade behavior which can be realized as strategies and payoff functions of the suppliers and manufacturers in addition a replicator dynamic system is formulated to study evolutionarily stable strategies of multi stakeholders to verify the theoretical results simulation experiments are conducted with meaningful results the manufacturing industry can form the patterns of sustainable development and the recycling capability of suppliers directly determines how green a supply chain is the results can guide stakeholders to make better decisions in the future

lessons from the 1930s great depression this paper provides a survey of the great depression comprising both a narrative account and a detailed review of the empirical evidence focusing especially on the experience of the united states we examine the reasons for and flawed resolution of the american banking crisis as well as the conduct of fiscal and monetary policy we also consider the pivotal role of the gold standard in the international transmission of the slump and leaving gold as a route to recovery policy lessons for today from the great depression are discussed as are some implications for macroeconomics

the nation in depression t he economic cataclysm of the 1930s was an international phenomenon experienced by countries in all parts of the globe countries as diverse as the united states germany chile and japan all experienced significant depressions in the 1930s thus the title of charles kindleberger s classic book the world in depression 1973 captures an important feature of the great depression these international aspects especially the importance of the gold standard in causing the downturn and transmitting depression from one country to another have been emphasized in recent years in excellent books by peter temin 1989 and barry eichengreen 1992 these books have rightly received widespread attention and have successfully changed the focus of much analysis of the great depression from the united states to the world economy while such a change from american provincialism is surely healthy and warranted adopting an international perspective on the great depression risks losing sight of the many ways in which the u s depression differed in timing and severity from depressions elsewhere more important it may obscure the many uniquely american causes of america s great depression this paper examines the ways in which the u s experience during the 1930s resembled that of other countries in some regards and fundamentally differed in other aspects i also evaluate the evidence on the causes of the great depression in the united states and the sources of the eventual recovery i suggest that the path of american output and unemployment before 1931 can be explained quite well with only domestic factors even after 1931

examining the economic and environmental effects of emissions policies in china a bayesian dsge model abstract the purpose of this study is to build an energy emissions economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to examine the economic and environmental effects of the carbon tax and carbon intensity target the model is calibrated to china s economy the results show that both the carbon tax and carbon intensity target policies have a negative effect on china s economy and environment however the carbon tax exerts more negative effects on the economy and environment than the carbon intensity target moreover the carbon tax shock lasts shorter than the carbon intensity target shock the findings additionally indicate that the effects of the increase in the productivity of energy sectors are greater than those of the increase in the productivity of other sectors thanks to the low carbon technology shock china s carbon dioxide emissions will reduce and output will increase taken together this study highlights the key policy implications associated with the results

the role of china in mitigating climate change abstract we explore short and long term implications of several energy scenarios of china s role in efforts to mitigate global climate risk the focus is on the impacts on china s energy system and gdp growth and on global climate indicators such as greenhouse gas concentrations radiative forcing and global temperature change we employ the mit integrated global system model igsm framework and its economic component the mit emissions prediction and policy analysis eppa model we demonstrate that china s commitments for 2020 made during the un climate meetings in copenhagen and cancun are reachable at very modest cost alternative actions by china in the next 10 years do not yield any substantial changes in ghg concentrations or temperature due to inertia in the climate system consideration of the longer term climate implications of the copenhagen type of commitments requires an assumption about policies after 2020 and the effects differ drastically depending on the case meeting a 2 c target is problematic unless radical ghg emission reductions are assumed in the short term participation or non participation of china in global climate architecture can lead by 2100 to a 200 280 ppm difference in atmospheric ghg concentration which can result in a 1 1 c to 1 3 c change by the end of the century we conclude that it is essential to engage china in ghg emissions mitigation policies and alternative actions lead to substantial differences in climate energy and economic outcomes potential channels for engaging china can be air pollution control and involvement in sectoral trading with established emissions trading systems in developed countries

a comparative study on the production efficiencies of china s oil companies a true fixed effect model considering the unobserved heterogeneity abstract with the promotion of one belt one road obor initiative china s oil companies have speeded up the pace of going global strategy to expand their business internationally the efficiency problems of china national petroleum corporation cnpc and sinopec group which determine the international competitiveness have drawn ever increasing attention from both the general public and from decision makers the wide variation in cultural economic and institutional characteristics of different international oil companies may result in a large amount of unobserved heterogeneity distinguishing the time invariant unobserved heterogeneity from time variant inefficiency could avoid heterogeneity bias and thus ensure consistent efficiency estimates considering that the production efficiencies of the sample oil companies are influenced by various heterogeneous factors this paper evaluates the production efficiencies of the world s 10 biggest oil companies during 2003 2013 based on the stochastic frontier analysis sfa method and the true fixed effect tfe model results suggest that 1 estimation techniques that do not account for unobserved heterogeneity would produce biased efficiency estimates 2 compared with other oil companies the production efficiencies of cnpc and sinopec group were relatively improved after the global financial crisis 3 china s state owned oil companies should be further enhanced with the ability of internationalization management

post entry behaviour and the cycle evidence from germany abstract based on a rich database on establishments in western germany the paper aims at characterising the relationship between on the one hand growth and exit of entering cohorts and on the other hand aggregate business fluctuations a main finding is that exit is not responsive to the cycle which is at odds with views of recessions as times of cleansing where creative destruction processes occur the growth of survivors also displays little cyclical sensitivity but tends to become more responsive to aggregate business fluctuations as the cohort ages two possible explanations for this role of age on the cyclical sensitivity of surviving units are offered in the final section of the paper the first draws on the product specialisation of young and more established plants the second on the role of irreversible investment and industry selection

innovation and diffusion of clean green technology can patent commons help abstract this paper explores the characteristics of 238 patents on 90 inventions contributed by major multinational innovators to the eco patent commons which provides royalty free access to third parties to patented innovations on green technologies we compare the pledged patents to other patents in the same technologies or held by the same multinationals to investigate the motives of the contributing firms as well as the potential for such commons to encourage innovation and diffusion of climate change related technologies we find pledged patents to protect environmentally friendly technologies and to be of similar value as the average patent in a pledging firm s patent portfolio but of lower value than other patents in their class our analysis of the impact of the patent commons on diffusion of patented technologies suggests that making patents accessible royalty free did not result in any significant increase in diffusion as measured by citing patents this study therefore indirectly provides evidence on the role of patents in the development and diffusion of green technologies

review on integrated strategies for energy policy planning and evaluation of ghg mitigation alternatives abstract this review paper is devoted to elaborating the status of different energy policy planning studies and the evaluation of various ghg mitigation studies it includes some of the major developments in global energy scenario status of green house gas ghg emissions issues in the implementation of kyoto protocol and ghg mitigation clean development mechanism cdm and energy scenario especially pertaining to the residential industrial and commercial energy sector in the initial sections the later part of this paper highlights the salient contributions in various literatures pertaining to energy demand forecasting in residential commercial and industrial sector ghg estimation methodologies and ghg mitigation studies in various sectors the success and difficulties in implementing various policy planning practices were also discussed in the paper most of the prominent literature in the area of energy demand and consumption analysis towards effective implementation of ghg mitigation is described in the end a comprehensive comments and recommendations based on the study were furnished

how to decarbonize the transport sector this article investigates possible evolution pathways for the transport sector during the 21st century globally and in europe under a climate change control scenario we attempt to shed light on the question how the transport sector should best be decarbonized we perform our study with the global bottom up energy systems model tiam ecn a version of the tiam model that is broadly used for the purpose of developing energy technology and climate policy scenarios which we adapted for analyzing in particular the transport sector given the global aggregated perspective of tiam ecn that in its current version yields at every point in time a single co2 price for different forms of energy use across geographic regions and economic sectors it generates a decarbonization process that for the transport sector occurs later in time than for the power sector this merely reflects that emission reductions are generally cheaper for electricity production than for transportation and that it is thus cost minimizing to spend limited financial resources available for co2 emissions abatement in the power sector first in our scenarios the use of hydrogen in internal combustion engines and fuel cells rather than electricity as energy carrier and batteries to store it gradually becomes the dominant transport technology this outcome is in agreement with some recent publications but is at loggerheads with the current popularity of the electric car based on sensitivity analysis we conclude that even if the establishment of a hydrogen infrastructure proves about an order of magnitude more costly than modeled in our base case electricity based transportation only broadly emerges if simultaneously also the costs of electric cars go down by at least 40 with respect to our reference costs one of the explanations for why the electric car is today by e g entrepreneurs often considered the supposed winner amongst multiple future transportation options is that the decision horizon of many analysts is no more than a few decades instead of a full century electric cars fit better the current infrastructure than hydrogen fueled vehicles so that from a short time perspective covering the next decade or two investments are not optimally spent by establishing an extensive hydrogen distribution network hence the path dependency created by the present existence of a vast power transmission and distribution network can make electricity the most efficient choice for transportation but only if the time frame considered is short electric transportation generally proves the more expensive alternative in our long term perspective except when electric car costs are assumed to drop substantially

low climate stabilisation under diverse growth and convergence scenarios abstract in the last decade a number of papers have analysed the consequences of achieving the greenhouse gas concentration levels necessary to maintain global temperature increases below 2 c above preindustrial levels most models and scenarios assume that future trends in global gdp will be similar to the growth experienced in the past century which would imply multiplying current output by about 19 times in the 21st century however natural resource and environmental constraints suggest that future global economic growth may not be so high furthermore the environmental implications of such growth depend on how it is distributed across countries this paper studies the implications on ghg abatement policies of low global gdp growth and high convergence levels in gdp per capita across countries a partial equilibrium model poles of the world s energy system is used to provide detailed projections up to 2050 for the different regions of the world the results suggest that while low stabilisation could be technically feasible and economically viable for the world in all the scenarios considered it is more likely to occur with more modest global growth however that will imply higher global abatement costs relative to gdp convergence in living standards on the other hand places greater pressures in terms of the required reduction in emissions in general we find that there are major differences between regions in terms of the size and the timing of abatement costs and economic impact

long term abatement potential and current policy trajectories in latin american countries abstract this paper provides perspectives on the role of latin american and latin american countries in meeting global abatement goals based on the scenarios developed through the climacap lamp modeling study abatement potential in latin america among other things is influenced by its development status the large contributions of non co2 and land use change co2 emissions and energy endowments in most scenarios in this study the economic potential to reduce fossil fuel co2 as well as non co2 emissions in latin america in 2050 is lower than in the rest of the world in total when measured against 2010 emissions due largely to higher emission growth in latin america than in the rest of the world in the absence of abatement the potential to reduce land use change co2 emissions is complicated by a wide range of factors and is not addressed in this paper land use emissions are largely addressed in a companion paper the study confirms the results of previous research that the variation in abatement costs across models may vary by an order of magnitude or more limiting the value of these assessments and supporting continued calls for research on the degree to which models are effectively representing key local circumstances that influence costs and available abatement options finally a review of policies in place in several latin american countries at the time of this writing finds that they would be of varying success in meeting the emission levels proposed by the most recent ipcc reports to limit global temperature change to 2 c

the survival of new plants start up conditions and post entry evolution abstract this paper examines the longevity of entrants we find size to be an important determinant of the chances of survival this being particularly relevant to de novo entrants as compared with entry by established firms current size is also found to be a better predictor of failure than initial size moreover our findings indicate that after controlling for size differences past growth matters for survival suggesting a partial adjustment process for firm size in the post entry period finally new plants are more likely to live longer if they enter growing industries or industries with little entry activity

an examination of the asymmetric effects of money supply shocks in the pre world war i and interwar periods we test whether monetary shocks had asymmetric output effects before world war ii ball and mankiw 1994 show that expectations of persistent inflation under fiat money can explain why negative monetary shocks had larger effects than positive shocks after world war ii consistent with this explanation we find such asymmetry in the interwar period following the abandonment of the gold standard and before it when agents arguably anticipated this development we find no monetary asymmetry before world war i which is consistent with ball and mankiw 1994 because under a credible gold standard agents do not expect persistent inflation jel e31 es2

uncertainties in macroeconomic assessments of low carbon transition pathways the case of the european iron and steel industry abstract the climate targets agreed in paris 2015 render deep decarbonization of energy and emission intensive industries crucial policy makers are interested in the macroeconomic consequences of such decarbonization pathways and often rely on integrated modelling studies however the underlying modelling assumptions and uncertainties often remain unquestioned or invisible although they may govern the models results for the case of a zero process emission pathway of the european iron and steel industry we demonstrate how different assumptions on different layers of uncertainty influence results we show that effects strongly depend on technology choice prevailing macroeconomic states as well as regional characteristics the underlying socio economic development and the climate policy trajectory seem to play a less important role particularly we find that the choice of model i e which macroeconomic theory strand it arises from influences the sign and magnitude of macroeconomic effects and thus should be well understood in terms of appropriate interpretations by both modelers and policy makers we emphasize that model assumptions should be transparent results sought as to be robust across a range of possible contexts and presented together with the conditions under which they are valid to that end co design and co production in research would support its relevance and applicability

what or who started the great depression abstract herbert hoover i develop a theory of labor market failure for the depression based on hoover s industrial labor program that provided industry with protection from unions in return for keeping nominal wages fixed i find that the theory accounts for much of the depth of the depression and for the asymmetry of the depression across sectors the theory also can reconcile why deflation low nominal spending apparently had such large real effects during the 1930s but not during other periods of significant deflation

unilateral climate policy design efficiency and equity implications of alternative instruments to reduce carbon leakage abstract global cost effectiveness of unilateral emission abatement can be seriously hampered by carbon leakage we assess three widely discussed proposals for leakage reduction carbon motivated border tax adjustments industry exemptions from carbon regulation and output based allocation of emission allowances we find that none of these measures amounts to a magic bullet when both efficiency and equity criteria matter compared to unilateral emission pricing alone border carbon adjustments are most effective in leakage reduction and promotion of global cost effectiveness but can markedly exacerbate regional inequality exemptions and output based allocation tend to avoid distributional pitfalls but are less effective in leakage reduction and global cost savings exemptions may even decrease global cost effectiveness of unilateral emission abatement

exploring the green total factor productivity of china s metallurgical industry under carbon tax a perspective on factor substitution abstract the characteristics of high emissions and high energy consumption in metallurgical industry have brought great challenges to the green and low carbon transition in china as a low carbon economic instrument carbon tax is generally considered to be an effective way to reduce co2 emissions through raising energy cost but whether it will promote the green total factor productivity gtfp of china s metallurgical industry is still unanswered under this background this paper uses provincial panel data over years 2000 2015 to investigate the impact of carbon taxation on gtfp of metallurgical industry from the perspective of inter fuel and inter factor substitution the lock in mechanism is also incorporated in the three stage estimation model to better reflect the asymmetric price response of factors and fuels the results reveal that the slow marketization process of energy price and the rigid demand for energy in china s metallurgical industry hinder the substitution effect of energy the implementation of carbon tax has limited effect on energy saving and co2 reduction in the metallurgical industry of china and levying a carbon tax has a negative effect on gtfp during the research period therefore the government should not achieve co2 reduction targets at the expense of green economic growth gtfp is suggested to be considered in future assessment criteria in the process of transforming to low carbon economy

cartel code attributes and cartel performance an industry level analysis of the national industrial recovery act abstract this paper uses the cartel enabling national industrial recovery act nira of 1933 to gain insight into cartel performance i employ a monthly panel of 66 industries that passed an nira code of fair competition to examine how specific attributes of these cartel codes affected the ability to achieve collusive outcomes i find that output growth was significantly lower during cartel months consistent with cartel theory and that industries with more complex codes were more successful than those with simpler ones furthermore industries with code restrictions on new productive capacity production quotas and requirements to file data with a central board were the most successful at reducing output which suggests that these types of provisions were the most effective in helping firms attain collusive outcomes finally i find that the effectiveness of data filing provisions was limited to the early months of the nira prior to a wave of cartel breakdown occurring in spring 1934

the spectre of deflation a review of empirical evidence what explains the widespread fear of deflation this article reviews the history of thought economic history and empirical evidence on deflation with a view to answering this question it also outlines informally the main effects of deflation in applied monetary models the main finding is that for both historical and contemporary deflations there are many open empirical questions that could be answered using the tools economists use to study inflation and monetary policy more generally qu est ce qui explique la peur tres repandue de la deflation ce memoire fait un tour d horizon de l histoire de la pensee economique de l histoire economique et des resultats empiriques quant aux effets de la deflation en vue de repondre a cette question on fait aussi echo informellement aux effets principaux de la deflation dans les modeles monetaires appliques ce qui ressort principalement de ce travail est que tant pour les deflations dans l histoire que dans le monde contemporain il y a bien des questions empiriques encore irresolues auxquelles on pourrait donner une reponse en utilisant l outillage mental que les economistes utilisent pour etudier l inflation et la politique monetaire plus generalement sp c tre n thing that is thought to be seen but has no material existence haunting presentiment of ruin war madness etc

economic and environmental effects of a co2 tax in latin american countries abstract the environmental extension from the leontief pricing model is used to simulate the economic and environmental effects of setting different co2 tax rates in three latin american countries brazil mexico and chile it considers a regulatory scenario in which the tax is applied only to emissions from the electricity sector and another scenario in which tax is applied to emissions from all economic sectors the results show that the effects of a co2 tax on sectoral prices and emissions in each country are very different for the same tax rate but these effects are similar in each country when comparing both regulatory scenarios this is explained by the composition carbonization of the electric generation and energy matrix of each of the countries which significantly affects the effectiveness of co2 taxes to reduce emissions in addition the economic sectors most affected by the different regulatory scenarios are similar in all countries

the relationship between enterprise efficiency in resource use and energy efficiency practices adoption abstract the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between enterprise efficiency in resource use and the adoption of energy efficiency practices recommended by the us department of energy doe through the industrial assessment center iac using non parametric techniques such as data envelopment analysis dea and parametric techniques like stochastic frontier analysis sfa and corrected ordinary least square cols to measure the efficiency the regression quantile rq is carried out to test the hypothesis that the most efficient companies have adopted a higher level of practice the main conclusion is that when the enterprise operates at increasing returns to scale rts the impact of efficiency on adoption increases positively inversely when the enterprise operates at decreasing rts the impact of efficiency on adoption increases negatively

a behavioral explanation for nominal wage rigidity during the great depression nominal wages in manufacturing were left unchanged by the large decline in nominal demand that marked the first two years of the great depression this rigidity in nominal wages is explained using the tools of the behavioral theory of the firm the emphasis is on the reasons firms changed their decision rules linking fluctuations in final sales to changes in nominal wages

wage theory new deal labor policy and the great depression were government and unions to blame a growing number of economists blame the length and severity of the great depression on factors that rigidified wage rates raised production costs and interfered with the market allocation of labor the target of their critique is president franklin roosevelt s new deal labor program which they portray as creating a series of large negative supply shocks through encouragement of unions minimum wages unemployment insurance and other anticompetitive industrial relations practices the author uses a combination of institutional and keynesian theory to present the other side of the story drawing principally from the works of j r commons and j m keynes he develops both a spending and productivity rationale for stable wages during the great depression and demonstrates that the new deal s interventionist labor program was on balance necessary and beneficial he also highlights the neglected macroeconomic dimension of industrial relations theory and policy

distributional impacts of carbon pricing a general equilibrium approach with micro data for households article i nfo many policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions have at their core efforts to put a price on carbon emissions carbon pricing impacts households both by raising the cost of carbon intensive products and by changing factor prices a complete analysis requires taking both effects into account the impact of carbon pricing is determined by heterogeneity in household spending patterns across income groups as well as heterogeneity in factor income patterns across income groups it is also affected by precise formulation of the policy how is the revenue from carbon pricing distributed as well as the treatment of other government policies e g the treatment of transfer payments what is often neglected in analyses of policy is the heterogeneity of impacts across households even within income or regional groups in this paper we incorporate 15 588 households from the u s consumer and expenditure survey data as individual agents in a comparative static general equilibrium framework these households are represented within the mit usrep model a detailed general equilibrium model of the u s economy in particular we categorize households by full household income factor income as well as transfer income and apply various measures of lifetime income to distinguish households that are temporarily low income e g retired households drawing down their financial assets from permanently low income households we also provide detailed within group distributional measures of burden impacts from various policy scenarios

macroeconomic impacts of climate change mitigation in latin america a cross model comparison abstract in this paper we analyse macroeconomic consequences of greenhouse gas emission mitigation in latin america up to 2050 through a multi model comparison approach undertaken in the context of the climacap lamp research project we compare two carbon tax scenarios with a business as usual scenario of anticipated future energy demand in the short term with carbon prices reaching around 15 tco 2 by 2030 most models agree that the reduction in consumer spending as a proxy for welfare is limited to about 0 3 by 2050 at carbon prices of 165 tco 2 there is much more divergence in the estimated impact on consumer spending as well as gdp across models and regions which reflects uncertainties about technology costs and substitution opportunities between technologies we observe that the consequences of increasingly higher carbon prices in terms of reduced consumer spending and gdp tend to be fairly linear with the carbon price in our cge models however the consequences are divergent and nonlinear in our econometric model that is linked to an energy system model that simulates step changes in technology substitution the results of one model show that climate policy measures can have positive effects on consumer spending and gdp which results from an investment stimulus and the redistribution of carbon price revenues to consumers

economic history and economics i have in the back of my mind a picture of the sort of discipline economics ought to be or at least the sort of discipline i wish it were if economics were practiced in that way there would be nothing problematical about its reciprocal relationship with economic history it would be pretty clear what it is that economic theory offers to economic history and what economic history offers to economic theory i will try to describe what i mean below for better or worse however economics has gone down a different path not the one i have in mind one consequence not the most important one but the one that matters for this discussion is that economic theory learns nothing from economic history and economic history is as much corrupted as enriched by economic theory i will come to that too later on you will notice that i am using strong language i am prepared to admit right away that i may be dead wrong in my judgements but there is no point in pussyfooting bluntness may lead to an interesting discussion after all no one would remember the old german historical school if it were not for the famous methodenstreit actually no one remembers them anyway there must be a lesson in that to get right down to it i suspect that the attempt to construct economics as an axiomatically based hard science is doomed to fail there are many partially overlapping reasons for believing this but since that is not the topic under discussion today i do not have to lay them out in an orderly way i hope the following hodgepodge will convey what i mean a modern economy is a very complicated system since we cannot conduct controlled experiments on its smaller parts or even observe them in isolation the classical hardscience devices for discriminating between competing hypotheses are closed to us the main alternative device is the statistical analysis of historical time series but then another difficulty arises the competing hypotheses are themselves complex and subtle we know before we start that all of them or at least many of them are capable of fitting the data in a gross sort of way then in order to make more refined distinctions we need long time series observed under stationary conditions unfortunately however economics is a social science it is subject to damon runyon s law that nothing between human beings is more than three to one to express the point more formally much of what we observe cannot be treated as the realization of a stationary stochastic process without straining credulity moreover all narrowly economic activity is embedded in a web of social institutions customs beliefs and attitudes concrete outcomes are indubitably affected by these background factors some of which change slowly and gradually others erratically as soon as time series get long enough to offer hope of discriminating among complex hypotheses the likelihood that they remain stationary dwindles away and the noise level gets correspondingly high under these circumstances a little cleverness and persistence can get you almost any result you want i think that is why so few econometricians have ever been forced by the facts to abandon a firmly held belief indeed some of fortune s favorites have been known to write scores of empirical articles without once feeling obliged to report a result that contradicts their prior prejudices if i am anywhere near right about this the interests of scientific economics would be better served by a more modest approach there is enough for us to do without pretending to a degree of completeness and department of economics massachusetts institute of technology cambridge ma 02139

energy technology roll out for climate change mitigation a multi model study for latin america in this paper we investigate opportunities for energy technology deployment under climate change mitigation efforts in latin america through several carbon tax and co2 abatement scenarios until 2050 we analyze what resources and technologies notably for electricity generation could be cost optimal in the energy sector to significantly reduce co2 emissions in the region by way of sensitivity test we perform a cross model comparison study and inspect whether robust conclusions can be drawn across results from different models as well as different types of models general versus partial equilibrium given the abundance of biomass resources in latin america they play a large role in energy supply in all scenarios we inspect this is especially true for stringent climate policy scenarios for instance because the use of biomass in power plants in combination with ccs can yield negative co2 emissions we find that hydropower which today contributes about 800 twh to overall power production in latin america could be significantly expanded to meet the climate policies we investigate typically by about 50 but potentially by as much as 75 according to all models electricity generation increases exponentially with a two to three fold expansion between 2010 and 2050 we find that in our climate policy scenarios renewable energy overall expands typically at double digit growth rates annually but there is substantial spread in model results for specific options such as wind and solar power the climate policies that we simulate raise wind power in 2050 on average to half the production level that hydropower provides today while they raise solar power to either a substantially higher or a much lower level than hydropower supplies at present depending on which model is used also for ccs we observe large diversity in model outcomes which reflects the uncertainties with regard to its future implementation potential as a result of the challenges this co2 abatement technology experiences the extent to which different mitigation options can be used in practice varies greatly between countries within latin america depending on factors such as resource potentials economic performance environmental impacts and availability of technical expertise we provide concise assessments of possible deployment opportunities for some low carbon energy options for the region at large and with occasional country level detail in specific cases

green growth degrowth and the commons the concepts of green growth and degrowth occupy central positions in the public debate on the relationship between economic growth and the environment while proponents of the former approach claim that environmental measures can promote growth by for example more efficient use of natural resources proponents of the latter maintain that environmental integrity can only be upheld by slowing down growth this paper argues that both approaches constitute inadequate foundations for public policy as they fail to appropriately conceptualize social welfare we show how policy aimed at social welfare can be understood as managing a portfolio of capital stocks some of which exhibit the characteristics of commons i e common pool resources and public goods we then propose a programme of welfare diagnostics which aims at establishing minimum thresholds for capital stocks essential to welfare as a guide for real world policy formulation and discuss the role of appropriation of natural resource rents for its practical implementation we conclude by highlighting the central role of scientific policy advice in determining how different conceptions of welfare would be reflected in setting targets and choosing the means to achieve them

specialization patterns and reduction of co2 emissions an empirical investigation of environmental preservation and economic efficiency abstract we study the effects that different degrees of specialization in the production of the global net output of a group of countries might have on the emissions of co2 the analysis is based on the sraffian notion of subsystems which allows us to study what the input output table of a country would look like under different hypotheses on the allocation of the available resources we use the wiod input output tables and the related environmental accounts for 1995 2009 we show that the environmental benefits deriving from appropriate specialization patterns could be substantial moreover our results suggest that co2 reduction is not necessarily detrimental to economic activity on the contrary with the appropriate exploitation of suitable patterns of specialization co2 reduction and gdp growth may even be pursued jointly

the effect of urbanization on energy use in india and china in the ipets model abstract urbanization is one of the major demographic and economic trends occurring in developing countries with important consequences for development energy use and well being yet it is only beginning to be explicitly incorporated in long term scenario analyses of energy and emissions we assess the implications of a plausible range of urbanization pathways for energy use and carbon emissions in india and china using the integrated population economy technology science ipets model a computable general equilibrium cge model of the global economy that captures heterogeneity in household types within world regions and into which we have introduced income effects on household consumption preferences we find that changes in urbanization have a somewhat less than proportional effect on aggregate emissions and energy use a decomposition analysis demonstrates that this effect is due primarily to an economic growth effect driven by the increased labor supply associated with faster urbanization the influence of income on household consumption is strong and indicates a potentially rapid transition away from traditional fuel use and toward modern fuels such as electricity and natural gas results also indicate important directions for future work including the implications of alternative types and driving forces of urbanization over time a better understanding of possible changes in consumption preferences associated with income growth and the urbanization process and modeling strategies that can produce disaggregated household consumption outcomes within a cge framework

size age and activity sector on the growth of the small and medium firm size although corporate growth is one of the most researched subjects in different areas of economic science it is not currently based on a general theory or generally accepted conceptual definition in spite of this growth has usually been considered an essential objective for a firm contributing to its survival and competitiveness this work aims to provide a more in depth study of the factors that condition the growth of small and medium sized firms by offering some empirical evidence that will contribute to its modelling especially in relation to the influence of size age and activity sector in this context we shall attempt to contrast the validity of gibrat s approach and the learning theory

generalising gibrat using chinese evidence founded on fieldwork this paper reports on determinants of small firm growth and survival using fieldwork evidence collected by face to face and telephone interviews it extends the basic size age model to a comprehensive growth model with two types of additional explanatory variables firm specific and business environmental estimation is by log linear regression on chinese cross section data with corrections for sample selection bias and heteroskedasticity our results from the comprehensive model highlight the importance of location choice and customer orientation for the growth of chinese private firms

simulation of concentration development from modified gibrat growth entry exit processes gibrat s law is augmented to produce a more general stochastic model of concentration consisting of growth entry and exit processes empirical facts on growth entry and exit reported elsewhere are employed to calibrate the model which is then repeatedly simulated generating concentration data for 280 hypothetical industries grouped under fourteen types the simulated data are used to investigate the importance of growth entry and exit in shaping concentration development most important is systematic firm level growth entry and exit are much less significant as is random growth variability which features prominently in previous stochastic models parallels with previous interindustry research are drawn copyright 1995 by blackwell publishing ltd

modeling energy and development an evaluation of models and concepts most global energy models are developed by institutes from developed countries focusing primarily on issues that are important in industrialized countries evaluation of the results for asia of the ipcc sres models shows that broad concepts of energy and development the energy ladder and the environmental kuznets curve can be observed in the results of the models however improvements can be made in modeling the issues that underlie these concepts like traditional fuels electrification economic structural change income distribution and informal economies given the rapidly growing importance of energy trajectories of developing countries for global sustainability the challenge for the future is to develop energy models that include all these aspects of energy and development

growth acquisition activity and firm size evidence from the united kingdom this paper provides new empirical evidence on the relationship between size growth and acquisition activity of quoted companies in the united kingdom the evidence is based on some two thousand companies and covers the period i960 76 there has been no detailed systematic study for this period the results suggest some revisions to generally accepted views in the area and they have certain implications for industrial and competition policy pursued in the u k and the factors affecting aggregate concentration the paper is arranged as follows section i considers the broader economic context for the study whilst section ii notes some a priori expectations regarding the relationship between size and growth and size and acquisition activity sections iii v present empirical evidence and the last section provides a summary and policy implications of the results

effects of the internalization of the social cost of global and local air pollutants in chile abstract in 2017 environmental taxes on global pollutants co2 and local air pollutants so2 nox and pm began to be collected to reduce emissions in chile however large emitting sources only are subject to environmental taxes and the tax rates are much lower than the social cost of these pollutants which does not allow to fully internalize the generated damages for the above this study uses the environmental extension of the leontief price model and microsimulations to estimate the economic environmental distributive and poverty short term effects associated with the application of pigouvian taxes on all emissions generated by productive activities the results show that currently there are too many resources allocated to activities that generate strong negative externalities mainly in the electricity and transport sectors specifically the emissions are reduced almost 10 times more than in the current tax scenario if environmental taxes equal to social costs are applied but relevant negative indirect effects are generated that make the practical application of a tax of these characteristics unrealistic for example there is a fall between 1 2 and 2 9 in employment slightly worsening the income distribution and increases the poverty rate between 0 9 and 2 3 percentage points

accounting for household heterogeneity in general equilibrium economic growth models abstract we describe and evaluate a new method of aggregating heterogeneous households that allows for the representation of changing demographic composition in a multi sector economic growth model the method is based on a utility and labor supply calibration that takes into account time variations in demographic characteristics of the population we test the method using the population environment technology pet model by comparing energy and emissions projections employing the aggregate representation of households to projections representing different household types explicitly results show that the difference between the two approaches in terms of total demand for energy and consumption goods is negligible for a wide range of model parameters our approach allows the effects of population aging urbanization and other forms of compositional change on energy demand and co 2 emissions to be estimated and compared in a computationally manageable manner using a representative household under assumptions and functional forms that are standard in economic growth models

urban and rural energy use and carbon dioxide emissions in asia the process of urbanization has been shown to be important for economic development environmental impacts and human wellbeing particularly in developing countries in this paper we compare structure data sources and scenario results of four integrated assessment models that are capable of analyzing different aspects of urbanization the comparison focuses on residential sector energy use and related co2 emissions based on a set of urbanization scenarios for china and india important insights from this model comparison include that i total fossil fuel and industrial co2 emissions at the regional level are not very sensitive to alternative rates of urbanization and are largely dependent on the linkage between urbanization and economic growth via differentiated labor productivity in urban and rural areas ii alternative urbanization pathways may yield different results for the share of solid fuels in residential energy use thereby affecting the number of people relying on these fuels and the associated adverse health impacts and iii alternative economic growth scenarios can only be assessed for their welfare implications if urban and rural household are distinguished even though that distinction does not always strongly affect aggregate outcomes which is often due to two effects that compensate each other in total it can be concluded that urbanization and heterogeneity of households and consumers are clearly relevant for distributional effects and associated health and social impacts

employment and unemployment in the 1930s the great depression is to economics what the big bang is to physics as an event the depression is largely synonymous with the birth of modern macroeconomics and it continues to haunt successive generations of economists with respect to labor and labor markets these facts evidently include wage rigidity persistently high unemployment rates and long term joblessness traditionally aggregate time series have provided the econometric grist for distinguishing explanations of the great depression recent research on labor markets in the 1930s however has shifted attention from aggregate to disaggregate time series and towards microeconomic evidence this shift in focus is motivated by two factors first disaggregated data provide many more degrees of freedom than the decade or so of annual observations associated with the depression and thus may prove helpful in distinguishin g macroeconomic explanations second disaggregation has revealed aspects of economic behavior hidden in the time series that may be essential to their proper interpretation and in any case are worthy of study in their own right although the substantive findings of recent research are too new to judge their permanent significance i believe that the shift towards disaggregated analysis is an important contribution the paper begins by reviewing the conventional statistics of the united states labor market during the great depression and the paradigms to explain them it then turns to recent studies of employment and unemployment using disaggregated data of various types the paper concludes with discussions of

a sequential malmquist luenberger productivity index environmentally sensitive productivity growth considering the progressive nature of technology this study proposes an index for measuring environmentally sensitive productivity growth which appropriately considers the nature of technical change the rationale of this methodology is to exclud

evaluating the dynamic performance of energy portfolios empirical evidence from the dea directional distance function abstract in recent years the complex global energy commodity market has led to increased uncertainty for energy investment returns and tremendous challenges for investors to design appropriate energy portfolios therefore we employ four popular portfolio methods to determine energy portfolios based on daily fossil fuel futures prices during 2006 2015 moreover we use the dea window analysis method and dea directional distance function to comprehensively evaluate the dynamic performance of these energy portfolios based on the efficiency perspective the empirical results indicate that first to increase investment returns the mean variance method that exclusively emphasizes the maximization of returns shows the best performance however in order to decrease the volatility and risk of investment returns the mean variance method that aims to resist risk more than make profits and the bootstrap historical simulation value at risk var method have the best performance second when the global financial crisis broke out in the second half of 2008 and energy markets experienced a sharp downturn in the second half of 2014 the dea efficiency of energy portfolios appeared relatively lower than those of their neighboring periods regardless of which portfolio method is employed finally the average dea efficiencies of energy portfolios are all higher than those of single energy investment throughout the sample period except when the equally weighted method and the information entropy comprehensive index method are used meanwhile the mean variance method that prefers profit making to risk resisting possesses the highest average dea efficiency among various methods concerned

was the new deal expansionary abstract when wages are sticky and the interest rate hits the zero lower bound zlb the expansionary effect of new deal policies is drastically reduced if the duration of the policies mismatches that of the zlb the effect can be contractionary

equity and distributional implications of climate change this paper looks at the climate change problem from an equity perspective it compares utilitarian approaches with ones based on rights or capabilities it argues that few of the proposals that have been discussed in the literature have an ethical basis while those that do have a number of problems the paper looks at the practicalities of addressing the equity problem in international negotiations two specific dimensions of the equity problem in the context of climate change are explored further in the paper those relating to uncertainty and those relating to discounting

sunk costs firm size and firm growth for several decades the conventional wisdom has been that expected firm growth rates are independent of firm size a property known as gibrat s law however recent empirical work has found a negative relation between firm growth and firm size this paper provides a theoretical explanation for this negative relation in a model of new firm growth where capacity and technology choices involve some degree of sunkness additional empirical implications of the theory of sunk costs are also developed these relate to profit rates tobin s q exit rates degree of sunkness of capacity costs as well as size and growth rates copyright 1995 by blackwell publishing ltd

climate change policy s interactions with the tax system abstract this paper presents a range of insights from recent literature on how climate change policies and other environmental policies interact with the fiscal system it explores four issues associated with fiscal interactions first it examines how these interactions influence the prospects for a double dividend both an environmental improvement and a reduction in the costs of the tax system second it analyzes how the use of revenues from a carbon tax or from a cap and trade system involving auctioned emissions allowances influences these policies economic costs third it addresses the question whether carbon taxes or cap and trade programs represent more efficient sources of government revenue than other more traditional revenue sources such as income sales or payroll taxes finally it analyzes how fiscal interactions affect the choice between co 2 emissions pricing instruments carbon taxes and cap and trade and other climate policy instruments

work sharing during the great depression did the president s reemployment agreement promote reemployment the president s reemployment agreement pra of 1933 directed firms to reduce workweeks during the great depression so existing jobs could be spread into additional employment opportunities similar work sharing policies have recently been implemented across europe in hopes of reducing unemployment i find that ceteris paribus the work sharing aspects of the pra created nearly 2 5 million new employment opportunities in around four months however the programme also required firms to raise hourly wage rates offsetting close to half of these gains furthermore most of the remaining employment gains were wiped out after cartel oriented industry specific codes of fair competition supplanted the pra

non parametric frontier approach to modelling the relationships among population gdp energy consumption and co2 emissions abstract in this paper a non parametric approach based in data envelopment analysis dea is proposed as an alternative to the kaya identity a k a impact this frontier method identifies and extends existing best practices population and gdp are considered as input and output respectively both primary energy consumption and greenhouse gas ghg emissions are considered as undesirable outputs several linear programming models are formulated with different aims namely a determine efficiency levels b estimate maximum gdp compatible with given levels of population energy intensity and carbonization intensity and c estimate the minimum level of ghg emissions compatible with given levels of population gdp energy intensity or carbonization index the united states of america case is used as illustration of the proposed approach