male female urban income distributions in canada the service sector in a dependency model international trends of increasing income inequality have not occurred equally for male and female income distributions in canadian cities urban male income inequality declined from 1970 to 1980 it increased in the next decade but only to its 1990 level female income inequality has declined consistently these urban income distributions can be well explained using a dependency model in which the female income distribution is influenced by the male income distribution and the income gap between males and females this dependence effect is modified by urban characteristics male and female income distributions are more alike in larger cities and in cities with relatively higher female median incomes beginning in 1990 service sector employment contributes significantly to income inequality for both gender groups with a slightly greater effect for females

agglomeration economies and industrial decentralization the wage productivity trade offs abstract this paper examines the industrial location trade offs between the productivity advantages of the metropolitan center and the lower land and the labor costs in outlying regions within the state of sao paulo brazil the results indicate that while plant productivity is enhanced by the considerable agglomeration economies existing within metropolitan sao paulo firms must pay for these benefits in high wages and land costs offsetting labor cost savings can be achieved by locating in outlying regions the evidence presented in this paper suggests that market forces may lead eventually to a spontaneous decentralization of industry

survey evidence on the willingness of u s consumers to pay for automotive fuel economy abstract prospect theory holds that human beings faced with a risky bet will tend to value potential losses about twice as much as potential gains previous research has demonstrated that prospect theory could be sufficient to explain an energy paradox in the market for automotive fuel economy this paper analyzes data from questions added to four commercial multi client surveys of 1000 u s households each in 2004 2011 2012 and 2013 households were asked about willingness to pay for future fuel savings as well as the annual fuel savings necessary to justify a given upfront payment payback periods inferred from household responses are generally consistent over time and across different formulations of questions mean calculated payback periods are about 3 years but there is substantial dispersion among individual responses the calculated payback periods do not appear to be correlated with the attributes of respondents respondents were able to quantitatively describe their uncertainty about both vehicle fuel economy and future fuel prices simulation of loss averse behavior based on respondents stated uncertainty illustrates how loss aversion could lead consumers to substantially undervalue future fuel savings relative to their expected value

regional energy rebound effect the impact of economy wide and sector level energy efficiency improvement in georgia usa abstract rebound effect is defined as the lost part of ceteris paribus energy savings from improvements on energy efficiency in this paper we investigate economy wide energy rebound effects by developing a computable general equilibrium cge model for georgia usa the model adopts a highly disaggregated sector profile and highlights the substitution possibilities between different energy sources in the production structure these two features allow us to better characterize the change in energy use in face of an efficiency shock and to explore in detail how a sector level shock propagates throughout the economic structure to generate aggregate impacts we find that with economy wide energy efficiency improvement on the production side economy wide rebound is moderate energy price levels fall very slightly yet sectors respond to these changing prices quite differently in terms of local production and demand energy efficiency improvements in particular sectors epicenters induce quite different economy wide impacts in general we expect large rebound if the epicenter sector is an energy production sector a direct upstream downstream sector of energy production sectors a transportation sector or a sector with high production elasticity our analysis offers valuable insights for policy makers aiming to achieve energy conservation through increasing energy efficiency

does predicted rebound depend on distinguishing between energy and energy services pour analyser le role des services energetiques et des combustibles dans l effet de relance de la consommation d energie liee a des actions d amelioration de l efficacite energetique plusieurs approches sont utilisees et comparees celle de cobb douglas celle de leontief et celle de la croissance equilibree

efficient urbanisation economic performance and the shape of the metropolis the influences of urban form and transport infrastructure on economic performance show up in several contemporary policy debates notably sprawl versus compact city and in the developing world the future of mega cities this paper probes these relationships using two scales of analysis at the macro scale an econometric analysis using data across 47 us metropolitan areas reveals that employment densities and urban primacy are positively associated with worker productivity suggesting the presence of agglomeration economies congested freeways are shown to be a consequence of strong economic performance an intrametropolitan analysis using data on sub districts of the san francisco bay area generally reinforces the findings of the macro scale analysis in the bay area labour productivity appears to increase with size of labour marketshed and high accessibility between residences and firms higher employment density and well functioning infrastructure also contribute positively to economic performance

valuing nature a reply to esteve corbera abstract this paper is a reply to esteve corbera s critique of my earlier commentary on the economic valuation of nature it seeks to clarify my motivations and objectives in writing the original piece it highlights important distinctions between our positions and explains why acceptance of financialized approaches to conservation in any of its guises works to deepen the embedded nature of neoliberal ideology

jevons paradox revisited the evidence for backfire from improved energy efficiency beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed

empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect a review beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

economic inequality and the value of nature abstract understanding what influences the value of nature is crucial for informing environmental policy from a sustainability perspective economic valuation should not only seek to determine a society s willingness to pay for environmental goods to devise an efficient allocation of scarce resources but should also account for distributional effects to ensure justice yet how economic inequality affects the value of non market environmental goods remains understudied combining recently developed theoretical results with empirical evidence this commentary shows that more equal societies have a higher valuation for environmental public goods and that non market benefits of environmental policy accrue over proportionally to poorer households on this ground we discuss implications for environmental valuation management and policy making and identify a number of fruitful areas for future research we conclude that environmental valuation should explicitly account for economic inequality and that encompassing assessments of the distributional effects of environmental policies must consider the distribution of non market environmental benefits

the rebound effect microeconomic definitions limitations and extensions abstract the rebound effect results in part from an increased consumption of energy services following an improvement in the technical efficiency of delivering those services this increased consumption offsets the energy savings that may otherwise be achieved if the rebound effect is sufficiently large it may undermine the rationale for policy measures to encourage energy efficiency the nature and magnitude of the rebound effect is the focus of long running dispute with energy economics this paper brings together previous theoretical work to provide a rigorous definition of the rebound effect to clarify key conceptual issues and to highlight the potential consequences of various assumptions for empirical estimates of the effect the focus is on the direct rebound effect for a single energy service indirect and economy wide rebound effects are not discussed beginning with khazzoom s original definition of the rebound effect we expose the limitations of three simplifying assumptions on which this definition is based first we argue that capital costs form an important part of the total cost of providing energy services and that empirical studies that estimate rebound effects from variations in energy prices are prone to bias second we argue that energy efficiency should be treated as an endogenous variable and that empirical estimates of the rebound effect may need to apply a simultaneous equation model to capture the joint determination of key variables third we explore the implications of the opportunity costs of time in the production of energy services and highlight the consequences for energy use of improved time efficiency the influence of time costs on the rebound effect and the existence of a parallel rebound effect with respect to time each of these considerations serves to highlight the difficulties in obtaining reliable estimates of the rebound effect and the different factors that need to be controlled for we discuss the implications of these findings for econometric studies and argue that several existing studies may overestimate the magnitude of the effect

productivity and city size a critique of the evidence a critique of two leading articles in the productivity and city size literature results in revised estimates of the productivity advantages of large cities in particular extant estimates of the elasticity of productivity with city size are revised downward by over 100 percent for the manufacturing sector and about 25 percent for the entire urban economy after revision productivity advantages of larger cities are found to be much larger for the nonmanufacturing sector than for the manufacturing sector hence revitalization policies for large cities should be focused on nonmanufacturing sectors

negative rebound and disinvestment effects in response to an improvement in energy efficiency in the uk economy this paper uses a computable general equilibrium cge framework to investigate the conditions under which rebound effects may occur in response to increases in energy efficiency in the uk national economy previous work for the uk has suggested that rebound effects will occur even where key elasticities of substitution in production are set close to zero the research reported in this paper involves carrying out a systematic sensitivity analysis where relative price sensitivity is gradually introduced into the system focusing specifically on elasticities of substitution in production and trade parameters in order to determine conditions under which rebound effects become a likely outcome the main result is that while there is positive pressure for rebound effects even where direct and indirect demands for energy are very price inelastic this may be partially or wholly offset by negative income competitiveness and disinvestment effects which also occur in response to falling energy prices the occurrence of disinvestment effects is of particular interest these occur where falling energy prices reduce profitability in domestic energy supply sectors leading to a contraction in capital stock in these sectors which may in turn lead to rebound effects that are smaller in the long run than in the short run a result that runs contrary to the predictions of previous theoretical work in this area

a productivity growth interpretation of the labour demand shift share model graham d j and spence n 1998 a productivity growth interpretation of the labour demand shift share model reg studies 32 515 525 this paper proposes modifications to the labour demand shift share model set out in this journal by casler 1989 to allow for its implementation and to extend its use to analyses of regional labour productivity growth the paper begins by briefly outlining the theoretical basis for the shift share method provided in casler s paper and then goes on to present a specific reformulation of the model which incorporates input price and technological growth effects on labour demand these additional effects are defined as productivity components within the shift share model and the empirical and theoretical implications of the modifications made are discussed in the paper an empirical example of the results obtained through the modified labour demand shift share model is then provided for selected british regions the paper concludes by outlining potential uses of the modif

a view from the macro side rebound backfire and khazzoom brookes abstract this paper attempts to delineate a few key insights extracted from theoretical macroeconomic considerations of the rebound issue the goal has been to reduce these thoughts to a clear set of assertions that if true would be useful points of reference in the ongoing discussion despite their non empirical nature

on the rebound feedback between energy intensities and energy uses in iea countries abstract the interaction or feedback between energy efficiencies or energy intensities and energy use has long been the topic of debate some have argued that energy efficiency improvements by reducing energy intensities and therefore lowering the cost of energy services would lead to rebound effects offsetting much or all of any initial savings in energy in this paper we analyse historical data on energy use efficiency and pricing in different sectors to try and identify rebounds for the period of our data since about 1970 we show that key measures of activity car use manufacturing output and structure house area etc have changed little in response to changes in energy prices or efficiency instead continuing their long term evolution relative to gdp or other driving factors while our analysis cannot disentangle more macro level economic feedbacks in a detailed way we show indirectly that such effects also appear to have been small over the 1970s and 1980s overall our analysis of disaggregated sectoral and subsectoral energy use and activity trends in a variety of iea economies suggests that any feedback effect is small compared to both the effects on energy use of changes in energy intensities and overall economic growth we conclude that most of the improvements in energy efficiencies led to reductions in energy intensities observed in the 1970s and 1980s weighted by 1990 activity levels intensities were roughly 15 20 lower in 1994 5 than in 1973 which in turn meant real savings of energy energy demand in iea countries is roughly this much below what it would have been for the same gdp had these savings not occurred rebounds may have taken back some of the overall savings but most remain even after the fall of oil prices in 1986 any boost to gdp as a result of these savings could not have been sufficient to increase energy demand enough to significantly alter these conclusions that the savings remained after the fall in oil prices supports the notion that net savings restrained energy growth relative to gdp in some formulations arise from technological progress even if energy prices do not increase how far this effect can reach however is a matter of considerable debate

fuel conserving and using production functions abstract this article compares eight production cost functions used or potentially useful for exploring how energy efficiency gains affect energy consumption we show the practitioner s choice of function can inadvertently pre determine results and make recommendations as to which functions are flexible enough to prevent this we also show pre selected factor substitution elasticities can similarly pre determine results to aid the comparison we decompose the energy consumption rebound effect into intensity and output income effects which also delivers insight into the mechanisms of rebound we conclude by recommending practitioners restrict themselves to either the gallant fourier or the generalized leontief symmetric generalized barnett cost functions as being sufficiently rebound flexible the translog cost function may be suitable given certain conditions and a particular form of the ces solow function is a possible but problematic candidate along the way the article provides a general methodology for similarly examining any arbitrarily defined constant returns to scale production or cost function

do increases in energy efficiency improve environmental quality and sustainability governments world wide increasingly see energy efficiency as an important aspect of sustainability however there is a debate in the literature as to whether the impact of improved energy efficiency on reducing energy use might be partially or more than wholly offset through rebound and backfire effects this paper clarifies the theoretical conditions under which such effects would occur and explores their likely significance using a computable general equilibrium cge model of the scottish economy we find that for scotland a general improvement in energy efficiency in the production sectors of the economy initially produces rebound effects that eventually grow into backfire energy use ultimately increases in response to an efficiency gain and the ratio of gdp to co2 emissions falls the economic factors underpinning rebound effects are straightforward energy efficiency improvements result in an effective cut in energy prices which produces output substitution competitiveness and income effects that stimulate energy demands however the presence of strong rebound or even backfire does not mean that efficiency enhancing policies are irrelevant rather it suggests that such policies operating alone are insufficient to generate environmental improvements the implication is that a co ordinated portfolio of energy policies is required

economic analysis of brazilian policies for energy efficient electric motors brazil is leading several energy efficiency initiatives and has ambitious goals for 2030 according to the brazilian national energy plan 2030 one of the main initiatives is the minimum efficiency performance standards meps program for energy driven equipment and the electric motors appear as the most significant one 49 share of the total electricity consumption the meps levels set new grades for efficiency and then manufacturers and consumers have to conform to the new products and costs policy makers have to economically assess the effects of these meps in order to maintain the market stability since the benefits of this program come from future energy savings this cost effective analysis has to consider the parameters uncertainty and the results should reinforce the market players confidence thus the goal of this work is first to analyze the economic viability of the meps transitions in brazil considering the uncertainty of the parameters involved and then to estimate the effects of this program on the energy savings goals for 2030 at the end we also verify whether this investment in energy efficiency is competitive with other forms of investments in energy

the pes conceit revisiting the relationship between payments for environmental services and neoliberal conservation payments for environmental services pes has become a popular means to neoliberalize biodiversity conservation throughout the world yet research on pes is increasingly focused on debating exactly how neoliberal programmes really are documenting complexities in pes implementation and concluding that few programmes are very market based in practice while we agree that ideal neoliberal implementation of pes does not and cannot exist we argue that focusing only on micro politics misunderstands the importance of analysing pes as a form of neoliberal conservation the question is not just whether pes is innately neoliberal but how it functions within a broader neoliberal political economy by focusing on the overarching governance and power structures that gave rise to pes in the first place we more clearly see what we call the pes conceit namely that the approach implicitly accepts neoliberal capitalism as both the problem and the solution to the ecological crisis this strategy is not only contradictory but also commonly fails to achieve intended outcomes falling far short of conservation objectives while also often exacerbating socioeconomic inequality this problematic conceit we conclude cannot be addressed through only micro oriented studies it demands connecting micro and macro political economic analyses to confront broader neoliberal power structures

the impact of increased efficiency in the industrial use of energy a computable general equilibrium analysis for the united kingdom the conventional wisdom is that improving energy efficiency will lower energy use however there is an extensive debate in the energy economics policy literature concerning rebound effects these occur because an improvement in energy efficiency produces a fall in the effective price of energy services the response of the economic system to this price fall at least partially offsets the expected beneficial impact of the energy efficiency gain in this paper we use an economy energy environment computable general equilibrium cge model for the uk to measure the impact of a 5 across the board improvement in the efficiency of energy use in all production sectors we identify rebound effects of the order of 30 50 but no backfire no increase in energy use however these results are sensitive to the assumed structure of the labour market key production elasticities the time period under consideration and the mechanism through which increased government revenues are recycled back to the economy

the greenhouse effect the fallacies in the energy efficiency solution abstract the view that widespread improvements in energy efficiency can by themselves do anything to halt the build up of greenhouse gases around the globe is fundamentally unsound it is based on the same fallacies that underlie the claim that energy savings from improving efficiency can substitute for new energy supply the paper by keepin and kats1 claiming that per tonne of coal not burned improvements in energy efficiency are more cost effective than substituting nuclear for coal fired power is therefore an irrelevancy as far as this debate is concerned reductions is energy intensity of output that are not damaging to the economy are associated with increases not decreases in energy demand at the macroeconomic level even within the boundaries of their own flawed approach their attempt2 to refute the critique of their thesis made by jones3 was little more than misdirected grape shot with no discernable connected thread of argument

firm location and city size reduced productivity advantages as a factor in the decline of manufacturing in urban areas abstract this paper develops a model of firm location and city size that arrives at theoretical conclusions that differ from those of other authors comparative statics results suggest that changes in national wage levels and productivity levels create no determinate dis advantage for large cities relative to small ones as sites for manufacturing activity increased wage and reduced productivity premiums of large cities however result in unambiguous disadvantages statistical analysis indicates that the productivity advantages of large cities have declined in as many as eight two digit manufacturing industries that provide more than one third of metropolitan production worker employment

urban diversity and economic growth at the risk of some simplification it is possible to identify four periods of intense study of cities by economists each of these has led to an increased understanding of the economics of urban areas and the unique role played by cities in the modem economy the first of these periods occurred in the decade after world war i only about ten years after the truck revolutionized the transport of goods within urban areas this period included the first systematic empirical analysis of the forces affecting the location of firms and households within cities robert murray haig 1926 and a number of other microeconomists at columbia analyzed the spatial pattems of manufacturing activity in lower manhattan and in the rest of new york city haig jmd his colleagues devoted considerable attention to where things belong in an urban area p 402 providing the first systematic economic analysis of urban spatial structure for example they analyzed the garment industry concluding that it was destined by nature to disperse north of 14th street and predicting that it would follow the estabhshed spatial pattem of the cooperage barrelmaking industry standardization in size and quality of barrels had meant that identical barrels could be made throughout the new york metropolitan area even in new jersey and the introduction of the truck meant that they could be transported cheaply throughout the region and exported the second of these periods though not in chronological order began in the mid 1960s it formalized many of the insights about location incentives within urban areas which had been uncovered a half century before mixed them with the logic of heinrich von thunen s 1826 ancient theories about agricultural crops and land values and applied them to the hotisehold sector the works of william alonso 1964

valuing nature paying for ecosystem services and realizing social justice a response to matulis 2014 debates about the role of economic valuation in market based conservation have proliferated in recent years specifically scholars have engaged with the justice implications of non market valuation and the emergence of new policy instruments paying for or trading ecosystem services and biodiversity i hereby contribute to these debates by responding to a published commentary in this journal and i shed light on what i believe should be a new agenda for critical scholarship of market based conservation i argue for more precision in our claims distinguishing across market based instruments and across types of outcomes and for a more nuanced account of the ethical connotations of such instruments which should involve analyzing both unequal socio economic relations and culturally bounded conceptions of justice overall i advocate for the development of a more robust empirical basis to derive generalizations on the procedural distributive and livelihood implications of market based instruments for conservation

manufacturing productivity and city size in canada 1975 and 1985 does population matter this paper analyses the relationship between manufacturing productivity and city size based on canadian data for 1975 and 1985 the results differ in some respects from those of us studies in particular in canada city size appears to have a weaker impact on manufacturing productivity and an impact which is diminishing over time these findings may be a consequence of several differences in the characteristics of canadian and us firms as well as differences between the two urban systems urbanisation economies in canada may also have been weakened by regional development policies there are at the same time some striking similarities in the industries which show positive urbanisation economies in the us and canada there is also a tendency in canada for both industries with smaller firms and industries with higher rates of domestic ownership to exhibit greater urbanisation economies