interest rates and money in the measurement of monetary policy over the last 25 years a set of influential studies has placed interest rates at the heart of analyses that interpret and evaluate monetary policies in light of this work the federal reserve s recent policy of quantitative easing with its goal of affecting the supply of liquid assets appears to be a radical break from standard practice alternatively one could posit that the monetary aggregates when measured properly never lost their ability to explain aggregate fluctuations and for this reason represent an important omission from standard models and policy discussions in this context the new policy initiatives can be characterized simply as conventional attempts to increase money growth this view is supported by evidence that superlative divisia measures of money often help in forecasting movements in key macroeconomic variables moreover the statistical fit of a structural vector autoregression deteriorates significantly if such measures of money are excluded when identifying monetary

the federal funds rate and the channels of monetary transmission the authors show that the interest rate on federal funds is extremely informative about future movements of real macroeconomic variables then they argue that the reason for this forecasting success is that the funds rate sensitively records shocks to the supply of bank reserves that is the funds rate is a good indicator of monetary policy actions finally using innovations to the funds rate as a measure of changes in policy the authors present evidence consistent with the view that monetary policy works at least in part through credit i e bank loans as well as through money i e bank deposits copyright 1992 by american economic association

who formulates renewable energy policy a swedish example a broad participation by stakeholders and an extensive reliance on expert advice are often seen as preconditions for a legitimate and successfully implemented renewable energy policy however we have lacked systematic data for testing this argument this article s contribution is to examine the actors who take part in the making of swedish energy policy with the help of data on the composition of various committees of inquiry over the last twenty years 1988 2009 swedish renewable energy policy is often characterised with words like pioneering and forerunner suggesting that the policy making process in this area engages many different experts and stakeholders our data give only some support to this argument results point to a noteworthy predominance of politicians civil servants and representatives of state agencies within the policy process producers of uranium and fossils based energy have been engaged more often than producers of renewable energy experts have played a prominent role but this is mostly due to the participation of expert bureaucrats rather than of scientists the study suggests that a better understanding of the making of energy policy both in sweden and elsewhere requires greater attention to the networks and role of various state employees

measurement matters recent results from monetary economics reexamined inferences about the effects of money on economic activity may depend importantly on the choice of a monetary index because simple sum aggregates cannot internalize pure substitution effects this hypothesis is investigated by replicating five recent studies that have challenged an aspect of the conventional wisdom about the effects of money on aggregate activity in four of the five cases the qualitative inference in the original study is reversed when a simple sum monetary aggregate is replaced by a divisia index of the same asset collection the results are mixed in the fifth case

oil vulnerability index of oil importing countries abstract this paper assesses the relative oil vulnerability of 26 net oil importing countries for the year 2004 on the basis of various indicators the ratio of value of oil imports to gross domestic product gdp oil consumption per unit of gdp gdp per capita and oil share in total energy supply ratio of domestic reserves to oil consumption exposure to geopolitical oil market concentration risks as measured by net oil import dependence diversification of supply sources political risk in oil supplying countries and market liquidity the approach using the principal component technique has been adopted to combine these individual indicators into a composite index of oil vulnerability such an index captures the relative sensitivity of various economies towards developments of the international oil market with a higher index indicating higher vulnerability the results show that there are considerable differences in the values of individual indicators of oil vulnerability and overall oil vulnerability index among the countries both inter and intraregional

strategizing by firms in the presence of markets for resources strategizing by firms from the resource based view is concerned with the process through which firms acquire a distinctive bundle of resources that is costly and time consuming for competitors to duplicate or imitate a central question facing any firm therefore is its strategy for accumulating the resources that underpin its production activities in this article the process of resource accumulation is discussed as one involving potentially both internal resource development and external resource acquisition from the perspective of the strategic issues involved in making a choice between these options emerging markets for technologies and know how through licensing and other forms of resource exchange have opened up new avenues through which firms may jostle for advantage the article is concerned with three major aspects of this process illustrating the discussion with cases from biotechnology and pharmaceuticals first the strategizing by firms around the internal development vs external sourcing issue is discussed as informed by the practices of leading firms and how these lend greater variety of strategic options for firms second the potential competitive advantages as well as disadvantages to be secured by firms through the process of external sourcing as compared with the well known potential advantages accruing to incumbents through internal development such as time compression diseconomies and causal ambiguity and third the criteria to be used by firms to strategically evaluate resources individually as contrasted with the strategic evaluation of the resource bundle or totality these criteria it is argued turn on the issues of marginal value contribution resource complementarities and synergies resource variety and transferability involving intellectual property issues successful firms it is argued expand their options through blending internal resource accumulation with external resource leverage thereby deepening their distinctive dynamic capabilities this approach extends the framework of the rbv enabling it to encompass resource driven schumpeterian competition and such aspects of industrial dynamics as specialization modularization and imitative challenge copyright 2003 oxford university press

the knowledge problem entrepreneurial discovery and austrian market process theory abstract using a stylized model of the used car market we extend the formal theory of the austrian market process in three directions first we incorporate the knowledge problem and entrepreneurial alertness for the discovery of previously unknown information second we allow for the possibility that entrepreneurs may make mistakes third we describe the effect of entrepreneurial behavior on disequilibrium market adjustment we give conditions under which an equilibrium exists for an austrian market process with these elements and we analyze the stability properties of the equilibrium furthermore we show that the model has interesting welfare properties a commodity tax may increase or decrease welfare journal of economic literature classification number d50

monetary aggregates and output series title working paper frb title monetary aggregates and output date publication federal reserve bank of cleveland working paper no 9813 author s scott freeman finn kydland type working paper frb topics s us economy

energy efficiency barriers in commercial and industrial firms in ukraine an empirical analysis abstract improvement in energy efficiency is one of the main options to reduce energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions however large scale deployment of energy efficient technologies is constrained by several factors employing a survey of 509 industrial and commercial firms throughout ukraine and a generalized ordered logit model we quantified the economic behavioral and institutional barriers that may impede the deployment of energy efficient technologies our analysis shows that behavioral barriers resulted from lack of information knowledge and awareness are major impediments to the adoption of energy efficient technologies in ukraine and that financial barriers may further impede investments in these technologies especially for small firms this suggests that carefully targeted information provisions and energy audits will enhance ukrainian firms investments in energy efficient technologies to save energy consumption improve productivity and reduce carbon emissions from the productive sectors

energy security and renewable energy deployment in the eu liaisons dangereuses or virtuous circle abstract a large body of literature estimates the effect of energy security drivers on renewable energy deployment using import dependence as a proxy for energy security which is an approach that ignores the potential effect of other energy security strategies such as the diversification of energy sources using panel data for the energy sector across 21 eu member states we investigate the effect of different energy security concepts on the development of renewable energies we compare the results of applying different energy security indicators including the ones used in eu energy policymaking unlike previous studies this study reports a long term relationship between energy security and renewable deployment our findings suggest that the relationship between energy security policies and renewable energy sources res deployment is far from straightforward and depends on the chosen energy security strategy which is usually linked to different energy security conceptualizations our primary findings confirm i that res deployment is a consequence of a combination of energy security strategies including environmental concerns rather than being solely caused by a shift towards more sustainable energy policies and ii that among the different energy security strategies the diversification of energy sources through renewable energy deployment is a more coherent strategy than using res to reduce dependency

feed in or certificates competition or complementarity combining a static efficiency and a dynamic innovation perspective on the greening of the energy industry abstract european policy on the greening of the energy industry has been characterised by a debate between proponents of two apparent polar opposites feed in tariffs and certificate markets different european countries have chosen both mechanisms and as a consequence the european union has maintained a fairly pluralist position abstaining from stricter harmonisation taking a dynamic innovation perspective on european energy industry we argue that feed in tariffs and certificate markets should not be seen as competing alternatives but rather as complementary regulatory instruments targeting subsequent steps in the product cycle on the way from early technology conceptualisation and development towards competitive positioning in mature energy markets we see both policy instruments as necessary to achieve the extensive transformation towards sustainable development that is judged as important tools in the context of the global climate challenge

eu renewable energy support policy faith or facts the recent eu commission proposal for promoting the supply of power from renewable energy sources was originally based on a pan european harmonised tradable green certificate tgc scheme we suggest on the basis of a multi disciplinary analysis that a pan eu tgc system is not the way forward for europe it is vital that the commission and the majority of member states avoids implementation of such policy designs put forward by a coalition of vested interests they should instead look at and act upon the available evidence from those countries that have experimented with tgcs e g flanders uk and sweden and design policies that stand a better chance of meeting the criteria of effectiveness efficiency and equity in particular the policies must enable eu to meet the immense innovation industrialisation challenge by inducing the development of a capital goods industry that can eventually diffuse a broad range of technologies that use renewable energy sources only then we can acquire an ability to implement an industrial revolution in the energy system in a way that broadly meets the criteria of effectiveness and dynamic efficiency

retail sweep programs and monetary asset substitution abstract this paper examines how retail sweep programs affect monetary asset substitution estimates from the fourier flexible form reveal that sweeping generates systematic and sometimes large distortions in estimated bank depositor substitution elasticities

geographies of energy transition space place and the low carbon economy this paper makes a case for examining energy transition as a geographical process involving the reconfiguration of current patterns and scales of economic and social activity the paper draws on a seminar series on the geographies of energy transition security climate governance hosted by the authors between 2009 and 2011 which initiated a dialogue between energy studies and the discipline of human geography focussing on the uk government s policy for a low carbon transition the paper provides a conceptual language with which to describe and assess the geographical implications of a transition towards low carbon energy six concepts are introduced and explained location landscape territoriality spatial differentiation scaling and spatial embeddedness examples illustrate how the geographies of a future low carbon economy are not yet determined and that a range of divergent and contending potential geographical futures are in play more attention to the spaces and places that transition to a low carbon economy will produce can help better understand what living in a low carbon economy will be like it also provides a way to help evaluate the choices and pathways available

money and output friedman and schwartz revisited more than fifty years ago friedman and schwartz examined historical data for the united states and found evidence of pro cyclical movements in the money stock which led corresponding movements in output we find similar correlations in more recent data these appear most clearly when divisia monetary aggregates are used in place of the federal reserve s official simple sum measures when we use information in divisia money to estimate a structural vector autoregression identified monetary policy shocks appear to have large and persistent effects on output and prices with a lag that has lengthened considerably since the early 1980s

european union energy policy integration a case of european commission policy entrepreneurship and increasing supranationalism focusing on gas this article explores the role of the european commission in the process of european union energy security policy development and the extent to which the policy area is becoming increasingly supranational situating the article within the literature on agenda setting and framing it is argued that a policy window was opened as a result of enlargement to include more energy import dependent states a trend of increasing energy imports and prices and gas supply disruptions from the mid 2000s the commission contributed to a shift in political norms successfully framing import dependency as a problem requiring an eu level solution based on the institution s pre existing preferences for a diversified energy supply and internal energy market whilst member states retain significant sovereignty the commission has achieved since 2006 creeping competencies in the internal and to a lesser extent external dimensions of eu energy policy

inside money monetary contractions and welfare this paper presents an explicit physical environment in which optimizing agents choose the composition of their money balances because of their choices changes in the nominal sum of inside and outside money precede changes in output nevertheless changes in the supply of fiat money do not affect subsequent out put moreover an equilibrium with a fixed supply of valued fiat money is pareto optimal despite the cyclical fluctuations of output and of the total money stock monnaie interne contractions monetaires et bien etre ce memoire definit un environne ment physique explicite dans lequel les agents economiques recherchent l optimum en choisissant la composition de leurs actifs monetaires en consequence de leurs choix des changements dans la somme nominale de monnaie interne et de monnaie externe prec dent les changements dans le niveau de production neanmoins des changements dans l offre de monnaie fiduciaire n affectent pas le niveau de production subsequent de plus l equilibre quand l offre de monnaie fiduciaire est fixe est un optimum de pareto malgre les fluctuations dans le niveau de production et dans le stock total

on the social structure of markets economic theorists have seldom discussed the social structures behind markets even though market trading relies heavily on seller buyer roles and personal relations among traders this paper considers the structural basis of markets and proposes a layered approach which accommodates a wide range of competitive and relational trade within a definition of markets that distinguishes them from non market exchange giving due regard to social structures lays bare the institutional character of markets and provides a rationale for case studies of how particular markets function

a dynamic programming model of china s strategic petroleum reserve general strategy and the effect of emergencies abstract to protect the security of energy supply china is building national strategic petroleum reserve spr we present a dynamic programming model to determine the optimal stockpiling and drawdown strategies for china s spr under various scenarios focusing on minimizing the total cost of reserves in contrast to previous research the oil price given in our model is exogenous on a monthly instead of annual basis with a view to more realistic simulation of optimal strategies each year our model results show that in the case where stockpiling affects oil prices a given spr size will be achieved earlier than when stockpiling does not affect oil prices in different emergency conditions the optimal stockpiling and drawdown strategies of china s spr are very different when an emergency occurs the shock of stockpiling on the oil price per barrel could range 0 49 6 35 while the impact of drawdown on the oil price per barrel could range 6 22 to 0 48

a framework to evaluate security of supply in the electricity sector security of electricity supply soes has become a major concern for regulators and policymakers over the last decade however most work focusses either more generally on energy security or on a single fuel we develop a comprehensive but flexible framework to assess the soes for a single jurisdiction taking into the account the specificities of electricity this framework has two aims i provide a snapshot of the situation to understand current weaknesses and determine what actions are required ii capture the evolution over time to evaluate progress and identify potential problems before they materialise the framework based on an extensive literature review consists of twelve dimensions that are critical for soes we develop metrics that capture the state and evolution of each dimension this framework is intended to be a management information tool for all stakeholders aimed at organising data and structuring its analysis to enable monitoring the evolution of the soes while also functioning as an early warning system by flagging potential future problems

institutions in european and asian energy markets a methodological overview abstract this article introduces a methodological framework to study institutions in european and asian energy markets with a comparative case study on the eu and east asia a distinction is made between informal and three types of formal institutions and their transaction cost reducing order creating and ecological climatic functions the operation of energy markets is explained through the structure of institutions their types and functions it is found that order creating institutions guarantee enough stability mutual trust and solidarity among eu member states to support the competitive markets institution and supranational formal institutions as the underpinnings of trade in the internal energy market which nevertheless retains some corporatist features in the east asian markets the nature of order creating institutions sovereignty energy diplomacy and great power management prevents the emergence of supranational formal institutions and a shared idea of trade the prevailing structure has a large number of sub regional organisations with overlapping tasks and few powers in both markets the functions of institutions signify more than their number transaction cost reducing institutions are dependent on order creating institutions while both of these functions are better realised on the regional level than ecological climatic functions ultimately informal institutions are most influential

energy supply security and geopolitics a european perspective the security of energy supply to the eu is examined in the context of two storylines markets and institutions exemplifies an economically and politically integrated multilateral world with effective institutions and markets regions and empires involves a world broken up in rival political and economic blocks competing for resources and markets via political economic and military power it is shown that these storylines have a significant impact on the development of the energy market on the way in which energy supply may be secured and on the effect and applicability of the several types of instruments available the current eu is geared towards enlargement and a deepening of economic integration based on the tenets of the post 1945 multilateral world system the present world tends towards regions and empires and suggests that the eu may have to reorient its energy security policy energy policy must become an integral part of eu external trade and foreign relations and security policy the eu should develop its own strategy actively investing in dialogues with producer countries in the persian gulf and africa and with russia sustainable prosperity and governance in these regions will support eu energy security

complex actions and simple outcomes how new entrepreneurs stay in business in this paper the entrepreneur within the new small firm is regarded as taking complex rather than simple actions which determine whether he or she will remain in business thus instead of simply choosing output as in the standard analysis of the competitive firm the entrepreneur may take actions which involve choices about markets finance organisation innovation and much else besides to explore this approach very detailed information on actions within small firms is required it is shown how this was obtained by a fieldwork study of new business starts using data from this fieldwork a rich statistical picture was created of actions within the new small firm in turn this permitted econometric analysis of actions that help a new small firm to stay in business over a three year period this indicates that the crucial actions which enable a small firm to stay in business are the rapid repayment of debt and the willingness to sacrifice short run profit for growth there is also evidence that staying in business is fostered by tight control of the wage bill especially by substituting other labour inputs for full time employees

when should we use strategic oil stocks the countries of the oecd have built significant strategic oil stocks over the past 30 years and others like india and china have begun substantial programs as well the operating environment for using those stocks in an emergency however has changed considerably during those years the original plan for a multilateral draw down of strategic reserves has been amended and repeatedly modified as events have warranted but there remains a great deal of uncertainty as to how and when strategic stocks should be used this paper discusses the track record of using strategic reserves and concludes with recommendations for new guidelines for their use which will strengthen their utility to both the policymaker and the marketplace

energy security externalities and policies abstract in this paper we review conceptual arguments and empirical evidence related to two potential sources of market failure involving energy security in doing so we consider several questions involving the distinction between externality and market inefficiency and the distinction between market failures that are amenable or not amenable to correction given our current understanding of the workings of an economy several conclusions follow from our analysis regarding the potential sources of market failure and possible remedies the problem of excess wealth transfer from exporter market power may be an issue but current knowledge of oil market behaviour is too weak to support a strong conclusion other supposed costs of oil import dependence also are not well grounded including externalities related to the vulnerability of the economy to energy price shocks

the reform in the turkish natural gas market a critical evaluation turkey is in a strategically advantageous position in terms of its natural gas market being in the middle of europe and energy rich countries of central asia it can be an energy corridor between these two regions it can import gas from a number of countries and diversify its sources this situation may also provide motivation for a competitive gas market the recent reform in the market which began in 2001 was an attempt to strengthen the natural gas market to this end however the reform has not worked out as expected so far this article discusses recent restructuring efforts in the turkish natural gas market we focus on the legal structure and economic consequences of the legal change within the international economic relations after presenting a detailed discussion of the legal framework we draw attention to the problems of the industry and difficulties in the transition to a more competitive market structure in the end we touch upon some regulatory issues and potential conflicts

admissible monetary aggregates for the euro area we use the fleissig and whitney fleissig a r whitney g a 2003 a new pc based test for varian s weak separability conditions journal of business and economics statistics 21 1 133 144 weak separability test to determine admissible levels of monetary aggregation for the euro area we find that the euro area monetary assets in m2 and m3 are weakly separable and construct admissible divisia monetary aggregates for these assets we show that real growth of the admissible divisia aggregates enters the euro area is curve positively and significantly for the period from 1980 to 2005 out of sample we show that divisia m2 and m3 appear to contain useful information for forecasting euro area inflation

a model of monetary policy shocks for financial crises and normal conditions in their classic 1999 paper monetary policy shocks what have we learned and to what end christiano eichenbaum and evans cee investigate one of the most widely used methods for identifying monetary policy shocks of its time unfortunately their approach is no longer viable at least not in its original form a major problem stems from the recent behavior of two key variables in their model the fed funds rate and non borrowed reserves we develop a new identification scheme that remedies these diculties but maintains the basic cee framework our empirical specification is motivated by a standard new keynesian dsge model augmented by a simple financial structure the model provides theoretical support for variables we use in place of certain variables that were used in the classic var approach outlined in cee one significant innovation is our use of divisia m4 the broadest monetary aggregate currently available for the united states as the policy indicator variable we obtain four major empirical results that support the use of a properly measured broad monetary aggregate as the policy variable first policy shocks have significant eects on output and on the price level even when an interest rate is included in our model contradicting the new keynesian argument that monetary aggregates are redundant second we develop a model that is not subject to the output price or liquidity puzzles common to this literature contradicting the view that using the interest rate as the policy indicator generally yields more reasonable responses than a monetary aggregate third during normal conditions policy shocks from our divisia based model have similar eects on variables to those found in the fed funds model of monetary policy and where there are dierences our model with divisia m4 obtains results that are more consistent with standard economic theory fourth our preferred specification produces plausible responses to a monetary policy shock in samples that include or exclude the recent financial crisis

the own price of money and a new channel of monetary transmission traditionally the effects of monetary policy actions on output are thought to be transmitted via monetary or credit channels real business cycle theory by contrast highlights the role of real price changes as a source of revisions in spending and production decisions motivated by the desire to focus on the effects of price changes in the monetary transmission mechanism this paper incorporates a direct measure of the real own price of money into an estimated vector autoregression and a calibrated real business cycle model consistent with the rbc view of the monetary transmission mechanism both approaches reveal that movements in the own price of money are strongly related to movements in output

the assessment the new energy paradigm during the 1980s and 1990s energy policy concentrated on privatization liberalization and competition in response to the underlying conditions of excess supply and low fossil fuels these conditions changed around 2000 in response to the coincidence of a structural upward shift in oil prices the aging of the assets network failures and greater import dependency the focus moved from asset sweating towards investment and has been accompanied by a paradigm shift in the objectives of energy policy towards security of supply and climate change this article sets out the implications for the choice of instruments and institutions in the context of liberalized markets in respect of security of supply and climate change market based instruments are advanced in the former capacity markets and in the latter carbon taxes and permits finally consideration is given to the case for a single integrated energy agency both to enhance credibility and to ensure consistency copyright 2005 oxford university press

natural gas corridors between the eu and its main suppliers simulation results with the dynamic gastale model abstract growth in gas demand poses a challenge for european energy consumers and other gas importing countries in terms of an increasing dependency on gas imports and consequently also supply security this paper focuses on interactions among demand supply and investments in natural gas corridors namely pipeline transport lng and storage facilities affecting the european natural gas market over the period 2005 2030 a number of policy scenarios including a business as usual bau scenario are formulated to study the impact of demand uncertainty and delays in investment on the gas transport infrastructure required in the long run in europe the analyses indicate that substantial investments in gas transport corridors are needed to accommodate imports and seasonal demand variations analysis of scenarios of supply interruption in the form of suddenly reduced import capacity for particular pipeline routes indicates that portions of europe could experience price increases of up to 100 in the case of a year long interruption to accommodate import needs and to mitigate possible disruptions pipeline connections running from east to west need to be given special priority

inside money output and causality the authors present an explicit general equilibrium model consistent with these observations 1 innovations in the nominal money stock are positively correlated with and precede granger cause innovations in output 2 these innovations in the nominal money stock represent innovations in inside not outside money and 3 when interest rates are included in vector autoregressions their innovations not money s are seen to precede output changes in the money stock represent an endogenous reaction to some third factor and do not cause subsequent changes in output therefore a change in the current fiat money stock will not lead to any change in output copyright 1991 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

the relation between narrative and money market indicators of monetary policy this paper studies the relation between narrative based indicators of monetary policy and widely used money market indicators of monetary policy three principal findings emerge first changes in monetary policy as measured by the narrative based policy indices are associated with persistent changes in the levels of m2 and the monetary base in contrast changes in the narrative policy indicators lead to transitory changes in short term interest rates nonborrowed reserves and the spread between the six month commercial paper rate and the three month treasury bill rate third these findings are generally robust across different narrative based policy indices

money and output a test of reverse causation this paper attempts to explain the correlation between money and output at various leads and lags with a model in which money is largely neutral and endogenously responds to output money is endogenous because both monetary policy and deposit creation are endogenous parameters are selected according to the simulated moments estimation technique while the estimated model succeeds along some dimensions in matching properties of postwar u s data its failure to match key patterns of lead lag correlations seems to cast doubt on the ability of endogenous money determination by itself to quantitatively account for the observed money output correlations copyright 1996 by american economic association

the eu renewables directive what is the fuss about trading abstract considerable argument about trading in green electricity certificates gecs preceded the publication of the proposed eu renewables directive in early 2008 the proposed directive set a binding target of 20 per cent of eu energy to be derived from renewable energy by 2020 broken down into targets for each member state those arguing for trade in green certificates called certificates of guaranteed origin go included major electricity companies however the idea of mandatory trading was opposed by the main renewable energy industry lobby groups the proposed directive limited trading in accordance with the demands of the renewables industry pressure groups analysis suggests that if member states were forced to trade to achieve a mandatory target of 20 per cent target then gec prices would rise to high levels because the demand for tradeable certificates would be much higher than their supply trading is unlikely to improve the prospects for meeting the targets a system of nationally based feed in tariff systems would not face the problems of uncertain certificate prices faced by compulsory trading in gecs

conceptual proposals for measuring the impact of international regimes on energy security abstract the paper proposes two concepts to assess the effect of international regimes on energy security existing indicators focus mainly on state level factors excluding international influences international relation scholars on the other hand see a clear connection between international regimes and stable energy relations international regimes stabilise energy relations by providing frameworks for negotiations defining controlling and sanctioning compliance and allowing the actors to engage in package deals the researcher needs to include these factors in a complete assessment of political energy security risks as first step the paper uses the effectiveness of control mechanisms as basis for such consideration it refers specifically to international arbitration as the most important control mechanism in international energy relations the simplest measurement option is the share of a county s energy imports covered by a certain regime the paper applies the oslo potsdam solution to account for outcome effectiveness it applies a variant of the international regimes data base protocol to account for effective regime structures in a last section the paper proposes some possible paths for future research

fossil fuel dependence and vulnerability of electricity generation case of selected european countries abstract this paper analyses the diversity of fuel mix for electricity generation in selected european countries and investigates how the fuel bill has changed as a share of gdp between 1995 and 2005 the drivers of fuel dependence related vulnerability are determined using laspeyres index decomposition a what if analysis is carried out to analyse the changes in the vulnerability index due to changes in the drivers and a scenario analysis is finally used to investigate the future vulnerability in the medium term the paper finds that the british and the dutch electricity systems are less diversified compared to three other countries analysed the gas dependence of the dutch and italian systems made them vulnerable but the vulnerability increased in all countries in recent years gas price and the level of dependence on gas for power generation mainly influenced the gas vulnerability the united kingdom saw a substantial decline in its coal vulnerability due to a fall in coal price and coal dependence in electricity generation the scenario analysis indicates that uk is likely to face greater gas vulnerability in the future due to increased gas dependence in electricity generation and higher import dependence

property rights entrepreneurship and coordination abstract the notion of plan coordination enjoys a central place in the analysis of institutions and competitive market processes the conventional wisdom is that institutions and policies vary in the extent to which they promote competition and how quickly and completely they bring individuals plans into closer coordination with one another kirzner has provided the most fully elaborated statement on the use of coordination as a positive analytical device for explaining market dynamics and as a normative criterion for evaluating economic policies we identify the core propositions in his analysis that elucidate how economic coordination depends upon that most fundamental of market institutions the system of private property rights we also probe into kirzner s claims about inherent limitations in our ability to compare the coordinative potential of alternative property rights systems we unpack the consequences of these core propositions using the economic theory of property rights we also examine kirzner s assertion that dynamic competition including schumpeterian innovation is necessarily coordinative in its market effects we find that his argument rests on the implicit assumption that property rights remain constant during the process of market adjustment we provide a case study of the advent of commercial aviation as a potential counterexample to his claims

is energy security a driver for economic growth evidence from a global sample abstract this study examines whether energy security contributes to economic growth for a global sample of 74 countries covering the period from 2002 to 2013 the benchmark model is built based on an extended version of the cobb douglas production function ten measures of energy security are employed to capture five aspects of energy security including availability accessibility acceptability affordability and develop ability besides the whole sample we also conduct the panel data analysis on subsamples of countries based on different income levels using panel corrected standard errors pcse and feasible generalized least squares fgls techniques that correct for heterogeneity and autocorrelation and produce robust standard errors the empirical results appear to be relatively robust to these two estimation techniques overall we find that energy security enhances economic growth for both the whole sample and subsamples of countries meanwhile energy insecurity measured by energy intensity and carbon intensity variables has a negative impact on economic growth the results vary across subsamples for several cases the findings imply that at the global level energy for economic development energy security and climate change mitigation should be pursued as integrated themes since there are linkages among these three agendas

the rise and fall of go trading in european renewable energy policy the role of advocacy and policy framing this paper examines policy processes surrounding the rise and fall of the proposed eu wide policy instrument designed to help achieve the eu s renewable energy targets the trading of guarantees of origin go it discusses its origins and examines factors in the policy processes over time leading first to its development and then to its abandonment a first analysis looks at the near term policy making process before and after the proposal on go trading in january 2008 focusing on the european policy making institutions and influences of interest groups and member state governments it then takes a step back and looks over a longer time period at how competing policy frames have shaped the agendas underlying the debate results show how a strong internal market frame acted as a primary driving force in the commission to promote the go trading instrument the rejection of the go trading proposal in the council and parliament can be largely attributed to the lack of a strong lobby in favour of go the accumulated experience with and institutionalisation of national res support policies such as feed in tariffs and growing general political concerns for supply security innovation and competitiveness

an assessment of the greek incentives scheme for photovoltaics abstract after two years of elaboration a new legislation was enacted in 2006 in greece providing an appealing feed in tariff fit scheme for photovoltaics pvs the response of the market was immediate with more than 7947 licenses having been submitted in less than 2 years time the effectiveness however of an incentives scheme cannot be judged solely by the response of prospective investors aim of this paper is to present and discuss a quantitative assessment of this newly introduced fit law in greece with respect to its attractiveness to investors its effectiveness towards launching a new market its cost efficiency and its ability to lift non economic barriers that led to significant delays in the diffusion of res over the last 10 years

institutional change in european natural gas markets and implications for energy security lessons from the german case this article focuses on institutional change in the german gas market driven by eu internal market and climate policies it argues that institutional change has functional externalities for energy security the german gas market provides a useful case study as germany is the biggest continental gas market a major hub and transport country which has largely privatised unbundled and separated its natural gas undertakings transition is ongoing tending towards an internal market inter national natural gas economics is in flux institutional evolution has repercussions for corporate and market structures the operating of the system and the realization of transactions changes in the institutional framework crucially affect energy security which is often associated with institutional stability on the basis of this case study it is argued herein that the security of natural gas supplies should be reexamined in the context of the developments described above since overall the institutional changes in natural gas security lag behind the eu s internal natural gas market development

crude oil import policy of turkey historical analysis of determinants and implications since 1968 turkey is one of the most energy import dependent countries in the world suffering deeply from the economic and strategic burdens of oil importation our purpose is to determine the factors behind the crude oil import policy of turkey and to measure their contribution to a well organized import strategy we implemented a principle component analysis to construct an oil import vulnerability index oivi based on four factors which are crude oil import dependency of primary energy consumption crude oil import bill as a share of gross domestic product gdp non diversification of import sources and share of oil in total energy import the contribution of these factors to the oivi is found to be approximately equal while an overall deterioration in the oivi has been observed during periods of increasing oil prices better diversification of oil import sources has lead to significant improvements we suggest turkish policy makers implement sound policies emphasizing diversification of crude oil import sources and reduction of the share of crude oil in primary energy imports to increase energy supply security this study has also demonstrated that it is possible to construct an index representing crude oil vulnerability caused by import dependency

how money affects real output this paper decomposes the money stock into constituent parts to examine the relationship between monetary variables and real economic activity using vector autoregression for 1954 to 1979 the first decomposition reveals that innovations in money multiplier growth rates are approximately three times more influential in determining real output growth than are monetary base growth innovations the second decomposition includes components of the money multiplier to identify the importance of actions of the public the banking community and the monetary authority the results suggest that the public and the fed had a significant impact on influencing real output growth copyright 1989 by ohio state university press

will the european commission s policy hinder gas supplies to central and eastern european countries opal case decision abstract natural gas has become one of the most important sources of energy the liberalization of the gas sector in the last decades brought a dynamic development of the energy infrastructure in the eu thus it must be underlined that the liquidity of the gas market is dependent on the outside supplies the study examines the european commission s policy taking into consideration specifically its decision on the exemption of opal gas pipeline from eu rules the main question is what would be the long term effect of such policy in the authors opinion there are several serious doubts whether the commission has made an appropriate decision the major one concentrate on the impact of the decision which according to the commission refers only to germany and czechia gas market nevertheless an analysis of gas flow based on the entsog leads to a conclusions that decision could have a substantial influence on slovakia and poland if so under the eu provisions the investment can not be excluded form the eu rules therefore the authors will analyze step by step the commission decision and present its possible future impact on the internal energy market

when the grace period is over assessing the new member states compliance with eu requirements for oil stockholding the accumulation of appropriate emergency stocks of crude oil and petroleum products has been at the heart of the european commission s efforts to increase the security of supply this study investigates how effectively the new member states comply with the requirements of council directive 2006 67 ec which imposes the obligation to maintain minimum stocks of crude oil and or petroleum products the empirical focus of this analysis is not only motivated by the practical relevance of this issue but also by the fact that eleven of the twelve new member states were given grace periods between one and seven years to bring their national stockholding arrangements in line with the european requirements the granting of extended deadlines raises the question whether this instrument indeed facilitates the transposition process the empirical findings show that except for latvia compliance with the eu stockholding requirements is generally very good a more detailed analysis of the latvian case highlights that the transposition delays principally stem from budgetary constraints more generally the individual new member states capacity to cope with the financial burdens and the degree of adjustment pressure determine the variation in oil stock levels

control aversion and the search for external financing in swedish smes the discussion on growth see storey 1997 and control aversion cressy 1995 chittenden et al 1996 cressy and olofsson 1996 in small and medium sized firms has been attracting an increasing amount of attention our purpose in this article is to identify under what circumstances small and medium sized firms are prepared to accept outside control in the business firm in order to grow in the article it is argued that technology development financial strength size and perceived need to grow change firms attitudes towards external financiers the change in attitude towards more openness eventually leads to an actual behaviour where the principals choose to apply for external finance in the form of bank loans a linear structural equation modelling program lisrel is used to analyse a sample of 281 swedish firms the firms all have less than 200 employees and the sample includes both manufacturing and service firms

nonparametric tests of utility maximization and weak separability for consumption leisure and money some of the most fundamental assumptions of economics are utility maximization and weak separability of the arguments in the represen tative consumer s utility function this paper contains results from nonparametric tests of these assumptions about consumer behavior the authors find that quarterly per capita data on consumption goods le isure and monetary assets are consistent with utility maximization further consumption goods and leisure meet necessary and sufficient conditions for weak separability additionally one grouping of relat ively liquid monetary assets meets the necessary conditions for weak separability they also test and find no evidence of homothetic prefe rences copyright 1987 by mit press

is small beautiful a multicriteria assessment of small scale energy technology applications in local governments in its 2003 white paper the uk government set ambitious renewable energy targets local governments and households have an increasing role in the overall energy system as consumers suppliers of smaller scale applications and citizens discussing energy projects in this paper we consider if small scale or large scale approaches to renewable energy provision can achieve energy targets in the most socially economically and environmentally see effective way we take a local case study of renewable energy provision in the metropolitan borough of kirklees in yorkshire uk and apply a multi criteria decision analysis methodology to compare the small scale schemes implemented in kirklees with large scale alternatives the results indicate that small scale schemes are the most see effective despite large scale schemes being more financially viable the selection of the criteria on which the alternatives are assessed and the assigned weights for each criterion are of crucial importance it is thus very important to include the relevant stakeholders to elicit this information

consumer theory and the demand for money the following sections are included introductionthe definition of moneythe microeconomic theory of a monetary economythe aggregation theoretic approach to money demandindex number theorythe links between aggregation theory index number theory and monetary theoryunderstanding the new divisia aggregatesthe optimal level of monetary subaggregationeconometric considerationsapproximating the monetary services subutility functionan exampleempirical dimensionsempirical comparisons of index numbersempirical results for the demand system approachextensionsconclusions this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

the meaning of the market process essays in the development of modern austrian economics part i the market process approach 1 market process theory in defence of the austrian middle ground 2 the meaning of the market process part ii the emergence of the austrian view 3 the austrian school of economics 4 carl menger and the subjectivist tradition in economics 5 menger classical liberalism and the austrian school of economics 6 the economic calculation debate lessons for austrians 7 ludwig von mises and friedrich von hayek the modern extension of austrian subjectivism part iii some new explorations in the austrian approach 8 prices the communication of knowledge and the discovery process 9 economic planning and the knowledge problem 10 knowledge problems and their solutions some relevant distinctions 11 welfare economics a modern austrian perspective part iv some related issues emerging from the austrian approach 12 self interest and the new bashing of economics 13 discovery private property and the theory of justice

towards an interdisciplinary theory of entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is one of the least understood topics in economics the rising significance of small companies and especially of start ups for the creation of new jobs has been an intensively discussed subject for nearly one decade but there is still no theory of entrepreneurship

the energy union and security of gas supply this paper discusses and contrasts the proposals for an energy union in the european union and its impact on security of gas supply based on an examination of historical east west gas trade and by revisiting energy security concepts the paper analyzes how problems with dependency on energy imports can be reduced the paper discusses how the positions of central and eastern european countries ceec where security challenges are especially evident and the positions of countries in western europe where they are less acute interact and conflicts in making a common energy security policy as part of the energy union the paper argues that the mainly confederative structure of the eu and diverging national situations make it difficult to unify positions into an effective common energy policy however with the ceec in the eu the eu is also changing and an increased focus on energy security may be accepted extended interconnectedness within and to the ceec appears to be the central issue that would mitigate albeit not solve contemporary security of gas supply problems as it would also bring the internal energy market closer to reality it could in addition help the energy union to become a unifying project merging the interests in the east and the west despite their different security of gas supply concerns with russian gas

entrepreneurship in a modern network economy n ijkamp p 2003 entrepreneurship in a modern network economy reg studies 37 395 405 in this survey paper the literature on entrepreneurship is summarized from the perspective of geographical seedbed conditions and network constellations we argue that in many cases urban areas offer favourable incubator conditions for innovative entrepreneurship as a result of economies of density and the opportunities created by the city as a nucleus of a broader network both local and global clearly network participation by creative entrepreneurs does not necessarily need an urban base although informal spatial networks among specific business segments e g ethnic niches may be favourable for economic performance we conclude that a modern entrepreneur tends to become increasingly a creative network operator and manager n ijkamp p 2003 l esprit d entrepise dans une economie de reseau moderne reg studies 37 395 405 cet article cherche a resumer la documentation sur l esprit d entreprise du point d

advancing the design of a dynamic petro dollar currency basket this study offers organization of petroleum exporting countries opec member nations a crude oil pricing currency basket based on currency liquidity in contrast with prior emphasis on opec trading patterns motivating the search for an alternative us dollar pricing of crude oil is the significant and inverse relationship r 0 82 p 0 01 between the us dollar major currencies index and crude oil price over the period january 1999 march 2009 a dynamically weighted petro dollar currency basket is proposed based on the five currency claims us dollar euro british pound japanese yen and swiss franc and their varying proportions of foreign exchange reserves held by central banks the major currencies us dollar index is compared against the proposed petro dollar index to reveal an average us 8 1 billion annual gain in favor of the petro dollar currency basket offering opec members a revenue stream of diversified and highly liquid currencies to transition away from complete dependence on the us dollar crude oil pricing the proposed petro dollar crude oil pricing schema offers opec a crude oil price dynamically denominated in currencies reflecting the global use and importance of crude oil this paper concludes with implementation issues facing a move toward the dynamically weighted petro dollar crude oil pricing schema

israel m kirzner an outstanding austrian contributor to the economics of entrepreneurship israel m kirzner is the 2006 winner of the international award for entrepreneurship and small business research in this essay we present and evaluate his main contributions to the economics of entrepreneurship