the policy preferences of the us federal reserve in this paper we model and explain us macroeconomic outcomes subject to the discipline that monetary policy is set optimally exploiting the restrictions that come from optimal policymaking we estimate the parameters in the federal reserve s policy objective function together with the parameters in its optimization constraints for the period following volcker s appointment as chairman we estimate the implicit inflation target to be around 1 4 and show that policymakers assigned a significant weight to interest rate smoothing we show that the estimated optimal policy provides a good description of us data for the 1980s and 1990s

granger causality and policy effectiveness it is generally recognized that if a set of monetary and fiscal policy variables granger cause1 real economic variables this does not imply that alternative deterministic rules for determining the values of these policy instruments will alter the joint density function of the real variables 2 it has however also been asserted that letting x denote a suitably restricted vector of real economic aggregates g a list of monetary and fiscal policy variables and e the mathematical expectation operator

are there multiple bubbles in the ethanol gasoline price ratio of brazil this paper tests for the existence of bubbles in the ethanol gasoline price ratio in brazil from 2000 to 2012 using right tailed adf tests results suggest the existence of two bubbles one which has already burst during the re election of president lula and one which has been ongoing since 2010 thus corroborating empirical and anecdotal evidence in the brazilian sugarcane industry freezing gasoline prices not only depressed ethanol prices but also depressed investments in new sugarcane crops and distillation plants

electricity consumption and economic growth exploring panel specific differences abstract in this paper we examine the long and short run dynamics between electricity consumption and economic activities using panel data of per capita electricity consumption and per capita gdp of 160 countries for the period of 1980 2010 accounting for the degree of electricity dependence and the level of urbanization furthermore in order to capture the differences in this relationship the full sample is divided into various subsamples based on countries income levels regional locations and oecd memberships this framework is argued and found to be appropriate since the causal links and inferences arising therefrom differ considerably among the subsamples which led us to conclude that the electricity growth nexus is highly sensitive to regional differences countries income levels urbanization rates and supply risks

decomposition analysis of the variations in residential electricity consumption in brazil for the 1980 2007 period measuring the activity intensity and structure effects abstract introduced at the end of the 1970s to study the impacts of structural changes on electricity consumption by industry index decomposition analysis techniques have been extended to various other areas to help in the formulation of energy policies notably in developed countries however few authors have applied these techniques to study the evolution of energy consumption in developing countries in brazil the few available studies have focused only on the industrial sector in this article we apply the decomposition technique called the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi to electricity consumption of the brazilian residential sector to explain its evolution in terms of the activity structure and intensity affects over the period from 1980 to 2007 the technique is sufficiently robust and flexible to perform this analysis by disaggregating residential consumers by consumption classes and regions of the country among the main results is measurement of the impact of government programs for income transfer and universal service on variations in residential consumption typical of developing countries

flexible inflation forecast targeting evidence from canada we test whether the bank of canada pursues a flexible inflation forecast target one that weights output growth as well as inflation for the period 1996 2007 we find evidence that the bank did effectively pursue such a target over the forecast horizon of 12 to 18 months we find the relative weight that the bank gives to output growth in its target to be positive and statistically significant within the range of 0 2 to 0 4 resume la poursuite de cibles de prevision d inflation flexibles resultats pour le canada on met au test la proposition a savoir si la banque du canada poursuit une cible flexible de prevision d inflation une cible qui tient compte de la croissance du produit tout autant que l inflation pour la periode 1996 2007 les resultats montrent que la banque a poursuivi une cible sur un horizon de prevision de 12 a 18 mois on montre que la ponderation relative que la banque donne a la croissance du produit dans son ciblage est positive et statistiquement significative dans l eventail entre 0 2 et 0 4

monetary policy inertia more a fiction than a fact abstract empirical estimates of monetary policy reaction functions feature a very high estimated degree of monetary policy inertia this evidence is very hard of reconcile with the alternative evidence of low predictability of monetary policy rates in this paper we examine the potential relevance of the problem of weak instruments to correctly identify the degree of monetary policy inertia in forward looking monetary policy reaction function of the type originally proposed by taylor 1993 discretion versus policy rules in practice canergie rochester conference series on public policy 39 195 214 after appropriately diagnosing and taking care of the weak instruments problem we find an estimated degree of policy inertia which is significantly lower than the common value in the empirical literature on monetary policy rules

how ambitious are china and india s emissions intensity targets abstract several developing economies have announced carbon emissions targets for 2020 as part of the negotiating process for a post kyoto climate policy regime china and india s commitments are framed as reductions in the emissions intensity of the economy by 40 45 and 20 25 respectively between 2005 and 2020 how feasible are the proposed reductions in emissions intensity for china and india and how do they compare with the targeted reductions in the us and the eu in this paper we use a stochastic frontier model of energy intensity to decompose energy intensity into the effects of input and output mix climate and a residual technology variable we use the model to produce emissions projections for china and india under a number of scenarios regarding the pace of technological change and changes in the share of non fossil energy we find that china is likely to need to adopt ambitious carbon mitigation policies in order to achieve its stated target and that its targeted reductions in emissions intensity are on par with those implicit in the us and eu targets india s target is less ambitious and might be met with only limited or even no dedicated mitigation policies

china s changing energy intensity trend a decomposition analysis china experienced a dramatic decline in energy intensity from the onset of economic reform in the late 1970s until 2000 but since then the rate of decline slowed and energy intensity actually increased in 2003 most previous studies found that most of the decline was due to technological change but disagreed on the role of structural change to the best of our knowledge no decomposition study has investigated the role of inter fuel substitution in the decline in energy intensity or the causes of the rise in energy intensity since 2000 in this paper we use logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi techniques to decompose changes in energy intensity in the period 1980 2003 we find that 1 technological change is confirmed as the dominant contributor to the decline in energy intensity 2 structural change at the industry and sector sub industry level actually increased energy intensity over the period of 1980 2003 although the structural change at the industry level was very different in the 1980s and in the post 1990 period 3 structural change involving shifts of production between sub sectors however decreased overall energy intensity 4 the increase in energy intensity since 2000 is explained by negative technological progress 5 inter fuel substitution is found to contribute little to the changes in energy intensity

inflation targeting as a monetary policy rule the purpose of the paper is to survey and discuss in ation targeting in the context of monetary policy rules the paper provides a general conceptual discussion of monetary policy rules attempts to clarify the essential characteristics of in ation targeting compares in ation targeting to other monetary policy rules and draws some conclusions for the monetary policy of the european system of central banks jel classi cation e42 e52

comparing structural decomposition analysis and index to analyze and understand historical changes in economic environmental employment or other socio economic indicators it is useful to assess the driving forces or determinants that underlie these changes two techniques for decomposing indicator changes at the sector level are structural decomposition analysis sda and index decomposition analysis ida for example sda and ida have been used to analyze changes in indicators such as energy use co2 emissions labor demand and value added the changes in these variables are decomposed into determinants such as technological demand and structural effects sda uses information from input output tables while ida uses aggregate data at the sector level the two methods have developed quite independently which has resulted in each method being characterized by specific unique techniques and approaches this paper has three aims first the similarities and differences between the two approaches are summarized second the possibility of transferring specific techniques and indices is explored finally a numerical example is used to illustrate differences between the two approaches

inflation forecast targeting implementing and monitoring inflation targets abstract inflation targeting is shown to imply inflation forecast targeting the central bank s inflation forecast becomes an explicit intermediate target inflation forecast targeting simplifies both implementation and monitoring of monetary policy the weight on output stabilization determines how quickly the inflation forecast is adjusted towards the inflation target money growth or exchange rate targeting is generally inferior than inflation targeting and leads to higher inflation variability commitment to target rules may be better than commitment to instrument rules

what does the bundesbank target abstract although its primary ultimate objective is price stability the bundesbank has drawn a distinction between its money focused strategy and the inflation targeting approach recently adopted by a number of central banks we show that holding constant the current forecast of inflation german monetary policy responds very little to changes in forecasted money growth we conclude that the bundesbank is much better described as an inflation targeter than as a money targeter an additional contribution of the paper is to apply the structural var methods of b bernanke and i mihov measuring monetary policy working paper no 5145 national bureau of economic research cambridge ma june 1995 to determine the optimal indicator of german monetary policy we find that the lombard rate has historically been a good policy indicator although the use of the call rate as an indicator cannot be statistically rejected

the lmdi approach to decomposition analysis a practical guide in a recent study ang energy policy 32 2004 compared various index decomposition analysis methods and concluded that the logarithmic mean divisia index method is the preferred method since the literature on the method tends to be either too technical or specific for most potential users this paper provides a practical guide that includes the general formulation process summary tables for easy reference and examples

dynamic modelling of energy consumption capital stock and real income in g 7 countries abstract this paper applies an aggregate production function to examine the dynamic linkages among energy consumption capital stock and real income real gdp per capita in g 7 counties we employ the toda and yamamoto 1995 granger causality test the generalized impulse response approach and variance decompositions in a multivariate setting to uncover the extent and the magnitude of the relationship among variables our empirical results find evidence of a unidirectional relationship running from energy consumption to real income in canada italy and the uk indicating that energy conservation may hinder economic growth in the three countries furthermore the causality relationship appears to be unidirectional but reversed for france and japan implying that energy conservation in both countries may still be viable but without being detrimental to economic growth as to germany and the u s there is no causality between the variables which demonstrates the neutrality hypothesis and in such a case economic growth will not affect energy use we further see that the impact of capital stock is relatively higher compared with that of energy consumption transitory initial impacts of innovations in energy consumption on capital stock and real income are observed

why u s money does not cause u s output but does cause hong kong output abstract standard econometric tests for whether money causes output will be meaningless if monetary policy is chosen optimally to smooth fluctuations in output if u s monetary policy were chosen to smooth u s output we show that u s money will not granger cause u s output indeed as shown by rowe and yetman 2002 identifying policy makers objectives an application to the bank of canada canadian journal of economics 35 2 239 256 if there is a say 6 quarter lag in the effect of money on output then u s output will be unforecastable from any information set available to the fed lagged 6 quarters but if other countries for example hong kong have currencies that are fixed to the u s dollar hong kong monetary policy will then be chosen in washington d c with no concern for smoothing hong kong output econometric causality tests of u s money on hong kong output will then show evidence of causality we test this empirically our empirical analysis also provides a measure of the degree to which macroeconomic stabilisation is sacrificed by adopting a fixed exchange rate rather than an independent monetary policy

linking analyses and environmental kuznets curves for aggregated material flows in the eu abstract the relationship between economy and environmental impacts has been an essential topic in the discussion on environmental problems for a long time from the 1990s this relationship has gained a position in environmental policy as well de coupling the use of natural resources from economic growth has been set as one of the policy goals in the sixth environmental action programme by the european commission in the scientific discussion the concept of environmental kuznets curve deals closely with the de coupling or de linking phenomenon aggregated material flows on the other hand have often been considered as a macro level proxy of environmental degradation different methods or approaches have been designed for sustainability or carrying capacity evaluation as well the objective of this article is i to discuss the possibilities and limitations of using environmental and economic indicators in the sustainability analysis at the macro level ii to present a theoretical framework for the linking analysis including a classification of the degrees of de linking re linking environmental impacts from to economic growth and iii to give an empirical example by using indicators of direct material flows as a proxy of environmental degradation and by applying the framework into the european union and its 15 member countries the results show that the trend in the european union is a weak de linking of material flows from economic growth during the years 1980 2000 in other words material intensity of the economy has generally decreased due to increased efficiency but the absolute amount of material use has increased although at a lower rate of increase than economic growth on the other hand there is a quite large variation between different eu member countries however absolute decrease in the use of materials cannot be found as a continuous trend between the years 1980 and 2000 in any of the studied eu member countries

canadian inflation targeting this paper examines the intellectual environment in canada that led to the adoption of inflation targets starting in 1991 reviews some of the canadian contributions to the vast literature on inflation targeting and presents evidence in support of the view that the implementation of inflation targeting in canada has been particularly successful when compared with the experiences of other inflation targeting countries and the us

modeling inflation dynamics a critical review of recent research in recent years a broad academic consensus has arisen around the use of rational expectations sticky price models to capture inflation dynamics these models are seen as providing an empirically reasonable characterization of observed inflation behavior once suitable measures of the output gap are chosen and moreover are perceived to be robust to the lucas critique in a way that earlier econometric models of inflation are not we review the principal conclusions of this literature concerning 1 the ability of these models to fit the data 2 the importance of rational forward looking expectations in price setting and 3 the appropriate measure of inflationary pressures we argue that existing rational expectations sticky price models fail to provide a useful empirical description of the inflation process especially relative to traditional econometric phillips curves of the sort commonly employed for policy analysis

energy intensity developments in 40 major economies structural change or technology improvement this study analyzes energy intensity trends and drivers in 40 major economies using the wiod database a novel harmonized and consistent dataset of input output table time series accompanied by environmental satellite data we use logarithmic mean divisia index decomposition to 1 study trends in global energy intensity between 1995 and 2007 2 attribute efficiency changes to either changes in technology or changes in the structure of the economy and 3 highlight sectoral and regional differences we first show that heterogeneity within each sector across countries is high these general trends within the sectors are dominated by large economies first and foremost the united states in most cases heterogeneity is lower within each country across the different sectors regarding changes of energy intensity at the country level improvements between 1995 and 2007 are largely attributable to technological change while structural change is less important in most countries notable exceptions are japan the united states australia taiwan mexico and brazil where a change in the industry mix was the main driver behind the observed energy intensity reduction

economic growth energy consumption financial development international trade and co2 emissions in indonesia this study examines the linkages among economic growth energy consumption financial development trade openness and co2 emissions over the period of 1975q1 2011q4 in the case of indonesia the stationary analysis is performed by using zivot andrews structural break unit root test and the ardl bounds testing approach for a long run relationship between the series in the presence of structural breaks the causal relation between the concerned variable is examined by the vecm granger causality technique and robustness of causal analysis is tested by innovative accounting approach iaa our results confirm that the variables are cointegrated it means that the long run relationship exists in the presence of structural break stemming in the series the empirical findings indicate that economic growth and energy consumption increases co2 emissions while financial development and trade openness compact it the vecm causality analysis has shown the feedback hypothesis between energy consumption and co2 emissions economic growth and co2 emissions are also interrelated i e bidirectional causality financial development granger causes co2 emissions the study opens up a new policy insights to control the environment from degradation by using energy efficient technologies financial development and trade openness can also play their role in improving the environmental quality

decomposition of ireland s carbon emissions from 1990 to 2010 an extended kaya identity in recent decades ireland has been an important example of a development pathway where rapid economic growth was accompanied by rising energy demand and increasing carbon emissions understanding the driving forces of carbon emissions is necessary for policy formulation and decomposition analysis is widely used for this purpose this study uses an extended kaya identity as the scheme and applies the log mean divisia index lmdi i as the decomposition technique change in carbon emissions is decomposed from 1990 to 2010 and includes a measure of the effect of renewable energy penetration results illustrate that scale effects of affluence and population growth act to increase emissions and are countered primarily by energy intensity and fossil fuel substitution renewable energy penetration has a minor effect but has been increasing in recent years policy will need to significantly reduce intensity and increase renewables if applicable targets are to be reached this requires not only a comprehensive suite of policies and measures but emphasis on the development path and non technical change for optimal outcomes

regulation and development of the argentinean gas market gas markets are becoming increasingly important around the world and the long term evolution of these markets is of strategic importance for many countries this makes it essential to understand how regulation and intervention in these markets affects the long term prospect for the secure supply of gas we use argentina as a case to illustrate some of the issues and consequences of gas regulation argentina is a country that has had a significant increase in the use of gas over the years and where a potential gas deficit looms large in the present and the future based on a simulation model developed to understand the supply of gas in argentina we discuss how regulation will influence the long term supply of gas in both argentina and surrounding countries using the model we develop a series of scenarios to highlight the consequences of different current and possible future interventions in the market by the regulator finally we discuss short term regulatory options to reduce the impact of a gas deficit and the possibility of securing the long term supply of gas in argentina

oil price shocks and stock markets in the u s and 13 european countries abstract oil price shocks have a statistically significant impact on real stock returns contemporaneously and or within the following month in the u s and 13 european countries over 1986 1 2005 12 norway as an oil exporter shows a statistically significantly positive response of real stock returns to an oil price increase the median result from variance decomposition analysis is that oil price shocks account for a statistically significant 6 of the volatility in real stock returns for many european countries but not for the u s increased volatility of oil prices significantly depresses real stock returns the contribution of oil price shocks to variability in real stock returns in the u s and most other countries is greater than that of interest rate an increase in real oil price is associated with a significant increase in the short term interest rate in the u s and eight out of 13 european countries within one or two months counter to findings for the u s and for norway there is little evidence of asymmetric effects on real stock returns of positive and negative oil price shocks for oil importing european countries

climate change and energy policy in chile up in smoke this paper provides an ex post assessment of the climate and energy policy developments in chile emerging from a neoliberal economic model during the period 1971 2007 first correlation and regression analyses were performed to analyse historical co2 emissions as a product of demographic economic and energy wide drivers then i estimate indicators related to co2 emissions energy use and economic activity in the light of empirical results i identify policy instruments and structural issues finally i present a comparative analysis of chile and other latin american countries statistical tests show that variability of co2 emissions is explained mostly by gdp per capita affluence than any other tested variable indicators show that the diversification and decarbonisation of the energy mix has been a major policy challenge with two notable exceptions hydro and natural gas the co2 intensity of the energy supply mix suggests no effective policies while energy security crises triggered negative carbon effects and increased prices no clear policies to promote energy efficiency can be identified until 2005 explicit policy instruments to promote renewable energy are only recognized after 2004 the results strongly suggest that chile lacked of policies to effectively decarbonise its energy economy system

identification weak instruments and statistical inference in econometrics we discuss statistical inference problems associated with identification and testability in econometrics we consider inference in non parametric models and weakly identified structural models weak instruments we point out that many ill defined statistical problems such as non testable hypotheses occur in these areas and are typically associated with asymptotic approximations in non parametric models such problems include testing moments and inference under heteroscedasticity or serial dependence of unknown form for weakly identified structural models difficulties are typically associated with improper pivots and we review recent developments aimed at proposing more reliable procedures including alternative proposed statistics bounds projection split sampling conditioning monte carlo tests jel classification c1 c12 c14 c15 c3 c5 identification instruments faibles et inference statistique en econometrie nous analysons les problemes d inference associes a l identification et a la testabilite en econometrie nous considerons l inference dans les modeles non parametriques et les modeles structurels faiblement identifies instruments faibles nous remarquons que beaucoup de problemes mal poses tels que des hypotheses non testables apparaissent dans ces domaines et que ceux ci sont typiquement associes a l emploi d approximations asymptotiques dans les modeles non parametriques de tels problemes incluent les tests sur les moments et l inference sous heteroscedasticite ou dependance serielle de forme non specifiee dans les modeles structurels faiblement identifies ces difficultes sont habituellement associees a l emploi de fonctions pivotales impropres et nous presentons un survol des methodes recentes ayant pour objectif d obtenir des procedures plus fiables ce qui comprend les differentes statistiques proposees l emploi de bornes la subdivision d echantillon les techniques de projection le conditionnement et les tests de monte carlo

sustainable and integrated bioenergy assessment for latin america caribbean and africa sibyl lacaf the path from feasibility to acceptability abstract uncertainties in evaluating bioenergy projects have lead policymakers to adopt a restrictive approach or even refuse to evaluate projects when the available information is limited or a clear perception of its benefits and impact is lacking indeed despite its potential advantages a bioenergy system poses several conceptual and operational challenges for academic as well as practical scrutiny because the inherent relationship and the intersection of areas related to energy production and agricultural activity requires a deeply integrated assessment the aim of this paper is to review the available works in this field and propose an approach for supporting policymakers in the taking decision process of deploying sustainable bioenergy systems the sibyl lacaf framework provides a comprehensive framework for addressing the inherent complexity of the subject and its sustainability and acceptability as part of the evaluation process with this approach different and complementary evaluation methods are reviewed and set in a logical and sequential structure to draw a group of indicators used for assessing a given project with the help of a strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats swot matrix when acceptability is identified as an issue a public consultation and communication pc c scheme can complement this process the suggested application for mozambique indicate that an acceptable outcome is possible even when considering the data requirements and constraints of developing countries thus the potential of this integrated approach outweighs such limitations

forecasting fuel ethanol consumption in brazil by time series models 2006 2012 this article analysed scenarios for brazilian consumption of ethanol for the period 2006 to 2012 the results show that if the country s gdp sustains a 4 6 a year growth domestic consumption of fuel ethanol could increase to 25 16 billion liters in this period which is a volume relatively close to the forecasted gasoline consumption of 31 billion liters at a lower gdp growth of 1 22 a year gasoline consumption would be reduced and domestic ethanol consumption in brazil would be no higher than 18 32 billion liters contrary to the current situation forecasts indicated that hydrated ethanol consumption could become much higher than anhydrous consumption in brazil the former is being consumed in cars moved exclusively by ethanol and flex fuel cars successfully introduced in the country at 2003 flex cars allow brazilian consumers to choose between gasoline and hydrated ethanol and immediately switch to whichever fuel presents the most favourable relative price

term structure evidence on interest rate smoothing and monetary policy inertia abstract numerous studies have used quarterly data to estimate monetary policy rules or reaction functions that appear to exhibit a very slow partial adjustment of the policy interest rate the conventional wisdom asserts that this gradual adjustment reflects a policy inertia or interest rate smoothing behavior by central banks however such quarterly monetary policy inertia would imply a large amount of forecastable variation in interest rates at horizons of more than 3 months which is contradicted by evidence from the term structure of interest rates the illusion of monetary policy inertia evident in the estimated policy rules likely reflects the persistent shocks that central banks face

analysis and decomposition of energy consumption in the chilean industry abstract with rising energy costs and climate change concerns energy efficiency will be important in maintaining competitiveness and reducing the environmental impact of industrial activities in this paper we study the chilean industrial sector which is the largest consumer of energy within the country energy demand and co 2 emissions in chile have grown rapidly in recent years while energy supply is mostly imported and subject to disruption therefore it is important to understand energy consumption in this sector and determine which sub sectors have the greatest potential to reduce energy consumption we used the index decomposition analysis ida applying the logarithmic mean divisia index method i lmdi i to quantify the impact of diverse driving factors on energy consumption furthermore a panel data analysis was used to determine whether there are differences in energy intensity across firms with different characteristics our results show that energy intensity has risen over time although energy consumption remains stable this fact supports the idea that energy efficiency policies could play an important role for the industrial sector additionally energy consumption and energy intensity follow different patterns in each sub sector therefore we conclude that the application of differentiated sectoral policies is preferable over a single global policy

in search of the motives behind us fiscal macroeconomic policy in this paper optimal control tehniques are applieed to estimate the motives behind us fiscal macroeconomic policy starting from a range of possible objesctives and given the perception of policy makers about the environment in which they operate the priorities of policy makers are estimated on the basis of their past actions our statistical approach allows for testing the empirical relevance of alternative hypotheses with respect to the objectives of governments demoeratic and republican administrations are found to aim at different targets some support is also found to political business cycle theories the views expressed here are not necessarily those of the ductch central bank

energy consumption carbon emissions and economic growth in china abstract this paper investigates the existence and direction of granger causality between economic growth energy consumption and carbon emissions in china applying a multivariate model of economic growth energy use carbon emissions capital and urban population empirical results for china over the period 1960 2007 suggest a unidirectional granger causality running from gdp to energy consumption and a unidirectional granger causality running from energy consumption to carbon emissions in the long run evidence shows that neither carbon emissions nor energy consumption leads economic growth therefore the government of china can purse conservative energy policy and carbon emissions reduction policy in the long run without impeding economic growth

is canada an optimal currency area an inflation targeting perspective we propose a method based on the currency union model of gali and monacelli 2008 to determine whether a region within an existing currency area belongs in the currency union the method involves assessing the predictability of regional inflation rates at medium term horizons we apply the method to the canadian provinces and find that for all but alberta there is little evidence of costs in terms of inflation arising from national monetary policy for alberta the evidence suggests that they are not as well served by the inflation targeting framework and that a more flexible policy environment might improve inflation outcomes

what is wrong with taylor rules using judgment in monetary policy through targeting rules it is argued that inflation targeting is best understood as a commitment to a targeting rule rather than an instrument rule e ither ageneral targeting rule explicit objectives for monetary policy or a specific targeting rule a criterion for the forecasts of the target variables to be fulfilled essentially the equality of the marginal rates of transformation and substitution between the target variables targeting rules allow the use of judgment and extramodel information are more robust and easier to verify than optimal instrument rules and they can nevertheless bring the economy close to the socially optimal equilibrium

energy decomposition analysis iea model versus other methods abstract in energy decomposition analysis the international energy agency iea model which is based on the laspeyres index method is included in a recent international collaborative initiative on energy indicators for sustainable development for possible adoption iaea 2005 energy indicators for sustainable development guidelines and methodology international atomic energy agency vienna www pub iaea org mtcd publications pdf pub1222 web pdf from an empirical analysis using the data of the united states we found that the residual term given by the iea model could be significant and that the estimates of the impacts of structure and intensity changes given by the model could be quite different from those given by other decomposition methods the residual term tends to be large when changes in structure and or energy intensity variables are significant since changes in these variables over time are generally larger in the developing countries than in the iea countries there is the question about whether the iea model is an appropriate decomposition method for the developing countries

identifying a policymaker s target an application to the bank of canada we develop a new way to test hypotheses about policymakers targets and imple ment that test for canadian monetary policy for example if the bank of canada is targeting a 2 per cent inflation rate and if the bank s instrument takes eight quarters to affect inflation then deviations of inflation from 2 per cent should be uncorrelated with the bank s informa tion set lagged eight quarters we show that there was a major change in the bank s objec tives near the time when formal inflation targets were announced and that the bank has indeed been targeting inflation since then jel code e52 e61

making monetary policy objectives and rules what is it that monetary policy makers do and how do they do it the simple answer is that a central banker moves interest rates in order to maintain steady real growth and stable prices in this essay i examine the issues that arise in framing the problem faced by monetary policy makers i begin with a discussion of how over the past decade or so central banks have been made more independent and more accountable the result has been the virtual elimination of the inflation bias problem that is caused by political interference in the monetary policy process and better overall macroeconomic performance the essay proceeds with an example of a formal version of the policymakers problem describing their objectives and the information they need to formulate a policy rule i conclude with a discussion of a simple versus complex policy rules the impact of uncertainty on policy making and how central bankers use formal modelling in making their day to day decisions copyright 2000 by oxford university press

how can chile move away from a high carbon economy abstract this paper quantitatively evaluates the performance of chile s co2 emissions between 1991 and 2013 using a complete decomposition technique to examine emissions and their components a decomposition analysis based on log mean divisia index method lmdi i was conducted six decomposition factors were considered carbon intensity effect ci res penetration effect res energy intensity effect ei economy structure effect es income effect yp and population effect p to know how these factors could influence each other in the future the innovative accounting approach iaa was used including forecast error variance decomposition and impulse response functions irfs these two methodologies allow us to identify the drivers of co2 emission changes in the past 1991 2013 test policy measures and learn how these drivers could influence each other in the future to evaluate whether the current measures meet the paris commitments the lmdi analysis results show that the energy intensity factor is the main compensating factor of chile s co2 emissions and the only effect with a clear trend to aid the economy s decoupling iaa and ifrs results react similarly and confirm that carbon intensity reacts to shocks more significantly in the short term the reaction to res has the same and opposite behavior to shocks in es and yp to disappear in the long term

carbon emission intensity in electricity production a global analysis we study changes in the aggregate carbon intensity aci for electricity at the global and country levels the aci is defined as the energy related co2 emissions in electricity production divided by the electricity produced it is a performance indicator since a decrease in its value is a desirable outcome from the environmental and climate change viewpoints from 1990 to 2013 the aci computed at the global level decreased only marginally however fairly substantial decreases were observed in many countries this apparent anomaly arises from a geographical shift in global electricity production with countries having a high aci increasingly taking up a larger electricity production share it is found that globally and in most major electricity producing countries reduction in their aci was due mainly to improvements in the thermal efficiency of electricity generation rather than to fuel switching estimates of the above mentioned effects are made using lmdi decomposition analysis our study reveals several challenges in reducing global co2 emissions from the electricity production sector although technically the reduction potential for the sector is known to be great

macroeconomic stability and the preferences of the fed a formal analysis 1961 98 the rate of inflation in the u s has declined from an average of 4 5 in the period 1960 79 to an average of 3 6 in 1980 98 between those two periods the standard deviations of inflation and the output gap have also declined these facts can be attributed to the interaction of three possible factors a shift in central bank preferences a reduction in the variability of aggregate supply shocks and a more efficient conduct of monetary policy in this paper we identify the relative roles of these factors our framework is based on the estimation of a small structural macro model for the u s economy jointly with the first order conditions which solve the intertemporal optimization problem faced by the fed overall our results indicate that the policy preferences of the fed and in particular the implicit inflation target have changed drastically with the advent of the volcker greenspan era in addition we find that the variance of supply shocks has been lower and monetary policy has been conducted more efficiently during this period