assessing income population and technology impacts on co2 emissions in canada where s the ekc abstract this study investigates the macroeconomic forces underlying carbon dioxide co2 emissions from fossil fuel use in canada in keeping with the relevant literature on environmental degradation three forces are expected to influence co2 emissions gross domestic product per capita gdp capita population and technological change while previous work has employed reduced form models that allow for non linear relationships between co2 and gdp capita it has been common practice to assume linear relationships between co2 and the latter two variables this study tests a more flexible model using a five region panel data set in canada over the period 1970 2000 findings indicate that gdp capita is unrelated to co2 that an inverted u shaped relationship exists with population and that a u shaped relationship exists with technology thus technological and population changes are supported over the commonly hypothesized environmental kuznets curve an inverted u shaped relationship between gdp capita and environmental degradation for affecting co2 emissions from fossil fuel use in canada

which industry is greener an empirical study of nine industries in oecd countries abstract this study analyzed the relationship between the co2 emissions of different industries and economic growth in oecd countries from 1970 to 2005 we tested an environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis and found that total co2 emissions from nine industries show an n shaped trend instead of an inverted u or monotonic increasing trend with increasing income the ekc hypothesis for sector level co2 emissions was supported in the 1 paper pulp and printing industry 2 wood and wood products industry and 3 construction industry we also found that emissions from coal and oil increase with economic growth in the steel and construction industries in addition the non metallic minerals machinery and transport equipment industries tend to have increased emissions from oil and electricity with economic growth finally the ekc turning point and the relationship between gdp per capita and sectoral co2 emissions differ among industries according to the fuel type used therefore environmental policies for co2 reduction must consider these differences in industrial characteristics

a dynamic approach to the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis abstract the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis states that pollution levels increase as a country develops but begin to decrease as rising incomes pass beyond a turning point in ekc analyses the relationship between environmental degradation and income is usually expressed as a quadratic function with the turning point occurring at a maximum pollution level other explanatory variables have been included in these models but income regularly has had the most significant effect on indicators of environmental quality one variable consistently omitted in these relationships is the price of energy this paper analyzes previous models to illustrate the importance of prices in these models and then includes prices in an econometric ekc framework testing energy income and co2 income relationships these long run price income models find that income is no longer the most relevant indicator of environmental quality or energy demand indeed we find no significant evidence for the existence of an ekc within the range of current incomes for energy in the presence of price and trade variables

the impact of population on co2 emissions evidence from european countries this paper analyses the impact of population growth on co2 emissions in european union countries traditionally researchers have assumed a unitary elasticity of emissions with respect to population growth in this study population is treated as a predictor in the model instead of being included as part of the dependent variable per capita emissions thus relaxing the above mentioned assumption of unitary elasticity we also contribute to the existing literature by taking into account the presence of heterogeneity in the sample and considering a dynamic specification the sample covers the period 1975 1999 for the current european union members our results show that the impact of population growth on emissions is more than proportional for recent accession countries whereas for old eu members the elasticity is lower than unity and non significant when the properties of the time series and the dynamics are correctly specified the different impact of population change on co2 emissions for the current eu members should therefore be taken into account in future discussions of climate change policies within the eu

baumol s disease and dematerialization of the economy this paper argues that there is reason to be skeptical about the idea that the transition to a service economy will bring about dematerialization of production and consequent environmental improvement this is because the shift to a service economy is an illusion in terms of real production but is instead generated by the fall in the price of manufacturing goods relative to services which is in turn caused by more rapid productivity growth in manufacturing than in services this argument relies on the insights baumol provided on the nature of the service economy and uses swedish long term data on relative sectoral development as an empirical illustration on the other hand the paper argues that there is reason to be cautiously optimistic that structural change may bring about a greening of growth namely the changes in growth patterns sometimes labeled the third industrial revolution which is connected to the emergence of microelectronics swedish co2 emissions show a decline after 1970 which is mainly explained by a politically driven change in the mix of energy carriers but is also related to the stabilization of energy consumption this energy stabilization was caused by slow growth of the economy in conjunction with substantial declines in energy intensity within industrial sectors and an absence of relative growth of the heavy sectors a growth that had marked the economy between 1870 and 1970 microelectronics have contributed to permanently transforming the swedish industrial sector in a lighter direction reducing energy losses in heavy industries and stabilizing household energy consumption so it appears as if there may be some environmental gains from this development that was initiated in the 1970s but not from relatively more production in the service sector

heterogeneous effects of competitiveness shocks on macroeconomic performance across euro area countries this paper considers how competitiveness impacts macroeconomic performance in 11 euro area countries var models are estimated for the individual countries using quarterly data from 1995q4 to 2013q4 besides unit labour costs as a competitiveness measure the models include gdp the current account balance and domestic credit the empirical analyses show that changes in unit labour costs help explain gdp dynamics in the short and medium term in most countries whereas they have little explanatory power for the current account balance or domestic credit for most countries overall the effects of the unit labour costs vary substantially across the countries in the euro area the heterogeneity suggests that policy measures aiming to improve economic growth correct current account imbalances and ensure financial stability need to take country specific features into account

a tale of two collectives sulphur versus nitrogen oxides emission reduction in europe a theoretical model of emission reductions is specified that accounts for voluntary and non voluntary behaviour regarding the adherence to the helsinki and sofia protocols which mandated emission reductions for sulphur s and nitrogen oxides nox respectively from this model we derive an econometric specification for the demand for emission reductions that adjusts for the spatial dispersion of the pollutant when tested for 25 european nations the model performs well for sulphur cutbacks less satisfying results are obtained for nox because the model s assumption of a unitary actor at the national level is less descriptive collective action considerations indicate that sulphur emissions are easier to control than those of nox

price sensitivity of energy demand in norwegian industries the production side of the latest version of the norwegian msg model has been developed to allow for substitution between various energy goods and between energy and other inputs the production structure and behavior are specified for 19 sectors of the model within the framework of neoclassical production theory formalized by generalized leontief cost functions the main elements of the production model are presented along with the empirical results from estimation of the derived demand relations the analysis focuses on the price sensitivity of energy demand as measured by different types of price elasticities

economic news exchange rates and interest rates the paper esamines the post october 1979 response of exchange rates and interest rates to the new information contained in the first announcement of fifteen us macroeconomic series illarkets respond primarily to monetary news but also to news about the trade deficit domestic inflation and variables that reflect the state of the business cycle for all fifteen macroeconomic variables an increase decrease in interest rates is accompanied by an appreciation depreciation of the dollar which is consistent with models that stress price rigidity and absence of purchasing power parity the effect of economic news on asset prices has received increasing attention in the economic literature because an outcome of the efficient markets rational expectations hypothesis is that flesible asset prices change the moment new information about future fundamentals arrives in the market in the exchange rate literature the role of news has gained importance because structural models have failed to predict most of the variation in exchange rates during the 1970s see imeese and rogoff 1983 researchers were naturally led to investigate the types of news that make exchange rates so volatile and to utilize news in order to test which model of exchange rate determination is consistent with the floating eschange rate experience notable studies are those of dornbusch 1980 frenkel 1981 edwards 1982a b 1983 copeland 1984 and rose 1984 in this paper i also examine the effects of macroeconomic news on eschange rates but i adopt a different more direct strategy one that complements previous work avoids some of its shortcomings and promises interesting conclusions i examine the instantaneous response of exchange rates the moment a piece of economic news hits the market if one can isolate the exact time during a business day when news arrives it is straightforward to examine the response of exchange rates because financial data are continuously available the advantages of the present methodology are many first it is possible to identify the exact types of economic news and how they affect exchange rates second the simultaneity bias which plagues the previous literature on exchange rates and news is not present here the independent variables that represent news can be interpreted as causal the paper was presented at the 1985 meeting ofthe american economic association the author wishes to thank sebastian edwards r w hafer nicholas karamouzis andrew rose and two anonymous referees for helpful comments kim rupert of the money market services for providing the survey data soo kounne for able research assistance and barnard college for research support

environment and development is there a kuznets curve for co2 emissions this article re examines the relationship between growth in per capita income and environmental degradation using econometric techniques appropriate for smooth transition regressions with panel data this is a more intuitive and flexible methodology than the polynomial models widely used in the literature and it can reconcile some of the mixed results found previously the methodology is applied to carbon dioxide emissions from nonoecd countries over the period 1971 to 1997 although there is no evidence of environmental kuznets curve we find two regimes namely a low income regime where emissions accelerate with economic growth and a middle to high income regime associated with a deceleration in environmental degradation

when credit bites back using data on 14 advanced countries between 1870 and 2008 we document two key facts of the modern business cycle relative to typical recessions financial crisis recessions are costlier and more credit intensive expansions tend to be followed by deeper recessions in financial crises or otherwise and slower recoveries we use local projection methods to condition on a broad set of macro economic controls to study how past credit accumulation impacts key macro economic variables such as output investment lending interest rates and inflation the facts that we uncover lend support to the idea that financial factors play an important role in the modern business cycle

austerity growth and inflation remarks on the eurozone s unresolved competitiveness problem while the financial protection measures enacted by the ecb and the community of eurozone members have calmed financial markets they have left the competitiveness problem of the eurozone s southern countries and france unresolved the paper compares price inflation before the crisis with the necessary and actual price cuts that have taken place since the outbreak of the crisis predicting a decade of stagnation for the south and inflation for the north keynesian demand policy is counterproductive in the south and unnecessary in the north the necessary realignment of relative goods prices and current account imbalances can be achieved if market forces are allowed to redirect capital flows to the north instead of being artificially steered to uses they are keen to avoid

political risk and foreign exchange rates an efficient market approach this paper examines the reaction of the foreign exchange market to the announcement of changes in the business environment of a country our results suggest that sampled political risk news conveys important information about a country s investment climate and causes its currency s exchange rate to vary it appears however that the reaction of the foreign exchange market is more dramatic for unfavorable events than for favorable events the evidence presented is also consistent with the hypothesis that the foreign exchange market is efficient in interpreting the type of event considered in this study

decomposition of aggregate carbon intensity for the manufacturing sector comparison of declining trends from 10 oecd countries for the period 1971 1991 abstract as with total energy consumption or aggregate energy intensity changes in aggregate carbon intensity may also be decomposed or attributed to changes in various components including fuel mix for electricity generation final energy mix sub sectoral economic activity and sub sectoral energy intensities the adaptive weighted divisia rolling base year index specification is applied to total carbon emissions from the manufacturing sector of 10 oecd countries for the period 1971 1991 declines in aggregate carbon intensity for these countries range from 70 and may be primarily attributed to decreases in energy intensity i e increases in the average factor productivity of energy however these declines in aggregate carbon intensity appear to have a complex linkage to increases in energy prices as well as changes in other determinants of gross industrial output

change in energy related co2 carbon dioxide emissions in portuguese tourism a decomposition analysis from 2000 to 2008 abstract tourism is an activity with great potential in portugal at a time of economic crisis tourism is seen as an opportunity to boost the economy and provide sustainable economic growth this strategic path based on tourism has to be accomplished in order to make better use of the economic advantages but at the same time respecting the environment and environmental goals to which portugal is committed so it becomes important to analyze what effects contribute more to emissions in this sector as well as which tourism subsectors are more responsible for the increase of emissions the objective of this work is to identify the effects in which co2 carbon dioxide emissions in tourism can be broken down and analyzed as well as their evolution and which of them has more importance in determining emissions for that in this study a decomposition technique based on logarithmic mean divisia index was used in the 2000 2008 period for five tourism subsectors in portugal in general tourism activity is the most important effect energy mix carbon intensity and energy intensity effects also proved important

current account core periphery dualism in the emu current account ca dispersion within european union eu member states has been increasing progressively since the 1990s interestingly the persistent deficits in many peripheral countries have not been accompanied by a significant growth process able to stimulate a log run rebalancing as neoclassical theory predicts to shed light on the issue this paper investigates the determinants of eurozone ca imbalances focusing on the role played by financial integration the analysis considers two samples of 22 oecd and 15 eu countries three time horizons corresponding to various steps in european integration different control variables and several panel econometric methods the results suggest that within the eu group of countries financial integration contributed to explain the ca deterioration in the peripheral countries especially in the post emu period creating an asymmetric behaviour within the emu from a financial stability perspective this divergence could hinder the effectiveness of monetary policy by reducing the apparent benefits of participating in the monetary union it also raises the risk of a break up

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

economic growth and emissions reconsidering the empirical basis of environmental kuznets curves abstract recent empirical research indicates that certain types of emissions follow an inverted u or environmental kuznets curve ekc as income grows this regularity has been interpreted as a possible de linking of economic growth and patterns of certain pollutants for developed economies in this paper the empirical basis of this result is investigated by considering some statistical particularities of the various ekc studies performed it is argued that the inverted u relationship between income and emissions estimated from panel data need not hold for specific individual countries over time based on insights from intensity of use analysis in resource economics an alternative growth model is specified and estimated for three types of emissions co2 nox and so2 in four countries netherlands uk usa and western germany it is found that the time patterns of these emissions correlate positively with economic growth and that emission reductions may have been achieved as a result of structural and technological changes in the economy sustainable growth is defined as the rate of economic growth that does not lead to growth in emissions its rate is calculated for each type of emission and country based on estimated parameter values the resulting indicators reflect a balance between the positive influence of growth and negative influence of structural change and technological progress on emission levels

the j curve a literature review due to lag structure currency devaluation is said to worsen the trade balance first and improve it later resulting in a pattern that resemble the letter j hence the j curve phenomenon since its introduction by magee in 1973 brooking papers on economic activity 1 pp 303 25 a large number of studies have attempted to test the phenomenon using different techniques and different model specifications the results are at best ambiguous and deserve to be collected together for the future generation of researchers and graduate students this paper fills such a vacuum in the literature by reviewing the j curve related empirical papers

market reaction to the formation of export trading companies by american banks the stock and bond market reactions to american banks announcements of their intentions to form export trading companies are investigated the results are robust to various return generating model specifications and are consistent with the view that the markets do not believe that u s bank export trading companies will be successful

global observation of ekc hypothesis for co2 sox and nox emission a policy understanding for climate change mitigation in bangladesh abstract environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis is critical to understanding the developmental path of a nation in relation to its environment how the effects of economic development processes dictate environmental changes can be found through the study of ekc to understand the ekc phenomena for climate change this study was undertaken by reviewing the available literature as co2 sox and nox are the significant greenhouse gases ghg responsible for global warming thus leading to climate change the study focused on those ghgs for ekc consideration with an understanding of the different ekc trajectories an attempt was made to determine the implications for the economic development of bangladesh in regards to the ekc it was shown that ekc for co2 was following a monotonous straight line in most cases sox were shown to follow the full trajectory of the ekc in most situations and nox was shown the hope only for the developed countries getting the low income turning point the type of economic policy that bangladesh should follow in regards to the discussed pollutants and sources is also revealed from these discussions contributions to policy stimulation in bangladesh are likely to be made

examining asymmetries in the transmission of monetary policy in the euro area evidence from a mixed cross section global var model abstract i estimate the transmission of a common euro area monetary policy shock across individual euro area economies to do so i develop a global var model in which all euro area economies are included individually while at the same time their common monetary policy is modelled as a function of euro area aggregate output growth and inflation the results suggest that the transmission of monetary policy across euro area economies displays asymmetries and that in line with economic theory these are driven by differences in economies structural characteristics in particular euro area economies in which a higher share of aggregate output is accounted for by sectors servicing interest rate sensitive demand exhibit a stronger transmission of monetary policy to real activity similarly even though the evidence is less conclusive euro area economies which feature more real wage and or fewer unemployment rigidities also appear to display a stronger transmission of monetary policy to real activity

sterling and oil discoveries the mystery of nonappreciation abstract this paper analyzes the impact of north sea oil discoveries on the value of sterling by looking at market reactions to announcements of oil discoveries it shows there is no evidence for the common view that oil discoveries led to an appreciation of sterling it also explores alternative explanations for the nonappreciation of sterling

transboundary effects of environmental policy markets and emission leakages abstract one of many explanations for environmental kuznets curves for rich countries can be that dirty production is relocated to economies with laxer abatement regimes if this is caused by national abatement policies environmental stresses are transferred to other countries further the economic costs of national abatement policies can be shared with foreigners to some extent both through a lower demand for imports and losses of market shares for foreign competitors that produce cleaner products we quantify effects internally and abroad of a growth induced unilateral carbon tax policy in a rich open economy we find that the environmental benefits fall and the economic costs rise when a global rather than a national perspective is employed

what is the role of openness for china s aggregate industrial so2 emission a structural analysis based on the divisia decomposition method abstract having observed the weaknesses in previous structural analyses on the role of environmental kuznets curve ekc the author proposes a detailed analysis using a rich data set of provincial level production and so2 emission intensity of 13 industrial sectors the latter represent more than 98 of the total industrial production in each chinese province for the period 1991 2001 through the use of the log mean divisia index decomposition method the variations in province level industrial so2 emissions with regard to the 1990 baseline level are decomposed into the contribution from three components scale composition and technical effects the following analysis seeks to explain how trade openness affects aggregate industrial so2 emission through its impact on the structural determinants for these three components of region specific environmental variations

are there limits to growth a simple theoretical model of pollution is developed that generates an inverted u shape relationship between per capita income and environmental quality this model is then used to study long run growth the same inverted u shape is shown to appear in time series and the prospects for sustained growth are shown to hinge on whether increasingly strict environmental regulation is compatible with a constant rate of return on capital implementation is also studied tax and voucher schemes are shown to have an advantage over direct regulation because they provide the correct incentives for capital accumulation copyright 1998 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

prices vs quantities with multiple pollutants abstract we examine the choice of policy instruments price quantity or a mix of the two when two pollutants are regulated and firms abatement costs are private information whether abatement efforts are complements or substitutes is key determining the choice of policies when pollutants are complements a mixed policy instrument with a tax on one pollutant and a quota on another is sometimes preferable even if the pollutants are identical in terms of benefits and costs of abatement yet if they are substitutes the mixed policy is dominated by taxes or quotas

financial flows financial crises and global imbalances abstract in this lecture i document the proliferation of gross international asset and liability positions and discuss some consequences for individual countries external adjustment processes and for global financial stability in light of the rapid growth of gross global financial flows and the serious risks associated with them one might wonder about the continuing relevance of the net financial flow measured by the current account balance i argue that global current account imbalances remain an essential target for policy scrutiny for financial as well as macroeconomic reasons nonetheless it is critically important for policymakers to monitor as well the rapidly evolving structure of global gross assets and liabilities

russia s resource capitalism market vs political signalling since the early post soviet era when many strategically important russian oil and gas fields were sold on unfavourable terms the state has been seeking to regain control of these strategic assets with putin s return to the presidency in 2012 russia s u turn over oil and gas privatizations has again caused market consternation we examine strategic asset acquisitions by russian o g companies during putin s first terms as president and suggest that there should however be few surprises under putin strategic deals in russia are often informal dominated by russian partners subject to internecine rivalries and we show are somehow known by markets prior to promulgation findings suggest that in russia deals of strategic substance are recognized by financial markets prior to the announcement of political policy

economic growth trade and energy implications for the environmental kuznets curve abstract the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis asserts that pollution follows an inverted u path with respect to economic growth the ekc has been explained in terms of structural changes in the composition of economic output and increased environmental regulation at higher income levels while some authors have incorporated the impact of trade policy orientation on the ekc the impact of the actual movement between countries of goods that embody pollution has not been considered this paper attempts to econometrically quantify the effect using pooled cross country and time series data the ekc hypothesis is examined with respect to commercial energy consumption the source of many serious environmental problems it was found that while both industrializing and industrialized countries have added to their energy requirements by exporting manufactured goods the growth has been substantially higher in the former at the same time industrialized countries have been able to reduce their energy requirements by importing manufactured goods exports of manufactured goods by industrialized countries has thus been an important factor in generating the upward sloping portion of the ekc and imports by industrialized countries have contributed to the downward slope

on the presence of risk premiums in foreign exchange markets abstract this paper provides evidence that for most currencies the exchange risk premium as identified in grauer litzenberger and stehle 1976 is highly volatile random and on average equal to zero further investigation suggests that this volatility can be traced to the fact that our index of world market performance does not adequately represent the common element of variance among currencies in the light of this evidence we investigate the existence of an exchange risk premium in the framework of an alternative model the arbitrage pricing theory proposed by ross 1976 is a particularly appropriate alternative since it does not accord an essential role to the market portfolio the results of our tests suggest the presence of an exchange risk premium

the design of reform packages under uncertainty the authors present a model of large scale economic reforms modeled on the transition process in eastern europe with aggregate and individual uncertainty concerning the outcome of reforms the government is assumed to choose the speed and sequencing of reforms the authors compare big bang strategies with gradualist reform packages they show that gradualist reform packages may be easier to get started optimal sequencing of reforms should aim at creating constituencies for further reforms and gradualism may generate a higher investment response because of a lower option value of waiting than would a big bang approach copyright 1995 by american economic association

announcement effects in the cryptocurrency market cryptocurrencies have gained popularity as new economic investment assets globally in recent years this study examines market reactions to major news events associated with cryptocurrencies abnor

the nature of co2 emission kuznets curve this paper reveals that co2 emission kuznets curve merely reflects the peak theory of energy intensity the situation of real energy use should be used as a fundamental stone for both energy and environmental policy making

management accounting approach to analyse energy related co2 emission a variance analysis study of top 10 emitters of the world the paper undertakes a decomposition study of carbon dioxide emission of the top ten emitting countries over the period 1980 2007 using variance analysis method with the objectives of examining the relative importance of the major determining factors the role of energy structure and impact of liberalisation on emission and exploring the possibilities of arresting emission with simultaneous rise in population and income the major findings indicate that although rising income and population are the main driving forces they are neither necessary nor sufficient for increasing emission rather energy structure and emission intensities are the crucial determinants pointing towards the fact that a country with higher income and population with proper energy policy may be a low emitter and vice versa since modern energy intensive production limits the scope of reduction in total energy use it is necessary to decouple the quantum of energy use from emission through technological upgradation the results indicate that liberalisation resulted in higher emission the paper attempts to illustrate the required adjustments in energy structure and suggests necessary policy prescriptions

domestic credit growth and international capital flows during the pre crisis period europe experienced substantial cross country variation in domestic credit growth and cross border capital flows we investigate the inter relations between domestic credit growth and international capital flows during the period 1993 2008 with a special focus on the boom period of 2003 2008 we establish that domestic credit growth in european countries is strongly related to net debt inflows but not to net equity inflows this pattern also holds for an extended sample of 54 advanced and emerging economies

output the stock market and interest rates this paper develops a simple model of the determination of output the stock market and the term structure of interest rates the model is an extension of the is lm model and borrows from it the assumption that output is determined by aggregate demand and that the price level can only adjust over time to its equilibrium value however whereas the is lm emphasizes the interaction between the interest rate and output this model emphasizes the interaction between asset values and output asset values rather than the interest rate are the main determinants of aggregate demand and output current and anticipated output and income are in turn the main determinants of asset values it is this interaction that the model intends to capture its goal is to characterize the joint response of asset values and output to changes in the environment such as changes or announcement of changes in monetary and fiscal policy as the above brief description makes clear anticipations are central to the story the assumption made in this paper will be one of rational expectations the paper is organized as follows section i describes the model and sections ii iv characterize the behavior of the economy under the extreme but convenient assumption that prices are fixed forever sections v and vi extend the analysis to the case where prices adjust over time to their equilibrium value

cross country experiences and policy implications from the global financial crisis the financial crisis of 2007 2008 is rooted in a number of factors some common to previous financial crises others new analysis of post crisis macroeconomic and financial sector performance for 58 advanced countries and emerging markets shows a differential impact of old and new factors factors common to other crises like asset price bubbles and current account deficits help to explain cross country differences in the severity of real economic impacts new factors such as increased financial integration and dependence on wholesale funding help to account for the amplification and global spread of the financial crisis our findings point to vulnerabilities to be monitored and areas of needed national and international reforms to reduce risk of future crises and cross border spillovers they also reinforce a sad state of knowledge much of how crises start and spread remains unknown stijn claessens giovanni dell ariccia deniz igan and luc laeven

the impact of urbanization on co2 emissions evidence from developing countries abstract this paper analyzes the impact of urbanization on co2 emissions in developing countries from 1975 to 2003 it contributes to the existing literature by examining the effect of urbanization taking into account dynamics and the presence of heterogeneity in the sample of countries the results show an inverted u shaped relationship between urbanization and co2 emissions indeed the elasticity emission urbanization is positive for low urbanization levels which is in accordance with the higher environmental impact observed in less developed regions among our contributions is the estimation of a semi parametric mixture model that allows for unknown distributional shapes and endogenously classifies countries into homogeneous groups three groups of countries are identified for which urbanization s impact differs considerably for two of the groups a threshold level is identified beyond which the emission urbanization elasticity is negative and further increases in the urbanization rate do not contribute to higher emissions however for the third group only population and affluence but not urbanization contribute to explain emissions the differential impact of urbanization on co2 emissions should therefore be taken into account in future discussions of climate change policies

towards a new early warning system of financial crises abstract this paper develops a new early warning system ews model based on a multinomial logit model for predicting financial crises it is shown that commonly used ews approaches which use binomial discrete dependent variable models are subject to what we call a post crisis bias this bias arises when no distinction is made between tranquil periods when economic fundamentals are largely sound and sustainable and crisis post crisis periods when economic variables go through an adjustment process before reaching a more sustainable level or growth path we show that applying a multinomial logit model which allows distinguishing between more than two states is a valid way of solving this problem and constitutes a substantial improvement in the ability to forecast financial crises the empirical results reveal that for a set of 20 open emerging markets for the period 1993 2001 the model would have correctly predicted a large majority of crises in emerging markets

income inequality and pollution a reassessment of the environmental kuznets curve abstract improvements in some measures of air and water quality can accompany rising per capita income as illustrated by the so called environmental kuznets curve for pollution variables which show such a relationship we hypothesize that a more equitable distribution of power contributes to these outcomes by enhancing the influence on policy of those who bear the costs of pollution relative to the influence of those who benefit from pollution generating activities an empirical analysis of international variations in seven indicators of air and water quality supports this hypothesis literacy political rights and civil liberties are found to have particularly strong effects on environmental quality in low income countries

examining event study methodologies in foreign exchange markets a brown and warner 1980 1985 event study methodology is applied to the foreign exchange area comparisons of the performance of four abnormal return models are examined with simulations under different experimental conditions such as choice of foreign currency or numeraire level of abnormal shock sample size length of estimation period market return proxy and time period examined the results provide practical suggestions on the selection of an event study methodology and demonstrate that some of the findings of brown and warner are not generalizable to the foreign exchange area

factors behind the environmental kuznets curve a decomposition of the changes in air pollution the environmental kuznets curve theory suggeststhat economic growth in the long run may reduceenvironmental problems in this article we usea decomposition analysis to isolate eightdifferent factors in order to investigate theorigins of changes in emissions to air over theperiod from 1980 to 1996 among these factorsare economic growth changes in the relativesize of production sectors and changes in theuse of energy given constant emissions perproduced unit economic growth alone would havecontributed to a significant increase in theemissions this potential degradation of theenvironment has been counteracted by first ofall more efficient use of energy and abatementtechnologies in addition the substitution ofcleaner for polluting energy types and othertechnological progressions and politicalactions have reduced the growth in emissions consequently the growth in all emissions hasbeen significantly lower than economic growth and negative for some pollutants the results indicate that policymakers mayreduce emissions considerably through creatingincentives for lower energy use andsubstitutions of environmental friendly forenvironmental damaging energy types inaddition to support environmental friendlyresearch or to conduct direct emission reducingactions such as abatement requirements orbanning of environmental damaging products this is particularly relevant to countries andsectors with relatively high energy intensitiesand low pollution abatement

differences among oecd countries ghg emissions causes and policy implications this article assesses the reasons for observed differences in greenhouse gas ghg emissions among high income oecd countries nine factors were tested climate population pressure measured as both growth and density economic output per capita technological development industrial structure energy prices environmental governance pollution abatement and control expenditures and environmental pricing based on a series of regression analyses three factors energy prices economic output per capita and environmental governance were identified as the most important factors for explaining differences in oecd per capita ghg emissions combined these three factors explain about 81 of the variation observed in oecd per capita ghg emissions individually energy prices explains about 55 of the variation in per capita ghg emissions while economic output per capita explains about 19 and environmental governance about 7 these findings show that behavioural choices based on existing technologies rather than exogenous factors such as climate determine differences in ghg emissions and therefore policy options to change behaviour such as increasing energy prices and other regulatory changes have the potential to significantly reduce ghg emissions

news from the u s and japan which moves the yen dollar exchange rate abstract intra daily movements in the yen dollar exchange rate are examined in four non overlapping segments within each business day from january 1980 to september 1985 the results indicate that the dollar tended to appreciate in the new york segment and depreciate in the european segment in three of the four subsamples considered the tokyo segment made virtually no contribution to annual yen dollar rate movements the volatility of the exchange rate also differed across markets finally in examining the relative effects of news from the u s and japan explicitly u s money announcement surprises had the most consistent effects