co2 emissions from china s power sector at the provincial level consumption versus production perspectives abstract the chinese electricity sector plays an important role in domestic co2 mitigation efforts due to its large contribution to overall emissions however primary energy resources used for electricity generation are not evenly distributed across the country such a supply and demand mismatch in reality results in large parts of electricity to be transferred from economically less developed provinces in the west to economic growth centres in the east a literature review shows that the emissions embodied in electricity transfer within china have not been explicitly studied although in fact they cause a shift of environmental pollution away from economically well off provinces to resource rich and less developed provinces therefore it is critical for policy makers to address this issue under such a circumstance a bottom up model is developed to calculate direct co2 emissions embodied in electricity export and import between chinese provinces it helps quantifying emissions from the power sector associated with both production and consumption perspectives and sheds lights on the environmental impact of regional supply and demand mismatch in china results show that the difference between consumption and production based co2 emissions from electricity sector in some provinces were higher than the total co2 emissions from electricity sector in netherlands in the case of beijing or as high as the total co2 emission from france s electricity sector in the case of guangdong based upon chinese realities policy implications and suggestions are made such as how to set up appropriate emission reduction targets for electricity sector at provincial level and the inclusion of consumption emissions in designing china s cap and trade mechanism the methodology and findings may be useful for investigation of embodied emissions throughout various regions of the world

a literature survey on energy growth nexus abstract this paper provides a survey of the recent progress in the literature of energy consumption economic growth and electricity consumption economic growth causality nexus the survey highlights that most empirical studies focus on either testing the role of energy electricity in stimulating economic growth or examining the direction of causality between these two variables although the positive role of energy on growth has become a stylized fact there are some methodological reservations about the results from these empirical studies a general observation from these studies is that the literature produced conflicting results and there is no consensus neither on the existence nor on the direction of causality between energy consumption electricity consumption and economic growth as a policy implication to avoid from conflicting and unreliable results the authors may use the autoregressive distributed lags bounds test two regime threshold co integration models panel data approach and multivariate models including new variables such as real gross fixed capital formation labor force carbon dioxide emissions population exchange rates interest rates etc thus the authors should focus more on the new approaches and perspectives rather than by employing usual methods based on a set of common variables for different countries and different intervals of time

an analysis of the driving forces of co2 emissions embodied in japan china trade abstract by using the latest china japan input output data sets and the index decomposition analysis ida approach this article analyzes the driving forces of co2 emissions embodied in trade between the two countries during 1990 2000 we found that the growth of trade volume had a large influence on the increase of co2 emissions embodiments in bilateral trade the dramatic decline in carbon intensity of the chinese economy is a primary cause in offsetting co2 emissions exported from china to japan over 1995 2000 we argue that a better understanding of the factors affecting co2 emissions embodied in international trade will assist in seeking more effective climate policies with wider participation in the post kyoto regime

decoupling between human development and energy consumption within footprint accounts abstract historically the growth of energy consumption has fuelled human development but this approach is no longer socially and environmentally sustainable recent analyses suggest that some individual countries have responded to this issue successfully by decoupling total primary energy supply from human development increase however globalisation and international trade have allowed high income countries to outsource industrial production to lower income countries thereby increasingly relying on foreign energy use to satisfy their own consumption of goods and services accounting for the import of embodied energy in goods and services this study proposes an alternative estimation of the decoupling index based on the total primary energy footprint rather than total primary energy supply an analysis of 126 countries over the years 2000 2014 demonstrates that previous studies based on energy supply highly overestimated decoupling footprint based results on the other hand show an overall decrease of the decoupling index for most countries 93 out of 126 there is a reduction of the number of both absolutely decoupled countries from 40 to 27 and relatively decoupled countries from 29 to 17 and an increase of coupled countries from 55 to 80 furthermore the study shows that decoupling is not a phenomenon characterising only high income countries due to improvements in energy efficiency but is also occurring in countries with low human development index and low energy consumption finally six exemplary countries have been identified which were able to maintain a continuous decoupling trend from these exemplary countries lessons have been identified in order to boost the necessary global decoupling of energy consumption and achieved welfare

zero interest rate policy and unintended consequences in emerging markets since 2009 central banks in the major advanced economies have held interest rates at very low levels to stabilise financial markets and support the recovery of their economies this paper outlines the unintended consequences of the prolonged period of very low world funding interest rates in emerging markets the paper is informed by a mises hayek bis view on credit booms and mises law of unintended consequences consistent with the presented credit boom view i provide evidence that the very low world funding interest rates are associated with a rise in volatile capital flows and asset market bubbles in fast growing emerging markets in line with mises law i further show that these unintended consequences give rise to a new wave of interventionism as policymakers in emerging markets increasingly reintroduce financially repressive measures to isolate the economies from foreign capital inflows

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

how to reduce energy intensity in china s heavy industry evidence from a seemingly uncorrelated regression abstract with rapid development and large scale urbanization china s environmental and resource constraints are becoming increasingly severe compared to other industries china s heavy industry is energy intensive and emission intensive which exerts pressure on energy conservation policies in this paper by establishing a theoretical model of the impact factors of energy intensity we investigate the effects of energy prices ownership structure and industrial concentration and r d investment on the energy intensity of china s heavy industry and seemingly unrelated regression model was used in the estimation of corresponding coefficients the results show that increase in energy prices decrease in state owned enterprises and increase in industrial concentration may reduce the energy intensity of the industry also the study points to evidence that an increase in r d investment may reduce the oil intensity of heavy industry

a review on global wind energy policy with the increasing negative effects of fossil fuel combustion on the environment in addition to limited stock of fossil fuel have forced many countries to inquire into and change to environmentally friendly alternatives that are renewable to sustain the increasing energy demand energy policy plays a vital role to mitigate the impacts of global warming and crisis of energy availability this paper explores the wind energy industry from the point of view of the wind energy policy it is noticed that energy policy could help increasing wind power generation as well as stimulating the energy industry it may be stated that without specific energy policy a country would not be able to solve the acute problems like reducing greenhouse gases ghgs emission scarcity of energy etc this paper discussed the existing successful energy policies for few selected countries based on literatures it has been found that fit rps incentives pricing law and quota system are the most useful energy policies practiced by many countries around the world then status of wind energy policy for malaysia was investigated and compared with few selected countries around the world

on measuring energy poverty in indian households summary the relationship between energy and poverty is obvious and goes both ways recognizing this this paper provides a short overview of different approaches to measuring energy poverty it then presents a novel two dimensional measure of energy poverty and energy distribution that combines the elements of access to different energy types and quantity of energy consumed an assessment of the extent of energy poverty and changes in energy distribution pattern are analyzed by applying this measure to indian household survey data for 1983 2000 the analysis shows a significant reduction in the level of energy poverty and a rapidly developing subcontinent the new measure is a good complement to conventional monetary measures and is general enough to be applied to other developing countries

from constraint to sufficiency the decoupling of energy and carbon from human needs 1975 2005 abstract we investigate the relationship between human needs energy consumption and carbon emissions for several indicators of human development life expectancy literacy income and the human development index we find that high human development can be achieved at moderate energy and carbon levels increasing energy and carbon past this level does not necessarily contribute to higher living standards by conducting a novel longitudinal analysis from 1975 to 2005 we observe a previously undetected decoupling of the per capita energy and carbon required for human needs if resources were equally distributed current energy and carbon levels would be more than sufficient to satisfy global human needs at high levels of human development by projecting current trends to 2030 we demonstrate that the global energy consumption and carbon emissions required to satisfy human needs will decrease with time despite growth in population

factors underlying rural household energy transition a case study of china abstract this paper identifies factors underlying the energy transition of rural households in china based on province level panel data for years of 1991 2014 it indicates that there exists the energy stacking process of rural household energy transition characterized by the significant consumption inertia effects of traditional biomass energy tbe traditional commercial energy tce and advanced commercial energy ace respectively the insignificant substitution effect of tce and ace for tbe and the significant partial substitution of ace for tce with regard to the factors underlying rural household energy transition 1 per capita disposal income is negatively correlated with tbe tce and ace consumption 2 the number of motorcycles is positively correlated with tce and ace consumption 3 the number of firewood saving stoves and the price for ace are positively correlated with tbe consumption 4 household size and the number of motorcycles and the number of appliances are positively correlated with ace consumption 5 education level is positively correlated with tbe but negatively with tce consumption 6 the number of rural energy management institutions is positively correlated with tbe but negatively correlated ace consumption therefore some policy implications are discussed

government expenditure and energy intensity in china the recent economic stimulus package of china has raised growing concern about its potential impact on energy demand and efficiency to what extent does such expansion of government expenditure influence energy intensity this question has not been well answered by the previous research using provincial panel data this paper provides some evidence of a link between government expenditure and energy intensity in china the empirical results demonstrate that the expansion of government expenditure since asian financial crisis has exerted a significant influence on energy intensity an increase in government expenditure in china leads to an increase in energy intensity further analysis compares such relationships in different economic situations the comparison shows that such positive effect of government expenditure remains significant after the alteration in economic situation therefore the results suggest introducing some measures to consolidate china s existing gains in energy efficiency the analysis also explains why the downward trend in energy intensity is reversed in china since 2002

understanding the role of energy consumption in human development through the use of saturation phenomena a correlation is presented between the un human development index and per capita energy consumption for 120 nations a strong relationship between index values and energy consumption is observed for the majority of the world additionally a distinct secondary trend emerges from the dataset representing heavy energy exporters such as the organization of the petroleum exporting countries and some former soviet union nations among others the preliminary observation is made that these two trends closely resemble saturation curves exhibited by a variety of natural phenomena for the primary trend three regions are isolated a steep rise in human development relative to energy consumption for energy poor nations a moderate rise for transitioning nations and essentially no rise in human development for energy advantaged nations consuming large amounts of modern energy these correlations suggest that tremendous gains in human development are possible for the world s poorest with small incremental access to energy

profiting from negawatts reducing absolute consumption and emissions through a performance based energy economy abstract current energy and ghg emissions policies either focus directly on emissions or promote renewable production and the implementation of specific efficiency measures meanwhile the fundamental structure of the energy market based on profits through energy throughput remains largely unchallenged this policy oversight prevents the transition to an energy economy in which profits are based on energy services delivered at the lowest energy cost a performance based energy economy pbee the pbee applies the combined concepts of the performance economy and energy services to the energy sector energy service companies escos are discussed as an example of pbee practices the implications for energy suppliers and consumers as well as the conditions for pbee diffusion and consequences for technological change are also explored the expected environmental social and economic benefits are described however absolute consumption and emissions reductions may prove elusive due to the rebound effect in order to forestall rebound led increases complementary policy measures likely to lead to absolute reductions are required

can market oriented economic reforms contribute to energy efficiency improvement evidence from china since china accelerated its market oriented economic reforms at the end of 1992 its energy intensity has declined 3 6 annually over 1993 2005 however its energy intensity declined 4 2 annually during its first reform period 1979 1992 therefore can we conclude that the accelerated marketization since the end of 1992 has made no contribution to its energy efficiency improvement in order to answer this challenging question we examine the changes of energy own price elasticity as well as the elasticities of substitution between energy and non energy capital and labor in china during the periods of 1979 1992 and 1993 2003 generally in transition or developing economies holding the technology and output level fixed if the energy own price elasticity algebraic value declines or the substitution elasticity between factors rises they will contribute to energy efficiency improvement our empirical study finds that 1 during 1979 1992 the energy own price elasticity is positive 0 285 and capital energy labor energy are both morishima complementary which indicates a distorted energy price and inefficient allocation and 2 during 1993 2003 the own price elasticity for energy is negative 1 236 and capital energy and labor energy are both morishima substitute all factor demands become more elastic and all elasticities of substitution increase the implication is that the accelerated marketization contributes substantially to energy efficiency improvement since 1993 c 2006 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

approaches to economic equilibrium abstract we study mechanisms that help to explain why and how equilibrium may eventually be attained in many economic settings examples include competitive markets and many noncooperative games the main object is an adaptive process reflecting repeated adjustment of individual strategies which under monotonicity conditions leads to equilibrium environmental uncertainty is accommodated but agents need neither know the probability law nor invoke any statistical learning theory nor compute mean values in fact everyone can act perhaps without precedent maybe among strangers within unidentified frames nonetheless we show under reasonable conditions that individual optimality and system equilibrium obtains in the long run

global business cycles convergence or decoupling we analyze the evolution of the degree of global cyclical interdependence over the period 1960 2008 using a dynamic factor model we decompose macroeconomic fluctuations in output consumption and investment into a global factor factors specific to country groups and country specific factors we find that during 1985 2008 there is some convergence of business cycle fluctuations among industrial economies and among emerging market economies surprisingly there is a concomitant decline in the relative importance of the global factor we conclude that there is evidence of business cycle convergence within each of these two groups of countries but divergence or decoupling between them

primary energy and greenhouse gases embodied in australian final consumption an input output analysis input output modeling of primary energy and greenhouse gas embodiments in goods and services is a useful technique for designing greenhouse gas abatement policies the present paper describes direct and indirect primary energy and greenhouse gas requirements for a given set of australian final consumption it considers sectoral disparities in energy prices capital formation and international trade flows and it accounts for embodiments in the gross national expenditure as well as the gross domestic product primary energy and greenhouse gas intensities in terms of mj and kg co2 e are reported as well as national balances of primary energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions

electricity consumption and economic growth in china abstract this paper applies the error correction model to examine the causal relationship between electricity consumption and real gdp for china during 1971 2000 our estimation results indicate that real gdp and electricity consumption for china are cointegrated and there is unidirectional granger causality running from electricity consumption to real gdp but not vice versa in order to overcome the constraints on electricity consumption the chinese government has to speed up the nation wide interconnection of power networks to upgrade urban and rural distribution grids and to accelerate rural electrification

decomposition of electricity demand in china s industrial sector in the past five years china s demand for electricity has accelerated far beyond what central planners had forecasted leading to supply constraints and costly brownouts throughout the country this paper presents analysis of the effect of changes in the industrial sector on electricity demand an important economic sector contributing to these above patterns as it consumes nearly 70 of the electricity generated in china using decomposition analysis it is found that both increased industrial activity and fuel shifts helped increase industrial sector electricity demand between 1998 and 2002 the period of focus in this study but significant increases in energy efficiency countered this

an imbalanced development of coal and electricity industries in china china s coal and electricity industries have a strong reliance on each other however because of excessive invasion of government it is difficult for these two industries to form a stable reasonable and transaction cost saving relationships but long run disputes and quarrels this paper discusses the pricing policies and transaction relationship between these two industries from the historical perspective it begins with the discussion of coal coal market has become competitive since 1980 due to the system of dual track approach but coal sold to electricity was still tightly controlled by government guided pricing then the paper examines electricity investment and tariff reform unlike coal entry to electricity generation sector was gradually relaxed but generation and retailing tariffs are still strictly regulated as energy demand and prices soared after 2002 coal and electricity enterprises are all unsatisfied with the rule of price setting of coal sold to electricity industry this paper concludes that the deliberate low coal price policy does protect electricity industry from fuel cost fluctuation but harm coal industry allocative and productive efficiency are difficult to achieve in the long run

economic development and the energy intensity of human well being evidence from the gcc countries abstract this paper empirically investigates the effect of economic development on the energy intensity of human well being eiwb in the gulf cooperation council gcc during the period 1995 2012 we employ a time series cross sectional prais winsten regression model with panel corrected standard errors pcse we conclude that economic development has had a significant positive impact on eiwb during the period 1995 2012 the results indicate that the stress on the environment had increased in a noticeable manner from 1995 until 2006 however over the period 2007 2012 the stress went back to the level observed in 1995 this observation is unfortunate from the perspective sustainable economics

rural residential energy transition and energy consumption intensity in china abstract this paper examines the impact of residential energy transition on residential energy consumption per capita recpc and identifies the underlying drivers in rural china based on province level panel data for years 1991 2014 in rural china it is shown that energy transition from traditional biomass energy tbe to traditional commercial energy tce significantly decreases recpc while energy transition from tbe or tce to advanced commercial energy ace significantly increases recpc as is revealed by the energy stacking model per capita income has a significantly negative impact on recpc and the impact of lagged recpc is opposite due to the regulation of energy price there exists price distortion in china s rural energy market and the price mechanism functions poorly besides factors including juvenile dependency ratio and education level significantly reduce recpc therefore it is vital to integrate rural energy into national energy strategic system facilitate energy transition process and introduce the market system reform of rural energy and continue to improve the education level of rural residents in rural china

china s energy consumption under the global economic crisis decomposition and sectoral analysis abstract it is now widely recognized that there is a strong relationship between energy consumption and economic growth most countries energy demands declined during the economic depression of 2008 2009 when a worldwide economic crisis occurred as an export oriented economy china suffered a serious exports decline in the course of the crisis however it was found that energy consumption continued to increase against such a background this paper aims to assess and explain the factors causing the growth of energy consumption in china first we will explain the impact of domestic final use and international trade on energy consumption by using decomposition analysis second embodied energy and its variation across sectors are quantified to identify the key sectors contributing to the growth lastly the policy implications for long term energy conservation are discussed the results show that the decline in exports was one of the driving forces for energy consumption reduction in the crisis but that the growth of domestic demand in manufacturing and construction largely stimulated by economic stimulus plans had the opposite effect on energy consumption international trade contributed to decreasing energy consumption of china during and after the crisis because the structure of exports and imports changed in this period

energy use and output growth in canada a multivariate cointegration analysis using a neo classical one sector aggregate production technology where capital labor and energy are treated as separate inputs this paper develops a vector error correction vec model to test for the existence and direction of causality between output growth and energy use in canada using the johansen cointegration technique the empirical findings indicate that the long run movements of output labor capital and energy use in canada are related by two cointegrating vectors then using a vec specification the short run dynamics of the variables indicate that granger causality is running in both directions between output growth and energy use hence an important policy implication of the analysis is that energy can be considered as a limiting factor to output growth in canada

what is the global potential for renewable energy abstract world energy demand is projected to rise to 1000 ej ej 1018 j or more by 2050 if economic growth continues its course of recent decades both reserve depletion and greenhouse gas emissions will necessitate a major shift from fossil fuels as the dominant energy source since nuclear power is now unlikely to increase its present modest share renewable energy re will have to provide for most energy in the future this paper addresses the questions of what energy levels re can eventually provide and in what time frame we find that when the energy costs of energy are considered it is unlikely that re can provide anywhere near a 1000 ej by 2050 we further show that the overall technical potential for re will fall if climate change continues we conclude that the global shift to re will have to be accompanied by large reductions in overall energy use for environmental sustainability

the effects of direct trade within china on regional and national co2 emissions curbing national carbon emissions and clarifying regional carbon reduction responsibility are two challenges faced by china both of which are influenced by interregional trade to exclude the influence of trade balance this paper proposes a methodology to parcel the pollution haven hypothesis into a multi regional input output model applies it to a longer time gap which is made up of two representative periods of chinese economy 1997 2002 and 2002 2007 and clarifies the provincial and sectoral contributions to national emissions we find that 1 embodied co2 emissions first remain relatively stable and then increase sharply for the two periods and the changing trends are mainly determined by the decreasing carbon intensity and the expanding trade scale respectively 2 with the secondary industry as the main contributor regional carbon spillover is mainly concentrated in the coastal provinces but it contributes to an increase of co2 emissions in the central and western regions 3 the coastal and inland provinces contribute to the increase of national carbon emissions through interregional imports and exports respectively but the pollution haven hypothesis is not obvious and is only observed in 2002

birgit grodal a friend to her friends it was much too soon we knew it could happen she participated in the proceedings of the conference in her honor held in copenhagen in september 2002 with a display of her usual acumen and vigor but we left worried i do not know if the time ever comes for anyone but it had not come for her it is hard to accept with the passing of birgit grodal the european economic association loses its 2005 president the community of european economists one of its shapers and leading figures the worldwide community of economic theorists and mathematical economists an outstanding general equilibrium theorist and her many friends a friend

should central banks respond to movements in asset prices in recent decades asset booms and busts have been important factors in macroeconomic fluctuations in both industrial and developing countries in light of this experience how if at all should central bankers respond to asset price volatility we have addressed this issue in previous work bernanke and gertler 1999 the context of our earlier study was the relatively new but increasingly popular monetary policy framework known as inflation targeting see e g bernanke and frederic mishkin 1997 in an inflation targeting framework publicly announced medium term inflation targets provide a nominal anchor for monetary policy while allowing the central bank some flexibility to help stabilize the real economy in the short run the inflation targeting approach gives a specific answer to the question of how central bankers should respond to asset prices changes in asset prices should affect monetary policy only to the extent that they affect the central bank s forecast of inflation to a first approximation once the predictive content of asset prices for inflation has been accounted for there should be no additional response of monetary policy to assetprice fluctuations in use now for about a decade inflationtargeting has generally performed well in practice however so far this approach has not often been stress tested by large swings in asset prices our earlier research employed simulations of a small calibrated macroeconomic model to examine how an inflation targeting policy defined as one in which the central bank s instrument interest rate responds primarily to changes in expected inflation might fare in the face of a boom and bust cycle in asset prices we found that an aggressive inflationtargeting policy rule in our simulations one in which the coefficient relating the instrument interest rate to expected inflation is 2 0 substantially stabilizes both output and inflation in scenarios in which a bubble in stock prices develops and then collapses as well as in scenarios in which technology shocks drive stock prices intuitively inflation targeting central banks automatically accommodate productivity gains that lift stock prices while offsetting purely speculative increases or decreases in stock values whose primary effects are through aggregate demand conditional on a strong policy response to expected inflation we found little if any additional gains from allowing an independent response of central bank policy to the level of asset prices in our view there are good reasons outside of our formal model to worry about attempts by central banks to influence asset prices including the fact that as history has shown the effects of such attempts on market psychology are dangerously unpredictable hence we concluded that inflationtargeting central banks need not respond to asset prices except insofar as they affect the inflation forecast in the spirit of recent work on robust control the exercises in our earlier paper analyzed the performance of policy rules in worst case discussants robert shiller yale university glenn rudebusch federal reserve bank of san francisco kenneth rogoff harvard university

energy consumption and economic growth new evidence from meta analysis abstract the causal relationships between energy consumption and economic growth have given rise to much discussion but remain controversial alternative data sets based on different time spans countries energy policies and econometric approaches result in diverse outcomes a meta analysis using a multinomial logit model with 174 samples governing the relationships between gdp and energy consumption is applied here to investigate the major factors that affect these controversial outcomes the empirical results have demonstrated how the time spans subject selections including gdp and energy consumption econometric models and tools for greenhouse gases emission reduction characteristics significantly affect these controversial outcomes

the liquidation of government debt high public debt often produces the drama of default and restructuring but debt is also reduced through financial repression fr a tax on bondholders and savers via negative or below market real interest rates after world war ii capital controls and regulatory restrictions created a captive audience for government debt limiting tax base erosion fr is most successful in liquidating debt when accompanied by inflation for the advanced economies real interest rates were negative half of the time during 1945 80 average annual interest expense savings for a 12 country sample range from about 1 to 5 of gdp for the full 1945 80 period we suggest that once again fr may be part of the toolkit deployed to cope with the most recent surge in public debt in advanced economies

spatial effects of economic performance on the carbon intensity of human well being the environmental kuznets curve in chinese provinces abstract this study analyzes the interdependent relationship between economic development and environmental and human well being in china we evaluate panel data of the carbon intensity of human well being ciwb to measure environmental sustainability and human well being for 30 chinese provinces from 1995 to 2016 we then employ a spatial model to test the environmental kuznets curve the ciwb is an important indicator that incorporates the environmental social and economic dimensions of sustainability the coefficients of gdp squared gdp and cubic gdp are 1 043 0 123 and 0 0045 respectively indicating that the relationship between ciwb and economic growth is an inverted n shape in other words as gdp increases from low to high the ciwb first decreases then increases for a long period until it reaches a turning point and declines thereafter gdp per capita at the two turning points are 850 yuan and 110 000 yuan respectively in the long run economic growth is expected to have a positive effect on sustainable development however currently environmental policies are needed to offset unintended environmental harm analysis of spatial evolution and multiplier spatial effects show that spatial disparity and clustering exist simultaneously this suggests that overall planning for the big picture and cooperative development between adjacent provinces could help to handle regional environmental problems

what goes up recent trends in china s energy consumption since 1996 china s energy output has dropped by 17 while primary energy use has fallen by 4 driven almost entirely by shrinking output from coal mines and declining direct use since china is the world s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases it is important to understand the sources of this apparent transformation and whether it portends a permanent change in patterns of energy use this remarkable reversal of the long term expansion of energy use has occurred even as the economy has continued to grow albeit more slowly than in the early 1990s generation of electric power has risen implying a steep fall in end uses particularly in industry available information points to a variety of forces contributing to this phenomenon including rapid improvements in coal quality structural changes in industry shutdowns of factories in both the state owned and non state segments of the economy improvements in end use efficiency and greater use of gas and electricity in households a combination of slowing economic growth industrial restructuring broader economic system reforms and environmental and energy efficiency policies has apparently led to at least a temporary decline in and perhaps a long term reduction in the growth of energy use and therefore greenhouse gas emissions

exploring the bi directional long run relationship between energy consumption and life quality abstract this study aims at investigating the bi directional long run relationship for the period of 1990 2009 between energy consumption and life quality in 198 countries categorized by income level to achieve this goal the canonical cointegrating regression ccr was utilized the results revealed that energy consumption improves the life quality of 70 of the countries despite their different incomes the study s results unlike all other previous studies also revealed that the life quality indicators also increase energy consumption a phenomenon that appears to be true in 65 of the countries despite the fact that energy consumption plays an important role in achieving a better life quality the world still depends on fossil fuels which represent 81 of total energy consumption therefore it is suggested that these countries should rationalize their fossil fuel energy consumption by increasing the role of renewable energy and increasing their energy saving to improve life quality without causing any damage to the environment

changes in industrial electricity consumption in china from 1998 to 2007 abstract electricity consumption in the industrial sector experienced a dramatic increase between 1998 and 2007 accounting for approximately 75 of china s total electricity consumption this study analyzes the potential factors influencing the growth of electricity consumption in china s industrial sector over the past decade using a logarithmic mean divisia index i decomposition method results show that activity effect and shift effect caused by the change in the electricity s share of industrial energy use are the major factors responsible for the rise in electricity consumption between 1998 and 2007 it is found that structural change also contributed to the increase in electricity consumption it had only a small effect in contrast the technological effect is responsible for a decrease in electricity consumption during this period the influences of technological effects and shift effects followed approximately an inverse u shaped and u shaped curve respectively furthermore the results show that the main contributors to incremental electricity consumption among industrial subsectors were manufacturing of raw chemical material and products manufacturing of non metal mineral products smelting and pressing of ferrous and non ferrous metals and production and supply of electric power and heat power these sectors should take priority for industrial restructuring in order to implement policies for energy and electricity savings

rural electrification and energy poverty empirical evidences from brazil the aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on the reduction of energy poverty in brazil through the analysis of 23 000 rural domiciles or rural properties between the years 2000 and 2004 the results indicate a fast change in the profile of energy consumption and a reduction of energy poverty this new approach works as a complement among other variables to analyze and quantify the real economic social and energy impacts in rural electrification programs generally applied in developing countries

beyond gdp measuring and achieving global genuine progress article i nfo while global gross domestic product gdp has increased more than three fold since 1950 economic wel fare as estimated by the genuine progress indicator gpi has actually decreased since 1978 we synthesized estimates of gpi over the 1950 2003 time period for 17 countries for which gpi has been estimated these 17 countries contain 53 of the global population and 59 of the global gdp we compared gpi with gross domestic product gdp human development index hdi ecological footprint biocapacity gini coefficient and life satisfaction scores results show a significant variation among these countries but some major trends we also estimated a global gpi capita over the 1950 2003 period global gpi capita peaked in 1978 about the same time that global ecological footprint exceeded global biocapacity life satisfaction in almost all countries has also not improved significantly since 1975 globally gpi capita does not increase beyond a gdp capita of around 7000 capita if we distributed income more equitably around the planet the current world gdp 67 trillion yr could support 9 6 billion people at 7000 capita while gpi is not the perfect economic welfare indicator it is a far better approximation than gdp development policies need to shift to better account for real welfare and not merely gdp growth

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

energy requirements of households in brazil abstract in this study we determine the total direct plus indirect energy requirements of a given set of brazilian households we use a generalized input output model in order to calculate the energy embodied in goods and services purchased by households of different income level in 11 capital cities of brazil our results show that on average the total energy intensity of household expenditure increases with income level although there is a considerable spread in energy intensities within income classes as well as disparities between regions of the country the total yearly average energy requirement per household in brazil in 1995 96 was 173 6 gj 61 of which was indirect with 32 8 gj for the lower income level 66 of which was indirect and 602 2 gj for the higher income level 62 of which was indirect of this total average energy requirement 76 was required for only three consumption categories utilities 31 mobility 28 and shelter 17 this analysis calls for the attention that has to be given not only to the direct energy consumption as motor fuels and electricity for example but also to the consumption categories that encompass an important part of the indirect energy requirement of households in capital cities in brazil

economic reform energy and development the case of mexican manufacturing abstract given increasing concern over global climate change and national security there is a burgeoning interest in examining the relationship between economic growth and energy use in developed and developing countries more specifically decoupling energy use per unit of gross domestic product gdp has fast come to be seen as in the interests of national economies and the world as a whole recent attention has been paid to the dramatic decreases in the energy intensity of the chinese economy which fell by 55 between 1975 and 1995 do other developing economies follow similar trajectories this paper examines the energy intensity of the mexican economy for the period 1988 1998 although the long term trend in mexican energy intensity is rising the energy intensity of the mexican economy began to decline in 1988 this paper explores the factors that have contributed to this reduction diminishing mexican energy use per unit of gdp has been driven by significant decreases in industrial energy intensity we show that these changes have resulted from changes in the composition of mexican industrial structure and technological change

the effect of increasing exports on industrial energy intensity in china abstract given china s heavy reliance on fuel energy and the dominance of its industrial sector in the economy improving energy efficiency remains one of the practical means for the country to decrease energy intensity and to fulfill its commitment made at the copenhagen climate change conference to achieve a 40 45 percent reduction in co 2 emission intensity by 2020 this study investigates the impact of exports on industrial energy intensity to explore the possibility of reducing energy intensity through greater exports a panel varying coefficient regression model with a dataset of china s 20 industrial sub sectors over 1999 2007 suggests that in general greater exports aggravate energy intensity of the industrial sector and that great divergences exist in the impact of exports on energy intensity across sub sectors a panel threshold model further estimates the thresholds for the major determinants of energy intensity exports input in technological innovations and foreign direct investment fdi intensity given the great differences in specific sub sector characteristics and the changing roles played by different factors across sub sectors there is no general export policy that would work for all sub sectors in reducing sub sector energy intensity instead policies and measures aiming to encourage more efficient use of energy should take into full consideration the characteristics and situations of individual sub sectors

the weak axiom of revealed preference in a productive economy we consider an economy with pure factors of production private ownership of endowments and constant returns to scale in production typically in such an economy the weak axiom of revealed preference for market demand does not hold the main reason for this is that the income distribution in such a private ownership economy depends too sensitively on the price system

does inequality lead to a financial crisis abstract the recent global crisis has sparked interest in the relationship between income inequality credit booms and financial crises rajan 2010 and kumhof and ranciere 2011 propose that rising inequality led to a credit boom and eventually to a financial crisis in the us in the first decade of the 21st century as it did in the 1920s data from 14 advanced countries between 1920 and 2000 suggest these are not general relationships credit booms heighten the probability of a banking crisis but we find no evidence that a rise in top income shares leads to credit booms instead low interest rates and economic expansions are the only two robust determinants of credit booms in our data set anecdotal evidence from us experience in the 1920s and in the years up to 2007 and from other countries does not support the inequality credit crisis nexus rather it points back to a familiar boom bust pattern of declines in interest rates strong growth rising credit asset price booms and crises

the role of human social built and natural capital in explaining life satisfaction at the country level toward a national well being index nwi this paper investigates the contributions to life satisfaction of four basic types of capital human social built and natural life satisfaction data were available for respondents from fifty seven countries from the world values survey over the decade of the 1990s data on proxies for human social built and natural capital were available for 171 countries using data from the 1998 united nations human development report united nations development programme 1998 human development report 1998 oxford university press new york freedom house 1999 freedom house 1999 news of the century press freedom 1999 freedom house http freedomhouse org pfs99 pfs99 pdf september 30 2003 and sutton and costanza 2002 sutton p costanza r 2002 global estimates of market and non market values derived from nighttime satellite imagery land cover and ecosystem service valuation ecol econ 41 509 527 regression models show that both the un human development index hdi which includes proxies for both built and human capital and an index of the value of ecosystem services per km 2 as a proxy for natural capital are important factors in explaining life satisfaction at the country level and together can explain 72 of the variation in life satisfaction we did not find a proxy for social capital that was a significant predictor in the regression models this was due to the inadequacy of available proxy variables for social capital at the national scale and intercorrelation with other variables we discuss data limitations and a range of other problems with the existing limited data along with methods to overcome some of these limitations to improve future analyses we propose a national well being index nwi based on our findings and describe a path to improve it over time d 2005 elsevier b v all rights reserved

greenhouse gas emissions and subjective well being an analysis of swedish households abstract in the contemporary discussion on society s transformation towards long term climate targets it is often implicitly assumed that behavioral changes unlike technological changes would lead to reductions in human well being however this assumption has been questioned by researchers who instead argue that people may live better lives by consuming less and reduce their environmental impact in the process in this study we explore the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and subjective well being using a sample of 1000 swedish respondents our results show that there is no strong link between an individual s emissions and subjective wellbeing we also analyze the relationship between specific emission intensive activities and subjective well being and find that none of the activities examined correlates with subjective well being finally we explore a hypothesis put forward in the literature suggesting that a poor work life balance long commuting distances and materialistic values may decrease individuals subjective well being and increase greenhouse gas emissions our results indicate that materialistic values do correlate with lower levels of well being and to some extent also with higher greenhouse gas emissions

does increasing energy or electricity consumption improve quality of life in industrial nations among the world s nations per capita energy and electricity consumption is highly correlated with diverse indicators of quality of life this is often interpreted to mean that additional energy and electricity consumption causes improvements in life quality prior analyses of cross sectional data question this interpretation for industrial nations that already have high per capita energy consumption the present analysis with longitudinal data shows that among industrial nations increases in per capita energy and electricity consumption over the past three decades are not associated with corresponding improvements in quality of life

energy intensity and investment ownership across chinese provinces abstract the main objective of this paper is to investigate whether openness and investment ownership are key factors in explaining the diffusion of energy saving technologies in china compared with previous studies the novel aspect of this work is the use of a rich dataset at provincial level which allows the high level of regional heterogeneity to be taken into consideration the unbalanced regional growth has been translated into differences in the need for energy resources across the vast territory of china a detailed analysis of these issues may provide new insights into the energy situation in this country the analysis is also disaggregated by type of energy coal electricity and petroleum we estimate the models by panel corrected standard errors developed by beck and katz 1995 over the period 1985 2008 results obtained confirm the hypothesis that both foreign and non state investments play a leading role in the decline of energy intensity across chinese regions whereas there is no evidence of a positive contribution of state investment the findings also reveal differences in energy intensity across regions thus confirming the importance of accounting for the regional dimension when analyzing energy consumption in china

distribution of energy consumption and the 2000 w capita target this viewpoint discusses the intra and international distribution of energy consumption and their implications for intergenerational equity for global development to be sustainable the inequality of energy consumption must have an upper limit a graphic depiction of energy consumption distributions intra and international shows that today s inequalities are large and it is argued that we may have already reached or perhaps even surpassed the sustainability limit of energy consumption inequality

energy and quality of life energy is required to sustain life a human centered analysis of the worldwide energy situation is conducted in terms of quality of life related variables that are affected but not directly determined by energy consumption data since 1980 show a continuous global increase in both energy consumption and quality of life and lower population growth in countries with higher quality of life based on these trends we advance non linear energy consumption predictions and identify various plausible scenarios to optimally steer future energy demands in order to maximize quality of life the scenarios consider the coupling between energy consumption rate per capita quality of life population growth social inequality and governments energy for life efficiency the results show the energy cost of increasing quality of life in the developing world energy savings that can be realized by limiting overconsumption without impacting quality of life and the role of governments on increasing energy for life efficiency and reducing social inequality

the challenge of energy poverty brazilian case study in recent years successive brazilian governments have actively pursued economic and social policies aimed at reducing poverty and promoting social equality and inclusion in the field of energy this has meant introducing and implementing programs aimed at expanding the supply of safe and reliable energy to the poorest sectors of brazilian society including those living in remote rural areas this paper draws attention on the findings of extensive field research to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on energy poverty in the context of government policies aimed at promoting energy equity the authors re examine the concept of an energy poverty line seeking to fine tune its application to brazilian social and economic realities and then apply an analytical framework lorenz curve gap poverty gap quadratic gini coefficient and sen index to evaluate the effectiveness of recent efforts in brazil to expand access to electricity one of the main conclusions of this study is that is that rural electrification leads to a significant reduction of the energy poverty level and a consequent improvement in energy equity

the rise of dollar credit in emerging market economies and us monetary policy this paper examines the hypothesis that the boom in dollar credit in the emerging market economies is associated with excessively low interest rate in the us for this purpose we use a multivariate correlated unobserved component model that allows for correlation between shocks to dollar credit interest rates and dollar index both in the short run and in the long run in addition it also provides us a quantitative estimate of the permanent and transitory movements in dollar credit in emerging markets us interest rate and the dollar index the results from this model do suggest that a temporary decline in interest rate and dollar index below their long run levels are associated with an increase in dollar credit with a very high degree of negative correlation the estimate of the cyclical component of the dollar credit in emerging market from our model captures the recent boom and bust in this market and compares favorably to a univariate trend cycle decomposition benchmark

bridging the energy divide and securing higher collective well being in a climate constrained world abstract despite the impressive gains in available energy over the last 200 years the associated benefits remain unevenly distributed bridging this divide only adds to the already daunting challenge of securing climate stabilization in fact efforts towards the former are more likely to conflict with the latter to be able to address this dilemma the relationship between energy consumption and human well being beyond its economic dimension needs to be better understood this paper aims to contribute to the emerging knowledge base by examining this relationship using a proxy for human well being that also considers its environmental and social dimensions the ultimate goal of this paper is to investigate the potential incompatibility between efforts towards the achievement of higher collective well being and those associated with climate stabilization to this end it provides estimates of the additional energy needed and its associated carbon emissions under different climate scenarios and compares them with existing carbon budgets results indicate that even if new climate policies were adopted emissions associated with higher well being in all regions where improvements are needed could still reach up to one and a half times estimated 2 c budgets and even more so for lower temperature increase targets

multiplicity of equilibria and comparative statics conditions that guarantee the uniqueness of equilibrium in models of economic competition are crucial to applications of these models in exercises of comparative statics until now most of the attention given to the uniqueness question has been focused on pure exchange economies in this paper we use a topological index theorem to derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of equilibrium in economies with production unfortunately conditions that imply uniqueness appear to be too restrictive to have much applicability we argue for example that the only economically interpretable restrictions that imply uniqueness are either that the demand side of an economy behaves like a single consumer or that the supply side is an input output system our results suggest a need for reformulation of the comparative statics method

the inclusive wealth index a critical appraisal abstract among recent high profile propositions to revise national accounts and to provide new indicators of sustainability and well being the inclusive wealth framework and the related inclusive wealth index iwi undoubtedly stand out as one of the most promising endeavours built up at the confluence of welfare development and sustainability economics the indicator has been designed to bring information about the wealth of nations and their sustainability in a comprehensive way the inclusive wealth framework is nevertheless fraught with limitations due to questionable theoretical assumptions gaps in data availability unrealistic assumptions about the future and inability to account for distributional issues we propose a non exhaustive critical appraisal of the index and its underlying framework we conclude that these limitations undermine its capacity to fulfil the requirements of a satisfactory sustainability indicator we argue that most problems lie in the substantial discrepancy between the inclusive ambition of the indicator and the scarce means to implement it whereas the interconnectedness of the various assets that constitute wealth as well as their complex evolution through time are acknowledged by the proponents of inclusive wealth the way the iwi is computed is rather a mere addition of layers of actuarial like monetary values for a not inclusive yet range of capital assets caution is thus warranted while using such an approach and shorter range alternatives to pursue similar goals are proposed

energy consumption and economic growth evidence from china at both aggregated and disaggregated levels using a neo classical aggregate production model where capital labor and energy are treated as separate inputs this paper tests for the existence and direction of causality between output growth and energy use in china at both aggregated total energy and disaggregated levels as coal oil and electricity consumption using the johansen cointegration technique the empirical findings indicate that there exists long run cointegration among output labor capital and energy use in china at both aggregated and all three disaggregated levels then using a vec specification the short run dynamics of the interested variables are tested indicating that there exists granger causality running from electricity and oil consumption to gdp but does not exist granger causality running from coal and total energy consumption to gdp on the other hand short run granger causality exists from gdp to total energy coal and oil consumption but does not exist from gdp to electricity consumption we thus propose policy suggestions to solve the energy and sustainable development dilemma in china as enhancing energy supply security and guaranteeing energy supply especially in the short run to provide adequate electric power supply and set up national strategic oil reserve enhancing energy efficiency to save energy diversifying energy sources energetically exploiting renewable energy and drawing out corresponding policies and measures and finally in the long run transforming development pattern and cut reliance on resource and energy dependent industries

a vicious cycle of manias crashes and asymmetric policy responses an overinvestment view the business cycles theories of wicksell 1898 schumpeter 1912 mises 1912 hayek 1929 1935 and minsky 1986 1992 explain business cycles by distorted prices on capital markets buoyant credit expansion and overinvestment the exuberance during the boom endogenously causes the subsequent slump while these theories put the emphasis on explaining the emergence of the cycle this paper focuses on the macroeconomic policy responses during and after the crisis when panic tightens credit supply the paper allows an assessment of the long term consequences of an asymmetric monetary and fiscal policy response to financial crisis

energy security measurement a sustainable approach abstract the main objective of this paper is to define new energy security indicator with the long term sustainability and to test it in a sample of 28 european union countries for the period 1990 2012 as well as to determine the level of impact of six different indicators on energy security the previous methodologies for measuring of energy security have been mainly focused on security of supply while not taking into account environmental indicators and the social component the newly proposed indicator energy security index differs from the existing measuring methods precisely in a way that it includes environmental and social aspects energy security index recorded a decline in values in most countries in the period 1990 2000 in the period 2000 2008 the values became positive and after 2008 some countries reported again gradual deterioration the index value varies by year and the biggest positive changes were recorded in the case of the netherlands slovenia and spain the four economically strongest eu countries the united kingdom france germany and italy recorded significantly less fluctuations in energy security over 23 years compared to other countries the data for france and denmark show that an increased share of energy from nuclear and renewable sources can compensate even increased energy import dependence the assessment of impact of individual indicators on energy security index was conducted by using principal component analysis and showed that energy intensity gdp per capita and carbon intensity have the greatest impact the countries of the former eastern bloc are facing particular challenges of energy security which is primarily related to the rapid economic growth and at the same time a high degree of dependence on import of energy generating products in terms of energy security the most stable transition was reported in hungary and poland

out of the corridor keynes and the crisis we should learn from keynes to focus on the macroproblems of our day today s problem is the financial crisis and the resulting great recession neither the standard keynesian policies of decades past nor the monetary policy doctrine of recent years provides useful solutions dynamic stochastic general equilibrium theory is part of the crisis wreckage but turning to old or to new keynesian theory will be of little use a balance sheet recession requires that policy address the problems in the private sector s capital as well as its income accounts we need serious theoretical work on problems of system stability using for example agent based methods monetary theory needs to develop analysis of processes in which intertemporal budget constraints are violated network theory will be useful in that quest

the dynamic links between energy consumption economic growth financial development and trade in china fresh evidence from multivariate framework analysis abstract this study investigates the relationship between energy use and economic growth by incorporating financial development international trade and capital as important factors of production function in case of china over the period of 1971 2011 the ardl bounds testing approach to cointegration was applied to examine long run relationship among the series while stationarity properties of the variables was tested by applying structural break test our empirical evidence confirmed long run relationship among the variables the results showed that energy use financial development capital exports imports and international trade have positive impact on economic growth the granger causality analysis revealed that unidirectional causal relationship running from energy use to economic growth financial development and energy use granger cause each other there is bidirectional causality between international trade and energy use the feedback relation exists between financial development and international trade there is also bidirectional causality exists between capital and energy demand financial development and economic growth and international trade and economic growth this paper makes significant contribution in energy economics and opens up new direction for policy makers to explore new and alternative sources of energy which would be helpful in meeting the rising demand of energy due to sustained rate of economic growth