on the origin of monetary exchange there are good reasons to think that the nature of money is not yet rightly understood john law 1705 i introduction if it were possible to plan and execute trades in goods services and financial assets at zero cost in time and other resources we might still know fluctuating prices unemployment poverty and sin but we would neither know nor care about shoe shops used car lots wholesale bread distributors brokerage houses or other intermediaries because we would not willingly pay others to perform trade facilitating services that we could perform for ourselves at no expense neither would we know money because we would never choose to execute two transactions first selling an object for money then buying another with money simmons 1947 308 when the same result could be achieved at no extra cost by barter in real life of course things are more complicated we are awash in trading intermediaries because we cannot easily discover and exploit potential gains from trade without them 1 we who live in private ownership economies are so accustomed to intermediaries especially myriad local retailers that we take their operations for granted similar familiarity with retail traders must have been almost as common in ancient cities since the beginning of recorded history we find references to trade specialists of various kinds butchers grocers silversmiths prostitutes spice merchants house builders marriage brokers bankers pawn brokers etc heidel 1963 15 27 32 polanyi 1957 64 94 monroe 1924 14 27 8 it seems likely indeed that urban dwellers always have been accustomed to deal with marketors who in exchange for fees of one kind or another perform services that give substance and direction to the invisible hand 2 the phrase substance and direction merits emphasis because the function of every marketor is to make a ready market where other individuals can execute desired trades more easily and inexpensively than by acting alone evidently this function would not be performed with such alacrity and diligence by so many persons in such similar ways in so many diverse societies over such long stretches of history were it not otherwise extremely costly for individuals to exploit more than a trivial fraction of potential gains from trade but a market is one thing money another we know of no society historically in which money and markets did not coexist in common parlance the term money has always meant objects that are routinely treated as acceptable means of payment by marketors in the last century money was often described by economists as a veil because it was thought to mask the true nature of trade which was thought really to consist in the exchange of commodities for commodities but that view obscures a more important truth in every civilized community for more than three centuries specialized media of exchange have served to enable private marketors efficiently to coordinate individual economic activities over an ever wider diversity of areas of economic and geographical experience to be sure the coordination process never is perfect and sometimes is perfectly terrible as during the great depression of the 1930s but consider the issue posed by leijonhufvud 1981 how is it possible how is it even conceivable that decentralized economic activities can ever be reasonably coordinated when nobody really is trying to ensure that outcome perhaps the wonder is not that coordination is often imperfect but rather that it ever occurs at all arrow and hahn 1971 1 2 it is argued elsewhere clower and leijonhufvud 1975 that a world of cost less exchange might be imagined in which households could efficiently execute trades directly by barter cf debreu 1959 28 veendorp 1970 history even records instances that lend qualified support to this view jevons 1875 21 to explain privately organized markets we must of course introduce transaction costs friedman and hahn 1990 xii clower 1977 235

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

biofuel investment in tanzania omissions in implementation abstract increasing demand for biofuels as a component of climate change mitigation energy security and a fossil fuel alternative attracts investors to developing countries like tanzania ample unused land is critical for first generation biofuels production and an important feature to attract foreign direct investments that can contribute towards agricultural modernization and poverty reduction initiatives despite the economic justifications the existing institutional and infrastructural capacities dictate the impacts of biofuels market penetrations furthermore exogenous factors like global recessionary pressure depressed oil prices below the level at which biofuel production were profitable in 2007 making tanzania s competitiveness and potential benefits questionable this paper investigates the extent that first generation jatropha based biofuels industry development in tanzania observed during fieldwork in kisarawe and bahi may fulfill policy objectives this paper argues that without strong regulatory frameworks for land investment management and rural development biofuel industrialization could further exacerbate poverty and food insecurity in tanzania the paper concludes with policy recommendations for first generation biofuel development while keeping in mind implications of second generation production since the topic is broad and multifaceted a multidisciplinary approach is used that includes political institutional and agricultural economics to analyze and conceptualize biofuel industry development and food security

unemployment in south africa the nature of the beast abstract unemployment in south africa is so widespread that it demands an explanation this paper examines a central question about south african unemployment why do the unemployed not enter the informal sector as is common in other developing countries the data do not support the idea that unemployment is largely voluntary the policy implications that government should diminish labor market segmentation and the obstacles to entering the productive informal sector may be relevant also to other developing countries with high unemployment

notes on the microfoundations of monetary economics it is important to keep two closely related distinctions in mind when discussing the microeconomics of money that between the social arrangement known as monetary exchange and those assets known as money and that between what patinkin 1957 called the market experiment and individual experiment this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

which road leads to stable money demand this paper denies that the demand for money function is any more unstable than other demand functions and maintains that the controversies regarding unstable money demand are produce by poor methodology that is not shared by other areas of the field of economics when investigating demand function properties this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

efficiency of second generation biofuel crop subsidy schemes spatial heterogeneity and policy design policy schemes that aim to stimulate the cultivation of biofuel crops typically ignore the spatial heterogeneity in costs and benefits associated with their production because of spatial heterogeneity in biophysical and current agricultural production factors potential gains from stimulating biofuel crops are non uniformly distributed across space this paper explores implications of this type of heterogeneity for the net benefits associated with different subsidy schemes we present a simple framework based on discounted cash flows to assess potential gains from introducing the notion of heterogeneity into stimulation schemes we show that agricultural subsidy spending can be reduced in a pareto efficient way and simultaneously improve the total stimulation potential of biofuel policies when schemes 1 are production based instead of land based 2 accommodate differences in opportunity costs and 3 target sites where subsidies for conventional agricultural land use types are high these results are robust for a range of different bioenergy prices and the relative gains of addressing these key elements in policy compared to conventional stimulation schemes increase with lower bioenergy prices and are largest when low prices coincide with high emission reduction ambitions

search bargaining money and prices the goal of this paper is to extend existing search theoretic models of fiat money which until now have assumed that the price level is exogenous by explicitly incorporating bilateral bargaining this allows us to determine the price level endogenously and leads to additional insights concerning the role of money for example we find that monetary equilibria are generally inefficient in the sense that output and prices differ from the solution to a social planner s problem although the difference can become small as the discount rate or search friction vanishes we also find that there exist nonstationary inflationary equilibria

emergence of green business models the case of algae biofuel for aviation emergent business models seek to take advantage of new market mechanisms driven by technological changes particularly those related to the production and delivery of clean or sustainable energy such business models often function at the intersection of various industries with global views and the resulting systems have distinct social political environmental economic technological and business dimensions such holistic systems are not only difficult to develop but also require support from a broad range of actors with effective regulations and policies in place such that the firm functions within a framework that integrates various factors this study substantiates such a framework by detailing the nascent algae based bio fuel industry that caters to the aviation sector while arguing that businesses in the energy industry can emerge as a next practice platform that drive a sixth wave of innovation the framework begins with three basic enablers innovation flexibility and sustainability and explains how value from renewable energy technologies can be created and captured sustainably and innovatively with new market mechanisms implemented by firms with green business models

ghana s bioenergy policy is 20 biofuel integration achievable by 2030 abstract in dealing with the climate change externality of the fossil fuel dominated transport sector bio fuels are widely seen as a solution through its bioenergy policy ghana seeks to improve oil supply security save foreign exchange create jobs and reduce emissions from the transport sector by integrating 20 biofuels into the transport fuel mix by 2030 this paper systematically analyses the transport fuel demand in ghana to determine the biofuel supply target in 2020 and 2030 and evaluates the resource input requirements for integration of biofuels into the transport fuel mix it provides a detailed picture of bio fuel prospects in ghana in the 2030 horizon the research concludes that though significant yield improvement is required to meet the target the target is achievable

the challenge of measuring biofuel sustainability a stakeholder driven approach applied to the french case measuring biofuel sustainability requires dealing with a wide variety of complex and conflicting values at stake consequently the biofuel capacity to contribute to one specific value cannot lead to any absolute conclusion about the overall sustainability of biofuel the scope of the sustainability concept may vary depending on individuals preferences the time scale and the geographical region based on the 5 pillars sustainability concept that includes social economic environmental legal and cultural considerations the present study proposes to assess several biofuel sustainability options for france by 2030 through a stakeholder driven approach rather than seeking to reach a consensus our approach allows us to capture the wide diversity of stakeholders perspectives and preferences french stakeholders perceive 22 different sustainability criteria for biofuels with a very low level of agreement between the different segments of professions feedstock producers biofuel producers refining industry fuel distributors car manufacturers end users government and ngos in order to operationalize the sustainability assessment a set of indicators has been identified with stakeholders that allows us to measure the capacity of biofuels to fulfill each of their criteria seventeen biofuel options were assessed with regards to economic social environmental cultural and legal considerations allowing the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of each biofuel

patterns of attention to renewable energy in the british farming press from 1980 to 2013 abstract the farming sector is a major actor in developing renewable energy providing sites feedstock and investment media coverage can both drive and reflect levels of interest in renewable energy and affect policy support and farmer decision making about deployment this paper presents a content analysis of attention to renewable energy in the british farming press from 1980 to 2013 identifying the topics which sparked sustained media interest cycles of increased attention to specific types of renewable energy are made evident through quantification of article frequencies and qualitative analysis of content the findings contribute to the explanation of the role of information in the diffusion of renewable energy wind energy and liquid biofuels have received the most attention with multiple attention cycles whereas photovoltaics and anaerobic digestion have received focused attention only in recent years policy changes particularly support measures emerge as the most important driver of media attention although public controversies particularly in relation to wind energy lead to longer periods of attention attention typically increases when opportunities in renewable energy emerge and then quickly shifts to a longer stage of focused attention in which opportunities problems and solutions are explored and advice is offered before attention declines the media thus clearly play a role in informing farmers about opportunities arising in relation to renewable energy technology and policy developments but are less helpful in providing on going and consistent information about recurrent and more complex problems thus the farming press appears likely to have the strongest impact on early adopters of renewable technologies but is unlikely to contribute to diffusion at later stages when potential adopters are less willing to bear uncertainties

still searching for an explanation of unemployment in interwar britain no man has hired us with pocketed hands and lowered faces we stand about in open places and shiver in unlit rooms only the wind moves over empty fields untilled where the plough rests at an angle to the furrow in this land there shall be one cigarette to two men to two women one half pint of bitter ale in this land no man has hired us our life is unwelcome our death unmentioned in the times t s eliot the rock 1934

biofuel support policies in europe lessons learnt for the long way ahead biofuel consumption in the eu is growing rapidly but major efforts will need to be undertaken if the eu s objectives for 2010 and beyond are to be achieved this article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of different biofuel support policies based on the experiences gained in pioneering countries and explores scenarios for their possible impacts in the long term it comes to the conclusion that important pre conditions such as fuel standards and compatibility with engines are in place or being introduced on an eu wide basis current and future policy support therefore focuses on creating favourable economic or legal frameworks to accelerate the market penetration of biofuels the ambitious targets endorsed in terms of biofuel market shares require the implementation of efficient policy instruments at the same time large consumption volumes and the advent of innovative production technologies make it possible for member states to promote specific types of biofuels depending on their main objectives and natural potentials this will require complementary instruments such as subsidies for production facilities user incentives or feedstock subsidies

money and asset prices in a cash in advance economy an asset pricing model with money introduced via a cash in advance constraint is presented the monetary velocity is variable hence money demand does not obey the trivial quantity equation the effects of disturbances in output and money growth on real balances the price level and interest rates are examined monetary policy has effects on real asset prices the fisher relation and the premium on nominal bonds are discussed the precise role of the timing of information and transactions for properties of price levels and interest rates are clarified

microfoundations for a stable demand for money function scientific revolutions seldom occur when the prevailing theories appear to be performing well it is only when the accepted theory fails to offer a satisfactory explanation of events that new and more robust theories are proposed of these new theories the one which can explain the successful performance of the previous theory and also the events which led to its demise becomes the replacement so it is in the history of modern monetary economics the failure of the partial adjustment model in the mid s is well documented in the united kingdom and the united states and the search for a replacement has been the main point on the agenda since that time there are many contending theories some of which are advocated by the other contributors to this controversy but the mark of a truly better theory which can be claimed to supersede the partial adjustment model is one that can explain the success and the breakdown of the previous theory as well as the events subsequently central to the argument of this paper is the importance of individual behaviour in the context of a market for monetary assets only by means of careful investigation of the microeconomic behaviour underpinning monetary economics at the individual and the market level can the stability of the money demand function be restored it is the purpose of this paper to suggest that the buffer stock approach has gone further than other approaches in dealing with the fundamental micro foundations of the demand for money it does not suggest that other approaches have no microfoundations but they tend to concentrate exclusively on specific aspects of the micro structure such as separability and ignore others relating to the behaviour of individual optimisers in a monetary market the buffer stock model has firm micro foundations which can explain the events both before and after the breakdown of the partial adjustment model section i provides an historical background to the debate and section ii gives a brief overview of buffer stock models which shows that unlike other approaches they have been able to reconcile the past success of the partial adjustment model with its present failure the nature of the microfoundations of buffer stock models are the source of the success and are discussed in more detail in section iii the final section evaluates the buffer stock approach in the light of the other alternatives

on money as a medium of exchange we analyze economies in which individuals specialize in consumption and production and meet randomly over time in a way that implies that trade must be bilateral and quid pro quo nash equilibria in trading strategies are characterized certain goods emerge endogenously as media of exchange or commodity money depending both on their intrinsic properties and on extrinsic beliefs there are also equilibria with genuine fiat currency circulating as the general medium of exchange we find that equilibria are not generally pareto optimal and that introducing fiat currency into a commodity money economy may unambiguously improve welfare velocity acceptability and liquidity are discussed

the impact of energy prices on the volatility of ethanol prices and the role of gasoline emissions abstract the contribution of renewable energy resources is vital for a country s economic growth by providing high efficiency in energy as well as an effective tool for the confrontation of climate change in particular concerning the eu an increase in the consumption of renewable energy resources as a proportion of the total energy consumption by its member states was set as an objective until 2020 ethanol has been widely used as a substitute to conventional energy like gasoline and oil the present paper surveys the role of alternative energy prices and gas emissions in the formation of the ethanol prices the results of the empirical survey confirmed the existence of a sole relationship among the variables employed according to the results obtained an increase in the volume of emissions or in gasoline prices results in an increase in ethanol prices while the opposite is confirmed in the case of crude oil he elasticity of ethanol prices to the increase of the emissions is another result worth mentioning indicative of the significant role of the emissions in the formation of ethanol prices

unemployment and unemployment benefits in twentieth century britain a reply to our critics in the turbulent years following world war i unemployment compensation in britain was raised from its 1913 level of 27 percent of average wages to levels that neared 60 percent of wages the unemployment rate which had averaged 4 percent during the 20 years before world war i rose dramatically averaging 10 percent even during the expansions of the late 1920s and late 1930s world war ii inflation drove the ratio of benefits relative to wages down to levels comparable to those of the pre world war i years and during the immediate post world war ii period the unemployment rate in britain was lower than ever before or since massive changes in british social policy begun in 1966 raised benefits relative to wages and markedly relaxed conditions on their receipt unemployment has followed benefits upward and by 1981 both the unemployment rate and the ratio of benefits to wages were at levels higher than during the late 1930s our critics argue that this story is misleading in addition to a rebuttal of our critics claims this reply contains 1 new crosssectional and time series evidence that the unemployment insurance system raised the unemployment rates in interwar britain and 2 new cross sectional evidence on the magnitude of the insurance sys

microfoundations and the demand for money the reader should note that i write this piece in a style that aims to be accessible to that much neglected representative agent the woman on the eurostar train hence unlike the man on the clapham omnibus i assume my intrepid traveller has reasonable knowledge of monetary economics and econometrics but not of the details of the demand for money space constraints force me to indulge in a certain amount of poetic licence but i hope this results in poetic justice there have been many wars fought on this particular battlefield some with almost religious zeal on the theoretical side of the debate we sometimes have the equivalent of religious fundamentalists be they muslims jews christians etc who would dismiss almost any evidence unless it were associated with a strong microtheoretic basis as laid down in the koran talmud or bible the empirical side encompasses agnostics atheists as well as born again econometricians pure theorists inhabit the sunlit uplands while applied economists and policymakers flounder in the muddy plain below occasionally gaining solace from their copy of zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance in general in economics we do not have the luxury of controlled experiments as is the case in the natural sciences what distinguishes good microfoundations from bad and how to weight priors and statistical evidence is subject to much dispute leamer i983 hendry et al i990 as in religion sometimes there is the occasional miracle proclaimed after a suitable interval a new saint may be declared and disciples flock to the new shrine later doubts may arise as to whether a miracle really did occur human behaviour is difficult to explain let alone predict so the search for the equivalent of the holy grail ark of the covenant etc is bound to be arduous in scholarly journals we generally read of the success of the demand for money like diplomats who are sent abroad to lie for the good of their country publication may require applied economists to be somewhat economical with the actualite lovell i983 leamer i983 in this article i want to be as honest as possible about our success and failures in this area the prior information an armchair economist would consider when thinking about the demand for money over the past 40 years in western industrialised countries which have experienced moderate inflation might

an empirical examination of the inventory theoretic model of precautionary money demand abstract this study examines the empirical contents of precautionary demand for transactions money balances panel data are utilized to construct estimates of income variance regression results indicate that income uncertainty has a positive effect on precautionary money demand but the magnitude of the elasticity of income variance falls far short of those suggested by economic theories

on ensuring the acceptability of a new fiat money currency reforms of the type now being contemplated by some former soviet republics aimed at establishing new fiat monies linked to established currencies through fixed exchange rates carry an inherent danger such reforms may by neglecting certain requirements crucial for ensuring the acceptability of a new currency cause it to be treated by the public as so many bits of paper analyzing this problem serves to highlight some shortcomings of patinkin style walrasian monetary ananlysis which ignores money s character as a social institution and downplays the role of expectations in determining a would be money s acceptability thereby giving support to misguided reform efforts in this respect at least some early non walrasian monetary theories are more enlightening copyright 1994 by ohio state university press

can productivity growth explain the nairu long run evidence from britain 1871 1999 this paper investigates the effect of productivity growth on the non accelerating inflation rate of unemployment nairu over the long run using historically consistent time series for the uk from 1871 to 1999 a two equation model of unemployment and wage setting that incorporates productivity effects is estimated over the whole period allowing for shifts associated with changes in labour market institutions the results indicate that faster productivity growth reduces the nairu but that this goes only part of the way towards explaining wide swings in average unemployment across the decades

hicks on monetary theory and history money as endogenous money hicks was never tired of saying that monetary theory is in history what he meant was that monetary theory is intrinsically related to real events and more importantly that monetary issues need to be analysed in a dynamic sequential context in which time plays an essential part he went on developing a particular sequential analysis the study of what happens within a single period single period theory and the study of the linkages between a succession of those periods continuation theory it is suggested that this distinction provides a useful lesson for modern endogenous money theorists

the duhem quine thesis lakatos and the appraisal of theories in macroeconomics the point of this paper is to outline the implications of the duhem quine thesis for the task of appraising theories in economics the duhem quine thesis dqfrom now on states that it is not possible to falsify single hypotheses because it is invariably conjunctions of hypotheses which are being tested thus if a particular hypothesis is found to be in conflict with some piece of empirical evidence all that we can say is that the conjunction of the particular hypothesis with a set of auxiliary hypotheses is false we can never be sure that it is not one or more of the auxiliary hypotheses which is responsible for the anomalous empirical evidence rather than the particular hypothesis in which we are most interested expressed in symbols this means that arguments of the form ho 0 0 ho are not justified where ho is a particular hypothesis o is the observational evidence and the symbols and mean imply conjoined with and not instead our arguments can only justifiably be phrased in the form g1 0 0 g1 where g1 is a conjunction of hypotheses which contains ho there could well be some different conjunction of hypotheses gn which contains ho which is consistent with the empirical evidence the contention of this paper is that many of the debates in macroeconomics have been misguided in that the jointness of hypothesis testing has been ignored by participants in the debates instead the focus of attention has been on the appraisal of single target hypotheses considered in isolation from supportive auxiliary hypotheses the implicit assumption being that it is possible to falsify single target hypotheses the latter assumption is wrong following the logic of the dq thesis we are obliged to conduct our appraisal at the level of groupings of hypotheses that is to appraise any target hypothesis in conjunction with its supportive auxiliary hypotheses the implications of this line of reasoning are perhaps best unravelled in the context of concrete examples from debates in macroeconomics over the last two decades before moving to this task we will in section i provide a brief outline of the history of the dq thesis section ii will then illustrate the misguidedness of appraising target hypotheses in isolation from their supportive auxiliary hypotheses with reference to the often heated and continuing debate regarding the stability of the demand for money function the question of how to appraise groupings of hypotheses is considered in section iii here we will centre the

too difficult to govern an assessment of the governability of transport biofuels in the eu transport biofuels are currently the subject of heated debate in the eu in the past decade the deployment of these technologies has been justified by claims of attractive environmental geopolitical and rural development benefits however expectations have rapidly turned into deep criticism regarding the sustainability of these technologies and the desirability of pursuing the biofuel path this situation has generated an on going controversy and policy deadlock at eu level this study explores these issues from a governance perspective employing the concept of system governability derived from interactive governance theory it attempts to shed some light on the problems facing the governance of biofuels and on how the quality of the governance system could be improved the analysis showed that the governability of the system decreased substantially in the period 2003 2012 due to increasing governing needs and decreasing governing capacity the quality of the governance system can be improved by i improving governing capacity by reducing conflicts among governing actors advancing consistency among institutions and creating capacity at international and global level and ii promoting advanced technologies and adjusting societal ambitions and expectations regarding biofuels

international bioenergy trade a review of past developments in the liquid biofuel market policies aimed to promote biofuels locally had tremendous effects on global market developments across the past decade this article develops insights into the interaction of these policies and market forces via a comprehensive collection and analysis of international production and trade data it shows that world biofuel production and trade has grown exponentially from below 30 pj in 2000 to 572 pj in 2009 for biodiesel from 340 pj in 2000 to over 1540 pj in 2009 for fuel ethanol the eu has dominated world biodiesel whereas the us and brazil have led fuel ethanol production world net biofuel trade reached 120 130 pj in 2009 and was directed towards the most lucrative markets for biodiesel this has been the eu whose imports rose to 92 pj in 2008 and remained at 70 pj in 2009 regarding fuel ethanol both the us and the eu have been prime destinations for competitively priced exports the vast majority of which originated in brazil international biofuel trade is both supply and demand driven the demand side was shaped by support policies which generally increased the domestic market value of biofuels trade developed wherever these policies prices were not accompanied by respective measures it is found that import duties largely influenced trade volumes whereas trade routes were mainly driven by tariff preferences trade regimes appear to have been designed and adapted unilaterally along national interests causing market disruptions trade inefficiencies and disputes to avoid these it is important to explicitly consider international trade implications of national trade policies a prerequisite is to improve the understanding of the underlying complex and interwoven links within the market the current lack of adequate homogeneous international reporting of biofuel production and trade statistics could be bridged via internationally standardized custom clarifications trade factor interrelations also need to be investigated further

promotion of biofuel consumption in the transport sector an eu 27 perspective abstract the european union s eu directive 2003 30 ec 1 set an objective of reaching a 5 75 share of renewable energy as a proportion of the total energy consumption of the transport sector by 2010 as all the member states mss of the eu 27 were obliged to comply with this directive different public policy measures were developed and implemented to promote the use of biofuels in transport biofuels being the main renewable energy source res in this sector in this article we review the public measures undertaken in the eu 27 and show how these measures primarily involve tax incentives and biofuel blending mandates on fuel sales all countries with the exception of finland introduced tax incentives of various types to promote the use of biofuels while 18 mss also implemented biofuel blending mandates through the passing of legislation relating to this matter

sell or not sell biodiesel local competition and government measures the introduction of biofuels is one of the objectives of the european union for this reason measures to promote the production and consumption of this product have been implemented such as tax exemptions fixing a minimum amount of mixture or the introduction of public transport that consume biofuels in this paper we test different factors that can affect the introduction of biodiesel in the spanish gasoline market these factors are mainly the level of local competition technical difficulties and local government action empirical evidence shows that a higher level of competition more buses that consume biodiesel and a lower adjustment costs increase significantly the probability of sell biodiesel at service stations these results show how the promotion of competition and public procurement of vehicles can improve the commercialization of biofuels

a review of biofuel policies in the major biofuel producing countries of asean production targets policy drivers and impacts since the turn of this century development of biofuels have progressed rapidly in indonesia malaysia philippines and thailand the major biofuels producing countries in the asean association of south east asian nations the article analyses the biofuel polices underlying drivers and way forward for sustained biofuel development in these countries favorable regulatory and economic mechanisms have played an important role in the production utilization and market penetration of biofuels in these countries a large variety of biofuel support policies are in place ranging from policy targets blending mandates tax incentives and other financial schemes to stimulate the development and adoption of biofuels indonesia is leading the region in biodiesel production and thailand is leading in ethanol production though each of these countries have had occasional setbacks in their production in totality there has been positive growth in biofuel production and an upward trend in future is likely with increased demand consumption enforcement of mandates and realization of policy targets the biofuel development of these countries is motivated by several factors mainly their concerns for energy security e g to reduce the dependence of oil imports and socio economic development e g to increase income generating opportunities climate change is not the primary motive of these countries to pursue biofuel development however sustainable production of biofuels and reliance on second generation biofuels can provide opportunities for these countries to translate their growth potential into economic revenues under carbon finance and thus address greenhouse gas emissions and climate change concerns