the relative importance of social and institutional conditions in the planning of wind power projects abstract governments around the world try to stimulate the development and use of renewable energy technologies like wind energy while wind turbines are increasingly being implemented however a lack of social acceptance at the local level remains an important challenge for developers of wind power plants this article aims to explore the relative importance of social and institutional conditions and their interdependencies in the operational process of planning wind power schemes the article not only focuses on how negative local social conditions can frustrate public policy cf nimby syndrome but also on how positive local social conditions can compensate for a negative public policy framework we analyzed the cases of implementing wind power of two actors the regional energy distributor and small private investors in the municipality of zeewolde the netherlands both cases illustrate that the formal institutional framework formal rules procedures and instruments is neutral in a certain sense social conditions management styles interests and informal contacts put meaning in this framework the way stakeholders deal with the prevailing institutional structure clarifies social acceptance and therewith implementation

competitive procurement of ancillary services by an independent system operator this paper discusses the competitive procurement of ancillary services by an independent system operator iso the paper assumes the existence of an underlying market for energy and explains why this energy market must be accompanied by a market for ancillary services these services include operating reserves and automatic generation control agc both of which may require generators that are infra marginal in the energy market to choose between supplying energy or ancillary services the paper discusses the design of an auction for these services that has formed the basis for the california iso s ancillary services market the paper also discusses the real time dispatch of ancillary services

planning of renewables schemes deliberative and fair decision making on landscape issues instead of reproachful accusations of non cooperation abstract the main issues related to successful implementation policies concern the socio economic institutions that are conditional to planning in the energy policy domain but also in the domain of spatial planning successful investments and the siting of renewable power plants eventually determine the success rate of national efforts in establishing renewable capacity central planning usually has several objectives and these often have a detrimental effect on the goal of renewable energy application current problems related to implementation decisions concerning wind power schemes are an example to those who will be faced by other renewable power plants notably biomass regarding community acceptance of wind power schemes the visual evaluation of the impact of wind power on the values of the landscape is by far the most dominant factor in explaining opposition or support type of landscape fully overshadows other attitudinal attributes as well as other visual and scenic factors such as the design of wind turbines and wind farms and the number and the size of turbines planning regimes and decision making practices that really enhance the implementation processes of renewable energy require strong ecological modernization this means institutional changes that create involvement and trust of actors at the actual implementation level local opposition cannot be explained by the egotistical motives of local residents when the inclination to behave according to supposed backyard motives is investigated the scale to measure this phenomenon appears to indicate commitment to equity issues and fairness of decision making hence for wind power local involvement to represent the local values of site specific landscapes is crucial for other renewables the source specific features are different but conflicts can be expected as well because the fairness of implementation decisions will be equally significant

current situation trends and potential of renewable energy in flanders abstract the current european union eu energy policy seeks to reach a balance between sustainable development competitiveness and secure supply in this sense the eu energy policy sets the target of a 13 share of renewable energy sources ress for belgium several instruments have been implemented to reach this target the objective of this study is analyzing those instruments and its effectiveness and efficiency to tackle this objective we first analyze the current status of res in flanders second we compare the situation in flanders to the national situation in belgium and to the other eu member states then we analyze the potential of each type of res finally we discuss the opportunities and problems of res related to spatial planning in flanders the main application of renewable energy is electricity production of which the main source is biomass an aspect of the flemish energy policy worth mentioning is the green certificate system which has stimulated the development of renewable energies however a greater effort to regulate this market and to decrease the cost of kwh produced has proven to be necessary the res electricity share of total consumption has increased by 3 2 between 1994 and 2008 but compared to others eu countries the share of res to gross inland consumption in flanders is small large scale facilities are necessary to reach the eu targets the development of large wind biomass and solar projects is suggested as the preferred option for flanders

performance evaluation of renewable energy support policies applied on flanders tradable certificates system abstract the article is composed as a diptych first a general framework of criteria to evaluate the performance of renewable energy support systems is elaborated it is built around the main criteria effectiveness efficiency and equity all three are multi layered and specifying the contents of the various layers is case dependent second the framework is applied on detailed data about the flemish tradable certificates support system several salient conclusions confirm observations from research in other countries causing growing awareness first most crucial is a careful and detailed qualification of renewable energy sources and technologies without even effectiveness is not reliably measurable second nearby targets of renewable energy output must follow from a clearly designed transition trajectory towards a sustainable electricity sector such transition is intertwined with an industrial technological policy for bringing the necessary technologies to development and maturity third if the above two prerequisites are overridden certificates systems abound of excess profits predominantly reaped by incumbent power companies being not the best agents of real change to a sustainable energy future

investments in the dutch onshore wind energy industry a review of investor profiles and the impact of renewable energy subsidies the 2020 renewable energy targets have stimulated the debate on the efficacy of policy schemes discussion on the efficacy of these schemes has largely been on the growth in the share of renewable energy and less on the alignment of policies to the needs of investors however research in this field has emphasized that who is investing is as relevant as how much is invested this study aims to identify and better understand who is investing by researching more than 1000 investments by 646 firms that produce electricity with dutch onshore wind energy these firms received renewable energy subsidies under dutch policy schemes between 1996 and 2013 the regression results highlight the type of investors that invest more in wind energy the results show that firms with a higher wind energy capacity are firms that have more investment experience are latecomers to the wind industry have an industrial background in the electricity or wind industry are medium or large sized and are limited liability companies data on investments combined with a document analysis show that changes in policy schemes affect the perceived risks and expected returns of investors and that these changes influence the amounts invested and the type of investors in wind energy

efficiency analysis of chinese industry a directional distance function approach two efficiency measures of chinese industry were estimated at the provincial level from 1994 to 2002 using a directional output distance function one is a traditional efficiency measure that considers only desirable output while the other considers both desirable and undesirable outputs simultaneously a comparison of the two measures revealed that efficiency levels are biased only if desirable output is considered five coastal provinces municipalities that have attracted a large amount of foreign direct investment are found to be the most efficient when only desirable output is considered and also when both desirable and undesirable outputs are considered however omitting undesirable output tends to lead to an overestimate of industrial efficiency levels in shandong sichuan and hebei provinces we also found that a province s industrial structure has significant effects on its efficiency levels

educational inequality and intergenerational mobility in latin america a new database abstract the causes and consequences of the intergenerational persistence of inequality are a topic of great interest among various fields in economics however until now issues of data availability have restricted a broader and cross national perspective on the topic based on rich sets of harmonized household survey data we contribute to filling this gap by computing time series for several indexes of relative and absolute intergenerational education mobility for 18 latin american countries over 50 years and making them publicly available we find that intergenerational mobility is on average rising in latin america this pattern seems to be driven by the high upward mobility of children from low educated families at the same time there is substantial immobility at the top of the distribution significant cross country differences are observed and are associated with income inequality poverty economic growth public educational expenditures and assortative mating

communities matter institutional preconditions for community renewable energy abstract energy transitions are high on political agendas from a practical viewpoint community approaches are deemed essential in order to transition from a predominantly centralized energy supply to a decentralized one and to exploit the potential of renewable energies in this paper i discuss how the emergence of community based energy projects can be analyzed from an institutional perspective in this context a community is treated as an individual institutional order that shapes decisions i examine how community structures the implementation of biogas cooperatives in the autonomous province of south tyrol in northern italy my findings suggest that community spirit a cooperative tradition and the norms of locality and responsibility are central drivers behind the emergence and constitution of biogas cooperatives not only do these institutional features of community influence the decision concerning which farmers are in or out but also plant location and scale i argue that community is a necessary analytical category for understanding community energy

intelligence social mobility and growth this study develops a model where the allocation of human resources intergenerational social mobility and technological growth are jointly determined high growth endogenously increases the equilibrium return to innate cognitive ability and makes the allocation of individuals depend more on innate ability and less on social background a social allocation based on innate ability and high growth will thus reinforce each other implying the possibility of multiple endogenous growth equilibria

urban infrastructure mines on the economic and environmental motives of cable recovery from subsurface power grids abstract subsurface power grids constitute one of the largest copper stocks in many industrialized cities over time parts and zones of these systems have been continuously disconnected and abandoned resulting in the emergence of urban infrastructure ores this study aims to assess how current conditions and practices influence economic and environmental motives of cable recovery from such power grids by applying an infrastructure manager s perspective and evaluating 16 scenarios involving different extraction technologies and procedures surface materials urban locations and types of cables we identify key areas where solutions or changes to increase incentives for cable recovery are needed the assessed scenarios display significantly different cable extraction costs where excavation in city centers with asphalt or cobblestone pavements generates the highest costs while greenbelts offer the best conditions in most cases cable revenues are not even close to outweighing the extraction costs this is especially true for paper coated cables or cables with aluminum conductors for which the revenues are much lower than for plastic insulated copper cables although economic conditions could be improved by integrating cable recovery to regular system upgrade projects or by applying non digging technologies clear incentives rely on the cable in question being especially valuable most of the cable recovery scenarios display environmental motives in terms of net savings in ghg emissions due to metal recycling in contrast to the economic results recycling of aluminum power cables is here more awarding than that of corresponding copper cables we conclude that under current conditions urban mining does not make economic sense to infrastructure managers unless it is integrated as an added value to system upgrade projects apart from such re arrangements in infrastructure provision several other practice related changes to cut cable extraction costs are possibly within reach for the managers still an economically motivated practice relies on several external performance drivers such as market diffusion of non digging technologies improved cable recycling processes and increased scrap metal prices our conclusion that the arguments for urban mining are currently more environmental than financial points towards changed perspectives where such activities are seen as a way for infrastructure managers to contribute to societal goals such as climate change mitigation and reduced mineral resource dependence

community perspectives of wind energy in australia the application of a justice and community fairness framework to increase social acceptance decisions concerning the siting of infrastructure developments or the use of natural resources have the potential to damage a community s social well being if the outcomes are perceived to be unfair justice is accepted as central to the well functioning of society with fairness being an expectation in day to day interactions outcomes that are perceived to be unfair can result in protests damaged relationships and divided communities particularly when decisions are made which benefit some sections of the community at the perceived expense of others through empirical research using a wind farm pilot study community perceptions of a community consultation process are explored using procedural justice principles to evaluate fairness findings from the pilot study indicate that perceptions of fairness do influence how people perceive the legitimacy of the outcome and that a fairer process will increase acceptance of the outcome a key research finding was that different sections of a community are likely to be influenced by different aspects of justice namely by outcome fairness outcome favourability and process fairness based on this finding a community fairness framework was developed which has potential application in community consultation to increase social acceptance of the outcome

basic concepts for designing renewable electricity support aiming at a full scale transition by 2050 abstract renewable electricity supply is a crucial factor in the realization of a low carbon energy economy the understanding is growing that a full turn over of the electricity sectors by 2050 is an elementary condition for avoiding global average temperature increase beyond 2 c this article adopts such full transition as europe s target when designing renewable energy policy an immediate corollary is that phasing in unprecedented energy efficiency and renewable generation must be paralleled by phasing out non sustainable fossil fuel and nuclear power technologies the double phasing programme assigns novel meaning to nearby target settings for renewable power as share of total power consumption it requires organizing in the medium term eu wide markets for green power a highly demanding task in the present context of poorly functional markets in brown power the eu commission s 2007 2008 proposals of expanding tradable certificates markets were not based on solid analysis of past experiences and future necessities the keystone of sound policies on renewable electricity development is a detailed scientific differentiation and qualification of renewable electricity sources and technologies for measuring the huge diversity in the field we provide but structuring concepts about such qualification because implementation requires extensive research resources support for renewable electricity development is organized via feed in prices or premiums and via quota obligations connected to tradable green certificates green certificates are dependent on physical generated renewable power but separable and no joint products contrary to conventional wisdom we argue their separation in cost analysis but firm linking during trade a few graphs illustrate the importance of assigning qualities to different renewable power sources technologies feed in systems based on an acceptable qualification perform generally better than certificate markets imposing uniform approaches on a very diverse reality for a similar reason uniform and undifferentiated taxation of non sustainable energy sources cannot replace renewable energy support schemes capable of differentiation

environmental relevance and use of energy indicators in environmental management and research this thesis aim is to develop an approach for scoping of environmental aspects regarding the material use in a large organisation in order to contribute to a strategic environmental management the study object is the swedish national rail authority the transport sector is closely linked to the environmental pressures caused by our society consequently a lot of studies have been made regarding the contribution from different transport sectors however the bulk of these studies concerns only the transports and thus omits the environmental pressures from the material use needed to support these sectors i e building and maintaining the infrastructure the rail transport sector is generally conceived to be the most environmentally adapted land transport mode however this notion commonly only includes environmental pressures from the traffic phase the method uses material related energy use and co2 emissions as a proxy to environmental pressures from material use furthermore the robustness of the method is tested by the use of scenarios and sensitivity analysis in particular the environmental relevance of the energy indicator is studied the approach developed in this thesis can be used to introduce new perspectives such as upstream environmental pressures to an organisation s environmental management it can be employed to identify hot spots in an organisation s material use consequently this new knowledge can be used to influence the design of new products to set environmental demands for purchasing and to focus further environmental analyses of the hot spots the approach can also be used to broaden the perspectives in for instance environmental impact assessments strategic environmental assessment and environmental reviews in the studied rail building project 3 products constituted 99 5 weight of the total material use these products were steel rails concrete ties and ballast materials they share the common characteristics of being noncomplex non toxic and made out of very few materials

communicating the eco efficiency of products and services by means of the eco costs value model abstract at the delft university of technology a new model has been developed to describe the sustainability of products the evr model this model comprises two concepts the virtual eco costs as a lca based single indicator for environmental impact the evr eco costs value ratio as an indicator for eco efficiency in this publication an experiment is described to test whether the evr model leads to a good understanding of the eco efficiency of a product service combination in this experiment three separate groups of 8 11 people were asked to rank four alternative solutions of a product service system the after sales service and the maintenance service of an induction plate cooker both in terms of sustainability and of general preference the three respective groups were customers among whom representatives of consumer organizations business representatives from the manufacturing company of the induction plate cookers governmental representatives employees of the dutch ministries of environmental affairs and economic affairs and of the dutch provinces as well as consultants involved in governmental policies all experts in the field of sustainability the basic idea was to ask each group to rank the four alternatives after three levels of information input level 1 basic explanation of the four alternatives some major features and characteristics such as price were given but no environmental data level 2 on explanation of an lca of the four alternatives given in nine impact classes and the eco indicator 95 level 3 an explanation of the evr model and the evr data of the four alternatives each time the group was asked to rank the proposed alternatives in terms of expected environmental performance and of best choice in general which system would you have bought in a real life situation from the experiments it can be concluded that the concept of eco costs was accepted by the majority of the non experts they based their ranking on it and they preferred it rather than direct lca output or the damage based eco indicator 95 data the environmental experts in the governmental group did not directly accept the concept of eco costs model they wanted in depth information first they tended to stick to their existing knowledge of lca data and the eco indicator 95 overall preferences of the customers and business representatives were primarily ranked on the perceived value costs ratio of the product service combination the sustainability of the product service combination played a secondary role

unbundled reactive support service key characteristics and dominant cost component in this paper the authors present a systematic exposition of generator provided reactive support as an unbundled ancillary service under open access transmission they discuss the nature and salient physical characteristics of reactive support and analyze their implications in acquiring var support as one of the ancillary services the paper provides an analysis of the dominant component in the cost structure of this service this component is determined from the opportunity costs which are evaluated from the foregone profits of a generator in making sales in real power markets by providing reactive support instead of real power they illustrate the combined effects of the voltage set points of the generators and of the generator capability constraints on the transactions in competitive electricity markets both under normal and contingency operating conditions they discuss the key role of the grid operator in the provision of the reactive support and the key considerations in the acquisition and pricing of the reactive support service

is the united states still a land of opportunity recent trends in intergenerational mobility abstract we present new evidence on trends in intergenerational mobility in the united states using administrative earnings records we find that percentile rank based measures of intergenerational mobility have remained extremely stable for the 1971 1993 birth cohorts for children born between 1971 and 1986 we measure intergenerational mobility based on the correlation between parent and child income percentile ranks for more recent cohorts we measure mobility as the correlation between a child s probability of attending college and her parents income rank we also calculate transition probabilities such as a child s chances of reaching the top quintile of the income distribution starting from the bottom quintile based on all of these measures we find that children entering the labor market today have the same chances of moving up in the income distribution relative to their parents as children born in the 1970s however because inequality has risen the consequences of the birth lottery t

cross country differences in intergenerational earnings mobility international studies of the extent to which economic status is passed from one generation to the next are important for at least two reasons first each study of a particular country characterizes an important feature of that country s income inequality second comparisons of intergenerational mobility across countries may yield valuable clues about how income status is transmitted across generations and why the strength of that intergenerational transmission varies across countries the e rst section of this paper explains a benchmark measure of intergenerational mobility commonly used in u s studies the second section summarizes comparable empirical e ndings that have accumulated so far for countries other than the united states the third section sketches a theoretical framework for interpreting cross country differences in intergenerational mobility

heterogeneous income profiles and lifecycle bias in intergenerational mobility estimation using short snapshots of income in intergenerational mobility estimation causes lifecycle bias if the snapshots cannot mimic lifetime outcomes we use uniquely long series of swedish income data to show that this bias is large and to examine current strategies to reduce it we confirm that lifecycle bias is smallest when incomes are measured around midlife a central implication from a widely adopted generalization of the classical errors in variables model however the model cannot predict the ideal age of measurement or eliminate lifecycle bias at other ages we illustrate how extensions of this model can reduce the bias further

improving australia s renewable energy project policy and planning a multiple stakeholder analysis abstract renewable energy re is part of australia s and the world s energy supply matrix with over a 100 billion spent annually on re projects since 2007 businesses seeking to invest in re projects particularly in the wind and solar energy sectors may face an onerous collection of planning approvals and permitting processes that impede investment and implementation in this study we draw on international and domestic stakeholder inputs to a governmental inquiry in australia to show how re projects might be approved in shortened timeframes with reduced associated costs the process mapping and stakeholder analysis demonstrates that re supply projects can benefit from standardized approval processes and documentation a 360 deep engagement with stakeholders and expanded electricity grid access in resource areas augmented through supportive public policy and planning frameworks in addition stakeholder objections to project approval and implementation streamlining were used to contrast the efficacy of the proposed changes in policy

energy development in china the need for a coherent policy abstract china the world s third largest consumer of primary energy remains in relative terms a poor developing country ambitious modernization plans exemplified by the goal of quadrupling per capita gnp by the year 2000 will require considerable attention to long range energy planning yet the past developments including the most recent guidelines have been marked by abrupt changes and outright reversals leaving china without any coherent energy policy the most durable strategies which emerged during the late 1970s are the stress on coal as the principal fuel building of mine mouth power plants accelerated construction of large hydro stations massive diffusion of small biogas digesters and widespread energy conservation measures

intergenerational income mobility in the united states social scientists and policy analysts have long expressed concern about the extent of intergenerational income mobility in the united states but remarkably little empirical evidence is available the few existing estimates of the intergenerational correlation in income have been biased downward by measurement error unrepresentative samples or both new estimates based on intergenerational data from the panel study of income dynamics imply that the intergenerational correlation in long run income is at least 0 4 indicating dramatically less mobility than suggested by earlier research copyright 1992 by american economic association

the meaning and measurement of income mobility abstract income mobility may be seen as arising from two sources i the transfer of income among individuals with total income held constant and ii a change in the total amount of income available in this paper we propose several sensible properties defining the concept of income mobility and show that an easily applicable measure of mobility is uniquely implied by these properties we also show that the resulting measure is additively decomposable into the two sources listed above namely mobility due to the transfer of income within a given structure and mobility due to economic growth or contraction finally these results are compared and contrasted with other mobility concepts and measures in the literature journal of economic literature classification numbers d31 d63

social mobility and redistributive politics just like economists voters have conflicting views about redistributive taxation because they estimate its incentive costs differently we model rational agents as trying to learn from their dynastic income mobility experience the relative importance of effort and predetermined factors in the generation of income inequality and therefore the magnitude of these incentive costs in the long run left wing dynasties believing less in individual effort and voting for more redistribution coexist with right wing dynasties this allows us to explain why individual mobility experience and not only current income matters for political attiitudes and how persistent differences in perceptions about social mobility can generate persistent differences in redistribution across countries

a participatory approach to sustainable energy strategy development in a carbon intensive jurisdiction the case of nova scotia the need for governments to reduce the exposure of energy consumers to future increases in fossil fuel prices places urgent pressure on policy makers to deliver fundamental transformations in energy strategies particularly in jurisdictions with high dependency on fossil fuel sources dorian et al 2006 this transformation is unlikely without a high level of stakeholder engagement in the policy development process this paper describes two policy development processes recently undertaken in nova scotia in which the inclusion of stakeholder views was central to the approach the first delivered a new institutional framework for electricity energy efficiency involving the inception of an independent performance based administrator the second required the delivery of a strategy to significantly increase renewable energy generation in the province it involved recommendations for changes in institutional arrangements financial incentives and technological options this process was followed by new commitments to renewable energy developments new infrastructure for the importation of hydro electricity and the announcement of fits for ocean energy in both cases recommendations were made by an independent academic institution and the government responded directly to a majority of recommendations the paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned and the implications for future energy policy making in carbon intensive jurisdictions

china s ongoing energy efficiency drive origins progress and prospects abstract in 2004 china s government launched a vigorous programme to reverse the trend of rising national energy intensity and to reduce intensity by 20 over the period 2006 2010 the aim of this paper is to examine this programme in the context of nearly 30 years of measures to enhance energy efficiency in china and thus to evaluate the likelihood that today s policies will yield improvements over a longer period the country achieved a sustained decline of energy intensity in the period 1980 2001 but this trend was reversed in 2002 this reversal arose from a shift in the structure of the economy to more energy intensive industries and from a decline in the rate of technical innovation the measures taken since 2003 have been directed principally at energy intensive industries but have also addressed other sectors of the economy though the energy intensity target for the year 2010 may be achieved greater efforts will be needed to address a number of constraints which include the reluctance to use economic and financial instruments the dependency of energy policy on industrial and social policies the nature of political decision making and of public administration a shortage of skills and social attitudes to energy

optimal active reactive power dispatch under competition via bilevel programming this paper proposes an active reactive power dispatch procedure that is expressed via a bilevel optimization problem whose upper and lower level criteria are respectively the minimum opportunity cost and minimum offered price of active power it analyzes the impact of minimizing such criteria on system operation and it investigates the behavior of marginal prices and opportunity costs and their use in mechanisms to compensate generators for power provision the bilevel problem is solved using a version of interior point methods derived for mathematical programs with complementarity constraints results obtained with three test systems are analyzed

the political economy of intergenerational income mobility the intergenerational elasticity of income is considered one of the best measures of the degree to which a society gives equal opportunity to its members while much research has been devoted to measuring this reduced form parameter less is known about its underlying structural determinants using a model with exogenous talent endowments endogenous parental investment in children and endogenous redistributive institutions we identify the structural parameters that govern the intergenerational elasticity of income the model clarifies how the interaction between private and collective decisions determines the equilibrium level of social mobility two societies with similar economic and biological fundamentals may have vastly different degrees of intergenerational mobility depending on their political institutions we offer empirical evidence in line with the predictions of the model we conclude that international comparisons of intergenerational elasticity of income are not particularly informative about fairness without taking into account differences in politico economic institutions jel e24 j62 j68 p16

probabilistic decision model of wind power investment and influence of green power market this paper presents results from a model of a representative wind power investor s decision making process using a monte carlo simulation of a project financial analysis data in the form of probability distribution functions pdfs for key input variables were collected from interviews with investors and other professionals active in the u s wind power industry using a formal expert elicitation protocol this study presents the first quantitative estimates of the effect of the u s voluntary renewable energy certificate rec market on renewable energy generation the results indicate that the investment decisions of wind power project developers in the united states are unlikely to have been altered by the voluntary rec market the problem with the current voluntary rec market is that it does not offer developers a reliable risk adjusted revenue stream consequently the claims by u s green power retailers and promoters that voluntary market recs result in additional wind power projects lack credibility even dramatic increases in voluntary market rec prices in the absence of long term contracts were found to have only a small effect on investor behavior

social acceptance of renewable energy innovation an introduction to the concept this paper introduces the special issue on social acceptance of renewable energy innovation it is a collection of best papers presented at an international research conference held in tramelan switzerland in february 2006 while there are ambitious government targets to increase the share of renewable energy in many countries it is increasingly recognized that social acceptance may be a constraining factor in achieving this target this is particularly apparent in the case of wind energy which has become a subject of contested debates in several countries largely due to its visual impact on landscapes this paper introduces three dimensions of social acceptance namely socio political community and market acceptance factors influencing socio political and community acceptance are increasingly recognized as being important for understanding the apparent contradictions between general public support for renewable energy innovation and the difficult realization of specific projects the third dimension market acceptance has received less attention so far and provides opportunities for further research particularly from management scholars

intergenerational earnings mobility inequality and growth abstract we examine a model in which per capita income inequality intergenerational mobility and returns to education are all determined endogenously individuals earn wages depending on their ability which is a random variable they purchase an education with transfers received from their parents and are subject to liquidity constraints in the model multiple steady state equilibria are possible countries with identical tastes and technologies can reach differing rates of mobility inequality and per capita income equilibria with higher levels of output also have lower inequality higher mobility and more efficient distribution of education

what induced china s energy intensity to fluctuate 1997 2006 abstract china is the second largest energy consumer in the world during 1997 2002 china s energy intensity declined by 33 however it rose by 10 7 over 2003 2005 and declined by 1 2 in 2006 what induced china s energy intensity to fluctuate so drastically industry accounts for approximately 70 of the total energy consumption in china in this paper we decompose china s industrial energy intensity changes between 1997 and 2002 into sectoral structural effects and efficiency effects measured by sectoral energy intensities at two digit level and including the shifts of product mix in the sub sector or firm level using tornqvist and sato vartia index methods the results show that in this period efficiency effects possibly contributed to a majority of the decline while the contribution from structural effects was less during 2003 2005 the excessive expansion of high energy consuming sub sectors and the high investment ratio were foremost sources of the increasing energy intensity attributed to the government efforts the energy intensity has started to decline slightly since july 2006 in future to save more energy in addition to technical progress china should attach more importance to optimizing its sectoral structure and lowering its investment ratio

power sector renewable energy integration for expanding access to electricity in sub saharan africa abstract a looming energy supply crisis in sub saharan africa ssa raises concerns about a long lasting energy shortage this energy crisis is expected to persist for an indefinite period in the region unless immediate actions are taken to reverse the trend although global aspiration to reduce greenhouse gas ghg emissions into the atmosphere is high such desire is low in ssa regional stakeholders are more worried about increasing power generation capacity to enhance better access to different sorts of development to progress in line with advanced patterns of energy development globally to increase the availability of electrical energy and to sustain emissions reductions exploitation of local renewable energy re resources is inevitable consequently this paper presents a comprehensive review of re integration for expanding access to electricity in ssa the review covers the sustainability of re resources in ssa the regional status of re applications and the necessity of re power generation integration planning from a management aspect finally the benefits of re integration into the power sector of ssa and some conceptual challenges affecting its integration in the region are highlighted

cross country rankings in intergenerational mobility a comparison of approaches from economics and sociology this paper summarizes research on the relative level of intergenerational mobility whether classified by income education or social class the literatures on education and income mobility reveal a similar ranking with south america other developing nations southern european countries and france tending to have rather limited mobility although the nordic countries exhibit strong mobility estimates of mobility based on social class point to rather different patterns and we demonstrate that these differences are most likely generated by intergenerational earnings persistence within social classes the second part of the paper looks for explanations for the differences in earnings and education persistence and finds that mobility is negatively correlated with inequality and the return to education but positively correlated with a nation s education spending

the informational content of surnames the evolution of intergenerational mobility and assortative mating we propose a new methodology for measuring intergenerational mobility in economic well being our method is based on the joint distribution of surnames and economic outcomes it circumvents the need for intergenerational panel data a long standing stumbling block for understanding mobility it does so by using cross sectional data alongside a calibrated structural model to recover the traditional intergenerational elasticity measures our main idea is simple if inheritance is important for economic outcomes then rare surnames should predict economic outcomes in the cross section this is because rare surnames are indicative of familial linkages if the number of rare surnames is small this approach will not work however rare surnames are abundant in the highly skewed nature of surname distributions from most western societies we develop a model that articulates this idea and shows that the more important is inheritance the more informative will be surnames this result is robust to a variety of different assumptions about fertility and mating we apply our method using the 2001 census from catalonia a large region of spain we use educational attainment as a proxy for overall economic well being a calibration exercise results in an estimate of the intergenerational correlation of educational attainment of 0 60 we also find evidence suggesting that mobility has decreased among the different generations of the 20th century a complementary analysis based on sibling correlations confirms our results and provides a robustness check on our method our model and our data allow us to examine one possible explanation for the observed decrease in mobility we find that the degree of assortative mating has increased over time overall we argue that our method has promise because it can tap the vast mines of census data that are available in a heretofore unexploited manner

when measure matters coresidency truncation bias and intergenerational mobility in developing countries biases from truncation caused by coresidency restriction have been a challenge for research on intergenerational mobility estimates of intergenerational schooling persistence from two data sets show that the intergenerational regression coefficient the most widely used measure is severely biased downward in coresident samples but the bias in intergenerational correlation is much smaller and is less sensitive to the coresidency rate the paper provides explanations for these results comparison of intergenerational mobility based on the intergenerational regression coefficient across countries gender and over time can be misleading much progress on intergenerational mobility in developing countries can be made with the available data by focusing on intergenerational correlation

renewable energy sources in european energy supply and interactions with emission trading abstract this paper presents a model based approach which allows to determine the optimised structure and operation of the eu 15 electricity supply under different political and economic framework conditions with a focus on the integration of renewable energy sources for electricity generation res e in the eu 15 countries the approach is designed to take into account the characteristics of power production from both renewable and conventional sources including the technological and economic characteristics of existing plants as well as those of future capacity expansion options beyond that fuel supply structures are modelled as well as the international markets for power and co 2 certificates with their restrictions thus a profound evaluation of the exploitation of mid term renewable potentials and an assessment of the market penetration of the various renewable power generation technologies under the normative premise of a cost optimised evolution of the power system becomes possible results show that a promotion of renewable energies reduces the scarcity of co 2 emission allowances and thus lowers marginal costs of co 2 reduction up to 30 in 2030 despite the higher overall costs a diversification of the energy resource base by res e use is observed as primarily natural gas and nuclear fuels are replaced

methodological proposal for territorial distribution of the percentage reduction in gross inland energy consumption according to the eu energy policy strategic goal abstract a 20 reduction in the consumption of energy is one of the main goals of the european union s eu 20 20 20 energy strategy but the uniform application of this overall goal to all of the countries is neither fair nor equitable as it does not take into consideration the characteristics of the energy system in each member state this article therefore proposes a nonlinear distribution methodology with objective dynamic goals for reducing gross inland energy consumption according to the context and characteristics of each member state we hope it will open discussion on how these overall goals can be weighted then we analyse the situation of the energy indicators related to energy efficiency in the reference year 2005 used by the eu for reaching its goal of reducing the gross inland consumption by 20 by 2020 and its progress from 1996 to 2007 finally the methodology proposed is applied to the year 2020 on the nuts0 territorial level that is to members of the eu according to the eurostat nomenclature of territorial units for statistics nuts weighting is done based on energy intensity per capita gross inland consumption and per capita energy intensity in two scenarios the eu 15 and eu 27

when outcomes are the reflection of the analysis criteria a review of the tradable green certificate assessments abstract the tradable green certificates tgc framework is a prevalent policy support scheme enacted to stimulate investments in electricity from renewable energy sources res e in several countries including sweden and norway the tgc framework is currently under reevaluation in this process academic literature plays a crucial role in reflecting the outcomes of this policy framework the outcomes however are often limited by the analysis criteria which reflect what has been accounted for or disregarded when assessing the performance of the tgc framework the analysis criteria also stress what is considered as a successful outcome given the importance of such criteria this paper presents an extensive and systemic literature review of academic publications assessing the performance of the tgc framework the findings are to provide an overview of the publications analysis criteria and outline their outcomes we also provide descriptive statistics for the publications and examine the average citation record of the publications that use various analysis criteria in order to explore their relative impact on later studies these findings can help policymakers put the assessments into perspective when reevaluating a country s tgc system they also suggest several intriguing directions for future studies in this field

intergenerational income mobility among daughters new evidence on daughters intergenerational mobility in a framework that encompasses women not in the labor force using broader measures of economic status than just the women s own earnings is presented and the role of husbands earnings is highlighted a parallel analysis of sons mobility is performed intergenerational transmission of income status may be weaker for daughters than for sons but is still quite substantial assortative mating is an important element in the intergenerational transmission process

intergenerational mobility and marital sorting we use data from the german socio economic panel and the british household panel survey to estimate the extent of intergenerational economic mobility in a framework that highlights the role played by assortative mating we find that assortative mating plays an important role on average about 40 50 of the covariance between parents and own permanent family income can be attributed to the person to whom one is married this effect is driven by strong spouse correlations in human capital which are larger in germany than britain 2006 the authors journal compilation royal economic society 2006

social barriers in wind power implementation in the netherlands perceptions of wind power entrepreneurs and local civil servants of institutional and social conditions in realizing wind power projects the primary social factors for the implementation of wind energy projects in a liberalized market are entrepreneurs willing to invest understanding conditions that trigger entrepreneurs to invest in these projects and understanding conditions that determine the chance of success for entrepreneurs to implement and exploit their projects is vital for setting up effective policies to stimulate wind electricity generation this paper analyses the way in which wind power entrepreneurs and local civil servants experience social and institutional conditions in the operational process of realizing wind power projects and their perceptions of policy implications a groups support system in an electronic board room was used to analyze the perceptions from the analysis it was concluded that wind power entrepreneurs and civil servants share the opinion that the institutionally embedded power position of local politicians and the sensitiveness of the local political debate for the popular opinion are most critical for project realization with regard to the proposed solutions both groups differ in their approach entrepreneurs stress procedural solutions such as limiting the possibilities to appeal reducing the complexity of the formal authorization trajectory and using a top down planning approach civil servants stress more strategic solutions such as providing more public information on the necessity of wind power for local politicians and citizens and community involvement in planning processes finally the analysis explains that steering strategies that have been developed at the national level to solve the planning problems at the operational level do not address the right problems

social acceptance of renewable energy sources a review of contingent valuation applications abstract this paper presents a literature review addressing the public acceptance of renewable energy as a replacement for fossil fuels in electricity production this review was motivated by the global tendency for a substitution of conventional fuels by renewable energy sources res during the global financial crisis it studies research on the preferences and attitudes of local communities towards investments in renewable energy projects and their perception of the use of new energy technologies in their daily lives through various case studies worldwide an effort is made to identify the parameters that influence consumers energy behaviour together with their interest or lack thereof in the environmental impact of using fossil fuels to produce energy and their willingness to reduce it applications of contingent valuation are examined which are employed to analyse public attitudes towards the use of res for electricity production willingness to pay is observed to be correlated to socioeconomic characteristics including education interest in environmental issues and knowledge of res finally the profile of a typical green energy consumer and appropriate policy paths for the penetration of res into the energy market are outlined

to what extent does wind power deployment affect vested interests a case study of the northeast china grid abstract china s wind power is in an embarrassing state along with its dramatic development since 2005 its curtailment ratio has been rising although this could be attributed to both physical and institutional factors it is the institutional obstacles mainly resulting from the adjustment difficulties of interests distribution that have exercised a greater impact the stakeholders relating to wind power integration are thermal power companies grid companies and local governments the extent to which wind power deployment affects these vested interests determines the core institutional obstacles to be addressed mainly based on quantitative and case analyses we argue that currently wind deployment in china has a little impact on the interests of thermal companies moderate impact on the interests of grid companies and great impact on local governments we recommend that it is crucial to elevate the role of environmental protection and renewable energy increase while de emphasize the role of economic growth in the evaluation of local governments performance as well as provide incentives for grid companies to attend more to their social responsibilities rather than their scale expansion and revenue growth

government spending and intergenerational mobility abstract the standard model of intergenerational mobility suggests that holding constant endowments investments in children s human capital increases their future income if true the source of the investment should not matter even though almost all research on intergenerational mobility considers only parental investment much government spending is intended to reduce the investment gap between rich and poor children we assess the relationship between government spending and intergenerational economic mobility using data from the panel study of income dynamics and data on state spending from the u s census of governments we find greater intergenerational mobility in high spending states compared to low spending states two additional findings also suggest that government spending increases intergenerational mobility first the difference in mobility between advantaged and disadvantaged children is smaller in high spending compared to low spending states and second expenditures aimed at low income populations increase the future income of low income but not high income children

intergenerational mobility and the process of development this paper offers an explanation for some evidence that intergenerational earnings mobility is higher in more developed economies and that mobility is positively correlated with wage equality in the model mobility promotes economic growth via its effect on the accumulation and allocation of human capital growth influences mobility via its effect on incentives to acquire education and its effect on liquidity constraints upon such acquisition in the process of development mobility increases and the distribution of education becomes better correlated with ability redistributive policy has a negative effect on growth in developed economies and a positive effect in developing economies

intergenerational mobility and preferences for redistribution using new cross country survey and experimental data we investigate how beliefs about intergenerational mobility affect preferences for redistribution in france italy sweden the united kingdom and the united states americans are more optimistic than europeans about social mobility our randomized treatment shows pessimistic information about mobility and increases support for redistribution mostly for equality of opportunity policies we find strong political polarization left wing respondents are more pessimistic about mobility their preferences for redistribution are correlated with their mobility perceptions and they support more redistribution after seeing pessimistic information none of this is true for right wing respondents possibly because they see the government as a problem and not as the solution

energy sustainability from analysis of sustainable development indicators a case study in taiwan abstract as taiwan has a dense population and only limited natural resources the government began actively establishing a taiwan s sustainable development indicators tsdi system in 2003 which was developed with reference to the pressure state response psr framework to evaluate the progress towards sustainability energy is a very important factor in leading to sustainable development at the national level however there are only two indicators concerning the energy sustainability in the tsdi system this paper summarizes the current status of energy supply energy consumption carbon dioxide co 2 emissions and renewable energy production since the year 2000 the updated information on the tsdi was also addressed and analyzed to imply the progress towards energy sustainability during 2000 2008 finally the weighted sum method was proposed to make an analysis of energy sustainability from taiwan s renewable energy production showing that this country has experienced a significant progress toward energy sustainability in recent years

renewable energy costs potentials barriers conceptual issues renewable energy can become the major energy supply option in low carbon energy economies disruptive transformations in all energy systems are necessary for tapping widely available renewable energy resources organizing the energy transition from non sustainable to renewable energy is often described as the major challenge of the first half of the 21st century technological innovation the economy costs and prices and policies have to be aligned to achieve full renewable energy potentials and barriers impeding that growth need to be removed these issues are also covered by ipcc s special report on renewable energy and climate change to be completed in 2010 this article focuses on the interrelations among the drivers it clarifies definitions of costs and prices and of barriers after reviewing how the third and fourth assessment reports of ipcc cover mitigation potentials and commenting on definitions of renewable energy potentials in the literature we propose a consistent set of potentials of renewable energy supplies

sustainability analysis of a society based on exergy studies a case study of the island of samso denmark abstract the danish island samso has since 1997 initiated a process through which the island should reach a state where it would be able to supply its own energy such a situation was reached since 2005 after having established 21 windmills and the island is now a net exporter of electricity to the danish power network at the same time the buildings in the more habituated areas were connected to 4 district heating plants which generate heat from combustion of straw in some cases combined with supplementary inputs from photo thermal devices meanwhile certain activities on the island such as running the ferries cars factories and heating in more distant areas are still dependent on significant input of fossil fuels the inhabitants have recently stated a wish to move on towards being independent of fossil fuels in 2030 and carbon neutral during the next decades as a consequence the idea came up to develop a method for the sustainability analysis of a society which would assist in governing the transitional process in the direction of increasing sustainability therefore a framework has been developed based on the concept exergy that may reveal where large consumptions are taking places such areas are likely to be sensible targets for action or at least increased attention basic methods have been developed that allows to account for infrastructure transfers inputs and outputs and consumption in terms of exergy and taking into account whether the exergy storages or flows can be considered to be renewable or not the framework has been developed for six societal sectors the energy sector the public sector the private households the agricultural sector the industry commerce and trade sector and nature nature is here considered an activity that provides the society with an exergy that may also be of value to our societies often referred to as ecosystem services based on the estimated amount of infrastructure and transfers inputs and outputs a number of sustainability indicators have been developed that may be monitored over time and which may serve to indicate whether potential measures undertaken also lead the society in the right direction an attempt to evaluate the potential importance of wastes has also been carried out as in organic waste could play an important role in acquiring the amount of bio diesel required to run the ferries in the future the results demonstrate that the already existing overhead in production of electricity leaves the island with many options and a great opportunity to be independent of fossil fuels in near future in fact it might well be that socio economical perspectives will turn out to be the more severe obstacles in the transition process adjacent to this work a carbon model has also been set up to reveal the consequence of proposed measures and strategies to the carbon budget of the island jorgensen and nielsen 2014

renewable energy projects acceptance risks and their management abstract current renewable energy projects are increasingly afflicted with the challenge of an apparently alternating acceptance by concerned parties attitude parameters adopted by parts of these social groups which especially at the outset of such planning processes seemingly tend towards acceptance such as incertitude or conditional acceptance represent above average pronounced risk factors in view of the project proponent s planning and cost certainty this is even more true if either the expected conditions or the corresponding compensation measures for these social groups are not or cannot be implemented in a perceptible manner bringing the latter to change to negative attitudes towards the project in a way which often surprises the project proponent based on the experiences gathered during the analysis of a case example on a renewable energy infrastructure project in germany the present work introduces possible instruments allowing to identify these particularly high risk social groups and discusses assets and drawbacks of different management strategies to handle various types of acceptance risks it thereby also becomes clear that the outcomes always need to be interpreted beyond the background of the specific local and regional context respectively

the impacts of energy prices on energy intensity evidence from china in this paper we present a review of the deregulation of energy prices in china between 1985 and 2004 and assess the impacts of changes in energy prices on aggregate energy intensity and coal oil electricity intensity we used time series data to provide estimates of energy price elasticities empirical results showed that 1 the own price elasticities of coal oil and aggregate energy were negative in periods both before and after 1995 implying that higher relative prices of different energy types lead to the decrease in coal oil and aggregate energy intensities however the positive own price elasticity of electricity after 1995 probably indicates that the price effect was weaker than other factors such as income effect and population effect 2 the impacts of energy prices were asymmetric over time 3 sectoral adjustment also drove the decrease in aggregate energy intensity although raising energy prices to boost efficiency of energy use seems to be an effective policy tool other policy implications concerned with energy prices such as energy supply security and fuel poverty must also be considered