provision of electricity to african households the importance of democracy and institutional quality how can differences in per capita household electricity consumption across african countries be understood based on theories that highlight the importance of democracy and institutional quality for provision of public goods the aim of the paper is to analyse the degree to which the level of per capita household electricity consumption in african countries can be attributed to the countries democratic status and their institutional quality we rely on regression analysis employing a pooled data set for 44 african countries over the time period 1996 2009 the analysis shows that democracy and institutional quality both have significant positive effects on per capita household consumption of electricity our results have implications for how energy sector reforms are promoted in developing countries at a more general level they illustrate that institution building policy efforts are relevant also in areas where contemporary debates have tended to primarily centre on economic development financial prerequisites and ownership issues

contestability in real time experimental flow markets this article reports the results from laboratory markets using a new trading institution in which sellers post offers to sell flows of output in real time we use the new institution to examine the outcomes in natural monopoly experimental markets no stable price outcomes were observed in markets contestable by two firms a finding that is consistent with the contestable markets hypothesis but in conflict with assertions commonly made by those advancing the theory s role in policy formation the average efficiency of markets contestable by two firms while greater than that of monopoly markets protected from entry was significantly less than that associated with the sustainable equilibrium

renewable energy in pacific small island developing states the role of international aid and the enabling environment from donor s perspectives abstract dependency on fossil fuels is an issue for numerous countries and in particular it is an acutely challenging problem for pacific small island developing states for the utilization of renewable energy in pacific small island developing states donor agencies and international organizations play major roles in funding this study introduces the nature of the past renewable energy projects in pacific small island developing states and in the process clarifies the contribution of international aid to renewable energy deployment thereafter the paper identifies the most important factors related to enhancing an enabling environment for the introduction of renewable energy in pacific small island developing states and the relative importance of these factors with a special focus on donors perspectives the paper clarifies that approximately 1 5 billion usd 2011 was received by pacific small island developing states over the 44 years from 1970 to 2014 as funding for renewable energy projects that included funding for hardware and the amount of aid allocated for renewable energy in the region greatly varies between countries the paper also identifies the important factors that can enhance an enabling environment for the introduction of renewable energy and the relative importance of these factors some of the highlighted implications that can be made from the findings of the research are 1 high renewable energy targets need to be supported by well structured action plans 2 there is a need for an effective regulatory body responsible for renewable energy and 3 the financial aspects of utilities are of higher importance than technological aspects of utilities

energy policy aid and the development of renewable energy resources in small island developing states abstract small island developing states sids have established ambitious renewable energy targets the promotion of renewable energy has been motivated by several factors a desire to lessen dependence on fossil fuels to attract development assistance in the energy sector and to strengthen the position of sids in climate change negotiations here we explore the interplay between the role of aid and energy policy in the development of renewable energy resources in sids we find that the importance of development assistance has implications for the sustainability of renewable energy development given that funding is not always accompanied by necessary energy policy reforms we also identify energy efficiency and access to modern energy services as having received insufficient attention in the establishment and structure of renewable energy targets in sids and argue that this is problematic due to the strong economic case for such investments

the informal sector and the political economy of development this paper takes an initial step in integrating insights from two sets of literature which have focused on central aspects of development with unfortunate independence it highlights politically valuable resources which are identified in the political economy literature and shows that the informal sector literature provides ample evidence that these resources in general are i scarcely available to informal entities ii poorly valued in their possession and iii more often collectively unexploited by them overall there seems to be an important though neglected bias in how the political system in less developed countries formulates crafts and implements policy

why democracies produce efficient results by applying the standard tools of microeconomic analysis i argue that democratic markets work as well as economic markets in particular i show that previous work has greatly exaggerated the existence of principal agent and informational problems in electoral markets and has drawn incorrect conclusions

a political economy model of market intervention we argue that political competition based on income redistribution a la lindbeck and weibull public choice 52 273 297 1987 may cause distortive regulation in a competitive sector for this purpose we propose a model in which imposing a production quota allows the extraction of rents that are then used for vote buying purposes our model permits us to analyze the response of regulatory policy to political factors such as the size of a group of informed voters and the accuracy of their information about the incumbent we also show that the extent of voter influence on policy outcomes is shaped by the state of market demand in particular if demand becomes weaker market intervention increases in a magnitude that depends positively on the electoral weight of informed voters

opening up and transition success and problems financing and reforms of the electric power sector in latin america and the caribbean abstract financing problems triggered the wave of electric power sector reforms in latin america and the caribbean the reforms in turn have changed the functioning of financing in the power sector financial institutions have continually adapted their instruments existing sources of capital have stepped up investing in the sector and new financial sources have emerged this paper reviews the evolution of financing and its interplay with legal and structural reforms and property rights changes in the electric power sector of latin america and the caribbean it classifies sector development in the region by reform strategies and their consequences for financing finally it conducts an assessment using criteria such as sector financing sector efficiency general economic efficiency economic development objectives and the environment it finds that the different reform and financing strategies have distinctive impacts on the sustainable development of the sector through their impacts on the choice of generating technology and fuel on the contribution of cogeneration and renewable energy sources on participation of national capital and national human capital formation and on rational use of energy

bargaining in legislatures bargaining in legislatures is conducted according to formal rules specifying who may make proposals and how they will be decided legislative outcomes depend on those rules and on the structure of the legislature although the social choice literature provides theories about voting equilibria it does not endogenize the formation of the agenda on which the voting is based and rarely takes into account the institutional structure found in legislatures in our theory members of the legislature act noncooperatively in choosing strategies to serve their own districts explicitly taking into account the strategies members adopt in response to the sequential nature of proposal making and voting the model permits the characterization of a legislative equilibrium reflecting the structure of the legislature and also allows consideration of the choice of elements of that structure in a context in which the standard institution free model of social choice theory yields no equilibrium

power sector reform in india current issues and prospects power sector reforms in india were initiated at a juncture when the sector was plagued with commercial losses and burgeoning subsidy burden investment in the sector was not able to keep pace with growing demand for electricity this paper takes stock of pre reform situation in indian power sector and identifies key concerns that led to initiation of the process of reform the paper discusses major policy and regulatory changes undertaken since the early 1990s the paper also illustrates changes in the market structure as we move along the reform process we also discuss some of the major provisions of the recently enacted electricity act 2003 that aims to replace the prevailing acts which govern the functioning of the power sector in the country in this context we discuss two issues arising out of it namely open access and multi year tariff that we think would have a significant bearing on the performance of the sector in the near future the paper also evaluates the reform process in the light of some of the regulatory changes undertaken finally the paper briefly discusses the issues involved in introduction of competition in the power sector primarily through development of a market for bulk power

is the kenyan electricity regulatory board autonomous abstract results of research work into electric power sector reforms in kenya spanning over a period of about 30 years are presented in this article of particular interest is the autonomy or independence of the electricity regulatory board erb of kenya established in 1998 through a new electricity law the electric power act epa number 11 of 1997 the autonomy of the erb is reviewed in depth and its ability to ensure that the electricity industry provides services for the poor assessed the following are considered as key factors underpinning the degree of autonomy that erb can enjoy legal status of erb as provided for under the epa and whether there were any other statutes impacting on its autonomy chain of command particularly in relation to the role of the kenyan government institutions which may have some links to the power sector mode of appointment of erb members or directors including its chairman range and relevance of representation of stakeholders in the erb with special emphasis on the representation of the poor adequacy of funding for the erb provisions for the process of appeal against the board s decisions

how to achieve full electrification lessons from latin america electricity coverage in latin america has increased substantially in recent decades rising from 50 of the population in 1970 to more than 95 in 2015 growth however slowed in the 1990s as many countries experienced difficulties in extending their networks further in particular to serve those living in isolated and rural areas in spite of this the process of electrification was not interrupted and at the beginning of the 2010s decade most countries in the region were able to provide access to electricity to almost all of their populations in this paper we examine the main strategies used in latin america to increase coverage and argue that only a combination of policy efforts has made it possible to achieve the current situation we also examine the remaining obstacles at policy and institutional levels to achieving full coverage

reforms in sub saharan africa s power industries most sub saharan countries wish to carry out reforms in the organisation of their power companies up to now only three countries have operated major changes in their statutory system a few others are well engaged in the process but many still find themselves at a stage of definition and preparation of reforms delays observed in relation to agendas fixed initially can mainly be explained by hesitation of the decision makers over the schemes to be maintained as much because the solutions proposed do not provide totally satisfactory answers to the questions they are confronted with because of the desire to explore other possibilities better adapted to the african reality the recent advent of independent power production and of interconnection development projects in these countries the impact of which needs to be fully assessed can have an initial effect of slowing down the pace of reforms but the possibilities these developments offer for diversification of power supply sources endow them with particular interest for the definition of new sectorial models

delegation and the regulation of risk political principals typically use low cost fire alarm signals transmitted by the media interest groups and disaffected constituents to monitor the activities of regulatory agencies we argue that regulatory decision making is biased and inconsistent if the instruments of political oversight are simple and the information flows to the principal are coarse relative to the complexity of the regulatory environment

the impact of sustainable construction and knowledge management on sustainability goals a review of the venezuelan renewable energy sector the recognition of the relevance of energy especially of the renewable energies generated by the sun water wind tides modern biomass or thermal is growing significantly in the global society based on the possibility it has to improve societies quality of life to support poverty reduction and sustainable development renewable energy and mainly the energy generated by large hydropower generation projects that supply most of the renewable energy consumed by developing countries requires many technical legal financial and social complex processes sustained by innovations and valuable knowledge besides these efforts renewable energy requires a solid infrastructure to generate and distribute the energy resources needed to solve the basic needs of society this demands a proper construction performance to deliver the energy projects planned according to specifications and respecting environmental and social concerns which implies the observance of sustainable construction guidelines but construction projects are complex and demanding and frequently face time and cost overruns that may cause negative impacts on the initial planning and thus on society the renewable energy issue and the large renewable energy power generation and distribution projects are particularly significant for developing countries and for latin america in particular as this region concentrates an important hydropower potential and installed capacity using as references the performance of venezuelan large hydropower generation projects and the guri dam construction this research evaluates the tight relationship existing between sustainable construction and knowledge management and their impact to achieve sustainability goals the knowledge management processes are proposed as a basic strategy to allow learning from successes and failures obtained in previous projects and transform the enhancement opportunites into actions to improve the performance of the renewable energy power generation and distribution projects

localized market power in the u s airline industry this paper tests whether the observed dominance of most city pair markets and airports in the u s domestic airline industry by single carriers confers any pricing power on the dominan t firms the results of fixed effects estimation indicate that airport dominance by a carrier does confer upon it substantial pricing power whereas dominance at the route level seems to confer no such pricing power additionally the authors find a positive yet small correlation between both route concentration and price and airport concentration and price the quantitative importance of airport dominance reveals that the most promising direction for public polic y aimed at improving the industry s performance is to ensure equal acc ess to sunk airport facilities copyright 1993 by mit press

renewable energy investment by the world bank world bank group lending for renewable energy accelerated in the 1990s and resulted in 17 approved projects with 700 million in bank loans and 230 million in grants by the global environment facility the bank s 1999 energy sector strategy fuel for thought charted new directions for renewable energy investment the present paper considers the implementation challenges of fuel for thought strategies and the opportunities for carrying them out the paper distinguishes between agendas in the energy and rural development sectors and reviews limitations to implementing these agendas lessons from projects are just emerging but suggest ve areas of support for renewable energy by the bank in the future renewable energy nancing electric power policy frameworks rural energy enterprises regulated rural energy concessions and domestic technology manufacturing interviews with the private sector suggest additional forms of support assist with business plans nance pre feasibility studies reduce commercial risks support joint ventures build market volume and stability and pilot and test innovative business models the e ectiveness of the bank in following through on its ambitious agenda fundamentally rests on the willingness and commitment of developing countries to pursue these strategies and the degree to which renewable energy applications are seen to serve countries development priorities 2001 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

renewable energy support mechanisms in the gulf cooperation council states analyzing the feasibility of feed in tariffs and auction mechanisms renewable energy will be a crucial ingredient in the transition to a more sustainable future the renewable energy sector requires a variety of financial support mechanisms in order to further consolidate and expand currently the most prominent renewable energy support mechanisms are feed in tariffs and renewable energy auctions although these mechanisms have been used and analyzed extensively in western countries and more recently economies in transition they have rarely been examined in the arab gulf region yet particularly the gulf cooperation council gcc states have undertaken important steps towards renewable energy adoption which could be greatly facilitated with the use of financial support mechanisms this paper analyzes the feasibility of feed in tariffs and renewable energy auctions adoption in gcc based on an extensive meta analysis of the literature on these two mechanisms in both developed and developing countries the paper identifies a set of conditions necessary for success and evaluates the presence of favorable these conditions in the gcc context our findings reveal that while conditions that would ensure political feasibility are largely absent for both types of mechanisms auctions could be a more successful strategy at the moment

electoral cycles and budgetary growth in veterans benefit programs while many studies have generated negative findings regarding the general existence of electoral cycles in economic phenomena we have found an apparently robust electoral cycle in veterans benefits this pattern was found between 1961 and 1978 but has disappeared since then we use this case to investigate the possibility that electoral cycles might contribute to the growth of government spending using two different methods of inference we find no strong basis to conclude that such cycles cause increasing public sector growth

informational origins of political bias towards critical groups of voters abstract we show how non symmetric politicization can arise in a democracy where voters are distributed across several ex ante symmetric sectors the voters are uncertain about the administrative ability of an elected official they observe the quality of her performance which depends on her ability and her effort the official can allocate her efforts symmetrically or non symmetrically across sectors we show the existence of a non symmetric equilibrium in which the official allocates more effort to administering one critical sector because voters in other sectors rationally respond less to what they observe about the quality of to her administration

aviation policy past and present for 25 years airline deregulation has been a symbol of the trend toward less expansive government the move from economic regulation to deregulation has delivered on its efficiency promises and there have been significant benefits to consumers in terms of lower prices and more convenient schedules however airline competition especially at hub airports remains imperfect the nature of these imperfections is explained better by models of oligopolistic behavior than by the contestability theory paradoxically for this industry the terrorist attack of september 11 2001 has ushered in an expanded role of government in aviation policy this expanded role does not reinstate government intervention in airline economic decisions rather it provides financial stabilization of the industry in the short run and long term structural change in aviation security

how to avoid transferring a valuable asset many mechanisms such as auctions efficiently allocate an asset to the firm which values it most highly but sometimes the asset s owner may benefit from the transfer only if the asset is not too valuable to potential buyers in this setting we examine the efficiency of mechanisms when the potential buyers have private information about the asset s value we show that rent seeking and lobbying rather than merely wasting resources can lead to allocations which are close to efficient

political accountability and sequential policymaking abstract we develop a model of political accountability with sequential policymaking when a bureaucrat s actions are transparent his overseer faces a political time inconsistency problem she is tempted to revise her retention rule in the middle of the policymaking process as a result the bureaucrat s equilibrium behavior overemphasizes later tasks if the overseer knows the technology by which policies translate into outcomes then she can eliminate these distortions using task specific budget caps however if the overseer is uncertain about this technology such budget caps introduce ex post inefficiency when uncertainty is sufficiently large and consequential the overseer prefers an institutional environment with a fungible budget and no transparency such an environment allows the overseer to exploit the bureaucrat s expertise though at the cost of weaker overall incentives

post neoliberal electricity market re reforms in argentina diverging from market prescriptions this paper focuses upon the policy and institutional change that has taken place within the argentine electricity market since the country s economic and social crisis of 2001 2 as one of the first less developed countries ldcs to liberalise and privatise its electricity industry argentina has since moved away from the orthodox market model after consumer prices were frozen by the government in early 2002 when the national currency was devalued by 70 although its reforms were widely praised during the 1990s the electricity market has undergone a number of interventions ostensibly to keep consumer prices low and to avert the much discussed energy crisis caused by a dearth of new investment combined with rising demand levels this paper explores how the economic crisis and its consequences have both enabled and legitimised these policy and institutional amendments while drawing upon the specifics of the post neoliberal market re reforms to consider the extent to which the government appears to be moving away from market based prescriptions in addition this paper contributes to sector specific understandings of how despite these changes neoliberal ideas and assumptions continue to dominate argentine public policy well beyond the postcrisis era

why democracies may actually be less reliable allies recent research builds on the observation that democracies have more durable alliances to argue that democracies make more reliable allies this need not be the case alliances serve as commitment devices adding ex ante credibility to states claims about ex post behavior variation in alliance durability must reflect differences in the desirability of formalizing alignments put simply democracies are most improved by formal commitments we offer two related explanations for why democracies might actually be less reliable alliance partners information costs for participating in policymaking and the advantages of organized interest groups combined with distributional incentives generated by the periodic turnover of governments may conspire to make informal commitments on the part of democracies problematic determining the net effect of democratic virtue and vice is best done empirically we test alliance reliability by focusing on intervention rather than on the duration or the number of commitments our results suggest that democracies make less reliable allies

what price accountability the lucas island model and the politics of monetary policy this paper develops a model of an electoral cycle in inflation and output based on rational inflation expectations and rational retrospective voting voters are heterogeneous and partially informed about aggregate macroeconomic variables they observe precisely how monetary policy stimulates their local economies but their observations of economic activity in other sectors are imprecise voters extract information about the incumbent policymaker s economic competence from cross sectoral spillover effects the incumbent has incentives to generate preelection monetary surprises that stimulate the local economies and generate cross sectoral spillover effects he thereby creates an impression of economic competence and furthers his reelection prospects his policy manipulations are the price of political accountability on a positive note the incumbent is more likely to survive voter scrutiny if he is more competent than the average political candidate

endogenous changes in the exchange rate regime a bureaucratic incentive model public choice submits that legal changes can be endogenous in such a way that they are manipulated by bureaucrats who want to maximize rents from transactions with various interest groups this paper takes the change in exchange rate regimes to empirically examine the premise it offers a two stage method in which we first show that the exchange rate is influenced by interest group pressures and subsequently that the 1990 market average regime mar as a phase in policy in korea was introduced mainly to serve bureaucratic incentives this method is expected to be useful to a host of countries for various studies attempting to test a possible existence of bureaucratic or other hidden motivations behind any isolated event of policy change

paths of renewable energy development in small island developing states of the south pacific abstract pacific small island developing states psids are small and remote island economies highly reliant on fossil fuels although they are mainly self governing nations they are highly vulnerable to exogenous events such as global fuel price volatility and tropical cyclones the work presented here targets 12 psids located in the south pacific the analysis takes a functional approach to assess the state of the energy governance system and to determine its relationship to renewable energy re penetration using a suite of governance market and financial progress indicators a range of re preparedness levels was identified in psids analysis demonstrated that strengthening of re enabling indicators led to only a limited increase of re penetration consequently the region has fallen behind global rates of re uptake inward investment by development partners for re demonstration projects failed to be upscaled by government facilitated private sector the focus on mitigating global climate change has failed to put re into a local context this contrasts to the strong sense of place and spiritual nature of traditional pacific communities thus in energy terms psids are yet to attain a self defined energy identity

power sector reform in small island developing states what role for renewable energy technologies abstract due to various pressures and desires more and more developing countries embark on power sector reform programmes yet there are a wide range of reform options and at present insufficient evidence is available as to which path will deliver best the desired objectives presently most small island developing states sids are dependent on high cost fossil fuel imports for power generation in spite of evidence that harnessing abundant domestic renewable sources of energy can deliver environmental social and economic benefits however depending on the type of power sector reform the transition towards renewable energy technologies rets can be either undermined or facilitated the specific focus on sids is justified because they have inherent characteristics that limit the degree to which the power sector can be transformed in comparison to larger continental developing countries with specific reference to sids this manuscript reviews the drivers and desires for power sector reform as well as presenting the available reform options and their implications on the up take of rets in addition to elaborating aspects of market governance other barriers to the consideration of rets such as financial bias in investment human capacity and environmental policy are discussed in view of this discussion which is based on evidence from recent reform programmes and theoretical academic literature recommendations are formulated that discourage full privatisation of the power sector as well as proposing less dogmatic lending conditions by international assistance bodies

private sector development policies practices and problems private sector development psd has become a central concern of most donors development cooperation efforts during the last decade this paper is a critical review of policies in the area donors work with concepts of psd which are highly abstract treat developing countries private sectors as tabula rasa and focus mainly on macro level preconditions in practice however concrete psd policies are mostly micro level ones the paper argues that they are shaped mostly by the nature and interests of private sectors in donor country themselves incorporate a high proportion of tied aid and fail basic tests of coherence

renewable energy sector development in the caribbean current trends and lessons from history island regions and isolated communities represent an understudied area of not only clean energy development but also of innovation caribbean states have for some time shown interest in developing a regional sustainable energy policy and in implementing measures which could help to protect its member states from volatile oil markets while promoting reliance on local resources here we examine four case studies of renewable energy advancements being made by public utility companies and independent energy companies in the caribbean we attempt to locate renewable energy advances in a broader historical framework of energy sector development indicating a few policy lessons we find that different degrees of regulatory and legislative sophistication have evolved in different islands islands should have specialized policy focus contrasting the ad hoc nature of current regional energy policy discussion we also conduct a cost benefit analysis which shows that these early innovative alternative energy projects show themselves to be both profitable and significant sources of emissions reduction and job creation this lends support to the potential benefits of regional energy policy

preemptive investment timing this article examines timing and profits in investment timing games where two or more firms vie to make an indivisible one time investment it shows that whether perfect nash equilibrium timing strategies eliminate rents depends on whether it is costly for rivals to threaten preemption credibly where credible threats are costless to make the investor s rents are eliminated by preemptive timing where credible threats are costly to make as where investments are made in steps however the equilibrium is nearly the same as where the investor has no rivals that is rivals have almost no effect on the investor s timing and profit these results have close analogies in the literature on patent races and in contestable market theory

equilibrium political budget cycles political business cycle theories generally rely on nominal rigidities and voter myopia this paper offers an equilibrium theory that preserves some basic insights from earlier models though with significant refinements the political budget cycle emphasized here is in fiscal policy rather than output and inflation it arises via a multidimensional signal process one can consider the welfare implications of proposals to mitigate the cycle and the effects of altering the electoral structure copyright 1990 by american economic association

knowledge is power a theory of information income and welfare spending no voters cast their votes based on perfect information but better educated and richer voters are on average better informed than others we develop a model where the voting mistakes resulting from low political knowledge reduce the weight of poor voters and cause parties to choose political platforms that are better aligned with the preferences of rich voters in us election survey data we find that income is more important in affecting voting behavior for more informed voters than for less informed voters as predicted by the model further in a panel of us states we fi nd that when there is a strong correlation between income and political information congress representatives vote more conservatively which is also in line with our theory

power sector reform in developing countries mismatched agendas power sector reform is rapidly spreading across all corners of the developing world at an alarmingly rapid pace while the rationales for reform seem to have gained acceptance among the stakeholders the reform model and process are contested this paper examines the impacts of reform using the promised outcomes as a basis for analysis the ability of reform to meet the developmental challenges facing the reformers is explored it concludes that reform has had some achievements if conventional performance indicators are used but also questions the validity of some of these indicators reform has however not fulfilled many of its goals and the prevailing recipes are likely to leave developing countries socially and economically worse off than in the pre reform period progressive government intervention is needed to shift reform process towards a more responsible development path

on the form of transfers to special interests an important question in political economy concerns the form of transfers to special interests the chicago view is that political competition leads politicians to make such transfers efficiently the virginia position is that lack of information on the part of voters leads politicians to favor inefficient sneaky methods of redistribution this paper analyzes the form of transfers in a model of political competition in which politicians have incentives to make transfers to special interests it shows that when voters have imperfect information about both the effects of policy and the predispositions of politicians inefficient methods of redistribution may be employed

elections with limited information a fulfilled expectations model using contemporaneous poll and endorsement data as information sources a one dimensional model of two candidate elections under asymmetric information is theoretically developed and experimentally tested candidates do not know voter utility functions and most voters are uninformed about candidate policy positions a fulfilled expectations equilibrium is defined using poll and endorsement data as information sources it is proved that with any positive fraction of informed voters any equilibrium extracts all available information all participants voters and candidates alike act as if they were fully informed for fixed candidate strategies a dynamic is given for convergence to voter equilibrium and this process is shown to imply a bandwagon effect

electricity demand supply analysis current status and future prospects for maharashtra india abstract the growth potential of any state is linked with infrastructure and electricity infrastructure is the most important parameter for economic growth maharashtra a prominent state in india consumes 12 per cent of india s electricity maharashtra s power sector is facing the electricity deficit and shortage since early 2005 on the other hand industrial and service sectors are rising in the state the present paper discusses electricity situational analysis of the state electricity demand analysis has been presented and comparison of state electricity demand vis a vis mumbai s demand state capital has been carried out for two years variation for monthly average demand for two years and load shedding have also been analyzed power supply situation analysis and analysis of major power suppliers have been carried out the state load distribution center data is used to depict the load variation for a typical day interventions needed to sustainably meet the growing demands are also discussed

financing investments in renewable energy the impacts of policy design abstract the costs of electric power projects utilizing renewable energy technologies rets are highly sensitive to financing terms consequently as the electricity industry is restructured and new renewables policies are created it is important for policymakers to consider the impacts of renewables policy design on ret financing this paper reviews the power plant financing process for renewable energy projects estimates the impact of financing terms on levelized energy costs and provides insights to policymakers on the important nexus between renewables policy design and financing we review five case studies of renewable energy policies and find that one of the key reasons that ret policies are not more effective is that project development and financing processes are frequently ignored or misunderstood when designing and implementing renewable energy policies the case studies specifically show that policies that do not provide long term stability or that have negative secondary impacts on investment decisions will increase financing costs sometimes dramatically reducing the effectiveness of the program within u s electricity restructuring proceedings new renewable energy policies are being created and restructuring itself is changing the way rets are financed as these new policies are created and implemented it is essential that policymakers acknowledge the financing difficulties faced by renewables developers and pay special attention to the impacts of renewables policy design on financing as shown in this paper a renewables policy that is carefully designed can reduce renewable energy costs dramatically by providing revenue certainty that will in turn reduce financing risk premiums

an information rationale for the power of special interests political decisions are often biased in favor of special interests at the expense of the general public and they are frequently inefficient in the sense that the losses incurred by the majority exceed the gains enjoyed by the minority this article explains the bias in terms of information asymmetries and the free rider problem first incumbents increase their reelection prospects by biasing policy toward groups that are better able to monitor their activities second because smaller groups are better able to overcome the free rider problem of costly monitoring policy will be biased in their favor third the effect of asymmetric monitoring on voter welfare is ambiguous the inefficiencies created by the policy bias are offset by a positively valued selection bias incumbents of above average quality are more likely to survive voter scrutiny than are low quality types

fuelling the pacific aid for renewable energy across pacific island countries abstract pacific island countries have strong economic political and environmental incentives to switch from imported fossil fuels to indigenous renewable energy technologies and are well positioned to achieve such a switch given their ample renewable energy potential as well as their ambitious renewable energy goals for the pacific island countries to reach these goals however they depend on donor funding this paper therefore analyses energy related aid to the south pacific from 1990 through 2012 and specifically evaluates its development in three areas energy technology grid vs off grid solutions and project components using data from the organisation of economic cooperation and development i find a recent shift in donor thinking donors have over the past years put greater emphasis on renewable energy especially hydro and increasingly solar power donors have also invested more in off grid solutions often solar powered finally donors have begun to focus more on software that is capacity building training and policy making if pacific island countries together with the donors continue on this path they are well positioned to reach their ambitious renewable energy goals and to serve as an example for other countries both developing and developed islands and non islands

consumer preferences and willingness to pay for compact fluorescent lighting policy implications for energy efficiency promotion in saint lucia this article examines consumer willingness to pay for energy saving compact fluorescent light bulbs using the results of a stated preferences study conducted in the caribbean island nation of saint lucia geographic location low income status and age are found to affect willingness to pay for compact fluorescent lighting while higher income status and other demographic variables appear to have minimal or no significant impacts energy efficiency knowledge is associated with increased willingness to pay for energy efficient bulbs and with increased use of compact fluorescent lighting contrary to theoretical expectations past purchase of compact fluorescent bulbs is found to have no impact on self reported willingness to pay we hypothesize that this null result is due to the recent emergence of low cost low quality compact fluorescent bulbs in the saint lucian lighting market which may be negatively influencing consumers preferences and expectations regarding energy efficient lighting findings support the argument that government sponsored education and subsidy programs will likely result in increased use of energy saving technologies in saint lucia but such behavioral changes may not be sustained in the long run unless low quality bulbs the lemons of the compact fluorescent lighting market can be clearly identified by consumers

privatization technical efficiency and welfare consequences the case of the cote d ivoire electricity company cie abstract in 1990 cote d ivoire privatized the management of its electric power company lease contracting in this paper we are interested in identifying the economic effect of this institutional change by estimating a stochastic production frontier we have found that productive efficiency improved after privatization thanks to organizational innovations total factor productivity gains have been closely associated with a cost reduction strategy the way these gains have been distributed in a monopoly context suggests that consumers have been the main beneficiaries through a significant decrease of the relative price of electricity

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

reforming israel s electricity sector abstract this paper analyzes the regulatory structure of the electricity sector in israel which is currently dominated by the government owned integrated utility israel electric corporation iec the current structure of a price cap with a mandatory rate reduction of 2 per year and a target return on equity roe of 6 5 is not sustainable because of iec s deteriorating financial health caused by the substantial investments it made to meet the 7 2 per year electricity demand growth in the past decade which has led to an exceptionally low realized roe of 3 4 for that period the investment trend will continue thanks to the 4 5 per year gdp growth projected for the next 10 20 years part of our proposed remedy is performance based regulation pbr implemented via a a price cap formula that will restore iec s financial health and offer iec downward pricing flexibility b changes in how iec compensates its workers and c a sliding scale plan that provides incentives for iec to become more efficient and to share risk with its customers we augment the pbr proposal by recommending changes in iec s tariffs and resource procurement procedures that aim to promote the development of a competitive power industry in the next 10 15 years

understanding the political economy and key drivers of energy access in addressing national energy access priorities and policies abstract globally 1 5 billion people lack access to electricity and nearly 3 billion lack access to modern cooking energy options of the world s energy poor 95 are in asia and sub saharan africa within asia almost 80 of electricity deprived and 86 of biomass dependent populations are in the big 5 countries bangladesh china india indonesia and pakistan in this paper we discuss the broad contours of the political economy of energy access in these countries the political economy is assessed through an examination of three sustainability objectives accessibility of physical infrastructure energy service delivery and conformance to social goals the key areas of concern include emphasis on supply driven grid electricity vested power dynamics favouring affluent and urban areas unreliability of energy service provision and misdirected and misappropriated subsidies the above mentioned issues are responsible for limiting accelerated achievement of universal energy access in the big 5 countries and need to be addressed through innovative approaches the paper emphasizes the need for firm commitments policy convergence and the implementation of pro poor equitable energy policies through a broad based energy framework of bench marked technology neutral energy provisioning that ensures reliability and equity it highlights the need for reorienting of the subsidy regime and incorporating energy service delivery indicators in monitoring and reporting mechanisms

the politics of ambiguity politicians face a trade off between the policies that maximize their chances of reelection and their most preferred policies or the policies most preferred by the constituency which they represent this paper analyzes this trade off in a dynamic electoral model in which the voters are not fully informed about the preferences of the incumbent first we show that the incumbent follows a policy which is intermediate between the other party s ideal policy and his own ideal policy second we show that often the incumbent has an incentive to choose procedures which make it difficult for voters to pinpoint his preferences with absolute precision thus politicians may prefer to be ambiguous

learning about voter rationality we model the accountability relationship between voters and politicians to clarify what can and can t be learned about voter rationality from existing evidence from the behavior literature we make two key points first we show that evidence on the electoral consequences of natural disasters and economic shocks typically interpreted as evidence for voter irrationality is consistent with a canonical model with rational voters second we show that the evidence on the electoral consequences of disaster response typically interpreted as evidence for voter rationality is consistent with the same model with irrational voters hence neither body of evidence can adjudicate between rational and irrational voting behavior we also derive new hypotheses that can better guide future empirical work attempting to assess voter rationality

the political economy of benefits and costs a neoclassical approach to distributive politics this essay offers a rational political explanation for the notorious inefficiency of pork barrel projects with an optimization model of legislative behavior and legislative institutions the model emphasizes the economically arbitrary from a welfare point of view importance of the geographic incidence of benefits and costs owing to the geographic basis for political representation we explore the implications of a legislator s objective function and derive conditions under which a representative legislature will select an omnibus of projects each of which exceeds the efficient scale

does high income promote democracy the authors construct a statistical model with which to test whether the regularity that democracy is more commonly found among wealthy countries stems from a democratizing effect of high income or is due entirely to other factors such as the historical context various features of the institutional setting and simultaneity with the process of leadership change even after correcting for these many other influences the democratizing effect of income remains as a statistically significant factor promoting the emergence of democratic political institutions the authors go on to find that leaders risks of losing power rise during their time in office and that these risks are higher in more democratic countries the authors confirm the finding by burkhart and lewis beck that the democracy promoting effect of income is stronger among the european countries they suggest that high income has a more powerful democratizing effect among the southern european countries because it interacts with pressure from major trading partners to democratize this suggests a revaluation of policies designed to foster the replacement of authoritarian regimes by democratic ones through free trade

green electricity in the market place the policy challenge the paper explores the implications of the liberalization of electricity markets in europe and north america for policy means and mechanisms to enhance the market penetration of renewables applying a co evolutionary approach the argument highlights the need for policy intervention to help producers and consumers move out of technological trajectories favoring non renewable electricity on the production side energy generation is locked into the central power station system deriving from more than a hundred years of technological development along a specific system trajectory on the consumption side the locked in effect results from a similarly long experience with electricity provision by monopoly suppliers and the associated lack of consumer choice and responsibility for product differentiation as the analysis shows policy strategies targeting both the production and consumption sides of the electricity market are needed for effective intervention furthermore policy strategies should draw on a clear analysis of the inertia and dynamism underlying the production and consumption of electricity in the light of such evolutionary dynamics the analysis demonstrates the insufficiency of the policy approaches currently employed to foster the market share of renewables based electricity instead the authors suggest a reflexive policy approach to initiate and support a reorientation towards green electricity emphasizing the need for learning and communication between and among societal actors

how do incumbents respond to the threat of entry evidence from the major airlines this paper examines how incumbents respond to the threat of entry of competitors as distinguished from their response to competitors actual entry it uses a case study from the passenger airline industry specifically the evolution of southwest airlines route network to identify particular routes where the probability of future entry rises abruptly when southwest begins operating in airports on both sides of a route but not the route itself this dramatically raises the chance they will start flying that route in the near future we examine the pricing of the incumbents on threatened routes in the period surrounding such events we find that incumbents cut fares significantly when threatened by southwest s entry into their routes this is true even after controlling in several ways for airport specific operating costs the response of incumbents seems to be limited only to the threatened route itself and not to routes out of nearby competitor airports where southwest does not operate e g fares drop on routes from chicago midway but not chicago o hare the largest responses appear to be restricted to routes that were concentrated beforehand incumbents do experience short run increases in their passenger loads concurrent with these fare cuts this is consistent with theories implying incumbents will try to generate some longer term loyalty among current customers before the entry of a new competitor we examine evidence relating this demand building motive to frequent flyer programs and find suggestive evidence in favor of this notion there is only weak evidence that incumbents increase capacity on the routes

the making of policy institutionalized or not this paper develops a framework for analyzing different policymaking styles their causes and their consequences in latin america finding that lower institutionalization and greater use of alternative political technologies apts are more likely the lower the cost of using these technologies the higher the potential damage they can cause the lower the wealth of the economy and the more asymmetric the distribution of de jure political power moreover strategic complementarity exists in the use of alternative political technologies for instance bribes by the rich and protests by the poor are likely to be countervailing forces and will both occur in polities with weaker political institutions

an economic analysis for the design of ipp contracts for grid connected renewable energy projects abstract in this paper we undertake an integrated financial economic stakeholder analysis of a grid connected onshore wind project that is owned and operated by an independent power producer ipp in santiago island cape verde this ipp project has received considerable positive publicity and has won many awards cape verde has a very good wind resource but it suffers from high transportation costs for petroleum fuels due to its location hence it would appear to be an ideal site for an ipp investment in a wind farm this analysis is conducted from the perspectives of the electric utility the country s economy the government and the private sector investor the key question is whether the design of the power purchase agreement ppa can simultaneously yield a high enough cash flow for the project to be bankable while at the same time yielding a positive net financial and economic present value to the electric utility and the country respectively the analysis shows that a negotiated ppa results in a negative outcome for the economy of cape verde in almost all circumstances in contrast the owners of the ipp are guaranteed under all circumstances a very substantial return on their investment

informational limits to democratic public policy the jury theorem yardstick competition and ignorance condorcet s jury theorem provides a possible explanation for the success of democracies relative to other forms of government in its modern form the jury theorem predicts that majority decisions are well informed because they are based upon far more information than possessed by any single individual on the other hand it is evident that democratic politicians and policies are not always as good as the jury theorem implies they should be

policy measures to promote the widespread utilization of renewable energy technologies for electricity generation in the maldives abstract this study adopts a stakeholder based approach to understand the size and nature of the market and financial barriers to the widespread utilization of renewable energy technologies rets in the maldives in light of these barriers and the interests of relevant stakeholders this study evaluates different policy options in terms of their suitability to develop a domestic market for rets in the maldives evaluating the different policy instruments it was found that pricing laws that regulate market access are more suitable than quota systems provided that the current subsidies for conventional energy are removed or shifted towards rets as for the other financial incentives rebates on investments and low interest loans should be provided to ret project developers to overcome the high initial project costs in addition to these measures the limited institutional capacity suggests that policy support should also focus on enabling the steady development of regional institutions rather than on supporting individual ret projects these institutions should enable islands in each atoll to take advantage of efficient management and access to financial capital this will allow the development of sustained renewable energy projects that in turn will result in increased renewable capacity and decreased costs

contestability a revisionist view many claims have been made about the significance of the contribution of contestability theory to industrial organizat ion this paper concludes that contestability theory leaves unanswere d questions about the identity of entrants and the source of their re sources a modification to the theory is proposed rather than as a h indrance to potential entry sunk costs are viewed as being of key si gnificance for the disciplining of oligopolists through potential ent ry with the proposed modification the analysis of the costs of mult iproduct firms may be more easily integrated with recent developments in industrial organization copyright 1988 by the london school of economics and political science

importance of islands in renewable energy production and storage the situation of the french islands abstract the islands are often not or only partially connected to continental electrical networks and have to manage their energy supplies in reaching themselves the production demand balance while ensuring the quality of the delivered electricity the low consumption and the lack of interconnections induce higher energy costs than in other regions for increasing their security the islands prefer to use indigenous sources as renewable ones unfortunately the intermittence and stochastic character of these fatal energy sources make them more difficult to manage and it is aggravated in the case of small island networks the islands are good locations for using and testing new technologies of energy production and storage most islands have a good renewable energy re potential often underused the difficulties of electricity management in island grids are first shown particularly with the impact on the energy production cost then the problem of the integration of renewable energy sources res in island electrical grids is highlighted the energy situation of french islands is presented with a particular focus on the part of renewable sources a higher share of renewable energy in the energy mix can be reached only with the development of the energy production efficient prediction with the development of energy storage means and with an optimal management of the energy flux via the utilization of smart grids

electoral competition and special interest politics have fixed positions on some issues but vary their positions on others in order to attract votes and campaign contributions in this context we examine whether special interest groups are governed by an electoral motive or an influence in their campaign giving and how their contributions affect the equilibrium platforms we show that each party is induced to behave as if it were maximizing a weighted sum of the aggregate welfares of informed voters and members of special interest groups the party that is expected to win a majority of seats caters more to the special interests

monitoring corruptible politicians does monitoring politicians corrupt activities induce a sustained reduction in corruption we use longitudinal data on publicly released audits of municipal governments in puerto rico to answer this question we find that corruption is considerably lower in municipalities with timely audits before an election however these municipalities do not exhibit decreased levels of corruption in subsequent audits in spite of this mayors in municipalities audited preceding the previous election have higher re election rates suggesting that audits enable voters to select more competent politicians we conclude that audit programs must be timely sustained and long term commitments in order to be effective

antitrust and the new industrial economics my assignment here is to assess the implications of recent theoretical work in industrial economics for antitrust in the united states i don t have space enough to present a comprehensive survey of that work nor even to catalog all recent developments with apparent antitrust implications i attempt instead to describe the general character of those implications limiting myself to a few illustrative specifics industrial economics affects antitrust policy in three different ways first it is used in positive analysis aimed at determining whether or not current law has been violated in specific cases and at assessing damages due injured parties second it should be used in evaluating the desirability of relief that might be imposed in particular cases in order to alter structure or conduct if a violation is found finally the tools and results of industrial economics are important inputs in the formulation of general rules of law i argue here that the new industrial economics can contribute a lot to the positive analysis of individual cases but it has much less to say about the desirability of particular relief or of general rules of law a final section briefly examines some implications of this situation

a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence this paper presents a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence political equilibrium depends on the efficiency of each group in producing pressure the effect of additional pressure on their influence the number of persons in different groups and the deadweight cost of taxes and subsidies an increase in deadweight costs discourages pressure by subsidized groups and encourages pressure by taxpayers this analysis unifies the view that governments correct market failures with the view that they favor the politically powerful both are produced by the competition for political favors

electricity use and economic development abstract a study of the relationship between electricity use and economic development in over one hundred countries constituting over 99 of the global economy has been undertaken correlations between electricity consumption capita and gdp capita have been analysed and compared with those between total primary energy supply capita and gdp capita a supporting analysis has correlated the proportion of energy used in the form electricity the e e ratio with gdp capita the general conclusions of this research are that wealthy countries have a stronger correlation between electricity use and wealth creation than do poor countries and that for the global economy as a whole there is a stronger correlation between electricity use and wealth creation than there is between total energy use and wealth the study also shows that in wealthy countries the increase in wealth over time correlates with an increase in the e e ratio the results imply that the energy ratio toe should be replaced by the electricity ratio kwh as a development indicator and more precisely by the e e ratio kwh toe

how pressure groups activate voters and move candidates closer to the median this article shows how uninformed but rational voters can respond intelligently to political advertising the article models a situation where a candidate must rely on a pressure group for financing political advertising and making endorsements the pressure group uses its power over the purse to influence the position chosen by the candidate nevertheless when uninformed voters use a strategic rule of thumb pressure group contributions always move the outcome of the election closer to the median voter by using such a rule of thumb when there is advertising uninformed voters can have the same influence on the election as informed voters how should uninformed but rational voters respond to political advertising can pressure groups with financial resources to fund political campaigns that provide information on the candidates gain at the expense of the median voter this article seeks to answer these and related questions building on the framework introduced by baron 1994 and used extensively by others i model the case where there are two types of voters informed and uninformed i investigate two opposing assumptions regarding candidate preferences

resistance redistribution and investor friendliness abstract poor communities sometimes resist private investment and destroy economic surplus even if the government has the willingness and ability to redistribute we interpret such acts of resistance as demands for redistribution destruction contains credible information about how the affected group values surplus and such information is used by the government in implementing the optimal redistribution policy the extent of destruction is increasing in the extent of political marginalization of the affected group resistance not only destroys economic surplus it also mutes the investor s incentives to create surplus the government uses a tax subsidy on the investor to maximize weighted social surplus and we show that the possibility of destruction may force the government to be too soft in its negotiations with the investor we discuss several policy instruments that have the potential to improve welfare these include compensation floor for the affected group legal or financial protection for the investor and licensing fees for the investor

an endogenous policy model of hierarchical government endogenous policy models usually neglect that government policies are frequently the result of decisions taken at different tiers by different agents each enjoying some degree of autonomy in this paper policies are the outcome of the choices made by two agents within a hierarchy a legislator decides on the budget to be successively spent by a bureaucrat both agents are lobbied by one or two interest groups the combination of sequential decisionmaking and lobbying implies that the interaction between the agent at one tier and the interest group s depends on the exchange between the same interest group s and the agent at the other tier our results concerning multi tier lobbying and legislatorial oversight substantially qualify the conventional wisdom related to one tier lobbying in particular the reaction of the legislator to lobbying at the bureaucratic tier may make lobbying wasteful even when there is no competition from other lobbies moreover the legislator benefits from lobbying only when there is competition between interest groups at the upper tier it is also shown that competition for influence at the bureaucratic tier may work as a perfect substitute for legislatorial oversight extensions of the model indicate its usefulness for the analysis of decisionmaking in other multilevel governance structures like federations or firms

the ecological fallacy revisited aggregate versus individual level findings on economics and elections and sociotropic voting several aggregate level studies have found a relationship between macroeconomic conditions and election outcomes operating in intuitively plausible directions more recent survey based studies however have been unable to detect any comparable relationship operating at the individual voter level this persistent discrepancy is puzzling one recently proposed explanation for it is that voters actually behave in an altruistic or sociotropic fashion responding to economic events only as they affect the general welfare rather than in terms of self interested pocketbook considerations it is argued here that the discrepancies between the macro and micro level studies are a statistical artifact arising from the fact that observable changes in individual welfare actually consist of two unobservable components a government induced and politically relevant component and an exogenous component caused by life cycle and other politically irrelevant factors it is shown that because of this individual level cross sectional estimates of the effects of welfare changes on voting are badly biased and are essentially unrelated to the true values of the behavioral parameters of interest they will generally be considerable underestimates and may even be of the wrong sign an aggregate level time series analysis on the other hand will often yield reasonably good if somewhat attenuated estimates of the underlying individual level effects of interest thus in this case individual behavior is best investigated with aggregate rather than individual level data it is also shown that the evidence for sociotropic voting is artifactual in the sense that the various findings and evidence which ostensibly show sociotropic behavior are all perfectly compatible with the null hypothesis of self interested pocketbook voting

reform despite politics the political economy of power sector reform in fiji 1996 2013 abstract attempts to reform the electricity sector in developing countries have achieved mixed results despite the implementation of similar reforms in many developed countries and concerted effort by donors to transfer reform models in many cases political obstacles have prevented full and effective implementation of donor promoted reforms this paper examines the political economy of power sector reform in fiji from 1996 to 2013 reform has been pursued with political motives in a context of clientelism policy inconsistency and reversal is explained by the political instability of ethnic based politics in fiji modest success has been achieved in recent years despite these challenges with fiji now considered a model of power sector reform for other small islands developing states sids in the pacific the experience demonstrates that reform is possible within difficult political environments but it is challenging takes time and is not guaranteed the way in which political motives have driven and shaped reform efforts also highlights the need for studies of power sector reform to direct greater attention toward political drivers behind reform

electricity generation cost in isolated system the complementarities of natural gas and renewables in the canary islands abstract the canary islands offer an example of an isolated electric grid of relative important size within the eu due to its peculiarities the role of renewable energies and their complementarity with fossil fuels offers a solid path to achieving the main energy policy goals of the islands the purpose of this paper is to assess the current situation and the energy objectives proposed in the energy plan of the canaries pecan 2006 for the electricity industry taking into account the average cost and the risk associated with the different alternatives for generating electricity by means of the mean variance portfolio theory our analysis highlights the inefficiency of the current electricity generating mix in terms of cost risk and lack of diversification shifting toward an efficient system would involve optimizing the use of endogenous energy sources and introducing natural gas to generate electricity this scenario would mean reducing both cost and risk by almost 30 each as well as atmospheric co 2 emissions our results agree with the pecan philosophy

mass media competition political competition and public policy if better informed voters receive favourable policies then mass media will affect policy because mass media provide most of the information people use in voting this paper models the incentives of the media to deliver news to different groups the increasing returns to scale technology and advertising financing of media firms induce them to provide more news to large groups such as taxpayers and dispersed consumer interests and groups that are valuable to advertisers this news bias alters the tradeoff in political competition and therefore introduces a bias in public policy the paper also discusses the effects of broadcast media replacing newspapers as the main information source about politics the model predicts that this change should raise spending on government programmes used by poor and rural voters

the swing voter s curse the authors analyze two candidate elections in which some voters are uncertain about the realization of a state variable that affects the utility of all voters they demonstrate the existence of a swing voter s curse less informed indifferent voters strictly prefer to abstain rather than vote for either candidate even when voting is costless the swing voter s curse leads to the equilibrium result that a substantial fraction of the electorate will abstain even though all abstainers strictly prefer voting for one candidate over voting for another copyright 1996 by american economic association

demise of the standard model for power sector reform and the emergence of hybrid power markets following earlier reforms in the power sectors of industrialized countries and emerging markets e g chile developing countries were encouraged to unbundle their electricity industries and to introduce competition and private sector participation this paper highlights the developments that led to how power sector reform came to be defined as a standard model and theoretical framework in its own right and how the model was used prescriptively in many developing countries however we also show that after more than 15 years of reform efforts this new industry model has not fully taken root in most developing countries finally we identify and characterize the emergence of new hybrid power markets which pose fresh performance and investment challenges

how a firm can induce legislators to adopt a bad policy this paper shows why a majority of legislators may vote for a policy that benefits a firm but harms all legislators the firm may induce legislators to support the policy by suggesting that it is more likely to invest in a district where voters or their representative support the policy in equilibrium no one vote may be decisive so each legislator who seeks the firm s investment votes for the policy though all legislators would be better off if they all voted against the policy and when votes reveal information about the district the firm s implicit promise or threat can be credible unlike influence mechanisms based on contributions or bribes the behavior considered is time consistent and in line with the low campaign contributions by special interests

busy voters agenda control and the power of information t he correspondence between individual preferences and electoral outcomes is often affected by the existence of information asymmetries among electoral participants and the presence of individuals or groups who exercise some form of agenda control while the effects of agenda control in political decision making are widely recognized the effects of information asymmetries are not as well understood since information asymmetries are fundamental characteristics of most elections a deep understanding of the correspondence between individual preferences and electoral outcomes requires a serious consideration of the effects of information i develop a generalizable agenda control model that takes as given the observation that most voters are not naturally inclined to invest in political information the model allows me to provide a dynamic description of how voters and political elites can adapt to the information problems that characterize political decision making it also allows me to demonstrate the effect of these adaptations on electoral outcomes

electoral competition with informed and uninformed voters i present a model of electoral competition in which candidates raise campaign contributions by choosing policies that benefit interest groups and then expend those contributions to influence voters who are uninformed about the policies informed voters however vote based on those policies so candidates face a trade off between choosing a policy to generate funds to attract the uninformed vote and choosing a policy to attract the informed vote electoral equilibria are characterized for two categories of policies particularistic and collective in the case of particularistic policies the equilibrium policies of the candidates are separated if the proportion of uninformed voters is sufficiently high and the degree of separation is an increasing function of that proportion the model is extended to include the public financing of elections and incumbency advantages for the case of collective policies the candidates locate at the median of the ideal points of the informed voters and contributions are zero

assessing the determinants of sids pattern toward sustainability a statistical analysis abstract the aim of this paper is twofold first we assess the sids pattern towards energy sustainability second we try to understand the macro factors that drive policy makers in setting the optimal framework for investments in renewable energy sources the empirical analysis is performed on a large dataset of 136 countries and 41 variables observed in the time span 2000 2011 countries analyzed include a sample of 12 sids bahrain cuba dominican republic fiji islands guyana haiti jamaica maldives mauritius papua new guinea singapore trinidad and tobago distributed worldwide due to the large number of variables collected and their high degree of collinearity the first step of the analysis concerns the implementation of a principal component analysis in order to extract factors explaining the majority of variation of the original variables in the second step three different scenarios of modeling are designed to examine the key factors promoting res investments in a first scenario we employ a pooled regression model in the second a fixed effect model and in the third a random effect model is estimated the main results of empirical analysis could be unexpected at first sight they show in fact that sids are not on a energy sustainability path as in the case of other developing countries policy makers prefer to use resources to improve economic aspects of development leaving behind issues related to the environmental protection the use of res and sustainability in order to improve economic and environmental resilience of sids a synergy between local governments and international organizations to promote the investments in res is needed moreover an energy plan that clearly supports the generation of energy from res is recommended finally policy makers should strength their commitment in raising population s awareness toward a green energy generation such synergic interventions will allow sids to achieve a more sustainable development