democracy financial openness and global carbon dioxide emissions heterogeneity across existing emission levels summary the determinants of co 2 emissions have attracted many researchers over the past few decades most of studies however ignore the possibility that effect of independent variables on co 2 emissions could vary throughout the co 2 emission distribution we address this issue by applying quantile regression methods we examine whether greater democracy and more financial openness consistently reduce emissions among the most and least emission nations our results show that the effect of democracy on co 2 emissions is heterogeneous across quantiles among the most emissions nations greater democracy appears to reduce emissions but more financial openness does not appear to reduce it

long term growth and short term economic instability when learning by doing is at the origin of growth the long run growth rate should be negatively related to the amplitude of the business cycle if human capital accumulation is increasing and concave in the cyclical component of production empirical evidence strongly supports this nding for industrialized countries and european regions using the standard control variables we nd that countries and regions that have a higher standard deviation of growth and of unemployment have lower growth rates the result does not come from an e ect of instability on investment the negative relation however does not hold for non industrialized countries for which learning by doing may not to be the main engine of growth 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classixcation o40 e32

a semi parametric panel data analysis on the urbanization carbon emissions nexus for oecd countries abstract this study takes a fresh look at the presence of an urbanization carbon emissions environmental kuznets curve for a panel of the organization for economic co operation and development oecd countries from 1960 to 2010 using a recently developed semi parametric panel fixed effects regression model through incorporating a quadratic term for the urbanization variable into the stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology model our analysis represents one of the first oecd studies aimed at determining the effect of urbanization on carbon emissions and identifying the relationship between these two variables compared with parametric panel fixed effects regression more robust results from the recently developed method revealed that energy intensity and per capita gdp had clear effects on per capita carbon emissions urbanization also significantly contributed to changes in per capita carbon emissions we also found strong evidence for an inverse u shaped curve relationship between urbanization and carbon emissions verifying the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis these findings advance the emerging consensus on the urbanization carbon emissions nexus also the novel model used combined with our estimation method can be readily extended to cover other regions for investigating the relationship between development and environmental pollution

the relationship between urbanization energy use and carbon emissions evidence from a panel of association of southeast asian nations asean countries abstract this study uses annual data to detect the nexus between urbanization energy use and carbon emissions in a panel of association of southeast asian nations asean countries spanning the period 1980 2009 the study contributes to the increasing empirical literature by investigating the effects of urbanization and detecting causal links between the variables results from the pedroni panel cointegration tests show evidence for the existence of a long term equilibrium relationship between urbanization energy use and carbon emissions for the asean countries using the panel fully modified ordinary least squares technique the effect of urbanization on carbon emissions is further revealed i e a 1 rise in urban population results in a 0 20 increase in carbon emissions unilateral short run causal relationships from urbanization to energy use and from urbanization to carbon emissions have been found by granger causality tests also the results clearly indicate that in the long term urbanization together with energy use granger causes carbon emissions the paper concludes with main findings and provides recommendations toward rational planning of urban development and energy efficiency improvement strategies for the asean countries

refitting the kuznets curve abstract using baltagi and li 2002 s semi parametric fixed effects regression estimator we investigate the existence of an aggregate kuznets curve in a sample of 113 countries over the 1960 2000 period our results show that misspecification of the functional form in a panel model with fixed effects and the failure to control for the endogeneity of income per capita can lead to dramatically different conclusions regarding the impact of economic development on inequality while we find observational evidence of an inverted u relationship between inequality and economic development this relationship does not seem to be causal once we account for endogeneity inequality appears to decrease monotonically with income per capita

the role of demographic and economic drivers on the environment in traditional and standardized stirpat analysis abstract the stirpat approach identifies human impacts on the environment most studies find higher ecological elasticities related to population compared to gdp per capita growth applying the logarithmic form of the stirpat equation which mitigates the problem of the variables different variances and units further allows for appealing economic interpretation and policy conclusions at the same time the question of the predictor variables relative importance cannot be finally answered by this approach in response the present paper complements the traditional ecological elasticities by the calculation of standardized coefficients for a sample of 84 countries and the period between 1980 and 2014 results indicate that gdp per capita rather than population growth matters more for explaining environmental impacts admittedly interpretation of standardized coefficients is not without limitations first they are sample specific and cannot be compared across different studies second a predictor variable might not affect the environment only on its own but joint impacts could be present the paper addresses these problems and provides a careful interpretation of and comparison between non standardized and standardized coefficients overall there is good reason to assume that environmental impacts can be reduced more readily by a policy giving priority to economic rather than population growth

urbanization and co2 emissions a semi parametric panel data analysis this paper investigates the relationship between urbanization and co2 emissions in a sample of 20 emerging countries over the period 1992 2008 using the semi parametric panel data model with fixed effects proposed by baltagi and li 2002 we find little evidence in support of an inverted u curve and thus the kuznets hypothesis is not confirmed by our analysis our findings shed new light on the urbanization co2 emissions nexus

the effect of democracy on co2 emissions in emerging countries does the level of income matter abstract using quantile regression technique this paper explores the interaction effects of democracy and income on co2 emissions in 19 emerging countries over the period 1997 2010 the results indicate a stronger and significant interaction impact on co2 emissions only at the lower emission countries moreover democracy reduces co2 emissions but only if the country has already reached to a certain income level the new empirical evidence from this study provides a more complete picture of the determinants of emissions throughout the conditional distribution and these novel findings not only help advance the existing literature but also can be of special interest to the country s policy makers especially among the most democracy and least democracy nations

non renewable and renewable energy consumption and co2 emissions in oecd countries a comparative analysis abstract this paper attempts to explore the determinants of co 2 emissions using the stirpat model and data from 1980 to 2011 for oecd countries the empirical results show that non renewable energy consumption increases co 2 emissions whereas renewable energy consumption decreases co 2 emissions further the results support the existence of an environmental kuznets curve between urbanisation and co 2 emissions implying that at higher levels of urbanisation the environmental impact decreases therefore the overall evidence suggests that policy makers should focus on urban planning as well as clean energy development to make substantial contributions to both reducing non renewable energy use and mitigating climate change

demographic effects on residential electricity and city gas consumption in the aging society of japan abstract japan has been confronted with two demographic forces declining fertility rates and lengthening life spans which give rise to the increasing ratio of the elderly aging society the decline in population and the prevalence of nuclear families this study empirically analyzes the demographic effects on residential electricity and city gas consumption in japan our analysis presents the following main results first the aging of the society decreases the electricity demand but does not affect the city gas demand significantly second the decrease in population with the prevalence of nuclear families increases the electricity demand but decreases the city gas demand the direction of the demand for each alternative depends on the balancing of the first and second effects third the analysis also shows clear results about the own and cross price effects ongoing energy market reforms for price suppression would increase energy demand with possible substitutability between the two energy sources our case study of japan is also applicable to other countries that will have just started to experience the similar demographic pattern of an aging society with energy market deregulation

nonparametric regression techniques in economics this introduction to nonparametric regression emphasizes techniques that might be most accessible and useful to the applied economist the paper begins with a brief overview of the class of models under study and central theoretical issues such as the curse of dimensionality the bias variance trade off and rates of convergence the paper then focuses on kernel and nonparametric least squares estimation of the nonparametric regression model and optimal differencing estimation of the partial linear model constrained estimation and hypothesis testing is also discussed empirical examples include returns to scale in electricity distribution and hedonic pricing of housing attributes

does urbanization lead to less energy use and lower co2 emissions a cross country analysis despite the relationship between urbanization energy use and co2 emissions has been extensively studied in recent years little attention has been paid to differences in development stages or income levels most previous studies have implicitly assumed that the impact of urbanization is homogenous for all countries this assumption can be questionable as there are many characteristic differences among countries of different levels of affluence this paper investigates empirically the effects of urbanization on energy use and co2 emissions with consideration of the different development stages using the stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stirpat model and a balanced panel dataset of 99 countries over the period 1975 2005 the findings suggest that the impact of urbanization on energy use and emissions varies across the stages of development surprisingly urbanization decreases energy use in the low income group while it increases energy use in the middle and high income groups the impact of urbanization on emissions is positive for all the income groups but it is more pronounced in the middle income group than in the other income groups these novel findings not only help advance the existing literature but also can be of special interest to policy makers and urban planners

a semi parametric panel data analysis on the urbanisation carbon emissions nexus for the mena countries abstract this study seeks to examine the impacts of urbanisation on carbon emissions through the investigation of the existence of an environmental kuznets curve ekc within the stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stirpat framework this is the first study in the mena region to explore the urbanisation and carbon emissions nexus using panel data together with a semi parametric panel fixed effects regression the data set refers to a panel of 20 countries in the mena region spanning the period 1980 2014 according to the results there is little evidence to support an inverted u shaped relationship between urbanisation and carbon emissions in the region more specifically it was found in the region and with the continuation of the urbanisation process carbon emissions per capita decreased in addition the results suggest that energy use and economic growth are the main sources of carbon emissions in the region the results imply that policies to reduce carbon emissions in the countries with relatively higher carbon emissions should concentrate more on energy use and the pattern of economic growth and not the urbanisation issue

student portfolios and the college admissions problem we develop a decentralized bayesian model of college admissions with two ranked colleges heterogeneous students and two realistic match frictions students find it costly to apply to college and college evaluations of their applications are uncertain students thus face a portfolio choice problem in their application decision while colleges choose admissions standards that act like market clearing prices enrollment at each college is affected by the standards at the other college through student portfolio reallocation in equilibrium student college sorting may fail weaker students sometimes apply more aggressively and the weaker college might impose higher standards applying our framework we analyse affirmative action showing how it induces minority applicants to construct their application portfolios as if they were majority students of higher caliber

a semi parametric panel data analysis on financial development economic volatility nexus in developing countries abstract this paper examines the effect of financial development on economic growth volatility in a sample of 50 developing countries from 1960 to 2016 since no conclusive results have been provided by previous studies on such association we employ a semi parametric panel fixed effects regression model as introduced by baltagi and li 2002 the semi parametric model does not impose any functional restriction on the relationship between financial development and economic volatility and helps to capture the existence of non linearities in the data we find that the financial development volatility relation is non linear with multiple turning points our findings make new evidences on the financial development economic volatility nexus

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

literature survey on the relationships between energy environment and economic growth abstract the aim of this study is to exhibit an exhaustive survey which is related to the great flight of the literature of energy environment growth nexus at the individual and regional scale studies covering the period from 1978 to 2014 the survey takes into consideration the sample country region etc periods covering econometric strategies and conclusions our survey is based on the causality direction among i the energy use variables electricity nuclear renewable and non renewable and output growth ii between economic growth and environment and between the three variables at the same time globally these surveys provide paradoxical and not conclusive results which energy consumption can boost economic growth through the productivity enhancement and it can boost also the environmental damages through the enhancement of pollutant emissions our survey sheds more the lights on the energy environment growth literature by giving an extensive listing 1978 2014 of these causal linkages among the energy use variables environment and economic growth for both individual and collective cases there is a unanimous consensus about the importance of dealing with such dynamic relationship which is seems to be a cornerstone element in setting any ambition strategies energy ecological and economics

exploring the relationship between urbanization energy consumption and co2 emission in mena countries abstract this study explored the relationship between urbanization energy consumption and co2 emission in the mena countries the panel model was utilized taking the period 1980 2009 into consideration pedroni cointegration test results showed that urbanization energy consumption and co2 emission were cointegrated the dynamic ols results also showed that there was a long run bi directional positive relationship between urbanization energy consumption and co2 emission however the significance of the long run relationship between urbanization energy consumption and co2 emission varied across the countries based on their level of income and development moreover long and short run bi directional causal relationships were found between the variables based on the granger causality test results from the results of this study it is important for the urban planners and policy makers in the mena countries to slow the rapid increase in urbanization the level of energy consumption and co2 emission in the mena countries increased more than double thus slowing down the urbanization level can help reduce the level of pollution and energy consumption in addition the increased energy efficiency implementation of energy savings projects energy conservation and energy infrastructure outsourcing reduce the level of pollution produced by urban areas

how does foreign direct investment affect co2 emissions in emerging countries new findings from a nonlinear panel analysis abstract despite their success in attracting foreign direct investment fdi emerging countries are suffering from increasing carbon pollution the identification of the impact of fdi on co2 emissions plays a prominent role in utilizing fdi to propel cleaner production and reduce pollutant emissions numerous studies have been devoted to clarifying the direct impact of fdi on co2 emissions however little work has focused on the spillover effect of fdi on co2 emissions through economic growth to address this gap in the literature this paper introduces an extension of the panel smooth transition regression pstr model with nonlinear and dynamic features to simultaneously investigate the direct and spillover influences at work in fdi inflows and co2 discharges the results manifest that fdi can directly result in an ascent in co2 concentrations in contrast the results of spillover effect through economic growth suggest that fdi can decrease co2 concentrations with the increase in fdi inflows the total effect of fdi on co2 leakages is smoothly shifted from positive to negative thereby corroborating the pollution haven and pollution halo hypotheses moreover the connection between inward fdi and co2 emissions exhibits two transition regimes and the transition is realized when fdi reaches 24 340 the results of a nonlinear marginal analysis show that the influence of fdi on co2 emissions has significant regional heterogeneity and reveals w v shaped temporal characteristics the findings set out in this study provide new evidence for the evaluation of the pollution risk caused by fdi inflows and insights into the choice of a sustainable development path in emerging markets

income taxation in a frictional labor market a new model of wage dispersion is used to examine welfare aspects of income taxation the model retains the dynamics of wage posting models while exogenizing search effort therefore allowing more insight into policy issues the results highlight effects that standard analyses do not take into account the optimal income tax should depend on an incidence effect between workers and firms this incidence effect arises from firms trying to lower wages as much as possible an employment tax proves in certain cases to be the best method to encourage labor force participation