new evidence of energy growth nexus from inclusive wealth abstract gross domestic product gdp has been inappropriately used as the main indicator for assessing the sustainability of economic development for a long time inclusive wealth iw offers a new approach to assess sustainability by comprehensively measuring the productive base of the economy that involves three types of capital assets of nations produced human and natural capital and aggregates them into a single measure of wealth this study proposes an alternative to the literature on the conventional energy growth nexus that widely uses gdp as a proxy of the growth this study aims to investigate the impact of energy consumption on wealth in the iw framework and forecast the growth of iw over the next three decades for this purpose this study uses both parametric and non parametric analyses on 104 countries for 1993 2014 our results indicate that there is a negative and significant impact of energy consumption on iw growth suggesting an unsustainable pattern of world energy consumption using a machine learning technique it is forecasted that increasing the efficiency of energy consumption leads to a higher growth in average per capita iw this study also suggests that a shift to renewables is a precondition for sustainable development

recent developments in consumer credit risk assessment consumer credit risk assessment involves the use of risk assessment tools to manage a borrower s account from the time of pre screening a potential application through to the management of the account during its life and possible write off the riskiness of lending to a credit applicant is usually estimated using a logistic regression model though researchers have considered many other types of classifier and whilst preliminary evidence suggest support vector machines seem to be the most accurate data quality issues may prevent these laboratory based results from being achieved in practice the training of a classifier on a sample of accepted applicants rather than on a sample representative of the applicant population seems not to result in bias though it does result in difficulties in setting the cut off profit scoring is a promising line of research and the basel 2 accord has had profound implications for the way in which credit applicants are assessed and bank policies adopted

risk factor contributions in portfolio credit risk models abstract determining contributions to overall portfolio risk is an important topic in risk management for positions instruments and sub portfolios this problem has been well studied and a significant theory built around the calculation of marginal contributions we consider the problem of determining the contributions to portfolio risk of risk factors this cannot be addressed through an immediate extension of techniques for position contributions since the portfolio loss is a nonlinear function of the risk factors we employ the hoeffding decomposition of the portfolio loss into a sum of terms depending on the factors this decomposition restores linearity but includes terms arising from joint effects of groups of factors these cross factor terms provide information to risk managers since they can be viewed as best hedges of the portfolio loss involving instruments of increasing complexity we illustrate the technique on multi factor portfolio credit risk models where systematic factors represent industries geographical sectors etc

electricity outages in ghana are contingent valuation estimates valid african countries experience persistent and serious energy outages but while multiple valuation studies provide estimates of the costs of electricity outages in high income countries evidence is scarce for lower and middle income countries the few studies that assess the value of reliable energy supply rely on the contingent valuation method that is under wide scrutiny this paper aims to provide new estimates of households willingness to pay to reduce electricity outages for ghana and contributes to the debate on the validity of contingent valuation results for energy reliability our results suggest that households are willing to pay ghs 67 17 per month for reliable electricity supply equivalent to 7 of respondents income the results of tests for hypothetical bias wtp wta disparity and income effects suggest that the contingent valuation estimates from this study are robust and can support decision makers in prioritizing energy policies and investments

energy transition poverty and inequality in vietnam this paper investigates energy transition energy poverty and energy inequality in vietnam employing a longitudinal dataset of a nationally representative household survey we use the data on residential energy expenditure of more than 9 000 households over the period 2004 2016 we find a transition from traditional energy to modern energy but this transition varies across regions between ethnic and welfare groups and between rural and urban population the poor and ethnic minority households still rely heavily on traditional energy sources such as coal and biomass to meet their energy demands electricity poverty has decreased but energy cost poverty has increased in addition energy inequality tends to decrease at a more significant rate than income and consumption inequalities we propose a national program for energy poverty alleviation be established to devise policies to lower households energy costs further assistance to the poor and ethnic minority households is also recommended so that they can afford a higher level of electricity consumption

exploring the sources of default clustering abstract we study the sources of corporate default clustering in the united states we reject the hypothesis that firms default times are correlated only because their conditional default rates depend on observable and latent systematic factors by contrast we find strong evidence that contagion through which the default by one firm has a direct impact on the health of other firms is a significant clustering source the amount of clustering that cannot be explained by contagion and firms exposure to observable and latent systematic factors is insignificant our results have important implications for the pricing and management of correlated default risk

economics coursework and long term behavior and experiences of college graduates in labor markets and personal finance i introduction if economics is a unique way of thinking as many economists like to claim some level of coursework in economics may provide enough specific knowledge and skills to lead students to make different choices in their adult roles as consumers workers and voters citizens of course the same could be claimed for training in business and other areas even though or perhaps because it could be argued that most content and training in business courses is more applied and pragmatic than what is presented in economics courses some empirical evidence though not really a great deal suggests that training in economics and business is associated with different adult behaviors and outcomes for example golec 1996 finds that mutual funds perform better if mutual fund managers have an mba and chevalier and ellison 1999 also report a positive correlation between mutual fund performance and the educational background of mutual fund managers black sanders and taylor 2003 found that economics majors earn almost 20 more than graduates in other social science majors and about 10 more than those who major in business administration in fields with large numbers of graduates they find that only engineering majors earn more than economics majors similarly hecker 1995 reported that males majoring in economics had median earnings 3 higher than all majors for the age cohort of 25 34 and 53 more than average for the cohort aged 35 44 craft and baker 2003 find that lawyers with an undergraduate major in economics earn 13 more than otherwise comparable lawyers with other undergraduate majors and economics is the only major with a statistically significant effect on earnings 1 hamermesh and donald 2008 however find that higher earnings by economics majors are partly due to economics majors working more hours than others the relationship between financial literacy knowledge and adult behavior and outcomes in financial markets has been addressed in several recent studies many sponsored by federal reserve banks hilgert hogarth and beverly 2003 and braunstein and welch 2002 find that knowledge about credit saving and investment is significantly related to recommended financial practices in cash flow management credit management saving and investment unfortunately there is also evidence of widespread financial illiteracy in u s households and particularly among elderly women see lusardi and mitchell 2007 2008 employee education programs have been found to affect workers savings retirement and investment behaviors bayer bernheim and scholz 2009 bernheim and garret 2003 state mandates for precollege education in personal finance appear to succeed in at least exposing students to more information and sources on financial education and students from states with such mandates report higher levels of savings and net worth as adults bernheim garrett and maki 2001 tennyson and nguyen 2001 much less research exists linking college coursework or majoring in economics to personal finance outcomes 2 but christiansen joensen and rangvid 2008 find that those trained in economics in college courses or employee education programs are more likely to invest in stocks than those who receive training in other areas guiso and jappelli 2005 report that among college graduates having a degree in economics is positively associated with knowledge about financial assets chert and volpe 1998 107 concluded that business majors had better knowledge about personal financial literacy than other students but that in general college students were not knowledgeable about personal finance 3 in this paper we use a large and unique data set to investigate the relationships between taking college coursework in economics or majoring in economics with long term labor market and personal finance behaviors and outcomes our information on long term behaviors and outcomes is drawn from a detailed questionnaire we mailed in january 2003 to over 25 000 graduates who attended four public universities in 1976 1986 or 1996

an analytic approach to credit risk of large corporate bond and loan portfolios abstract we derive an analytic approximation to the credit loss distribution of large portfolios by letting the number of exposures tend to infinity defaults and rating migrations for individual exposures are driven by a factor model in order to capture co movements in changing credit quality the limiting credit loss distribution obeys the empirical stylized facts of skewness and heavy tails we show how portfolio features like the degree of systematic risk credit quality and term to maturity affect the distributional shape of portfolio credit losses using empirical data it appears that the basle 8 rule corresponds to quantiles with confidence levels exceeding 98 the limit law s relevance for credit risk management is investigated further by checking its applicability to portfolios with a finite number of exposures relatively homogeneous portfolios of 300 exposures can be well approximated by the limit law a minimum of 800 exposures is required if portfolios are relatively heterogeneous realistic loan portfolios often contain thousands of exposures implying that our analytic approach can be a fast and accurate alternative to the standard monte carlo simulation techniques adopted in much of the literature

semiparametric estimation of selection models some empirical results among the central theoretical developments in the econometric analysis of nonexperimental microeconomic data has been the analysis of selectivity bias following the work of james heckman 1974 statistical techniques were developed in the 1970s to consistently estimate the parameters of these models one potential drawback to the application of these techniques is their sensitivity to the assumed parametric distribution of the unobservable error terms in the model in recent years a number of estimation methods for selection models have been developed which do not impose parametric forms on error distributions these methods are termed semiparametric since only part of the model of interest the regression function is parametrically specified while the statistical theory of these semiparametric estimators has received much attention practical applications of the methods are lacking an exception being the paper by joel horowitz and george neumann 1987 in this paper we use semiparametric methods to reanalyze data on the labor supply of married women first studied by thomas mroz 1987 using parametric methods the object of this reanalysis is to determine whether mroz s results are sensitive to his parametric assumptions

sustainability assessment of electricity market models in selected developed world countries abstract the paper focuses on the impact of electricity market opening on sustainability of electricity market models the paper aims to identify what electricity market organization models are the best ones based on the established sustainability criteria the sustainability criteria include the main sustainability aspects of power sector economic social and environmental the methodology has been designed to evaluate organisational models of electricity market which allows performing an extensive evaluation encompassing all aspects of sustainable development the evaluation methodology which has been designed for the evaluation of energy market organisation model provides the basis for the identification of indicators that have the most significant impact on sustainability also it lays down the premise for the establishment of critical values and possible changes and the analysis of reasons for the changes in sustainability the paper applies developed model for sustainability assessment of electricity market models in several world countries having different electricity market organisation structures the selection of 12 developed world countries 11 of them are oecd countries from various continents was made based on availability of fully liberalized electricity markets in these countries the proposed assessment allows to review and compare electricity market models in terms of achieving main targets of sustainable power sector development

the economic reward for studying economics undergraduate advisors in economics departments suggest that the study of economics is good preparation for a variety of careers including economics consulting analysis and administration and they argue that economics is a solid prelaw or pre mba major in this article we provide some empirical evidence about each of these contentions we find that among college graduates who do not earn advanced degrees economics majors generally earn more than similar individuals with other majors we show also that among individuals who pursue graduate degree programs in business and law economics majors earn more than undergraduate majors in most other academic disciplines jel j31

the dynamic relationship between agricultural sustainability and food energy water poverty in a panel of selected sub saharan african countries abstract the relationship between food energy water resources and agricultural sustainability has got a significant policy attraction that generally in favor of livelihood of the poor which is largely affected by climate change food security challenges poor access of water resources and less access of electricity these challenges generally faced by less developing countries while sub saharan african ssa countries has no exemption to escape out from this food water energy poverty nexus due to inadequate socio economic and environmental action programs of sustainable development this study examined the dynamic nexus between agricultural sustainability and food energy water poverty in a panel of selected ssa countries over the period of 1980 2013 the study used pooled least squares regression pooled fixed effects and pooled random effects regression techniques to absorb country specific time variant shocks the hausman 1978 test results reveal that country specific shocks influence the food energy water poverty model therefore the fixed effects regression results are consider a better fit model than that of the pooled random effect model the overall results conclude that agricultural value added cereal yields and forest area significantly decreases food energy water poverty nexus leading to higher economic growth and price levels at the cost of environmental degradation in general agricultural sustainability is the prerequisite for reducing food energy water poverty

accuracy of mortgage portfolio risk forecasts during financial crises abstract this paper explores whether factor based credit portfolio risk models are able to predict losses in severe economic downturns such as the recent global financial crisis gfc within standard confidence levels the paper analyzes i the accuracy of default rate forecasts and ii whether forecast downturn percentiles value at risk var are sufficient to cover default rate outcomes over a quarterly and an annual forecast horizon uninformative maximum likelihood and informative bayesian techniques are compared as they imply different degrees of uncertainty we find that quarterly var estimates are generally sufficient but annual var estimates may be insufficient during economic downturns in addition the paper develops and analyzes models based on auto regressive adjustments of scores which provide a higher forecast accuracy the consideration of parameter uncertainty and auto regressive error terms mitigates the shortfall

planning and financial literacy how do women fare many older us households have done little or no planning for retirement and there is a substantial population that seems to undersave for retirement of particular concern is the relative position of older women who are more vulnerable to old age poverty due to their longer longevity this paper uses data from a special module we devised on planning and financial literacy in the 2004 health and retirement study it shows that women display much lower levels of financial literacy than the older population as a whole in addition women who are less financially literate are also less likely to plan for retirement and be successful planners these findings have important implications for policy and for programs aimed at fostering financial security at older ages

the fuelwood consumption in a rural area of greece abstract renewable energy sources are called to play an important role as regards the increasing energy demand worldwide in particular the need to address the problems created by the oil crises has distinguished the importance of renewable energy in economic development biomass is recognized as one of the most important renewable energy sources that can contribute decisively to the energy needs of modern society and the environment protection in both industrialized and developing countries a very important source of biomass is wood and especially fuelwood in greece because of the economic crisis there is an increased consumption of fuelwood especially in rural areas in this paper using a questionnaire and descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis we explore the determinants of fuelwood consumption in a rural area in order to propose appropriate policies for the efficient supply of the market

the effects of financial education in the workplace evidence from a survey of households abstract we use a novel household survey to investigate the effects of employer based financial education on personal saving we explore cross sectional relations between the availability of employer based financial education and various measures of asset accumulation and we interpret these patterns in light of various potentially confounding factors our findings favor the hypothesis that employer based financial education stimulates saving both in general and for retirement

energy for sustainable development a case of developing countries abstract today there are 1 4 billion people around the world that lack access to electricity some 85 of them in rural areas without additional dedicated policies by 2030 the number of people drops but only to 1 2 billion some 15 of the world s population still lack access the majority of them living in sub saharan africa the number of people relying on the traditional use of biomass is projected to rise from 2 7 billion today to 2 8 billion in 2030 addressing these inequities depends upon international recognition that the projected situation is intolerable a commitment to effect the necessary change and setting targets and indicators to monitor progress a new financial institutional and technological framework is required as is capacity building in order to dramatically scale up access to modern energy services at the local and regional levels in this paper we discussed the energy situation of the developing countries for sustainable development

integrating sustainability into city level co2 accounting social consumption pattern and income distribution abstract from a sustainability perspective city level co2 emissions require reconsiderations correspondingly the economy environment society nexus should be incorporated into city scale co2 accounting therefore in this study the semi closed io model is integrated with a hem to calculate co2 emissions arising from the social consumption pattern and income distribution and to explore economic drivers behind co2 variations this method is applied to a case study of beijing result demonstrate that beijing in 2012 witnessed something different from that in 2005 1 co2 emissions centred in the internal linkages of a broader class of consumption terms with high economic output mainly driven by interprovincial exports 2 imports increasingly helped decarbonize the mixed net forward and backward co2 linkages of consumption items and 3 income driven co2 emissions excluding demand side parts persisted which were more obvious on the supply side where households have more economy wide effects besides urban households played an essential role in household wide co2 reductions this paper ended with corresponding conclusions policy implications and directions for future work

forecasting and decomposition of portfolio credit risk using macroeconomic and frailty factors this paper presents a dynamic portfolio credit model following the regulatory framework using macroeconomic and latent risk factors to predict the aggregate loan portfolio loss in a banking system the latent risk factors have three levels global across the entire banking system parent sectoral for the intermediate loan sectors and sector specific for the individual loan sectors the aggregate credit loss distribution of the banking system over a risk horizon is generated by monte carlo simulation and a quantile estimator is used to produce the aggregate risk measure and economic capital the risk contributions of the individual sectors and risk factors are measured by combining the hoeffding decomposition with the euler capital allocation rule for the u s banking system we find that the real gdp growth rate the global and sector wide frailty risk factors and their spillovers significantly affect loan defaults and the impacts of the frailty factors are not only economy wide but also sector specific we also find that the frailty risk factors make more significant risk contributions to the aggregate portfolio risk than the macroeconomic factors while the macroeconomic factors help to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the credit risk forecasts

household energy choice and consumption intensity empirical evidence from bhutan abstract this paper uses data from three bhutan living standard surveys blss 2003 blss 2007 and blss 2012 to examine the trends and patterns of household energy consumption and identify and analyze the factors that influence household energy choices consumption intensity and the per capita household expenditure on energy sources in bhutan during the last decade significant numbers of bhutanese households have switched to cleaner energy sources empirical results show that a household s choice of cleaner energy sources is driven by income level and household wealth the age gender and education of the household heads access to electricity and location education and income have a differential role on the choice of clean or dirty fuel wealthier and more educated households use and rely more on clean sources of energy like electricity and liquid petroleum gas while poorer households use and rely on dirty fuel such as fuelwood and kerosene the study shows that female headed households are more likely to choose cleaner fuels and above all the availability of a clean and cost effective source of energy within proximity to the household is an important factor in the adoption of clean energy several models using a variety of alternative independent variables such as proxies for education and wealth were estimated and confirmed the robustness of the results

nigeria s energy poverty insights and implications for smart policies and framework towards a smart nigeria electricity network a thorough and exhaustive review of relevant literature and associated works is carried out to critically examine energy poverty in nigeria with respect to ownership and income using the desktop approach and empirical formulas the persistent failure of public infrastructure like healthcare education and security to the poor electricity generation transmission and distribution capacity in the country is examined alongside current government s contribution to buoying our generation capacity and electricity access through policies and investment the findings of the review reveal the urgent need for the smart roll out of distributed generation units in order to stimulate and encourage the ongoing diversification of the economy and also the need for a sustainable road map that incorporates the successes of countries faced with similar challenges this review paper also proposes the need for palliatives in form of subsidized solar home systems shss through a sustainable and economically viable means for off grid homes to assuage the effects of non availability of grid electricity

household preferences for cooking fuels and inter fuel substitutions unlocking the modern fuels in the nepalese household different cooking fuels are associated with various economic and environmental challenges such as increased economic costs indoor air pollution deforestation and deterioration of public health in this study we assess the impact of various socioeconomic factors in a household s cooking fuel choice and motive for making a transition toward cleaner fuels this study uses household level cross sectional data 2011 and pooled data 1996 2004 and 2011 from the nepal living standard survey we use multinomial and binomial logit models for the empirical analysis the results suggest that along with household income other social and ecological factors play a critical role in inter fuel switching decisions we find that transferring property rights of government owned forests to the communities encourages households to move towards cleaner cooking fuels we also find that household head s education distance to the firewood sources energy access status and household income are significant factors influencing the households fuel choice decisions the policy implication is that increasing information spillover involving local communities in forest management and expanding alternative socioeconomic opportunities such as jobs and modern fuels in the remote regions play a vital role in encouraging the households to move towards cleaner energy sources

addressing the renewable energy financing gap in africa to promote universal energy access integrated renewable energy financing in malawi abstract the sustainable energy for all initiative is a global initiative launched by the united nations secretary general in 2012 with a goal of providing universal access to modern energy services by 2030 to achieve this goal substantial financial and technological investments will be required at a rate far exceeding historical levels sub saharan africa has a 30 5 electrification rate and policy reform issues to improve electrification have been poorly implemented thereby sprinkling doubt as to whether the region would be able to achieve 100 access to electricity for all by the year 2030 sub saharan africa faces a tough challenge in order to achieve universal access to modern energy services since the region fails to attract energy sector investments there is also a general perception that the region contributes very little to global greenhouse gas emissions hence offers few opportunities to reduce these emissions consequently missing out on attracting climate finance projects a guarantee of power purchase has been shown to attract energy sector investments however guarantees of power purchases such as feed in tariffs are experiencing slow market growth in developing countries because of a range of technical regulatory and financial barriers using malawi as a case study of a developing country this review provides a perspective from a sub saharan africa least developed country as to the various electrification renewable energy deployment and climate change management challenges that still require urgent attention this study shows that despite the perceived regulatory and financial challenges malawi can integrate and use a combination of adapted price guarantee schemes cross subsidies and environmental taxes in order to support initiatives aimed at supporting the country s development of renewable energy sources and hence indirectly support the sustainable energy for all initiative

individual account investment options and portfolio choice behavioral lessons from 401 k plans abstract this paper examines how the menu of investment options made available to workers in defined contribution plans influences portfolio choice using unique panel data of 401 k plans in the u s we present three principle findings first we show that the share of investment options in a particular asset class i e company stock equities fixed income and balanced funds has a significant effect on aggregate participant portfolio allocations across these asset classes second we document that the vast majority of the new funds added to 401 k plans are high cost actively managed equity funds as opposed to lower cost equity index funds third because the average share of assets invested in low cost equity index funds declines with an increase in the number of options average portfolio expenses increase and average portfolio performance is thus depressed all of these findings are obtained from a panel data set enabling us to control for heterogeneity in the investment preferences of workers across firms and across time

credit contagion from counterparty risk standard credit risk models cannot explain the observed clustering of default some times described as credit contagion this paper provides the first empirical analysis of credit contagion via direct counterparty effects we find that bankruptcy announce ments cause negative abnormal equity returns and increases in cds spreads for credi tors in addition creditors with large exposures are more likely to suffer from financial distress later this suggests that counterparty risk is a potential additional channel of credit contagion indeed the fear of counterparty defaults among financial institu tions explains the sudden worsening of the credit crisis after the lehman bankruptcy in september 2008

macroeconomic effects and frailties in the resolution of non performing loans resolution of non performing loans is a key determinant of bank credit default losses this paper analyzes macroeconomic and systematic frailty effects of the default resolution time for a sample of 17 395 defaulted bank loans in usa great britain and canada we find that frailties have a huge impact on the resolution times in a representative sample portfolio median resolution times more than double in a recession when compared to an expansion this leads to highly skewed distributions of losses and considerable systematic risk of the bank portfolio

driving forces for aggregate energy consumption a cross country approach abstract although a cornerstone for development past and current energy use has often posed a major challenge for policymakers with respect to planning and management within this context in this paper an updated multi sectorial cross country assessment of energy consumption trends was undertaken aiming at identifying the main drivers of changes in aggregate energy consumption these drivers have been interpreted in the light of the policy measures that have been implemented over the years by different countries to achieve a sustainable development of the energy sector the cross country assessment encompasses a set of developed united kingdom portugal and spain and emerging brazil china and india countries resorting to the logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi decomposition method changes in the aggregate energy consumption were decomposed into three main explanatory effects activity structure and intensity the major findings achieved reflect the relevance of intensity and activity effects in detriment of the structural effect the assessment of energy consumption trends using the lmdi decomposition method provides critical information regarding which is the dominant factor that should be focused in policy design

price elasticities of residential electricity demand estimates from household panel data in bangladesh abstract we collect a household level panel dataset to estimate the price elasticities of electricity demand for different types of urban households in bangladesh we use an instrumental variable estimation strategy which exploits exogenous variation in average electricity prices induced by a value added tax shock the results indicate significant heterogeneity in price elasticities by electricity consumption levels we conduct a number of simulations under alternative policy scenarios to illustrate how incorporating the heterogeneous nature of price elasticities into pricing policy can help decrease electricity demand supply mismatch and inequality in electricity consumption the results have important policy implications for developing countries aiming to address major energy issues by implementing tariff reforms

real options analysis for renewable energy investment decisions in developing countries abstract renewable energy projects in developing countries should provide clean energy supply as well as support sustainable economic development to this end risks arising from uncertainties such as rapidly changing technologies and host government conditions should be carefully addressed however traditional methods for economic assessment are not adequate to support decision making regarding investments in renewable energy this paper proposes a real options analysis framework as a tool to assess renewable energy investment in developing countries a case study involving a hydropower project in indonesia was conducted to validate and verify the proposed framework this framework is expected to help host countries and investors assess renewable energy projects with high volatility and risk

the impact of biomass consumption on co2 emissions cointegration analyses with regime shifts abstract the source of carbon dioxide co2 emissions has been of great interest to researcher s and or policy maker s within ongoing efforts to diminish the emissions in the world due to co2 s serious adverse environmental effect this paper investigates the possible existence of long run relationship between co2 emissions and biomass consumption in us for the period january 1990 september 2011 to this end paper first seeks for effect of biomass on co2 through energy literature and later follows cointegration analyses with structural breaks to reveal parameter estimates of long run equilibrium of co2 with fossil fuel consumption and biomass consumption eventually this paper explores that structural breaks are important to understand the course of co2 and that as expected fossil fuel and biomass effect co2 positively and negatively respectively alternative cointegration analyses with regime shifts confirm negative impact of biomass and positive impact of fossil fuel on co2 as well

empirical credit cycles and capital buffer formation abstract we model 1927 1997 us business failure rates using an unobserved components time series model clear evidence is found of cyclical behavior in default rates we also detect significant longer term movements in default rates and default correlations in a multi year backtest experiment we show that accommodation of default rate dynamics has important consequences for credit risk capitalization requirements static or myopic variants of credit portfolio models miss significant periods of credit risk accumulation empirically congruent dynamic models by contrast provide more timely warning signals of credit risk build up in this way they may mitigate some of the pro cyclicality concerns

energy demand convergence in apec an empirical analysis this paper empirically examines the cross country convergence of per capita energy and electricity usage in apec a significant economic bloc to this end the study applies conventional panel unit root tests and sequential panel selection model spsm procedure based on the panel kss unit root with a fourier function for robustness analysis the results from conventional unit root test results indicate that per capita energy usage and electricity consumption are converging for all apec countries in line with improving living standards in apec the findings also provide some support for policies to promote energy integration among apec countries according to spsm analysis evidence of energy convergence is found for 15 out of 19 apec countries and evidence of electricity convergence is found for 17 out of 19 apec countries pursuit of policies to achieve energy supply stability can move divergent countries toward convergence

common failings how corporate defaults are correlated we test the doubly stochastic assumption under which firms default times are correlated only as implied by the correlation of factors determining their default intensities using data on u s corporations from 1979 to 2004 this assumption is violated in the presence of contagion or frailty unobservable explanatory variables that are correlated across firms our tests do not depend on the time series properties of default intensities the data do not support the joint hypothesis of well specified default intensities and the doubly stochastic assumption we find some evidence of default clustering exceeding that implied by the doubly stochastic model with the given intensities why do corporate defaults cluster in time several explanations have been explored first firms may be exposed to common or correlated risk factors whose co movements cause correlated changes in conditional default probabilities second the event of default by one firm may be contagious in that one such event may directly induce other corporate failures as with the collapse of penn central railway in 1970 third learning from default may generate default correlation for example to the extent that the defaults of enron and worldcom revealed accounting irregularities that could be present in other firms they may have had a direct impact on the conditional default probabilities of other firms our primary objective is to examine whether cross firm default correlation that is associated with observable factors determining conditional default probabilities the first channel on its own is sufficient to account for the degree of time clustering in defaults that we find in the data

multi criteria model for sustainable development using goal programming applied to the united arab emirates abstract sustainable development requires implementing suitable policies integrating several competing objectives on economic environmental energy and social criteria multi criteria decision analysis mcda using goal programming is a popular and widely used technique to study decision problems in the face of multiple conflicting objectives mcda assists policy makers by providing clarity in choosing between alternatives for strategic planning and investments in this paper we propose a weighted goal programming model that integrates efficient allocation of resources to simultaneously achieve sustainability related goals on gdp growth electricity consumption and ghg emissions we validate the model with application to key economic sectors of the united arab emirates to achieve sustainable development goals by the year 2030 the model solution provides a quantitative justification and a basis for comparison in planning future energy requirements and an indispensable requirement to include renewable sources to satisfy long term energy requirements

how much is enough an integrated examination of energy security economic growth and climate change related to hydropower expansion in brazil abstract reconciling economic growth and energy supply with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and other goals for environmental protection is a major challenge for emerging economies such as brazil establishing energy security standards consistent with realistic economic growth projections while considering climate change requires complex calculations and relies upon risky assumptions yet such calculations and decisions must be made to avoid future energy shortages and economic crises this paper discusses the current dilemma concerning planning and decision making for the brazilian electric sector considering the construction of hydroelectric power plants in the amazon region energy security requirements projected economic growth and climate change feedbacks

what students remember and say about college economics years later in his presidential address to the american economic association george stigler 1963 offered the provocative hypothesis that students would retain very little knowledge from principles courses in economics five years or more after taking the courses the few empirical studies that have been published on this topic generally found no or small lasting effects at least for those who took fewer than four courses see e g g l bach and phillip saunders 1965 gerald j lynch 1990 that raises even broader questions about the long term effects of studying economics in college in terms of individuals behavior as consumers workers and voters which we are now beginning to investigate using both survey and transcript data we have two major goals in this study first we want to learn how students perceive their classroom experience in economics courses years after leaving school both in absolute terms and compared to other courses they took we drew samples of economics business and other majors who attended our four universities in 1976 1986 and 1996 and asked which topics regularly covered in economics courses they now viewed as being most and least important we asked whether they now viewed the economics courses they took as interesting important too difficult or too abstract we also compared their perceptions of teaching methods and grading rigor in economics courses to those developed in other courses our second major goal represents an empirical test of the common claim that economics is a unique way of thinking if it is we might reasonably expect people with more training in economics to have different views on policy issues and to make different decisions as consumers workers savers investors and voters we collected survey data on many of these choices and by matching those responses with transcript data we plan to investigate whether there are observable behavioral responses associated with being an economics major or simply taking some minimum number of economics courses compared to students who took fewer courses or none at all there are other uses for these data they can likely be used to study choice of major and course taking behavior as well as common laboreconomics issues such as human capital versus screening in the labor market certainly the data can provide insight into curriculum development for economics departments and business schools as well there is obviously the potential for response biases in the analysis of these data but we expect that having transcript data for respondents and nonrespondents will allow us to deal with these issues econometrically this first brief report from this ongoing project addresses only the first goal of the project specifically how our former students evaluate their experience with economics courses and instructors what economic courses and concepts do they now believe are most important do they wish they had taken more or less coursework in economics what do they think now about various economic issues and allgood department of economics university of nebraska lincoln ne 68588 e mail sallgood unlnotes unl edu bosshardt department of economics florida atlantic university boca raton fl 33431 e mail wbosshar fau edu van der klaauw department of economics university of north carolina chapel hill nc 27599 e mail vanderkl email unc edu watts department of economics purdue university west lafayette in 47907 and while this paper was written the german international school of management and administration hanover germany e mail mwatts mgmt purdue edu we thank the board of the calvin k kazanjian economics foundation for the grant that made this work possible and the aea committee for economic education for bringing us together to write the proposal as described in michael salemi et al 2002 mike salemi provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper april fidler provided major assistance in project coordination administration and data entry georg schaur worked extensively with data organization and preliminary tabulations

changes in college skills and the rise in the college wage premium the college wage premium for new labor market entrants rose sharply during the 1980s we ask how much of this change arose from changes in the skill level of the typical college graduate we find that skills attained prior to college as measured by standardized test scores and high school grades had no effect on the change in the college wage premium for men in contrast the returns to math ability rose considerably for women failing to account for math skills thus substantially overstates the growth in the female college wage premium skills acquired in college as reflected in the distribution of students across majors had important effects on the relative wages of men the trend away from low skill subjects such as education and toward high skill subjects such as engineering accounts for one fourth of the rise in the male college wage premium

ratings migration and the business cycle with application to credit portfolio stress testing the turmoil in the capital markets in 1997 and 1998 has highlighted the need for systematic stress testing of banks portfolios including both their trading and lending books we propose that underlying macroeconomic volatility is a key part of a useful conceptual framework for stress testing credit portfolios and that credit migration matrices provide the specific linkages between underlying macroeconomic conditions and asset quality credit migration matrices which characterize the expected changes in credit quality of obligors are cardinal inputs to many applications including portfolio risk assessment modeling the term structure of credit risk premia and pricing of credit derivatives they are also an integral part of many of the credit portfolio models used by financial institutions by separating the economy into two states or regimes expansion and contraction and conditioning the migration matrix on these states we show that the loss distribution of credit portfolios can differ greatly as can the concomitant level of economic capital to be assigned

geographical and environmental perspectives for the sustainable development of renewable energy in urbanizing china with rapid urbanization and industrialization china has become both the largest energy consumer and co2 emitting country in the world as a clean and low carbon energy source renewable energy is a good choice to substitute for the exhausted fossil energy the chinese central and local governments have made a series of policies and optimistic plans to promote a rapid development of renewable energies china s renewable energy development has become a key to the sustainable development of socioeconomic system unlike most of the current studies which mainly identified the challenges regarding policies and technologies around renewable energy or performed specific analyses for a certain kind of renewable energy this paper summarizes the spatial disparity and consistency among the major renewable energies coal resources energy consumption and its major influencing factors in china and reviews the positive and negative environmental impacts of major renewable energies based on the geographical and environmental perspectives this paper recommends that the chinese government constructs the national energy production bases according to the resource distribution integrates different energies on the basis of their natural features and spatial consistency adjusts the overall layout of socio economic development consistent with renewable energies and promotes a moderate renewable energy development to maximize the environmental benefits c 2013 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

renewable energy technology uptake in kazakhstan policy drivers and barriers in a transitional economy kazakhstan has considerable renewable energy potential the development of which can provide significant environmental economic and social benefits the country s national low carbon energy strategy aims to bring the share of renewables in electricity production to 50 by 2050 despite the considerable renewable energy resource base and ambitious deployment targets the current contribution of non hydro renewable energy to final electricity demand is less than one percent adoption of renewable energy technologies in a fossil fuel resource rich country like kazakhstan remains a big challenge but current low oil prices and a weakening economy may offer new opportunities deploying an analytical hierarchy process methodology we identify the most significant barriers to uptake of renewable energy in the context of the electricity sector the main factors preventing the penetration and scale up of renewables include a political and regulatory framework which supports and promotes a continued focus on fossil fuels supported in part by regional geopolitics a lack of awareness of sustainable alternative energy generation systems and a combination of social poverty and poor education in communities that are most likely to benefit from broadly distributed renewable technologies market conditions driven by current electricity tariffs inefficient but incumbent power technologies and a high risk business environment ranking barriers by importance will provide practitioners and regulators a mechanism to improve policies and incentivize renewable energy uptake in kazakhstan and other resource rich transition economies in central asia

analytical methods for hedging systematic credit risk with linear factor portfolios abstract multi factor credit portfolio models are used widely today for managing economic capital and pricing collateralized debt obligations cdos and asset backed securities commonly practitioners allocate capital to the portfolio components sub portfolios counterparties or transactions the hedging of credit risk is generally also focused on the deltas of underlying names we present analytical results for hedging portfolio credit risk with linear combinations of systematic factors based on the minimization of systematic variance of portfolio losses we solve these problems within a multi factor merton type credit portfolio model and apply them to hedge systematic credit default losses of loan portfolios and cdos

research in economic education five new initiatives research is essential for improvement in teaching and learning economics william e becker et al 1991 called for new research on the relative merits of multiple choice and essay tests on the lasting effects of course work in economics and on the effects of instructors instructional techniques and new technologies on student learning to respond to the call the committee on economic education cee of the american economic association recruited robin bartlett william becker w lee hansen peter kennedy and the authors to organize a conference that would jump start new research projects the organizers chose three conference goals identifying research priorities recruiting new economists to economic education research and building teams to undertake identified priorities they recruited 21 economists to participate 1 provided them with a list of potential research questions and asked them which questions were most important and which they were willing to work on with survey results in hand the organizers divided participants into five teams corresponding to the following five topics teaching methods and incentives for collegelevel economics instruction ph d education in economics in the united states improving the assessment of student learning in college economics courses long term effects of learning economics and efficiency in the use of technology in economic education at the conference participants discussed briefing papers prepared for each topic worked on project design and funding issues and began writing proposals herein we describe our research priorities and our progress in developing research plans and securing financial support

factors determining household use of clean and renewable energy sources for lighting in sub saharan africa abstract the purpose of the current research is to examine the factors that influence household use of determinants of renewable and clean energy sources used for lighting purposes in africa using the data from the living standard measurement study lsms from three african countries ethiopia tanzania and malawi for this purpose the paper uses multinomial logit and ordered probit econometrics models the descriptive analysis reveals that rural households are dependent largely on kerosene and batteries for lighting their houses while electricity and batteries form a major source of energy for lighting urban households a small fraction of households uses solid fuels and solar as their source of energy for lighting econometric results show that female headed households are likely to adopt clean and renewable sources of energy compared to male headed households wealthier and more educated households are found to use electricity and solar energy for lighting while poorer households tend to use kerosene batteries and solid fuels empirical results indicated that the ethiopian households followed by malawian households are more likely to use clean sources of energy compared to tanzanian households

the effects of financial education in the workplace evidence from a survey of employers we examine the effects of education on financial decision making skills by identifying an interesting source of variation in pertinent training during the 1990s an increasing number of individuals were exposed to programs of financial education provided by their employers if as some have argued low saving frequently results from a failure to appreciate economic vulnerabilities then education of this form could prove to have a powerful effect on behavior the current paper undertakes an analysis of these programs using a previously unexploited survey of employers we find that both participation in and contributions to voluntary savings plans are significantly higher when employers offer retirement seminars the effect is typically much stronger for non highly compensated employees than for highly compensated employees the frequency of seminars emerges as a particularly important correlate of behavior we are unable to detect any effects of written materials such as newsletters and summary plan descriptions regardless of frequency we also present evidence on other determinants of plan activity