global energy use decoupling or convergence we examine the key factors driving change in energy use globally over the past four decades we test for both strong decoupling where economic growth has less effect on energy use as income increases and weak decoupling where energy use declines overtime in richer countries ceteris paribus our econometric approach is robust to the presence of unit roots unobserved time effects and spatial effects our key findings are that the growth of per capita energy use has been primarily driven by economic growth convergence in energy intensity and weak decoupling there is no sign of strong decoupling

on the efficiency of law a public choice perspective economists have not yet developed a comprehensive theoretical framework incorporating transaction cost economics within a public choice perspective for predicting when there will be an efficiency problem with the law transaction cost reasoning and the rent seeking insight have not been applied systematically in a dynamic institutional context to evaluate when the law will be used to increase or not minimize problems of bounded rationality and opportunism this paper takes a first step at identifying and remedying this deficiency the paper first provides a critical review of relevant theoretical contributions made by becker 1983 1985 posner 1977 priest 1977 rubin 1977 1982 williamson 1975 1985 and others we then show how analysis of the efficiency of law can be synthesized into a broader whole by incorporating transaction cost economics more fully into existing understanding of rentseeking in the political realm thus within the public choice paradigm this paper develops a deeper transaction cost analysis of the efficiency of law building on prior research by the authors crew and rowley 1988a 1988b twight 1983 1988 the paper identifies variables that position legal rules on a spectrum that ranges from those that are predominantly transaction cost

income resources and electricity mix this paper presents evidence on a national level electricity ladder which sees countries transition toward coal and natural gas and finally nuclear power and modern renewables such as wind power for their electricity needs as they develop the extent to which countries climb the electricity ladder is dependent on energy endowments the results imply that the environmental implications of economic development differ in countries with different energy resource endowments an effective global carbon mitigation strategy will require developing countries to leapfrog the middle rungs of the electricity ladder

the political economy of taking and just compensation by creating an implicit right to judicial review and lowering the transaction costs a property owner must incur to challenge a taking the just compensation restriction on eminent domain limits the tendency of political decision makers to avoid the subjective costs their actions inflict on property owners and moves the level of taking closer to the social optimum its impact however is partially to completely erased by the risk aversion of the property owner and the fiscal illusion of the political decision maker unless there are additional constraints in the fiscal constitution

inequality and the environmental kuznets curve abstract is income inequality harmful to the environment the answer to this question has not reached a consensus in the literature this study seeks to provide insight into this question by examining the influence of income inequality on the environmental kuznets curve ekc i e the impact of income inequality on the ekc turning point two potential mechanisms through which inequality may affect the ekc turning point by reducing public demand for environmental protection and by increasing a power of capital owners to prevent such protection using a large sample n 170 174 of countries we find evidence of the ekc for so2 emissions and income inequality has a significant impact on the ekc turning point income inequality increases the ekc turning point suggesting that high inequality can be damaging to the environment the results are robust to potential outliers different data sources of income inequality a different so2 emissions measure changes in model specification different samples and an alternative estimation method we also find that inequality appears to be more important than corruption in determining the ekc turning point

toward a public choice theory of monopoly regulation its many dimensions from the perspective of market economics this new thrust was consolidated in 1976 by s peltzman who developed a formal market model in which regulations were viewed as commodities brokered via political markets in response to bids and counter bids by those who stood to gain or to lose from specific regulation outcomes the subsequent contribution by becker 1983 added insights and institutional flesh to the stigler peltzman embryo confirming regulation as an integral component of mainstream market economics an important implication of such contributions especially those from the chicago perspective is that regulation for the most part confirms resource efficiency within market process that political markets in the absence of entry barriers are just as effective as are competitive commodity markets in achieving economic efficiency defined within a comparative institutions framework nowhere is this complacency more apparent than in the conclusion drawn by becker 1983 from a detailed formal analysis of competition among pressure groups for political influence

between estimates of the emissions income elasticity abstract recent papers by wagner and vollebergh et al point out some fundamental econometric problems with traditional methods of estimating the environmental kuznets curve ekc and propose alternative approaches that avoid these issues wagner notes that traditional methods do not take into account the presence of powers of unit root variables and cross sectional dependence in the data while vollebergh et al point out that the time effects are not uniquely identified in the ekc model the between estimator is a simple estimator that also addresses the concerns of these authors it makes no a priori assumption about the nature of the time effects and is likely to provide consistent estimates of long run relationships in real world data situations i apply several common panel data estimators including the between estimator to oecd and global carbon and sulfur emissions datasets the between estimates of the sulfur income elasticity are 0 732 in the oecd and 1 067 in the global data set and the estimated carbon income elasticity is 1 612 in the oecd and 1 509 globally

capture and ideology in the economic theory of politics the economic theory of regulation long ago put public interest theories of politics to rest these theories have correctly been viewed as normative wishings rather than explanations of real world phenomena they have been replaced by models of political behavior that are consistent with the rest of microeconomics anthony downs 1957 james buchanan and gordon tullock 1965 george stigler 1971 sam peltzman 1976 recently however debate has arisen over whether some version of a public interest theory of regulation will have to be readmitted to our thinking about actions and results in the political arena what is at issue is the empirical importance of the altruistic publicly interested goals of rational actors in determining legislative and regulatory outcomes james kau and paul rubin 1979 kalt 1981 peltzman 1982 this study assesses the nature and significance of publicly interested objectives in a particular instance of economic policymaking u s senate voting on coal strip mining regulations the existence of such objectives is of course no contradiction of the economic view of human behavior kenneth arrow 1972 gary becker 1974 and may well be rooted in genetic biological history becker 1976 jack hirshleifer 1978 generally however individuals altruistic publicly interested goals have been given little attention this reflects the judgment that such goals are so empirically unimportant as to allow the use of occam s razor in positive models or well founded apprehensions that these goals are unusually difficult to identify measure and analyze notwithstanding the latter problem we find that approaches which confine themselves to a view of political actors as narrowly egocentric maximizers explain and predict legislative outcomes poorly the tracking and dissecting of the determinants of voting on coal strip mining policy suggest that the economic theory of politics has been prematurely closed to a broader conception of political behavior

modeling international trends in energy efficiency article i nfo article history i use a stochastic production frontier to model energy ef ciency trends in 85 countries over a 37 year period differences in energy ef ciency across countries are modeled as a stochastic function of explanatory variables and i estimate the model using the cross section of time averaged data so that no structure is imposed on technological change over time energy ef ciency is measured using a new energy distance function ap proach the country using the least energy per unit output given its mix of outputs and inputs de nes the global production frontier a country s relative energy ef ciency is given by its distance from the frontier the ratio of its actual energy use to the minimum required energy use ceteris paribus energy ef ciency is higher in countries with inter alia higher total factor productivity undervalued currencies and smaller fossil fuel reserves and it converges over time across countries globally technological change was the most impor tant factor counteracting the energy use and carbon emissions increasing effects of economic growth

identifying reduced form relations with panel data the case of pollution and income abstract in this paper we propose a solution to the non robustness that plagues the estimation of inverted u shaped relationships using panel data such as the relation between pollution and income when dependent and independent variable like pollution and income are both time related separating the effect of the independent variable from time effects brings about a fundamental identification dilemma the imposition of restrictions on the controls might drive the shape of the relationship between the dependent pollution and independent income variables our solution consists of imposing the very weak constraint that arbitrary cross sectional units have the same relationship we apply our methodology to two widely studied cases namely so 2 and co 2 emissions interestingly our estimates are insensitive to the required subjective choices but also strongly differ from the literature so far we find consistent positive income effects for both cases and time effect estimates with a clear u shaped trend for so 2 emissions but only slightly so for co 2 emissions

new toxics race to the bottom and revised environmental kuznets curve the case of local and global pollutants abstract this study empirically evaluated three different forms of environmental kuznets curve ekc including new toxics race to the bottom and revised ekc in a panel of 36 developed and developing countries for the period of 1995 2013 the results of robust least square mm estimator confirmed the race to the bottom hypothesis in nitrous oxide emissions n 2 o and carbon monoxides co emissions while revised ekc hypothesis exist in traffic volume emissions and co emissions the study constructed an emissions index by the principal component matrix for evaluating new toxics ekc hypothesis and confirm that industrial activities continuously created new unregulated and potentially toxic pollutants in a panel of countries the results found that industrial activities substantially increase traffic emissions and mono nitrogen oxides nox emissions across countries in a majority of the cases trade openness energy demand and per capita food variability directly associated with the air pollutants that deteriorate the natural environment

the credibility revolution in empirical economics how better research design is taking the con out of econometrics since edward leamer s memorable 1983 paper let s take the con out of econometrics empirical microeconomics has experienced a credibility revolution while leamer s suggested remedy sensitivity analysis has played a role in this we argue that the primary engine driving improvement has been a focus on the quality of empirical research designs the advantages of a good research design are perhaps most easily apparent in research using random assignment we begin with an overview of leamer s 1983 critique and his proposed remedies we then turn to the key factors we see contributing to improved empirical work including the availability of more and better data along with advances in theoretical econometric understanding but especially the fact that research design has moved front and center in much of empirical micro we offer a brief digression into macroeconomics and industrial organization where progress by our lights is less dramatic although there is work in both fields that we find encouraging finally we discuss the view that the design pendulum has swung too far critics of design driven studies argue that in pursuit of clean and credible research designs researchers seek good answers instead of good questions we briefly respond to this concern which worries us little

the environmental kuznets curve ekc theory part a concept causes and the co2 emissions case abstract the main purpose of this study is to capture the main features of the environmental kuznets curve ekc concept according to the ekc theory the process of economic growth is expected eventually to limit the environmental degradation created in the early stages of development the ekc concept leads many researchers from the early 1990s to assume that each economy should focus on its growth and any environmental problems will be eventually eliminated by the process of economic growth several studies attempt to test empirically the ekc hypothesis using data on many countries and examining various types of environmental degradation while other studies examine the underlying factors that may drive such a relationship this article reviews the evolution of the ekc concept and the possible causes of an ekc pattern like the distribution of income the international trade pollution haven hypothesis structural changes technical progress and improvements in energy efficiency institutions and governance and consumer preferences as co2 emissions are a pollutant with global effects several studies deal with the possible ekc pattern for co2 emissions and these studies are discussed separately the various critiques on the ekc concept are reviewed in the second article of this work

the industrial organization of congress or why legislatures like firms are not organized as markets this paper provides a theory of legislative institutions that parallels the theory of the firm and the theory of contractual institutions like market institutions legislative institutions reflect two key components the goals or preferences of individuals here representatives seeking reelection and the relevant transactions costs we present three conclusions first we show how the legislative institutions enforce bargains among legislators second we explain why given the peculiar form of bargaining problems found in legislatures specific forms of nonmarket exchange prove superior to market exchange third our approach shows how the committee system limits the types of coalitions that may form on a particular issue

economists and public policy chicago political economy versus conventional views both conventional welfare economics and public choice analysis suggest that economists have an important educational role to play in the public policy process in improving the decision making process in sharp contrast information and incentive problems related to voting rules the bureaucracy and the legislature do not arise in cpe because these processes are all perfect agents of interest groups consequently the political process is efficient and there is no scope for beneficial economic analysis as it relates to the sugar program or other public policies that is the polity is efficient or it would be reordered by competing interest groups to make it so but as mitchell 1989 290 stresses the important unanswered question in cpe remains if there is no scope for improvement how and why does change occur

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

the role of the intellectual in economic development a constitutional perspective abstract depending on the nature of the commitment that is implicit in the constitution of a society the rules may either rigidly reinforce existing institutions or allow for an efficient process of institutional innovation we argue that intellectuals are a reflection of the constitutional backdrop against which they operate and consequently professional intellectual activity will either enhance efficiency by reducing the costs of political exchange or entrench inefficient structures we present empirical evidence to show that intellectuals have a systematically different impact on economic performance in different types of societies

testing efficiency hypotheses in joint production a parametric approach n recent years a great deal of research has been directed to the modelling and measurement of technical and allocative efficiency in production with few exceptions this research has been restricted to single product firms however recent developments in duality theory have facilitated the extension of this research to multi product firms the main purpose of this paper is to develop a model of the multiproduct firm in which the possibilities of both technical and allocative inefficiency are incorporated in an econometrically useful way the first model we develop includes a nonneutral2 type of technical inefficiency and three distinguishable types of allocative inefficiency output mix input mix and scale each type of inefficiency is costly to the firm in the sense that each causes a reduction in profit beneath the maximum value attainable under full efficiency the cost of each type of inefficiency depends on the magnitude of the inefficiency and the structure of the underlying production technology in the second model we develop technical inefficiency remains nonneutral but allocative inefficiency is not generally decomposable into output mix input mix and scale components however both technical and allocative inefficiency remain costly to the firm the cost of each type of inefficiency depending on its magnitude and the structure of the underlying production technology we model the technology of a competitive profit maximizing multi product firm with the dual profit function this enables us to use hotelling s lemma to generate a system of profit maximizing output supply and input demand equations these equations are then modified to allow for the possibility of technical and three types of allocative inefficiency a virtue of using the profit function to represent production technology is that it permits a straightforward comparison of maximum profit under full efficiency with actual profit and with the profit that would result from any combination of the four types of inefficiency this enables us to allocate the cost of inefficiency to each of four components our model of inefficiency is parametric and is embedded in a generalized leontief profit function although any flexible specification of the profit function can be used the model is developed in sections ii iv estimation of the model is considered in section v an empirical example designed to illustrate the workings of the model is discussed in section vi section vii concludes

modeling energy and development an evaluation of models and concepts most global energy models are developed by institutes from developed countries focusing primarily on issues that are important in industrialized countries evaluation of the results for asia of the ipcc sres models shows that broad concepts of energy and development the energy ladder and the environmental kuznets curve can be observed in the results of the models however improvements can be made in modeling the issues that underlie these concepts like traditional fuels electrification economic structural change income distribution and informal economies given the rapidly growing importance of energy trajectories of developing countries for global sustainability the challenge for the future is to develop energy models that include all these aspects of energy and development

will history repeat itself economic convergence and convergence in energy use patterns in this paper a difference in differences estimator on panel data for 30 developing and 21 industrialized countries is employed over the period 1971 2005 to examine how patterns of energy use characterized by the consumption of primary energy carriers sectoral energy use and carbon emissions are changing in the process of economic development for the average developing country in our sample the results indicate that economic catch up has been accompanied by above average growth of the use of most primary energy carriers the consumption of final energy in most sectors and total co2 emissions for industrialized countries we find that economic growth is partially decoupled from energy consumption and that above average rates of economic growth were accompanied by larger improvements in energy efficiency these results emphasize the need to identify the relevant engines of economic growth their implications for energy use and possibilities to achieve low carbon growth centered on productivity and efficiency improvements rather than on capital accumulation

rule of law and the resource curse abundance versus intensity we examine the resource curse using new data on historic resource stocks and an improved econometric methodology the paper distinguishes between resource abundance stocks and extractive intensity flows focusing on relationships between resources and rule of law previously unavailable information on past resource stocks is estimated we find that economically large initial natural resource stocks are associated with subsequent lower levels of rule of law and do not directly affect growth while raw resource exports do not have a significant effect on rule of law when stocks are included in the analysis but do affect average growth rates sample size is maximized through the use of an emis expectation maximization with importance sampling algorithm to replace missing data minimizing the bias and inefficiency associated with listwise deletion which commonly eliminates half or more of the available data in this setting

the environmental kuznets curve cointegration and nonlinearity this paper clarifies some conceptual shortcomings of the empirical environmental kuznets curve ekc literature that arise because of the hitherto inadequate application of unit root and cointegration techniques the literature to date has ignored the fact and a fortiori the consequences that powers of integrated processes are themselves not integrated processes the paper explains why standard methods should not be applied and discusses some recently proposed viable estimation and testing approaches for cointegrating polynomial regressions the application to co2 and so2 emissions data shows that using appropriate methods leads to strongly reduced evidence for a cointegrating ekc compared to typical but conceptually not sound findings

a multivariate cointegration analysis of the role of energy in the us macroeconomy abstract this paper extends my previous analysis of the causal relationship of gdp and energy use in the usa in the post war period a majority of the relevant variables are integrated justifying a cointegration analysis the results show that cointegration does occur and that energy input cannot be excluded from the cointegration space the results are plausible in terms of macroeconomic dynamics the results are similar to my previous granger causality results and contradict claims in the literature based on bivariate models that there is no cointegration between energy and output

the environmental kuznets curve ekc theory part b critical issues according to the environmental kuznets curve ekc theory the process of economic growth is expected to limit the environmental degradation created in the early stages of development the first article of this study reviews the empirical studies examining various factors other than income that may lead to an ekc pattern the current article reviews in the first part the major critiques on the ekc speculation which relate to the following issues the normal distribution of world income the feedback from environmental degradation to economic growth the characteristics of the pollutant in question various econometric issues the evolution of consumption when income rises and the assumption about a common developmental pattern in all countries the second part discusses additional matters reported indirectly in the literature and or must be further examined there are doubts whether the gdp series captures the transition of production to the three productive sectors in empirical estimations and whether services are less polluting compared to industry activities finally the original kuznets theory which laid the groundwork for the ekc concept does not seem to solve income inequality problems

federal control over education crisis deception and institutional change abstract this paper analyzes the emergence of two key statutes which first established comprehensive federal controls over education in the united states the national defense education act of 1958 and the elementary and secondary education act of 1965 the u s experience in establishing federal control over education is examined against a model of institutional change grounded in the economics of political transaction cost manipulation detailed examination of relevant congressional documents shows the roles of real and feigned crisis and of deliberate deception in effecting acceptance of federal control over education

are co2 emission levels converging among industrial countries time paths of carbon dioxide emissions intwenty one industrial countries are examinedfrom 1960 1997 to test for stochastic andconditional convergence both panel unit roottests and cross section regressions areperformed overall we find significantevidence that co2 emissions haveconverged

why do governments subsidize gasoline consumption an empirical analysis of global gasoline prices 2002 2009 abstract governments spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually to subsidize the consumption of fossil fuels without understanding the environmental and economic problems this practice creates to shed light on these problems we examine the case of gasoline subsidies using data on gasoline prices in 137 countries for the years 2002 2009 it is useful to study gasoline pricing because gasoline is the most important transportation fuel and there are data for many countries for the time period of investigation we find that major oil producers subsidize gasoline consumption by artificially reducing prices countries with weak institutional capacity also seem to subsidize gasoline but the effects are weaker these results suggest that policy interventions to improve institutional capacity could help developing countries in particular reduce their fossil fuel subsidies

structural change and convergence of energy intensity across oecd countries 1970 2005 abstract this paper uses new and unique data derived from a consistent framework of national accounts to compute and evaluate energy intensity developments across 18 oecd countries and 50 sectors over the period 1970 2005 we find that across countries energy intensity levels tend to decrease in most manufacturing sectors in the service sector energy intensity decreases at a relatively slow rate with diverse trends across sub sectors a decomposition analysis reveals that changes in the sectoral composition of the economy explain a considerable and increasing part of aggregate energy intensity dynamics a convergence analysis reveals that only after 1995 cross country variation in aggregate energy intensity levels clearly tends to decrease driven by a strong and robust trend break in manufacturing and enhanced convergence in services moreover we find evidence for the hypothesis that across sectors lagging countries are catching up with leading countries with rates of convergence that are on average higher in services than in manufacturing aggregate convergence patterns are almost exclusively caused by convergence of within sector energy intensity levels and not by convergence of the sectoral composition of economies

economic performance of us class 1 railroads a stochastic frontier approach in this paper we estimate technical and allocative inefficiency and cost thereof of 13 us class 1 railroads using stochastic frontier production methodology in a panel data framework in addition to passenger and freight services we included quality of these services in our analysis empirical results show that the cost of technical inefficiency varies quite substantially among the roads the most inefficient road is 29 91 above the cost frontier while technical inefficiency on an average increased cost by 16 23 on the contrary allocative inefficiency does not differ much among the roads increase in cost due to allocative inefficiency is in between 4 and 9 with a mean of around 7 thus while the roads are quite competitive and efficient in allocating their inputs there is substantial scope for some of them to improve their technical efficiency

policy persistence and rent extraction the existing literature has shown that special interest groups can have both growth enhancing and growth retarding effects on an economy in either case it is always assumed that the nature of the special interest groups remains constant over time the hypothesis of this paper is that a dynamic relationship exists between politicians and lobbyists i e that opportunities for rent extraction for special interest groups can evolve over time in the short run politicians may support projects proposed to them by lobbies because they yield clear economic benefits however continued governmental support may imply a cost to society and yield rents to the lobbies a theoretical framework in which established and new lobbies overlap is developed to model a government s incentives to behave in a manner consistent with the hypothesis in this framework voters can still rationally reelect politicians even if the latter support lobbies for an inefficiently long period of time because if they did not then the quality of the pool of new projects would deteriorate

slacks determinants in brazilian railways a distance friction minimization approach with fixed factors this study investigates the drivers for output increasing input saving potentials in the brazilian railway industry which has undergone significant transformations since its privatization in the mid 1990s the main research objective is to determine whether or not different types of cargoes and geographic regions serviced present a significant impact on railway slacks by applying a distance friction minimization dfm approach with fixed factors based on a balanced panel model secondary data from the period 2004 to 2012 were collected and analysed results support anecdotal evidence regarding a heterogeneous impact of types of cargo and geographic location on input reducing and output increasing potentials besides network length and average speed policy implications for railway authorities are also addressed by focusing on the specifics of each railway operator

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

the determinants of efficiency and productivity in european railways this article evaluates the economic performance of european railways over the period 1972 to 1999 the cost structure of the railway industry is analysed using a stochastic frontier approach estimated within the framework of a translog cost system the results confirm that european railways experience significant cost increases due to inefficient behaviour in contrast to previous studies however the estimates indicate a much greater role for allocative rather than technical inefficiency overall inefficiencies can essentially be explained by the supply of excess capacity and by the over employment of labour inputs regarding productivity it appears to be technological progress and not levels of efficiency or scale economies that provide the most convincing explanation for variance in growth rates within the sample

drivers of industrial and non industrial greenhouse gas emissions abstract though there has been extensive analysis of the drivers of aggregate carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production there has been much less analysis of the drivers of greenhouse gases in general and especially of aggregate emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture forestry and other land uses which we call non industrial emissions in this paper we statistically analyze the relationship between both industrial and non industrial greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth and other potential drivers for 129 countries over the period from 1971 to 2010 our analysis combines the three main approaches in the literature into a single framework for investigating the evolution of emissions and income we find that economic growth is a driver of both industrial and non industrial emissions though economic growth has twice the effect on industrial emissions the time effect is negative for both sources of emissions though this effect is larger for non industrial emissions there is also convergence in emissions intensity for both types of emissions but given these other effects there is no evidence for an environmental kuznets curve

government manipulation of constitutional level transaction costs a general theory of transaction cost augmentation and the growth of government transaction costs are pivotal to the ongoing political choice of where to draw the line between the private sector and the public sector contrary to the dominant paradigm politically important transaction costs are actively manipulated in the public sector by those who perceive potential personal gain from such action over time transaction cost changes so created by government decision makers may fundamentally redefine the role and scope of government to analyze the role of transaction costs in the growth or decline of government it is essential to distinguish transaction costs that are unavoidable realworld constraints from those that are contrived in the sense that they are created by government officials use or extension of their existing authority once discretionary power is vested in the government its officials have both the capacity and the incentive to restructure the transaction costs constraining the revision ofgovernrnental authority this restructuring of transaction costs may take two forms 1 altering people s perceptions of the costs and benefits of governmental authority in a given sphere an information cost problem 1 2 altering the cost of acting upon one s perceptions of the costs and benefits of collectivization in order to procure revision of the scope of governmental authority 2

the measurement and sources of technical inefficiency in the indonesian weaving industry production function models are estimated with a time series of cross section data on indonesian weaving establishments the sources of technical inefficiency are investigated three firm attributes are identified as being potentially related to firm efhciency tbey are firm ownership age and size the importance of these attributes as sources of inefficiency in the indonesian weaving industry is investigated and the implications of the find ings discussed

dynamics of final sectoral energy demand and aggregate energy intensity this paper proposes a regional and sectoral model of global final energy demand for the main end use sectors of consumption industrial commercial and public services residential and road transportation per capita demand is expressed as an s shaped function of per capita income other variables intervene as well like energy prices temperatures and technological trends this model is applied on a panel of 101 countries and 3 aggregates covering the whole world and it explains fairly well past variations in sectoral final consumption since the beginning of the 2000s further the model is used to analyze the dynamics of final energy demand by sector and in total the main conclusion concerns the pattern of change for aggregate energy intensity the simulations performed show that there is no a priori reason for it to exhibit a bell shape as reported in the literature depending on initial conditions the weight of basic needs in total consumption and the availability of modern commercial energy resources various forms might emerge

a comparative analysis of european railroads efficiency a cost frontier approach the paper analyses the issue of cost efficiency for eight main european railroads in a sample period of 17 years measures of technical and allocative efficiency are obtained from a stochastic cost frontier model with minimal cost described by a translog cost system in the model the cost of allocative inefficiency is estimated simultaneously from the shares errors whereas technical inefficiency is modelled by a half normal positive departure from the cost frontier results show a negligible effect of allocative inefficiency on firms costs whereas the cost of technical inefficiency appears to be significant

testing for convergence in carbon dioxide emissions using a century of panel data this paper tests the convergence in per capita carbon dioxide emissions for a collection of developed and developing countries using data spanning the period 1870 2002 for this purpose three recently developed panel unit root tests that permit for dependence among the individual countries are employed the results lend strong support in favor of convergence for the panel as a whole estimates of the speed of this convergence is also provided

energy consumption and economic growth in central america evidence from a panel cointegration and error correction model abstract this study examines the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth for six central american countries over the period 1980 2004 within a multivariate framework given the relatively short span of the time series data a panel cointegration and error correction model is employed to infer the causal relationship based on the heterogeneous panel cointegration test by pedroni pedroni p 1999 critical values for cointegration tests in heterogeneous panels with multiple regressors oxford bulletin of economics and statistics 61 653 670 pedroni p 2004 panel cointegration asymptotic and finite sample properties of pooled time series tests with an application to the ppp hypothesis new results econometric theory 20 597 627 cointegration is present between real gdp energy consumption the labor force and real gross fixed capital formation with the respective coefficients positive and statistically significant the granger causality results indicate the presence of both short run and long run causality from energy consumption to economic growth which supports the growth hypothesis

public policies pressure groups and dead weight costs abstract this paper presents a model of competition among special interest groups for political influence each active group exerts pressure to affect its taxes and subsidies where activities of different groups are related by the equality between total tax collections and total tax subsidies the dead weight costs and benefits of taxes and subsidies play a major role in our model an increase in the dead weight cost of taxation encourages pressure by taxpayers while an increase in the dead weight costs of subsidies discourages pressure by recipients various applications of the analysis are discussed