market based biogas sector development in least developed countries the case of cambodia in many of the least developed countries the energy security conundrum is how to provide affordable safe and clean energy to a low income rural population household level generation of biogas from animal waste for both cooking and lighting while producing high quality organic fertiliser is increasingly proposed as a viable part of the solution for farming households since the early 1990s international development organisations often in cooperation with the national government have attempted to introduce biogas technologies in many least developed countries but most initiatives failed in this landscape of failed biogas development programmes the national biodigester programme nbp cambodia started in 2006 with the aim to establish a permanent market oriented and self financed biogas sector the results show the development of a sustainable domestic biodigester sector a rapid diffusion of biodigesters among poor rural households but still ambivalences on financial independency from external funding and carbon finance the conclusion is that a pure market model for biogas development in the rural area of the least developed countries will not easily work governmental regulation and coordination will remain needed and carbon finance will not easily fully replace oda and governmental financial support

the value of cooperatives in rural electrification the electricity sectors of many developing countries underwent substantial reforms during the 1980s and 1990s driven by global agendas of privatization and liberalization however rural electrification offered little by way of market incentives for profit seeking private companies and was often neglected as a consequence delivery models for rural electrification need to change this paper will review the experiences of various rural electrification delivery models that have been established in developing countries including concessionary models dealership approaches and the strengthening of small and medium sized energy businesses it will use examples from the usa bangladesh and nepal together with a detailed case study of a nepali rural electric cooperative to explore the role that local cooperatives can play in extending electricity access it is shown that although there is no magic bullet solution to deliver rural electrification if offered appropriate financial and institutional support socially orientated cooperative businesses can be a willing efficient and effective means of extending and managing rural electricity services it is expected that this paper will be of particular value to policy makers donors project planners and implementers currently working in the field of rural electrification

biogas energy from family sized digesters in uganda critical factors and policy implications dependence on fossil energy sources is increasingly becoming unsustainable due to ecological and environmental problems and rapid depletion biogas energy could augment these conventional energy sources but despite its advantages and favourable conditions for its production biogas energy use in uganda remains low due to technical economic and socio cultural impediments based on primary data on households in central and eastern uganda and the use of logistic regression this study analyses factors affecting the adoption of biogas energy in uganda the empirical results suggest that the probability of a household adopting biogas technology increases with decreasing age of head of household increasing household income increasing number of cattle owned increasing household size male head of household and increasing cost of traditional fuels in contrast the likelihood of adoption decreases with increasing remoteness of household location and increasing household land area policy options and recommendations including educational and awareness campaigns on biogas benefits and successes the provision of financial and non financial incentives to households and establishment of an institutional framework could bolster wider biogas energy acceptance in uganda

who pays the bar tab beer consumption and economic growth in the united states what drug provides americans with the greatest pleasure and the greatest pain the answer hands down is alcohol the pain comes not only from drunk driving and lost lives but also addiction family strife crime violence poor health and squandered human potential young and old drinkers and abstainers alike all are affected every american is paying for alcohol abuse phillip j cook paying the tab the costs and benefits of alcohol control 2007 i introduction alcohol consumption has severe social and economic consequences lost productivity disability early death crime family neglect personality deterioration to name a few cook 2007 at the individual level the effects of alcohol consumption have been explored considerably by researchers in different fields including economics medicine public health criminology and sociology however few studies have examined the economic impact of alcohol use at the aggregate level probably due to the research deficiency regarding its aggregate effects some disagreement exists about the overall net benefits of alcohol use on the one hand scholars who have done extensive research on individual outcomes claim that the overall costs of alcohol use outweigh its benefits for example cook and moore 2002 120 state in their review article the production and sale of alcoholic beverages account for a small share of national product in the united states and in other advanced economies however the deleterious effects of alcohol consumption on health and safety constitute a substantial economic burden reducing our overall standard of living on the other hand organizations formed by the producers and distributors of alcoholic beverages claim that the alcoholic beverage industry contributes significantly to the u s economy through job creation and tax revenues according to beer serves america 2011 an organization sponsored by the beer institute and the national beer wholesalers association nbwa directly and indirectly the beer industry employs approximately 1 8 million americans paying them over 71 billion in wages and benefits the industry pays over 44 billion in business personal and consumption taxes including 5 3 billion in excise taxes and 5 8 billion in sales gross receipts and other taxes 1 similarly the distilled spirits council of the united states discus 1999 the national trade association representing america s leading distillers and about 70 of all distilled spirits brands sold in the united states states that the alcohol beverage industry is a major contributor to the u s economy through job creation wages and taxes 2 room and jernigan 2000 point out that the benefits reaped from the alcohol industry in terms of economic development should be weighed against the negative impacts on economic development in addition to public health they go on to say that alcohol s contribution to total production can vary tremendously from country to country generating 3 of total manufacturing value added in argentina or the netherlands but as little as 0 07 in iran aside from the aforementioned contributions of the alcohol industry to the economy often cited by the industry itself supply side efforts also play a role in the consumption of alcohol this can be done through influencing government regulation of the market for alcohol and selling cheap alcohol in bulk which has a devastating public health impact stockwell and crosbie 2001 indeed the economic burden of excessive alcohol consumption has been found to be substantial recently estimated at 223 5 billion bouchery et al 2011 although a few studies have examined the impact of macroeconomic conditions on drinking prevalence and patterns such as those by ruhm and black 2002 and ruhm 1995 we are not aware of any studies exploring the impact of alcohol consumption on economic growth

rural electrification in developing countries abstract rural electrification programmes take up significant proportions of energy investment expenditures in developing economies conventional economic criteria for judging investments are not always thought appropriate for rural electrification because of the largely non quantifiable benefits that are thought to ensue including its bias towards helping the poor its catalytic role in stimulating rural development its role in reducing the adverse consequences of rural urban migration and the enabling of improved literacy rates and its general contribution to political stability this paper looks at each of these benefits in turn and asks what evidence there is to substantiate them the paper argues that conventional rate of return criteria should play a stronger role in determining rural electrification expenditures and that some of the non monetary benefits appear neither to be widespread nor as strong as supporters of rural electricity suggest while rural electrification is nonetheless important in the development process it is more usefully integrated into wider rural energy development schemes

rural electricity in the philippines planning issues abstract the government of the philippines is committed to reducing the country s dependence on imported oil an element in its plan to accomplish this goal is the generation of electricity using indigenous energy sources wood biomass hydro geothermal and coal wood fired generation in the philippines has drawn worldwide attention from other developing countries interested in embarking on similar programmes this investigation reveals the difficulties inherent in implementing such a programme primary concerns include the institutional issues in the generation and distribution of power by the national power corporation npc the national electrification administration nea the rural electric cooperatives recs and the tree farmer associations tfas the influence of demand patterns on the financial viability of rural electric cooperatives and the influence of low load factors small size and remote locations on the cost of dendro thermal power plants the conclusions s should be of interest to other countries interested in pursuing similar programmes

modern energy access to all in rural india an integrated implementation strategy abstract expanding energy access to the rural population of india presents a critical challenge for its government the presence of 364 million people without access to electricity and 726 million who rely on biomass for cooking indicate both the failure of past policies and programs and the need for a radical redesign of the current system we propose an integrated implementation framework with recommendations for adopting business principles with innovative institutional regulatory financing and delivery mechanisms the framework entails establishment of rural energy access authorities and energy access funds both at the national and regional levels to be empowered with enabling regulatory policies capital resources and the support of multi stakeholder partnership these institutions are expected to design lead manage and monitor the rural energy interventions at the other end trained entrepreneurs would be expected to establish bioenergy based micro enterprises that will produce and distribute energy carriers to rural households at an affordable cost the escos will function as intermediaries between these enterprises and the international carbon market both in aggregating carbon credits and in trading them under cdm if implemented such a program could address the challenges of rural energy empowerment by creating access to modern energy carriers and climate change mitigation

consequences of participant inattention with an application to carbon taxes for meat products despite widespread use in nonmarket valuation data quality remains an ongoing challenge for survey methods one key concern is whether participants attentively respond to survey questions or whether they exert less than full effort to determine the prevalence and consequences of inattention bias in surveys we estimate how meat demand varies across people who do and do not miss trap questions using a split sample design with discrete choice experiments for meat products we explore three different trap questions to determine how many potentially inattentive respondents are identified by each method we find that individuals who miss trap questions respond differently to the choice experiment than individuals who correctly answer the trap question inattention generates vastly different compensating variation estimates of a carbon tax ranging from 3 56 cents per meal choice for the least attentive to 6 13 cents per meal choice for the most attentive

inferred vs stated attribute non attendance in choice experiments a study of doctors prescription behaviour abstract it is increasingly recognised that respondents to choice experiments employ heuristics such as attribute non attendance ana to simplify the choice tasks this paper develops an econometric model which incorporates preference heterogeneity among respondents and allows the probability of non attendance to depend on the respondents stated non attendance we find evidence that stated ana is a useful indicator of the prevalence of non attendance in the data contrary to previous papers in the literature we find that estimates of marginal rates of substitution derived from models which account for ana are similar to the standard logit estimates

are choice experiments incentive compatible a test with quality differentiated beef steaks this study compares hypothetical and nonhypothetical responses to choice experiment questions we test for hypothetical bias in a choice experiment involving beef ribeye steaks with differing quality attributes in general hypothetical responses predicted higher probabilities of purchasing beef steaks than nonhypothetical responses thus hypothetical choices overestimate total willingness to pay for beef steaks however marginal willingness to pay for a change in steak quality is in general not statistically different across hypothetical and actual payment settings

are the energy poor also income poor evidence from india abstract the energy poverty line is defined as the threshold point at which energy consumption begins to rise with increases in household income this approach is applied to cross sectional data from a comprehensive 2005 household survey representative of both urban and rural india the objective is to determine if the energy poor are also income poor and whether and how energy policies help reduce energy poverty independent of income the findings suggest that in rural areas some 57 of households are energy poor versus 22 that are income poor but in urban areas the energy poverty rate is 28 compared to 20 that are income poor that is energy policies are expected to play some roles in mitigating energy poverty we find that reducing energy poverty requires not only support for rural electrification but also more use of modern cooking fuels such as lpg while income growth matters a combination of energy related programs can play an independent and substantial role in reducing energy poverty

drivers barriers and strategies for implementation of renewable energy technologies in rural areas in bangladesh an innovation system analysis abstract bangladesh has good potential for harnessing renewable energy sources such as solar biomass wind and mini hydropower the country has been experiencing a gradual shift towards exploring renewable energy resources as a driving force for rural development a few public sector and non government organizations have started to develop renewable energy technology ret projects in rural areas the lessons learnt from different demonstrations of ret projects reveal that with careful forward planning renewable energy can provide far reaching economic environmental and social benefits to people living in remote rural areas in bangladesh this paper identifies some of the barriers that need to be overcome for the successful development of renewable energy technology sector and betterment of rural livelihoods it does so through a critical review of policy and institutional settings as well as present status and lessons learnt from pilot demonstration of a number of ret projects undertaken by different organizations the study highlights policy implications of the review with the aim of supporting decision makers in formulating renewable energy policies and future plans for bangladesh

the development of renewable energy power in india which policies have been effective abstract the international energy agency has identified the development of renewable energy sources as a key element to mitigate climate change at the same time it has projected india to be the second largest contributor to the increase in global energy demand to 2035 india hence faces a significant challenge to ensure its energy security by diversifying its power generation mix in the wake of the creation of a green climate fund in cancun this paper studies empirically the effect of the introduction of the electricity act 2003 and the tariff policy 2006 as well as the implementation of feed in tariffs and minimum quotas on clean electricity sourcing on the development of grid connected renewable energy power in nine indian states over the period 2001 2009 results suggest that the passing of the tariff policy 2006 state level policies quantity based instruments and a greater participation of the private sector have played a key role in promoting the development of installed capacity from renewable energy power in the nine states of the sample

off grid electricity interventions for cleaner livelihoods a case study of value chain development in dhenkanal district of odisha lack of access to electricity in rural areas hinders productive activities which in turn affects sustainable rural development off grid electrification options can offer an alternative but in order to develop productive uses of electricity in off grid area a detailed study of livelihoods and potential areas for improvement in the value chain is required this paper reports such a study where a livelihood baseline survey was undertaken in a cluster of five remote off grid villages in dhenkanal district of odisha india and through a series of interviews focused group meetings and stakeholder interactions the study finds that value added services can be developed through an off grid electrification intervention electrification can support productive activities thereby offering an opportunity for improved income generation and a better quality of life and a transition to cleaner energy sources the study provides a novel value chain framework for linking off grid projects with local livelihoods replicable across multiple geographies ensuring sustainability of these projects

household cooking fuels and technologies in developing economies abstract a major energy challenge of the 21 st century is the health and welfare of 2 7 billion people worldwide who currently rely on burning biomass in traditional household cooking systems this special issue on clean cooking fuels and technologies in developing economies builds upon an iaee workshop on this subject held in istanbul in 2008 foell et al 2008 it includes several papers from that workshop plus papers commissioned afterwards the major themes of that workshop and this special issue are analytical and decision frameworks for analysis and policy development for clean cooking fuels making energy provisioning a central component of development strategies strategies business models of suppliers of modern fuels and technologies analysis of successes failures of past policies and programs to improve access to clean cooking this introductory paper serves as a preamble to the 11 papers in this special issue it provides a brief background on household cooking fuels and technologies including 1 their implications for sustainable development health and welfare gender impacts and environment climate issues 2 options and scenarios for improved household cooling systems and 3 discussions of institutions programs and markets it closes with research and action agendas initially developed during the 2008 workshop

a discrete choice model with endogenous attribute attendance abstract this paper develops a discrete choice model in which the decision to consider an attribute in the choice process is modelled endogenously in an application to patients choice of general practitioner it is found that the proposed model outperforms the standard logit model in terms of goodness of fit and produces substantially different estimates of willingness to pay

how closely do hypothetical surveys and laboratory experiments predict field behavior we compare the ability of three preference elicitation methods hypothetical choices nonhypothetical choices and nonhypothetical rankings and three discrete choice econometric models the multinomial logit mnl the independent availability logit ial and the random parameter logit rpl to predict actual retail shopping behavior in three different product categories ground beef wheat flour and dishwashing liquid overall we find a high level of external validity our specific results suggest that the nonhypothetical elicitation approaches especially the nonhypothetical ranking method outperformed the hypothetical choice experiment in predicting retail sales we also find that the rpl can have superior predictive performance but that the mnl predicts equally well in some circumstances experiment

stated and revealed preferences for organic and cloned milk combining choice experiment and scanner data the u s food and drug administration s recent announcement that milk from cloned cows is as safe to drink as that from conventionally bred cows prompted interest among farmers food retailers and regulators in the market impacts of the introduction of milk from clones because milk from cloned animals is not currently labeled in the market we utilized a stated preference experiment to determine consumer preferences for the attribute but also sought to determine whether the survey based choices were consistent with people s revealed preferences given by scanner data our analysis indicates that a pooled model combining stated and revealed preference data exhibits overall better out of sample prediction performance than either data set used alone results from the pooled model indicate that consumers are willing to pay large premiums to avoid milk from cloned cows an amount that is over three times that for organic or rbst free milk the results are used to calculate the value of a mandatory labeling program

do hypothetical and actual marginal willingness to pay differ in choice experiments application to the valuation of the environment abstract in this paper we test the validity of choice experiments with donations for environmental projects in particular we test whether or not there are differences in preferences between a hypothetical and an actual choice experiment our experiments indicate no differences in addition internal tests of validity indicate transitive and stable preferences in both experiments although there are some indications of possible learning effects during the experiment

advertising content when brand choice is a signal this article gives a formal rationale for image advertising and branding of homogeneous products that are consumed in public the idea is that consumers can use brand choice to coordinate behavior and send meaningful social signals the article distinguishes between variety signals and quality signals and analyzes the competitive implications copyright 1990 by the university of chicago

price stickiness empirical evidence of the menu cost channel abstract a leading explanation in the economic literature is that monetary policy has real effects on the economy because firms incur a cost when changing prices using a unique database of cost and retail price changes we find that variation in menu costs results in up to 13 3 fewer price increases we confirm that these effects are allocative and have a persistent impact on both prices and unit sales we provide evidence that the menu cost channel operates only when cost increases are small in magnitude which is consistent with theory and provides the first empirical evidence of boundary conditions

analysis of the energy access improvement and its socio economic impacts in rural areas of developing countries abstract access to modern energy is one of the most basic requirements for development in rural areas of developing countries there are a large number of people who do not have access to lpg and depend on traditional biomass such as wood crop and dung for cooking in addition energy has numerous and complex links with poverty reduction therefore it is important to estimate the impacts of energy access improvement on socio economic situation in the rural areas of developing countries quantitatively this study focuses on socio economic impacts of cooking demand through changes in stoves adopted by the rural households we have developed an energy economic model of rural areas in india to analyze the links between energy income and health hazard applying both opportunity cost for using fuelwood and exposure to resipirable suspended particulate matter rspm as a result of the analysis there is a positive relation between the opportunity cost and the average rspm exposure of women in the rural areas following to increase in the opportunity cost that is income the cost of an improved wood stove becomes relatively lower first than that of a traditional wood stove and then a gas stove attains price competitiveness it is achieved that the average rspm exposure is below the who and japanese criteria for suspended particulate matter spm 190 and 100 g m3 at the opportunity cost of us 9 and 15 gj respectively

community based electric micro grids can contribute to rural development evidence from kenya summary in this paper we clarify the mechanisms through which rural electrification can contribute to rural development through a detailed case study analysis of a community based electric micro grid in rural kenya we demonstrate that access to electricity enables the use of electric equipment and tools by small and micro enterprises resulting in significant improvement in productivity per worker 100 200 depending on the task at hand and in a corresponding growth in income levels in the order of 20 70 depending on the product made access to electricity simultaneously enables and improves the delivery of social and business services from a wide range of village level infrastructure e g schools markets and water pumps while improving the productivity of agricultural activities we find that increased productivity and growth in revenues within the context of better delivery of social and business support services contribute to achieving higher social and economic benefits for rural communities we also demonstrate that when local electricity users have an ability to charge and enforce cost reflective tariffs and when electricity consumption is closely linked to productive uses that generate incomes cost recovery is feasible 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

prospects for expanded utilization of biogas in germany the prospects for expanded utilization of biogas systems in german was analysed by identifying the operational and policy factors affecting the complete chain of processes from implementation process for biogas plants through to biogas production and utilization it was found that the renewable energies act eeg and energy tax reliefs provide bases for the support of expanded utilization upgrading of biogas to natural gas quality for utilization in the transportation sector was arguably the most promising technology that could support rapid utilization expansion sustainable deployment of biogas systems in light of the unstable feedstock prices and availability and the need for subsidy free operation in the long term requires enhancement of feedstock flexibility and quality characteristics to maximise gas yield and optimisation of the anaerobic digestion process management assessment of energy balance and potential environmental impacts of the integrated process chain provides a holistic assessment of sustainability the results also support the development and foster of policies and framework for development of biogas as environmentally friendly energy resource among a mix of renewable energy sources hence compete favourably with fossil fuels to enhance the prospects for expanded utilization

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

releasing the trap a method to reduce inattention bias in survey data with application to u s beer taxes this study uses discrete choice experiments to explore the efficacy of prompts targeted at reducing inattention bias upon receiving feedback inattentive respondents are given the opportunity to reanswer a so called trap question that checks for attentiveness we find that individuals who miss trap questions and do not correctly revise their responses have significantly different choice patterns as compared to individuals who correctly answer the trap question adjusting for these inattentive responses has a substantive impact on policy impacts results based on attentive participant responses indicate that a minimum beer price would have to be substantial to substantially reduce beer demand jel c83 q18 q51

design innovation and fashion cycles a model of fashion cycles is developed in which designs are used as a signaling device in a dating game a monopolist periodically creates a new design over time the price of the design falls as it spreads across the population once sufficiently many consumers own the design it is profitable to create a new design and thereby render the old design obsolete this paper gives conditions under which all consumers would be better off by banning the use of fashion competition among designers may lead to less frequent changes in fashion and to higher prices than monopoly copyright 1995 by american economic association

the sound of silence observational learning in the u s kidney market mere observation of others choices can be informative about product quality this paper develops an individual level dynamic model of observational learning and applies it to a novel data set from the u s kidney market where transplant candidates on a waiting list sequentially decide whether to accept a kidney offer we find strong evidence of observational learning patients draw negative quality inferences from earlier refusals in the queue thus becoming more inclined towards refusal themselves this self reinforcing chain of inferences leads to poor kidney utilization despite the continual shortage in kidney supply counterfactual policy simulations show that patients would have made more efficient use of kidneys had the concerns behind earlier refusals been shared this study yields a set of marketing implications in particular we show that observational learning and information sharing shape consumer choices in markedly different ways optimal marketing strategies should take into account how consumers learn from others

global policy of rural electrification energy poverty and lack of electricity in the rural area exacerbate the poverty of the developing countries the sustainable renewable technologies can be considered as efficient tools to reduce energy poverty whenever they are conducted based on an appropriate policy electricity can improve the human s lifestyle by increasing the level of health education welfare and technology currently sub sahara africa with only 14 2 of rural electrification has the first rank in the world with lowest access to electricity in that region around 585 million citizens has almost no access to electricity the present study focuses on the general global policies to electrify the rural areas in this regard variety of plans and programs conducted by governmental and private institutes are investigated in the year 2011 the international energy agency iea has developed three global strategies based on the world energy market that defines the overall world energy approach in the present work different technologies for rural electrification are taken into account in two major categories of grid connected and off grid systems furthermore based on sustainable development with emphasis on environmental consideration the feasibility of electrification by using different types of renewable energies such as solar biomass hydro wind and wave have been studied despite reliability of grid connection results indicate that renewable energy sources are the best choice especially in areas far from grid connections challenges between financial institutes and executive agencies result in resource management and technology development in order to overcome existing barriers and issues

rural electrification and energy poverty empirical evidences from brazil the aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on the reduction of energy poverty in brazil through the analysis of 23 000 rural domiciles or rural properties between the years 2000 and 2004 the results indicate a fast change in the profile of energy consumption and a reduction of energy poverty this new approach works as a complement among other variables to analyze and quantify the real economic social and energy impacts in rural electrification programs generally applied in developing countries

effects of cheap talk on consumer willingness to pay for golden rice a large body of literature suggests willingness to pay is overstated in hypothetical valuation questions as compared to when actual payment is required recently cheap talk has been proposed to eliminate the potential bias in hypothetical valuation questions cheap talk refers to process of explaining hypothetical bias to individuals prior to asking a valuation question this study explores the effect of cheap talk in a mass mail survey using a conventional value elicitation technique results indicate that cheap talk was effective at reducing willingness to pay for most survey participants however consistent with previous research cheap talk did not reduce willingness to pay for knowledgeable consumers

the environmental paradox in generation how south america is gradually becoming more dependent on thermal generation there has been an increasing focus on global warming emission of green house gases ghg and the problems this might create in this article we review the trend in sustainable and renewable electricity generation in south america where the generation portfolio increasingly depends on thermal generation in particular gas south america is a region that has relatively low emissions but the current development is not desirable in environmental terms we analyze the underlying reasons for this development which is related to security of supply deregulation and the cost of renewable energy we review and discuss the policies to promote renewables in the region we analyze the potential advantages and drawbacks of different types of market interventions such as direct subsidies that create potentially strong market distortions more sophisticated market interventions that might be less intrusive but not necessarily as effective as e g firm energy markets we also review market based solutions such as the clean market mechanism and its potential and the use of renewable electricity in non interconnected zones which might be one of the most economically attractive applications of renewables however without a stronger and more aggressive intervention from the governments in the region it is unlikely that the increase in thermal generation can be stopped

optimal product line design when consumers exhibit choice set dependent preferences in a market of consumers with varying willingness to pay using product line as a discrimination tool may extract higher profits than serving all consumers with a single product local context effects however point to yet another consideration in designing product lines how the appeal of a product changes with the context provided by other products in the choice set i present a model of product line design that incorporates both discrimination and context management goals and offers recommendations for the variety and positioning of products to this end the model makes use of a framework that allows preferences to be choice set dependent given this framework i study how the firm manages externalities between products created by such dependencies the firm creates distortions above and beyond those resulting from discrimination motives alone for example in a vertically differentiated market for quality quality distortions exist even for the consumers with the highest valuations the range of quality provisions given the number of products is compressed as the relative importance of unfavorable comparisons among products increases surprisingly this compression may even lead the firm to forego discrimination among consumers regardless of the cost of offering distinct products

the implementation of decentralised biogas plants in assam ne india the impact and effectiveness of the national biogas and manure management programme abstract the indian government s national biogas and manure management programme nbmmp seeks to deliver renewable energy services to households across the country by facilitating the deployment of family sized 3 anaerobic biogas digesters nbmmp policy is implemented at three levels from government and state nodal agency via private contractors to households creating multiple institutional arrangements we analysed the scheme in assam north east india focusing on how policy was implemented across two districts and interviewing stakeholders in rural households state and non state institutions the top down supply side approach to policy enables government to set targets and require individual states to deploy the scheme which benefits households who can afford to participate nbmmp delivered improved energy service outcomes to a majority of households although the level of knowledge and understanding of the technology amongst users was limited training and education of householders and particularly women is needed in relation to the maintenance of digesters feedstock suitability and the environmental and potential livelihood benefits of digestate a revised bottom up approach to policy which highlights the contextual and demand side issues around adopting the technology may deliver monetary benefits from market competition and enable development of community focused microfinance schemes to improve the affordability of biogas systems

the red and the black mental accounting of savings and debt in the standard economic account of consumer behavior the cost of a purchase takes the form of a reduction in future utility when expenditures that otherwise could have been made are forgone the reality of consumer hedonics is different when people make purchases they often experience an immediate pain of paying which can undermine the pleasure derived from consumption the ticking of the taxi meter for example reduces one s pleasure from the ride we propose a double entry mental accounting theory that describes the nature of these reciprocal interactions between the pleasure of consumption and the pain of paying and draws out their implications for consumer behavior and hedonics a central assumption of the model which we call prospective accounting is that consumption that has already been paid for can be enjoyed as if it were free and that the pain associated with payments made prior to consumption but not after is buffered by thoughts of the benefits that the payments will finance another important concept is coupling which refers to the degree to which consumption calls to mind thoughts of payment and vice versa some financing methods such as credit cards tend to weaken coupling whereas others such as cash payment produce tight coupling our model makes a variety of predictions that are at variance with economic formulations contrary to the standard prediction that people will finance purchases to minimize the present value of payments our model predicts strong debt aversion that they should prefer to prepay for consumption or to get paid for work after it is performed such pay before sequences confer hedonic benefits because consumption can be enjoyed without thinking about the need to pay for it in the future likewise when paying beforehand the pain of paying is mitigated by thoughts of future consumption benefits contrary to the economic prediction that consumers should prefer to pay at the margin for what they consume our model predicts that consumers will find it less painful to pay for and hence will prefer flat rate pricing schemes such as unlimited internet access at a fixed monthly price even if it involves paying more for the same usage other predictions concern spending patterns with cash charge or credit cards and preferences for the earmarking of purchases we test these predictions in a series of surveys and in a conjoint like analysis that pitted our double entry mental accounting model against a standard discounting formulation and another benchmark that did not incorporate hedonic interactions between consumption and payments our model provides a better fit of the data for 60 of the subjects the discounting formulation provides a better fit for only 29 of the subjects even when allowing for positive and negative discount rates the pain of paying we argue plays an important role in consumer self regulation but is hedonically costly from a hedonic perspective the ideal situation is one in which payments are tightly coupled to consumption so that paying evokes thoughts about the benefits being financed but consumption is decoupled from payments so that consumption does not evoke thoughts about payment from an efficiency perspective however it is important for consumers to be aware of what they are paying for consumption this creates a tension between hedonic efficiency and what we call decision efficiency various institutional arrangements such as financing of public parks through taxes or usage fees play into this tradeoff a producer developing a pricing structure for their product or service should be aware of these two conflicting objectives and should try to devise a structure that reconciles them

financing energy access and off grid electrification a review of status options and challenges abstract this paper provides a review of funding needs and financing mechanisms for energy access in general and off grid electrification in particular to find whether the funding for these activities has been adequate whether sufficient funding is likely to be available to meet the needs of universal energy access whether innovative approaches can be used in funding it finds that in all successful cases the state has played an important role in funding infrastructure investments but many developing countries have neglected the energy access issue for a long time international donor agencies have provided selective and limited support while the innovative mechanisms are also unfriendly towards small scale projects weak governance limited organisational capacity and unfavourable policy environment militate against large scale mobilisation of financial resources in the poorest countries of the world where energy access is a chronic problem the challenge of mobilising finance and ensuring its appropriate delivery and use remains a major issue and would require a co ordinated effort of all relevant stakeholders

preference elicitation under oath eliciting sincere preferences for non market goods remain a challenge due to the discrepency between hypothetical and real behavior and false zeros the gap arises because people either overstate hypothetical values or understate real commitments or a combination of both herein we examine whether the traditional real world institution of the solemn oath can improve preference elicitation applying the social psychology theory on the oath as a truth telling commitment device we ask our bidders to swear on their honour to give honest answers prior to participating in an incentive compatible second price auction the oath is an ancillary mechanism to commit bidders to bid sincerely in a second price auction results from our induced valuation testbed treatments suggest that the oath only auctions outperform all our other auctions real and hypothetical in our homegrown valuation treatments eliciting preferences for dolphin protection the oath only design induced people to treat as binding both their experimental budget constraint i e lower values on the high end of the value distribution and participation constraint i e positive values in place of the zero bids used to opt out of auction based on companion treatments we show the oath works through an increase in the willingness to tell the truth due to a strengthening of the intrinsic motivation to do so

rural electrification under liberal reforms the case of peru abstract liberal reform programmes in developing countries were not designed with the need to extend electricity supplies to rural areas this paper focuses on the peruvian experience examining the impact of electricity reform policies on the characteristics of rural electrification in rural areas electrification levels have traditionally been the lowest in the country making them less or non profitable for private firms only in 2002 did the government introduce a specific rural electrification law which was intended to promote electrification within the context of a liberalised market this paper draws upon an analysis of both this piece of legislation and stakeholder interviews indicating that there exists a need to look further into the evolving relationship between the private and public sectors and how it affects the rural poor this study forms part of the resurl international research project on renewable energy for sustainable rural livelihoods in developing countries funded by the uk government s department for international development dfid

cleaner production towards a sustainable transition abstract this special volume of the journal of cleaner production was built principally upon articles submitted for the 5th international workshop advances in cleaner production held in sao paulo brazil in 2015 the 43 articles emphasize the imperative need for shifting from unsustainable production and societal patterns to sustainable ones they provide many new technological and or management related approaches to help industries governments and society to speed up the transition to sustainable patterns efforts on defining and solving problems with the special accent upon a sustainable solution for the use of raw materials and energy technological advances product and policy changes are presented and deeply discussed improved corporate management for sustainable societal transitions is discussed highlighting consumer empowerment in sponsoring implementation of innovative cleaner technologies within companies industrial sectors supply chains and countries multiple examples are provided relating the successful combination of cleaner production in policy structures illustrating on how the focused work in production sectors is delivering multiplier benefits and creating conditions to facilitate a leapfrogged path toward sd

research note price discrimination as an adverse signal why an offer to spread payments may hurt demand firms often search enthusiastically for distinguishing traits that they may use to price discriminate between segments yet there are occasions in which firms forgo the opportunity to price discriminate and instead charge a single price traditional explanations for why retailers forgo the opportunity to price discriminate focus on the cost of discriminating including operational costs explicit discrimination costs and implicit discrimination costs in this paper we identify an additional reason for why firms may forgo an opportunity to price discriminate by revealing that a product is being sold to a broad range of segments a retailer implicitly claims that the product is suitable for each segment however claiming that a premium quality product is suitable for price sensitive consumers undermines the credibility of a retailer s quality claim the signaling explanation was motivated by extensive discussions over more than a year with a major catalog retailer that sells premium quality jewelry and gifts discussions with managers revealed that they were reluctant to use any price discrimination mechanism that signals their products are targeted at price sensitive customers for example the catalog does not include sale or clearance sections and does not target more price sensitive customers by using separate items however management was under some pressure to consider installment billing offers which allow customers to pay over a series of periods rather than in a lump sum management feared that offering installment billing may adversely affect customers quality perceptions and demand to investigate this issue we develop a general game the oretic model illustrate how the model extends to installment billing and conduct a large scale field test the general model illustrates how selling to multiple segments may lead to an adverse quality signal we illustrate how the model extends to installment billing offers in a direct mail catalog installment billing offers allow customers to spread the total payment over a series of payments all customers have the option of using installment billing and customers who use the plan receive an economic benefit an interest free loan we would normally expect this type of offer to increase demand or at a minimum leave demand unchanged however because installment billing offers target credit constrained customers we predicted that the introduction of installment billing would prompt an unfavorable quality inference and reduce demand among quality sensitive customers we empirically investigated this prediction in a large scale field test with a catalog that offers premium quality jewelry and gifts two versions of the catalog were created a test version that contained an installment billing offer and a control version in which installment billing was not offered importantly the prices in both the test version and control version were identical approximately 240 000 catalogs were mailed and customers were randomly assigned to either the test version or control version results show that the installment billing offer test version was associated with both a reduction in the number of orders received and a reduction in aggregate revenue offering installment billing resulted in approximately 15 000 in lost revenue the only plausible explanation for this counterintuitive finding appears to be the signaling theory to investigate the long term effects the catalog agreed to survey their customers to measure how an offer of installment billing affects their customers quality perceptions similar to the field test two versions of a catalog were created and customers were randomly mailed a catalog along with a short survey respondents were asked to browse through the catalog and return their responses in a replypaid envelope the findings are consistent with customer beliefs in the signaling model offering installment billing lowers the perceived quality of the items in the catalog the field test and survey findings were both statistically significant and managerially relevant together the results convinced the catalog not to include installment billing offers in future catalogs

access and affordability of electricity in developing countries summary a key objective of developing countries is to provide affordable access to modern energy services in order to support economic and social development the paper presents a number of arguments for why and in which way energy access and affordability can play a key role in national development programs and in achieving the millennium development goals approaches for measuring accessibility and affordability are presented drawing on case studies of bangladesh brazil and south africa countries with different rates of electrification affordability of using electricity is examined in relation to the energy expenditure burden for households and time consumption conclusions focus on lessons learned and recommendations for implementing policies instruments and regulatory measures to tackle the challenge of affordability

research and development aspects on decentralized electrification options for rural household abstract low income households living in the rural areas suffer from energy poverty and lack of human and economic development currently many governments of less developed countries are committed in improving access to electricity the same commitment should be adapted globally as part of human right because providing electricity access to low income households improves health and education generates income increases productivity reduces inequality and enhances the quality of life rural electrification is a complicated issue because of user affordability rural inaccessibility and remoteness low population densities and dispersed households low project profitability fiscal deficit scarcity of energy resources population growth lack of professionalism and over dependence on subsidies the demand for electrification cannot be accomplished because of the increasing gap between rural electrification rate and population growth therefore this review aims to study various decentralized household sized energy technologies available in rural areas such as battery diesel generator pedal generator pico hydro photovoltaic pv solar home system and wind preference for one of the options depends on energy source availability economic feasibility rural economic development disposal of residues nature of end user application and government programs and policies pico hydro is the preferred electricity generation source in most rural households followed by wind pv and diesel generators this paper concurs that households in rural areas will be able to afford for electricity access if the payment schedule of the electrification cost is extended and interest rates and taxes if any are dropped