nep-ene New Economics Papers
on Energy Economics
Issue of 2014‒03‒22
twenty-two papers chosen by
Roger Fouquet
London School of Economics

  1. The Impact of Carbon Trading on Industry: Evidence from German Manufacturing Firms By Sebastian Petrick; Ulrich J. Wagner
  2. The Role of Renewable Energy Consumption and Trade: Environmental Kuznets Curve Analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa Countries By Ben Jebli, Mehdi; Ben Youssef, Slim; Ozturk, Ilhan
  3. Power Trade, Welfare, and Air Quality By Abdurrahman Aydemir; Talat Genc
  4. Long-term mitigation strategies and marginal abatement cost curves : a case study on Brazil By Vogt-Schilb, Adrien; Hallegatte, Stephane; de Gouvello Christophe
  5. Time Series Analysis using Vector Auto Regressive (VAR) Model of Wind Speeds in Bangui Bay and Selected Weather Variables in Laoag City, Philippines By Orpia, Cherie; Mapa, Dennis S.; Orpia, Julius
  6. Optimal environmental border adjustments under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade By Edward J. Balistreri; Daniel T. Kaffine; Hidemichi Yonezawa
  7. Regional Differences in the Dynamic Linkage between CO2 Emissions, Sectoral Output and Economic Growth By Md. Al Mamun; Kazi Sohag; Md. Abdul Hannan Mia; Gazi Salah Uddin; Ilhan Ozturk
  8. A CGE Analysis on a Rate-based Policy for Climate Change Mitigation By Shinya Kato; Kenji Takeuchi
  9. Oil price shocks and global imbalances: Lessons from a model with trade and financial interdependencies By Jean-Pierre Allegret; Valérie Mignon; Audrey Sallenave
  10. Oil Price and Financial Markets: Multivariate Dynamic Frequency Analysis By Anna Creti; Zied Ftiti; Khaled Guesmi
  11. Prospects for Paris 2015: do major emitters want the same climate ? By BUCKLE, Simon; MUÛLS, Mirabelle; LEIB, Joerg; BRECHET, Thierry
  12. Market Power Indices and Wholesale Price Elasticity of Electricity Demand By Talat Genc
  13. Assessing the Income and Employment Effects of Shale Gas Extraction Windfalls: Evidence from the Marcellus Region By Dusan Paredes Araya; Timothy Komarek; Scott Loveridge
  14. Panel Data Parametric Frontier Technique for Measuring Total-factor Energy Efficiency: Application to Japanese Regions By Honma, Satoshi; Hu, Jin-Li
  15. Social Acceptance and Optimal Pollution: CCS or Tax? By Pierre-André Jouvet; Marie Renner
  16. Modeling of environmental adaptation versus pollution mitigation By YATSENKO, Yuri; HRITONENKO, Natali; BRECHET, Thierry
  17. How Do Electricity Shortages Affect Productivity? Evidence from India By Hunt Allcott; Allan Collard-Wexler; Stephen D. O'Connell
  18. The diffusion of electric vehicles: An agent-based microsimulation By McCoy, Daire; Lyons, Sean
  19. Environmental Quality and Economic Growth: A Panel Analysis of the "U" in Kuznets By F. Akpan, Usenobong; E. Abang, Dominic
  20. Resource rents, power, and political stability By Kjetil Bjorvatn; Mohammad Reza Farzanegan
  21. The State Independent from voters: Rent Revenue Incomes and the Resource Curse By Vladimir Mau; Ilia Zatcovecky; Konstantin Yanovskiy
  22. Smart city: fact and fiction By De Santis, Roberta; Fasano, Alessandra; Mignolli, Nadia; Villa, Anna

  1. By: Sebastian Petrick; Ulrich J. Wagner
    Abstract: We estimate the causal impact of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme on manufacturing firms using comprehensive panel data from the German production census. Semiparametric matching estimators yield robust evidence that the policy caused treated firms to abate onefifth of their CO2 emissions between 2007 and 2010 relative to non-treated firms. This reduction was achieved predominantly by improving energy efficiency and by curbing the consumption of natural gas and petroleum products, but not electricity use. We find no evidence that emissions trading lowered employment, turnover or exports of treated firms
    Keywords: carbon trading, EU Emissions
    JEL: Q56
    Date: 2014–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1912&r=ene
  2. By: Ben Jebli, Mehdi; Ben Youssef, Slim; Ozturk, Ilhan
    Abstract: Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, this paper uses panel cointegration techniques to investigate the short and the long-run relationship between CO2 emissions, economic growth, renewable energy consumption and trade openness for a panel of 24 Sub-Saharan Africa countries over the period 1980-2010. The validity of the EKC hypothesis has not been supported for these countries. Short-run Granger causality results reveal that there is a bidirectional causality between emissions and economic growth; bidirectional causality between emissions and real exports; unidirectional causality from real imports to emissions; and unidirectional causality runs from trade (exports or imports) to renewable energy consumption. There is an indirect short-run causality running from emissions to renewable energy and an indirect short-run causality from GDP to renewable energy. In the long-run, the error correction term is statistically significant for emissions, renewable energy consumption and trade openness. The long-run estimates suggest that real GDP per capita and real imports per capita both have a negative and statistically significant impact on per capita CO2 emissions. The impact of the square of real GDP per capita and real exports per capita are both positive and statistically significant on per capita CO2 emissions. For the model with imports, renewable energy consumption per capita has a positive impact on per capita emissions. One policy recommendation is that Sub-Saharan countries should expand their trade exchanges particularly with developed countries and try to maximize their benefit from technology transfer generated by such trade relations as this increases their renewable energy consumption.
    Keywords: Environmental Kuznets Curve; Renewable electricity consumption; International trade; Panel cointegration; Sub-Sahara.
    JEL: C33 F14 O55 Q43
    Date: 2014–03–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:54300&r=ene
  3. By: Abdurrahman Aydemir (College of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University); Talat Genc (Department of Economics and Finance, University of Guelph)
    Abstract: We use detailed data from all generators in the Ontario wholesale electricity market to investigate cross-border electricity trade and its impact on air emissions and welfare in Ontario. Using the technical characteristics of the generators and financial data we run a competition model every hour and find that the model generates actual prices and outputs with 94.4% and 96% accuracy, respectively. We show that there is a significant welfare gain from power trade. The air emissions savings are also considerable. For instance, when hourly imports double from current levels CO2 emissions decrease around 13%, and market prices reduce 5.4%. In autarky, CO2, SO2, NOx emissions increase 12%, 22%, 16%, resp., the prices go up 5.8%, and the price volatility rises 12%. However, the impact of negative wholesale prices on market outcomes is small.
    Keywords: Electricity trade; interconnected markets; air emissions; welfare
    JEL: F18 L13 L94
    Date: 2014
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gue:guelph:2014-01&r=ene
  4. By: Vogt-Schilb, Adrien; Hallegatte, Stephane; de Gouvello Christophe
    Abstract: Decision makers facing abatement targets need to decide which abatement measures to implement, and in which order. This paper investigates the ability of marginal abatement cost (MAC) curves to inform this decision, reanalysing a MAC curve developed by the World Bank on Brazil. Misinterpreting MAC curves and focusing on short-term targets (e.g., for 2020) would lead to under-invest in expensive, long-to-implement and large-potential options, such as clean transportation infrastructure. Meeting short-term targets with marginal energy-efficiency improvements would lead to carbon-intensive lock-ins that make longer-term targets (e.g., for 2030 and beyond) impossible or too expensive to reach. Improvements to existing MAC curves are proposed, based on (1) enhanced data collection and reporting; (2) a simple optimization tool that accounts for constraints on implementation speeds; and (3) new graphical representations of MAC curves. Designing climate mitigation policies can be done through a pragmatic combination of two approaches. The synergy approach is based on MAC curves to identify the cheapest mitigation options and maximize co-benefits. The urgency approach considers the long-term objective (e.g., halving emissions by 2050) and works backward to identify actions that need to be implemented early, such as public support to clean infrastructure and zero-carbon technologies.
    Keywords: Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases,Climate Change Economics,Energy Production and Transportation,Environment and Energy Efficiency,Energy and Environment
    Date: 2014–03–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6808&r=ene
  5. By: Orpia, Cherie; Mapa, Dennis S.; Orpia, Julius
    Abstract: Wind energy is the fastest growing renewable energy technology. Wind turbines do not produce any form of pollution and when strategically placed, it naturally blends with the natural landscape. In the long run, the cost of electricity using wind turbines is cheaper than conventional power plants since it doesn’t consume fossil fuel. Wind speed modelling and forecasting are important in the wind energy industry starting from the feasibility stage to actual operation. Forecasting wind speed is vital in the decision-making process related to wind turbine sizes, revenues, maintenance scheduling and actual operational control systems. This paper models and forecasts wind speeds of turbines in the Northwind Bangui Bay wind farm using the Vector Auto Regressive (VAR) model. The explanatory variables used are local wind speed (Laoag), humidity, temperature and pressure generated from the meteorological station in Laoag City. Wind speeds of turbines and other weather factors were found to be stationary using Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test. The use of VAR model, from daily time series data, reveals that wind speeds of the turbines can be explained by the past wind speed, the wind speed in Laoag, humidity, temperature and pressure. Results of the analysis, using the forecast error variance decomposition, show that wind speed in Laoag, temperature and humidity are important determinants of the wind speeds of the turbines.
    Keywords: Wind speed, Vector Auto Regressive (VAR) Model, Variance Decomposition
    JEL: C3 C5 Q5
    Date: 2014–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:54448&r=ene
  6. By: Edward J. Balistreri (Division of Economics and Business, Colorado School of Mines); Daniel T. Kaffine (Department of Economics, University of Colorado, at Boulder); Hidemichi Yonezawa (Institute of the Environment, University of Ottawa)
    Abstract: We consider the legal and economic context for border adjustments that might be used to augment subglobal carbon abatement. Following Markusen (1975) we establish optimal border policy in the presence of cross-border environmental damages. The optimal border policy includes a strategic component that is inconsistent with legal commitments under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Incorporating GATT compliance into the theory indicates an optimal border adjustment that taxes the carbon content of trade below the domestic carbon price. This theoretic finding is in contrast to the standard advice to impose the domestic carbon price on the carbon content of trade. The wedge between the domestic carbon price and the optimal environmental border adjustment occurs in general equilibrium because border adjustments inadvertently drive up consumption of emissions intensive goods in unregulated regions. We conclude our analysis with numeric simulations of Annex-I carbon policy. We find an optimal import tariff on the carbon content of aluminum that is on the order of 50\% of the domestic carbon price. Countries that impose border carbon adjustments at the domestic carbon price will be extracting rents from unregulated regions at the expense of efficient environmental policy and consistency with international law.
    Keywords: climate policy, border tax adjustments, carbon leakage, trade and carbon taxes
    JEL: F18 Q54 Q40 K33
    Date: 2014–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mns:wpaper:wp201403&r=ene
  7. By: Md. Al Mamun; Kazi Sohag; Md. Abdul Hannan Mia; Gazi Salah Uddin; Ilhan Ozturk
    Abstract: Environmental degradation measured by CO2 emissions is a significant challenge to sustainable economic development. Owing to significant differences in the empirical relationship between the economic growth and CO2 emissions and policies adopted by different countries to overcome the challenge are not decisive. This study aims to generalize our knowledge about the relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth across the world for 1980-2009 period. Besides, it explores whether the transformation of different economies (e.g. agrarian to industrial and industrial to sophisticated service economy) over the past few decades yielded any significant positive impact towards sustainable economic development by reducing the level of CO2 emission. Empirical results suggest (i) except for high-income-countries, Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is a general phenomenon across the world, and (ii) the transformation of different economies towards a service economy has produced more pollution in high income countries and less pollution in low and middle income countries.
    Keywords: CO2 emissions, Environmental Kuznets Curve, Sectoral output.
    JEL: C23 Q20 Q40 Q43 Q56
    Date: 2014–02–25
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipg:wpaper:2014-141&r=ene
  8. By: Shinya Kato (Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University); Kenji Takeuchi (Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University)
    Abstract: We conducted a computable general equilibrium analysis of a policy to regulate carbon dioxide emissions per unit of production in Japan. It is often claimed that regulations based on emission rates might lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions but do not suppress economic growth. This study shows that in the short run, a rate-based policy reduce firmsf emissions at a rate greater than that specified by the regulation. We also compared the rate-based policy with the cap-and-trade policy and found that the former leads to a greater reduction in the real GDP than the latter. Furthermore, the decrease in output is tend to be more evenly distributed under the rate-based policy than under with a cap-and-trade policy. Our results suggest that the rate-based policy is inferior in terms of efficiency but is favorable in terms of ensuring the burden of emission reduction is shared equally.
    Date: 2014–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:koe:wpaper:1414&r=ene
  9. By: Jean-Pierre Allegret; Valérie Mignon; Audrey Sallenave
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate oil price shocks' effects and their associated transmission channels on global imbalances. To this end, we rely on a Global VAR approach that allows us to account for trade and Financial interdependencies between countries. Considering a sample of 30 oil-exporting and importing economies over the 1980-2011 period, we show that the nature of the shock-demand-driven or supply-driven matters in understanding the effects of oil price shocks on global imbalances. In addition, we evidence that the main adjustment mechanism to oil shocks is based on the trade channel, the valuation channel being at play only on the short run..
    Keywords: oil prices, global imbalances, global VAR
    JEL: C32 F32 Q43
    Date: 2014
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2014-14&r=ene
  10. By: Anna Creti; Zied Ftiti; Khaled Guesmi
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to study the degree of interdependence between oil price and stock market index into two groups of countries: oil-importer countries and exporter ones. To this end, we propose a new empirical methodology allowing a time-varying dynamic correlation measure between the stock market index and the oil price series. We use the frequency approach proposed by Priestley and Tong (1973), that is the evolutionary cospectral analysis. This method allows us to distinguish between short-run and medium-run dependence. In order to complete our study by analyzing long-run dependence, we use the cointegration procedure developed by Engle and Granger (1987). We find that interdependence between the oil price and the stock market is higher in exporters’ markets than the importers’ ones.
    Keywords: oil prices, stock markets, evolutionary co-spectral analysis
    JEL: C14 C22 G12 G15 Q43
    Date: 2014–02–25
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipg:wpaper:2014-121&r=ene
  11. By: BUCKLE, Simon (Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London); MUÛLS, Mirabelle (Grantham Institute for Climate Change & Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London); LEIB, Joerg (Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London); BRECHET, Thierry (Université catholique de Louvain, CORE and Louvain School of Management, Belgium)
    Abstract: International negotiations have failed to achieve an ambitious outcome to limit climate risks. A Cournot outcome where countries determine their mitigation commitments in the full knowledge of those by others could be an important step. It would avoid a Stackelberg (leader-follower) outcome where one or more major emitters impose a level of climate risk on the rest of the world. This requires these countries to have sufficiently similar preferences over global cumulative emissions. We develop a novel stylised economic growth model to analyse the dynamics of international negotiations. Economies can be classified according to their committed emissions and the initial level of atmospheric CO2. We define a new metric, the desired mitigation effort, which provides an empirical methodology for comparing and evaluating countries’ mitigation commitments. A numerical calibration suggests a degree of convergence between the major emitters that might allow a Cournot-style agreement at the Paris Conference in 2015.
    Keywords: climate change, climate damages, economic growth, game theory, international climate negotiations, mitigation
    Date: 2014–03–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2014008&r=ene
  12. By: Talat Genc (Department of Economics and Finance, University of Guelph)
    Abstract: We investigate price responsiveness of wholesale electricity customers in the hourly Ontario wholesale electricity market. We use detailed generator and market level data to calculate market power measures such as the Lerner Index, Residual Supplier Index, and Pivotal Supplier Index which are combined with the competition model to structurally estimate price elasticity of demand in peak hours of summer and winter seasons. We find that the hourly price elasticities are small and change over the peak hours of seasons and years. For instance, in 2008 the elasticity estimates are in the interval of (0.019, 0.083). Comparing high demand winter hours to summer hours indicates that consumers’ price responsiveness is lower in summer than in winter. We also employ these indices along with the estimated price elasticities to project the likely impacts of interconnection capacity expansions on market prices. Our calibrations show that even small amount of transmission investments (and hence trade activities) can result in substantial market price reductions.
    Keywords: Price elasticity of demand; market power measures; electricity market
    JEL: D22 D24 L13 L94 Q41
    Date: 2014
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gue:guelph:2014-02&r=ene
  13. By: Dusan Paredes Araya (IDEAR - Department of Economics, Universidad Católica del Norte - Chile); Timothy Komarek; Scott Loveridge
    Abstract: New technologies combining hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in oil and gas extraction are creating a sudden expansion of production. Residents of places where deep underground oil and gas deposits are found want to know about the broader economic, social, and environmental impacts of these activities that generate windfall income for some residents. We first review the literature on windfall spending patterns. Then, using the Marcellus region, the earliest area to be tapped using the new techniques, we estimate county-level employment and income effects. For robustness, we employ two methods. Using a propensity score matching approach we find no effect of fracking on income or employment. A panel-fixed effects regression approach suggests statistically significant employment effects in six out of seven alternative specifications, but significant income effects in only one out of seven specifications. In short, the income spillover effects in the Marcellus region appear to be minimal, meaning there’s little incentive at the county level to incur current or potential future costs that may be associated with this activity. We conclude with some ideas on how localities might employ policies that would allow natural gas extraction to move forward, benefitting landowners, while establishing some financial safeguards for the broader community.
    Keywords: : Economic growth, Marcellus shale gas, resource extraction, propensity score matching, panel data, windfall.
    JEL: R11 Q33 Q32
    Date: 2014–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cat:dtecon:dt201403&r=ene
  14. By: Honma, Satoshi; Hu, Jin-Li
    Abstract: Using the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model, we estimate total-factor energy efficiency (TFEE) scores for 47 regions across Japan during 1996–2008. We extend the cross-sectional SFA model proposed by Zhou et al. (Applied Energy, 2012) to panel data models and add environmental variables. The results provide not only the TFEE scores, in which statistical noise is taken into account, but also the determinants of inefficiency. The three SFA TFEEs are compared with a TFEE derived from data envelopment analysis (DEA). The four TFEEs are highly correlated with one another. For the inefficiency estimates, the higher the manufacturing industry share and wholesale and retail trade share, the lower the TFEE score.
    Keywords: Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), Data envelopment analysis (DEA), Total-factor energy efficiency (TFEE), Panel data, Shephard distance functions
    JEL: D24 Q4 R15
    Date: 2014–03–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:54304&r=ene
  15. By: Pierre-André Jouvet; Marie Renner
    Abstract: The two main hurdles to a widespread carbon capture and storage (CCS) deployment are: cost and social acceptance issues. Assessing accurately social preferences is thus interesting to determine whether CCS is socially optimal. Unlike most academic papers that have a dichotomous approach and consider either the atmospheric pollution (first source of marginal disutility) or the underground pollution (second source), we consider the problem as a whole: CCS techniques introduce a third source of disutility due to the simultaneous presence of CO2 in the atmosphere and in geological formations. The model and the numerical simulations show that there exist some configurations of social preferences for which CCS grants a higher social welfare provided that public authorities tax the carbon content of fossil fuels and subsidize carbon storage. CCS can even increase simultaneously the social welfare of the country with CCS and the one of the country without. From the perspective of minimizing the decarbonizing costs, we compare the case where each country defines its climate policy and when they are aggregated, in order to assess the transfers required to encourage CCS deployment.
    Keywords: Carbon Capture and Storage; Pollution; Tax; Social acceptance; Social optimum
    Date: 2014
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cec:wpaper:1403&r=ene
  16. By: YATSENKO, Yuri (School of Business, Houston Baptist University); HRITONENKO, Natali (Department of Mathematics, Prairie View A&M University); BRECHET, Thierry (Université catholique de Louvain, CORE and Louvain School of Management, Belgium)
    Abstract: The paper combines analytic and numeric tools to investigate a nonlinear optimal control problem relevant to the economics of climate change. The problem describes optimal investments into pollution mitigation and environmental adaptation at a macroeconomic level. The steady-state analysis of this problem focuses on the optimal ratio between adaptation and mitigation. In particular, we analytically prove that the long- term investments into adaptation are profitable only for economies above certain efficiency threshold. Numerical simulation is provided to estimate how the economic efficiency and capital deterioration affect the optimal policy.
    Keywords: climate change, environmental adaptation, mitigation, optimal control, steady state analysis
    Date: 2014–03–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2014006&r=ene
  17. By: Hunt Allcott; Allan Collard-Wexler; Stephen D. O'Connell
    Abstract: Endemic blackouts are a particularly salient example of how poor infrastructure might reduce growth in developing economies. As a case study, we analyze how Indian textile plants respond to weekly “power holidays.” We then study how electricity shortages affect all Indian manufacturers, using an instrument based on hydroelectricity production and a hybrid Leontief/Cobb-Douglas production function model. Shortages reduce average output by about five percent, but because most inputs can be stored during outages, productivity losses are much smaller. Plants without generators have much larger losses, and because of economies of scale in generator capacity, shortages more severely affect small plants.
    JEL: D04 D24 L11 L94 O12 O13 Q41
    Date: 2014–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19977&r=ene
  18. By: McCoy, Daire; Lyons, Sean
    Abstract: We implement an agent-based, threshold model of innovation diffusion to simulate the adoption of electric vehicles among Irish households. We use detailed survey microdata to develop a nationally representative, heterogeneous agent population. We then calibrate our agent population to reflect the aggregate socioeconomic characteristics of a number of geographic areas of interest. Our data allow us to create agents with socioeconomic characteristics and environmental preferences. Agents are placed within social networks through which the diffusion process propagates. We find that even if overall adoption is relatively low, mild peer effects could result in large clusters of adopters forming in certain areas. This may put pressure on electricity distribution networks in these areas.
    Keywords: Electric vehicles; Agent-based modelling; Spatial microsimulation
    JEL: C63 D1 O33 R41
    Date: 2014–03–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:54560&r=ene
  19. By: F. Akpan, Usenobong; E. Abang, Dominic
    Abstract: The primary motivation behind this study was to search for evidence of the link between environmental quality and economic growth so as to answer the relevant question of whether economic growth alone could serve as a long-run solution to environmental damage as implied by EKC hypothesis. Here we analyze the relationship using a panel of 47 countries over the period 1970 -2008. Using Random-effect estimation and two-stage least square, our results leads to the following conclusions: relying on a quadratic model can easily mislead researchers to ratify the existence of EKC; the EKC hypothesis ceased to hold whenever an alternative functional form (cubic) is employed. At best, the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality is shown to be typified by an N-shaped curve. The paper maintained that simply waiting for an automatic arrival of a delinking point for environmental damage given long-run growth will not be a feasible solution to environmental quality. A number of feasible policy menu and critical questions to guide selection of the best instrument capable of bringing about a downturn in environmental damage have been suggested in the paper.
    Keywords: Economic growth, EKC hypothesis, Environmental quality, delinking
    JEL: C23 C26 Q43 Q57
    Date: 2014–02–13
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:54461&r=ene
  20. By: Kjetil Bjorvatn (Norwegian School of Economics); Mohammad Reza Farzanegan (University of Marburg)
    Abstract: We study the association between resource rents and political stability, highlighting the importance of the distribution of political power as a mediating factor. We present a simple theoretical model showing that increased rents are likely to be positively associated with the stability of a powerful incumbent while destabilizing a less powerful incumbent. Our empirical analysis confirms this prediction: Using panel data for more than 120 countries from 1984-2009, our results show that rents can promote political stability, but only when the political power is sufficiently concentrated. Indeed, if the incumbent is sufficiently weak, rents fuel instability. Our main results hold when we control for the effects of income, quality of institutions, time varying common shocks, country fixed effects and various additional covariates
    Keywords: resource rent, political power, political stability, conflict
    Date: 2014
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201419&r=ene
  21. By: Vladimir Mau (RANEPA); Ilia Zatcovecky (Samuel Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology); Konstantin Yanovskiy (Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy)
    Abstract: If the authorities have the opportunity to receive incomes uncontrolled by society, this gives them great freedom of action. Such incomes do not depend on the quality of the public goods delivered, nor on the investment climate. Given a certain minimal level of organization, taxpayers can try to impose on the government, which needs their money, their own terms for using the resources received (and history has shown that this can often be done successfully). The history of many modern parliaments began with gatherings convened by the people whose money and armed forces made up the might of the state. The absence of a need for the regime in power to ask its subjects for financial support in return for guarantees and privileges makes the regime’s forces, which are far superior in comparison with any individual market agent’s capacity, practically uncompensated for in any way. And if the government’s incomes enable it to offer bribes to citizens, then the authorities’ uncontrollability can weaken or even destroy the democratic institutions already in existence. Under such conditions, there can be no talk of constraints capable of providing universal secure guarantees for business independently of the will of the ruler..
    Keywords: Rent revenue, voters' corruption, voters bribe, demand for institutions
    JEL: D72 D73 P16 O33
    Date: 2014
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gai:wpaper:0089&r=ene
  22. By: De Santis, Roberta; Fasano, Alessandra; Mignolli, Nadia; Villa, Anna
    Abstract: Transforming a city into a Smart City is a complex and multidimensional process which changes over time since all the involved stakeholders work to achieve more and better results. “To be smart” affects many aspects of a city including economics, government, people, living, mobility, environment, energy and services. This paper aims at critically analysing the main features related to smart cities such as terminological issues, the heterogeneous theoretical background and the methodological limits of the few existing measurement experiences.
    Keywords: Smart city, urban development, human capital, transport infrastructure, ICTs
    JEL: O1 O18 O2 R12
    Date: 2014–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:54536&r=ene

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