Revisiting the residential electricity demand in the United States: A dynamic partial adjustment modelling approach

In recent years, price policies and price changes derived from environmental regulations have played a more important role to promote residential energy conservation. Using recent annual state-level panel data for 48 states, we estimate a dynamic partial adjustment model for electricity demand elasticities on price and income in the residential sector. Our analysis reveals that in the short run, one unit price increase will lead to 0.142 unit of reduction in electricity use after controlling for the endogeneity of electricity price. Thus, raising energy price in the short run will not give consumers much incentive to adjust their appliances to reduce electricity use. However, in the long run, one unit price increase will lead to almost one unit consumption reduction, ceteris paribus. In addition, we find new evidence that for states of higher per capita GDP, raising the electricity price may be more effective to ensure a cut in consumption.     

The relationship among CO2 emissions,electricity power consumption and GDP in OECD countries

This paper proposes a panel vector error correction model investigation of a quadratic relationship linking CO₂ emissions, GDP levels and electric power consumption. We find that two independent long-run relationships emerge from the data. Since the null of homogeneity across units with regard to long-run elasticities is strongly rejected, we proceed by clustering countries according to the signs of the estimated coefficients. The approach allows us to form three groups: in the first there is evidence of an optimistic scenario, where both CO₂ emissions and electric power consumption are bound to decrease in the long-run. An optimistic scenario for emissions reduction is also provided in the second cluster where, however, the long-run relationship between income and electric power consumption shows an U-shaped pattern, instead. Finally, the third cluster can be associated with a much worrying scenario where per capita CO₂ is expected to grow with income. A joint consideration of long-run parameters and causality links allows us to propose cluster-tailored policy suggestions.     

SPECIAL ISSUE： DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL INCOME IN A TRANSITIONAL ECONOMY Who is the predator,who the prey？ --an analysis of changes in the state of China＇s national income distribution

本文以2004年经济普查后修订的资金流量表为基础，依次从国民收入的初次分配和再分配两个阶段，分析了1992—2005年期间我国国民收入在企业、政府和居民三部门之间分配格局的变化，重点讨论了自1996年以来居民收入占比下降的原因。在分析初次分配格局时，本文将每个部门的初次分配收入占比表示为各要素分配份额按各要素收入中该部门所占比重加权得到的加权平均值。利用这一表示方式，我们校正了资金流量表中的要素分配份额，重新计算了1993—2005年间的国民收入分配格局，并推算了2006和2007年的国民收入分配格局。测算结果表明，居民部门在全国可支配收入中的占比在1996年达到最高，此后逐年降低，截止N2005年，总共下降了12．72个百分点。在初次分配和再分配阶段，居民部门分别下降了10．71和2．01个百分点。与之相对应，企业和政府部门在初次分配中的占比分别上升了7．49和3．21个百分点；在再分配阶段，居民和企业部门收入占比都下降，由此导致政府部门进一步上升3．17个百分点。我们还发现，国民收入的要素分配中劳动收入占比下降和财产收入占比下降，是居民部门在国民收入初次分配中占比下降的两个主要原因。在2005—2007年间，主要受生产水净额占比上升的影响，居民部门在国民收入中占比进一步下降了3个百分点以上．     

Nonparametric modelling of biodiversity: Determinants of threatened species

This study uses a sample of 71 countries and nonparametric quantile and partial regressions to model a number of threatened species (reptiles, mammals, fish, birds, trees, plants) in relation to various economic and environmental variables (GDPc, CO₂ emissions, agricultural production, energy intensity, protected areas, population and income inequality). From the analysis and due to high asymmetric distribution of the dependent variables it seems that a linear regression is not adequate and cannot capture properly the dimension of the threatened species. We find that using OLS instead of non-parametric techniques over- or under-estimates the parameters which may have serious policy implications.     

Modeling agricultural risk management policies – The implementation of the Income Stabilization Tool in Italy

This paper investigates the potential impact of the income stabilisation tool (IST), currently introduced in the European Common Agricultural Policy to reduce farmers’ income risks using Italian agriculture as case study. The paper extends the existing literature by investigating the effects of two implementation issues: level of aggregation of mutual funds (MF); definition of farmers’ contribution (i.e. premium) to MF. We use a simulation approach based on a FADN panel data set of 3421 farms over a period of 7 years to investigate effects on (i) farm-level income variability, (ii) the expected level and variability of indemnifications at the level of mutual funds and (iii) the distribution of net benefits from this policy instrument across the farm population. We find that the introduction of the IST would lead to a significant reduction of income variability in Italian agriculture. Our results support the establishment of a national mutual fund due to the high volatility of indemnification levels at more disaggregated (e.g. regional or sectoral) levels. In addition, our results propose that farmers’ contribution to mutual funds, i.e. premiums paid, should be modulated according to farm size as this reduces the inequality of the distribution of benefits of such tool within the farm population.     

Commodity prices and the world distribution of income

Some advocates of a new international economic order recommend raising prices of commodities exported by developing countries as a means of reducing the inequality of world income distribution. A simulation model using commodity trade data and income distribution data for 68 industrial and developing countries examines this policy alternative. Initial data compilation reveals that internal inequality is as important as international: The world income share of the poorest 40% of people would be twice as high in the absence of intracountry inequality. Calculations using actual price experience in the “great inflation” of 1972–1975 show that despite the large relative price changes for some commodities (especially oil), these changes left the world size distribution of income virtually unchanged. Separate policy simulations show that even a quadrupling of the price of ali “equalizing” commodities (those mainly exported by LDCs) would leave the size distribution of world income practically unaltered (even under optimistic assumptions about intracountry distributional incidence), although some individual LDCs would gain. Increasing commodity prices therefore appears to be an ineffective means of increasing international equity, quite apart from questions about the feasibility of cartels or commodity agreements.     

The impact of India’s food security policy on domestic and international rice market

Food security policy making in India is at crossroads. India has emerged as a leading rice exporter. The Government of India has introduced the National Food Security Act which requires 33.6 million tons of rice per year for its public food distribution system. In this study, we modeled India’s rice market and analyzed policy implications of the long-term impact of India’s food security act on domestic and international rice market. We developed a structural economic demand and supply model for India’s rice market and further added subsidy equations to trace the consequence of National Food Security Act on domestic rice consumption and on the international market. We specifically focus on three different scenarios: subsidy as price effect, subsidy as inelastic income effect, and subsidy as elastic income effect under the broader framework of National Food Security Act. We found that at the end of the projection period (2024–2025), as a result of rice subsidy program, the consumption of rice increases significantly in the case of price effect while the inelastic income effect has no or less impact on production, consumption, and export of rice. Hence, the policy implication of our study is that if the objective of the National Food Security Act is to increase consumption then it needs to be implemented as price effect.     

Poverty and material deprivation among European workers in times of crisis

Many EU countries are faced with abysmal public debts and high unemployment, and may have to reduce their social expenditure and deregulate their labour market, which should lead to an increase in ‘working poverty’ (i.e., an increase in the number of working men and women who live in a low‐income household, or in a household that cannot afford certain goods and services considered essential for a decent life, respectively). However, working poverty remains an under‐analysed phenomenon in Europe. Moreover, the vast majority of existing definitions used in Europe are based on a relative income poverty line and the EU's official definition of ‘in‐work’, which raises concerns about the robustness of existing findings. This article first examines how the socioeconomic situation has evolved in seven EU Member States that have fared differently. In addition, the article examines whether the use of non‐monetary poverty indicators and of an encompassing definition of ‘working’ has an impact on the conclusions drawn. An attempt is made to identify the main macro‐level determinants of changes in ‘working poverty’ and to better understand their impact at the micro‐level.     

How does policy advice of the international monetary fund differ along the income of advised countries?

ABSTRACT

The policy advice literature has paid little attention to the role of international organizations in policy advisory systems. This article offers a systematic analysis of policy advice provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the framework of the IMF’s regular Article IV consultations. The article argues that the content of IMF advice differs according to the income of the advised countries. Content analyses of the Article IV consultation reports of 18 countries show correlations between the gross national income (GNI) of the advised countries and the function of advice in the policy cycle, the specificity of advice, the recommended policy instruments and the targeted policy issues. Results show that the IMF rather points to policy problems, advices on policy goals and focuses on improving implementation when advising lower income countries. When advising higher income countries, the IMF’s advice focuses on means and specific policy tools.     

Comparing income poverty gap and deprivation on social acceptance: A mediation model with interpersonal communication and social support

In many developed countries or regions, wide income disparities increase the difficulty in reducing poverty. In their day‐to‐day lives, poor people often feel less accepted by the society. The failures in communicating with social groups and receiving social support lead to negative consequences on individual well‐being and higher level of social exclusion. Based on the debate upon alternative approaches to conceptualizing and operationalizing poverty, this study attempts to verify a mediation model with data from a household survey (N = 1,202) in Hong Kong. The results of structural equation modelling reveal that deprivation is a more powerful indicator than income poverty for specifying the negative relations of poverty with interpersonal communication, social support, and social acceptance; the negative impact of deprivation on social acceptance can be reduced by two significant mediators of interpersonal communication and social support. The results are discussed in terms of directions for future research and policy and welfare intervention.     

Can unemployment forecasts based on Google Trends help government design better policies? An investigation based on Spain and Portugal

The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the unemployment issue and accelerated the digital transformation. Real-time data specific to ongoing revolution in applied economic analysis are increasingly demanded to anticipate changes in unemployment to improve decision-making. The aim of this paper is to test whether unemployment rate forecasts based on Google Trends data improve the predictions based only on macroeconomic indicators published with a longer time lag. The research has been carried out at the national level for Spain and Portugal, and the main novelty is the analysis of unemployment rate forecasts at the regional level for Spain using dynamic panel data models to implement the best policies to reduce unemployment. The keywords unemployment and job offers have been used in each language. The results obtained demonstrate the capacity of Google Trends data associated with unemployment to improve the predictions of unemployment rates in Spanish regions. Moreover, predictions based on Google Trends data at national level in Spain and Portugal are significantly more accurate than those based on autoregressive models for both countries.     

The impact of the hope growing account program on participants’ economic well‐being in South Korea

In 2010, the Korean government introduced the Hope Growing Account (Hope) program. The Hope program combines elements of a social assistance scheme (monthly income grants) with matched funds for savings to encourage the working poor to increase income and build assets. This longitudinal study estimated changes in household economic well‐being among 895 low‐income households who participated in Hope between 2010 and 2012. Economic well‐being was measured by changes in household monthly income and income‐to‐needs ratio. The adjusted difference‐in‐differences estimation revealed that the impact of Hope varied over household income distributions: lower income households were more likely to increase their monthly earned income and income‐to‐needs ratio compared to demographically similar non‐participants, while higher income households were less likely to increase their income and income‐to‐needs ratio. We describe how future research is needed to better understand how the Hope program impacts household assets and behavioral changes in the long run.     

Development and pollution in the Middle East and North Africa: Democracy matters

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries are among the world’s top emitters of CO₂ and SO₂ in per capita terms. The objective of this paper is to analyze whether investing in the democratic development of these countries is an effective tool to make the economic development in this region more environmentally compatible. Using panel data on the income-emission-democracy nexus in 17 MENA countries from 1980 to 2005, we find evidence that improvements in the democratic development of the MENA countries help to mitigate environmental problems. Our results clearly show that the quality of democratic institutions has a greater influence on local environmental problems than on global environmental issues in the MENA region.     

Heterogeneous impacts of provincial governance on household welfare in Vietnam

This study investigated the role of provincial governance in the growth of per capita income of Vietnamese households, using a balanced panel data set for the period 2012–2014. Although we found no evidence for the influence of provincial governance when a linear fixed‐effect regression estimator was used, the results from a fixed‐effect quantile regression estimator revealed that provincial governance has a positive effect on all groups (but not the poorest) and that the effect tends to be greater for better‐off households. In addition, we found that wage employment plays a larger role in the income growth of poorer households, whereas returns on education are greater for richer households. The findings suggest that a mean regression approach that looks only a t the role of explanatory variables on mean household welfare, and does not consider differences in the distribution of household welfare, may miss some heterogeneity that is of interest to policymakers. Key Practitioner Message: ? Using a quantile regression approach has allowed the current study to provide new insight into the role of household‐related factors in household welfare. ? Finding shows that good governance tends to provide greater benefits to richer households than to other groups in the population.     

Commodities and monetary policy: Implications for inflation and price level targeting

We examine the relative ability of inflation targeting and price level targeting monetary policy rules to minimize inflation variability and business cycle fluctuations in a commodity-exporting country for supply and demand shocks to global commodity markets. The macroeconomic consequences of oil and non-oil primary commodities differ and affect the relative merits of the alternative monetary policy frameworks. Particularly, the consumption of refined oil products and demand-driven commodity price movements induce highly persistent inflation pressures resulting in a significant deterioration of the inflation-output gap trade-off available to central banks. When such terms-of-trade shocks are prevalent, price level targeting is inferior to inflation targeting.     

The prevalence and composition of asset poverty in Canada: 1999, 2005, and 2012

A household is considered asset poor if its assets (financial assets or net worth, taken separately) are insufficient to maintain well‐being at a low‐income threshold for 3 months. We provide the first national‐level estimates of asset poverty for Canada, using the 1999, 2005, and 2012 cycles of the Survey of Financial Security, and juxtapose these estimates with income poverty. The analysis provides new insight into economic insecurity by showing that asset poverty rates are consistently two to three times higher than income poverty rates. In addition to the prevalence of asset poverty across socio‐demographic groups, we analyzed how the composition of the poor change over time. Age and geography shape the risk for asset poverty in distinct ways. We found that while education appears to play a comparable role in shaping both income poverty and asset poverty, immigration places Canadians at a relatively higher risk of income poverty but not asset poverty. Key Practitioner Message: ? Practitioners ought to consider assets as well as income in assessing economic vulnerability; ? Asset poverty levels are 2–3 times higher than income poverty levels; ? Certain groups (e.g., immigrants) may be income poor but maintain sufficient assets.     

Clean cooking energy transition in Nigeria: Policy implications for Developing countries

Lack of access to clean cooking energy systems negatively affects the health and welfare of millions of people in developing countries. Different factors such as household income, household size, fuel price, and information spread have been identified as barriers to the widespread uptake of clean cooking systems. However, analyses exploring the dynamic influences of these factors towards accelerating clean cooking from the long-term perspective are limited. Here, we employ a system dynamics modelling framework to simulate how various strategies could affect the adoption of clean cooking systems in Nigeria over time. Our results reveal that clean cooking adoption is a fluctuating process, and the trends present a non-linear behaviour. We found that the adoption of clean cooking energy systems would occur faster early in the simulating year among urban households than in rural households. The results indicate that, at low prices of liquefied petroleum gas, many rural households will switch to clean cookstoves with higher adoption rates than consumers in urban households. Additionally, results from baseline scenario analysis revealed that, without significant policy interventions, not all households would switch to clean cooking. Our analysis further indicates that households with fewer members tend to transition quicker to clean cooking options than larger households. The impact of clean cooking due to communication among households would be more significant among rural households than among urban households. While the model results are perceptive, we emphasise that potent policies are needed to accelerate the diffusion and adoption of clean cooking energy systems in Nigeria and other African countries.     

Rural population and social security in Brazil: An analysis with emphasis on constitutional changes

This paper analyses the situation of the Brazilian rural population with respect to social insurance and social assistance at two points in time: 1988 and 1998. The 1988 Constitution defined new rules with regard to eligibility conditions and benefit values for the rural population. But it was only in July 1991, with Law 8213, that these changes were implemented. We compare — by gender and individual age — activity rates and probability of receiving benefits, before and after the changes in legislation. We also compare, at these two points in time, family structure and the importance of the income of older people in the family budget. The analysis makes clear the positive impact brought by the legislation on the coverage and per capita family income of those families with older members in rural Brazil, bringing about some degree of poverty alleviation, as well as bridging the gender gap with respect to access to benefits. In contrast to what occurs in other Latin American countries, nowadays the Brazilian rural population has almost universal access to social security benefits, not only at family level but also in individual terms.     

Corruption, globalization and development: How are these three phenomena related?

This paper examines the existence of any relations between globalization and corruption using cross-section data for 127 countries. The estimation results indicate that, under the assumption of a linear model, a positive correlation between corruption and globalization exists, while when linearity is dropped there seems to be no significant effect of globalization on corruption. According to our analysis, linearity is a good approximation only for middle and high income countries. Hence, our main conclusion is that globalization is a powerful weapon against corruption only for middle and high income countries, while for low income countries globalization has no significant impact on corruption. For such countries fighting corruption requires additional global action aiming at the reduction of poverty.