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This paper examines the effect of natural resources on the level of democracy in a set of countries. The main model is a fixed effects regression model, where the focus is on within-country variation over time. The effect of different resources is investigated, namely the effect of oil, diamonds and agriculture. Furthermore, a distinction is made between two broad types of resources, diffuse and point resources, to explore whether the effect on democracy is similar or different. Criticism in existing literature on the presence of the resource curse is taken into account. Production data on natural resources is used and not the common variable ‘resource exports-over-GDP’, the latter being flawed. A possible endogeneity problem is taken into account, as well as the persistence of democracy over time. I find evidence for a resource curse of oil on democracy. It is present in different model specifications, such as models with either fixed effects or a lagged dependent variable. There only seems to be very weak evidence for a negative effect of point resources on democracy, compared to the effect of diffuse resources. It is argued that this might be due to the geographic concentration of these types of resources, which enables governments and elite groups to capture resource rents.

The paper studies the long-run effects of shocks to resource rents on the economy using a structural vector error correction model for 37 developing countries. First, the long-run relations involving resource rents and the economy differ for resource importers and exporters. Second, there is an indirect effect from resource rents to output through public capital accumulation for resource exporters. third, although resource rents have a positive long-run impact on output, good public investment management is required for resource rents to improve non-resource output.

Do local populations benefit from resource booms? How strong are market linkages between the mining sector and the regional economy? This paper exploits exogenous variation in mine-level production volumes generated by the recent copper boom in Zambia to shed light on these questions. Using a novel dataset, I find robust evidence that an increase in local copper production improves living standards in the surroundings of the mines even for households not directy employed in the mining sector: a 10% increase in constituency-level copper output is associated with a 2% increase in real household expenditure; positive effects on housing conditions, consumer durable ownership and child health are of similar magnitude. The positive spill-overs extend to the rural hinterland of mining cities, neighboring constituencies, and constituencies to the copper transportation route. Additionally,I identify boom-induced changes in the demand for servics and agricultural products as key channels through which the urban and rural populations benefit from the mine expansions. Since the boom failed to generate fiscal revenues, these effects can be interpreted as the result of the mines' backward linkages. Taken together, these findings highlight the welfare potential of local procurement policies in resource rich developing countries.

We consider two models of economic growth with exhaustible natural resources, exogenous technical progress and agents heterogeneous in their time preferences. In the first model we assume private ownership of natural resources. We show that every competitive equilibrium in this model converges to a balanced-growth equilibrium. The long-run extraction rate and the rate of growth are determined by the discount factor of the most patient agents. The second model assumes public ownership of natural resources. The resource revenue is equally distributed among agents, who choose the resource extraction rate by voting. We define an intertemporal voting equilibrium and show that it also converges to a balanced-growth equilibrium. The long-run voting equilibrium extraction rate and the rate of growth are determined by the median discount factor. Our results suggest that, other things being equal, the growth rate in the case of private ownership is higher than that of public ownership if the most patient agents do not constitute the majority in population; otherwise there is no difference in the growth rates between the two regimes. However, in the long run private ownership leads to a higher level of inequality than public ownership. If we take into account the detrimental effect of inequality on economic growth, then the public property regime will likely result in a higher long-run rate of growth compared to the private property regime.

We build a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model with one-sided substitutability between fossil carbon and biocarbon. One shock only, the discovery of the technology to use fossil fuels, leads to a transition from an initial pre-industrial phase to three following phases: a pure fossil carbon phase, a mixed fossil and biocarbon phase and an absorbing biocarbon phase. The increased competition for biocarbon during phase 3 and 4 leads to increasing food prices. We provide closed form expressions for this price increase. Our calibration leads to a price increase of 40% if capital and labor are allowed to move to the biocarbon sector. Otherwise, the price increase is much higher. We also use the model to analyze the consequences of restrictions on using biocarbon as fuel. We show that such restrictions can lead to a substantially slower global warming due to an endogenous slowdown of fossil fuel extraction.

Economic stability is dependent on the effective functioning and resilience of energy systems. Resilience is a term used across all research disciplines and in everyday discourse. As a concept it purports to serve as a useful indicator of sustainability and robustness, but it has proved difficult to measure. Ecological resilience, psychological resilience, risk management and energy security are all fields of research in which measures of the ability to respond to the unexpected are sought. The goal is to build adaptive capacity but quite different methods have been developed to achieve this end. Research on energy security, in particular, has focused on the security of oil supplies, not resilience or the adaptive capacity of the energy system or the role that renewable energy plays in building such capacity. This paper discusses how different disciplines seek to measure and build resilience and explores its connection with the state or quality of a system’s adaptive capacity. When the parameters of redundancy and diversity are present, resilience is enhanced. For this reason, in energy systems we must understand the size and scope of the key parameters required to facilitate the development of adaptive capacity and to build resilience that can enhance economic stability.

Whether it is fair to characterize natural resource wealth as a curse is still debated. Most of the evidence derives from cross-country analyses, providing cases both for and against a potential resource curse. Scholars are increasingly turning to within-country evidence to deepen our understanding of the potential drivers, and outcomes, of resource wealth effects. Moving away from cross-country studies offers new perspectives on the resource curse debate and can help overcome concerns regarding endogeneity. Therefore, scholars are leveraging datasets that provide greater disaggregation of economic responses and exogenous identification of impacts. This article surveys the literature on these studies of local and regional effects of natural resource extraction. We discuss data availability and quality, recent advances in methodological tools, and the main findings of several research areas. These areas include the direct impact of natural resource production on local labor markets and welfare, the effects of government spending channels resulting from mining revenue, and regional spillovers. Finally, we take stock of the state of the literature and provide suggestions for future research.

Intellectual capital is a collaboration and mutual learning within and between undertakings which ensures their long-term successful business association. Intellectual capital is an attempt assigning financial value of knowledge within a particular economic entity. This paper will present ways of measuring intellectual capital, ie. valorization techniques of intangible assets. The increased interest in the measurement of intangible assets is the result of increasing enterprise value which is not shown in the accounting statements and therefore creates the wrong information . The biggest difference between market and book value recorded just high-tech enterprises and industries where intensive knowledge is invested in intangible assets such as research and development and brand. Therefore, one of the main challenges for management is creating conditions for successful generation of intangible value ( knowledge , services , experience , benefits , speed, quality and reputation ) and its transformation into tangible forms ( income , profits , value added, stocks , market value ).

The dramatic increase in oil and gas production from shale formations has led to an intense interest in its impact on local area economies. Exploration, drilling and extraction are associated with direct increases in employment and income in the energy industry, but little is known about the impacts on other parts of local economies. Increased energy sector employment and income can have positive spillover effects through increased purchases of intermediate goods and induced local spending. Negative spillover effects can occur through rising local factor and goods prices and adverse effects on the local area quality of life. Therefore, this paper examines the net economic impacts of oil and gas production from shale formations for key shale oil and gas producing areas in Arkansas, North Dakota and Pennsylvania. The synthetic control method (Abadie and Gardeazabal, 2003; Abadie et al., 2010) is used to establish a baseline projection for the local economies in the absence of increased energy development, allowing for estimation of the net regional economic effects of increased shale oil and gas production.

Water quality in China has seriously deteriorated in recent years. However, very few valuation studies have been conducted to estimate the monetary values associated with water quality changes. As a result, the decision makers can hardly make rational choices with regard to investments in water quality improvement. This paper presents a valuation study conducted in Dali, Yunnan Province, which aims to estimate the total economic value of improving the water quality of Erhai Lake by one grade level. Both the contingent valuation method and the benefit transfer approach are employed in this study. The contingent valuation estimation strategy reveals that, on average, a household located in Dali is willing to pay about 27 yuan per month continuously for 5 years for the water quality improvement, equivalent to 1.7% of the household monthly income. The elasticity of willingness-to-pay with respect to income is estimated to be 0.28. The internal rate of economic return of the proposed pollution control project is estimated to be 13%. The benefit transfer exercise produces a similar estimation on willingness to pay (WTP) values, with a difference of less than 2% compared with the contingent valuation approach. The results indicate the potential reliability of using the benefit transfer approach for valuation estimations in Chinese provinces.

This paper documents the channels through which commodity price volatility can affect resource intensive industries’ investment decisions, production levels and profitability. Over the very long run, the Canadian forestry sector was not immune from the negative effects of commodity price volatility. However, the long run averages mask dynamic and asymmetric patterns in the sector’s responses to price volatility. The supply of investment funds from formal-external sources was suppressed during episodes of high and rising commodity price volatility, but insensitive to low and falling volatility. These effects weakened as the economy matured. The accumulation of reproducible and natural capital was affected by commodity price volatility through an investment supply channel that was also asymmetric, but in this case, the effect was strongest during low and falling volatility. These results show how a maturing economy with diversified investment opportunities can become increasingly immune from the negative effects of commodity price volatility.

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the coexistence of formal and informal resource sectors in resource-dependent economies, whose production depends on an exhaustible (e.g. minerals) and a renewable resource stock (e.g. forest), respectively. It then examines the implications of declining mineral stocks on public revenues, labour movements between sectors, and economic growth in an attempt to elucidate the poor economic performance of many mineral-dependent countries. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a theoretical model that describes the coexistence of a formal and informal resource-dependent sector, where individuals can direct their work effort. It then assesses how declining mineral stocks influence labour mobility across sectors and environmental degradation. Findings – Decreasing mineral stocks induce a relocation of labour towards informal production and deprive local authorities from public revenues collected within the formal economy. This constrains the ability to improve infrastructure and welfare over time and simultaneously imposes pressure on the local environment. Originality/value – The paper provides a novel theoretical mechanism that attempts to elucidate the “resource curse”, i.e. the poor economic performance of many mineral-rich economies. It purposely explores the implications of a coexistence of formal and informal resource activities on economic development for resource-dependent economies, in order to obtain new insights into this direction.

The principles of how best to manage the various components of national wealth are outlined, where the permanent income hypothesis, the Hotelling rule, and the Hartwick rule play a prominent role. As far as managing natural resource wealth is concerned, a case is made to use an intergenerational sovereign wealth fund to smooth consumption across generations, a liquidity fund for the precautionary buffers to deal with commodity price volatility, and an investment fund to park part of the windfall until the country is ready to absorb extra spending on domestic investment. Capital scarcity implies that a positive part of the windfall should be spent on domestic investment. The conclusions highlight the political economy problems that will have to be tackled with these normative proposals for managing wealth. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

This paper investigates the conflicts which are resulted from coal tax reform in China from economic and public policy perspectives. An analytical framework involving actors, values, interests and institution has been applied. China’s central government eagers to achieve fiscal revenue increase, environmental protection and energy conversation goals by a good governance of coal system. As a traditional and feasible policy instrument, taxation is regarded for dealing with energy issues in politics and governance. However, coal tax reform proposal has induced many controversies in China. The causes of that include value conflicts of all actors, competing interests of all parties and institutional barriers of economic, politics and legislation. Therefore, the government cannot regulate coal issues only through taxation. The case reveals that good governance on coal cannot be achieved only by economic tools as the coal system contains so high stake and involves so many players.

Business intelligence and knowledge management seems to gain the attention of the society regarding the benefits that brings to it when this two domains are considered as a whole. The advantage of using business intelligence in order to take decisions and bring innovation to the business, are convincing more and more entrepreneurs to implement this solution. The challenge in managing and using the knowledge that the business intelligence offers to the business, comes with the integration of the information with state administrative structures datas that have to be available to business clusters in order to improve their decisional process. In our paper, we demonstrate the benefits of using business intelligence in Romanian state administrative structures underlying the way that this adoption would support the activity of innovative and creative clusters.

The following paper aims at analyzing the financing by the European Union of the climate change limitation and mitigation activities. The general objectives of the activities directed towards reducing and combating climate change, analyzed on the two directions of action, namely the mitigation of the phenomenon, and the adaptation to climate change, are exposed. The financing action by the EU in order to combat climate change at the international level, both the fast start financing, and medium and long term financing, together with the Union's objectives, the sources of financing and the transparence of the decisions implementation are also presented.

The recent developments bring US to a leading natural gas and oil producer position. The attempts in last 20 years to bring new horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies together have developed a success in shale gas and oil production in US; the production volumes has reached to a position to redefine the market. Last estimations are bringing more information about the shale capacities of the major basins of the world. However, the estimates are based on a wide range of assumptions and consequently their results vary in a large scale. In any case, these developments have crucial economic, political and geopolitical consequences on the energy market, petroleum producer and consumer countries and regions. Despite the wide range of ambiguity of the estimated size of the resources, the estimations show US and North America has one of the biggest potential, already turning technology into the giant production numbers. Some of the estimations allege so big numbers can even mean to a new world order. The asymmetric nature of the potential, can also be said, increases some of the expected impacts too. In this study, basically, we want to supply an initial solid and economical evaluation to this ambiguity. We are trying to shape a frame for the new energy potential and to put it in a place in the current practice of the world. Secondly, in this context, we are underlying here some of the possible economic and geopolitical consequences each of which can constitute a subject of deeper study.

We estimate the impact of geo-located mining concessions on the number of conflict events recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1997 and 2007. Instrumenting the variable of interest with historical concessions interacted with changes in international prices of minerals, we unveil an ecological fallacy: whereas concessions have no effect on the number of conflicts at the territory level (lowest administrative unit), they do foster violence at the district level (higher administrative unit). We develop and validate empirically a theoretical model where the incentives of armed groups to exploit and protect mineral resources explain our empirical findings. © Oxford University Press 2013. All rights reserved. ispartof: OXFORD ECONOMIC PAPERS-NEW SERIES vol:66 issue:3 pages:721-749 ispartof: location:Wageningen University, Wageningen status: published

This study examines the factors which influence Economic Growth, measure the growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP) and examine the relationship between TFP, nonrenewable energy consumption and renewable energy consumption to economic growth in oil producing African countries. An augmented production function is employed to estimate the TFP. In addition, a panel cointegration and a fixed effect model in a Pooled least squares are used to examine the relationship among the variables. The findings suggest that the growth rate of total factor productivity is negative. The panel estimations indicate a significant relationship between economic growth, non-renewable energy consumption, renewable energy consumption, capital and human capital development. The Granger causality test indicates that there is a unidirectional causality from non-renewable energy to growth but bidirectional causality between renewable energy and growth in the long run. The study recommends investment in commercial sources of renewable energy to boost energy supply and investment in factors that will enhance TFP growth.

The formation of R&D consortia can provide enterprises with many competitive advantages and allow them to achieve economies of scale. Therefore, R&D consortia are an important way of enhancing technical capacity, reducing cost and risk, and maintaining the competitive advantages of enterprises. This study selected 489 consortia with 1,668 participating enterprises from 14,922 government-subsidized enterprises participating in the six projects of participation in R&D consortia during the period 2000-2011. The research focus was to explore the motivation and effectiveness of enterprise participation in consortia using 14 variables for internal and external factors. The study found that these internal and external factors were significantly and positively correlated with the formation of the R&D consortia. Moreover, after participating in R&D consortia, the capital, turnover, number of employees, R&D talent, and new products and services of these enterprises all increased.

Concerns about the role of energy consumption in global warming have led to policy designs that seek to reduce fossil fuel consumption or find a less polluting alternative especiallyfor the transport sector. This study seeks to estimate the elasticities of price, income, education and technology on transport gasoline demand sector inGhana. The Structural Time Series Model reports a short-run price and income elasticities of -0.0088 and 0.713. Total factor productivity is -0.408 whilstthe elasticity for education is 2.33. In the long run, the reported price and income elasticities are -0.065 and 5.129 respectively. The long run elasticityfor productivity is -2.935. The study recommends that in order to enhanceefficiency in gasoline consumption in the transport sector, there should beinvestment in productivity.

We provide a general condition under which consumption can be sustained indefinitely bounded away from zero in the continuous time Dasgupta-Heal-Solow-Stiglitz model, by letting augmentable capital substitute for a non-renewable resource. The assumptions made on the production function are mild, thus generalizing previous work. By showing that Hartwick's rule minimizes the required resource input per unit of capital accumulation, and integrating the required resource input with respect to capital, we obtain a complete technological characterization without reference to the time path. We also use the characterization result to establish general existence of a maximin path. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of Green National Accounting by drawing out some interesting insights from the Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts recently elaborated by the Institute for Advanced Development Studies for the case of Bolivia. The paper uses the Green National Accounts to show the importance of environmental inputs in 7 different productive sectors and compares the corresponding natural resource rents to the level of producer taxes in each sector. The paper also analyses the evolution of total productive capital, in order to judge whether Bolivia’s current development model can be considered sustainable. The paper finished with recommendations about interesting extensions that can be made to the Green National Accounts.

Article is intended to describe the general aspects of migration, labor migration from Romania and how this phenomenon affects the labor market at national level. The activities undertaken in this article reveal a diagnosis of the current situation and a forecast of future trends of labor migration, study on the situation of Romanians abroad, the perception of foreigners on Romanians. The developments seen in the phenomenon of labor migration easily highlight the way liberal democracies work and how European development process, even the transformation of immigration policy, adaptability and openness to change, questionable character and difficulties encountered along the way.

The topic dealt with in the paper is very timely and has assumed major importance from the viewpoint of development of research into economies based on sustainable development and application of research findings in specific solutions in the economy. The paper postulates that innovation is a fundamental and necessary instrument for implementing sustainable development throughout the whole economy. In order to confirm the thesis, first the paper attempts to identify the role of innovation in various areas of the economy. Secondly, it identifies the sources of innovation and areas of the economy which most require new innovative solutions. The study is based on literature, both domestic and foreign. The author analyses theoretical and empirical publications available on the market. Older publications turned out to be necessary and helpful in describing the evolution of the approach to sustainable development of the economy from a historical point of view. Newer works provide a basis for the compilation of a vast majority of the paper. The paper is a preliminary step in a more detailed research into various aspects of an economy based on sustainable development.

The emergence of the concept of sustainable development and thus led to increased interest in environmental issues (environmental). Sustainable development of products and processes involves reaching requirements of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own requirements. Practice eco-design aims to improve the product to determine a life cycle energy savings, waste, radiation and toxins. Sustainable product design must, however, include ecological service concepts such as using associated products, leasing ambient and sharing. Not neglected ethical and social issues that arise in the process of sustainable design. Sustainable development aimed at combining the long term, in the necessity of production and consumption, on one hand and a favorable environment for the protection of life, on the other hand. This philosophy also marks the transition from the preventive remedies. The whole economic activity of an organization is reflected on the environment but through eco-conscious management that can manage the actions that have or may have an effect on the environment. Its purpose is to protect natural resources, reduce pollution and environmental risks and preserving the health of employees and the surrounding population.

Angesichts stark wachsender Nachfrage nach Rohstoffen, insbesondere vonseiten der aufstrebenden Schwellenländer und entsprechend steigender Rohstoffpreise, richtet sich der Blick zunehmend auf die Tiefsee als enorme noch weitgehend unerschlossene Quelle reichhaltiger Rohstoffvorkommen. Der KZK-Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die Lagerstätten, die Erkundung und die geplante Erschließung der Tiefseeressourcen und weist auf die Risiken eines Ressourcenabbaus in der Tiefsee hin.

This paper shows how food safety, food security and environmental risks associated with agriculture can be alleviated through sustainable agriculture. Today, most of the countries are arguably food insecure. Developed countries rely mostly on industrial agriculture which has led to increasing monocropping and imported food while developing countries are extremely vulnerable to food price inflation. The risks associated with food insecurity are political and economic instability. Modern industrial agriculture mindset assumes the reality of substitution between land and external chemicals and management systems that resulted in overvalued land and undervalued social costs of the negative externalities with the associated environmental risks of polluted water, acid rain and degraded soil. The globalization of the food production and the intensification of food trade enhance the risks associated with food safety. Food consumption all over the world is a mixture of imported agricultural products and domestic products making difficult to find the contamination source in case of a food scare. The development of agriculture is an essential way to raise national income and improve the welfare of rural dwellers whether a developing country or a developed country. The paper makes the case that sustainable agriculture is the best method for agricultural development with the largest opportunity for economic development and reduction or alleviation of environmental, food security and food safety risks.

Welche Chancen und Risiken ergeben sich aus der Schiefergasförderung in Europa und speziell in Deutschland? Nach Ansicht von Felix Müsgens, Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg, und Andreas Seeliger, Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg Mosbach, sollte die skeptische Haltung gegenüber einer einheimischen Shale-Gas-Förderung überprüft und die Wiederbelebung der deutschen Gasförderindustrie in Betracht gezogen werden. Kirsten Westphal, Stiftung Politik und Wissenschaft, Berlin, analysiert die Folgen des US-Schiefergasbooms. Die USA können nicht nur rein rechnerisch energieunabhängig werden, der Schiefergasboom fördert auch die geopolitische Entwicklung der Vereinigten Staaten in Richtung Asien. Stefan Ladage, Harald Andruleit und Michael Kosinowski, Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR), Hannover, betrachten die Schiefergasvorkommen in Deutschland. Inwieweit Schiefergas gefördert werden kann und in welchem Umfang sei zurzeit noch nicht absehbar.

This paper analyzes the Thai petroleum fiscal regimes, so called Thailand I and Thailand III, under the concession system for granting petroleum exploration and production rights. The analytical issues include the sharing of benefit between the government and concessionaires, assurance of the government’s share of the profits, and the incentive for entrepreneurs to invest and generate efficient operation. The findings reveal that the Thai petroleum regimes are not flexible because only one set of fiscal instruments is applied. The regimes cannot be adjusted to either the context of project fields and operation or the uncertainty of petroleum price. However, the regimes could generate sufficient sharing of benefit although the share of government cannot be firmly assured. The Thai government revenue is based only on the royalty and petroleum income tax; it does not receive as much a share of the profit as the neighboring countries have been receiving under their sharing systems, which is based on production and the project contracts granted according to types of petroleum and exploration as well as production areas. The Thai petroleum regimes, however, give enough incentive to investors. If the Thai government continues the concession system, it should consider applying an additional fiscal instrument, i.e. “supplementary income tax” to increase government revenue.

This paper explores the choices faced by developing country governments that have received substantial revenues from natural resources. The economic principles underlying the choices between consumption, domestic investment, and the accumulation of foreign assets are analysed. The priority should be to use revenues to promote growth and investment in the domestic economy and thereby put consumption on a rapid growth path, although absorptive capacity may constrain the scope for doing this in the short run. Foreign asset accumulation should be used primarily to smooth volatility, rather than to build up a long-term sovereign wealth fund. Trade-offs between private and public spending channels are examined from both an economic and political economy standpoint.

This document studies the economic effect of windfall gains by examining a Peruvian natural experiment. The Camisea Fund for Socioeconomic Development (FOCAM) is an inter-governmental fiscal transfer scheme that allocates natural gas royalties generated by the Camisea Gas Project to eligible subnational governments. We exploit the rules governing FOCAM allocation to identify the effect of the transfers on municipal accounts, local infrastructure, and economic development. Using a newly constructed district- level dataset for the years 2005 and 2012, we find evidence of positive impacts on municipal capital expenditures and local infrastructure. However, we also find evidence of a negative impact on municipal current expenditures. More specifically, we find that municipalities with low absorptive capacity coped with the increased administrative burden of FOCAM transfers by reallocating administrative effort toward (away from) executing capital (current) expenditures.

This paper examines the Portuguese electricity-supply-sector evolution within the EU-27 and its impact on atmospheric emissions. Using a dataset of SO2, NOx, CO2 and particulates emissions for Portuguese thermoelectricity plants between 1990 and 2008, the performed panel data model shows emissions to be a positive function of fossil fuel combustible use. Nevertheless, these results denote a more “impressive” correlation per GWh generated than in other EU countries. They also indicate that only SO2 emissions are a negative function of liberalization, which may be explained by the market power of the incumbent that does not feel threatened to adopt environmental improvements., peer-reviewed

We introduce endogenous directed technical change into numerical integrated climate and development policy assessment. We distinguish expenditures on innovation (R&D) and imitation (international technology spillovers) and consider the role of capital investment in creating and implementing new technologies. Our main contribution is to calibrate and numerically solve the model and to examine the model’s sensitivity. As an application, we assess a carbon budget-based climate policy and vary the beginning of energy-saving technology transfer. Accordingly, China is a main beneficiary of early technology transfer. Herein, our results highlight the importance of timely international technology transfer for efficiently meeting global emission targets. Most of the consumption gains from endogenous growth are captured in the baseline. Moreover, mitigation costs turn out to be insensitive to changes in most of the parameters of endogenous growth. A higher effectivity of energy-specific relative to labor-specific expenditures on innovation and imitation reduces mitigation costs, though.

We develop and apply a consistent and comprehensive theoretical framework for assessing whether economic growth is compatible with sustaining wellbeing over time. Our approach differs from earlier approaches by concentrating on wealth rather than income. Sustainability is demonstrated by showing that a properly defined comprehensive measure of wealth is maintained through time. Our wealth measure is unusually comprehensive, capturing not only reproducible and human capital but also natural capital, health improvements and technological change. We apply the framework to five countries: the United States, China, Brazil, India and Venezuela. We show that the often-neglected contributors to wealth – technological change, natural capital and health capital – fundamentally affect the conclusions one draws about whether given nations are achieving sustainability. Indeed, even countries that display sustainability differ considerably in the kinds of capital that contribute to it.

Im Dezember 2011 startete eine Kampagne des Bundeswirtschaftsministeriums unter dem Motto »Kraftwerke? Ja bitte!«. Um im Zuge der Energiewende und des Atomausstiegs weiterhin Versorgungssicherheit und bezahlbaren Strom zu gewährleisten, seien neue Kohle- und Gaskraftwerke unabdinglich. In dieser »Kurz-zum-Klima«-Ausgabe wird ein Überblick über die Situation der Kohleenergie in Deutschland gegeben und deren Rolle in der Energiewende genauer betrachtet. Es zeigt sich, dass die Kohle auf absehbare Zeit eine nicht zu unterschätzende Rolle in der Stromerzeugung in Deutschland einnehmen wird, was mit dementsprechend hohen CO2-Emissionen verbunden ist und so die Klimaziele Deutschlands in Gefahr bringt. Neben der Erreichung der Klimaziele wird auch das Ziel, im Jahr 2050 80% des Strommixes aus Erneuerbaren zu gewinnen, gefährdet. Bisher wurde von Seiten der Politik jedoch noch nichts unternommen, um Investitionen in flexible Reservekapazitäten zu fördern. Nach aktuellem Wissens- und Technologiestand kommen für solch flexible Kapazitäten nur Gaskraftwerke in Frage, die allerdings unter aktuellen Bedingungen nicht rentabel sind. Investitionsanreize in solche Kraftwerke sind daher dringend notwendig.

On demontre empiriquement que les ressources naturelles ne sont pas un facteur de de terioration systematique de la qualite institutionnelle d’un pays. Les regimes parlementaires ne connaissent aucun effet de la rente, tiree des ressources naturelles, sur leurs institutions. En revanche, les systemes presidentiels sont soumis a un effet non lineaire (courbe en U in verse) des ressources naturelles sur les institutions. Pour de faibles montants de ressources naturelles, les institutions fournissent suffisamment d’incitations pour eviter la mise en place d’institutions de mauvaise qualite tournees vers l’extration de la rente. En revanche, si les institutions ne fournissent pas des incitations suffisantes, on observe alors une deterioration de la qualite institutionnelle. Cet effet n’apparait que dans les regimes presidentiels. Si l’on re d uit l’echantillon aux pays democratiques, les resultats sont identiques.

During human societyâ€(tm)s development on large geographical areas, a series of cultural systems have appeared and have determined a certain approach concerning the environment and social relations. These systems of thought persist even today and they are strongly influenced by individualsâ€(tm) thinking and approaches in that society, thing that requires a specific approach for the implementation of these relatively new concepts (e.g. sustainable development, pollution, ecological approaches on social life). Furthermore, the continuous growth of the demand for energy in the world is seen as an alarm. Between 1970 and 1997 world energy consumption has almost doubled and it is projected to grow by about 57% during 2004-2030 and the thing which should be mentioned is that with the increasing energy demand, pollution levels will increase too. But we must not forget that electric and thermal power represent one of the basic needs of mankind, and when the fulfilment of this need started to affect the climate and implicitly human health this problem turned into a hardly manageable one. We must not forget that the worldâ€(tm)s population is growing rapidly and the level of pollution per capita increased we might even say in direct proportion. In many cases, increased pollution has its explanation in the growing number of individuals at global level and also the increasing needs, desires, aspirations, standard of living, of these. This paper intends to objectively analyse the interconnections that arise between the environment and the growth of the demand for energy, emphasizing the devastating effects of pollution created by burning fossil fuels in order to obtain electric and thermal power as well as the current and future possibilities for the replacement of these energy reserves with renewable energy reserves. The whole analysis will be accompanied by case studies and will follow strictly imposed goals by sustainable development.

The Appalachian Regional Commission’s definition of the Appalachian region is the one used most often by researchers, politicians, and the popular press. The uncritical use of this definition of Appalachia raises issues of both selection bias and excess heterogeneity in regression analysis of Appalachian income and growth. The ARC was created as part of President Johnson’s war on poverty, and the geographical extent of its purview has been driven by politics and by the geography of poverty, neither of which is exogenous. It is well known that the use of endogenous variables to choose a sample creates bias and inconsistency in estimation of regression coefficients. To identify the counties that belong to the Appalachian region exogenously we use an algorithm based on three criteria: topography, contiguity, and prevalence of slavery in the 1860 census. We apply our sample to growth regressions using data from 1970 to 2008, addressing the question of the existence of a resource curse from coal extraction. For this model we find strong evidence of excess heterogeneity, but not bias.

In the theoretical and practical approach of the economic life, more often appears the idea of sustainable economic development, of reconciliation between man and nature in attracting and using its resources without interfering in its natural movement and evolution. In this paper we are trying to bring into light the relation between the economic development and the mineral resources, in terms of achieving sustainable development. The place and role of natural factors in the market economy is revealed by bringing to the forefront a number of arguments that demonstrate their vital position in the sustainable growth and development.

Sustainable development as general acceptance is that form of ensuring the bio-socio-economic needs of the present generation without affecting the existence and development opportunities for the generations to come. Secondary, the concept refers to the protection of the environment that is at present greatly affected by externalities of the socio-economic activity of previous and present generations. As it is shown in this paper the negative effects of the environmental pollution records higher and higher values in a short period of time of which we analyze their impact on population health, focusing on the situation of Romania. I started the analysis from the assumptions that the health of an organism is a normal physical and physiological state, being the opposite of the concept disease. The most common diseases are: hereditary, infectious, internal, infantile, autoimmune, allergic, socio-professional, tumorous, degenerative diseases etc. Of these infant, allergic, tumorous and autoimmune diseases are mainly generated by environmental pollution. Extremely special, regarding the incidence of harmful environmental factors, are the socio-professional diseases or of civilization that are represented by those diseases that are more common in industrialized countries than in the so called third world. In respect to air pollution-generated illnesses with products resulting from burning fossil fuels are highlighted respiratory diseases, immunological diseases, benign and malignant neoplasm of the airways and also dermatitis. Most activities follow sooner or later to increase welfare. Economic growth, environmental protection as well as fulfilling social needs of individuals are only a few elements that lead to the increase of population welfare. If we accept the above mentioned things, then it means that promoting the realisation of sustainable development based on clean and renewable resources and the rationally using the conventional ones is an objective to be supported and of course achieved.

We develop the rectangular choice-of-technology model with factor constraints, or RCOT, a linear programming input–output model for analysis of the economy of a single region. It allows for one or more sectors to operate more than one technology simultaneously, with the relatively lowest-cost one supplemented by others if it encounters a binding factor constraint. The RCOT model solves for sector outputs, goods prices that are set by the highest-cost technologies in use, and scarcity rents that correspond to binding factor constraints experienced by the lower-cost technologies. The model is motivated by the fact that mineral deposits of different qualities may be exploited simultaneously, as may primary and recycled sources for the same materials or irrigated and rain-fed techniques for producing the same crop. RCOT generalizes Carter's square choice-of-technology model, in particular adding the factor constraints that allow several alternatives to operate simultaneously. The Appendix gives a numerical ex...

The current study examines how analysis of the Phenomenon of Plenty, paradox of economic underperformance of resource rich nations, could benefit from theoretical and empirical application of suggested petroleum production function framework, basing on sample oil abundant countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, in particular Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. Proposed approach displays capacity of oil economy production function to shed light on larger scope of theoretical issues. Empirical testing of suggested theoretical framework exhibited ability of proxied components of devised production function, capturing main metrics of the Phenomenon of Plenty and additionally factoring in corruption, to exert a strong impact on the majority of twelve principal macroeconomic indicators monitored by CIS supranational institutions: with most pronounced influence on gross domestic product, industrial production, capital investments, and export to CIS countries.

Recent literature has focussed on institutional degradation and revenue volatility as major sources of a resource curse. Formerly centrally planned countries may be especially vulnerable due to their mutating institutions and macropolicy inexperience. This paper examines these issues through case studies of six former Soviet republics and Mongolia. The principal focus is on the methods of involving foreign partners in exploration and exploitation of natural resources and, to a lesser extent, on the use of revenues during resource booms. The consequences of alternative resource ownership patterns are difficult to model due to path dependency and the significance of the conjuncture of circumstances. Kazakhstan in the 1990s was a prime example of rent-seeking institutional degradation, but an exceptionally positive conjuncture in the 2000s (soaring oil prices, large oil and gas discoveries, and new pipelines) triggered institutional and policy evolution. Uzbekistan, by contrast, had less resource-rent-driven institutional degradation in the 1990s, but stagnated in the 2000s. Turkmenistan and Mongolia highlight the missed opportunities from not involving foreign partners, while Azerbaijan and the Kyrgyz Republic illustrate the less predictable outcomes following quick deals with foreign investors. Institutions matter, but the case studies suggest more complex relationships than revealed by simple correlations between indicators of institutional quality or of ownership patterns.

In recent years, the events which have unfolded on a local or global level have affected us with an ever-growing frequency. A new vision on economic growth is needed, which raises the problem of ending the “career” of the model used so far to produce obsessively, wasting the limited resources, putting a strain not only on the link between needs and resources, but also on life itself, both for today’s generation and for the future ones. In this context, this paper wishes to highlight the effects of the growth that brings poverty, as well as those of the relationship between growth and non-renewable resources.

Non-renewable resources can doubtlessly be regarded as the backbone of our modern society. However, most of economists have ignored the impact of non-renewable resources on the environment by dissociating the economy from the ecological network it is fundamentally linked to. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to highlight a literature overview of the most important opinions regarding non-renewable natural resources.

The effects of stochastic future oil prices on optimal oil extraction paths and optimal tax, spending and government debt policies are analyzed when demand for oil is linear and preferences quadratic. Without prudence, optimal oil extraction is governed by the Hotelling rule and optimal budgetary policies by the tax smoothing principle. With prudence, the government depletes oil reserves more aggressively and engages in precautionary saving financed by postponing spending and bringing taxes forward, especially if it has substantial monopoly power on the oil market, gives high priority to the public spending target and is very prudent, and future oil demand has high variance. If the oil market is fairly competitive, prudent governments deliberately under-estimate oil reserves and under-predict future oil prices. This leads to less aggressive oil depletion and less government saving. However, if the government attaches high priority to raising public spending to its bliss level, prudence implies a tendency to over-predict future oil prices and reserves which induces more aggressive oil depletion and more government saving. Uncertain economic prospects induce precautionary saving and more aggressive oil extraction.