The internationalization of energy supply structures

The World Energy Conference will be held in Munich in mid-September. It will have to deal with diverse and complex problems of energy policy, for the seventies have presented tremendous challenges in the energy field. The control over oil—with 46% of the world supply still by far the most important source of energy—has been reorganized and two oil crises have exposed the flow of supplies to severe disruption and political hazards. As far as can be foreseen, the supply is unlikely to keep abreast of the world-wide rise of energy consumption. To replace the oil gradually will therefore be the major task in the energy field in the coming decades. What will be the supply position between now and the year 2000? And which structural changes will have to be effected?     

A note on least squares estimation and the blue in a generalized linear regression model

In a generalized linear regression model, least squares and Gauss-Markov estimators differ, in general, if the variance-covariance matrix of the disturbances is singular. In the present note it is shown that, nevertheless, the conventional least squares procedure leads to a Gauss-Markov estimator if it is applied to a modified model which results from adding dummy constraints to the original model. These constraints reflect the effects of the singularity of the variance- convariance matrix. As a consequence, a Gauss-Markov estimate may always be obtained by standard least squares minimization, which offers considerable computational advantages.     

Business climate as a leading indicator? An empirical investigation for west Germany from 1978 to 1990

For twenty-five years now, the leading indicator “Business Climate” of the Ifo Institute has been applied in the Federal Republic of Germany. The intent of this note is to provide answers to two questions by means of econometric methods. The first question is: Is the business climate really a leading indicator? The second question is: How much time is the indicator ahead? For verification and in order to respond to both questions, the Granger causality test is used in the version of Hsiao.     

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