Money,Comfort or Environment? Priorities and Determinants of Energy Efficiency Investments in Irish Households

Energy efficiency is an effective strategy to reduce household energy consumption. Investments in energy efficiency measures (EEMs) result in reduced energy bills and increased comfort for households, while also contributing to national environmental targets. This article examines an energy efficiency scheme in Ireland and investigates the factors that determine investments in energy efficiency measures and the motivations of Irish households to participate in energy saving programs and adopt EEMs. The paper investigates three key research questions: the determination of investments in EEMs, with special focus on motivations and their relative importance; the consistency of motivations over the course of the decision-making process; and the consistency of determinants and motivations for investments in EEMs across different measures. The paper studies the implementation of seven energy efficiency measures in residential houses throughout Ireland. Results indicate that the decision to ultimately apply and invest in EEMs is mainly driven by monetary or economic factors such as gains in energy savings and the private cost of the measures. Comfort gains are found to be a secondary factor and environmental benefits of EEMs are found to be of little concern when making investment decisions. Finally, we suggest focusing on providing information about the benefits of the EEMs on energy savings and improvements in comfort in order to increase the adoption of EEMs by households in Ireland.     

The ATO Longitudinal Information Files (ALife): A New Resource for Retirement Policy Research

The Australian Taxation Office release of annual longitudinally linked individual tax and superannuation records, known as the ATO Longitudinal Information Files (ALife), opens up opportunities for new research. In this study, we provide an overview of ALife, focusing on its use for retirement income research. To this end, we provide the first longitudinal estimates of superannuation outcomes for 1-year birth cohorts. Results show marked increase in disparity of super balances in the lead-up to retirement as those in the top quartile ramp-up their contributions, possibly to take advantage of the favourable tax treatment of superannuation income in retirement years.     

Kinship and business: how entrepreneurial households facilitate business growth

Building on studies that have stressed the importance of context and the role of the family in business growth, this study explores the role of the entrepreneurial household in the process of business development and growth. We seek to understand how household strategy influences the development of new businesses, the ways in which household characteristics and dynamics influence business growth strategy decisions and how business portfolios are managed and developed by the household. To examine these questions, comparative case studies were undertaken drawing data from four entrepreneurial households located in remote rural regions of Norway and Scotland. The data reveal the role of the entrepreneurial household in the evolution of business creation and growth, examining the processual aspects of entrepreneurial growth, the interactions between business activities and entrepreneurial households and how business portfolios are developed in practice. Three analytical themes emerged from the analyses: the tightly interwoven connections between the business and the household, the use of family and kinship relations as a business resource base and how households mitigate risk and uncertainty through self-imposed growth controls. Although previous studies have viewed entrepreneurial growth largely as an outcome of personal ambition and business strategy, these results reveal the importance of the entrepreneurial household and the household strategy in determining business growth activities.     

The Largest Trans-nationals of Developing Economies

Industrial concentration is broadly defined as a few firms controlling a substantial share of assets or sales of the market. In the multinational industrial sector, this paper shows that the largest 50 and 100 in the developing economies control substantial amounts of assets and sales, both foreign and total. Two well known indexes of concentration were used, the Herfindahl and Theil’s entropy, to check the levels of concentration between 1994 and 2003 for the top 50 and between 2004 and 2006 for the top 100. It was found that although the sizes of the multinationals in assets and sales increased during the period, the relative concentration remained somewhat static.     

Opening of China's Trade,Labour Market Reform and Impact on Rural Wages

Government policy in China supports urban wages at the expense of returns to farm labour. A model is developed to estimate how WTO accession and complementary labour market reform will influence factor returns in China. With WTO membership, a larger cut in manufacturing tariffs compared to agriculture will improve agriculture's terms of trade and will raise the agricultural wage. Complementary labour market reforms will further boost farm wages as labour exits agriculture in large numbers. We estimate that WTO membership and complementary labour market reforms will result in a decline in the agricultural labour force by about 25 per cent.     

Implications for research

We aimed to study the anatomical distribution, severity, and outcome of hospitalised trauma pedestrian patients in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), so as to improve preventive measures. All pedestrian trauma patients who were involved with a road traffic collision and admitted to Al Ain Hospital for more than 24 hours or who died in the hospital were included in the study. Data were prospectively collected during March 2003–October 2007. Three hundred and eighteen patients were studied, 279 (87.7%) were males. Median (range) age was 31 (1–75) years. UAE nationals were significantly younger than non-nationals (median (range) age of 14 (2–75) years compared with 33 (1–75) years, p = 0.001, Mann–Whitney U-test). The lower limb (57.2%) was the most common injured region followed by the head (46.9%). The median (range) Injury Severity Score of patients was 5 (1–45). The median (range) total hospital stay was 11.3 (1–130) days. Thirty patients died (overall mortality 9.4%). In conclusion, mortality of pedestrian injured patients in the UAE is high. Severe head injury was the main cause of death. Measures to improve pedestrian safety should be adopted so as to reduce morbidity and mortality. These include educating drivers and pedestrians on road safety and enforcement of traffic safety laws.     

Efficiency Wages and International Factor Mobility

This paper incorporates efficiency wages into the Heckscher-Ohlin model. The capital intensive sector pays higher wages than the other sector. One result is that tariffs to attract capital increase welfare by increasing the quality, not quantity, of jobs available. However, there are distributional effects among laborers. Some see an increase in wages, others become unemployed. The paper also investigates policies in the presence of illegal immigration. If immigration cannot be limited, a high wage country is best served by a capital outflow that eliminates the incentive for the labor inflow. Again, there are distributional effects among the workers. [F20]