Financing energy efficiency retrofits in Chilean households: The role of financial instruments,savings and uncertainty in energy transition

High firewood consumption for heating produces high levels of pollution in cities in central and southern Chile, with serious consequences for health and quality of life. Energy efficiency measures (EEMs) have been identified as the best strategy to reduce air pollution and maximize social benefits. However, their adoption has been slow. The objective of this article is to investigate household preferences for financial incentives needed to promote private investments in EEMs in Central-Southern Chilean households and study the role of energy savings and the uncertainty about potential savings in the investment decision, with the aim of finding solutions to increase the adoption of these technologies. We use a choice experiment to explore the trade-off between the investment costs, financial instruments, energy savings, and the uncertainty about achieving the theoretical savings provided by engineering and architectural models. The results show that financial instruments play the most important role in this decision, followed by the savings achieved by the retrofit. Householders prefer to finance their investments with a mix of their personal resources and medium-term credits, trying to avoid long-term commitments. Although uncertainty was found to be a significant variable, it seems to play a small role in the investment decision.     

Volatility spillovers between WTI and Brent spot crude oil prices: an analysis of granger causality in variance patterns over time

There has been an increase in price volatility in oil prices during and since the global financial crisis (GFC). This study investigates the Granger causality patterns in volatility spillovers between West Texas International (WTI) and Brent crude oil spot prices using daily data. We use Hafner and Herwartz’s (2006) test and employ a rolling sample approach to investigate the changes in the dynamics of volatility spillovers between WTI and Brent oil prices over time. Volatility spillovers from Brent to WTI prices are found to be more pronounced at the beginning of the analysis period, around the GFC, and more recently in 2020. Between 2015 and 2019, the direction of volatility spillovers runs unidirectionally from WTI to Brent oil prices. In 2020, however, a Granger-causal feedback relation between the volatility of WTI and Brent crude oil prices is again detected. This is due to the uncertainty surrounding how the COVID-19 pandemic will evolve and how long the economies and financial markets will be affected. In this uncertain environment, commodities markets participants could be reacting to prices and volatility signals on both WTI and Brent, leading to the detection of a feedback relation.     

A multivariate distance nonlinear causality test based on partial distance correlation: a machine learning application to energy futures

This paper proposes a multivariate distance nonlinear causality test (MDNC) using the partial distance correlation in a time series framework. Partial distance correlation as an extension of the Brownian distance correlation calculates the distance correlation between random vectors X and Y controlling for a random vector Z. Our test can detect nonlinear lagged relationships between time series, and when integrated with machine learning methods it can improve the forecasting power. We apply our method as a feature selection procedure and combine it with the support vector machine and random forests algorithms to study the forecast of the main energy financial time series (oil, coal, and natural gas futures). It shows substantial improvement in forecasting the fuel energy time series in comparison to the classical Granger causality method in time series.     

和谐社会与价值--能量理论

本文延续了《经济学的本质》、《经济学的表象》两书提出的“价值-能量”理论,对构建和谐社会的要求、过程和目的进行了科学的分析,并为之奠定了科学的理论基础.     

Research notes and communications corporate restructuring and strategic change: The effect on diversification strategy and R & D intensity

In the 1980s a number of large corporations restructured their diversified businesses through divestitures. It is hypothesized that restructuring activity focused on firms at intermediate levels of diversification (e.g., related-linked) which have a mixture of related and unrelated business units. Results confirm this hypothesis which explains that such mixed corporate strategies create organizational and control inefficiencies in managing both related and unrelated types of business units. Restructured firms were also found to move towards two types of different internal capital markets (related and unrelated). Most restructuring firms moved toward lower levels of diversification (e.g., related-constrained), although some moved toward higher levels of diversification (e.g., unrelated business). Also, this study finds restructuring firms that changed their corporate strategy by reducing diversified scope increased their R&D intensity. Firms that restructured and increased their diversified scope decreased R&D intensity. This result suggested a partial substitution between diversification and R&D activity.     

激励性规制的强度分析

网络型产业中存在的信息不对称使规制契约的存在成为必然。现实经济活动中之所以要设计和采用不同强度的激励性规制,主要是由于没有哪种规制机制能够解决所有问题。在理论综述的基础上,借鉴前人的研究,分析了网络型产业的激励性规制模型中的激励强度与激励绩效的关系,并指出其在实践中的应用以及对我国的借鉴。     

能源新论——兼论树立科学的能源观

能源在人类社会中是一个历史范畴,不同文明时期的主导能源之间有着深刻的历史联系。工业社会的主导能源本质上是化学能源,这决定了它的局限性。面对工业能源危机,人类必须开拓出比化学能源更深层次的新能源,这就是物理能源。物理能源的开发利用及其向主导能源的转化,是今日经济社会发展的必然趋势。     

开放条件下的贵州工业结构升级

工业化过程不仅涵盖了工业产值不断提高并最终在国民经济中占主导地位,还应该实现工业结构的不断升级.1997年至2004年期间,贵州工业结构在轻重工业比例、结构高度化和生产要素密集度等方面有所升级但仍存在一些偏差.在未来开放条件下贵州促进工业结构升级应注意避免结构低度化,创造和提供合适的市场空间,正确处理技术引进与自主开发的关系,发挥比较优势以及规范政府职能等问题.     

数字经济对我国碳排放的影响研究

基于2013-2020年的30个省份数据构建面板数据模型,从碳排放总量和碳排放强度两个视角研究数字经济发展对区域碳排放的影响。研究发现：数字经济的发展有效地降低了人均碳排放量、碳排放增量与碳排放增速,数字经济与碳排放强度之间存在倒“U”形关系,数字经济与碳排放强度、边际碳排放强度的关系呈现区域性特征,在省域层面数字经济对边际碳排放强度的影响不存在明显的空间效应,数字经济对碳排放增长率的影响存在基于产业结构优化、人口集聚、城镇化的遮掩效应。     

General equilibrium impact of an energy-saving policy in the public sector

We analyse a disregarded environmental policy instrument: a switch in government expenditure away from energy (or other natural resources) and toward a composite good which includes energy-saving expenditure. We first develop two variants of an analytical general equilibrium model. A composite good is produced with constant returns to scale, and energy is imported or produced domestically with diminishing returns, yielding a differential rent to its owners. The government purchases energy and composite goods from private firms. Such a policy unambiguously increases employment. It also raises private consumption and welfare under two conditions: (i) it is not too costly and (ii) the initial share of the resource is smaller in public spending than in private consumption, or the difference is small enough. We then run numerically a model featuring both importation and domestic production of energy (oil, gas and electricity), for the OECD as a whole. Simulations show that employment, welfare and private consumption rise. We provide magnitudes for different parameter values. Earlier versions of this paper have benefited from conference participants at the European Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, International Society for Ecological Economics World Congress, CIRED seminar and EUREQua environmental economics seminar. We especially thank Michèle Sadoun and two anonymous referees. The usual disclaimer applies.