Energy poverty in rural Bangladesh Barnes, Douglas F.; Khandker, Shahidur R.; Samad, Hussain A.
Energy policy,
02/2011, Volume:
39, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Energy poverty is a well-established concept among energy and development specialists. International development organizations frequently cite energy-poverty alleviation as a necessary condition to ...reduce income poverty. Several approaches used to measure energy poverty over the past 20 years have defined the energy poverty line as the minimum quantity of physical energy needed to perform such basic tasks as cooking and lighting. This paper uses a demand-based approach to define the energy poverty line as the threshold point at which energy consumption begins to rise with increases in household income. At or below this threshold point, households consume a bare minimum level of energy and should be considered energy poor. This approach was applied using cross-sectional data from a comprehensive 2004 household survey representative of rural Bangladesh. The findings suggest that some 58 percent of rural households in Bangladesh are energy poor, versus 45 percent that are income poor. The findings also suggest that policies to support rural electrification and greater use of improved biomass stoves might play a significant role in reducing energy poverty.
►We estimate energy poverty for rural Bangladesh adopting a demand-based approach. ►Findings suggest that energy poverty does not necessarily follow the same pattern as income poverty. ►Access to modern energy and efficient use of traditional energy help alleviate energy poverty. ►Energy poverty indicator can help track the effectiveness of a wide range of energy policies.
This study empirically examines the effect of green finance and fintech on high-quality economic development. Using data from 30 provinces and municipalities in China from 2007 to 2019, this study ...applies panel regression analysis to investigate the relationships between green finance, fintech, and high-quality economic development, and adopts a two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) to defaecate the endogeneity issue. This study finds that green finance comprehensively facilitates high-quality economic development by positively affect its all three aspects (i.e., ecological environment, economic efficiency, and economic structure). Additionally, fintech strengthens the positive impact of green finance in the aspects of ecological environment and economic structure, while having limited effects on the relationship between green finance and economic efficiency. Based on these findings, our study proposes three policy suggestions for policymakers, including reinforcing the integration of fintech development with green finance, building an environmental disclosure framework to supervise local governments in improving efficiency of green finance, and developing medium- and long-term favorable policies as an external intervention measure to promote green finance in the private sector.
•The relationship between green finance and high-quality economic development is investigated.•Fintech development interacts with green finance to affect high-quality economic development.•A comprehensive green finance development index is developed.•High-quality economic development is evaluated independently from three dimensions.•We controlled for endogeneity using the two-step GMM estimator.•The study has important policy implications for promoting the high-quality economic development.
In search of prosperity Rodrik, Dani; Rodrik, Dani
2012., 20121121, 2012, 2003, 2003-01-01, 20030101
eBook
The economics of growth has come a long way since it regained center stage for economists in the mid-1980s. Here for the first time is a series of country studies guided by that research. The ...thirteen essays, by leading economists, shed light on some of the most important growth puzzles of our time. How did China grow so rapidly despite the absence of full-fledged private property rights? What happened in India after the early 1980s to more than double its growth rate? How did Botswana and Mauritius avoid the problems that other countries in sub--Saharan Africa succumbed to? How did Indonesia manage to grow over three decades despite weak institutions and distorted microeconomic policies and why did it suffer such a collapse after 1997?
What emerges from this collective effort is a deeper understanding of the centrality of institutions. Economies that have performed well over the long term owe their success not to geography or trade, but to institutions that have generated market-oriented incentives, protected property rights, and enabled stability. However, these narratives warn against a cookie-cutter approach to institution building.
The contributors are Daron Acemoglu, Maite Careaga, Gregory Clark, J. Bradford DeLong, Georges de Menil, William Easterly, Ricardo Hausmann, Simon Johnson, Daniel Kaufmann, Massimo Mastruzzi, Ian W. McLean, Lant Pritchett, Yingyi Qian, James A. Robinson, Devesh Roy, Arvind Subramanian, Alan M. Taylor, Jonathan Temple, Barry R. Weingast, Susan Wolcott, and Diego Zavaleta.
Mediterranean Capitalism Revisited
brings together leading experts on the political economies
of southern Europe-specifically Greece, Italy, Spain, and
Portugal-to closely analyze and explain the ...primary socioeconomic
and institutional features that define "Mediterranean capitalism"
within the wider European context. These economies share a
number of features, most notably their difficulties to provide
viable answers to the challenge of globalization.
By examining and comparing such components as welfare, education
and innovation policies, cultural dimensions, and labor market
regulation, Mediterranean Capitalism Revisited attends to
both commonalities and divergences between the four countries,
identifying the main reasons behind the poor performance of their
economies and slow recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-2008.
This volume also sheds light on the process of diversification
among the four countries and addresses whether it did and still
does make sense to speak of a uniquely Mediterranean model of
capitalism.
Contributors: Alexandre Afonso, Leiden University; Lucio
Baccaro, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies; Rui
Branco, NOVA University of Lisbon; Fabio Bulfone, Max Planck
Institute for the Study of Societies; Giliberto Capano, University
of Bologna; Sabrina Colombo, University of Milan; Lisa Dorigatti,
University of Milan; Ana M. Guillén, University of Oviedo; Matteo
Jessoula, University of Milan; Andrea Lippi, University of
Florence; Manos Matsaganis, Polytechnic University of Milan; Oscar
Molina, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Manuela Moschella,
Scuola Normale Superiore; Sofia A. Pérez, Boston University; Gemma
Scalise, University of Bergamo; Arianna Tassinari, Max Planck
Institute for the Study of Societies.
Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of nonsystematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and ...nonprice factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product. Demand is significantly price sensitive, but widespread take-up would not be achieved even if the product offered a payout ratio comparable to US insurance contracts. We present evidence suggesting that lack of trust, liquidity constraints, and limited salience are significant nonprice frictions that constrain demand.We suggest possible contract design improvements to mitigate these frictions.
The role of natural resources in promoting economic and financial activities is important for attaining country's economic growth. The study used different natural resource rents, domestic ...investment, trade openness, per capita income and their resulting impact on financial development in order to assess ‘financial resource curse’ hypothesis in Pakistan by using a consistent time series data from 1975 to 2017. The study employed ARDL-Bounds testing approach that is fairly worked under different order of integrated variables and displayed short- and long-run parameter estimates. Further, the study used VAR decomposition analysis to generate Impulse Response Function (IRF) and Variance Decomposition Analysis (VDA) to assessed forecasted variance and error shocks over a next 10 year time period. The results show that, in the short-run, initial level of forest rents and oil rents supported the ‘natural resource abundance’ hypothesis, as both the rents substantially increases country's financial development, however, in the long-run, there is a negative relationship of coal rents, forest rents, natural gas rents, and oil rents with domestic credit to private sector (DCPS), which confirmed the ‘natural curse hypothesis’ in a country. The domestic investment in the form of gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) largely supported the financial activities with all given resource rents in the models, while country's per capita income unable to signify its positive impact on DCPS under the resource curse environment during the study time period. The other results show that coal rents and oil rents decreases broad money supply whereas natural gas rents decreases market capitalization to validate ‘financial resource curse’ hypothesis in a country. The results of IRF and VDA approach confirmed the viability of both the competing natural resource theories (i.e., financial resource curse and financial resource blessing hypothesis) under financial development in the next 10 year time period.
•The study evaluated ‘financial resource curse’ hypothesis in Pakistan.•Financial development is shown by domestic credit to private sector, M2, and market capitalization.•Coal, natural gas, oil, and forest rents are used as indicators of natural resource abundance in a country.•The study verified ‘financial resource curse’ hypothesis in all of the four stated natural resource rents.•The domestic investment, trade, and continuing economic growth significantly affect country's financial development.
Linking environmental sustainability with poverty reduction and social justice, and making science and technology work for the poor, have become central practical, political and moral challenges of ...our times. These must be met in a world of rapid, interconnected change in environments, societies and economies, and globalised, fragmented governance arrangements. Yet despite growing international attention and investment, policy attempts often fail. Why is this, and what can be done about it? How might we understand and address emergent threats from epidemic disease, or the challenges of water scarcity in dryland India? In the context of climate change, how might seed systems help African farmers meet their needs, and how might appropriate energy strategies be developed? This book lays out a new 'pathways approach' to address sustainability challenges such as these in today's dynamic world. Through an appreciation of dynamics, complexity, uncertainty, differing narratives and the values-based aims of sustainability, the pathways approach allows us to see how some approaches are dominant, even though they do not produce the desired results, and how to create successful alternative 'pathways' of responding to the challenges we face. As well as offering new ways of thinking about sustainability, the book also suggests a series of practical ways forward - in tools and methods, forms of political engagement, and styles of knowledge-making and communication. Throughout the book, the practicalities of the pathways approach are illustrated using four case studies: water in dryland India, agricultural seeds in Africa, responses to epidemic disease and energy systems/climate change.Published in association with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Contesting Development Barron, Patrick; Woolcock, Michael; Diprose, Rachael
02/2011
eBook
This pathbreaking book analyzes a highly successful participatory development program in Indonesia, exploring its distinctive origins and design principles and its impacts on local conflict dynamics ...and social institutions.
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