Household Customers’ Cost of Interruption: Survey Study on Summer Electricity Peak of Xi’an City

In light of China’s Carbon Neutrality Target and facing the fluctuating pressure of power supply brought on by new energy intermittent power generation, it is urgent to mobilize a large number of residential flexible loads that can respond instantaneously to mitigate peak–valley difference. Under a framework of demand-side management (DSM) and utility analysis, we empirically investigate customers’ costs from interrupting typical electrical terminals at the household level. Specifically, by using the contingent valuation method (CVM), we explore the factors that affect households’ Willingness to Accept (WTA) of voluntarily participating in the interruption management during the summer electricity peak and estimate the distribution of households’ WTA values. We find that given the value of WTA, households’ participation rate in the interruption management significantly decreases with the increase in interruption duration and varies with the type of terminal appliance that is on direct interruption management. Moreover, the majority of households are willing to participate in the interruption management even if the compensation amount is low. The factors that determine households’ WTA and the size of their influences vary with the type of electrical terminal. The results imply that differentiating the terminal electricity market and accurately locking on the target terminals by considering the household heterogeneity can reduce the household welfare losses arising from DSM.

CO2 Emission from Brickfields in Bangladesh: Can Ethical Responsibility by Doing Reduce Level of Emission?

Recent years’ rapid urbanization and then rural to urban migration have created increasing demands of bricks usages in Bangladesh. However, brick industry has been largely using inefficient, dirty technology and burns woods-coal. It injects huge volume of CO2 in atmosphere. For policy guidance on the issue, this study analyzes the basic issues of CO2 emission from brickfields in terms of marginal damage (MD) analysis. Findings show that the marginal social costs are higher than marginal private (producer of bricks) costs where brickfields are benefiting with the expense of Bangladeshi society as a whole. As time passes by, rises of brick-prices have been causing upward trends of welfare losses where producers’ surpluses are dominating in the total surplus. This economic situation has been causing higher deadweight loss year after year. Addressing the issues, national strategies and policy actions are needed. Reforestation efforts can be achieved in multi-faucets: brick-fields’ charity, government policies on planting trees & policies on motivational efforts inspiring citizens of Bangladesh. Motivational policy can be: i) inspiring celebration individual’s “Birthday, Having 1st child in family and Event of marriage” by planting trees, ii) forcing to utilize green tech in brick kilns and iii) conducting academic research where financial supports are in need. Keywords: brickfields, effluent gases emission, causes social costs & deadweight loss, reforestation, motivational efforts of government policies

Assessing the energy transition in China towards carbon neutrality with a probabilistic framework

A profound transformation of China’s energy system is required to achieve carbon neutrality. Here, we couple Monte Carlo analysis with a bottom-up energy-environment-economy model to generate 3,000 cases with different carbon peak times, technological evolution pathways and cumulative carbon budgets. The results show that if emissions peak in 2025, the carbon neutrality goal calls for a 45–62% electrification rate, 47–78% renewable energy in primary energy supply, 5.2–7.9 TW of solar and wind power, 1.5–2.7 PWh of energy storage usage and 64–1,649 MtCO2 of negative emissions, and synergistically reducing approximately 80% of local air pollutants compared to the present level in 2050. The emission peak time and cumulative carbon budget have significant impacts on the decarbonization pathways, technology choices, and transition costs. Early peaking reduces welfare losses and prevents overreliance on carbon removal technologies. Technology breakthroughs, production and consumption pattern changes, and policy enhancement are urgently required to achieve carbon neutrality.

Validating second-order model for economic welfare scale: evidence from Nigeria

PurposeThe goal of this paper is to validate the second-order model for the economic welfare scale in the context of violence. This study also aims to assess the relationship between the dimensions of the economic welfare scale’ declining food consumption and loss of income and the overall latent construct and assess the second-order model’s goodness of fit using appropriate fit indices.Design/methodology/approachThe study is cross-sectional with a sample of 600 households from the violent zone, Northwest Nigeria. The data collected was used for confirmatory factor analysis, second-order model evaluation and model fit evaluation.FindingsThe second-order model for the economic welfare scale is valid and reliable; the dimensions significantly affect the formation of the overall construct. The model’s goodness of fit fulfilled the relevant fit indices.Research limitations/implicationsThe study offers researchers and policymakers practical insights into how each dimension influences the latent operational construct. It, therefore, encompasses replication in all the remaining modules.Practical implicationsThe findings offer practical insight to policymakers in designing policies for promoting long-term peace structures and developing mechanisms to assist those who have suffered the greatest economic welfare losses due to violence in Nigeria.Social implicationsThe findings form an essential tool to assess the economic welfare effect in violently affected territories at the micro-level.Originality/valueThe outcomes are ground-breaking by validating the second-order model for the economic welfare scale. And established dimension influences over the overall latent variable.

Present-biased Government, Creative Accounting and a Pitfall in Balanced Budget Rules

I propose a general equilibrium model with a quasi-hyperbolic discounting government that optimally decides upon using creative accounting in order to evaluate a balanced budget rule and a debt rule. In that context, I find that a binding balanced budget rule could fail to properly constrain public overindebtedness when government uses creative accounting while a debt rule is effective, since targets are set on total public liabilities. Results suggest that a balanced budget fiscal rule can also deteriorate welfare due to the higher interest rates derived from doing operations under the line, implying future expenditure cuts that are harmful for households, who value public goods and services. A debt rule is also preferred for its capacity to reverse some welfare losses generated by the present-biased government.

Options to design more ethical and still successful default nudges: a review and recommendations

On the one hand, default nudges are proven to strongly influence behavior. On the other hand, a number of consumer autonomy and welfare concerns have been raised that hinder public policy applications. Both nudge success and ethical concerns depend heavily on the design of defaults. We identify six taxonomic characteristics that matter to the ethical and the nudge success dimension. We review the default nudge literature (N = 61) and review ethical studies to assess both dimensions concerning the taxonomy. When designing a default, a choice architect inevitably makes a decision concerning the characteristics. Among others, the results show three main findings. (1) The initial choice architecture regularly imposes welfare losses and impedes consumer autonomy. Forced active choosing can mitigate both issues. (2) Empirical evidence suggests that transparent defaults are similarly effective as the non-transparent counterparts. (3) The framing of the choice in combination with a choice structuring default leads to greater nudge success and tends to involve the reflective decision-making patterns. Choice architects can trade-off nudge success for legitimacy but a design change may also benefit one without harming the other. We discuss further options of choice architects to legitimize a default.

Monopoly Characteristics and Policy Analysis of China's Online Retail Market

The network retail industry has been in a highly centralized pattern. According to the relevant concepts in the traditional industrial organization theory, this highly concentrated market needs regulation. Behind the rapid development of industry is the hidden worry that is constantly exposed. In 2011, Taobao announced a substantial increase in annual fees and software service fees, which caused conflicts with small and medium sellers. In the price war in Jingdong, it may have been sold at a price lower than the cost. The traditional industrial organization theory usually thinks that the monopoly market structure is not good. Because of its pricing model based on its own marginal cost and marginal income, it will cause welfare losses to consumers, resulting in low market efficiency and unnecessary losses. This paper first expounds the basic connotation and judgment criteria of monopoly, analyzes the monopoly and characteristics of online retail industry in the "Internet +" era, and finally puts forward some governance strategies for the monopoly problems existing in the current online retail industry.

Space and Species Interactions in Welfare Estimates for Invasive Species Policy

Aquatic invasive species (AIS) can cause catastrophic damages to lake ecosystems. Bigheaded carp are one such species that pose a current threat to Lake Michigan. Bigheaded carp are expected to have spatially differentiated impacts on other aquatic species in the metapopulation. Policymakers must decide how much to invest in mitigation or conservation policies, if at all, by understanding how invasions impact social welfare or social wellbeing. Estimates of social welfare implications, however, may be biased if important interactions between species and space are overly simplified or aggregated out of the model. In this analysis, a bioeconomic model that links an ecological model with an economic model of recreational fishing behavior is used to complete a comparative analysis of the social welfare implications across several different ecological specifications to demonstrate what biases exist if species interactions are neglected or if ecological characteristics are assumed to be homogenous across space. Results of the bigheaded carp case study suggest that social welfare losses from the invasion vary substantially if species interactions are excluded and vary less if space is treated homogeneously.