Electricity industry restructuring should not sacrifice supply security to pursue economic efficiency. Till now there is no academic consensus on which electricity market design provides the least distorting investmen...Electricity industry restructuring should not sacrifice supply security to pursue economic efficiency. Till now there is no academic consensus on which electricity market design provides the least distorting investment incentives. Alternative approaches that have been adopted around the world for ensuring the appropriate level of investment in electric generation capacity are discussed, and much attention is devoted on the evaluation of capacity payment systems. The finding is that on one hand, capacity payment systems have good effect on reducing spot market price volatility and increasing the volume of generating capacity at the costs of relatively high total electricity prices; on the other hand, however, they are not robust against either the abuse of market power in the energy market or being manipulated.展开更多
In the last two decades, the global interest on farmland grew at a remarkable pace. As a consequence, million hectares of land exchanged hands. The ways the transfers happened combined with their geographic concentrat...In the last two decades, the global interest on farmland grew at a remarkable pace. As a consequence, million hectares of land exchanged hands. The ways the transfers happened combined with their geographic concentration in Sub-Saharian Africa, have earned the phenomenon the name of ＂land grab＂. The agricultural sector considered a ＂sunset industry＂ when commodities prices were declining, is now attractive to financial investors. These foreign investments may be good as they may improve agricultural productivity or instead bad as they may benefit only financial investors. Some results in terms of environmental and local communities＇ worsening conditions have already emerged. This paper aims to investigate what drives the big size transfers of land, to empirically estimate their effects in terms of local employment and to assess the environmental effects produced by the rapid transformation in the use of vast amount of land in terms of CO2 emissions. It is also proposed to use the estimation in terms of local employment impact as a way of distinguishing between foreign direct investment and land grabbing.展开更多
基金The work of Yan was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant 79790130and the 973 project on forward problems of mathematics at the core, the Ministry of Science and Technology.
文摘Electricity industry restructuring should not sacrifice supply security to pursue economic efficiency. Till now there is no academic consensus on which electricity market design provides the least distorting investment incentives. Alternative approaches that have been adopted around the world for ensuring the appropriate level of investment in electric generation capacity are discussed, and much attention is devoted on the evaluation of capacity payment systems. The finding is that on one hand, capacity payment systems have good effect on reducing spot market price volatility and increasing the volume of generating capacity at the costs of relatively high total electricity prices; on the other hand, however, they are not robust against either the abuse of market power in the energy market or being manipulated.
文摘In the last two decades, the global interest on farmland grew at a remarkable pace. As a consequence, million hectares of land exchanged hands. The ways the transfers happened combined with their geographic concentration in Sub-Saharian Africa, have earned the phenomenon the name of ＂land grab＂. The agricultural sector considered a ＂sunset industry＂ when commodities prices were declining, is now attractive to financial investors. These foreign investments may be good as they may improve agricultural productivity or instead bad as they may benefit only financial investors. Some results in terms of environmental and local communities＇ worsening conditions have already emerged. This paper aims to investigate what drives the big size transfers of land, to empirically estimate their effects in terms of local employment and to assess the environmental effects produced by the rapid transformation in the use of vast amount of land in terms of CO2 emissions. It is also proposed to use the estimation in terms of local employment impact as a way of distinguishing between foreign direct investment and land grabbing.
