Department of Trade and Industry Energy Review Consultation 2006: Submission by Open University Energy & Environment Research Unit

The Open University Energy and Environment Research Unit has, since its foundation in 1986, focussed on a range of sustainable energy technologies on a variety of scales, from large to small, in the belief that a sustainable energy system will require contributions at all scales. So while we support, for example, the development of microgeneration and improvements in energy efficiency in buildings, we also believe that larger-scale projects, in particular offshore wind and city-wide combined heat and power (CHP), have a major role to play in a sustainable energy future. This submission is in two parts: Part One proposes a major expansion in the UK's offshore wind programme. Part Two proposes a major expansion in Combined Heat and Power (CHP)

Understanding Social Investment Policy: evidence from the evaluation of Futurebuilders in England

The concept of social investment has attracted interest from policy makers, financial markets and not for profit organisations. It is an emergent notion which is multi-faceted and includes different market forms, policy responses, and institutional configurations. There is relatively little empirical evidence on the design, implementation and impacts of the various initiatives which have been perceived as falling within the field of social investment. This paper begins to address this gap. It draws on the national evaluation of Futurebuilders in England which was undertaken between 2005 and 2010. At the time Futurebuilders was one of the largest examples of a public policy initiative to support social investment; based on a policy model of government seeking to promote the use of loan funding to third sector organisations as part of a wider agenda of expanding the sector's role in the delivery of public services. The paper explores the effects of the programme on the third sector, on public service delivery and on service users. In conclusion the paper challenges some of the assumptions of this policy model, as well as the potential for 'impact investing' to become a framework for welfare provision

Finding and filling the gaps in the Australian governments\u27 innovation and entrepreneurship support spectra

A national innovation system is concerned with the full process of converting new knowledge into commercially viable results. Governments are policy-active in trying to create productive national innovation systems. This paper reviews ways of thinking about entrepreneurship as the commercialisation component of Australia&rsquo;s innovation system. The paper explores the impact and relevance of selected existing Australian Commonwealth, and to a lesser extent State government, programs for the commercialisation channels so identified, using four frameworks for the analysis: financial, management/start-up, innovation and entrepreneurial. The analysis indicates program initiatives covering the later development and commercialization phases, but serious gaps in the support available for the entrepreneurship phase involving the act of new entry. This gap is covered by research provider business development people and to a limited extent by incubator and State government initiatives. A critical issue has been and is access to smaller amounts of seed finance. The critical human component is the education of public servants and politicians about the nature and operation of entrepreneurship.<br /

Economics references committee: Government&#039;s economic stimulus initiatives

Introduction The referral 1.1 Disruptions to the financial system have resulted in the global economy contracting in 2009, for the first time since the Second World War. The Australian economy is less vulnerable to external shocks than many other advanced economies given its stronger and better regulated financial system and its mining industry\u27s links to the strong Chinese economy, but nonetheless was expected to suffer a serious contraction as a result of the global downturn. 1.2 When the global outlook deteriorated sharply in late 2008, most advanced economies moved to implement some form of fiscal stimulus. A record of prudent fiscal policy going back more than a decade allowed Australia to introduce a larger stimulus than most countries, which further moderated the recession in Australia. 1.3 The economic outlook has improved over recent months. This has led to calls to scale back the economic stimulus initiatives announced by the Government in October 2008 that will be progressively wound down over the forward estimates to 2011-12. The Senate referred this issue to the Economics References Committee on 8 September 2009. It initially asked the Committee to report by 2 October 2009. The Committee presented an Interim Report on 30 September 2009, requesting an extension of the reporting date to 27 October 2009. 1.4 The Senate\u27s reference requested the Committee to invite the Secretary of the Treasury and the Reserve Bank Governor and other pre-eminent economists to appear with the goal of a full update on the economic stimulus initiatives, which addresses: (i) the efficacy of the spending measures to date, (ii) the anticipated costs and benefits of continuing the spending measures, (iii) consequent change in the stimulus ‘roll out’ that ought to be entertained given the changed economic circumstances, (iv) anticipated impact of the stimulus spending on future interest rate movements and taxpayer liabilities, (v) an evaluation of the environmental impacts of the spending to date, and (vi) other related matters

Budgetary institutions and expenditure outcomes : binding governments to fiscal performance

The authors examine how institutional arrangements affect incentives that govern the size, allocation, and use of budgetary resources. They use a diagnostic questionnaire to elicit the relative strengths and weaknesses of specific systems in terms of instilling fiscal discipline, strategically assigning spending priorities, and making the best use of limited resources. In applying their methodology to a sample of seven countries (Australia, Ghana, Indonesia, Malawi, New Zealand, Thailand and Uganda) they also examine how donor assistance affects expenditure outcomes. In New Zealand, reform focused on achieving general fiscal discipline and technical efficiency. In Australia, reform focused on strategic priorities and a shift from central to line agencies. The two countries took different paths, but both sought to alter incentives that affect the size, allocation, and use of resources and to improve transparency and accountability. Systems in Indonesia and Thailand were reasonably effective in instilling fiscal discipline, butIndonesia seemed better at allocating resources to protect basic social services and alleviate poverty during fiscal austerity periods. Thailand's overcentralized system did not capitalize on useful information from line agencies and lower levels of government. Donors play a central role in spending outcome in the three African countries. Donors provided incentives for short-term fiscal discipline, but the imposed spending cuts impeded the prioritizing of expenditures and multiple donor projects fragmented budgets. Donor conditionality on the composition of expenditures and donor-driven attempts to improve technical efficiency, were ineffective. Lack of transparency and accountability meant rules were not enforced and budgets were often remade in an ad hoc, centralized way, so that the flow of resources to line agencies was unpredictable.Business Environment,Decentralization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Assessment,Health Economics&Finance,National Governance,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies

Capital Movements, Banking Insolvency, and Silent Runs in the Asian Financial Crisis

This paper supplies an agency-cost and contestable-markets perspective on the financial policies that triggered the Asian financial crisis. The agency-cost analysis hypothesizes that individual-country regulators knew that politically directed loans had made their banks insolvent, but purposefully gambled that deregulation could allow the insolvent banks to grow their way out of trouble. The contestable-markets paradigm sets this gamble in the context of offshore innovations in financial technology and regulatory systems that made it progressively easier for worried Asian citizens to move funds to foreign institutions. These perspectives portray the simultaneous breakdown of repressive financial systems as a technology-led victory of market forces over longstanding government efforts to wall out foreign financial competition.

Current Development of Carbon Capture and Storage in the UK – a Non Technical Review

This paper reviewed a current situation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) development in the UK mainly within the last 10 years in general. It looked at the positive ways to implement the CCS technologies, including the geological advantages, potential sector growth, financial incentives, and the support in the policies. Current projects were brought forward together with the university and industry research. Some concerns and limitation of applying CCS technologies were discussed. To the end, the conclusion was made that the UK is in a good position to implement CCS technologies and would become a global leader in CCS development providing that the first four trials were successful

Trends in private sector development in World Bank education projects

Emerging trends in education show the private sector to be playing an increasingly important role in financing and providing educational services in many countries. Private sector development has not arisen primarily through public policy design, but has of course been affected by the design, and limitations of public policy. The author traces trends in private sector development in eleven of seventy World Bank education projects in 1995-97, asking two questions: What has been the rationale for Bank lending in education? And, in countries where there is both privately financed, and publicly financed, and provided education, how has the Bank encouraged the private sector to thrive? The eleven country samples reveal that the Bank's interest in private sector development is basically in capacity-oriented privatization, to absorb excess demand for education. This is crucial to the Bank's general strategy for education lending: promoting access with equity, focusing on efficiency in resource allocation, promoting quality, and supporting capacity building. Absorbing excess demand tends to involve poorer families, usually much poorer than those that take advantage of other forms of privatized education. The Bank emphasizes capacity-oriented privatization, especially of teacher training for primary, and secondary schools, as well as institutional capacity building for tertiary, and vocational education. The underlying principle is that strengthening the private sector's role in non-compulsory education over time, will release public resources for the compulsory (primary) level. The private sector is emerging as a force governments, donors, and other technical assistance agencies cannot ignore. Often the term private sector encompasses households'out-of-pocket expenses, rather than describing for-profit, or not-for-profit (religious or otherwise) sectors. And lumpy investments, supporting both private, and public education, are the norm.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Decentralization,Teaching and Learning,Public Health Promotion,Curriculum&Instruction,Primary Education,Gender and Education,Economics of Education