The cost of power : externalities in South Africa's energy sector

Bibliography: pages [201]-220.The long-awaited birth of political democracy in South Africa in 1994 has led to a fundamental re-assessment of policy in most sectors of society. Although the energy sector has witnessed a clrar shift away from the self-sufficiency concerns of the apartheid era, to more universal goals of economic efficiency, social equity and environmental sustainability, there has, as yet, been very little analysis of problems at the energy-environment interface. In this context, this thesis investigates environmental externalities arising in South Africa's energy sector. Two questions are posed: first and foremost, which environmental problems give rise to the most significant social costs? Secondarily, how helpful is an environmental economic analysis in this context? With respect to the first question, it is hypothesised that the external costs arising from two sectors are significant: the electricity generation sector, and the low-income, unelectrified household sector. Of these two, it is suggested that externalities in the latter are most serious. After reviewing the literature on externalities and environmental valuation, the thesis undertakes an empirical investigation of external costs in both energy sub-sectors. A classification system is developed and used to select those externalities in each sector which are potentially serious and regarding which there is sufficient information for quantification purposes. After reviewing a larger number of impacts, data are collected from both published and unpublished sources for four environmental externalities in the electricity sector, and six in the household sector

Overview of Infrastructure Charging, part 4, IMPROVERAIL Project Deliverable 9, “Improved Data Background to Support Current and Future Infrastructure Charging Systems”

Improverail aims are to further support the establishment of railway infrastructure management in accordance with Directive 91/440, as well as the new railway infrastructure directives, by developing the necessary tools for modelling the management of railway infrastructure; by evaluating improved methods for capacity and resources management, which allow the improvement of the Life Cycle Costs (LCC) calculating methods, including elements related to vehicle - infrastructure interaction and external costs; and by improving data background in support of charging for use of railway infrastructure. To achieve these objectives, Improverail is organised along 8 workpackages, with specific objectives, responding to the requirements of the task 2.2.1/10 of the 2nd call made in the 5th RTD Framework Programme in December 1999.This part is the task 7.1 (Review of infrastructure charging systems) to the workpackage 7 (Analysis of the relation between infrastructure cost variation and diversity of infrastructure charging systems).Before explaining the economic characteristics of railway and his basic pricing principles, authors must specify the objectives of railways infrastructure charging.principle of pricing ; rail infrastructure charging ; public service obligation ; rail charging practice ; Europe ; Improverail

Sustainability as a Multi-criteria Concept

Sustainability is a fairly old concept, born in the 18th century in the field of forestry, within a mono-functionality perspective. The concept has considerably evolved in the last few years towards a multi-functionality context, with applications reported in practically all areas of economic interest. On the other hand, modern sustainability is a complex problem, for two reasons: a) The multiplicity of functions of a very different nature involved in the process and b) The manner in which different segments of the society or stakeholders perceive the relative importance of these functions. For the above reasons, a realistic approach for dealing with the sustainability issue requires taking into consideration multiple criteria of different nature (economic, environmental and social), and in many cases within a participatory decision making framework. This book presents a collection of papers, dealing with different theoretical and applied issues of sustainability, with the help of a modern multi-criteria decision-making theory, with a single as well as several stakeholders involved in the decision-making process. Hopefully, this material will encourage academics and practitioners to alter their research in this hot and vital topic. After all, the sustainable management of the environment and its embedded resources is one of the most important, if not the major challenge of the 21st century

Sustainable Development Indicator Frameworks and Initiatives

Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Production Economics,

Monitoring the Performance of Educational Programmes in Developing Countries

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

A framework to harmonise mineral asset valuation methodologies with existing and emerging financial reporting requirements

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2017One of the consequences of globalisation in the extractive industries is the necessity to apply uniform accounting and valuation standards that are clearly understood and consistently applied by the global stakeholder community. At the beginning of the 20th century it was realised, mainly by the major mining countries that the extractive industries is one of the biggest sectors globally. In the extractive industries the single most important asset is the Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, yet this is not reflected anywhere in the financial statements. The major mining countries, through their mining institutes, realised that there was a need to develop standards and guidelines to align and standardise the definitions of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, which was achieved through the CRIRSCO template. From the accounting fraternity, several organisations also realised the need for an accounting standard specific to the extractive industries, specifically for financial reporting. Attempts by the IVSC and IASB to develop a global accounting standard for the extractive industry attests to the global requirement to develop internationally recognised valuation guidelines or a global framework for the valuation of mineral assets. Both the mining institutions and accounting standards setting boards have been working in isolation to develop a globally acceptable standard or guideline for the extractive industries, and neither has been successful due to the inherent complexities. The harmonisation of the national codes for reporting of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves through the CRIRSCO template, provides global common understanding. However, the national mineral asset valuation (MAV) codes, are needed to develop a similar international template. The CRIRSCO template provided a strong foundation on which the IMVAL template was developed. As part of this research a framework was developed to harmonise the national MAV Codes. Various authors have argued that there is no globally accepted standard or guideline for the valuation of extractive industries assets, nor is there a specific accounting standard for extractive industries. MAV is still an emerging discipline, coupled with the fact that financial reporting in the mineral industry is not yet fully developed, as IFRS 6 appears to be the only mineral specific financial reporting standard. This is supported by the fact that currently there is a lack of a comprehensive accounting standard for the extractive industries to guide the accounting, recognising and presenting these assets in the primary financial statements. This thesis argues that there is a gap between reflecting and accounting for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves in the financial reporting systems, and how these mineral assets are valued and reported. These identified gaps between MAV methodologies and financial reporting requirements formed the basis of this work. Hence this thesis develops a framework to harmonise the existing and emerging financial reporting requirements and MAV methodologies. This framework is applicable to developmental projects and operating mines, and was validated by applying the framework to a real life case study. Turquoise Hill Resources (Turquoise), which owns Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia, was selected as a good case study, due to the fact that Turquoise owns and operates this single multicommodity mineral asset, with information available in the public domain. Hence the value of Turquoise on the stock exchange is driven by the fundamental value of the mineral asset only. The results of the proposed framework showed the highest correlation coefficient of 0.77, meaning that there is a strong correlation between proposed framework and the proxy company value selected. It is concluded that the proposed framework to harmonise MAV methodologies and the emerging financial reporting requirements can be applied to estimate values for companies in the mineral industries.XL201

The euro at ten - lessons and challenges, 5th ECB Central Banking Conference, 13-14 November 2008

This volume contains a collection of papers, commentaries and speeches concerning the first decade of the euro and the recent global financial crisis.financial integration, optimal currency area

Essays on asset pricing and financial regulation

I show that when the banking sector’s assets comprise large excess reserves and loans, jointly determined capital regulation and interest-on-excess-reserves (IOER) policies provide welfare gains. In general equilibrium, falling IOER is associated with a proportional fall in deposit rate only when IOER is above the zero bound. This leads to a faster fall in the bank’s interest expenses than its interest incomes. Given any lending level, lower net interest expenses enhance bank solvency. Nonetheless, the risk-weighted capital regulation remains unchanged and hence becomes socially costly. I show that jointly determined policies achieve welfare gains by loosening the capital requirement and lowering IOER to expand the credit flow, while bank failure likelihood remains constant. Conversely, lowering IOER below the zero bound is associated with a nonresponsive deposit rate that leads to growing net interest expenses and worsening bank solvency. In that case, I show that a stricter capital constraint together with a lower IOER provide social value. The aftermath of the financial crisis inherited heightened economic uncertainty and low productivity. These features prompted the banking sectors across the developed economies to rely heavily on excess reserves offered by the central banks despite the negative nominal IOER policy rate. Nonetheless, the negative relationship between the overall interest expenses of the banking sector with the IOER around the zero lower bound further exacerbates the over-reliance on excess reserves particularly when rates are negative. Financial regulator faces a trade-off between the costly failure of an under-capitalized banking system and costs generated by interconnections between interest expenses on oversized excess reserves and government guarantees to depositors. I show that first, the risk-weighted optimal capital regulation exhibits a negative correlation with the IOER policy rate, and second present a socially optimal financial regulation that balances the social gains of negative IOER rate, generated by reduced over-reliance on idle reserves, against its social costs, generated by the increased default likelihood of the banking institutions.Open Acces