Asymmetric adaptations to energy price changes

The effectiveness of policies to reduce the use of energy depend on the elasticity of substitution between the various inputs and on the rate of technological progress. This paper presents a theoretical model emphasising energy investments\' characteristics of uncertainty and irreversibility that result in testable hypotheses concerning the relative values of substitution parameters and rates of technological change in periods of high and increasing energy prices and in periods of low prices. Estimation results for a panel of sectors of the Dutch economy show that the elasticity of substitution between energy and other inputs is low in periods of low energy prices, whereas it is significantly higher in the preceding period of high and increasing energy prices. Furthermore, energy-saving technological progress in periods of high and increasing energy prices is also significantly higher than if energy prices are low and falling. The regression results suggest that, due this asymmetric response of firms to changes in energy prices, taxing energy in the current period of low energy prices will not yield substantial reductions in energy use of Dutch industry.

Threshold Effects of Energy Price Changes

The effectiveness of policies to reduce the use of energy depend on the elasticity of substitution between the various inputs and on the rate of technological progress. This paper presents a theoretical model emphasising energy investments’ characteristics of uncertainty and irreversibility that result in hypotheses concerning the relative values of substitution parameters and rates of technological change in periods of high and increasing energy prices and in periods of low prices. The theoretical model suggests that threshold level effects exist. Firms are induced to substitute away from energy only if prices of energy exceed a certain threshold level and they reverse the technology only if prices are low enough. Using panel data for the Dutch economy we do not find threshold effects in the level of energy prices.

Threshold effects of energy price changes

This paper presents a theoretical model emphasising energy investments’ characteristics of uncertainty and irreversibility. The theoretical model suggests threshold effects. Firms are induced to substitute away from energy only if prices of energy exceed a certain threshold level and they reverse the technology only if energy prices are low enough. Estimating a simple investment relation using panel data for the Dutch economy, we find evidence for threshold effects.

The Component Fairness Solution for Cycle- Free Graph Games

In this paper we study cooperative games with limited cooperation possibilities, representedby an undirected cycle-free communication graph. Players in the game can cooperate if andonly if they are connected in the graph, i.e. they can communicate with one another. Weintroduce a new single-valued solution concept, the component fairness solution. Our solution is characterized by component efficiency and component fairness. The interpretationof component fairness is that deleting a link between two players yields for both resultingcomponents the same average change in payoff, where the average is taken over the players in the component. Component fairness replaces the axiom of fairness characterizing the Myerson value, where the players whose link is deleted face the same loss in payoff. Thecomponent fairness solution is always in the core of the restricted game in case the gameis superadditive and can be easily computed as the average of n specific marginal vectors,where n is the number of players. We also show that the component fairness solution canbe generated by a specific distribution of the Harsanyi-dividends.operations research and management science;

The Average Tree Solution for Cooperative Games with Communication Structure

We study cooperative games with communication structure, represented by an undirectedgraph. Players in the game are able to cooperate only if they can form a network in the graph. A single-valued solution, the average tree solution, is proposed for this class ofgames. Given the graph structure we define a collection of spanning trees, where eachspanning tree specifies a particular way by which players communicate and determines a payoff vector of marginal contributions of all the players. The average tree solution is defined to be the average of all these payoff vectors. It is shown that if a game has acomplete communication structure, then the proposed solution coincides with the Shapleyvalue, and that if the game has a cycle-free communication structure, it is the solutionproposed by Herings, van der Laan and Talman (2008). We introduce the notion of linkconvexity, under which the game is shown to have a non-empty core and the average tree solution lies in the core. In general, link-convexity is weaker than convexity. For games with a cycle-free communication structure, link-convexity is even weaker than super-additivity.operations research and management science;

Direct measurement of the radiative lifetime of vibrationally excited OH radicals

Neutral molecules, isolated in the gas-phase, can be prepared in a long-lived excited state and stored in a trap. The long observation time afforded by the trap can then be exploited to measure the radiative lifetime of this state by monitoring the temporal decay of the population in the trap. This method is demonstrated here and used to benchmark the Einstein $A$-coefficients in the Meinel system of OH. A pulsed beam of vibrationally excited OH radicals is Stark decelerated and loaded into an electrostatic quadrupole trap. The radiative lifetime of the upper $\Lambda$-doublet component of the $X ^2\Pi_{3/2}, v=1, J=3/2$ level is determined as $59.0 \pm 2.0$ ms, in good agreement with the calculated value of $57.7 \pm 1.0$ ms.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Process for the preparation of ethylene

Process for the preparation of ethylene by pyrolysis of low molecular weight hydrocarbons, by contacting a flow of gas, consisting of low molecular weight hydrocarbons with an inert particulate carrier material having a surface area of > 0.01 and /g, at a temperature in the range of from 1000 to 1400 DEG C and at a GHSV of from 100 to 6000 hr, during a period in the range of from 1 minute to 60 minutes, followed by recovering ethylene gas produced in said reaction from the product stream, and calcination of said inert particulate carrier material in a flow of an oxidizing gas to remove the carbonaceous deposits on the carrier material surface, at a temperature in the range of from 600 DEG C to 1000 DEG C and a GHSV of from 100 to 6000 hr, for at least one minute

IT in the European Union:driving productivity divergence?

This paper analyses the contributions of IT-capital deepening and total factor productivity growth (TFP) in IT-production on aggregate labour productivity growth patterns within the European Union in comparison with the US. We find that differences in the direct effects of IT almost fully explain the US lead in labour productivity growth over the EU aggregate over the period 1995-2001. However differences in the direct effects of IT are by no means the sole determinants of the widening of the "Atlantic Divide", neither the main cause of divergent labour productivity growth patterns within Europe. Non-IT capital deepening and non-IT TFP growth were major contributors to continued or even accelerating growth in small economies such as Austria, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Sweden. In Finland, Sweden and especially Ireland this was augmented by high contributions from IT, which were even higher than in the US. At the same time, decelerating labour productivity growth in major European countries such as France, Germany, Italy and the UK was mainly due to declining contributions of non-IT capital deepening and non-IT TFP growth compared to the period 1980-1995