Electricity availability: A precondition for faster economic growth?

We investigate if greater electricity availability helps countries ascend to faster economic growth trajectories. This is an important question for many developing countries that are currently prioritizing infrastructure investments. Using cross-sectional and panel regressions with national-level decadal data, we find some evidence that electricity availability has a significant effect on subsequent economic growth. However, much of the effect disappears once suitable controls are included. We examine various dimensions of electricity availability, including electricity consumption quantity, generation capacity, residential access rate, and quality of electricity supply. It appears that electricity availability is best viewed as something that can be scaled up as economies grow rather than something that imposes binding constraints on subsequent economic growth.Funding was received from the Australian Research Council (DE160100750). This research was also supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship

Adoption of solar and wind energy: The roles of carbon pricing and aggregate policy support

This paper analyzes the roles of policies and preferences in national adoption of solar and wind energy technologies. We use cross-sectional and panel regressions for both the European Union and a broader international sample. We find that countries that price carbon emissions have gone on to adopt more solar and wind energy. The aggregate level of policy support, measured in euros per megawatt hour, appears to have been important for solar energy adoption. We also find that solar energy adoption has been larger in countries with higher proportions of people concerned about climate change. In addition, we assess the effects of other key explanators including financial system size and income levels.Australian Research Council (DE160100750); Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Australian-German Energy Transition Hub; Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarshi

Interpreting Posterior Relative Risk Estimates in Disease-Mapping Studies

There is currently much interest in conducting spatial analyses of health outcomes at the small-area scale. This requires sophisticated statistical techniques, usually involving Bayesian models, to smooth the underlying risk estimates because the data are typically sparse. However, questions have been raised about the performance of these models for recovering the “true” risk surface, about the influence of the prior structure specified, and about the amount of smoothing of the risks that is actually performed. We describe a comprehensive simulation study designed to address these questions. Our results show that Bayesian disease-mapping models are essentially conservative, with high specificity even in situations with very sparse data but low sensitivity if the raised-risk areas have only a moderate (< 2-fold) excess or are not based on substantial expected counts (> 50 per area). Semiparametric spatial mixture models typically produce less smoothing than their conditional autoregressive counterpart when there is sufficient information in the data (moderate-size expected count and/or high true excess risk). Sensitivity may be improved by exploiting the whole posterior distribution to try to detect true raised-risk areas rather than just reporting and mapping the mean posterior relative risk. For the widely used conditional autoregressive model, we show that a decision rule based on computing the probability that the relative risk is above 1 with a cutoff between 70 and 80% gives a specific rule with reasonable sensitivity for a range of scenarios having moderate expected counts (~ 20) and excess risks (~1.5- to 2-fold). Larger (3-fold) excess risks are detected almost certainly using this rule, even when based on small expected counts, although the mean of the posterior distribution is typically smoothed to about half the true value

mNCEA policy brief - PELCAP: Natural Capital in Plankton & Pelagic Habitats

This policy brief fact sheet descries ecosystem services provided by pelagic habitats and a natural capital accounting of the the economic contribution pelagic habitats provide to the UK, as estimated by the Office of National Statistics. Plankton is vital for the functioning of marine ecosystems but is hard to value monetarily. According to the Office of National Statistics, plankton in UK waters provides services valued at up to 3.4 £ billion per year. PHEG members think that this is an underestimate. This project was funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as part of the marine arm of the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) programme. The marine NCEA programme is leading the way in supporting Government ambition to integrate natural capital approaches into decision making for the marine environment. Find out more at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/natural-capital-and-ecosystem-assessment-programm

Time to 're-think' physical activity promotion for young people? Results from a repeated cross-sectional study

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between knowledge of the current UK physical activity (PA) guidelines and amount of daily PA using a sample population of 11–16 year olds in Northern Ireland. Methods Cross-sectional survey data from the 2010 and 2013 Young Persons’ Behaviour and Attitudes Survey of 10,790 young people provided information on PA, knowledge of guidelines and socio-demographic characteristics. Multinomial logistic regression was used to investigate the associations between knowledge and amount of daily PA. Results Results from 2013 showed 67.0% of respondents were aware of PA guidelines with 15.4% reporting meeting them. Males were more likely to meet PA guidelines than females (OR 3.36, 95% CI 2.47, 4.59). Males who were active for 60 min or more, 7 days per week were less likely to be aware of guidelines (OR = 1.51, 95% CI 1.02, 2.24). For females, knowledge of PA guidelines had no significant association with amount of daily PA (OR = 1.74, 95% CI 0.99, 3.07). Those who did not enjoy being active were less likely to meet the guidelines (OR = 0.05, 95% CI 0.02, 0.12). Conclusions Knowledge did not appear to be an important predictor of PA in young people. Consequently, threshold based messaging containing recommended minimum PA guideline information may not be appropriate for this age group. Re-branding PA promotion to include the use of humour may offer a new direction for public health messaging based around fun and enjoyment

The importance of government effectiveness for transitions toward greater electrification in developing countries

Electricity is a vital factor underlying modern living standards, but there are many developing countries with low levels of electricity access and use. We seek to systematically identify the crucial elements underlying transitions toward greater electrification in developing countries. We use a cross-sectional regression approach with national-level data up to 2012 for 135 low- and middle-income countries. The paper finds that the effectiveness of governments is the most important governance attribute for encouraging the transition to increased electrification in developing countries, on average. The results add to the growing evidence on the importance of governance for development outcomes. Donors seeking to make more successful contributions to electrification may wish to target countries with more effective governments.Funding was received from the Australian Research Council (DE160100750). This research was also supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship