Biofuels and Market Power - The Case of Swedish District Heating Plants

This paper tests for market power on the market for biofuels, employing a statistical model and making use of the idea of Granger causality. We use a panel data set of plant specific input prices and quantities of wood chip covering 91 Swedish district heating plants 1990-1996. If quantity Granger causes price, it is taken as an indication of market power. We find that the Swedish district heating plants to some degree have market power in the market for wood chips.market power; Granger causality; VAR; biofuel; district heating

Factor Demand and Market Power

This thesis consists of five self-contained papers on factor demand and market power. The main objective of Paper [I] is to analyze potential effects on the Swedish forest sector of a continuing rise in the use of forest resources as a fuel in energy generation. The background to the problem can be found in the commitments Sweden has made concerning energy policy. Two such commitments are the phase-out of nuclear power, and a decision that the Swedish energy system should be sustainable. However, an increasing use of forest resources as an energy input may have effects outside the energy sector. In this paper we attempt to consider this by estimating a system of demand and supply equations for the four main actors on the Swedish roundwood market; forestry, sawmills, pulpmills, and the energy sector. In Paper [II], we specify and estimate a dynamic factor demand model for the Swedish pulp industry. The model is estimated using firm specific Translog cost functions, and panel data from 1972 to 1990. We find weak evidence of adjustment costs for capital. Short- and long-term elasticities are calculated and the variances are estimated using the bootstrap technique. The results suggest that the user cost of capital is a significant determinant of pulp industry investments, while output level is not. We also find that pulp industry investments are insensitive to variations in the price of electricity. Paper [III] proposes a flexible form of adjustment cost function, which allows for constant, linear, concave, or convex costs of adjustment. An empirical illustration shows that the flexible form can detect both convex and non-convex adjustment costs. Furthermore, the flexible form permits testing for the experience effect on adjustment cost. The objective of paper [IV] is to analyze the price development and price formation for wood fuel used by the Swedish district heating sector. According to previous research there is a significant potential for increasing the use of wood fuel in Sweden, at a fairly moderate cost. The basic question raised in this paper is then why this potential is not realized. Specifically we propose a methodology for testing whether the reason is that market imperfections are present. According to our results we cannot reject the efficient market hypothesis for all years. The objective of Paper [V] is to test for market power on the market for biofuels. To achieve our objective we employ a statistical model and make use of the idea of Granger causality. We use a panel data set of plant specific input prices and quantities of wood chip covering a sample of Swedish district heating plants. If past values of quantity contribute significantly to the determination of price, quantity is said to Granger cause price, which we will treat as a sign of market power. According to our findings this effect is present and we conclude that the investigated plants to some degree has market power in the market for wood chips.demand and supply; dynamic factor demand; djustment costs; bootstrap; panel data; market power

Civil Returns of Military Training: A Study of Young Men in Sweden

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of military training on earnings for young men in Sweden. The analysis is based on the cohort of men born in 1973. The 1973 cohort was conscripted during a time of rapid change in the Swedish security policy and substantial cutdowns of the armed forces. As a consequence, a relatively large part of the cohort was assigned a service category after the enlistment test but one third of these individuals were never conscripted. We argue that these organizational changes along with the set of important background variables that are available makes it possible to rely on selection on observables. A strong result is that military training has a positive effect on annual earnings at the age of 30 for the group in the private category that subsequently do not obtain an high educational level.Earnings; Conscription; Enlistment test; Military training

Future Waste Scenarios for Sweden based on a CGE-model

Over the last decades, waste quantities have grown steadily in close relation to economic growth. To tackle the problem of continuing waste growth within the EU, waste prevention was listed among four top priorities in the EU Sixth environment Action Programme. A Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is here used for projecting future quantities of hazardous and non-hazardous waste in Sweden to 2030. The effects of driving forces behind waste generation are illustrated by comparing the results of waste projections for a Baseline scenario and four alternative scenarios. The scenarios differ mainly in GDP growth rates and in the assumptions about future waste intensities of the economic activities of firms and households. We use a high-resolution data set on waste flows of 18 various types of non-hazardous waste and 16 various types of hazardous waste attributed to six waste-generating sources for the base year 2006. Waste generated in the scenarios, thus, relate to firms’ material input, output, employees, capital scrapping and fuel combustion as well as households’ consumption. The impact of economic growth in increasing the generation of nonhazardous and hazardous waste is apparent when comparing the growth of waste from 2006 to 2030 in the five scenarios. On the contrary, technological change resulting in less waste intensive production processes and changed behaviour among households, making their activities less waste intensive, have a strong reducing effect, especially on generation of non-hazardous waste relating to firms’ material input.general equilibrium model; waste generation; decoupling; waste intensities waste scenarios.

Analysing future solid waste generation - Soft linking a model of waste management with a CGE-model for Sweden

Parallel to the efforts of the EU to achieve a significant and overall reduction of waste quantities within the EU, the Swedish parliament enacted an environmental quality objective stating that ‘the total quantity of waste must not increase …’ i.e. an eventual absolute decoupling of waste generation from GDP. The decoupling issue is ad-dressed, in the present paper, by assessing future waste quantities, for a number of economic scenarios of the Swedish economy to 2030 with alternative assumptions about key factors affecting waste generation and waste management costs. We use an integrated top-down/bottom-up approach by linking a CGE-model of the Swedish economy with a systems engineering model of the Swedish waste management system. In this way, we can in more detail consider the interaction between waste generation and waste management costs (waste disposal prices) when assessing future waste quantities. A relative decoupling of waste generation takes place in all scenarios, i.e. total waste quantities increase at a lower rate than GDP. Absolute decoupling, which re-quire total waste quantities to stabilize or to reduce, does not take place in any of the scenarios. This means that the present Swedish Environmental quality objective of stabilizing waste quantities is not met in any of the scenarios with total waste genera-tion levels of 110 per cent up to nearly 200 per cent of that in 2006. The overall impression from our analysis is that costs are high for reducing waste generation irrespective of the type of waste reduced. In other words, the waste treat-ment costs are low compared to the costs for reducing waste. This situation also means that the use of policy instruments, which induce substitution by increasing the price of waste disposal services, will have very small reducing effects on the generation of all types of waste unless the price increase brings about an introduction of waste preventing techniques and affect households in the direction of a less waste intensive behaviour. For example, the policy instruments used must affect the pattern of household consumption pattern more directly, as a differentiation of the value added tax, rather than to be directed towards the waste management sector. Economic policy instruments introduced in the waste management sector are more likely to affect the choice of waste management solutions than prevent waste generation. Linking a macroeconomic and a systems engineering model for waste manage-ment, gives us a tool useful also for capturing the macroeconomic effects, such as GDP growth and structural changes, when designing policy instruments intended to prevent waste generation or take waste management in a more sustainable direction.general equilibrium model; systems engineering; solid waste; waste management; waste generation; decoupling; EMEC; NatWaste; top-down/bottom-up; waste policy instruments

Potential links between Baltic Sea submarine terraces and groundwater seeping

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) influences ocean chemistry, circulation, and the spreading of nutrients and pollutants; it also shapes sea floor morphology. In the Baltic Sea, SGD was linked to the development of terraces and semicircular depressions mapped in an area of the southern Stockholm archipelago, Sweden, in the 1990s. We mapped additional parts of the Stockholm archipelago, areas in Blekinge, southern Sweden, and southern Finland using high-resolution multibeam sonars and sub-bottom profilers to investigate if the sea floor morphological features discovered in the 1990s are widespread and to further address the hypothesis linking their formation to SGD. Sediment coring and sea floor photography conducted with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and divers add additional information to the geophysical mapping results. We find that terraces, with general bathymetric expressions of about 1 m and lateral extents of sometimes > 100 m, are widespread in the surveyed areas of the Baltic Sea and are consistently formed in glacial clay. Semicircular depressions, however, are only found in a limited part of a surveyed area east of the island of Asko, southern Stockholm archipelago. While submarine terraces can be produced by several processes, we interpret our results to be in support of the basic hypothesis of terrace formation initially proposed in the 1990s; i.e. groundwater flows through siltier, more permeable layers in glacial clay to discharge at the sea floor, leading to the formation of a sharp terrace when the clay layers above seepage zones are undermined enough to collapse. By linking the terraces to a specific geologic setting, our study further refines the formation hypothesis and thereby forms the foundation for a future assessment of SGD in the Baltic Sea that may use marine geological mapping as a starting point. We propose that SGD through the submarine sea floor terraces is plausible and could be intermittent and linked to periods of higher groundwater levels, implying that to quantify the contribution of freshwater to the Baltic Sea through this potential mechanism, more complex hydrogeological studies are required.Peer reviewe

Dapagliflozin in patients with chronic kidney disease

Background: Patients with chronic kidney disease have a high risk of adverse kidney and cardiovascular outcomes. The effect of dapagliflozin in patients with chronic kidney disease, with or without type 2 diabetes, is not known. Methods: We randomly assigned 4304 participants with an estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 25 to 75 ml per minute per 1.73 m2 of body-surface area and a urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (with albumin measured in milligrams and creatinine measured in grams) of 200 to 5000 to receive dapagliflozin (10 mg once daily) or placebo. The primary outcome was a composite of a sustained decline in the estimated GFR of at least 50%, end-stage kidney disease, or death from renal or cardiovascular causes. Results: The independent data monitoring committee recommended stopping the trial because of efficacy. Over a median of 2.4 years, a primary outcome event occurred in 197 of 2152 participants (9.2%) in the dapagliflozin group and 312 of 2152 participants (14.5%) in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.51 to 0.72; P<0.001; number needed to treat to prevent one primary outcome event, 19 [95% CI, 15 to 27]). The hazard ratio for the composite of a sustained decline in the estimated GFR of at least 50%, end-stage kidney disease, or death from renal causes was 0.56 (95% CI, 0.45 to 0.68; P<0.001), and the hazard ratio for the composite of death from cardiovascular causes or hospitalization for heart failure was 0.71 (95% CI, 0.55 to 0.92; P = 0.009). Death occurred in 101 participants (4.7%) in the dapagliflozin group and 146 participants (6.8%) in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.88; P = 0.004). The effects of dapagliflozin were similar in participants with type 2 diabetes and in those without type 2 diabetes. The known safety profile of dapagliflozin was confirmed. Conclusions: Among patients with chronic kidney disease, regardless of the presence or absence of diabetes, the risk of a composite of a sustained decline in the estimated GFR of at least 50%, end-stage kidney disease, or death from renal or cardiovascular causes was significantly lower with dapagliflozin than with placebo

The complexity of kidney disease and diagnosing it – cystatin C, selective glomerular hypofiltration syndromes and proteome regulation

Estimation of kidney function is often part of daily clinical practice, mostly done by using the endogenous glomerular filtration rate (GFR)-markers creatinine or cystatin C. A recommendation to use both markers in parallel in 2010 has resulted in new knowledge concerning the pathophysiology of kidney disorders by the identification of a new set of kidney disorders, selective glomerular hypofiltration syndromes. These syndromes, connected to strong increases in mortality and morbidity, are characterized by a selective reduction in the glomerular filtration of 5–30 kDa molecules, such as cystatin C, compared to the filtration of small molecules <1 kDa dominating the glomerular filtrate, for example water, urea and creatinine. At least two types of such disorders, shrunken or elongated pore syndrome, are possible according to the pore model for glomerular filtration. Selective glomerular hypofiltration syndromes are prevalent in investigated populations, and patients with these syndromes often display normal measured GFR or creatinine-based GFR-estimates. The syndromes are characterized by proteomic changes promoting the development of atherosclerosis, indicating antibodies and specific receptor-blocking substances as possible new treatment modalities. Presently, the KDIGO guidelines for diagnosing kidney disorders do not recommend cystatin C as a general marker of kidney function and will therefore not allow the identification of a considerable number of patients with selective glomerular hypofiltration syndromes. Furthermore, as cystatin C is uninfluenced by muscle mass, diet or variations in tubular secretion and cystatin C-based GFR-estimation equations do not require controversial race or sex terms, it is obvious that cystatin C should be a part of future KDIGO guidelines.publishedVersio