La situación energética en Bolivia

Con la nacionalización de los hidrocarburos en Bolivia culminó una larga lucha reivindicativa y de consignas del partido de gobierno en relación a los recursos naturales. La firma de nuevos Contratos de Operación con las empresas petroleras demostró el pragmatismo y la flexibilidad con los que puede negociar las medidas de la nacionalización así como el grado de influencia que ha alcanzado Hugo Chávez sobre el gobierno boliviano. El descubrimiento de apreciables reservas de gas natural en la década de 1990 ha sido un factor preponderante para cambiar la realidad política de Bolivia, al despertar un fuerte sentimiento nacionalista traducido en la repulsa al modelo económico, a las elites políticas y a las empresas petroleras. El resurgimiento nacionalista y estatista agudizó la inestabilidad política, modificó la legislación del sector y posibilitó la llegada al poder del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), partido político del presidente Evo Morales. El gobierno del MAS, en cumplimiento de su programa, nacionalizó los hidrocarburos, otorgó a la empresa estatal Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales de Bolivia (YPFB), la dirección y control de todas las operaciones petroleras y conminó a las empresas del sector a negociar contratos adecuados a la nueva legislación

La situación energética en Bolivia

Con la nacionalización de los hidrocarburos en Bolivia culminó una larga lucha reivindicativa y de consignas del partido de Gobierno en relación a los recursos naturales. La firma de nuevos Contratos de Operación con las empresas petroleras demostró el pragmatismo y la flexibilidad con los que puede negociar las medidas de la nacionalización así como el grado de influencia que ha alcanzado Hugo Chávez sobre el Gobierno boliviano. El descubrimiento de apreciables reservas de gas natural en la década de 1990 ha sido un factor preponderante para cambiar la realidad política de Bolivia, al despertar un fuerte sentimiento nacionalista traducido en la repulsa al modelo económico, a las elites políticas y a las empresas petroleras. El resurgimiento nacionalista y estatista agudizó la inestabilidad política, modificó la legislación del sector y posibilitó la llegada al poder del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), partido político del presidente Morales. El Gobierno del MAS, en cumplimiento de su programa, nacionalizó los hidrocarburos, otorgó a la empresa estatal Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales de Bolivia (YPFB) la dirección y control de todas las operaciones petroleras y conminó a las empresas del sector a negociar contratos adecuados a la nueva legislación

The Genius of Roman Law From a Law and Economics Perspective

The Article is organized as follows: The first part of this Article will introduce Roman private law, and sketch out the law and economics methodology to be applied to the Roman classical system. The second part of this Article will discuss the Roman private law of property, obligations, as well as commerce and finance. The third part will discuss the interaction of private law and private morality in the construction of Roman social order. The fourth part of this Article will discuss private procedural aspects of the Roman legal system. The fifth and final part of this Article will discuss how law and economics can help civil law scholars in Latin America reorganize their legal systems in restating private law for the twenty-first century

Investing in Indonesia’s Education: Allocation, Equity, and Efficiency of Public Expenditures

What is the current level and main characteristics of public education spending in Indonesia? Is education spending insufficient? Is education spending efficient and equitable? This study reports the first account of Indonesia’s aggregated (national and sub-national) spending on education, as well as the economic and sub-functional (by programs) composition of education expenditures. It presents estimations of the expected (average) level of education spending for a country with similar economic and social characteristics. It sheds light on efficiency and equity of education spending by presenting social rates of return by level of education, an assessment of the adequacy of current teacher earnings relative to other paid workers, the distribution of teachers across urban, rural, and remote regions, and the determinants of education enrollment. It concludes that the current challenges in Indonesia are not anymore defined by the need to increase spending on the supply side, but rather to improve the quality of education services, and to improve the efficiency of education expenditures by re-allocating teachers to undersupplied regions and re-adjusting the spending mix within and between education programs of future additional spending in the sector. The study finds that poverty and student-aged labor are also significant constraints to education enrollment, stressing the importance of policies aimed to address demand-side factors affecting education access in Indonesia.education Indonesia; expenditures education Indonesia; Indonesia's education; quality education; efficiency of education expenditures; equity of education expenditures; rates of return; teacher wages indonesia; education 20% rule Indonesia

Investing in Indonesia's education : allocation, equity, and efficiency of public expenditures

What are the current trends and main characteristics of public education spending in Indonesia? Is education spending insufficient? Are expenditures in education efficient and equitable? This study reports the first account of Indonesia's aggregated (national and sub-national) spending on education, as well as the economic composition of education spending and its breakdown by programs. It presents estimations of the expected (average) level of education spending for a country with its economic and social characteristics. This analysis sheds light on the efficiency and equity of education spending by presenting social rates of return by level of education, by assessing the adequacy of current teacher earnings relative to other paid workers and the distribution of teachers across urban, rural, and remote regions, and by identifying the main determinants of education enrollment. It concludes that the current challenges in Indonesia are no longer defined by the need of additional spending, but rather the need to improve the quality of education services, and to improve the efficiency of education expenditures by re-allocating teachers to undersupplied regions and re-adjusting the spending mix within and between education programs for future additional spending in the sector. The study finds that poverty and student-aged labor are also significant constraints to education enrollment, stressing the importance of policies aimed at addressing demand-side factors.Education For All,Primary Education,Tertiary Education,Teaching and Learning,

Black hole or black gold ? the impact of oil and gas prices on Indonesia's public finances

Indonesia's oil revenues and fuel subsidies dominate the nation's economic policy agenda. This paper estimates the impact of higher international oil prices on the Indonesian government's fiscal position in 2008 and beyond. It analyzes the interactions between government revenues and expenditures, as well as international oil prices, energy subsidies, and inter-governmental transfers. Looking at the impact of oil prices over US$100 per barrel, the paper presents five main findings. First, despite record high oil prices, the government's oil and gas revenues have been decreasing relative to non-oil and gas revenues since 2001. Second, fuel subsides will reach record levels in 2008 while electricity subsidies have been increasing even faster. Third, the paper finds that most of the fuel subsidy that directly benefits households goes to the richest 20 percent. Fourth, even at levels above US$100 per barrel, the government receives more revenues from oil and gas than it spends on energy subsidies. However, due to significant revenue-sharing with sub-national governments, high oil prices are net-negative for the central government, while they create fiscal windfalls for many regions. Finally, the oil sector's positive impact on Indonesia's public finances declines as oil prices rise, because subsidies and other expenditures outgrow oil and gas revenues.Energy Production and Transportation,Oil Refining&Gas Industry,Markets and Market Access,Debt Markets,Energy and Environment

Powering Europe with North Sea Offshore Wind: The Impact of Hydrogen Investments on Grid Infrastructure and Power Prices

Hydrogen will be a central cross-sectoral energy carrier in the decarbonization of the European energy system. This paper investigates how a large-scale deployment of green hydrogen production affects the investments in transmission and generation towards 2060, analyzes the North Sea area with the main offshore wind projects, and assesses the development of an offshore energy hub. Results indicate that the hydrogen deployment has a tremendous impact on the grid development in Europe and in the North Sea. Findings indicate that total power generation capacity increases around 50%. The offshore energy hub acts mainly as a power transmission asset, leads to a reduction in total generation capacity, and is central to unlock the offshore wind potential in the North Sea. The effect of hydrogen deployment on power prices is multifaceted. In regions where power prices have typically been lower than elsewhere in Europe, it is observed that hydrogen increases the power price considerably. However, as hydrogen flexibility relieves stress in high-demand periods for the grid, power prices decrease in average for some countries. This suggests that while the deployment of green hydrogen will lead to a significant increase in power demand, power prices will not necessarily experience a large increase.Comment: Submitted to Energ

The impact of wind uncertainty on the strategic valuation of distributed electricity storage

The intermittent nature of wind energy generation has introduced a new degree of uncertainty to the tactical planning of energy systems. Short-term energy balancing decisions are no longer (fully) known, and it is this lack of knowledge that causes the need for strategic thinking. But despite this observation, strategic models are rarely set in an uncertain environment. And even if they are, the approach used is often inappropriate, based on some variant of scenario analysis—what-if analysis. In this paper we develop a deterministic strategic model for the valuation of electricity storage (a battery), and ask: “Though leaving out wind speed uncertainty clearly is a simplification, does it really matter for the valuation of storage?”. We answer this question by formulating a stochastic programming model, and compare its valuation to that of its deterministic counterpart. Both models capture the arbitrage value of storage, but only the stochastic model captures the battery value stemming from wind speed uncertainty. Is the difference important? The model is tested on a case from Lancaster University’s campus energy system where a wind turbine is installed. From our analysis, we conclude that considering wind speed uncertainty can increase the estimated value of storage with up to 50 % relative to a deterministic estimate. However, we also observe cases where wind speed uncertainty is insignificant for storage valuation

Synergy of smart grids and hybrid distributed generation on the value of energy storage

In smart grids, demand response and distributed energy systems aim to provide a higher degree of flexibility for load-shifting operations and the leverage to control intermittent wind supply. In this more dynamic energy system, deployment of energy storage at the site of consumption is envisioned to create synergies with the local distributed generation (DG) system. From a large end-user perspective, this paper contributes to the practical understanding of smart grids by modelling the impact of real-time pricing schemes (smart grids) on a hybrid DG system (mixed generation for heating and electricity loads) coupled with storage units. Specifically, we address: How does the portfolio of DG units affect the value of energy storage? and, what is the value of energy storage when assessing different designs of demand response for the end-user? To this end, we formulate a dynamic optimization model to represent a real-life urban community’s energy system composed of a co-generation unit, gas boilers, electrical heaters and a wind turbine. We discuss the techno-economic benefits of complementing this end-user’s energy system with storage units (thermal storage and battery devices). The paper analyses the storages policy strategies to simultaneously satisfy heat and electricity demand through the efficient use of DG units under demand response mechanisms. Results indicate that the storage units reduce energy costs by 7–10% in electricity and 3% in gas charges. In cases with a large DG capacity, the supply–demand mismatch increases, making storage more valuable