Benchmark-based, Whole-Building Energy Performance Targets for UC Buildings

Benchmark-based, whole building energy performance targets are becoming the best practice method for designing energy efficient and zero net energy buildings. There are several advantages to energy performance targets, including a static baseline (to allow for comparison of buildings over time), the ability to capture energy use and efficiency for all building energy loads (not just the loads regulated by code), and the ability to carry design targets through to operations. UC Merced has been using whole-building energy performance targets since its founding and has had great success in delivering buildings with very energy efficient designs that perform to those design targets in their ongoing operations. In addition, benchmarks available for UC campuses provide targets that address peak demand. For these reasons, the UC campuses are encouraged to adopt whole-building energy performance targets in their building design process, to help maintain UC’s leadership in energy efficiency

Household Debt and Financial Assets: Evidence from Great Britain, Germany and the United States

We explore the determinants of debt and financial asset accumulation at the household level using survey data for Great Britain, Germany and the United States (US). Given that debt and assets are both components of a household’s financial portfolio, we explore the degree of inter-dependence between households’ assets and liabilities by jointly modelling these two aspects of the portfolio. Indeed, our empirical findings for both countries support a high degree of inter-dependence between debt and asset holding. Furthermore, the nature of this inter-dependence varies across income ranges and age groups with the weakest correlation between financial assets and debt being found for the lowest income groups in Great Britain, suggesting that such groups may be particularly vulnerable to adverse financial shocks. Evidence supporting inter-dependence between assets and debt no longer remains, however, once we focus on debtors which suggests that households in debt may potentially face difficulties following adverse changes in their financial situation.Debt; Financial Assets; Household Financial Portfolio; Random Effects; Tobit Estimator

Religion and Education: Evidence from the National Child Development Study

In this paper, we explore the determinants of one aspect of religious behaviour – church attendance – at the individual level using British data derived from the National Child Development Study (NCDS). To be specific, we focus on the relationship between education and church attendance, which has attracted some attention in the existing literature. In contrast to the previous literature in this area, our data allows us to explore the dynamic dimension to religious activity since the NCDS provides information on church attendance at three stages of an individual’s life cycle. The findings from our cross-section and panel data analysis, which treats education as an endogenous variable, support a positive association between education and church attendance. In addition, our findings suggest that current participation in religious activities is positively associated with past religious activities. Furthermore, our findings suggest that levels of religious activity tend to vary less over time suggesting that factors such as habit formation may be important.Church Attendance; Education; Human Capital; Religion.

Reservation Wages, Expected Wages and the Duration of Unemployment: Evidence from British Panel Data

In this paper we analyse the role of wage expectations in an empirical model of incomplete spells of unemployment and reservation wages. To be specific, we model the duration of unemployment, reservation wages and expected wages simultaneously for a sample of individuals who are not in work, where wage expectations are identified via an exogenous policy shock based upon the introduction of Working Family Tax Credits (WFTC) in the UK. The results from the empirical analysis, which is based on the British Household Panel Survey, suggest that WFTC eligibility served to increase expected wages and that expected wages are positively associated with reservation wages. In addition, incorporating wage expectations into the econometric framework was found to influence the magnitude of the key elasticities: namely the elasticity of unemployment duration with respect to the reservation wage and the elasticity of the reservation wage with respect to unemployment duration.unemployment duration, reservation wages, expected wages

The Saving Behaviour of Children: Analysis of British Panel Data

We explore the influences on the saving behaviour of children aged 11 to 15 using panel data drawn from the British Household Panel Survey Youth Questionnaire. Our empirical findings suggest that parental allowances/pocket money exert a moderating influence on the probability that a child will save, whilst hours of paid work undertaken by the child are positively associated with the probability that a child will save. The saving behaviour of parents, however, does not appear to influence the saving behaviour of their offspring. In contrast, financial optimism on the part of parents does appear to lower the probability that their children will save. In addition, our empirical analysis reveals some interesting differences relating to the determinants of the saving behaviour of boys and girls as well as evidence of state dependence in the saving behaviour of children.household finances, intergenerational analysis, panel data, saving

Wage Growth, Human Capital and Risk Preference: Evidence From The British Household Panel Survey

The aim of this paper is to explore how interpersonal variation in risk preference affects human capital investment and, hence, wage growth. To date, there has been a distinct lack of empirical research in this area despite the fact that the risk preference of individuals plays a key role in the theoretical models of human capital accumulation. We investigate the link between risk preference, human capital investment and wage growth using data from four waves of the British Household Panel Survey using a measure of the extent of risky financial assets held by individuals as a proxy for risk preference. We exploit panel data enabling us to determine the change in real wages experienced by individuals across three different time horizons, 1995-96, 1995-98 and 1995-2000. Our empirical specification is derived from a theoretical framework, which explicitly allows the risk preferences of individuals to influence human capital accumulation and, consequently, wage growth. Our findings suggest that risk-loving behaviour impacts positively on the returns to human capital investment thereby enhancing wage growth.Human capital; Risk Aversion; Wage Growth

Monitoring-Based Commissioning: Tracking the Evolution and Adoption of a Paradigm-Shifting Approach to Retro-Commissioning

Proceedings of the 2012 ACEEE Summer Study (Panel 4, Paper 1130). Monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) emphasizes permanent energy performance metering and trending—for diagnosis of energy waste, for savings accounting, and to enable persistence of savings. Emphasis on monitoring represents a paradigm shift for the retro-commissioning (RCx) industry, which has traditionally relied upon test protocols and modeled savings estimates. Since 2004, a major monitoring-based commissioning program at twenty-five California university campuses has evolved to meet the changing needs of university and utility partners. More recently the monitoring-based approach has been adopted by third-party programs in California. We present information on the progression of program design and results for the multiple phases of the original program, along with a look at third-party and other programs adopting similar program features

Intergenerational Analysis of Social Interaction

We explore the relationship between the social interaction of parents and their offspring from a theoretical and an empirical perspective. Our theoretical framework establishes possible explanations for the intergenerational transfer of social interaction whereby the social interaction of the parent may influence that of their offspring and vice versa. The empirical evidence, based on four data sets covering Great Britain and the U.S., is supportive of our theoretical priors. We find robust evidence of intergenerational links between the social interaction of parents and their offspring supporting the existence of positive bi-directional intergenerational effects in social interaction.social interaction, intergenerational transfer

On Modelling the Social Interaction of Couples

In this paper we contribute to the existing microeconomic literature on social interaction, which has generally focused on social interaction from an individual’s perspective. Given that decisions regarding social interaction are often made within the context of a couple or family, we explore the potential interdependence between the social interaction of husbands and wives from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. We develop a theoretical framework based on an extension of Becker (1974) to include factors which characterise aspects of a couple’s decision-making in relation to social interaction and show that these factors support a tendency towards a positive correlation between the husband’s and wife’s levels of social interaction. Indeed, our empirical findings suggest such a positive association between the social interaction of husbands and wives as measured by active club membership and the frequency of the social interaction activities. In addition, we find that this positive association is particularly pronounced across the same types of club membership or social activities.Couples; Panel Data; Social Interaction