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More than40%of US grain is used for energy due to the Renewable Fuel Mandate (RFS). There are no studies of the global distributional consequences of this purely domestic policy. Using micro‐level survey data, we trace the effect of the RFS on world food prices and their impact on household level consumption and wage incomes in India. We first develop a partial equilibrium model to estimate the effect of the RFS on the price of selected food commodities—rice, wheat, corn, sugar, and meat and dairy, which together provide almost70%of Indian food calories. Our model predicts that world prices for these commodities rise by 8–16%due to the RFS. We estimate the price pass‐through to domestic Indian prices and the effect of the price shock on household welfare through consumption and wage incomes. Poor rural households suffer significant welfare losses due to higher prices of consumption goods, which are regressive. However, they benefit from a rise in wage incomes, mainly because most of them are employed in agriculture. Urban households also bear the higher cost of food, but do not see a concomitant rise in wages because only a small fraction of them work in food‐related industries. Welfare losses are greater among urban households. However, more poor people in India live in villages, so rural poverty impacts are larger in magnitude. We estimate that the mandate leads to about 25 million new poor: 21 million in rural and 4 million in the urban population.

The relationship between industrial structure (IS) and eco-efficiency (EE) is intricate with mutual influence and constraint. Exploring the coordinated relationship between IS and EE is beneficial to the sustainable development of ecologically fragile areas. This paper estimates and analyses the levels of EE and IS in 39 prefecture-level cities of the Loess Plateau, discussing the comprehensive and coordinated development levels between industrial structure rationalization (ISR) and EE, industrial structure advancement (ISA) and EE based on the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM). The results showed that the comprehensive development of the Loess Plateau has rough and imbalanced issues. The EE and IS are developing at a relatively low level, and the spatial distribution shows the development trend of high in the east and down in the west. The CCD of ISA and EE performs better than that of ISR and EE, but neither has reached the collaborative coupling state. The poor CCD score in the Loess Plateau is primarily attributable to its relatively backward degree of integrated EE and IS. The results are expected to provide decision-making support for EE improvement and industrial restructuring in the Loess Plateau and other ecologically fragile areas.

Whether China continues its current energy-intensive growth path or adopts a sustainable development prospect has significant implication for energy and climate governance. Building on a Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans growth model incorporating the mechanism of endogenous technological change and its interaction with fossil energy use and economic growth, this paper contributes to an economic exposition of China’s potential transition from an energy-intensive to an innovation-led growth path. We find that in China’s initial growth period the small amount of capital stock creates higher dynamic benefits of capital investment and incentives of capital stock accumulation rather than R&D-related innovation. Accumulation of energy-consuming capital stock along this non-innovation-led growth path thus leads to an intensive use of fossil energy - an energy-intensive growth pattern. To avoid this undesirable outcome, China’s social planner should consider locating a transition point to an innovation-led balanced growth path (BGP). When the growth dynamics reaches that transition point, China’s economy would embark on investment in physical capital and R&D simultaneously, and make a transition into the innovation-led BGP along which consumption, capital investment, and R&D have a balanced share. Also in this innovation-led BGP, consumption, physical capital stock, and knowledge stock all grow, fossil energy uses decline.

AbstractDespite the growing number of empirical studies on foreign direct investment (FDI) and energy efficiency (EE) as they relate to green growth, there remains an empirical research gap with respect to whether EE can engender positive synergy with FDI to foster inclusive green growth (IGG) in Africa. Also, little has been done to show the IGG gains from improving EE in both the short and long terms. Thus, this paper aims to investigate whether there exists a relevant synergy between EE and FDI in fostering IGG in Africa by using macrodata for 23 countries from 2000 to 2020. According to our findings, which are based on dynamic GMM estimator, FDI hampers IGG in Africa, while EE fosters IGG. Notably, in the presence of EE, the environmental-quality-deterioration effect of FDI is reduced. Additional evidence by way of threshold analysis indicates that improving EE in Africa generates positive sustainable development gains in both the short and long terms. This study suggests that a country’s drive to attract FDI needs to be accompanied by appropriate policy options to promote energy efficiency.JEL Codes: F2; F21; O11; O44; O55; Q01; Q43; Q56

Why do power sector reforms succeed and fail in democratic contexts? We conduct comparative case studies of these reforms in the largest 20 Indian states. These states have responded to India’s electricity generation, transmission, and distribution crises in different ways. Similar to conventional case studies, our research design has the virtue of allowing us to explore historical processes. However, having a large number of cases also enables us to consider multiple causal factors at the same time. Both the findings and non-findings speak to the broad debate on the possible causes of reform failure. We find support for hypotheses emphasizing electoral opportunism and the politics of interest group (organized labor, agricultural interests). In contrast, partisan cleavages do not seem to explain reform failure. These findings offer new insights into politically feasible reform strategies for India.

This paper synthesizes a set of national case studies conducted in the Sahelian countries during 2019-2020 as a collaboration between national universities and research institutes, and the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, with contributions from the Agrhymet Regional Centre, Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). These case studies provide up-to-date knowledge and critical insights on the nexus of land degradation, climate change and energy in the Sahel. The current synthesis paper highlights their major findings and provides crosscutting and cross-regional analytical conclusions. First, the synthesis paper explores current trends in the Sahel region on land use and land degradation, energy use and supply, climate change projections and impacts, as well as their interactions and links to agricultural growth, food security, poverty reduction, and peace in the region. Second, technological, socio-economic and policy solutions at the nexus of land, water, energy and climate challenges that enable environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive rural development in the Sahel are discussed, including their interactions and implications for peace and stability in the region. The findings show that such socio-economic solutions as improving access to markets, strengthening social safety nets, increasing investments to transport and energy infrastructures, promoting land tenure security, expanding off-farm employment opportunities can greatly contribute to rural development in the Sahel, particularly by aiding climate change resilience and sustainable land management. Key technological innovations highlighted across the case studies include expanding irrigation and adopting water use efficient irrigation techniques, crop diversification, expanding agricultural mechanization, investing into restoring and rehabilitating degraded lands through reforestation, afforestation and agroforestry practices. The key lessons learnt from ongoing national policy initiatives for sustainable development highlight the importance of active stakeholder consultation and participation in policy formulation, institution of effective policy monitoring and assessment mechanisms, and avoiding of excessive reliance on external sources of funding for the successful implementation of sustainable development policies and programs. Based on these findings, the synthesis paper proposes an agenda for applied research to provide guidance to and accompany promising development strategies in and for the region.

To deeply analyze and understand the macro-financial impact of climate change, this paper investigates the effect of climate risk on systemic financial risks by employing a network approach. The results demonstrate that climate risk not only affects a single financial market but also induces risk co-movement, which aggravates potential systemic financial risks. Specifically, the system-wide connectedness across the financial system respectively increased by 2.52% and 1.76% after the withdrawal of the US from the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen UN Climate Change Conference. The bond and stock markets are the primary transmitters of climate shocks, while the forex and commodity markets appear to be more sensitive to climate-related information. In addition, the vulnerability of financial asset price fluctuations to climate risk changes substantially over time. Quantile regressions reveal the positive impact of climate risk on total connectedness across the financial system. This study provides novel insight into how the financial system responds to climate-related information and how systemic risk dynamics materialize.