In this book, Andrew Harvey sets out to provide a unified and comprehensive theory of structural time series models. Unlike the traditional ARIMA models, structural time series models consist explicitly of unobserved components, such as trends and seasonals, which have a direct interpretation. As a result the model selection methodology associated with structural models is much closer to econometric methodology. The link with econometrics is made even closer by the natural way in which the models can be extended to include explanatory variables and to cope with multivariate time series. From the technical point of view, state space models and the Kalman filter play a key role in the statistical treatment of structural time series models. The book includes a detailed treatment of the Kalman filter. This technique was originally developed in control engineering, but is becoming increasingly important in fields such as economics and operations research. This book is concerned primarily with modelling economic and social time series, and with addressing the special problems which the treatment of such series poses. The properties of the models and the methodological techniques used to select them are illustrated with various applications. These range from the modellling of trends and cycles in US macroeconomic time series to to an evaluation of the effects of seat belt legislation in the UK.

Forecasting, Structural Time Series Models and the Kalman Filter

Impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita Le cause e le responsabilita dei cambiamenti climatici sono state trattate sul numero di ottobre della rivista Cda. Approfondiamo l’argomento presentando il documento: “Cambiamenti climatici 2007: impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita” votato ad aprile 2007 dal secondo gruppo di lavoro del Comitato Intergovernativo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Si tratta del secondo di tre documenti che compongono il quarto rapporto sui cambiamenti climatici.

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Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Sustainable Development Goals

Foreword 1. Prosperity Lost 2. The Age of Irresponsibility 3. Redefining Prosperity 4. The Dilemma of Growth 5. The Myth of Decoupling 6. The 'Iron Cage' of Consumerism 7. Keynesianism and the 'Green New Deal' 8. Ecological Macro-Economics 9. Flourishing - within Limits 10. Governance for Prosperity 11. The Transition to a Sustainable Economy 12. A Lasting Prosperity Appendices References Endnotes

Prosperity without growth : economics for a finite planet

The transition within business from a linear to a circular economy brings with it a range of practical challenges for companies. The following question is addressed: What are the product design and business model strategies for companies that want to move to a circular economy model? This paper develops a framework of strategies to guide designers and business strategists in the move from a linear to a circular economy. Building on Stahel, the terminology of slowing, closing, and narrowing resource loops is introduced. A list of product design strategies, business model strategies, and examples for key decision-makers in businesses is introduced, to facilitate the move to a circular economy. This framework also opens up a future research agenda for the circular economy.

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Product design and business model strategies for a circular economy

Sponsored by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of the Research Councils' Energy Programme, RESOLVE aims to unravel the complex links between lifestyles, values and the environment. In particular, the group will provide robust, evidence-based advice to policy-makers in the UK and elsewhere who are seeking to understand and to influence the behaviours and practices of 'energy consumers'. The working papers in this series reflect the outputs, findings and recommendations emerging from a truly inter-disciplinary research programme arranged around six thematic research strands: Carbon Footprinting: developing the tools to find out which bits of people's lifestyles and practices generate how much energy consumption (and carbon emissions). Psychology of Energy Behaviours: concentrating on the social psychological influences on energy-related behaviours, including the role of identity, and testing interventions aimed at change. Sociology of Lifestyles: focusing on the sociological aspects of lifestyles and the possibilities of lifestyle change, exploring the role of values and the creation and maintenance of meaning. Household change over time: working with individual households to understand how they respond to the demands of climate change and negotiate new, low-carbon lifestyles and practices. Lifestyle Scenarios: exploring the potential for reducing the energy consumption (and carbon emissions) associated with a variety of lifestyle scenarios over the next two to three decades. Energy/Carbon Governance: reviewing the implications of a low carbon society for governance, and investigating, in particular, the role of community in stimulating long-term lifestyle change. Abstract Addressing resource intensive consumption patterns and lifestyles is vital in the struggle to reduce the impact of modern society on the environment. The sustainable consumption agenda not only needs to be based on robust evidence of the scale of current resource use and associated emissions but also on an understanding of the drivers of consumption. Furthermore, if we are to devise policies that move towards more sustainable consumption patterns in an equitable manner, then it is also important to have an understanding of inequalities. The subject of this paper is the Local Area Resource Analysis (LARA) model that begins to address both of these requirements. LARA estimates household resource use and associated emissions at high levels of socioeconomic and geographical desegregation. This paper focuses largely on use of LARA for modelling direct household energy use and associated carbon dioxide emissions, although LARA has also been applied to other types of resource use such as food and clothing, and in …

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The local Area Resource Analysis (Lara) Model: Concepts, Methodology and Applications.

Industrial systems can be represented as networks of organizations connected by flows of materials, energy, and money. This network context may produce unexpected consequences in response to policy intervention, so improved understanding is vital; however, industrial network data are commonly unavailable publically. Using a case study in the Humber region, UK, we present a novel methodology of "network coding" of semistructured interviews with key industrial and political stakeholders, in combination with an "industrial taxonomy" of network archetypes developed to construct an approximation of the region's networks when data are incomplete. This article describes our methodology and presents the resulting network. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 19: 54-72, 2014

Sketching a network portrait of the humber region

Understanding sustainable prosperity is an essential but complex task. It implies an ongoing multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research agenda. This working paper sets out the dimensions of this task. In doing so it also establishes the foundations for the research of the ESRC-funded Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP).

Our guiding vision for sustainable prosperity is one in which people everywhere have the capability to flourish as human beings – within the ecological and resource constraints of a finite planet. CUSP’s work will explore not just the economic aspects of this challenge, but also its social, political and philosophical dimensions. It will address the implications of sustainable prosperity at the level of households and firms; and it will explore sector-level and macro-economic implications of different pathways to prosperity. It will pay particular attention to the pragmatic steps that need to be taken by enterprise, government and civil society in order to achieve a sustainable prosperity.

The work programme itself is split into five themes – the MAPSS framework – which is described in more detail in this working paper. Theme M explores the moral framing and contested meanings of prosperity itself. Theme A explores the role of the arts and of culture in our society. Theme P addresses the politics of sustainable prosperity and explores the institutional shifts that will be needed to achieve it. Theme S1 explores the social and psychological dimensions of prosperity. Theme S2 examines the complex dynamics of social and economic systems on which sustainable prosperity depends.

This working paper explores the conceptual foundations for the MAPSS themes. It also sets out a portfolio of research and describes a strategy for cross-sector engagement involving government, business, academia and civil society. The overall aim of CUSP is to explore the economic, ecological, social and governance dimensions of sustainable prosperity and to make concrete recommendations to government, business and civil society in pursuit of it.

Angela Druckman

Papers

The local Area Resource Analysis (Lara) Model: Concepts, Methodology and Applications.

Sketching a network portrait of the humber region

Understanding sustainable prosperity — Towards a transdisciplinary research agenda

Corrigendum to “Missing carbon reductions? Exploring rebound and backfire effects in UK households” [Energy Policy 39 (2011) 3572–3581]

Mapping our carbon responsibilities: more key results from the Surrey Lifestyles MApping (SELMA) framework