Les pays en développement (PED) enregistrent un taux de croissance démographique particulièrement élevé et une forte demande alimentaire. Par ailleurs, l’investissement direct étranger (IDE) est au centre des politiques d’investissement de ces pays. Les PED attirent l’IDE pour améliorer la croissance économique. Cette vision optimiste est contredite par des effets négatifs sur leur économies. En se basant sur trois facteurs que nous jugeons très importants pour la sécurité alimentaire (SA) : la production agricole, la qualité institutionnelle et la dépendance en importation alimentaires, nous investiguons les effets de l’IDE sur la SA.Les résultats montrent que l’IDE agricole améliore la SA et l’IDE secondaire améliore la production agricole grâce au transfert technologique et du savoir-faire avec des effets nuisibles qui peuvent apparaitre comme la pollution de l’environnement. L’IDE tertiaire a tendance à baisser la main d’œuvre dans l’agriculture et à augmenter la demande alimentaire dans les zones urbaines. En ajoutant l’institution locales à l’analyse, les résultats montrent qu’à partir de certains seuils de qualité institutionnelle, l’IDE primaire et secondaire améliorent la SA. L’intérêt des PED est d’améliorer leur qualité institutionnelle et de cibler l’attraction de l’IDE. / Developing countries (DCs) have a high population growth and food demand. Moreover, foreign direct investment (FDI) is in the heart of investment policy. DCs attract FDI to improve their economic growth. This optimistic view is contradicted by negative effects on their economies. We based our analysis on three important factors: agricultural production, institutional quality and the food import dependency, we investigate the effects of desegregated and aggregated FDI on the food security. The results show that agricultural FDI improves food security and secondary FDI improves agricultural production through technology transfer and know-how with harmful effects that may occur as the environmental pollution.The tertiary IDE tends to decrease labor in agriculture and increasing food demand in urban areas. By adding the local institution to the analysis, the results show that from certain institutional quality thresholds, primary and secondary IDE improves food security. Our recommendation is that DCs has the interest to improve their institutional quality and targeting the attraction of FDI. Finally, aggregated FDI tends to deteriorate the ability to import food in countries with low and lower middle income. These countries have an interest to attract export-oriented FDI.

The thesis deals with the assessment of the return on economic investment in passive house compared to the low-energy (standard) house. The thesis deals with the issue of passive house, development, conception and division of structural parts including used materials. Their advantages, disatvantages and possibilities of use in construction are briefly discussed. The main part of the thesis focuses on the economic return on investment in passive house. Based on a detailed calculation, the costs for two buildings in low-energy and passive standards are quantified here. The passive standard is achieved by various design modifications. All this is supported by software calculation of annual energy consumption. The return on such an investment is then determined in more ways from this balance sheet, taking into account the evolution of energy prices.

Hoje no mercado brasileiro de eletricidade, o preço da energia convencional é composto pela soma do valor do Preço de Liquidação das Diferenças (PLD) divulgado pela Câmara de Comercialização de Energia Elétrica (CCEE) semanalmente com o valor do Spread negociado bilateralmente no mercado à vista (mercado de curto prazo), resultante do equilíbrio entre oferta e demanda. Em alguns momentos, o valor do Spread chega a representar mais de 100% do custo total da energia. Este trabalho faz uma análise do mercado brasileiro, bem como, de alguns mercados no exterior de energia elétrica e destaca os pontos que tem influência direta, na formação do Spread da energia convencional e como isso afeta a decisão de contratação dos agentes. Além disso, o trabalho busca encontrar correlações entre dados divulgados, como carga e oferta de energia, com o ágio negociado no mercado de curto prazo, buscando entender o real impacto de cada um desses fatores e explicar as grandes variações já observadas. Sugere-se também um modelo de regressão linear múltipla para a projeção de valores do ágio. Para tanto, foram utilizadas informações proveniente de um banco de dados de cotações de negócios efetivamente realizados no curto prazo desde janeiro de 2011 até julho de 2014, bem como informações retiradas da CCEE e Operador Nacional do Sistema (ONS). / The Brazilian wholesales energy market price is formed by de sum of the PLD (Market Clearing Price which is released weekly by the Commercial Chamber) and a Spread value, resulting from the negotiation between the market agents. In some cases, the Spread represent more than 100% of the energy total cost. This paper presents an overview about some energy markets, focusing the Brazilian Energy Market, so as to highlight points that affect the Spread value at the spot market and, as consequence, the strategy of the market agents. Additionally, this paper shows the correlation between energy demand and energy offer and energy spread negotiated at the short term market, trying to understand the real impact of each variable trying to get the right explanation regarding the big variations observed. It has been suggested a mathematical model of multiple linear regression to forecast the spread value. In order to accomplish this purpose it was used (i) a historical data of effectively trading situations at the short term market, comprising the period between January 2011 to July 2014, as well as (ii) informations released by the Commercial Chamber (CCEE) and the System Operator (ONS).

This thesis uses innovative approaches to analyse energy policy interventions aimed at enhancing the environmental sustainability of energy use as well as its consequential welfare implications. First, we examine the relationship between energy efficiency improvement and CO2 emissions at the macro level. We use the Index Decomposition Analysis to derive energy efficiency by separating out the impact of shifts in economic activity on energy intensity. We then employ econometric models to relate energy efficiency and CO2 emissions accounting for non-economic factors such as consumers lifestyle and attitudes. The applications for 13 OPEC and 30 OECD countries show that at the country-group and individual country level, increase in energy intensity for OPEC is associated with both deteriorations in energy efficiency and shifts towards energy-intensive activities. The model results suggest that the reduction in energy efficiency in general go in tandem with substantial increases in CO2 emissions. The decline in energy intensity for OECD can be attributed mainly to improvements in energy efficiency which is found to compensate for the impact on CO2 emissions of income changes. The results confirm the empirical relevance of energy efficiency improvements for the mitigation of CO2 emissions. The method developed in this chapter further enables the separate assessment of non-economic behavioural factors which according to the results exert a non-trivial influence on CO2 emissions. Secondly, having empirically confirmed the relationship between energy efficiency improvements and CO2 emission at the macro level in Chapter 2, we investigate potential underlying drivers of energy efficiency improvements taking into account potential asymmetric effects of energy price change in Chapter 3. This is crucial for designing effective and efficient policy measures that can promote energy efficiency. In addition to the Index Decomposition Analysis used to estimate the economy-wide energy efficiency in Chapter 2, we also use Stochastic Frontier Analysis and Data Envelop Analysis as alternative methods. The driving factors are examined using static and dynamic panel model methods that account for both observed and unobserved country heterogeneity. The application for 32 OECD countries shows that none of the three methods leads to correspondence in term of ranking between energy efficiency estimates and energy intensity at the country level corroborating the criticism that energy intensity is a poor proxy for energy efficiency. The panel-data regression results using the results of the three methods show similarities in the impacts of the determinants on the energy efficiency levels. Also, we find insignificant evidence of asymmetric effects of total energy price but there is proof of asymmetry using energy specific prices. Thirdly, in Chapter 4 we offer an improved understanding of the impacts to expect of abolishing fuel price subsidy on fuel consumption, and also of the welfare and distributional impacts at the household level. We develop a two-step approach for this purpose. Key aspect of the first step is a two-stage budgeting model to estimate various fuel types elasticities using micro-data. Relying on these estimates and the information on households expenditure shares for different commodities, the second step estimates the welfare (direct and indirect) and distributional impacts. The application for Nigeria emphasises the relevance of this approach. We find heterogeneous elasticities of fuel demand among household groups. The distributional impact of abolishing the kerosene subsidy shows a regressive welfare loss. Although we find a progressive loss for petrol, the loss gap between the low- and high-income groups is small relative to the loss gap from stopping kerosene subsidy, making the low-income groups to suffer a higher total welfare loss. Finally, from the highlighted results, we draw the following concluding remarks in chapter 5. Energy efficiency appears a key option to mitigate CO2 emissions but there is also a need for additional policies aiming for behavioural change; energy specific prices and allowing for asymmetry in analysing the changes in energy efficiency is more appropriate and informative in formulating reliable energy policies; the hypothesis that only the rich would be worse-off from fuel subsidy removal is rejected and the results further suggest that timing of the fuel subsidy removal would be crucial as a higher international oil price will lead to higher deregulated fuel price and consequently, larger welfare loss.

Hoje no mercado brasileiro de eletricidade, o preço da energia convencional é composto pela soma do valor do Preço de Liquidação das Diferenças (PLD) divulgado pela Câmara de Comercialização de Energia Elétrica (CCEE) semanalmente com o valor do Spread negociado bilateralmente no mercado à vista (mercado de curto prazo), resultante do equilíbrio entre oferta e demanda. Em alguns momentos, o valor do Spread chega a representar mais de 100% do custo total da energia. Este trabalho faz uma análise do mercado brasileiro, bem como, de alguns mercados no exterior de energia elétrica e destaca os pontos que tem influência direta, na formação do Spread da energia convencional e como isso afeta a decisão de contratação dos agentes. Além disso, o trabalho busca encontrar correlações entre dados divulgados, como carga e oferta de energia, com o ágio negociado no mercado de curto prazo, buscando entender o real impacto de cada um desses fatores e explicar as grandes variações já observadas. Sugere-se também um modelo de regressão linear múltipla para a projeção de valores do ágio. Para tanto, foram utilizadas informações proveniente de um banco de dados de cotações de negócios efetivamente realizados no curto prazo desde janeiro de 2011 até julho de 2014, bem como informações retiradas da CCEE e Operador Nacional do Sistema (ONS). / The Brazilian wholesales energy market price is formed by de sum of the PLD (Market Clearing Price which is released weekly by the Commercial Chamber) and a Spread value, resulting from the negotiation between the market agents. In some cases, the Spread represent more than 100% of the energy total cost. This paper presents an overview about some energy markets, focusing the Brazilian Energy Market, so as to highlight points that affect the Spread value at the spot market and, as consequence, the strategy of the market agents. Additionally, this paper shows the correlation between energy demand and energy offer and energy spread negotiated at the short term market, trying to understand the real impact of each variable trying to get the right explanation regarding the big variations observed. It has been suggested a mathematical model of multiple linear regression to forecast the spread value. In order to accomplish this purpose it was used (i) a historical data of effectively trading situations at the short term market, comprising the period between January 2011 to July 2014, as well as (ii) informations released by the Commercial Chamber (CCEE) and the System Operator (ONS).

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

The Autonomic Power System (APS) grand challenge was a multi-disciplinary EPSRC-funded research project that examined novel techniques that would enable the transition between today's and 2050's highly uncertain and complex energy network. Being part of the APS, this thesis reports on the sub-project 'RR2: Avoiding High-Impact Low Probability events'. The goal of RR2 is to develop new algorithms for controlling risk exposure to high-impact low probability (Hi-Lo) events through the provision of appropriate risk-sensitive control strategies. Additionally, RR2 is concerned with new techniques for identifying and modelling risk in future energy networks, in particular, the risk of Hi-Lo events. In this context, this thesis investigates two distinct problems arising from energy risk management. On the one hand, we examine the problem of finding managerial strategies for exercising the operational flexibility of energy assets. We look at this problem from a risk perspective taking into account non-linear risk preferences of energy asset managers. Our main contribution is the development of a risk-sensitive approach to the class of optimal switching problems. By recasting the problem as an iterative optimal stopping problem, we are able to characterise the optimal risk-sensitive switching strategies. As byproduct, we obtain a multiplicative dynamic programming equation for the value function, upon which we propose a numerical algorithm based on least squares Monte Carlo regression. On the other hand, we develop tools to identify and model the risk factors faced by energy asset managers. For this, we consider a class of models consisting of superposition of Gaussian and non-Gaussian Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. Our main contribution is the development of a Bayesian methodology based on Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms to make inference into this class of models. On extensive simulations, we demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of the algorithms to different data features. Furthermore, we construct a diagnostic tool based on Bayesian p-values to check goodness-of-fit of the models on a Bayesian framework. We apply this tool to MCMC results from fitting historical electricity and gas spot price data- sets corresponding to the UK and German energy markets. Our analysis demonstrates that the MCMC-estimated models are able to capture not only long- and short-lived positive price spikes, but also short-lived negative price spikes which are typical of UK gas prices and German electricity prices. Combining together the solutions to the two problems above, we strive to capture the interplay between risk, uncertainty, flexibility and performance in various applications to energy systems. In these applications, which include power stations, energy storage and district energy systems, we consistently show that our risk management methodology offers a tradeoff between maximising average performance and minimising risk, while accounting for the jump dynamics of energy prices. Moreover, the tradeoff is achieved in such way that the benefits in terms of risk reduction outweigh the loss in average performance.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Dans le but de faire face aux défis interdépendants en termes d’épuisement des ressources énergétiques, de dégradation environnementale et des préoccupations de santé publique dans le contexte chinois en réponse au développement durable, nous nous concentrons sur l'étude des politiques en matière d’énergie, d’environnement et de santé en Chine. Dans le chapitre 1, nous donnons un aperçu des politiques chinoises en matière d’énergie, d’environnement et de santé au cours des 20 dernières années afin de connaître les orientations politiques futures auxquelles le gouvernement n'a pas donné une attention suffisante. Dans les trois chapitres suivants, nous proposons une série d'études empiriques afin de tirer quelques implications politiques utiles. Dans le chapitre 2, nous étudions l'impact de l'urbanisation, de l'adaptation de la structure industrielle, du prix de l'énergie et de l'exportation sur les intensités énergétiques agrégés et désagrégés des provinces. Dans le chapitre 3, nous étudions les facteurs qui expliquent la transition énergétique vers des combustibles propres des ménages ruraux. Dans le chapitre 4, nous examinons les effets conjoints des risques environnementaux, du revenu individuel, des politiques de santé sur l'état de santé des adultes chinois. En particulier, nos résultats empiriques suggèrent d’intégrer le développement urbain dans la stratégie d'économies d'énergie; de considérer des substitutions/complémentarités complexes parmi les sources d'énergie et entre l'énergie et l’alimentation pour les ménages ruraux; d’aligner les politiques environnementales, énergétiques et alimentaires avec les politiques de santé. / With the purpose of coping with the intertwined challenges of energy depletion, environmental degradation and public health concerns in the Chinese-specific context in response to sustainable development, we focus on investigating China’s energy, environment and health policies. In chapter 1, we provide an overview of China’s energy, environment and health policies over the past 20 years in order to know about the future policy directions to which the government has not given a sufficient attention. In the following three chapters, we provide a series of empirical studies so as to derive some useful policy implications. In chapter 2, we investigate the impact of urbanization, industrial structure adjustment, energy price and export on provincial aggregate and disaggregate energy intensities. In chapter 3, we study the factors explaining the switches from dirty to clean fuel sources in rural households. In chapter 4, we examine the joint effects of environmental hazards, individual income and health policies on the health status of Chinese adults. Our empirical findings particularly suggest integrating urban development into the strategy of energy saving; considering the complex substitutions/complementarities among energy sources and between energy and food for rural households; aligning the environment, energy and food policies with health policies.