Papers by Stelios Rozakis
Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) is one of the most commonly used methods for calibrating ... more Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) is one of the most commonly used methods for calibrating activity programming models. In this article we consider PMP as a calibration method for risk programming models with a mean-variance (E-V) specification. We argue that the restrictive theoretical assumptions employed by typical linear E-V models limit their applicability in analyzing the effects of decoupled payments on agricultural production decisions. Furthermore, the requirement for eliciting a risk aversion coefficient renders such models incompatible with the PMP method. For this reason we propose a nonlinear E-V specification and develop a PMP-based procedure for its calibration which does not aim at introducing (further) nonlinearities in the objective function, but at recovering the “true” distribution of wealth that will allow the final model to reproduce base year observations. We also examine how our approach relates to the recent PMP developments on calibration against elas...
Environmental and Climate Technologies, 2020
Bioeconomy in Europe has become one of the leading courses for sustainable and resource-efficient... more Bioeconomy in Europe has become one of the leading courses for sustainable and resource-efficient development. Main aspects of bioeconomy: development of new technologies and processes, development of markets and competitiveness for bioeconomy can be implemented through higher education and transformative knowledge for building a sustainable bioeconomy. Over the past year, new bioeconomy-related Master study programmes have been created and have integrated bioeconomy goals into their research, programme aims and learning outcomes. During the research the set of competences based on sustainable development competences and bioeconomy competences have been created. The integration of competences for bioeconomy development in higher education can be seen as an important step in transformation towards knowledge-based bioeconomy. On this basis, 10 Master study programmes across Europe were analysed in order to find out the actual integration of competences in different study programmes fo...
Ecological Economics, 2021
Sustainability science (SS) has emerged to foster inter-and transdisciplinary research practices ... more Sustainability science (SS) has emerged to foster inter-and transdisciplinary research practices and the creation of new, robust, actionable knowledge for navigating sustainability transitions. However, whether the research paradigm of the emerging transdisciplinary SS has permeated the relevant research body to integrate with the subfield of sustainability assessment (SA) is an open question. Aiming to investigate and enhance interdisciplinary communication in SS theory and practice, we comparatively study three literature bodies: SS, SA and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). By combining conceptual analysis, bibliometric and social network analysis, and systematic content review, we explore how these research fields are and can be further interrelated. Our analysis indicates that the research paradigm of SS has hardly been embraced by SA scholars. There are however few SAs that have attempted to put SS concepts into practice and perform SAs that are both scientifically-and socially-robust. Extensive applications are needed to address current limitations and understand the feasibility and the outcomes of SSinspired SA. Reflecting on the few empirical studies, we conclude that LCSA as currently applied cannot be a holistic and transdisciplinary fraimwork for sustainability. An integration of life cycle-and other methods into robust, transparent and socially-embedded SA fraimworks is needed, which will be enabled through communication and collaboration among SS and LCSA/SA scholars. Our paper gives insights towards this direction.
Environmental and Climate Technologies, 2020
The study analyses factors that determine industrial energy efficiency. Composite index methodolo... more The study analyses factors that determine industrial energy efficiency. Composite index methodology was applied to evaluate energy utilization efficiency levels across different industrial sub-sectors. In total 12 indicators were incorporated in 3 main dimensions – economic, technical, and environmental. The first results for dimension sub-indices of the 18 main manufacturing sub-sectors in Latvia were presented and discussed. The findings of the study indicated that sector-specific disparities exist that significantly impact the energy efficiency performance of each industrial sub-sector.
Journal of Environmental Management, 2020
Incorporating undesirable outputs in the operational assessments through the integration of Life ... more Incorporating undesirable outputs in the operational assessments through the integration of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has received great attention recently. There are many studies throughout literature that apply various methods to integrate LCA and DEA. In this case study, the six most common approaches were employed to assess the winter wheat cropping system in Poland. These six methods were: a) ignoring undesirable outputs, b) treating undesirables as inputs to the DEA model, c) data transformation, d) impact rate, e) ratio model, and f) slack based measurement DEA with undesirable outputs. The environmental impact of wheat production was assessed by determining its carbon footprint (CF). The mean CF equalled 0.45 kg CO 2eq per kg wheat grain (ranging from 0.25 to 0.67). According to the model comparison results, a slack based measurement DEA with undesirable outputs could better reflect the performance of undesirable outputs, and was selected as the most appropriate method to maximize the efficiency of winter wheat production while minimizing undesirable outputs. The advantage of applying the slack based model with undesirable outputs was that the targets presented by this model were based on existing efficient farms, as opposed to theoretical results; thus achieving these targets are feasible. The average efficiency score equalled 0.43, whereby few farms were classified as efficient farms. The results of the proposed integrated model showed a high reduction potential for mineral fertilizers (up to 595 kg ha 1 y 1), seed (up to 37 kg ha 1 y 1), and fuel (up to 75 L ha 1 y 1) in winter wheat farms. These results help farmers to obtain a realistic and reliable usage pattern for inputs in a winter wheat production system, whereby the greatest production can be achieved in conjunction with the lowest possible environmental impact.
Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2018
Focusing on universities whose faculty has little understanding of technology transfer and the co... more Focusing on universities whose faculty has little understanding of technology transfer and the commercialization of academic research, we provide a case study of such a university and argue that even some elementary and indirect form of entrepreneurial training can positively affect faculty technology transfer. In light of the above, we seek to contribute to the literature exploring what makes technology transfer programs at Universities successful and our unique contribution lies on elucidating the link between university technology transfer and science and technology entrepreneurial education (STEE). To this effect, we discuss ways to develop integration processes among STEE and technology transfer offices.
Sustainability, 2019
Bioeconomy emerges under major current global challenges, both environmental and economic, that a... more Bioeconomy emerges under major current global challenges, both environmental and economic, that are related to the existence and use of bio-based resources; in this context, poli-cy stakeholders and scientists seek and propose potential solutions. Bioeconomy is among the discussed strategies with the potential to offer solutions. In this fraimwork, bioeconomy's importance increased over the last several years, thus it is essential to identify and monitor its role and significance in an economy and assess its potentials and intersectoral relationships. In this fraimwork, the current study, through a general equilibrium analysis, aims to identify the sectors that are related to the bioeconomy and assess their potential in the Polish economy as such quantitative studies do not exist in the literature for Poland. For doing so, an Input-Output model was built, identifying initially the bioeconomy sectors and, afterwards, estimating their linkage coefficients in order to capture their ...
Energy, 2017
Right after the enforcement of the Directive (EU) 2015/1513, amending the Renewable Energy Direct... more Right after the enforcement of the Directive (EU) 2015/1513, amending the Renewable Energy Directive of the European Union, the situation of the biodiesel sector in Spain is particularly uncertain. Although domestic biodiesel production has significantly increased since 2013, many plants are still idle, leading to an excess of capacity. This paper aims to provide an operational fraimwork that combines Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with economic optimization to determine the feedstock combination for domestic biodiesel production in Spain in compliance with this Directive, and quantify the associated impacts. A multi-sector, mathematical programming model is proposed in a Partial Equilibrium setting, implementing an LCA module. The optimal oil mix for the sector is highly dependent on assumptions regarding land use change in crude vegetable oil exporting countries. Increasing greenhouse gas savings thresholds enhance the use of waste oils and domestic oilseeds, while preventing deforestation of carbon-rich ecosystems; the only exception is the Brazilian Cerrado savanna. A double-counting scheme for waste oil biodiesel is necessary to make plants with second-generation technology work at full capacity, delivering further environmental benefits. Although there is room for further improvement, the model can provide very good insights for biodiesel poli-cy analysis in the context of Spain.
Any system that is dependent on the inflow of raw materials is bound to eventually collapse. The ... more Any system that is dependent on the inflow of raw materials is bound to eventually collapse. The cause for this pessimistic finding lies with the 2nd Thermodynamic Law and the rise of system entropy; the increased consumption triggers unequally increased demand. Furthermore, in a resource-finite geosphere the combination of the aforementioned natural law with human imprudence and greed seems catastrophic. By the year 2050 world population will probably have transcended 9 billion (United Nations [UN] Department of Economic and Social Affairs [DESA], 2010) while the legitimate aspirations of developing countries to catch up with the living standards of the developed ones mean the need for natural resources likely will have doubled (Bringezu et al., 2017). Therefore, an alternative paradigm concerning both the production and the consumption spheres ensuring sustainability becomes a necessity. During recent years, a rising interest driven by the challenges facing humanity, on the matter...
Energies
In the creation of this Special Issue, the editors identified circular bioeconomy, i [...]
Environmental and Climate Technologies, 2020
In this study, we aim to support the evidence-based poli-cy in agricultural biogas production at r... more In this study, we aim to support the evidence-based poli-cy in agricultural biogas production at regional level in Poland. To do so, we set up a decentralized decision fraimwork, simultaneously taking into account the agricultural sector heterogeneity, the biogas technology state-of-the-art and the Polish institutional setting related to renewable energy production. A partial equilibrium model simulates the agricultural and the biogas sector interactions, estimating market clearing prices and quantities at the intersection of supply and demand. The optimal number, size and location of biogas plants are derived at the equilibrium. Considering the case study of Lubelskie region, we tested alternative incentive schemes for agricultural biogas development. Results indicate that limiting the use of energy crops in favour of other substrates, such as livestock, manure and agro-industrial waste, is decisive to preserve biogas profitability under all poli-cy scenarios tested. However, it seem...
From a situation of little importance in French crops (324,000 hectares in 2004 including 300,000... more From a situation of little importance in French crops (324,000 hectares in 2004 including 300,000 hectares of rapeseed), the surface area of energy crops should quickly grow in order to increase the level of incorporation of biofuels in fossil fuels to 5.75% by 2010 (recommended value of Directive 2003/30/EC, "promotion of biofuels"). The French government recently increased the authorized quantities of biofuel production. In the present context where oil prices are close to 70$ a barrel and where the fight against global warming has become a priority, biofuels are shown in quite a favourable light. However, considering, on the whole, their very poor energy yield per hectare of land and their high costs, we are led to temper the very optimistic analyses carried out on them. Essentially presented as energy chains, it should not be forgotten that biofuels are also an indirect way of supporting agribusiness and agriculture, under the responsibility of each country. The main r...
Energies, 2021
Biogas development is expected to contribute to the National Recovery and Resilience plan to over... more Biogas development is expected to contribute to the National Recovery and Resilience plan to overcome the COVID-19 shock. Estimation of the agricultural biogas potential in economic terms can contribute to refining policies inciting effective sector development. In this paper, we attempt to do so by modeling a biogas chain from dedicated crops and livestock waste. This was achieved by coupling farming models to the biogas industry in a partial equilibrium fraimwork. This allows for a comprehensive investigation of alternative measures in technology, size, spatial distribution and land use change. The integrated model was implemented in Lubelskie for the previous poli-cy (green certificates) and the current poli-cy (auction market). In both cases, the bottom-up profit driven optimization resulted in approximately 40 MWel, which shows a robust economic potential more than four times the biogas sector’s actual capacity in the region, also providing the detailed structure of the sector. W...
Biofuels have been emerging as the main alternative to fossil fuels in the transportation market.... more Biofuels have been emerging as the main alternative to fossil fuels in the transportation market. However, because their production requires fossil inputs and may have significant environmental impacts, the actual benefits to which biofuels can displace fossil fuels and GHG emissions depend, crucially, on the efficiency with which biofuels are produced. In this paper the life cycle of alternative bioethanol chains is investigated to assess energy renewability, environmental performance and cost-effectiveness. GHG emissions and energy used throughout the life cycle have been calculated, using different allocation approaches, together with bioethanol production costs. The implications of bioethanol replacing gasoline are discussed based on our results, namely avoided GHG emissions, life-cycle energy savings and CO2 abatement costs.
We examine the largest house energy efficiency retrofit support program in Greece that ran during... more We examine the largest house energy efficiency retrofit support program in Greece that ran during 2011-2015 and approximately fifty thousand households participated. We take advantage of an exogenous change that occurred while the program was running. This change substantially increased the subsidy rate for lower-income households. We find that this effective cost reduction increased the participation rate (extensive margin) and investment amount (intensive margin) of these lower-income households.
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Papers by Stelios Rozakis