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A better understanding of the determinants of demand through accurate estimates of the elasticity of import demand can help policymakers and exporters improve their market access and competitiveness. This study analyzed the EU's demand for imported potato from major suppliers between 1994 and 2018, with the aim to evaluate the competitiveness of Egyptian potato.

This study adopted an import-differentiated framework to investigate demand relationships among the major potato suppliers to the EU's. To evaluate the competitiveness of Egyptian potato on the EU market, expenditure and price demand elasticities for various suppliers were calculated and compared.

The empirical results indicated that as income allocation of fresh potatoes increases, the investigated EU markets import more potatoes from other suppliers compared to imports from Egypt. The results show that EU importers may switch to potato imports from other suppliers as the import price of Egyptian potatoes increases, which enter the EU markets before domestically produced potatoes are harvested.

Due to data unavailability, the present study relied on yearly data on quantities and prices of EU potato imports. A higher frequency of observations should allow for considering seasonal effects, and thereby providing a more transparent picture of market dynamics and demand behavior of EU countries with respect to potato import from various sources of origin.

The study used a system-wide and source differentiated approach to analyze import demand. In particular, the empirical approach allowed for comparing different demand models (AIDS, Rotterdam, NBR and CBS) to filter out the superior and most suitable model for that data because the suitability and performance of a demand model depends rather on data than on universal criteria.

Recently, there has been a shift toward the embodied energy assessment of buildings. However, the impact of material service life on the life-cycle embodied energy has received little attention. We aimed to address this knowledge gap, particularly in the context of the UAE and investigated the embodied energy associated with the use of concrete and other materials commonly used in residential buildings in the hot desert climate of the UAE.

Using input–output based hybrid analysis, we quantified the life-cycle embodied energy of a villa in the UAE with over 50 years of building life using the average, minimum, and maximum material service life values. Mathematical calculations were performed using MS Excel, and a detailed bill of quantities with >170 building materials and components of the villa were used for investigation.

For the base case, the initial embodied energy was 57% (7390.5 GJ), whereas the recurrent embodied energy was 43% (5,690 GJ) of the life-cycle embodied energy based on average material service life values. The proportion of the recurrent embodied energy with minimum material service life values was increased to 68% of the life-cycle embodied energy, while it dropped to 15% with maximum material service life values.

The findings provide new data to guide building construction in the UAE and show that recurrent embodied energy contributes significantly to life-cycle energy demand. Further, the study of material service life variations provides deeper insights into future building material specifications and management considerations for building maintenance.