large scale deployment of renewables for electricity generation comparisons of resource assessments suggest that sufficient renewable energy resources are available to allow for large scale deployment of renewable energy technologies economic analysis identifies barriers to the adoption of renewable energy sources resulting from i market structure ii competition in an uneven playing field and iii various non marketplace barriers however even if these barriers are removed the problem of technology lock out remains the key policy response is strategic deployment coupled with increased r d support to accelerate the pace of improvement through market experience this paper suggests significant contributions from various technologies are possible but does not assess their optimal or maximal market share copyright 2005 oxford university press

the implications of industrial development for diversification of fuels abstract the central role of energy in economic growth and development is substantiated by both theory and data much of the analysis of energy in economics has focused on the study of the aggregate output here we deviate from this approach and study the role of fuel diversification in industrial development we build the energy space describing the space of energy technologies which a country can use in the production of manufacturing goods as countries grow they diversify their industries producing more diverse products over time we show that the process is accompanied by diversification of fuels which countries use in the manufacturing sector in particular countries move in the energy space by adopting novel fuels while their movements can be linked to structural changes in the industry over time countries build unique production capabilities which drives divergence in fuel diversity between countries our results provide insight into the limits of fuel substitution in the manufacturing sector as well as they carry important implications for the assessment of potential reductions in co 2 emissions in the future

do employee spinoffs learn markets from their parents evidence from international trade abstract it is well established that employee spinoffs learn their parents technologies but little is known about their demand side learning we exploit the identification in international trade data of parent markets countries to investigate whether exporting employee spinoffs of exporting parents have an advantage in accessing their parents markets over exporting comparison firms well positioned to learn those markets at arm s length we find that controlling for the greater overlap of spinoffs with their parents export products at entry spinoffs access 51 percent more parent markets than exporting firms in the same 4 digit industries and municipalities as the parents this advantage shrinks monotonically with time becoming statistically insignificant four years after entry indicating that intrafirm learning provides spinoffs with a four year head start over learning at arm s length spinoffs do not overlap more than comparison firms with parent markets that the parents did not serve at spinoff entry providing evidence against the alternative hypothesis that product overlap inadequately controls for greater technological similarity of spinoffs to parents firm entry into parent markets predicted by spinoff status does not lead to entry into adjacent markets the following year

the effects of risk on self employment the effects of sectoral risk on the propensity to become self employed are analysed in contrast to previous studies which assume risk is concentrated only in the self employment sector a general equilibrium model is constructed in which uninsurable risk exists in both the paid and self employed sectors it is shown that when agents wish to mix self employment and employee participation the effects of sectoral risk on the optimal self employment decision is ambiguous this result disappears if agents choose instead to participate in one sector alone

empirical implications of alternative models of firm dynamics abstract this paper considers two models of firm behavior that allow for heterogeneity among firms idiosyncratic or firm specific sources of uncertainty and discrete outcomes exit and or entry both the characteristics of firm level panel data sets and the nature of the questions we characteristically ask of them imply that models with these features are likely to underlie most detailed empirical work on microdata sets the models we consider are a bayesian learning model due to jovanovic 20 and a model of research and exploration due to ericson and pakes 11 the paper provides a simple set of empirical procedures to help determine which if either of these two models might be appropriate for alternative data sets we conclude by checking for the implications of the two models on an eight year panel of wisconsin firms the results indicate that one model is consistent with the data on manufacturing firms while the other is consistent with the data on retail trade journal of economic literature classification numbers c52 l60 l80

oil vulnerability index of oil importing countries abstract this paper assesses the relative oil vulnerability of 26 net oil importing countries for the year 2004 on the basis of various indicators the ratio of value of oil imports to gross domestic product gdp oil consumption per unit of gdp gdp per capita and oil share in total energy supply ratio of domestic reserves to oil consumption exposure to geopolitical oil market concentration risks as measured by net oil import dependence diversification of supply sources political risk in oil supplying countries and market liquidity the approach using the principal component technique has been adopted to combine these individual indicators into a composite index of oil vulnerability such an index captures the relative sensitivity of various economies towards developments of the international oil market with a higher index indicating higher vulnerability the results show that there are considerable differences in the values of individual indicators of oil vulnerability and overall oil vulnerability index among the countries both inter and intraregional

evaluating energy security in the asia pacific towards a more comprehensive approach the energy security conundrum how to equitably provide available affordable reliable efficient and environmentally benign energy services is a technology and policy challenge perhaps unlike any other the recent article on an energy security in the asia pacific by vlado vivoda is an excellent starting point for how to best capture the unique energy security challenges facing the region this article builds on vivoda s work but also points out some shortcomings with his analysis

energy security and renewable energy deployment in the eu liaisons dangereuses or virtuous circle abstract a large body of literature estimates the effect of energy security drivers on renewable energy deployment using import dependence as a proxy for energy security which is an approach that ignores the potential effect of other energy security strategies such as the diversification of energy sources using panel data for the energy sector across 21 eu member states we investigate the effect of different energy security concepts on the development of renewable energies we compare the results of applying different energy security indicators including the ones used in eu energy policymaking unlike previous studies this study reports a long term relationship between energy security and renewable deployment our findings suggest that the relationship between energy security policies and renewable energy sources res deployment is far from straightforward and depends on the chosen energy security strategy which is usually linked to different energy security conceptualizations our primary findings confirm i that res deployment is a consequence of a combination of energy security strategies including environmental concerns rather than being solely caused by a shift towards more sustainable energy policies and ii that among the different energy security strategies the diversification of energy sources through renewable energy deployment is a more coherent strategy than using res to reduce dependency

thailand s energy security indicators abstract this study presents an assessment of the energy security of thailand using nineteen indicators the assessment period is for a 45 year period 1986 2030 and used published data for 1986 2009 and applying three energy scenarios for the period 2010 2030 the three scenarios considered were high economic growth and least cost option heg lc low carbon society lcs and current policy cp the results show that lcs scenario shows higher energy security or lower vulnerability to energy risk on a long term however to achieve this the additional target of energy saving by 2030 should be changed from 25 reduction of energy intensity of final energy consumption to 60 energy intensity reduction of primary energy compared to 2009 level one benefit would be an increase in the non carbon incentive fuel portfolio by 33 of total primary energy supply in 2030 a reduction in crude oil and natural gas domestic production will be offset by an increase in their imports co 2 emission reduction of 123 mtco 2 and improvements in domestic energy reserves will also result

quantifying the supplier portfolio diversity of embodied energy strategic implications for strengthening energy resilience this paper investigates energy resilience of countries by quantifying the supplier diversification of both direct and embodied energy import in particular we quantify two approaches to diversify a country s supplier portfolio by lowering the dependency on each supplier portfolio diversification and by having embodied energy suppliers that are different from its direct energy suppliers portfolio differentiation we examine possibilities for strategic utilization of embodied energy trade to compensate for low diversity of direct energy trade for three types of fossil resources coal oil and gas we find that the diversity of embodied energy import is much greater than that of direct energy import of the three energy resources coal enables countries to adopt portfolio diversification and portfolio differentiation more than gas and oil our results suggest embodied energy can be considered as a transfer of energy resources across national borders that can directly benefit from the diversity of the world energy production by skipping the limited diversity of the world energy export

is success hereditary evidence on the performance of spawned ventures a common phenomenon in entrepreneurship is that employees turn away from employment to found their own businesses prior literature discusses the former employers characteristics that influence the creation of entrepreneurial ventures an investigation of whether these characteristics also affect the success of the spawned ventures is missing so far this paper contributes to the literature by showing that entrepreneurial ventures spawned by well performing firms are financially more successful than ventures stemming from poorly performing firms this suggests that spawned entrepreneurs are able to exploit valuable knowledge from their previous employers which impacts their ventures performance positively the analysis is based on a linked employee employer data set for the netherlands for the period 1999 2004

burning peat in ireland an electricity market dispatch perspective abstract this paper examines peat power production in ireland under the three pillars of energy policy security competitiveness and environment peat contributes to energy security as an indigenous fuel it reduces dependency on imports during a period of low capacity margins the operation of the peat plants is useful from a system security perspective peat generation is being financially supported by consumers through an electricity levy the fuel also has high carbon intensity it is not politically viable to consider peat on equal economic criteria to other plant types because of history and location this paper reviews electricity generation through combustion of peat in ireland and quantifies the costs of supporting peat utilising economic dispatch tools finding the subsidy is not insignificant from a cost or carbon perspective it shows that while peat is beneficial for one pillar of energy policy security the current usage of peat is not optimal from a competitiveness or environmental perspective by switching from the current must run mode of operation for peat to the dispatched mode used for the other generation significant societal savings in the range 21 m per annum can be achieved as well as reducing system emissions by approximately 5 per year

the economics of moonlighting a double self selection model the model proposed here for obtaining the labor supply functions of moonlighters uses a double self selection system to explore the husband s decision to moonlight together with his wife s decision to work subsequently the labor functions are classified under two regimes depending on whether the wife works the model is estimated based on a cross section of 4 448 married couples from the survey of income and program participation wave 2 i find that the household production time of husbands and wives are substitutes and that specific human capital deters moonlighting copyright 1990 by mit press

an examination of the influence of industry structure on eight alternative measures of new venture performance for high potential independent new ventures abstract this study examined the influence of the structure of new ventures entered industries on eight alternative measures of new venture performance for 199 high potential independent new ventures each of the 199 entrepreneurial ventures had undertaken an initial public offering ipo within the first 6 years of the venture s founding date and were free of corporate sponsorship or prior corporate parentage specifically this research examined the influence of 1 stage of the life cycle 2 industry concentration 3 entry barriers and 4 product differentiation on eight alternative measures of new venture performance the eight measures of new venture performance examined in this research consisted of 1 change in sales 2 sales level 3 net profit 4 earnings before interest and taxes 5 return on sales 6 return on assets 7 return on invested capital and 8 return on equity most prior research examining the influence of industry structure on new venture performance has 1 utilized only one or two measures of new venture performance as indicators of the venture s overall effectiveness and efficiency 2 often failed to provide theoretical justification for the measure s of new venture performance or industry structure examined and 3 utilized data derived from questionnaires and or the pims data base of corporate sponsored new ventures in addition prior industry structure studies examining independent new ventures have often utilized relatively small sample sizes this study sought to advance the progress in the field of entrepreneurship with regard to understanding the influence of the structure of new ventures entered industries on new venture performance by 1 examining eight alternative measures of new venture performance 2 providing theoretical justification for the measures of new venture performance and industry structure examined and 3 utilizing the largest nonquestionnaire data base of independent new ventures developed to date this research found that the stage of the life cycle of the venture s entered industry was the most important determinant of new venture performance among the four industry structural elements examined stage of the life cycle had a statistically significant relationship at a 0 05 level with the majority of the new venture performance measures examined in this research in addition ventures entering industries in the introductory stage of the life cycle achieved the highest levels of venture performance particularly when compared with those ventures that entered industries in the mature stage of the life cycle however this study did not find a statistically significant relationship between stage of the life cycle and change in sales this suggests that there is a trade off between profitability and sales growth and that new ventures that undertake an ipo have a stronger focus on achieving profitable operations rather than sales growth during the initial years after their ipo this may be due to pressures placed on the new ventures to achieve profitability by the external credit market conversely this research found that 1 industry concentration 2 entry barriers and 3 product differentiation did not have statistically significant relationships at a 0 10 level with any of the eight alternative measures of new venture performance examined in this research however this research did find that over 90 of the new ventures entered industries characterized by 1 a low degree of industry concentration and 2 a high degree of product differentiation the relative absence of new venture entry into industries characterized by 1 high degrees of concentration and 2 low degrees of product differentiation provides support for prior theory which suggests that successful entry into such industry environments may be substantially more difficult in sum the results of this research suggest that high potential independent new ventures that undertake an ipo should enter industries in the introductory stage of the life cycle in addition the results of this research suggest that industries characterized by 1 relatively low degrees of industry concentration and 2 highly heterogenous products may be necessary but not sufficient conditions for successful entry by high potential independent new ventures seeking to raise equity capital through an ipo

the roots of entrepreneurship and labour demand individual ability and low risk aversion the topic of entrepreneurship currently experiences a revived interest as is shown by the research agenda of today s empirical researchers there are few issues in economics which are backed up by such a rich historical knowledge base as is the case with entrepreneurship this paper aims to give an overview of some important classic contributions relating to today s and tomorrow s empirical research subjects the overview consists of answers to six research questions by six historical contributors to entrepreneurship research together these questions give some insight into the determinants of successful entrepreneurship the classic contributors considered are cantillon say marshall schumpeter knight and kirzner their views are compared to each other as well as to some recent results of empirical research into the determinants of successful entrepreneurship

the challenging economics of energy security ensuring energy benefits in support to sustainable development abstract energy is a key resource to economic development and is required to be available continuously and in adequate amounts also it is expected to be affordable and environmentally friendly ensuring this is a challenge yet strategic to maintain economies running under a sustainable pattern energy security is neither a new concept nor a new concern however because of new issues it requires a novel broader approach such an approach should address both demand security of supply and supply security of demand sides as well as take into account energy scarcity situations and surplus opportunities in addition it should allow for both private markets and public policies and regulations initiatives this paper presents a theoretical and practical basis for the economics of energy security energy security is defined in this context as the ability of an economy to provide sufficient affordable and environmentally sustainable energy services so as to maintain a maximum welfare state even when issues would press it otherwise we introduce the notion of energy security gap to represent the economy s failure to show such ability additionally we also propose a framework to support the evaluation planning and implementation of energy security in an economy this framework relies on the concepts of resilience adaptability and transformability walker et al 2004 to prescribe indicators to assess the energy security of an economy furthermore it proposes mechanisms to enhance energy security as well as a continuous process to increasingly achieve this

habitual entrepreneurs in the making how labour market rigidity and employment affects entrepreneurial re entry we investigate the impact of country level labour market regulations on the re entry decision of experienced entrepreneurs whereby they become habitual entrepreneurs multilevel logit models on entry decisions among 15 709 individuals in 29 european countries show that labour market regulations have a positive influence on the decision to re enter into entrepreneurship this positive impact is stronger among individuals holding wage jobs at the time of re entry compared to those that do not our results indicate that novice and habitual entrepreneurs may respond very differently to labour market rigidity we discuss and provide tentative explanations for these differences and outline potential policy implications

spatial analysis of change trend and influencing factors of total factor productivity in china s regional construction industry total factor productivity tfp is a measure of long term economic growth and a comprehensive industry level productivity measure there are large gaps in china s regional construction industry dev

diversity and security in uk electricity generation the influence of low carbon objectives abstract we explore the relationship between low carbon objectives and the strategic security of electricity in the context of the uk electricity system we consider diversity of fuel source mix to represent one dimension of security robustness against interruptions of any one source and apply two different diversity indices to the range of electricity system scenarios produced by the uk government and independent researchers our results show that low carbon objectives are uniformly associated with greater long term diversity in uk electricity generation with reference to data on wind generation we also consider the impact of source variability on a second dimension of security the reliability of generation availability we conclude that this does not undermine our fundamental conclusion that low carbon scenarios are associated with greater strategic security of supply in uk electricity we discuss reasons for this result explore sensitivities and briefly discuss possible policy instruments associated with diversity and their limitations

ena based evaluation of energy supply security comparison between the chinese crude oil and natural gas supply systems abstract energy has become a scarce global strategic resource and energy supply security is receiving increasing attention a common evaluation platform is necessary to systematically understand the supply security levels of different energy sources and help make the national energy strategy ecological network analysis ena is thus regarded as a useful common tool to systematically simulate evaluate and compare the supply security for different energy sources when considering the fact that modern energy systems have formed a complex global energy network through extensive energy trading based on the established ena platform we evaluated and compared china s crude oil and natural gas supply security from 2000 to 2012 to this end we assessed the overall security level investigated the relationship among different compartments within the network system determined the system s structure and analyzed the system s properties it was found that the chinese crude oil supply security level was higher than that of the natural gas supply and that the crude oil supply system was more mature in terms of multiple properties suggestions are proposed to improve the chinese energy supply security based on further scenario analysis including increasing domestic energy production controlling energy consumption diversifying foreign supply sources and strengthening the strategic reserve the ena based common platform can be used for the systematic evaluation and improvement of energy supply security and further support national energy policymaking for both developed and developing countries both energy importers and exporters

resilience and electricity systems a comparative analysis electricity systems have generally evolved based on the natural resources available locally few metrics exist to compare the security of electricity supply of different countries despite the increasing likelihood of potential shocks to the power system like energy price increases and carbon price regulation this paper seeks to calculate a robust measure of national power system resilience by analysing each step in the process of transformation from raw energy to consumed electricity countries with sizeable deposits of mineral resources are used for comparison because of the need for electricity intensive metals processing we find that shifts in electricity intensive industry can be predicted based on countries power system resilience

pathways for the north european electricity supply this paper investigates the development of the electricity supply systems in northern europe germany uk denmark finland sweden and norway until the year 2050 the focus is on the response to an assumed common stringent co2 reduction target and on the role of carbon capture and storage technologies ccs special emphasis is put on turn over in capital stock timing of investments and the infrastructural implications of large scale introduction of ccs the analysis is carried out through scenario analysis with the aid of a techno economic model in which a case including ccs is compared to a case excluding this option the phase out of the present capital stock power plants is included from the chalmers energy infrastructure databases which gives information on present and planned power plants down to block level for plants exceeding 10mw net electric power assuming technical lifetimes for these plants yield residual capacities in each year here referred to as the phase out pattern ccs technologies are assumed to become commercially available in 2020 the age structure of the power plants indicate that full turn over in capital stock will take several decades with the present generation capacities accounting for around 50 of generated electricity in 2020 the results show that co2 emission reductions of 20 and 60 by the years 2020 and 2050 respectively relative to 1990 can be met at a marginal cost of abatement of about 25 40 h ton co2 over the period studied if ccs is included as an option from 2020 at the same time the marginal cost of generating electricity lies in the range 45 60 h mwh excluding ccs raises the marginal cost of abatement with about 10 h ton co2 whereas the marginal cost of electricity generation increases with roughly 5 10 h mwh the co2 target by the year 2020 is met by implementation of renewable electricity and fuel shifting from coal to gas after 2020 ccs technologies constitute an attractive way for cost efficient and almost co2 free base load however wide spread application of ccs is an infrastructural challenge with respect to implementing capture plants as well as building up a corresponding co2 infrastructure for transportation and storage as well as in coal supply systems given the price assumptions applied gas may not be competitive once ccs enters the system causing early retirements of such units or possibly stranded assets

the origin of spin offs a typology of corporate and academic spin offs we provide a typology of corporate and academic spin off types distinguishing spin offs involving new ventures from those that concern existing activities we summarize the papers published in this special issue relating them to the typology we develop we conclude by developing an agenda for further research on spin offs

assessing the determinants of sids pattern toward sustainability a statistical analysis abstract the aim of this paper is twofold first we assess the sids pattern towards energy sustainability second we try to understand the macro factors that drive policy makers in setting the optimal framework for investments in renewable energy sources the empirical analysis is performed on a large dataset of 136 countries and 41 variables observed in the time span 2000 2011 countries analyzed include a sample of 12 sids bahrain cuba dominican republic fiji islands guyana haiti jamaica maldives mauritius papua new guinea singapore trinidad and tobago distributed worldwide due to the large number of variables collected and their high degree of collinearity the first step of the analysis concerns the implementation of a principal component analysis in order to extract factors explaining the majority of variation of the original variables in the second step three different scenarios of modeling are designed to examine the key factors promoting res investments in a first scenario we employ a pooled regression model in the second a fixed effect model and in the third a random effect model is estimated the main results of empirical analysis could be unexpected at first sight they show in fact that sids are not on a energy sustainability path as in the case of other developing countries policy makers prefer to use resources to improve economic aspects of development leaving behind issues related to the environmental protection the use of res and sustainability in order to improve economic and environmental resilience of sids a synergy between local governments and international organizations to promote the investments in res is needed moreover an energy plan that clearly supports the generation of energy from res is recommended finally policy makers should strength their commitment in raising population s awareness toward a green energy generation such synergic interventions will allow sids to achieve a more sustainable development

energy security and improvements in the function of diversity indices taiwan energy supply structure case study abstract facing the risk and uncertainty inherent in social and economic development many countries have adopted an energy supply diversification strategy in their energy security policy to control the energy import risk and cost to ensure that sufficient energy can be obtained at an affordable price level diversification helps the energy system respond to external changes and shocks diversification can also lessen the vulnerability of a single energy source to supply shocks and the market power of various energy supply sources this study develops the diversity reliability index and co vary diversity reliability index based on the hirschman herfindahl and shannon wiener indices investigates the contribution of different energy sources to the energy system and analyzes the covariance between various energies and their impacts on energy security to determine the impact of energy diversity in reducing the risk of energy supply shortages and cost fluctuations

whom do new firms hire using the matched employer employee data set for denmark and information on the founders of new firms we analyze the hiring choices of all new firms that entered from 2003 to 2010 we develop a theoretical model in which the quality of a firm s employees determines its average cost a firm s productivity is based on its pre entry experience and persistent shocks and over time firms learn about their productivity the model predicts that more productive firms are larger and hire more talented employees which gives rise to various predictions about how pre entry experience firm growth rates and firm size influence the wages firms pay to their early hires we find that beginning with the time of entry larger firms consistently pay higher wages to their new hires these are firms with greater survival prospects at the time of entry based on the pre entry backgrounds of their founders and that grow at greater rates over time both of which are predictive of the wages paid to new hires from the time of entry onward our findings suggest workers are allocated to firms according to their abilities which can give rise to enduring firm capabilities

employee spinoffs and other entrants stylized facts from brazil using a comprehensive linked employer employee database from brazil for the period 1995 2001 we are able for the first time to compare firms founded as employee spinoffs to new firms without parents and to diversification ventures of existing firms entering a new industry employee spinoffs are defined either as the director manager having moved from a parent in the same industry or as one quarter of the employees having shifted from a common parent depending on definition employee spinoffs account for between one sixth and one third of the new firms in brazil s private sector during this period regardless of definition size at entry is larger for employee spinoffs than for new firms without parents but smaller than for diversification ventures of existing firms similarly exit rates for employee spinoffs are less than for new firms without parents and comparable to those for diversification ventures of existing firms these results suggest that we can think of some part of a firm s productivity draw in the jovanovic 1982 model as embodied in the firm s employees and portable by them to a new firm

indicators of energy security in industrialised countries energy security has become a popular catch phrase both in the scientific arena as well as in the political discussion yet in general the applied concepts of energy security are rather vague this paper sheds some light on concepts and indicators of energy security first we conceptually discuss the issue of energy supply security and explain why it is not to handle by one science alone and what economics may contribute in order to structure the topic after providing a brief survey of existing attempts to define or measure energy security we suggest an additional dimension along which indicators of energy security may be classified ex post and ex ante indicators finally we illustrate our concept on the basis of several simplified indicators while ex post indicators are mostly based on price developments ex ante indicators are to a greater extent aimed at illustrating potential problems our illustration suggests that it is worthwhile to take into account the market structure along with the political stability of exporting countries

agency costs and innovation abstract stylized facts indicate that small firms are responsible for a disproportionate share of innovative research there are many possible explanations for this fact the paper seeks to understand this phenomenon as the outcome of an optimal assignment of tasks across individuals and organizations it is shown that incentive costs associated with a given task depend on the total portfolio of tasks that an individual or an organization undertakes mixing hard to measure activities innovation with easy to measure activities routine is particularly costly since it will either lead to misallocation of attention across tasks or to misallocation of risk larger firms are at a comparative disadvantage in conducting highly innovative research because of the costs associated with managing a heterogeneous set of tasks it is further argued that optimal organizational responses to coordination and control of routine tasks will lead to bureaucratization within the firm and to financial constraints imposed by capital markets both of which are hostile to innovation

firm spin offs in denmark 1981 2000 patterns of entry and exit abstract this paper adds large sample evidence on the extent to which the likelihood of business failure or success is related to relationships between parent firms and their off spring for this purpose we make use of an exhaustive matched employer employee data set covering the entire danish private sector in years 1981 to 2000 to study firm entry and exit special focus is on spin offs a particular group of small entrants which are founded by groups of persons originating from the same former workplace we estimate a multinomial logit model in order to examine which characteristics of the founders and the parent firms increase the probability of spinning off next we carry out a duration analysis of the subsequent transitions of the spin offs and compare their exit risks with those of other entrant firms which have less strong parent progeny relationships in terms of worker flows

regional transformation through technological entrepreneurship abstract what does it take for a region to foster technological entrepreneurship recently there has been significant interest in this topic most writers on this topic emphasize the tangible infrastructure such as sound legal systems transparent capital markets advanced telecommunications and transportation systems etc sound legal systems capital markets and other structural features are necessary prerequisites for technopreneurship however what i am calling the intangibles of entrepreneurship are the sufficient conditions that allow specifically for schumpeterian entrepreneurship to thrive in a locality often governments attempt to promote technopreneurship by injecting risk capital they distribute these funds through small business development centers and several regions and countries have even attempted public venture capital funds however my hypothesis is that if only risk capital is injected it flows straight to low quality entrepreneurship focusing on only risk capital the investing government assumes that the risk capital itself will create all other prerequisites for growth this is a major supposition if risk capital is expected to produce extraordinary wealth it must be accompanied by seven other intangibles including access to novel ideas role models informal forums region specific opportunities safety nets access to large markets and executive leadership

the spatial evolution of the british automobile industry does location matter this article aims to describe and explain the spatial evolution of the automobile sector in great britain from an evolutionary perspective this analysis is based on a unique database of all entries and exits in this sector during the period 1895 1968 collected by the authors cox regressions show that spinoff dynamics agglomeration economies and time of entry have had a significant effect on the survival rate of automobile firms during the period 1895 1968

new firm survival new results using a hazard function a limitation of audretsch s 1991 study of new firm survival was the level of aggregation to industries this precluded linking establishment specific characteristics such as organizational structure and size to post entry performance the purpose of this paper is to relate the post entry performance of individual establishments not only to their technological and market structure environments but also to establishment specific characteristics we do this by estimating a hazard duration function for more than 12 000 individual establishments in u s manufacturing started in 1976 by tracking their subsequent performance over a ten year period we conclude that establishment specific characteristics which audretsch was not able to capture in his earlier study play an important role in shaping the exposure to risk confronting new establishments copyright 1995 by mit press

benefits of low carbon development in a developing country case of nepal this paper analyzes the direct and indirect benefits of reducing co2 emission during 2005 to 2100 in the case of nepal a low income developing country rich in hydropower resource it discusses the effects on energy supply mix local pollutant emissions energy security and energy system costs of co2 emission reduction targets in the country by using an energy system model based on the markal framework the study considers three cases of co2 emission reduction targets and analyzes their benefits during the study period as compared to the reference scenario the first two cases consist of a 20 cutback scenario ert20 and 40 cutback scenario ert40 of co2 emission in the reference scenario the third case considers a 40 cutback of co2 emission with the share of electric mass transport emt in the land transport service demand increased to 30 as compared to 20 in the reference scenario the study shows that an implementation of scenario ert40 would increase the cumulative electricity generation mainly from hydropower by 16 5 794 twh reduce the cumulative consumption of imported fuels by 42 24 400 pj and increase the total energy system cost by 1 6 during 2005 to 2100 as compared to the reference scenario besides there would be a reduction in the emission of local pollutants and generation of additional employment in the country with the share of emt increased to 30 there would be a further reduction in local pollutant emissions an improvement in energy security and a decrease in the energy system cost compared to that in scenario ert40

does diversity matter a fresh inquiry into the energy economy and environment nexus the article extends the literature on the nexus among economy environment and energy by incorporating an index of electricity generation diversity in production and emission functions the index i

energy security under de carbonization scenarios an assessment framework and evaluation under different technology and policy choices abstract how would a low carbon energy transformation affect energy security this paper proposes a framework to evaluate energy security under long term energy scenarios generated by integrated assessment models energy security is defined as low vulnerability of vital energy systems delineated along geographic and sectoral boundaries the proposed framework considers vulnerability as a combination of risks associated with inter regional energy trade and resilience reflected in energy intensity and diversity of energy sources and technologies we apply this framework to 43 scenarios generated by the message model as part of the global energy assessment including one baseline scenario and 42 low carbon scenarios where the global mean temperature increase is limited to 2 c over the pre industrial level by and large low carbon scenarios are associated with lower energy trade and higher diversity of energy options especially in the transport sector a few risks do emerge under low carbon scenarios in the latter half of the century they include potentially high trade in natural gas and hydrogen and low diversity of electricity sources trade is typically lower in scenarios which emphasize demand side policies as well as non tradable energy sources nuclear and renewables while diversity is higher in scenarios which limit the penetration of intermittent renewables

disagreements spinoffs and the evolution of detroit as the capital of the u s automobile industry the agglomeration of the automobile industry around detroit michigan is explained using a theory in which disagreements lead employees of incumbent firms to found spinoffs in the same industry predictions of the theory concerning entry and firm survival are tested using data on the origin location and years of production of every entrant into the industry from 1895 to 1966 the geographic concentration of the industry is attributed to four early successful entrants and the many successful spinoffs they spawned in the detroit area and not to conventional agglomeration economies benefiting co located firms as featured in modern theories of agglomeration implications of the findings regarding firm strategy are discussed

post entry behaviour and the cycle evidence from germany abstract based on a rich database on establishments in western germany the paper aims at characterising the relationship between on the one hand growth and exit of entering cohorts and on the other hand aggregate business fluctuations a main finding is that exit is not responsive to the cycle which is at odds with views of recessions as times of cleansing where creative destruction processes occur the growth of survivors also displays little cyclical sensitivity but tends to become more responsive to aggregate business fluctuations as the cohort ages two possible explanations for this role of age on the cyclical sensitivity of surviving units are offered in the final section of the paper the first draws on the product specialisation of young and more established plants the second on the role of irreversible investment and industry selection

assessing long term energy security the case of electricity in the united kingdom there is a growing body of research into the potential security risks and trade offs which may emerge over the long term development of energy systems as part of this body of research this paper aims to develop and demonstrate a set of indicators for assessing the security of long term national electricity scenarios this paper extends the empirical work of existing frameworks by including reliability and cost parameters alongside a range of other important aspects of energy security such as diversity trade and acceptability and by using both qualitative and quantitative indicators without aggregation in order to identify trade offs this paper uses the indicators to assess the energy security implications of three plausible long term scenarios for the uk electricity system the results indicate that a major risk may be experienced by a lack of flexible responsive supply capacity in low carbon electricity pathways reducing overall energy demand is found to be the most beneficial policy for improving energy security in terms of generating benefits in multiple dimensions the paper finds that energy security is often conceptualised as the avoidance of causes of insecurity such as insecure fuel imports but that an equally important aspect of security lies in maximising responses to insecurity for example by increasing the flexibility and responsiveness of both supply and demand

when do employees leave their job for entrepreneurship existing firms are argued to be an important source of new entrepreneurs yet relatively little is known about the characteristics of firms that breed new entrepreneurs we use a large linked employee employer dataset to trace and characterize the types of firms which generate new entrepreneurs in finland we find that such transitions are rare and that smaller firms spawn new entrepreneurs more frequently than larger firms we also find that firms r d intensity and to a lesser extent their productivity are negatively related to the probability that employees transit into entrepreneurship these results are robust to controlling for a number of employee and employer attributes

diversity and ignorance in electricity supply investment addressing the solution rather than the problem the need for diversity has been cited as a rationale for important recent investment decisions in the uk electricity supply sector it is invoked as the principal argument for continuing major government intervention yet there exists no formal analytical basis for the concept why is diversity good what is meant by diversification what is it that must be diversified what trade off should be struck between diversity and other measures of performance the resulting ambiguity causes confusion and is vulnerable to special pleading despite this this paper argues that diversification offers a superior alternative to probabilistic approaches towards uncertainty and ignorance in electricity supply investments and proposes a formal analytical approach a quantitative index of diversity is borrowed from information theory and used to derive a value for the government s implicit willingness to pay for diversity in the uk electricity supply mix this is then applied in a pilot exercise to the problem of optimizing the diversity and financial performance of the supply portfolio although provisional the results are relevant to the government s forthcoming nuclear review particularly in assessing the relative levels of support for nuclear power and renewable energy

why construction industry productivity is declining according to unpublished data compiled by bls productivity in the construction industry reached a peak in 1968 and except for a brief and small upturn between 1974 and 1976 has been falling ever since this paper examines the sources of this productivity decline between 1968 and 1978 by estimating a production function to assign weights to various factors responsible for productivity change and deriving a new price deflator for construction which does not rely on labor or material cost indexes thus eliminating a systematic bias toward overstating the rate of growth of prices the production function analysis indicates that productivity should have declined by 8 8 percent between 1968 and 1978 representing 41 percent of the observed decline the biggest factor in this decline was the reduction in skilled labor intensity resulting from a shift in the mix of output from largescale commercial industrial and institutional projects to single family houses other important factors include declines in the average number of employees per establishment capital labor ratio percent union and the average age of workers the difference between the official deflator and the new deflator proposed here accounts for an additional 51 percent of the reported productivity decline leaving only 8 percent of the decline unexplained this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

longitudinal firm level data problems and solutions empirical measures of firm and employment dynamics based on administrative datasets are biased due to missing links in the longitudinal observation of firms this paper presents a systematic overview of the problems and evaluates two prevailing solutions we quantify the biases in a set of widely used empirical measures and show which estimates are most sensitive to missing linkages the biases are found to be especially large in the size distribution of entrants and exits in firm level growth estimates for medium and large firms and in job reallocation measures we show that an employee flow linkage method is more effective in reducing bias than a traditional link method often used by statistical agencies a consistent approach is developed for imputing firm level growth measures of linked firms the analysis is carried out using a longitudinal dataset for belgium and discussed from an international perspective

fossil fuel dependence and vulnerability of electricity generation case of selected european countries abstract this paper analyses the diversity of fuel mix for electricity generation in selected european countries and investigates how the fuel bill has changed as a share of gdp between 1995 and 2005 the drivers of fuel dependence related vulnerability are determined using laspeyres index decomposition a what if analysis is carried out to analyse the changes in the vulnerability index due to changes in the drivers and a scenario analysis is finally used to investigate the future vulnerability in the medium term the paper finds that the british and the dutch electricity systems are less diversified compared to three other countries analysed the gas dependence of the dutch and italian systems made them vulnerable but the vulnerability increased in all countries in recent years gas price and the level of dependence on gas for power generation mainly influenced the gas vulnerability the united kingdom saw a substantial decline in its coal vulnerability due to a fall in coal price and coal dependence in electricity generation the scenario analysis indicates that uk is likely to face greater gas vulnerability in the future due to increased gas dependence in electricity generation and higher import dependence

an exploration into pigou s theory of cycles abstract this paper explores a theory of business cycles in which recessions and booms arise due to difficulties encountered by agents in properly forecasting the economy s future needs in terms of capital the idea has a long history in the macroeconomic literature as reflected by the work of pigou industrial fluctuation macmillan london 1926 the contribution of this paper is twofold first we illustrate the type of general equilibrium structure that can give rise to such phenomena second we examine the extent to which such a model can explain the observed pattern of u s recessions frequency depth without relying on technological regress we argue that such a model offer a framework for understanding elements of both the recent u s recession and of the asia downturns of the late 1990s

analysis of energy security environmental emission and fuel import costs under energy import reduction targets a case of pakistan abstract the influence of reducing energy imports 5 10 and 15 on primary energy supply diversification of energy resources cost of imported fuels energy security and environmental emission during 2005 2050 were analyzed through a long term integrated energy system model of pakistan using market allocation markal framework the study found that primary energy supply would decrease marginally while cumulative renewable energy would increase by 24 energy import dependency would reduce by 3 diversification of energy resources would increase 1 1 fold and vulnerability would decrease by 9 under energy import reduction scenario as compared to the base case the cost of imported fuels would reduce by 10 and the greenhouse gas emissions would decrease by 8 in the energy import reduction scenario the impact on energy security was represented through a set of eleven energy security indicators the improvements in energy security indicators under energy import reduction targets indicate the enhancement of energy security of pakistan

toward an integrated approach to industry dynamics and labor mobility industrial dynamics and labour mobility are two fields of economic research that have developed fast in recent years but along what are essentially separate lines this paper shows that the processes those two fields deal with can be highly interdependent and demonstrates the usefulness of and the opportunity for an integrated approach to the dynamics of industries and labour mobility it concludes with a list of questions that inform a research agenda dedicated to such approach

job machine think tank or both what makes corporate spin offs different one way through which knowledge and technology transfer can take place is through the foundation of new firms by former employees of incumbent private firms in this paper we examine whether knowledge transferred from the incumbent causally affect employment growth and post entry innovation activities of the new firm we focus on start ups for which a new idea a new product technology production process or management concept which the founder developed during her work as an employee was essential for setting up the new business these firms are denoted corporate spin offs using data from german start ups founded in the period from 2005 to 2008 we apply nearest neighbour propensity score matching we find that corporate spin offs outperform other start ups founded by former employees of incumbent private firms that are not based on an essential idea in terms of post entry innovation activities however we cannot show that corporate spin offs benefit from the transferred idea in terms of employment growth we conclude that a transferred idea is primarily an input factor and a stimulus for subsequent post entry innovation activities of corporate spin offs

the boundaries of the firm revisited why do firms exist what is their function and what determines their scope these remain the central questions in the economics of organization they are also central questions for business executives and corporate strategists the worldwide volume of corporate mergers and acquisitions exceeded 1 6 trillion in 1997 it is hard to imagine that so much time effort and investment bankers fees would be spent on adjusting firm boundaries unless there was some underlying economic gain indeed the exceptional levels of merger and acquisition activity over the past two decades are a strong indication that economically significant forces do determine organizational boundaries the study of firm boundaries originated with the famous essay by coase 1937 who raised the question of why we observe so much economic activity inside formal organizations if as economists commonly argue markets are such powerful and effective mechanisms for allocating scarce resources coase s answer was in terms of the costs of transacting in a world of imperfect information when the transaction costs of market exchange are high it may be less costly to coordinate production through a formal organization than through a market in large part thanks to the work of williamson 1975 1985 recent decades have seen a resurgence of interest in coase s fundamental insight that firm boundaries can be explained by efficiency considerations our understanding of firm boundaries has been sharpened by identifying more precisely the nature and sources of transaction costs in different circumstances in the process the focus of

hybrid entrepreneurship and public policy the case of firm entry deregulation hybrid entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs who are simultaneously working as paid employees although they constitute a systematic and large part of new firm creation their possibly distinct responsiveness to public policy is not yet studied arguing for the need to consider hybrid entrepreneurs in public policy we analyze the introduction of one stop shops for faster and simplified firm registration in mexico we find that hybrid entrepreneurs are more responsive to changes in entry regulation than full time entrepreneurs while both the best and least educated people respond to the reform the effect is most pronounced for highly educated hybrid entrepreneurs

examining the resilience of national energy systems measurements of diversity in production based and consumption based electricity in the globalization of trade networks abstract energy is a critical component of achieving sustainable development in addition to the three aspects of promoting access renewables and efficiency the dimension of resilience in energy systems should also considered the implementation of resilient energy systems requires a quantitative understanding of the socio economic practices underlying such systems specifically in line with the increasing globalization of trade there remains a critical knowledge gap on the link between embodied energy in the production and consumption of traded goods to bridge this knowledge gap we investigate the resilience of global energy systems through an examination of a diversity measure of global embodied electricity trade based on multi regional input output mrio networks the significance of this research lies in its ability to utilize high resolution mrio data sets in assessing the resilience of national energy systems this research indicates that secure and responsible consumption requires the diversification of not only energy generation but also energy imports this research will lay the ground for further research in the governance of resilience in global energy networks

long term energy services security what is it and how can it be measured and valued abstract the paper reviews some recent approaches towards measuring the extent of long term energy security and security externality valuation it starts out to discuss the contextual connotations of notions of energy security in medium to long term time frames and reviews some indicators that have been proposed to quantify it special attention is paid to two of these approaches which the authors helped to develop i e diversity based indices and the supply demand index the paper takes issue with conventional welfare economic approaches that neglect i the scope on the demand side for raising security and ii negative feedback mechanisms of socio political impacts of international rent transfers in fossil fuels exporting countries the concept of energy services security is proposed with a demand side focus this enables application of an integrated approach to gauge the resilience of a society to meet the needs of its population for energy services over longer timescales ahead from various interrelated perspectives propositions are made on the attribution of security externalities to the use of fossil fuels policies and suggestions for further improvements of measures for energy services security

crude oil import policy of turkey historical analysis of determinants and implications since 1968 turkey is one of the most energy import dependent countries in the world suffering deeply from the economic and strategic burdens of oil importation our purpose is to determine the factors behind the crude oil import policy of turkey and to measure their contribution to a well organized import strategy we implemented a principle component analysis to construct an oil import vulnerability index oivi based on four factors which are crude oil import dependency of primary energy consumption crude oil import bill as a share of gross domestic product gdp non diversification of import sources and share of oil in total energy import the contribution of these factors to the oivi is found to be approximately equal while an overall deterioration in the oivi has been observed during periods of increasing oil prices better diversification of oil import sources has lead to significant improvements we suggest turkish policy makers implement sound policies emphasizing diversification of crude oil import sources and reduction of the share of crude oil in primary energy imports to increase energy supply security this study has also demonstrated that it is possible to construct an index representing crude oil vulnerability caused by import dependency

indicators for energy security the concept of energy security is widely used yet there is no consensus on its precise interpretation in this research we have provided an overview of available indicators for long term security of supply sos we distinguished four dimensions of energy security that relate to the availability accessibility affordability and acceptability of energy and classified indicators for energy security according to this taxonomy there is no one ideal indicator as the notion of energy security is highly context dependent rather applying multiple indicators leads to a broader understanding incorporating these indicators in model based scenario analysis showed accelerated depletion of currently known fossil resources due to increasing global demand coupled with increasing spatial discrepancy between consumption and production international trade in energy carriers is projected to have increased by 142 in 2050 compared to 2008 oil production is projected to become increasingly concentrated in a few countries up to 2030 after which production from other regions diversifies the market under stringent climate policies this diversification may not occur due to reduced demand for oil possible benefits of climate policy include increased fuel diversity and slower depletion of fossil resources

initial human and financial capital as predictors of new venture performance abstract this research seeks to predict the performance of new ventures based on factors that can be observed at the time of start up indicators of initial human and financial capital are considered to determine how they bear upon the probability of three possible performance outcomes 1 failure 2 marginal survival or 3 high growth four categories of initial human and financial capital are examined general human capital represented here by the entrepreneur s education gender and race may reflect the extent to which the entrepreneur has had the opportunity to develop relevant skills and contacts management know how embodied in the entrepreneur or available through advisors or partners reflects management specific skills and knowledge without regard to the kind of business industry specific know how reflects specific experience in similar businesses financial capital is one of the most visible resources it can create a buffer against random shocks and allow the pursuit of more capital intensive strategies which are better protected from imitation the study utilizes a longitudinal study of 1053 new ventures representative of all industry sectors and geographical regions the research departs from most previous studies in considering different measures of performance marginal survival and growth and in considering explicitly whether the factors contributing to marginal survival differ from those contributing to high growth it was found that measures of general human capital influenced both survival and growth except for gender with women owned ventures being less likely to grow but just as likely to survive management know how variables had more limited impact having parents who had owned a business contributed to marginal survival but not to growth number of partners contributed to growth but not to survival management level prior employment in non profit organizations or not having been in the labor force and the use of professional advisors did not have significant effects industry specific know how contributed to both survival and growth amount of initial financial capital also contributed to both the usefulness of the model is enhanced by the fact that the resource variables considered are relatively easy to assess and all can be considered at the time of start up although some of the human capital variables cannot easily be changed the benefits or risks associated with each can be assessed in some cases potential problems can be identified so that plans can be modified to improve prospects overall it appears that using a model based upon the initial human and financial capital of the venture it is possible to predict the performance of new ventures with some degree of confidence

unemployment insurance and unemployment spells this paper tests the effects of the level and length of unemployment insurance benefits on unemployment durations the paper particularly studies individual behavior during the weeks just prior to when benefits lapse higher unemployment insurance benefits are found to have a strong negative effect on the probability of leaving unemployment however the probability of leaving unemployment rises dramatically just prior to when benefits lapse individual data are used with accurate information of spell durations and the level and length of benefits the semiparametric estimation techniques used in the paper yield more plausible estimates than conventional approaches and provide useful diagnostics copyright 1990 by the econometric society

the benefit from reduced energy import bills and the importance of energy prices in ghg reduction scenarios abstract the poles energy model has been used to assess asia s role in combating climate change and the benefits it stands to gain this paper focuses on the role of major asian economies in the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the benefits to their economies from reduced energy import bills the costs of reaching ambitious emission reduction targets are offset by significant ancillary benefits such as reduced energy import bills lower energy prices account for a share of the import bill reductions

long term diversification paths and energy transitions in europe the concentration of the energy mixes of eight european countries is measured latecomers historically enjoyed lower levels of concentration in their energy mixes early comers followed an inverted u path of concentration latecomers a u path a time effect and size effect explains the different patterns small energy consuming countries will be able to do faster transitions

diversification of oil import sources and energy security a key strategy or an elusive objective this paper explores the relationship between the diversification of sources of imported oil and energy security of oil importing countries it examines the importance of diversification policy for oil importers explains why oil importers implement oil diversification policy and contextualizes the oil import diversification strategy in the overall energy security policy of oil importers the paper analyzes the factors and the contexts that affect the level of importance assigned to oil import diversification policy in oil importing countries and the limitations that may affect the successful implication of oil import diversification policy the examples are drawn from the world s top three oil importers the united states japan and china the policymakers in these and other oil importing countries place much importance on energy security the diversification of oil import sources is used as one of the strategies to enhance energy security in oil importing countries this paper is important for policymakers in oil importing countries as it provides them with a qualitative conceptual framework with which to evaluate the need to diversify their countries sources of imported oil and with which to identify the likely limitations to the successful implementation of oil import diversification policy

the post entry performance of new small firms in german manufacturing industries while recent years have witnessed a growing interest in research on market entry by new firms evidence regarding their postentry performance is scarce this paper uses longitudinal data for small firms that entered german manufacturing industries between 1979 and 1982 and monitors their performance until 1990 entrants face a high risk of failure hazard rates tend to increase during the first years and to decrease afterwards decline of employment in a cohort due to exits and shrinking firms is compensated by growing survivors no clear cut nexus between start up size and probability of survival shows up copyright 1994 by blackwell publishing ltd

more than you think an inclusive estimate of business entries abstract the wells fargo nfib series on business entries and exits collected data throughout 1995 from 36 000 households regarding the business formation activity occurring among adults within those households after adjusting for the 1 37 owners per firm and the 10 of households with more than one entry there were an estimated 4 553 million business entries in the 12 month period involving 6 211 million active owners seventy eight and one half 78 5 percent of those businesses were de novo starts 20 0 purchases and the remainder other forms of entry including missing responses most of the entries were quite small whether started or purchased the number of business entries is significantly larger than prior estimates however the 4 553 million figure when dissected into component parts is consistent with other measures of business entry the primary reason for the larger estimate is that this research was able to capture the significant number of very small entries that either do not appear in other databases or appear only after a substantial delay these new data offer a significantly expanded view of the american business population and its dynamics more specifically they provide quantification of the smaller end of the entry scale thereby introducing new population distributions and raising fundamental research and marketing questions about the unit of analysis what is a business what constitutes a reasonable survey sample to what population do we generalize survey data what are the market segments of the small business population and how do they differ what are the public policy requirements of these segments and how do they coincide and conflict and what do real entry numbers tell us about the operation of the american economy on both a secular and cyclical basis the foregoing are obvious however there are more subtle and perhaps more interesting questions for example the more people try to go into business for themselves the more our collective american experience is influenced by the experience of business ownership small business draws enormous empathy from the american public few americans institutions are as popular this is obviously a complex phenomenon however one explanation for its popularity is that so many americans are exposed to business ownership either personally or through someone they know part of this research not yet published shows that small business ownership pervades every class income category racial grouping etc the penetration of business formation into the american experience therefore is not only deep it is also broad and when its dimensions are so great the remaining issue is not the existence of influence but its degree if there are more starts than previously recognized there must also be more exits and if there are more exits the dynamics of the business entry exit process become even more tumultuous than previously recognized particularly for those interested in either policy or management the question becomes why is exit so common one path of inquiry leads to motivation for entry including career alternatives and income supplementation to what extent do people intend to grow their businesses and to what extent do they intend their businesses to fill financial occupational or time gaps until something better comes along another path of inquiry leads to resources do resource constraints or constraints of other natures impede business development then there is the issue of preparation how well prepared are entrants and what reasonable steps can be taken to improve their assessments of potential opportunities or to effectively implement plans to capitalize on them these are not necessarily new issues but they become more conspicuous and pressing when the large number of exits is appreciated the technique used to capture these data at a reasonable cost is called an omnibus or caravan survey this survey technique is not well known outside the commercial survey industry but it presents considerable opportunity for researchers either with limited budgets or desirous of asking fewer than 10 15 minutes worth of questions from a sample of the adult population its advantage is financial multiple sponsors can ask a limited number of proprietary questions at their own expense but they then share the costs and results of reaching respondents and of asking the demographic questions for example age or sex of respondent the current research posed two screen questions to all 36 000 households interviewed the sponsors paid for those 72 000 questions but only about 2 000 respondents passed one of the screens these respondents were led through several more questions thus the sponsors paid just for the screen questions and those questions administered to the 2 000 an extensive set of demographic data about the respondents was thrown in free

inside the family firm the role of families in succession decisions and performance this paper uses a unique dataset from denmark to investigate the impact of family characteristics in corporate decision making and the consequences of these decisions on firm performance we focus on the decision to appoint either a family or an external chief executive officer ceo the paper uses variation in ceo succession decisions that result from the gender of a departing ceo s first born child this is a plausible instrumental variable iv as male firstchild firms are more likely to pass on control to a family ceo relative to female first child firms but the gender of a first child is unlikely to affect firms outcomes we find that family successions have a large negative causal impact on firm performance operating profitability on assets falls by at least four percentage points around ceo transitions our iv estimates are significantly larger than those obtained using ordinary least squares furthermore we show that family ceo underperformance is particularly large for firms in high growth industries and for relatively large firms overall the empirical results demonstrate that professional non family ceos provide extremely valuable services to the organizations they head

socially just support mechanisms for the promotion of renewable energy sources in greece abstract although development of renewable energy sources res projects is essential for the greek national economy to revive cut downs of public spends in greece may equally well extend to affect res support mechanisms in this context an integrated cost benefit analysis is currently undertaken concerning res investments in the greek electricity sector more specifically social support compared with financial benefits accruing from such energy stations reveals hidden imbalances that urge for the reform of the current support status examination of representative case studies currently provided considers the three most widespread res i e wind energy hydropower and solar energy with special emphasis given on the determination of break even feed in tariffs fits and the comparison of life cycle electricity production cost between res and conventional power stations

conceptualizing energy security abstract energy security 1 is one of the main targets of energy policy however the term has not been clearly defined which makes it hard to measure and difficult to balance against other policy objectives we review the multitude of definitions of energy security they can be characterized according to the sources of risk the scope of the impacts and the severity filters in the form of the speed size sustention spread singularity and sureness of impacts using a stylized case study for three european countries we illustrate how the selection of conceptual boundaries along these dimensions determines the outcome this can be avoided by more clearly separating between security of supply and other policy objectives this leads us to the definition of energy security as the continuity of energy supplies relative to demand

valuing diversity in energy supply abstract there is renewed interest in the role of supply diversity in promoting energy security this paper explores ways of valuing diversity a possible incentive mechanism for promoting diversity which takes account of underlying disparities between different technology options is developed the mechanism provides a way of trading off cost and diversity and results in an efficient cost diversity frontier by analogy with financial portfolio theory if all technologies are believed to be equally disparate the appropriate mechanism is a levy imposed on market share if the technologies are not equally disparate the levy needs to be adjusted by technology specific multipliers that take account of levels of disparity and patterns of market share the analysis is applied to two stylised situations in the long run equilibrium case the implications of both different patterns of disparity and different values attached to diversity are investigated the paper also explores the implications of applying such a mechanism to the current great britain electricity system the implications in terms of financial flows for both the market as a whole and for individual operators are investigated finally the appropriateness of such a mechanism in the light of other policy goals and possible future research directions is discussed

inheriting knowledge and sustaining relationships what stimulates the innovative performance of small software firms in the netherlands abstract previous studies showed that firms established by experienced founders have higher survival rates and employment growth but the potential effect of pre entry experiences on innovation remains unclear using an original dataset we examine the effect of founder s experiences the relationship with the founder s previous employer and spatial proximity to the previous workplace on the innovative performance of small software firms in the netherlands apart from entrepreneurial experiences the results suggest no effect of pre entry experiences continued contacts with the founder s previous employer appear to limit the firm s innovative performance but firms do benefit from being established near the previous workplace

distributed generation and distribution market diversity in europe the unbundling of the electricity power system will play a key role on the deployment of distributed generation dg in european distribution systems evolving towards smart grids the present paper firstly reviews the relevant european union eu regulatory framework specific attention is paid to the concept of unbundling of power distribution sector in europe afterwards the focus is on the current state of penetration of dg technologies in the eu member states and the corresponding interrelations with distribution features a comparison between the unbundling of the distribution and supply markets using econometric indicators such as the herfindahl hirschmann ihh and the shannon wiener isw indices is then presented finally a comparative analysis between these indices and the current level of penetration of distributed generation in most eu is shown policy recommendations conclude the paper

energy environmental and economic effects of renewable portfolio standards rps in a developing country abstract this paper analyses the potential of renewable energy for power generation and its energy environmental and economic implications in pakistan using a bottom up type of long term energy system based on the markal framework the results show that under a highly optimistic renewable portfolio standard rps of 80 fossil fuel consumption in 2050 would be reduced from 4660 pj to 306 pj and the ghg emissions would decrease from 489 million tons to 27 million tons nevertheless price of the electricity generation will increase significantly from us 47 mwh under current circumstances in the base case to us 86 mwh under rps80 however the effects on import dependency energy mix diversity per unit price of electricity generation and cost of imported fuels indicate that it may not be desirable to go beyond rps50 under rps50 in 2050 fuel consumption of the power sector would reduce from 21 under the base case to 9 of total fossil fuels supplied to the country it will decrease not only ghg emission to 170 million tons but also will reduce import dependency from 73 under the base case to 21 and improve energy diversity mix with small increase in price of electricity generation from us 47 mwh under the base case to us 59 mwh under rps 50

entry regulation and business start ups evidence from mexico the authors estimate the effect on business start ups of a program that significantly speeds up firm registration procedures the program was implemented in mexico in different municipalities at different dates authors estimates suggest that new start ups increased by about 4 percent in eligible industries and the authors present evidence that this is a causal effect most of the effect is temporary concentrated in the first 10 months after implementation the effect is robust to several specifications of the benchmark control group time trends the authors find that the program was more effective in municipalities with less corruption and cheaper additional procedures

what explains the survival gap of pushed and pulled corporate spin offs abstract unconditionally pushed spin offs are found to survive longer than their pulled counterparts using matched employer employee data and novel multivariate decomposition techniques we show that pushed spin offs relative survival advantage is mostly explained by their larger human capital endowments at entry

assessing the sustainability challenges for electricity industries in asean newly industrialising countries abstract rapid social and economic progress in fast developing countries such that among the countries in the association of southeast asian nations asean have driven substantial growth in electricity consumption in this region whilst this represents significant societal and economic development it has potentially growing adverse environmental impacts this raises a concern on sustainable development in the electricity sector in this region this study evaluates key sustainability challenges in the electricity industries in the five largest energy consumers in asean indonesia thailand malaysia the philippines and vietnam the 3a s energy sustainability objectives accessibility availability and acceptability are used as the sustainability analytical framework this study also draws together a set of associated indicators and criteria within the analytical framework to analyse the status of the electricity industries in these countries the analysis shows that key sustainability challenges in the asean 5 are attributable to satisfying rapid demand growth enhancing security of electricity supply and mitigating the increase in co2 emissions from electricity generation given the promising resource and technical potential in this region renewable energy emerges as a favourable option to address these challenges however increasing the share of renewable energy in electricity generation requires considerable policy support this study suggests that there is an opportunity for the asean countries to strengthen regional collaborations through experience and resource sharing to enhance sustainability in the electricity industries this study also highlights some of the key issues facing the electricity industry and the need for new generation investment decision support tools which can address these issues