corporate taxation and capital accumulation evidence from sectoral panel data for 14 oecd countries abstract we present new empirical evidence that sector level capital output ratios are strongly influenced by corporate tax incentives as summarised by the tax component of a standard user cost of capital measure we use sectoral panel data for the usa japan australia and eleven eu countries over the period 1982 2007 our panel combines internationally consistent data on capital stocks value added and relative prices from the eu klems database with corporate tax measures from the oxford university centre for business taxation our results for equipment investment are particularly robust and strikingly consistent with the basic economic theory of corporate investment

the long run relationship between productivity and capital abstract using panel cointegration techniques we show a cointegrating relationship exists between capital and productivity in 446 manufacturing industries panel dols and fmols estimates reveal that innovations to productivity increase and granger cause capital movements

sustainable consumption within a sustainable economy beyond green growth and green economies abstract in 1992 one unambiguous result of the unced conference was the need for changing consumption and production patterns with affluent countries taking the lead 20 years later at the 2012 uncsd little is left over and instead the green economy has been the theme pursued by the oecd the eu and other countries so the question needs to be answered if this is finally an attempt to put into practice what was promised 20 years ago or another diversion from what needs to be accomplished sustainable development is still a convincing concept if the original definition is taken avoiding the confusion caused by partisan interests reinterpreting the concept focussing on human needs fulfilment and respecting environmental limits it can still guide strong sustainable consumption green economy green growth on the other hand is a new terminology for what is known since 40 years as ecological modernisation it is indeed overdue but with its focus on efficiency and innovation it cannot guarantee to fulfil the brundtland sustainability criteria a factor analysis based on the i p a t formula demonstrates how optimistic the assumptions regarding future technologies must be to support the green growth concept consequently the authors pledge for a pragmatic risk avoiding approach by slimming the physical size of the economy this requires strong sustainable consumption including production as resource consumption which in turn requires a change of the societies institutional settings formal and informal mechanisms and orientations finally some elements of a strategy towards this end are pointed out with special emphasis on the role of non governmental organisations ngos through networking and advocacy they can both stimulate bottom up action and mobilise the pressure necessary for the institutional changes which are needed to mainstream strong sustainable consumption

greenhouse gas emissions per unit of value added geva a corporate guide to voluntary climate action abstract how much must i reduce my greenhouse gas ghg emissions if i want to do my fair share to contribute towards the global effort to keep global warming below a 2 c rise in average temperature over preindustrial times this paper suggests an answer for nations and corporations that want to move ahead of legislation on a voluntary basis if all nations reduce their ghg emissions per unit of gdp by 5 per year global ghg emissions will be 50 lower in 2050 than in 2010 as long as the global economy continues to grow at its historical rate of 3 5 per year the suggested 5 per year decline can be translated into a corporate resolution to reduce corporate ghg emissions per unit of value added geva by 5 per year if all corporations cut their geva by 5 per year the same global result will be achieved the suggested 5 per year decline can be used as a guideline for responsible action on a voluntary basis the guideline is unlikely to be made mandatory soon but compulsory publication of the necessary emissions and productivity data by nations and corporations could help civil society highlight top performers

thailand green gdp assessment based on environmentally extended input output model abstract green gdp is an indicator of economic growth with the environmental impact on that growth factored into the traditional gdp this study aims to develop a green gdp model for thailand using the eio lca method green gdp is calculated by subtracting environmental costs from the traditional gdp environmental cost can be further divided into three components based on the system of environmental economic accounting seea which include depletion cost degradation cost and defensive cost life cycle assessment is a tool for evaluating the environmental impact which in this study focuses on ghg emissions the total direct ghg emissions for thailand are calculated for 1990 2020 based on the 2006 ipcc guidelines and thailand public statistical data for each economic sector it was found that the amount of ghg emissions are 242 459 million tonnes co2eq yr which come from 10 economic sectors comprised of agriculture mining manufacturing petroleum refinery power generation gas separation construction commercial residential and transportation more than 80 of the total direct emissions come from four sectors manufacturing 28 power generation 26 transportation 16 and agriculture 15 the portion of total ghg emissions direct and indirect emissions contributions is different from direct ghg emissions because the proportion of emissions from upstream processes in each sector is different the portion of total ghg emissions of manufacturing agriculture transportation and residential are 60 22 13 and 5 respectively the total thailand green gdp is consolidated from the results of each sector s green gdp the difference between thailand s gdp and green gdp is about 2 due to the degradation cost of ghg emissions with variability in the ratio of gdp to green gdp across different sectors the forecast of green gdp by sector for 2015 2020 can be used as business as usual bau scenarios to support policy making as well as the nama and indc action plan for thailand

fostering change to sustainable consumption and production an evidence based view this note from the field is an edited version of a policy brief summarizing the key findings from the first half of the sustainable consumption research exchange network score for the policy programs in the field of sustainable consumption and production scp we recommend a framework for action to change to scp that mentions the key domains to include food mobility and energy use housing the last two clearly related to urban development it should use a systemic perspective on the scp challenge and differentiate between developed fast developing and base of the pyramid economies score focuses mainly on developed economies and here we propose to differentiate between 1 measures that fit with mainstream beliefs and paradigms here governments could make operational agreements on implementation of instruments like green public procurement stimulating ecodesign etc 2 problems where a rough agreement on goals exists but where change is radical or means are uncertain and hence planning difficult here governments could foster visioning experimentation and support e g international collaboration in leapfrogging programs 3 problems that outright clash with the mainstream beliefs and paradigms here governments could foster informed deliberation on the more fundamental issues related to markets governance and growth 2007 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the impact of natural disaster on energy consumption international evidence abstract this research shows that natural disasters may hurt energy consumption by using data on 123 countries over the period 1990 2015 and classifying them according to their economic development level and region based on world development indicators we employ a two step system gmm method to examine the effect of natural disasters on energy consumption presenting findings that support our hypotheses in the models and show a strong negative effect for low income countries or those in the africa region after considering an alternative proxy for natural disaster we implement quantile regression methods their results find that natural disasters exhibit a negative and significant impact on oil renewable and nuclear energy consumptions the quantile regression models used in the robustness check present that the effects are stronger for low level energy consumption economies

the democracy deficit of corporate social responsibility in post neoliberal times an analysis of the argentinian and ecuadorian experiences several evaluations of contemporary left of center governments in south america suggest that natural resource governance in the region has become post neoliberal only in the sense that states augmented the appropriation and distribution of rent motivated by sustained international demand for commodities the political ecologies of mining remain characterized by increasing demands for more democratic decision making as occurred in the 1990s in order to explain this continuity most studies focus on the interactions between states and civil societies they state that a pragmatic stance on resource governance regards rent capture and distribution over the development of mechanisms for inclusion in decision making these assessments give only a partial account of the interactions involved in such dynamic they underestimate corporate behavior as a central component of emerging forms of governance we argue that companies were central actors of the production of mining conflicts during the 1990s and still exert an important degree of influence in resource governance through corporate social responsibility csr strategies our findings show that since the neoliberal legal and administrative reforms of the early 1990s argentinian and ecuadorian governments have supported a system of mining governance that regards the economic interests over the demands for more democratic decision making nevertheless even after recognizing the deleterious effects of neoliberal csr practiced by companies left of center governments have not been able to steer corporate behavior in a new direction

total factor productivity and the measurement of technological change tfp is interpreted in the literature in different mutually contradictory ways changes in tfp are shown to measure not technological change only the super normal returns to investing in such change returns that exceed the full opportunity cost of the activity thus in the limit technological change can proceed with unchanged tfp measuring the effects of technological change instead requires counterfactual estimates reasons why changes in tfp are imperfect measures of super normal returns are also studied reasons connected with the timing of output responses the treatment of r d in the national accounts the omission of resource inputs and two types of aggregation la productivite totale des facteurs et la mesure du changement technologique la productivite totale des facteurs ptf est interpretee dans la litterature de manieres differentes et mutuellement contradictoires on montre que les changements dans la ptf ne mesurent pas le changement technologique mais seulement les rendements supra normaux sur les investissements dans de tels changements des rendements qui depassent le plein cout d opportunite de cette activite donc a la limite le changement technologique peut proceder sans que la ptf change mesurer les effets du changement technique reclame des evaluations d hypotheses de rechange les raisons pour lesquelles les changements dans la ptf sont des mesures imparfaites des rendements supra normaux sont aussi etudiees raisons connectees avec la reponse des niveaux de production le traitement de la r d dans les comptes nationaux l omission des intrants de ressources et deux types d agregation

storms and jobs the effect of hurricanes on individuals employment and earnings over the long term hurricanes katrina and rita devastated the us gulf coast in 2005 we use job level data to compare the evolution of earnings for affected workers in four states with workers from matched control co

capital skill complementarity sectoral labor productivity and structural transformation abstract in the postwar u s economy labor productivity has been growing faster in the goods sector versus the service sector this paper argues that this sectoral labor productivity growth gap can largely be explained by the fact that capital intensity also increases faster in the goods sector i build a two sector neoclassical growth model in which capital substitutes low skilled labor but complements high skilled labor and the goods sector is more intensive in low skilled labor relative to the service sector as observed in the data as capital becomes more abundant relative to labor along economic growth low skilled labor is substituted by capital leading to faster growth of capital intensity and hence labor productivity in the goods sector using a calibrated model i find that two thirds of the sectoral labor productivity growth gap can be explained by capital accumulation and its interaction with capital skill complementarity

dividend yield and expected returns abstract previous research examining the relation between dividend yield and equity returns documents a u shaped pattern arising from the positive capm adjusted average excess return of zero dividend firms in contrast this paper reports that zero dividend firms earn negative average excess returns relative to firms of similar size despite the apparent conformity of these results to the predictions of after tax asset pricing models the negative size adjusted excess returns cannot be drive solely by tax effects these excess returns which are concentrated in the initial zero dividend years and approach 1 per month are attributed to possible dividend expectation effects rather than taxes

inflation targeting as a shock absorber abstract we study the characteristics of inflation targeting as a shock absorber using quarterly data for a large panel of countries to overcome an endogeneity problem between monetary regimes and the likelihood of crises we propose to study large natural disasters we find that inflation targeting improves macroeconomic performance following such exogenous shocks it lowers inflation raises output growth and reduces inflation variability compared to alternative monetary regimes this performance is mostly due to a different response of monetary policy and fiscal policy under inflation targeting finally we show that only hard but not soft targeting reaps the rewards deeds not words matter for successful monetary stabilization

capital gains tax and equity values empirical test of stock price reaction to the introduction and reduction of capital gains tax exemption abstract this paper evaluates the differential effect on stock prices of the introduction in canada of 500 000 capital gains tax exemption and the reduction of this limit to 100 000 two years later using the seemingly unrelated regression methodology and controlling for thin trading and heteroscedasticity the empirical evidence indicates that the changes in capital gains tax laws had a differential effect on low dividend yield and high dividend yield stocks on both occasions while the evidence indicates that the stock market anticipated the 1985 capital gains tax law changes the significant market reaction to the 1987 reduction of the exemption occurred a day before and after the reading of the tax reform proposals in parliament thus it can be inferred from the results that despite the presence of tax sheltering opportunities in canada changes in capital gains tax laws affect equity values

assessment of environmental responsibility of oil and gas companies in russia the rating method abstract the article analyzes preconditions specifics and results of the first russian environmental rating of oil and gas companies the russian oil and gas industry strategically important for the national economy is also environmentally unfriendly and opaque companies lack adequate motivation to follow best international environmental standards and practices for disclosure of information about their environmental performance and impacts environmental responsibility of the oil and gas sector has been subject to both public scrutiny and scientific discussions for many decades however these issues have been rarely if ever explored using a reliable and equitable tool which would provide for comparison between different companies this article attempts to analyze the application of such a tool environmental responsibility rating of oil and gas companies in russia the idea behind launching the rating was to provide end consumers and financial institutions an opportunity to compare the companies products and services and to evaluate corporate risks including reputation on the basis of unbiased comparison and evaluation of the companies environmental responsibility and their management s commitment the rating s rationale is premised on the assumption that an environmental rating based on publicly available data and information could be accepted by companies top management as a competitive advantage or disadvantage in obtaining access to better cheaper and long term financial resources and in improving market demand for their final value added products this study offers a complex analysis of qualitative and quantitative indicators of companies activities in three fields environmental management environmental impact and disclosure transparency the rating s results demonstrate that there are big differences among russian oil and gas companies in their levels of environmental responsibility and transparency large publicly traded companies with a strategic focus on gas have received top ratings privately held smaller oil companies are at the bottom along with the subsidiaries of major russian and international corporations transparency of subsidiary companies tends to be lower than that of parent corporations in some cases a close relationship between the company s management and population of the surrounding region plays a positive role in promoting environmental responsibility assumptions for this environmental rating have been at least partially confirmed by the positive dynamics of the associated petroleum gas apg utilization level by oil and gas companies in russia this rating is based on novel and creative approach and has already contributed to forming average quantitative impact indicators in the industry the assumptions and conclusions of this study can also be tested by comparing the first environmental rating of oil and gas companies data with the data produced in the next rating

resilience in the dynamics of economy environment systems the ecological concept of resilience has begun to inform analysis of change in economy environment systems the linkages between resilience and the stability of dynamical systems are discussed along with its role in understanding of the evolution of such systems particular linkages discussed include those between resilience biodiversity and the sustainability of alternative states recent developments in modelling the resilience of joint economy environment systems suggest the advantages of analysing change in the system as a markov process the transition probabilities between states offering a natural measure of the resilience of the system in such states it is argued that this emergent property of the collaboration between ecology and economics has far reaching implications for the way we think about model and manage the environmental sustainability of economic development

corporate sustainability reporting index and baseline data for the cruise industry sustainability policies and corporate reports demonstrate the impacts cruise companies acknowledge as their responsibility and the actions put in place to address them this paper develops a corporate social responsibility index based on the global reporting initiative with industry specific additions including labor and human rights health and safety and environmental and economic aspects companies disclose more management than performance data which is typical of early stages of development companies disclosing less information focus on soft indicators which are easy to mimic and demonstrate posturing items disclosed tend to be marginal to the core of the business have a positive economic impact or pre empt sector regulation reports echo the voice of the corporations and not the demands of stakeholders institutional isomorphism has not influenced a homogenization in reporting with only the largest firms reporting at this stage

technology shocks and job flows we consider a version of the solow growth model where technological progress can be investment specific or investment neutral the labour market is subject to search frictions and the existing productive units may fail to adopt the most recent technological advances technological progress can lead to the destruction of technologically obsolete jobs and cause unemployment we calibrate the model to replicate the high persistence that characterizes the dynamics of firms neutral technology and the frequency of firms capital adjustment we find that neutral technological advances increase job destruction and job reallocation and reduce aggregate employment investment specific technological advances reduce job destruction have mild effects on job creation and are expansionary hence neutral technological progress prompts schumpeterian creative destruction while investment specific technological progress operates essentially as in the standard neoclassical growth model using structural var models we provide support to the key dynamic implications of the model copyright 2007 wiley blackwell

deep impact geo simulations as a policy toolkit for natural disasters adverse post natural disaster outcomes in low income regions like elevated internal migration levels and low consumption levels are the result of market failures poor mechanisms for stabilizing income and missing insurance markets which force the affected population to respond and adapt to the shock they face in a spatial environment with multiple locations with independent but inter connected markets these transitions quickly become complex and highly non linear due to the feedback loops between the micro individual level decisions and the meso location wise market decisions to capture these continuously evolving micro meso interactions this paper presents a spatially explicit bottom up agent based model to analyze natural disaster like shocks to low income regions the aim of the model is to temporally and spatially track how population distributions income and consumption levels evolve in order to identify low income workers that are food insecure the model is applied to the 2005 earthquake in northern pakistan which faced catastrophic losses and high levels of displacement in a short time span and with market disruptions resulted in high levels of food insecurity the model is calibrated to pre crisis trends and shocked using distance based output and labor loss functions to replicate the earthquake impact model results show how various factors like existing income and saving levels distance from the fault line and connectivity to other locations can give insights into the spatial and temporal emergence of vulnerabilities the simulation framework presented here leaps beyond existing modeling efforts which usually deals with macro long term loss estimates and allows policy makers to come up with informed short term policies in an environment where data is non existent policy response is time dependent and resources are limited

climate change accounting and the australian mining industry exploring the links between corporate disclosure and the generation of legitimacy abstract this paper explores how disclosure is used by key bodies in the australian mining industry as a means to respond to climate change and ensure their social licence to operate the study utilises a legitimacy theory framework and a multi case analysis to examine the environmental disclosure practices via a variety of media of two companies and two industry bodies within australia s mining industry it is revealed that a combination of legitimising strategies is undertaken by key bodies in the australian mining industry however to differing degrees depending on the organisation there is also support for the notion that different media plays a critical role in facilitating the legitimacy seeking behaviours of the companies and industry bodies this study extends existing literature on legitimacy theory by highlighting the value of utilising this perspective to explore contemporary phenomena such as corporate responses to climate change the findings of this study have practical significance as they are expected to have important policy ramifications one of the differentiating features of this paper compared to prior studies utilising a legitimacy theory framework is the examination of legitimising disclosure strategies at an industry level which complements a company level analysis moreover variations in legitimising disclosure strategies and communication media employed may be due to their focus on differing conferring publics and stakeholder groups

a practical approach for the management of resources and reserves in small scale mining abstract artisanal asm and small scale mining ssm are well known sources of environmental health and safety risk nonetheless due to the massive increase in the price of gold in the last few years asm and ssm units have rapidly appeared and are operating in many remote locations around the world this trend is bound to last since there are no valid alternative livelihoods for the operators in the sector and the attractiveness of the profit does not counterpoise any concern about the environment or safety the most viable solution for such activities is a shift towards responsible operations this can be done by turning an asm operation into a sustainable and profitable ssm industrial extractive unit for doing so capital investment is needed from external investors the main task therefore is to make asm attractive for investment the approach proposed in this work is based on a main differential from large scale mining the attractiveness for external investment only lies in proving in the early stages of the business a minimum mineral reserve that is able to rapidly return the investment committed to upgrade the artisanal operation into a small scale industrial one plus an attractive profit this is done by introducing the concepts of minimal reserve to be proved and replication the paper proposes a practical methodology for the evaluation of the minimal reserve to be proved based on mining and processing capex and opex a portion of the profits of the operation on such minimal reserve is to be shared between the stakeholders of the business and another is to be re invested in future exploration with this last share the process of proving the reserve can be consequently replicated to the next portion of the mineral resource this methodology is applied to prove viable a real ssm unit in ecuador the results are compared with large scale reserve estimations the order of magnitude of the volume that needs to be proved at the start to make the operation viable varies by 1 1000 in favor of ssm

the shocking origins of political transitions evidence from earthquakes do earthquakes trigger political transitions using a rich panel dataset of 160 countries observed over 1950 2007 we find that earthquake shocks measured in terms of the effect of ground motion amplitude on death toll have two contradicting effects on political change on the one hand earthquakes drive transitions into democracy due to an affective shock which we interpret to be the reaction of citizens by which they hold the incumbent government responsible for earthquake damages on the other hand earthquakes indirectly hasten transitions into a less democratic regime because they increase the income level contemporaneously possibly due to short term emergency response and recovery expenditures and thus raising the opportunity cost of contesting the incumbent government overall we show that while not leading to a full fledged regime transition earthquake shocks open a new democratic window of opportunity but this window is narrowed by improved economic conditions

new evidence that taxes affect the valuation of dividends this paper uses british data to examine the effects of dividend taxes on investors relative valuation of dividends and capital gains british data offer great potential to illuminate the dividends and taxes question since there have been two radical changes and several minor reforms in british dividend tax policy during the last 30 years studying the relationship between dividends and stock price movements during different tax regimes offers an ideal controlled experiment for assessing the effects of taxes on investors valuation of dividends using daily data on a small sample of firms and monthly data on a much broader sample we find clear evidence that taxes affect the equilibrium relationship between dividend yields and market returns these findings suggest that taxes are important determinants of security market equilibrium and deepen the puzzle of why firms pay dividends financial economists have long been puzzled by corporate dividend behavior many individual investors should value a dollar of corporate dividends less than a dollar of corporate retentions because the former gives rise to greater tax liabilities corporations however face equal costs of paying out dividends and retaining earnings miller and modigliani 31 demonstrated that in the absence of taxes dividend policy should have no effect on share valuation if dividends are tax penalized however a value maximizing firm should pay no dividends widespread dividend payments to taxable investors are therefore surprising in 1981 dividend tax revenues in the united states were estimated to exceed 20 billion dollars indeed some have interpreted the large volume of dividends paid as evidence against the rational behavior postulates typically used by economists the dividend question has stimulated a large theoretical and empirical literature concerned with the qluestion of investors valuation of dividends in particular the question of how taxes affect the market valuation of dividends has generated considerable controversy numerous studies including auerbach 2 litzenberger and ramaswamy 24 26 morgan 34 and rosenberg and marathe

how environmental regulations affect innovation in the australian oil and gas industry going beyond the porter hypothesis the impact of environmental regulation on innovation is of central interest to many industries and policy makers alike while traditional research adopts a top down view of regulation and attempts to measure the innovation response the more bottom up view of contemporary theory argues that firms produce innovations that exceed compliance levels as a competitive strategy we approach this dichotomy by investigating innovation introduced by australian oil and gas firms in light of environmental regulatory compliance burden and firm level characteristics including competitive capabilities analyses of survey responses executive level interviews and conference proceedings reveal both regulatory top down and competitive advantage bottom up perspectives explain innovation in this industry regression analyses reveal that product service and novel innovations all types are related to a high compliance burden competitive skills research and development activity and engagement in formal collaborations interview and conference data add nuance to our findings revealing collaborative compliance frameworks result in similar innovation outcomes

labor and investment frictions in a real business cycle model abstract this paper develops a prototype real business cycle model in which labor and investment frictions may compete directly with technology shocks in accounting for fluctuations in the postwar us economy using ireland s 2004a a method for taking models to the data journal of economic dynamics and control 28 1205 1226 methodology we establish that both types of friction are quantitatively important technology shocks still explain a substantial fraction of the fluctuations in aggregate output as the baseline real business cycle model predicts formal hypothesis tests suggest that changes in the recurrence of shocks frictions and structural parameters all play a role in accounting for the shift in the time series properties of the data between the periods before and after 1980

sustainability in mining minerals and energy new processes pathways and human interactions for a cautiously optimistic future the supply of minerals and energy is critical to global society however this supply is associated with social and environmental impacts leading to concerns of generational and intergenerational equity in light of these concerns a call for papers for a special volume on the mining industry was issued with the view that such academic work could assist in reducing the negative impacts associated with this industry this paper introduces the special volume the sustainability agenda of the minerals and energy supply and demand network an integrative analysis of ecological ethical economic and technological dimensions the special volume contains 84 articles divided into several themes sustainability accounting and reporting corporate social responsibility future mining challenges integrative frameworks for sustainability management aspects mining in a developing context and new frontiers in the oil and gas industry the special volume also includes two letters on contemporary issues with commentaries on these from experts in the fields viz community conflict and land rehabilitation insights obtained across these themes are summarized and recommendations are made of what is needed to build upon the findings of this special volume a research agenda is proposed for the future from the gaps and synergies identified the overall contribution of this special volume is that it renews the debate on the sustainability challenges for the mining industry and provides transdisciplinary insights into resolving some of these challenges

techno economic evaluation of innovative steel production technologies at current primary steel production levels the iron and steel industry will fail to meet the 80 emission reduction target without introduction of breakthrough technologies wortler et al 2013 19 the current research analyses the technical and economical long term potential of innovative primary steel production technologies in germany throughout 2100 techno economic models are used to simulate three innovative ore based steelmaking routes verses the reference blast furnace route bf bof the innovative routes in focus are blast furnace with ccs bf ccs hydrogen direct reduction h dr and iron ore electrolysis ew energy and mass flows for the production of one tonne of crude steel cs are combined with hypothetical price cost and revenue data to evaluate the production routes economically technically and environmentally this is a purely theoretical analysis and hence further external factors that may influence practical implementation or profitability are not considered different future developments are considered by using three scenarios representing an ambitious a moderate and a conservative transformation of the german energy sector in general looking into the future bares various uncertainties which should be reflected in a suitable manner according to the present scenario analysis chances are that with rising prices for coal and co2 allowances bf bof and even bf ccs become unprofitable by mid century with a high share of renewable energy sources and high prices for co2 allowances h dr and ew become economically attractive in the second half of the current century when bf based routes are long unprofitable energy and raw material efficiency is significantly higher for h dr and ew and furthermore the 80 reduction target by 2050 can be achieved in the ambitious scenario however high investment costs and high dependency on electricity prices prohibit a profitable implementation before 2030 2040 without further subsidies ew is the most energy and resource efficient production route since continuous electricity is needed for the continuous operation the electricity costs are 20 40 higher than for h dr with high capacity hydrogen storage units even though hydrogen production implies efficiency losses compared to the ew route the decoupling of hydrogen production from continuous operation of the steel plant through hydrogen storage offers the opportunity to use cheap excess renewable electricity this makes the h dr economically and environmentally the most attractive route and provides a crucial contribution to stabilize the grid and to store excess energy in a 100 renewable energy system

cradle to cradle design creating healthy emissions a strategy for eco effective product and system design eco effectiveness and cradle to cradle design present an alternative design and production concept to the strategies of zero emission and ecoefficiency where eco efficiency and zero emission seek to reduce the unintended negative consequences of processes of production and consumption eco effectiveness is a positive agenda for the conception and production of goods and services that incorporate social economic and environmental benefit enabling triple top line growth eco effectiveness moves beyond zero emission approaches by focusing on the development of products and industrial systems that maintain or enhance the quality and productivity of materials through subsequent life cycles the concept of eco effectiveness also addresses the major shortcomings of eco efficiency approaches their inability to address the necessity for fundamental redesign of material flows their inherent antagonism towards long term economic growth and innovation and their insufficiency in addressing toxicity issues a central component of the eco effectiveness concept cradle to cradle design provides a practical design framework for creating products and industrial systems in a positive relationship with ecological health and abundance and long term economic growth against this background the transition to eco effective industrial systems is a five step process beginning with an elimination of undesirable substances and ultimately calling for a reinvention of products by reconsidering how they may optimally fulfill the need or needs for which they are actually intended while simultaneously being supportive of ecological and social systems this process necessitates the creation of an eco effective system of nutrient management to coordinate the material flows amongst actors in the product system the concept of intelligent materials pooling illustrates how such a system might take shape in reality 2006 published by elsevier ltd

energy transitions and national development indicators a global review of nuclear energy production abstract energy use plays a vital role for human well being however human well being can also be affected by socio economic and environmental impacts associated with the use of different primary energy sources nuclear energy production is perceived as one means of satisfying national energy demand while contributing to a potentially sustainable energy transition the objective of this study is to further understand socio economic environmental and technological factors that characterize countries that choose nuclear energy production hence this exploratory study reviews the socio economic contexts of nuclear energy producing countries in comparison to countries without nuclear energy use the study is based on world development indicators published by world bank for 213 countries between 1960 and 2013 and follows two analytical steps first based on a comparison of countries average development indicator values over time we descriptively explore which socio economic environmental and technological factors characterize the spectrum of countries following different nuclear energy strategies no nuclear production phase out planning to produce produce nuclear energy second we statistically analyze nuclear energy producing countries exploring if there was significant change in socio economic environmental and technological characteristics after the start of nuclear energy production characteristics of our four country groups revealed nuclear countries incl phase out used more energy per capita and showed higher levels of carbon emissions as well as household consumption compared to countries planning to use nuclear energy and countries without nuclear energy use adoption of nuclear energy does not appear to reduce fossil fuel use or enable energy independence hence our study did not provide evidence that nuclear energy production can be seen as technological answer to global challenges like climate change or unequal energy distribution it is therefore unclear if and how nuclear energy contributes to global human well being as part of sustainable development

the coevolution of the real and financial sectors in the growth process the role of debt and equity changes over time and with the level of development what are these changes and why should they systematically occur across different countries and time periods this article characterizes financial innovation as a dynamic process that both influences and is influenced by the development of the real sector it focuses on the emergence and development of equity markets using a model that allows for growth and for capital accumulation that is financed externally through a combination of debt and equity as an economy develops the aggregate ratio of debt to equity will generally fall yet debt and equity remain complementary sources for the financing of capital investments the results suggest how various government policy actions might affect capital accumulation and equity market activity

the mining industry under the thumb of politicians the environmental consequences of the spanish coal decree abstract the so called coal decree royal decree 143 2010 and subsequent royal decree 1221 2010 have modified the historical use of coal trends in the spanish economy since 2010 the use of domestic coal in spain s electricity sector will be promoted by the royal decree until 2014 this energy strategy on the one hand and political decision on the other were advanced under the flag of energy security and the fulfillment of the 9th principle of the international council of mining and metals icmm which specified that sustainable development in mining areas should maintain among other things employment the mutual understanding between the government and the local mining industry is confronted with vast criticism at the institutional firm and social levels regarding a the disparities generated between electricity generation technologies b the increase of electricity market prices the national competition commission reported the royal decree and c subsequent environmental harm the coal decree has changed the gradual decrease of coal in the spanish energy mix since the end of the 1990s the environmental efficiency gains accumulated over the past several years would be lost as a result of this change of direction in policy in the last fifteen years the coal industry in spain has been under pressure from political decisions that have forced the dismantling of the industry a labor reconversion of mining areas and the conversion of coal fired power plants into combined cycle gas power plants this situation considerably reduced co2 emissions from coal combustion in spain improving the environmental efficiency of the entire economy for many years nevertheless the implementation of the royal decree has changed these trends this paper will examine the environmental consequences of the coal decree from 2010 to 2014 based on actual economic and energy demand requirements and actual electricity mix composition a post keynesian energy age model to forecast energy demand and the derived co2 emissions will be applied to evaluate the change in the reduction of emissions observed in the electricity sector since 2005 and in the spanish economy since 2010 the results will be compared to other alternative scenarios of co2 emissions evolution

test for tax effects in the pricing of financial assets this paper tests four competing hypotheses regarding taxation and the pricing of financial assets no differential tax effects in the pricing of stocks or bonds the equilibrium condition described by miller 1977 the two parameter after tax pricing equations of brennan 1970 and litzenberger and ramaswamy 1979 and dividend related clientele effects described by elton and gruber 1970 and litzenberger and ramaswamy 1980 these hypotheses make substantially different predictions about the impact of taxes on financial decisions however when stated in terms of returns the hypotheses imply parameter restrictions with the same functional form the commonality of the parameter restrictions allows simultaneous testing of all four models by testing the form of the parameter restrictions this approach differs from that of previous researchers who have by and large implicitly assumed that the parameter restrictions implied by the respective models hold see elton and gruber 1970 black and scholes 1973 1974 litzenberger and ramaswamy 1979 1980 miller and scholes 1982 conditional on this assumption parameter estimates have been made and this paper tests four models describing the impact of taxes on financial asset returns no tax effects miller s equilibrium the twoparameter pricing models of brennan and litzenberger and ramaswamy and taxinduced dividend clientele effects these tests are carried out by casting the hypotheses in terms of systems of equations and identifying the parameter restrictions implied by each of the hypotheses the systems approach is particularly useful for testing for clientele effects because we are able to identify withinand between equation restrictions without specifying the marginal tax rate of the clientele which holds a particular security my results suggest that none of tax motivated hypotheses is descriptive of the data this paper is a distillation of several research projects i have undertaken in the last two years special thanks are in order to g constantinides e fama j ingersoll a madansky and m scholes i owe a particularly important debt to merton miller for help and encouragement finally i would like to thank steve buser and e han kim

comparing dsge var forecasting models how big are the differences abstract i generate priors for a vector autoregression var from a standard real business cycle rbc model an rbc model with capital adjustment costs and habit formation and a sticky price model with an unaccommodating monetary authority the response of hours worked to a tfp shock differs sharply across these models i compare the accuracy of forecasts made from each of the resulting dynamic stochastic general equilibrium vector autoregression dsge var models despite having different structural characteristics the dsge vars are comparable in terms of forecasting performance as in previous work dsge vars compare favorably with atheoretical vars

assigning firm level ghge reductions based on national goals mathematical model empirical evidence abstract the so called paris agreement signed by 195 countries has led to the setting of some ambitious target reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by most developed countries the over arching goal of those reduction targets is to limit global warming to less than 2oc compared to pre industrial levels yet despite these commitments from the highest governance levels there is still no deterministic model on how these national target reductions will be cascaded down to the commercial sector which accounts for the lion s share of these emissions in this paper we present a novel framework which enables the setting measurement and tracking of the emissions performance of every commercial entity based on a single metric we further present empirical evidence from the automotive industry to illustrate how the model helps to readily identify the low versus high performers the model also reveals one car company that stands out as the industry benchmark by already exceeding the performance required by the 2025 emissions target set by the us the model proves successful in achieving the objectives of being science based goal driven equitable comparable and actionable and as such can be readily used to accurately compare competitors from the same industry and provide the basis of a more equitable performance based carbon tax market as well as the ability to assess accurately how well a specific country is meeting its reduction quota and how the various industry sectors are impacting that goal

natural disasters in a two sector model of endogenous growth using an endogenous growth model with physical and human capital accumulation this paper considers the sustainability of economic growth when the use of a polluting input e g fossil fuels intensifies the risk of capital destruction through natural disasters we find that growth is sustainable only if the tax rate on the polluting input increases over time the long term rate of economic growth follows an inverted v shaped curve relative to the growth rate of the environmental tax and it is maximized by the least aggressive tax policy of those that asymptotically eliminate the use of polluting inputs unavailability of insurance can accelerate or decelerate the growth maximizing speed of the tax increase depending on the relative significance of the risk premium and precautionary savings effects welfare is maximized under a milder environmental tax policy especially when the pollutants accumulate gradually

dividends and capital asset prices tax based dividend models of capital asset pricing assume that dividends are known at the time prices are set dividends which are announced and paid in the same month and dividends which were expected but cancelled in the month constitute surprises which interfere with many empirical tests of the effects of expected dividend yield on returns this paper avoids these problems by relating returns to forecasts of dividend yield obtained from past data three distinct views of the importance of dividends to investors have received support at one time or another according to the two most important views dividends have a neutral and a negative effect on security prices respectively miller and modigliani 1 and miller and scholes 12 13 favor complete substitutability of dividends and capital gain brennan 6 and litzenberger and ramaswamy 9 have developed models which incorporate differential taxation of income and capital gain in these models the tax disadvantage of income changes the investor s portfolio problem from one of optimization of mean and variance of portfolio before tax return to optimization in after tax terms stocks with relatively large dividend yields should provide high expected returns and so sell for low prices to compensate the investor for the tax much of the empirical evidence seems to favor the view that tax disadvantages of dividend income do not escape investors attention and that returns are higher when they include dividend income to compensate the investor for the tax liability however interpretation of the available evidence is difficult and it is significant that most of these researchers remain unconvinced that their own findings can be satisfactorily explained by tax effects ball brown finn and officer 1 interpret their estimates as being far too strong to be explained in terms of differential taxation blume 3 reaches a similar conclusion but litzenberger and ramaswamy attribute their results to the tax disadvantage of

the augmented solow model and the productivity slowdown abstract in an insightful and influential paper mankiw et al 1992 quarterly journal of economics 107 407 437 have suggested that an augmented solow growth model can account for 80 of the variation in output per capita across countries due to different steady state growth paths that result from differences in saving rates education and population growth this paper carries their analysis one step further and asks whether changes in the growth rate between the 1960s and the 1980s can also be explained by this framework our results provide further support for several of mankiw et al s key conclusions investment in physical capital population growth and the initial levels of output seem to matter a great deal however investment in human capital has no ability to account for changes in growth rates over time we conclude that investment in physical capital seems to be quite important for economic growth though the reasons for this importance may not be fully captured by the augmented solow growth model

sustainable energy planning leapfrogging the energy poverty gap in africa abstract the present paper introduces the results of a spatial economic analysis that identifies the least cost rural electrification options that can bring the persistent energy poverty to an end in sub saharan africa the rationale behind the analysis is that the applicable energy technologies have gone through fundamental changes and these have profound effects on the competitiveness of the various options the least cost distributed generation options are calculated for each geographical location for mini hydro off grid pv and diesel generators options and it is compared to the electricity grid extension the methodology presented in this manuscript organises the scarcely available energy related local and regional geo information into comprehensible maps the set of tools presented and the results based on those analyses can support decision and policy makers to plan for the least cost rural electrification options while also adapting to the most effective way to reduce energy poverty this can help in the national rural electrification plans by delineating which communities cannot be reached by existing grid without excessive extension costs and gives the alternative distributed generation option

sustainability reporting among mining corporations a constructive critique of the gri approach abstract the environmental crisis is giving rise to growing public demand for socially responsible and ecologically viable mining practices large mining corporations are responding by advancing the idea of a sustainable mining industry these responses are accompanied by concerted efforts to advertise a company s relative progress in this direction through the publication of sustainability reports based on the global reporting initiative gri framework many scholars contest the effectiveness of that framework arguing that gri based reports can mislead decision makers who are concerned with sustainability or even camouflage unsustainable practices particularly at the site level few scholars however have scratched below the surface of criticism in order to consider how to improve the effectiveness of that framework this article takes a closer look at this problem by answering the following question what needs to be changed in mining corporations gri based frameworks for the purpose of promoting more meaningful and reliable sustainability performance information this article followed a qualitative methodological approach based on literature reviews and 41 semi structured interviews the analysis was guided by an evaluation of the extent to which the predominant gri based approach to sustainability reporting meets a number of principles of sustainability assessment and reporting known as the bellagiostamp principles this paper outlines a number of specific changes that should be promoted in mining corporations frameworks if their reports are to provide meaningful and accurate information about sustainability progress such changes include a more systematic consideration of site level performance scenario building and legacy effects overall this article corroborates the view that meaningful and reliable standardized disclosures of contributions to sustainability are unlikely to emerge any time soon the geographical dispersion of mining facilities imposes substantial difficulties to the contextualization of sustainability evaluations

the canadian tax reform and its effect on stock prices a note the effect of personal taxation on stock prices remains controversial while some researchers have found evidence of a tax effect in the stock market others have found evidence to the contrary this paper provides additional empirical evidence on the effect of the differential taxation of dividends and capital gains on stock prices by analyzing stock price changes around the 1971 canadian tax reform and its subsequent amendments in 1977 the results show that changes in the taxation of cash dividends and capital gains affected high yield and lowyield stocks listed on the toronto stock exchange tse differently section i of the paper describes the tax changes the method used to analyze the tax effect is described in section ii section iii reports the results and conclusions are presented in section iv

why economic dynamics matter in assessing climate change damages illustration on extreme events extreme events are one of the main channels through which climate and socioeconomic systems interact and it is likely that climate change will modify the probability distribution of the losses they generate the long term growth models used in climate change assessments however cannot capture the eects of such shortterm shocks to investigate this issue a non equilibrium dynamic model nedym is used to assess the macroeconomic consequences of extreme events this exercise allowed us to dene the economic amplic ation ratio as the ratio of the overall production loss due to an event to its direct costs this ratio could be used to improve the cost benet analysis of prevention measures we found also that unlike a solow like model nedym exhibits a bifurcation in gdp losses for each value of the capacity to fund reconstruction gdp losses remain moderate if the intensity and frequency of extremes remain under a threshold value beyond which gdp losses increase sharply this bifurcation may partly explain why some poor countries that experience repeated natural disasters cannot develop applied to the specic issue of climate change this model suggests that changes in the distribution of extremes may entail signican t gdp losses in absence of specic adaptation it suggests therefore that to avoid inaccurately low assessments of damages researchers must take into account the distribution of extremes instead of their average cost and make explicit assumptions on the organization of future economies

the effect of personal taxes on common stock prices the case of a belgian tax reform abstract this paper analyses how a belgian tax reform affected the relative pricing of securities with differential tax treatment of dividends the results show that stock prices reflect their relative personal tax advantage and the price differentials are significantly related to dividend yield

investment shocks and business cycles abstract the origins of business cycles are still controversial among macroeconomists this paper contributes to this debate by studying the driving forces of fluctuations in an estimated new neoclassical synthesis model of the u s economy in this model most of the variability of output and hours at business cycle frequencies is due to shocks to the marginal efficiency of investment imperfect competition and to a lesser extent technological frictions are the key to their transmission although labor supply shocks explain a large fraction of the fluctuations in hours at very low frequencies they are irrelevant over the business cycle this finding is important because the microfoundations of these disturbances are widely regarded as unappealing

the economic crisis from a neoclassical perspective abstract this paper assesses the 2007 2009 recession using neoclassical business cycle theory i find that the 2007 2009 u s recession differs substantially from other postwar u s recessions and also from the 2008 recession in other countries in that lower labor input accounts for virtually all of the decline in income and output in the united states while lower productivity accounts for much of other u s recessions and the 2007 2009 recession in other countries i also find that existing classes of models including financial market imperfections models do not explain the u s recession this is because the 2007 2009 recession is almost exclusively related to what appear to be labor market distortions that drive a wedge between the marginal product of labor and the marginal rate of substitution between consumption and leisure a topic about which current classes of financial imperfection models are largely silent i discuss future avenues for developing this class of models and i consider alterna

the message and methods of ethical investment abstract this paper examines a high profile and often provocative segment of the financial industry that of ethical or socially responsible investment by offering an ethical or sustainable product which has the potential to influence so many stakeholders the financial industry is in a unique position to guide change towards corporate sustainability however what message is ethical investment really giving to companies and the financial industry are ethical investors and their rating agencies capable of effectively influencing corporations towards more sustainable patterns of production and consumption and are their approaches consistent with the principles of cleaner production this paper first gives an overview some of the definitions ethical investment and the scale of activities under this umbrella term then the actual screening methods and their application is examined a typology of the different ethical mutual funds is given and two cases of ethical funds are described robur s environmental fund and sustainable asset management s sustainability rating tool each are analysed in terms of their potential to either reveal or conceal cleaner production innovations by the firms they assess in order to ascertain where ethical investment might lead companies the effects of ethical investment on companies and back on the asset management companies themselves is explored a reflexive model of corporate and finance sector learning based on the ethical screens is proposed

corporate social responsibility the disclosure performance gap as increased stakeholder pressure requires companies to be transparent about their csr practices it is essential to know how reliable corporate disclosure mechanisms are testing the gap between corporate social responsibility claims and actual practice this study benchmarks corporate social responsibility policies and practices of ten international hotel groups of particular importance to the european leisure market we found that corporate systems are not necessarily reflective of actual operations environmental performance is eco savings driven labour policies aim to comply with local legislation socio economic policies are inward looking with little acceptance of impacts on the destination and customer engagement is limited generally larger hotel groups have more comprehensive policies but also greater gaps in implementation while the smaller hotel groups focus only on environmental management and deliver what they promised as the first survey of its kind in tourism both the methodology and the findings have implications for further research

natural disasters and macroeconomic performance recent empirical research has shown that output and gdp per capita in the aftermath of natural disasters are not necessarily lower than before the event in many cases both are not significantly affected and surprisingly sometimes they are found to respond positively to natural disasters here we propose a novel economic theory that explains these observations specifically we show that gdp is driven above its pre shock level when natural disasters destroy predominantly durable consumption goods cars furniture etc disasters destroying mainly productive capital in contrast are predicted to reduce gdp insignificant responses of gdp can be expected when disasters destroy both durable goods and productive capital we extend the model by a residential housing sector and show that disasters may also have an insignificant impact on gdp when they destroy residential houses and durable goods we show that disasters irrespective of whether their impact on gdp is positive negative or insignificant entail considerable losses of aggregate welfare

the concept of weak sustainability abstract this paper surveys the links between growth theory with exhaustible resources and the concept of weak sustainability it examines the underlying assumptions behind this concept and questions the usefulness of the weak sustainability index as an indicator of sustainable development

household income strategies and natural disasters dynamic livelihoods in rural nicaragua this paper assesses the impact of hurricane mitch on livelihood strategies of rural households in nicaragua through destruction or distress sales of productive assets a hurricane or another natural hazard could induce people with relatively remunerative livelihoods to choose more defensive strategies which allow them to survive but at a permanently lower welfare level than before using panel data from before and after hurricane mitch we find that livelihood strategies can be grouped into three welfare categories annual farming and farm employment generate low incomes whereas nonfarm wage employment and livestock farming result in relatively high incomes perennial farming nonfarm self employment and annual cropping with nonfarm employment take an intermediate position high welfare strategies were associated with high levels of capital and the number of people involved was very similar between different years suggesting that households following low welfare strategies were trapped in poverty however many households moved actively between strategies of different welfare levels this indicates that there was no absolute poverty threshold but also that being able to initiate a relatively profitable livelihood strategy was no guarantee that this strategy could be maintained there is no evidence that hurricane mitch affected livelihood strategy transitions livelihood mobility was similar for households inside and outside mitch affected areas

evolution model with time lag effects for the coal industrial symbiosis system a case study of ordos china abstract industrial metabolism and symbiotic coupling has become the base paradigm of green low carbon development of coal mining in the coal industrial symbiosis system ciss stability is increasingly fragile because of its unique industrial links and growth environment referring to the classic lotka volterra population ecology model and synthesizing the periodicity and time lag effects of industrial development two entirely novel and more generalized ciss evolution models with time lag effects in the competitive and reciprocal scenarios are constructed respectively moreover the conditions of ciss stability are proven and discussed through mathematical analysis simulation and theorem validation were carried out by taking the largest chinese coal city ordos as the research object the main results are as follows first the time lag effect is an important factor leading to ciss instability the shorter the time lag within the ciss the better the collaboration between industries and the easier it is that the ciss will achieve a stable ecological balance second when the power of competition dominates the development of industries within ciss will be inhibited when the power of cooperation dominates the evolution of ciss will toward a positive direction third a certain degree of self inhibition will contribute to the stable development of the industrial symbiosis system at last the social service industry not only can boost the industrial diversity within ciss but also can promote the co evolution of original and exogenous industries which plays a positive role in the healthy and stable development of ciss

the system boundaries of sustainability abstract the energy systems of the western industrialized nations have passed through different stages of development and fundamental energy crises over the course of their history 14th 18th and the end of the 20th century these crises have contributed decisively to the transformation of the energy system and of european societies the various historical energy systems their system boundaries and the restrictions resulting from them have decisively influenced the opportunities for development in european societies based upon this knowledge the question arises as to what energy system boundaries a future sustainability strategy will have to deal with the different sustainability concepts strong and weak sustainability imply different system boundaries for an energy system aiming at sustainable development climate change the design of the future energy system and the finiteness of the fossil energy system are the restrictions for the future energy system hence the boundaries of the sustainability system are determined by four dimensions based on the finiteness of the fossil energy system the development of a post fossil energy system the problem of climate change and the chosen sustainability paradigm this sustainability approach could enable sustainable development opportunities for the present generation without affecting the welfare of future generations

evolutionary modelling of the macro economic impacts of catastrophic flood events this paper examines the possible contribution of evolutionary economics to macro economic modelling of flood impacts to provide guidance for future economic risk modelling most macro economic models start from a neoclassical economic perspective and focus on equilibrium outcomes either in a static or dynamic way and describe economic processes at a high level of aggregation as a consequence they typically fail to account for the complexity of social interactions and other behavioural responses of consumers and producers to disasters which may affect the macroeconomic impacts of floods employing evolutionary principles and methods such as agent based modelling may help to address some of the shortcomings of current macro economic models we explore and discuss the implications of applying consumer and producer heterogeneity bounded rationality network effects social and technological learning co evolution and adaptive policy making concepts into existing economic frameworks for the assessment of macro economic impacts of floods authors abstract

can natural disasters have positive consequences investigating the role of embodied technical change it has been suggested that disasters might have positive economic consequences through the accelerated replacement of capital this possibility is referred to as the productivity effect this effect is investigated using a model with embodied technical change in this framework disasters can influence the production level but cannot influence the growth rate in the same way than the saving ratio in a solow like model depending on reconstruction quality indeed accounting for embodied technical change can either decrease or increase disaster costs but is never able to turn disasters into positive events moreover a better but slower reconstruction amplifies the short term consequences of disasters but pays off over the long term regardless the productivity effect cannot prevent the existence of a bifurcation when disaster damages exceed the reconstruction capacity potentially leading to poverty traps c 2008 elsevier b v all rights reserved

sustainability as it pertains to minerals and energy supply and demand a new interpretative perspective for assessing progress this paper addresses the pressing research gap that demands an overarching framework to assess the progress of mining minerals and energy supply and demand networks towards sustainable development the framework proposes a hierarchy from sustainable development which begins at the global scale to operating sustainably which begins at the level of unit operations the two concepts overlap in the middle with a focus upon regional economies guidance is provided to assess the performance of both dynamic dimensions sustainable development is assessed in terms of equity and operating sustainably is assessed in terms of the changing states of maturity of the activities being monitored the papers from this special volume were the input sample to assess the extent to which these performance dimensions were being addressed in analysing the progress towards sustainable development it was found that papers were mainly focussed on equity within supply countries but they provided little attention to the other three equity conditions proposed demand met at a reasonable price future needs met and profitable transfer agents the transition towards operating sustainably was promising with results that revealed progress along the proposed four stage maturity journey which includes 1 solely profit maximising 2 efficiency focussed 3 integrating by connecting and 4 adaptable resilient a comprehensive definition for operating sustainably is proposed for discussion and refinement it is suggested that the definition proposed can be used for selecting appropriate indicators for measuring and documenting progress

long run implications of investment specific technological change an attempt is made to disentangle its effects from the more traditional hicksneutral form of technological progress the balanced growth path for the model is characterized and calibrated to u s national income and product account nipa data the quantitative analysis suggests that investment specific technological change accounts for the major part of growth jel e13 030 041 047

volatility and slow technology diffusion abstract i study the effects of uncertainty on technology adoption and thereby on volatility and growth i present an analytically tractable model in which i uncertainty about the returns to adoption delays technology diffusion and ii the mean and volatility of output growth are jointly determined in equilibrium i then test the key predictions of the model by studying the introduction of three major information and communication technologies icts computers internet and cell phones i find that countries with more volatile growth rates of real gdp per capita have higher time adoption lags and lower average growth as predicted by the model

a normative empirical analysis of state duties and corporate responsibilities related to adverse human rights impacts on the amazonian minerals energy frontier abstract the article probes the existence of a minerals energy complex mec a concept developed in south africa to describe the strong interlinkages between the mining and energy sector in the brazilian amazon within the framework of the mec the authors conduct a normative analysis based on the united nations guiding principles for business and human rights ungps of the state duties and corporate responsibilities for adverse human rights impacts in the complex the authors use a single in depth case study approach focussing on the case of the belo monte hydroelectric dam in the amazonian state of para the mec proves to be a useful framework for studying the advancement of hydroelectricity and mining projects on the amazonian frontier the analysis indicates that the brazilian minerals and energy sectors are mutually dependent and have overlapping interests and decision making structures applying the mec framework to the belo monte case serves to clarify and detangle the relationships between the various actors associated with the dam s adverse impacts this provides a foundation for the normative analysis of the responsibilities and actions required of each actor based on the internationally accepted standards in the ungps by applying the mec as an analytical research framework and drawing on the ungps for normative guidance the present study contributes to the academic literature on corporate responsibility as well as providing policy and decision makers with a normative empirical analysis that can be drawn upon to improve policy and ensure that corporate activity contributes to sustainable development

the economic determinants of technology shocks in a real business cycle model abstract creative destruction due to new technologies causes both long run growth and short run business fluctuations new technologies push the economy on a higher productivity level but also imply partial obsolescence of old production units obsolescence induces an adjustment period during which growth rates gradually fall at some endogenously determined point research for the next technology starts once the new technology is discovered a technology shock occurs and the next cycle starts this is shown in a continuous time rbc model with risk averse agents where savings can be used for financing deterministic capital accumulation and stochastic r d for new technologies

on the fit of new keynesian models this article provides new tools for the evaluation of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium dsge models and applies them to a large scale new keynesian model we approximate the dsge model by a vector autoregression and then systematically relax the implied cross equation restrictions and document how the model fit changes we also compare the dsge model s impulse responses to structural shocks with those obtained after relaxing its restrictions we find that the degree of misspecification in this large scale dsge model is no longer so large as to prevent its use in day to day policy analysis yet is not small enough to be ignored

are cleaner production innovations the solution for small mining operations in poor regions the case of padua in brazil abstract mining in santo antonio de padua a city located in the underdeveloped northeast area of the rio de janeiro state in brazil is currently the most important economic activity in the region unfortunately companies lag behind technologically and use rudimentary production methods which cause serious environmental problems social implications and poor competitiveness in order to seek sustainable solutions for the padua mining region local support organizations have created initiatives to develop endogenous cleaner production innovations to enhance the industry s sustainability performance during this process some barriers for mining companies to adopt these developed technologies have emerged this research draws on the cleaner production sustainability and innovation literature and uses a qualitative research with multiple sources of evidence to understand the dynamics behind the padua mining region more specifically this research explores how initiatives to improve the sustainability performance led by local support organizations took place analyzes their outcomes i e cleaner production innovations and identifies some of the barriers to technology adoption this paper offers three key research contributions first we claim that cleaner production approaches alone cannot create sustainable mining regions in emerging and developing countries but they are definitively a step in the right direction since they provide the base for expanding the scope towards sustainability second we argue that technology cannot be understood as the panacea for sustainability because it will never represent the complete solution for companies sustainability problems third we claim that companies can face a managerial trap if they pursue enhanced sustainability performance solely through the adoption of cleaner production innovations

corporate social responsibility in europe and the u s insights from businesses self presentations the paper compares the extent and content of businesses communications about corporate social responsibility csr in france the netherlands the u k and the u s in particular the study investigates the nature of csr principles processes and stakeholder issues discussed in web pages the results show that businesses in the four countries do not display the same eagerness to appear as socially responsible and employ diverse means to convey social responsibility images

aggregate fluctuations and the industry structure of the us economy abstract in a two sector economy changes in intermediate input trade as reflected in cost share fluctuations are key to determining the amplification properties of investment specific and neutral shocks i document that the cost shares of intermediate inputs produced by the investment sector correlate positively with gdp whereas those of inputs produced by the consumption sector correlate negatively with gdp the two sector model of greenwood et al 1988 is extended to allow for trade of intermediate goods and to show that the documented correlations discipline heterogeneous elasticities of substitution in intermediate inputs across sectors shock amplification that is the effect of a sectorial shock on aggregate value added depends on the degree of heterogeneity in these elasticities of substitution for a calibrated economy to that of the united states i find that shock amplification is stronger than in a unitary elasticity economy it is also stronger than in an economy with a common non unitary elasticity that is either inferred from data via reduced form estimates or calibrated to match the same targets as our benchmark economy

naturally negative the growth effects of natural disasters abstract growth theory predicts that natural disasters should on impact lower gdp per capita however the empirical literature does not offer conclusive evidence most existing studies use disaster data drawn from damage records of insurance companies we argue that this may lead to estimation bias as damage data and the selection into the database may correlate with gdp we build a comprehensive database of disaster events and their intensities from primary geophysical and meteorological information in contrast to insurance data our geomet data reveal a substantial negative and robust average impact effect of disasters on growth the worst 5 disaster years come with a growth damage of at least 0 46 percentage points that average effect is driven mainly by very large earthquakes and some meteorological disasters poor countries are more strongly affected by geophysical disasters rich more by meteorological events international openness and democratic institutions reduce the adverse effect of disasters

barriers to the development of china s shale gas industry abstract shale gas has become a promising onshore energy prospect in china as much as the country aspires for greater energy independence through the use of its shale gas reserves this process is slowed down by the combined weight of relative inexperience lack of technology geographical complexity a hostile economic environment a disincentive pipeline regime and a complex land ownership system to foster a better understanding of the current circumstances of the country s shale gas sector a panel of scholars and experts shared their perspectives and insider knowledge on china s shale gas industry it was found that some of the country s man made institutional barriers are factors that have been hindering shale gas development in china in addition to natural conditions such as water concerns and the complex geography of shale fields resolving this situation necessitates breaking the monopoly that major state owned oil companies have over high quality shale gas resources opening pipeline network access providing geological data developing the domestic oil service market creating conditions for fair competition between service providers and improving the water management system

responsible mineral and energy futures views at the nexus societal prosperity is underpinned by access to the increasingly interdependent resources of minerals and energy in an era of mineral resource constraints and radical transition in the energy sector this paper reviews the extent to which a long term view of production and use is adopted in both fields a long term view including the mineral energy nexus is deemed to be necessary although not sufficient for managing future resource constraints and energy transitions alarmingly it identifies that the future of minerals resources and production is generally considered 5 10 years ahead rather than several decades or more as for energy additionally the sectors are generally studied independently rather than with a focus on the nexus with these findings as evidence of an unaddressed problem the paper then focusses on the current forces for change in the minerals industry namely community drivers regarding social licence to operate new technologies and consumer and government drivers on responsible minerals as discussions of sustainable development become displaced by the emerging discourse of responsible minerals what is adopted and discarded whilst responsible minerals considers chain of custody it does not adopt a long term view and overlooks the mineral energy nexus using three illustrative cases at the nexus of i rare earths renewables ii coal steel and iii uranium nuclear we extend the theoretical discussion on responsible with a range of contemporary examples from the perspectives of producing australia and consuming countries japan switzerland and propose a research agenda for an expanded notion of responsible minerals which recognises the complexity of the mineral energy nexus and connects it to progressing sustainable futures