escaping the green prison entrepreneurship and the creation of opportunities for sustainable development abstract while entrepreneurial activity has been an important force for social and ecological sustainability its efficacy is dependent upon the nature of market incentives this limitation is sometimes explained by the metaphor of the prisoner s dilemma which we term the green prison in this prison entrepreneurs are compelled to environmentally degrading behavior due to the divergence between individual rewards and collective goals for sustainable development entrepreneurs however can escape from the green prison by altering or creating the institutions norms property rights and legislation that establish the incentives of competitive games we provide a variety of evidence of such entrepreneurial action and discuss its implications for theory and practice

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

toward a theory of sustainable entrepreneurship reducing environmental degradation through entrepreneurial action this article explains how entrepreneurship can help resolve the environmental problems of global socio economic systems environmental economics concludes that environmental degradation results from the failure of markets whereas the entrepreneurship literature argues that opportunities are inherent in market failure a synthesis of these literatures suggests that environmentally relevant market failures represent opportunities for achieving profitability while simultaneously reducing environmentally degrading economic behaviors it also implies conceptualizations of sustainable and environmental entrepreneurship which detail how entrepreneurs seize the opportunities that are inherent in environmentally relevant market failures finally the article examines the ability of the proposed theoretical framework to transcend its environmental context and provide insight into expanding the domain of the study of entrepreneurship

trials tricks and transparency how disclosure rules affect clinical knowledge scandals of selective reporting of clinical trial results by pharmaceutical firms have underlined the need for more transparency in clinical trials we provide a theoretical framework which reproduces incentives for selective reporting and yields three key implications concerning regulation first a compulsory clinical trial registry complemented through a voluntary clinical trial results database can implement full transparency the existence of all trials as well as their results is known second full transparency comes at a price it has a deterrence effect on the incentives to conduct clinical trials as it reduces the firms gains from trials third in principle a voluntary clinical trial results database without a compulsory registry is a superior regulatory tool but we provide some qualified support for additional compulsory registries when medical decision makers cannot anticipate correctly the drug companies decisions whether to conduct trials

meta analysis in model implementation choice sets and the valuation of air quality improvements this research illustrates how the methods developed for meta analysis can serve to document and summarize voluminous information derived from repeated sensitivity analyses our application is to the sensitivity of welfare estimates derived from discrete choice models to assumptions about the choice set these assumptions affect welfare estimates through both the estimated parameters of the model and conditional on the parameters the substitution among alternatives in our specific application the evaluation is in terms of estimated benefits of air quality improvements in los angeles based on discrete choices of neighborhood and housing copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

how sustainable entrepreneurs engage in institutional change insights from biomass torrefaction in the netherlands sustainable entrepreneurship often requires a purposeful change to the existing business environment market regulations and societal norms and values institutions to ensure sustainable products and services become legitimate and competitive yet how sustainable entrepreneurs alter or create institutions remains unclear we employ a two year comparative case study with four entrepreneurs commercializing torrefied biomass in the netherlands consistent with insights from institutional entrepreneurship research findings show that sustainable entrepreneurs create new symbols theorize construct new measures build consensus and forge new relations to alter or create new institutions moreover we find that entrepreneurial collaboration in the form of a trade association has three feedback effects it creates accessible modes diversity of scope and an increased scale of institutional change strategies we conclude that future studies should further connect sustainable and institutional entrepreneurship research and take group and individual factors into account when explaining how sustainable entrepreneurs engage in institutional change

social interactions in small groups most models of endogenous social interactions implicitly assume that individuals are interacting directly or indirectly with a very large innite group of others these models generally feature multiple equilibria when the marginal impact of peers exceeds some strictly positive critical value this paper shows that this result depends critically on the assumption that the size of the peer group is large and analyzes the properties of an alternative model in which the peer groups are small nite i nd that when peer groups are small multiple equilibria exist for any positive degree of peer influence a brief application to the variation in youth smoking rates by ethnicity demonstrates the potential interaction of group size and strength of peer eect in generating a wide range of equilibrium behavior

persuasion bias in science can economics help we investigate the impact of conflicts of interests on randomised controlled trials in a game theoretic framework a researcher seeks to persuade an evaluator that the causal effect of a treatment outweighs its cost to justify acceptance the researcher can use private information to manipulate the experiment in three alternative ways i sampling subjects based on their treatment effect ii assigning subjects to treatment based on their baseline outcome or iii selectively reporting experimental outcomes the resulting biases have different welfare implications for sufficiently high acceptance cost in our binary illustration the evaluator loses in cases i and iii but benefits in case ii

erratum to how far the tbl concept of sustainable entrepreneurship extends beyond the various sustainability regulations can greek food manufacturing enterprises sustain their hybrid nature over time this study presents the design and selected results of a comprehensive research on measuring the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship we used the methodology of conjoint analysis and developed a hierarchical framework that lists all the multi attributes that exist in the triple bottom line concept in doing so we collected data from 150 greek food companies the multi attributes were categorized and ranked into the following four headings internal social values isv external social values esv environmental values env and economic values ecv specifically we found that the creation of values that improve the safety and hygiene issues of products to consumers is the most important attribute for the isv domain respectively the most important attribute for the esv domain is the creation of values that impact on the local economy accordingly the creation of values for minimizing environmental impacts was found as the most important attribute for the env domain and lastly the establishment of ecv that increase long run profitability was identified as the most important for the ecv dimension finally all the categorized values offer rich feedback for entrepreneurship scholars and parishioners and to that extent our findings are slightly different from those reported in previous researches to other contexts as we have managed to build an aggregated instrument that promotes the hybrid nature of food companies towards international development

a multinomial choice model of neighborhood effects this paper provides a model of individual decisionmaking in the presence of neighborhood effects by neighborhood effects we refer to interdependencies between individual decisions and the decisions and characteristics of others within a common neighborhood as such neighborhood effects are forms of social interactions in fact the terms would seem to be interchangeable in many contexts within economics there has developed an increasing recognition that neighborhood effects play a possibly major role in explaining a range of individual behaviors rich empirical and theoretical literatures have developed a failing of much of this work is the absence of strong connections between theory and empirics this paper addresses this limitation by providing a model of multinomial choice with neighborhood effects the model represents a generalization of the binary choice model of william brock and steven durlauf 2001a b the model is econometrically implementable and so has the potential of allowing for structural estimation of neighborhood effects section i outlines a basic choice model with neighborhood effects section ii specializes the structure using a multinomial logit framework section iii considers econometric implementation section iv discusses some limitations of the framework and proposes some research directions proofs of all theorems may be found in brock and durlauf 2001c

estimating ethnic preferences using ethnic housing quotas in singapore there are many policies around the world aimed at integrating groups gender ethnic national in education employment immigration and housing in the case of housing since prices may not internalize externalities in residential location choices we need to know preferences for welfare analysis this paper estimates people s taste for living with own ethnic groups ethnic preferences using unique policy variation from the ethnic housing quotas in singapore my approach combines policy induced variation commonly used in reduced form settings with a non parametric identi cation strategy in a structural demand estimation framework a la berry levinsohn and pakes 1995 i nd that all groups have strong preferences to live with at least some other

consumer scapegoatism and limits to green consumerism an axiom that has shaped policy approaches to sustainable consumption has been that if more consumers understand the environmental consequences of their consumption patterns through their market choices they would inevitably put pressure on retailers and manufacturers to move towards sustainable production the result is the proliferation of green consumerism and consumption of green products eco labels to assist consumers in making informed ecologically conscious choices consumer awareness campaigns etc however this paper argues that the dominant focus on green consumerism as against the need for structural changes towards a broader systemic shift is unrealistic furthermore promoting green consumerism at once lays responsibility on consumers to undertake the function of maintaining economic growth while simultaneously even if contradictorily bearing the burden to drive the system towards sustainability given the scope of the sustainability challenge and the urgency with which it must be addressed this paper argues that the consumer is not the most salient agent in the production consumption system and so expecting the consumer through green consumerism to shift society towards scp patterns is consumer scapegoatism this paper draws on the discursive confusion over discourse and practice of sustainable consumption in an attempt to clarify the differences between green consumerism and sustainable consumption and to provide a broadened framework for sustainable consumption policy design that enables wellbeing and ecological sustainability without propagating the economic growth dogma that has a stranglehold on contemporary policy making

sustainable development in a transition economy business case studies from poland abstract in general examples from developed countries are cited when making reference to good practice in sustainable development while there is limited access to case studies from transition economies our aim is to analyse case studies from poland which has recently undergone the transition to a market based economy in order to identify and critically assess both the drivers of and barriers to sustainable development in polish business by demonstrating that evidence of good practice is available within poland we also aim to motivate key stakeholders to follow these examples in an addition to importing practice from developed countries together the 11 case studies analysed in the article demonstrate that while constraints exist to sustainable development there are nonetheless positive examples of best practice from which to learn this review therefore complements other studies conducted on sustainable development in transition economies by indicating that lessons can be drawn on promoting sustainable development within this context and in other similar states undergoing economic political and social transition

a social and environmental approach to microfinance credit scoring microfinance institutions provide loans to low income individuals their credit scoring systems if they exist are strictly financial although many institutions consider the social and environmental impact of their loans they do not incorporate formal systems to estimate these social and environmental impacts this paper proposes that their creditworthiness evaluations should be coherent with their social mission and accordingly should estimate the social and environmental impact of microcredit thus a decision support system to facilitate microcredit granting is proposed using a multicriteria evaluation the assessment of social impact is performed by calculating the social net present value the system captures credit officers experience and addresses incomplete and intangible information the model has been tested in a microfinance institution the paper shows how a small institution can include social and environmental issues in its decision making systems to evaluate credit applications a gap in the preferences was found between members of the board who are socially driven and managers and credit officers who are financially drifted this mission drift was corrected the approach followed contributed to creating a culture of social and environmental assessment within the institution especially among credit officers thereby translating microfinance institutions social mission into numbers

strategic disclosure of research results the cost of proving your honesty in situations where a biased sender provides verifiable information to a receiver i study how strategic reporting affects the incentives to search for information research provides series of signals that can be used selectively in reporting i show that the sender is strictly worse off when his research effort is not observed by the receiver he has to conduct more research than in the observable case and in equilibrium discloses all the information he obtained however this extra research can be socially beneficial and mandatory disclosure of results can thus be welfare reducing finally i identify cases where the sender withholds evidence and for which mandatory disclosure rules become more attractive in 2002 editors of eleven of the most prestigious medical journals announced that they would only publish the results of studies that were entered at their start in a publicly available database 1 pharmaceutical firms conduct clinical trials to test the efficacy and potential side effects of their drugs and to compare them to competitors products publishing results of studies is an efficient way to influence doctors prescriptions and patients tastes however firms can conduct multiple trials and select the most favourable results the system of mandatory disclosure adopted by medical journals is a response to the fear of such selective publishing 2 it makes the research effort of pharmaceutical firms more observable and will influence both the information they disclose and the amount of research they perform in the present article i study the interaction between the research and disclosure decisions which is an essential element in many settings the adoption of mandatory disclosure rules has subtle effects and i discover that leaving the research effort unobservable can sometimes be socially beneficial 3 i study the interaction between research and disclosure in a model where a biased sender searches for information and communicates it strategically to a receiver who will

network effects in public transit use evidence from a spatially autoregressive mode choice model for new york this article empirically tests for positive network effects in transit use by applying a spatial autoregressive logit mode choice model with 1997 98 work trip data from new york city positive network effects exist when people prefer to use transit together with other people as a result of social spill over although these network preferences should differ for each person because of statistical restrictions in the model individual network preferences cannot be obtained however it is possible to derive econometrically a measure of aggregate network preference this paper can be seen in the wider context of other recent work focusing on the analysis of spatial dependencies and network effects in travel

peers at work we study peer effects in the workplace specifically we investigate whether how and why the productivity of a worker depends on the productivity of coworkers in the same team using high frequency data on worker productivity from a large supermarket chain we find strong evidence of positive productiv ity spillovers from the introduction of highly productive personnel into a shift worker effort is positively related to the productivity of workers who see him but not workers who do not see him additionally workers respond more to the presence of coworkers with whom they frequently interact we conclude that social pressure can partially internalize free riding externalities that are built into many workplaces jel j24 l81 m54

designing a global standardized methodology for measuring social entrepreneurship activity the global entrepreneurship monitor social entrepreneurship study although there is a high level of practitioner policymaker and scholar interest in social entrepreneurship most research is based on case studies and success stories of successful social entrepreneurs in a single country we develop a methodology to measure population based social entrepreneurship activity sea prevalence rates and test it in 49 countries our results provide insights into institutional and individual drivers of sea using the global entrepreneurship monitor gem methodology of total entrepreneurial activity tea we find that countries with higher rates of traditional entrepreneurial activity also tend to have higher rates of social entrepreneurial activity we develop a broad definition of social entrepreneurship and then explore types based on social mission revenue model and innovativeness

the dynamics of willingness to consume abstract it is increasingly acknowledged that the growing consumption in the north constitutes an important part of global environmental problems to improve the possibilities of dealing with this aspect of the problems this paper explores some of the driving forces behind the growth in consumption the first section introduces the environmental debate on consumption including the relationship between final consumption and the consumption of resources the recent political acceptance of dealing with consumption and the fundamental conditions for consumption growth in the north in the following sections a cross disciplinary approach is applied in a broad search for the driving forces behind the willingness to consume throughout the exposition two questions are explored 1 why are productivity increases largely transformed into income increases instead of more leisure 2 why is such a large part of these income increases used for the consumption of goods and services with a relatively high materials intensity instead of less material intensive alternatives the explanations are divided into three groups first the economic explanations including socio economic aspects related to the institutional set up of the economy second socio psychological explanations focusing on consumption from the perspective of the human being embedded in specific social relations third historical and socio technological explanations focusing on different aspects of everyday life the paper concludes with some reflections on the political implications of the analysis

the paradox of sustainable innovation the eroom effect moore s law backwards innovation has been widely acknowledged as a key mechanism for addressing sustainable development concerns however less attention has focused on downstream commercialization challenges such as achieving increasingly complex and stringent regulatory approval such challenges may hinder the development of more sustainable technologies especially those coming from smaller or publically funded institutes as well they may obstruct the development of applications that could provide societal benefits but may only have limited commercial viability due to small market niches or applicability to customers with limited financial means we explore this apparent paradox using the concept of the eroom effect moore s law backwards i e where improved price performance due to technological advances are outweighed by increasing costs of regulatory approval and other commercialization costs we illustrate this phenomenon with two cases of publically funded institutes one developing transgenic cotton and the other lignin transformation technology that can replace petroleum based feedstocks in a number of industrial applications we discuss the unintended consequences of the eroom effect and conclude with implications for industry policy and ngos

institutional entrepreneurship in sustainable urban development dutch successes as inspiration for transformation sustainable urban development is a wicked problem on the basis of three case studies we conclude that institutional entrepreneurs play an important role in sustainable urban development the question we address is how institutional entrepreneurs do this we theorize and find six tactics that entrepreneurs employ to influence both formal and informal institutions to create a favourable institutional context for sustainable development we do so by combining insights from both institutional theory and institutional economics through framing and theorizing institutional entrepreneurs create new visions on sustainable urban developments whereas collaboration and lobbying are important for the realization of the projects the study adds new insights into how negotiation private governance contracts property rights and standardization certification standards form a key to altering incentive schemes and to create a competitive advantage through the joint changes in both informal institutions and the formal institutions the entrepreneurs are able to change the institutional context in which projects are embedded thereby increasing the feasibility of their projects 2013 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

one swallow doesn t make a summer new evidence on anchoring effects some researchers have argued that anchoring in economic valuations casts doubt on the assumption of consistent and stable preferences we present new evidence that explores the strength of certain anchoring results we then present a theoretical framework that provides insights into why we should be cautious of initial empirical findings in general the model importantly highlights that the rate of false positives depends not only on the observed significance level but also on statistical power research priors and the number of scholars exploring the question importantly a few independent replications dramatically increase the chances that the original finding is true

agricultural innovation and new ventures assessing the commercial potential innovation and new ventures have been part of the food production and distribution industry for decades if not centuries in recent times new ventures under the banner of valueadded agriculture have become the mantra for producers politicians and agri businesses that are searching for better margins and higher incomes than provided by traditional commodity production and distribution but the commercial potential of value added ventures and innovations is not obvious often is not realized and may be frequently overestimated in fact studies of new business start ups in agriculture and other sectors indicate that a high proportion of those businesses fail during the first twelve months of operation and many are not sustainable even after this most vulnerable start up period sba the objective of this paper is to provide a framework for assessing the commercial potential of innovation in agriculture we highlight the four critical components of market analysis essential to successful innovation and new ventures those are the assessment of customers competitors sustainable competitive advantage and internal capabilities we identify and describe where concepts of economics

sustainability driven entrepreneurship principles of organization design abstract concern about whether the social ecological processes that provide for human wellbeing can be sustained has given rise to sustainable development as a broad social goal as a dynamic force for change entrepreneurship is increasingly expected to contribute to this goal this article reports on the results of an intensive empirical study investigating the organization design expertise necessary for sustainability driven entrepreneurs to succeed in a competitive market context results reveal five principles of organization design that diverge in important ways from the conventional principles of entrepreneurship suggesting the expertise required for venture success differs depending on entrepreneurial values and motives

associative sustainable business models cases in the bean to bar chocolate industry abstract this study contributes to the growing literature of sustainability business models sbm by introducing a new category coined as associative sustainability business models asbm we theorize that this category encompasses firms with innovative business models that rely on partnership association and collaboration to create value in the triple bottom line and address pressing sustainability challenges following an inductive research approach we analyze four case studies of asbm ventures in the chocolate industry our findings reveal the emergence of two key theoretical constructs firm location and claimant identity that help to identify differences across asbm designs and lead to four different subcategories of asbm in addition drawing on the literature of sustainable business models we develop theoretical propositions that link our four subcategories of asbm to the business case for sustainability therefore we extend the literature on sbm by providing new insights on how business model innovations based on strong association and collaboration can generate solutions to social and environmental challenges

why are we growth addicted the hard way towards degrowth in the involutionary western development path abstract by questioning the origins of the inertia facing the degrowth movement this contribution identifies property as the constitutive institution of capitalism and property expansion as the dominant socioeconomic process leading world societies to economic path dependence techno institutional lock in and eco social impasse demonstrating why and how property based economic rationality subordinates ecological and social considerations to capitalist requirements this paper stresses both the need for an inversion in the hierarchy of social norms and the systemic opposition to such an inversion which emanates from the capitalist industrial expansion the text also brings to light some disregarded processes underlying the current economic crisis by pointing out the institutional and technological locked in situation into which the western development path has led our societies

strong sustainable consumption governance precondition for a degrowth path this paper aims to link two debates and literatures at the cutting edge of sustainable development research and governance sustainable consumption and degrowth interestingly these literatures have only recently started to exchange and integrate insights despite their similar interest in the fundamental systemic challenges to sustainable development the paper argues that this lack of connection is due to a predominance of perspectives in sustainable consumption governance that focus almost exclusively on questions of efficiency gains this weak sustainable consumption governance however is not able to address the challenges to sustainable development arising from overconsumption in general or the rebound effect and distributive issues in particular in contrast a strong sustainable consumption perspective provides a basis for a promising inquiry into the linkages between consumption and sustainable development as well as a fruitful exchange with degrowth specifically it allows the delineation of relevant insights on the role of values in governance obstacles to political reform and promising political strategies for the degrowth debate and literature

market imperfections opportunity and sustainable entrepreneurship this research develops the argument that four types of market imperfections i e inefficient firms externalities flawed pricing mechanisms and information asymmetries at once contribute to environmental degradation and that they also provide significant opportunities for the creation of radical technologies and innovative business models we show that these opportunities establish the foundations for an emerging model of sustainable entrepreneurship one which enables founders to obtain entrepreneurial rents while simultaneously improving local and global social and environmental conditions to advance this new field we offer suggestions for a research agenda focusing on two areas the relationship between market imperfections and entrepreneurial opportunities and the emerging field of sustainable entrepreneurship

social exclusion and transgenic technology the case of brazilian agriculture many argue that transgenic technology will have wide ranging implications for farmers in developing nations a key concern is that competencies may be destroyed by predominantly foreign multinational transgenic technologies exacerbating problems of social exclusion in the case of subsistence farmers conversely those that fail to adopt the technology may become uncompetitive particularly in commodity based export markets drawing on interview data conducted in brazil and supporting data collected in north america europe and china we found that the impact of transgenic technology varies it has less impact on farmers that adapt the products to their crop systems and environment and greater negative implications for less formally educated subsistence farmers in consequence of both complexity and compatibility earlier attempts at industrializing agriculture through technological innovation led to vastly improved agricultural output and exports but the benefits of productivity was not equitably distributed d lee 2005 american journal of agricultural economics 87 5 1325 1334 nor was it designed to meet specific local environmental and socioeconomic farmer conditions exacerbating social exclusion multinationals attempting to introduce transgenic technology without considering the broader social and ethical implications will invite resistance we discuss the implications for policy makers multinationals and small scale farmers

the physical dimension of international trade part 2 indirect global resource flows between 1962 and 2005 global trade is increasingly being challenged by observations of growing burden shifting in particular of environmental problems this paper presents the first worldwide calculations of shifted burden based on material flow indicators in particular direct and indirect physical trade balances this study covers the period between 1962 and 2005 and includes between 82 and 173 countries per year the results show that indirect trade flow volumes have increased to around 41 billion tonnes in 2005 the traded resources with the highest share of associated indirect flows are iron hard coal copper tin and increasingly palm oil regarding the burden balance between regions europe is the biggest shifter whereas australia and latin america are the largest takers of environmental burden due to resource extraction to evaluate the findings from a global perspective the results are analysed in terms of resource flow induced environmental pressure related to a country s land area in terms of total and per capita area resource endowment and population density seem to be more relevant in determining the physical trade balance including indirect flows than income level

discrete choice with social interactions this paper provides an analysis of aggregate behavioural outcomes when individual utility exhibits social interaction effects we study generalized logistic models of individual choice which incorporate terms reflecting the desire of individuals to conform to the behaviour of others in an environment of noncooperative decisionmaking laws of large numbers are generated in such environments multiplicity of equilibria in these models which are equivalent to the existence of multiple self consistent means for average choice behaviour will exist when the social interactions exceed a particular threshold local stability of these multiple equilibria is also studied the properties of the noncooperative economy are contrasted with the properties of an economy in which a social planner determines the set of individual choices finally a likelihood function based on the theoretical model is given and conditions for the econometric identifiability of the model are established

optimal pricing for a multinomial logit choice model with network effects we consider a seller s problem of determining revenue maximizing prices for an assortment of products that exhibit network effects customers make purchase decisions according to a multinomial logit choice model modified to incorporate network effects so that the utility each individual customer gains from purchasing a particular product depends on the market s total consumption of that product in the setting of homogeneous products we show that if the network effect is comparatively weak then the optimal pricing decision of the seller is to set identical prices for all products however if the network effect is strong then the optimal pricing decision is to set the price of one product low and to set the prices of all other products to a single high value this boosts the sales of the single low price product in comparison to the sales of all other products we also obtain comparative statics results that describe how optimal prices and sales levels vary with a parameter that determines the strengt

subsidies in carbon finance for promoting renewable energy development abstract faced with decreasing exhaustible nonrenewable resources and climate change resulting from the use of fossil energy it is urgent to accelerate the development of renewable energy but the development of renewable energy requires abundant financial support both from banks and governments this article considers bank loans to develop renewable energy and highlights the effects of government subsidies by using a microeconomic model and taking all stakeholders including the government banks and shareholders of the firm into consideration this study finds that government subsidies raise outputs and debt levels of renewable energy firms and improve shareholder value as well more importantly financial debts stimulate firms outputs but decrease the net profit per unit of debt due to the limited liability effects finally subsidy policy plays a critical role in renewable energy development because environmental efficiencies of subsidies decrease with the subsidy degree other valuable conclusions would be achieved if principal agent problem and other corporate governance factors are employed

market and non market determinants of private consumption and their impacts on the environment abstract the view of consumption as an activity combining market and non market elements with the aim of attaining life enjoyment targets allows one to focus on the social and institutional determinants of the border between market and non market components of the consumption process and to consider the interrelations of market and non market domains of social life as a possible source of the environmental degradation which derives from consumption activities in this paper an analytical framework is proposed in which the view of consumption as a social process and the neo ricardian theory of prices and profits are combined to yield an evaluation of consumer efficiency and of its environmental effects the paper argues that the social and institutional framework in which consumption is embedded significantly determines the impact of human activities on the natural environment and that environmental degradation is intimately connected with a distortion in the consumption process towards a predominance of market relations and an excess of labour in industrial society two examples household energy conservation and private transportation illustrate the analytical framework and suggest the importance of redrawing the border between market and non market domains of social life in environmental policy

environmentally sustainable household consumption from aggregate environmental pressures to priority fields of action unsustainable consumption patterns of the north or rather of the global affluent consumers class have been identified by agenda 21 as one of the key driving forces behind the unsustainable development however neither accounting based on the system of national accounts sna nor household economics provide the proper instruments to assess the environmental impact of household decision making eco efficiency assessments as familiar in the business sector provide no appropriate tool for households as an alternative an environmental space based assessment scheme is suggested covering the major pressures on the environment caused by household decisions the methodology is used twice once to analyse the environmental relevance of the main activity clusters of household consumption and once to identify the dominant acts of consumption within each cluster the latter provide the basis for deriving environmental performance indicators a rough analysis of household influence potentials permits to identify housing eating and mobility as the three priority fields for action for minimising the environmental impact of households extending the influence analysis actor matrixes are derived allocating influence and thus responsibility for environmental pressures to different groups of economic agents

policy entrepreneurship creativity and sustainability the case of principi attivi active ingredients in apulia region southern italy the present work assesses the case of principi attivi active ingredients this is a policy initiative of the apulia region in southern italy to support new start ups of young entrepreneurs since 2010 the year of green revolution 2 0 entrepreneurship remains active and competitive in the globalised world through sustainable innovation initiatives if innovation is the successful implementation of new ideas then creativity can be seen as the seed of innovation inspired by these arguments and the case of principi attivi active ingredients the present work adds new insights to the current debate and investigates the relationships between creativity and sustainability from supply and demand side perspectives in particular this paper addresses the following aims i on the demand side we question how creativity relates to sustainability through entrepreneurship to reach this aim we employ a cluster analysis and a network meta analysis nma approach to determine the existence of latent relationships between creativity and sustainability within the project proposals submitted to principi attivi active ingredients ii to understand on the demand side what are the main factors affecting the allocation of regional funding for young entrepreneurs and iii to determine on the supply side to what extent creativity and sustainability proposals influence the outcome of the selection process to reach aims ii and iii we use a probabilistic model to infer data on the probability of project proposals to be admitted to regional funding main results suggests i the existence of latent relationships between creativity and sustainability in business initiatives ii the potential propensity of the decision maker to support green entrepreneurship and larger groups of young entrepreneurs iii the limited influence almost non existent on the decision maker of creativity and sustainability proposals during the evaluation process the present work point us to assert the persistence of asymmetric information between the young entrepreneur and the policy maker adequate initiatives are needed to close this gap to help foster creativity and sustainability driven entrepreneurship

exogenous shocks social skill and power urban energy transitions as social fields abstract the constantly growing scholarship on urban energy transitions needs a framework to analyze these transitions this article proposes the field perspective fp as an approach for the study of urban energy transitions fp analyses how the interplay of actors who are dedicated to a similar purpose and the structures guiding this interplay co evolve by applying fp to the energy transition in the german city emden the article shows how the transition evolves through a alterations in the exogenous context of the city e g national feed in tariffs for renewables b the social skill and changing interplay of local actors engaged in the transition and c the emergence of power constellations and rules

the optimal amount of discretion to allow in disclosure in this paper a party with private information can verifiably disclose some but not all of his information the optimal amount of discretion to allow the informed party is studied that is should the informed party be allowed unlimited discretion in choosing which elements of his information set to disclose or should restrictions be imposed that limit this discretion the model is formulated in the spirit of a persuasion game it is demonstrated that under certain circumstances rules that limit discretion increase the informativeness of disclosures and thus improve economic decisions

site selection bias in program evaluation site selection bias can occur when the probability that a program is adopted or evaluated is correlated with its impacts i test for site selection bias in the context of the opower energy conservation programs using 111 randomized control trials involving 8 6 million households across the united states predictions based on rich microdata from the first 10 replications substantially overstate efficacy in the next 101 sites several mechanisms caused this positive selection for example utilities in more environmentalist areas are more likely to adopt the program and their customers are more responsive to the treatment also because utilities initially target treatment at higher usage consumer subpopulations efficacy drops as the program is later expanded the results illustrate how program evaluations can still give systematically biased out of sample predictions even after many replications jel codes c93 d12 l94 o12 q41

removing environmental market failure through support mechanisms insights from green start ups in the british french and german energy sectors environmentally relevant market failure related to the lack of value attached to environmentally beneficial economic activity constrains environmental entrepreneurship as reported by dean and mcmullen journal of business venturing 22 50 76 2007 unless this market failure is addressed green start ups will be confined to a green prison as stated in pacheco et al sustainable development and entrepreneurship 25 464 480 2010 unable to grow and disseminate their eco innovations out with environmental niche markets in britain france and germany support mechanisms promote the expansion of renewable power technologies this paper examines environmental entrepreneurs perceptions of the importance and effectiveness of support mechanisms in removing environmental market failure in the energy sectors of these three countries our findings suggest that these support mechanisms are perceived by entrepreneurs as having provided a crucial pecuniary motivation among consumers to adopt eco innovation creating greater market certainty for green start ups however when these support mechanisms are reformed aiming at greater market integration for eco innovation green start ups find this transition from protection to more market exposure as challenging and more suited for incumbent firms

where do the poor live this paper argues that the distribution of global poverty has changed and that most of the world s poor no longer live in countries officially classified as low income countries lics it is estimated that the majority of the world s poor or up to a billion people live in middle income countries mics this pattern is largely as a result of the recent graduation into the mic category of a number of populous countries the paper discusses the trends in the distribution of global poverty and opens a wider discussion on the potential implications for aid and development cooperation

games of social interactions with local and global externalities abstract in this paper we present a result on the existence of pure strategies nash equilibrium which covers a large class of games with local and global social interactions the result highlights common features of well known games analyzed in the literature

does selling state silver generate private gold neighbourhood impacts of state house sales this paper utilises two politically determined natural experiments affecting state provided social housing to examine the impact that housing tenure status has on neighbourhood outcomes from 1990 new zealand s national government sold a substantial number of state houses either to existing tenants home buys or to other purchasers vacant sales from 1999 the labour government ended home buys reduced vacant sales and increased acquisitions while vacant sales had no material effects on local outcomes a higher prevalence of home buys led to increased local house price appreciation despite demographic trends that would otherwise have led to falling relative house prices in those communities

optimal information disclosure a sender randomly draws a prospect characterized by its profitability to the sender and its relevance to a receiver the receiver observes only a signal provided by the sender and accepts the prospect if his bayesian inference about the prospect s relevance exceeds his opportunity cost the sender s profits are typically maximized by partial information disclosure whereby the receiver is induced to accept less relevant but more profitable prospects switches by pooling them with more relevant but less profitable ones baits extensions include maximizing a weighted sum of sender profits and receiver surplus and allowing the sender to use monetary incentives

the power of bias in economics research we investigate two critical dimensions of the credibility of empirical economics research statistical power and bias we survey 159 empirical economics literatures that draw upon 64 076 estimates of economic parameters reported in more than 6 700 empirical studies half of the research areas have nearly 90 of their results under powered the median statistical power is 18 or less a simple weighted average of those reported results that are adequately powered power 80 reveals that nearly 80 of the reported effects in these empirical economics literatures are exaggerated typically by a factor of two and with one third inflated by a factor of four or more

identification of endogenous social effects the reflection problem this paper examines the reflection problem that arises when a researcher observing the distribution of behaviour in a population tries to infer whether the average behaviour in some group influences the behaviour of the individuals that comprise the group it is found that inference is not possible unless the researcher has prior information specifying the compisition of reference groups if this information is available the prospects for inference depend critically on the population relationship between the variables defining reference groups and those directly affecting outcomes inference is difficult to implossible if these variables are functionally dependent or are statistically independent the prospects are better if the variables defining reference groups and those directly affecting outcomes are moderately related in the population

social networks neighborhood effects and credit access evidence from rural guatemala we measure the extent to which social networks determine sources of credit from a survey of 465 households in western guatemala we estimate correlated contextual and endogenous effects of networks at the neighborhood church and village levels finding that church networks display endogenous effects in credit access we calculate an elasticity of social imitation esi indicating if the percentage of people accessing microfinance in a church network doubles the probability of an individual household accessing microfinance increases by 14 1 percent a magnitude similar to our estimated esis for televisions and cell phones within church and neighbor networks

the impact of competitors firm power divergence on chinese smes environmental and financial performance competitor pressure is one of the major reasons that a sme engages in environmentally friendly or damaging activities extant research has argued that environmental strengths and concerns have mirror opposite relationships with stakeholder antecedents as well as with performance outcomes we suggest this argument does not reflect the reality building on stakeholder management and red queen theories we hypothesize that environmental strengths and concerns have differential relationships with competitors firm power exchange and financial performance for chinese smes results of ten interviews a pretest and a large scale field study indicate that competitors firm power divergence has a positive relationship with environmental strengths yet the link between this divergence and environmental concerns does not exist further environmental strengths mediate the relationship between competitors firm power divergence and financial performance of chinese smes

product services as a research field past present and future reflections from a decade of research in the last decade many researchers institutes and programs in the eu paid attention to product service systems pss given this massive effort it is time to take stock is pss research a theoretical field in its own right is the pss concept indeed the road to the factor 10 world is it the road to enhanced competitiveness what is needed to really use the potential of the concept this paper discusses these questions summarizing the analysis done in the pss review book new business for old europe various eu sponsored projects and the conceptual approach chosen in a new research network on sustainable consumption and production called score 2006 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

a social interaction model with ordered choices abstract we introduce a social interaction model with ordered choices we provide a micro foundation for the econometric model based on an incomplete information network game and characterize the sufficient condition for the existence of a unique equilibrium of the game we discuss the identification of the model and propose to estimate the model by the nfxp and npl algorithms we conduct monte carlo simulations to investigate the finite sample performance of these two estimation methods

start up sustainability an insurmountable cost or a life giving investment abstract an outstanding question in the entrepreneurship literature reigns given recent emphases on sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility if small start ups are generally stretched for time and resources does it enhance their chances for survival and success to be sustainable and socially responsible new firms can aid in rectifying pressing environmental and social issues by being more sustainable while many entrepreneurs like a sustainable business model and or mission investment may not follow so willingly this paper examines a sample of 300 start ups across thirty cities around the world to consider whether sustainability is rewarded by investors investors signal confidence in start ups when they infuse life extending investments into them this analysis also considers whether a more sustainable national context affects investor confidence and whether a sustainable firm within a sustainable national context gains more investor attention and investment results show that investors avoid sustainable firms particularly those that are environmentally sustainable moreover investors enjoy national contexts that are socially responsible but pay no attention to those that are environmentally conscious in addition firms that are sustainable in a sustainable national context are not better off for attracting investment insights for policy are that mainstream investors are attracted by national social policies but these investors are unlikely to be the main force behind sustainable venture growth under today s conditions

the paradox of growth critique narrative analysis of the finnish sustainable consumption and production debate abstract academic discussion on economic growth and the environment has made a comeback under the auspices of the degrowth debate to date however literature on the topic has been mainly theoretical and empirical studies of actual policy discussions have received less attention this article contributes to the debate with a narrative policy analysis of interviews with members of finland s committee on sustainable consumption and production narrative policy analysis is suitable for complex policy cases by tracing and comparing the different stories non stories and counterstories in the debate the analysis clarifies the issue and paves the way for solutions we found that it is common even among business and ministry representatives to criticize the current growth bound economic system from the perspective of narrative policy analysis however this critique only increases uncertainty and complexity in the policy field which paradoxically leads to a strengthening of the dominant growth stories we suggest that constructing a complete degrowth story is essential for supporting democratic deliberation on sustainability robust institutional support for degrowth work together with research and experimentation are important milestones on the way

from green technology development to green innovation inducing regulatory adoption of pathogen detection technology for sustainable forestry technological entrepreneurship has been widely acknowledged as a key driver of modern industrial economies and more recently a panacea for environmental and social problems however our current understanding of how green technology ventures emerge and diffuse more sustainable innovations remains limited we advance theory on green entrepreneurship by drawing on institutional work to refine and extend our understanding of how entrepreneurs may influence government policies and practices in their attempts to diffuse green technology we develop a theoretical framework that combines institutional work with a search tool the technological commercial organizational and societal tcos framework of innovative uncertainties which identifies key opportunities hurdles and potential unintended consequences at early stages of technology development we present a detailed case study of a potential university based green tech venture developing pathogen detection technology for forestry protection foreign pathogens spread by international trade can have major detrimental impacts on forests and the industries that rely on them our analysis found that green technology demonstrating technological feasibility is necessary but not sufficient green tech ventures must also engage in institutional work in this case articulating the technology s benefits to regulators to establish legitimacy and avoid misuse that can hinder its adoption we thus add to previous studies by emphasizing that institutional work could be a main activity for a green tech venture a core entrepreneurial strategy rather than an afterthought

the growth discourse growth policy and sustainable development two thought experiments abstract this paper addresses three aspects of growth the discourse the policy and the impacts the growth discourse claims that the central factor for social economic political and environmental progress is economic growth it is assumed to create wealth and provide the necessary means for social and environmental purposes on the basis of the growth discourse different growth policies can be derived based on different economic and political ideologies in order to reveal the implications of de facto degrowth two thought experiments are conducted for physical and economic end to growth strategies the latter is capable of meeting environmental objectives but implies significant social tensions and hardships and calls for transition strategies consisting of carefully designed steps

sustainable development and entrepreneurship past contributions and future directions this article discusses the emerging research concerned with sustainable development and entrepreneurship which is the focus of this special issue of the journal of business venturing entrepreneurship has been recognized as a major conduit for sustainable products and processes and new ventures are being held up as a panacea for many social and environmental concerns however there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the nature of entrepreneurship s role and how it may unfold we begin with an overview of sustainable development and the role of entrepreneurship and outline recent contributions exploring this role we then summarize the papers presented in this special issue and conclude with suggestions for further research

rewriting the bases of capitalism reflexive modernity and ecological sustainability as the foundations of a new normative framework the debate on sustainable globalized development rests on two clearly stated economic assumptions that development proceeds solely and inevitably through industrialization and the proliferation of capital intensive high technology towards the creation of service sector economies and that globalization based on a neoliberal capitalist free market ideology provides the only vehicle for such development sustainability according to the proponents of globalized development is merely a function of market forces which will generate the solutions for all problems including the environmental dilemmas that loom over the globe today the social focus of globalized development is clearly the individual and the much touted goal of development in the context of these debates is the emancipation of the individual from want this glorification of the individual so characteristic of the enlightenment has defined all aspects of modernity leading to approaches that are self focused and that give little thought to the needs of society or even the social context the increasing impoverishment of human life and the growing environmental degradation however provide a poignant counterpoint to this onrush of capital interests demanding a reassessment of sustainability separate from the logic of industrialization and globalized development this paper examines the unfolding of the logic of capitalism which underlies the structure of the rostowian model of development and the problems in the assumptions underlying today s globalized development process the evident impossibility of sustainability in the current growth based market system leads to the examination of alternatives including a reflexive understanding of the choices and the inclusion of opportunity costs related to the social environmental and economic aspects of decision making the integration of all factors of production into the logic of development provides a sustainable alternative to the current system

green entrepreneurship in transition economies a case study of bosnia and herzegovina abstract the countries with transition economies are under pressure to increase entrepreneurial activities that will enable fast growth with minimum impact on natural resources despite specific challenges the economies in transition face development of sustainable entrepreneurship has not been in focus of the academic research this leaves some open questions such as those concerning the role and mode of operation of public policies level of risk and its influence on entrepreneurship creativity role of knowledge in diffusing entrepreneurial values and fostering aspirations externalities created for the society and the connection between sustainability and entrepreneurship this paper aims to introduce a discussion on sustainable entrepreneurship in countries with economies in transition the research carried out included i review of literature and statistical data on entrepreneurial environment ii structured interviews with representatives of government civil society business sector and academia to understand the society s perception of green entrepreneurship and iii analysis of case studies on green entrepreneurs it can be concluded that entrepreneurs in economies in transition do not seem to be ready to respond to the challenges or to take any risks by investing in green business but also that the government and educational institutions do not recognize their own role and fail to support the development of green entrepreneurship for those green oriented businesses the key sociological constructs are personal motivation and mission locality and a forward thinking orientation in terms of sustainability all businesses managed to achieve the economic environmental and social value creation without any support from the government

the transition to the sustainable enterprise abstract the sustainable enterprise is entering a new phase private enterprise engages in a shift from environmentally friendly production methods towards true sustainable entrepreneurship dealing both with quality and volume aspects of natural capital corporate governance changes at two levels first the internal governance of the firm alters as new environmental preservation demands come forward secondly the external governance of the firm changes as new initiatives need to be employed to ensure adequate and sustainable social technological and infrastructural conditions for production it is argued that the preservation of non reproducible key stocks of energy biodiversity and space requires new and special attention in the strategic management of the sustainable enterprise also it is shown that evolving ethical values of intergenerational equity demand a timely transition to new business practices finally a program for governments and enterprises to enhance progress towards the next stage of sustainable entrepreneurship is presented