asset transformation and the challenges to servitize a utility business model abstract the traditional energy utility business model is under pressure and energy services are expected to play an important role for the energy transition experts and scholars argue that utilities need to innovate their business models and transform from commodity suppliers to service providers the transition from a product oriented capital intensive business model based on tangible assets towards a service oriented expense intensive business model based on intangible assets may present great managerial and organizational challenges little research exists about such transitions for capital intensive commodity providers and particularly energy utilities where the challenges to servitize are expected to be greatest this qualitative paper explores the barriers to servitization within selected swiss and german utility companies through a series of interviews with utility managers one of them is asset transformation the shift from tangible to intangible assets as major input factor for the value proposition which is proposed as a driver for the complexity of business model transitions managers need to carefully manage those challenges and find ways to operate both new service and established utility business models aside policy makers can support the transition of utilities through more favorable regulatory frameworks for energy services and by supporting the exchange of knowledge in the industry

history friendly models of industry evolution the computer industry the model presented in this paper is the first of a new generation of evolutionary economic models history friendly models history friendly models are formal models that aim to capture in stylized form qualitative and appreciative theories about the mechanisms and factors affecting industry evolution technological advance and institutional change put forth by empirical scholars of industrial economics technological change business organization and strategy and other social scientists in this paper we have analyzed the long term evolution of the computer industry in particular we have examined the emergence of a dominant firm in mainframes the introduction of a major innovation microprocessor the opening up of a new market segment personal computers ad the competition there between newcomers and diversified old established firms we have taken a body of verbal appreciative theorizing developed a formal representation of that theory and found that the formal version of that theory is consistent and capable of generating the stylized facts the appreciative theory purports to explain going through this analytic exercise has significantly sharpened our theoretical understanding of the key factors behind salient aspects of the evolution of the computer industry copyright 1999 by oxford university press

platform competition in two sided markets many if not most markets with network externalities are two sided to succeed platforms in industries such as software portals and media payment systems and the internet must get both sides of the market on board accordingly platforms devote much attention to their business model that is to how they court each side while making money overall this paper builds a model of platform competition with two sided markets it unveils the determinants of price allocation and end user surplus for different governance structures profit maximizing platforms and not for profit joint undertakings and compares the outcomes with those under an integrated monopolist and a ramsey planner jel l5 l82 l86 l96

profiting from negawatts reducing absolute consumption and emissions through a performance based energy economy abstract current energy and ghg emissions policies either focus directly on emissions or promote renewable production and the implementation of specific efficiency measures meanwhile the fundamental structure of the energy market based on profits through energy throughput remains largely unchallenged this policy oversight prevents the transition to an energy economy in which profits are based on energy services delivered at the lowest energy cost a performance based energy economy pbee the pbee applies the combined concepts of the performance economy and energy services to the energy sector energy service companies escos are discussed as an example of pbee practices the implications for energy suppliers and consumers as well as the conditions for pbee diffusion and consequences for technological change are also explored the expected environmental social and economic benefits are described however absolute consumption and emissions reductions may prove elusive due to the rebound effect in order to forestall rebound led increases complementary policy measures likely to lead to absolute reductions are required

chicken and egg competition among intermediation service providers we analyze a model of imperfect price competition between intermediation service providers we insist on features that are relevant for informational intermediation via the internet the presence of indirect network externalities the possibility of using the nonexclusive services of several intermediaries and the widespread practice of price discrimination based on users identity and on usage efficient market structures emerge in equilibrium as well as some specific form of inefficient structures intermediaries have incentives to propose non exclusive services as this moderates competition and allows them to exert market power we analyze in detail the pricing and business strategies followed by intermediation services providers copyright 2003 by the rand corporation

an empirical typology of energy services based on a well developed market france abstract the investigation is an attempt to apply a set of consistent and official definitions of energy services es energy efficiency services ees and energy performance contracting epc on a well developed market france after defining the historical context of the french market the authors describe the types of offers that are presently made and that fall within the definition of energy services there are many classic and novel factors for the success of energy services for instance the energy services market is now partly structured by the cee scheme the french white certificates or energy certificates scheme also the grid problems lead to new services the companies active on the market are described as a result of an empirical survey of es market in france this empirical survey of es market in france includes estimates of the number of companies and of their turnover both for es and ees examples and case studies are developed as a background

profiting from business model innovation evidence from pay as you drive auto insurance the emergent business model literature revolving mainly around the mechanisms through which new business models create and deliver value has left the value capture challenge under explored this paper examines how an incumbent firm profits from business model innovation through the study of pay as you drive auto insurance although business models do not warrant formal intellectual property ip protection their constituent components e g business methods and brands often do drawing on the profiting from innovation framework we find that formal and strategic ip protection methods play complementary roles initially formal ip rights are used primarily as a defensive strategy as vehicles for packaging and trading know how and most importantly as a means of buying time to build specialised complementary assets long term competitiveness however depends on whether the innovator builds a strong position in specialised complementary assets and is capable of reconfiguring them over time in line with changes in the market environment thus we explicate the complex mechanism and dynamic capability for capturing value from business model innovation

subjective and objective evaluations of teacher effectiveness research on the impact of teachers on student achievement e g jonah e rockoff 2004 steven g rivkin hanushek and john kain 2005 has established two stylized facts 1 teacher effectiveness varies widely and 2 outside of experience qualifications that determine a teacher s certification and salary bear little relation to outcomes this provides motivation to understand how to identify effective and ineffective teachers particularly early in their careers studies that examine how student achievement data can predict teachers impacts on student outcomes in the future e g robert gordon thomas j kane and douglas o staiger 2006 dan goldhaber and michael hansen 2010 conclude that using such data to selectively retain teachers could yield large benefits however value added measures of effectiveness are noisy and can be biased if some teachers are persistently given students that are difficult to teach in ways that are hard to observe thus using other information may achieve more stability and accuracy in teacher evaluations there is also a literature on subjective teaching evaluations i e evaluations by the school principal or evaluations based on classroom observation protocols or rubrics which also finds significant relationships between evaluations and achievement gains however these studies typically investigate how evaluations predict the exam performance of current not

increasing returns path dependence and the study of politics it is increasingly common for social scientists to describe political processes as path dependent the concept however is often employed without careful elaboration this article conceptualizes path dependence as a social process grounded in a dynamic of increasing returns reviewing recent literature in economics and suggesting extensions to the world of politics the article demonstrates that increasing returns processes are likely to be prevalent and that good analytical foundations exist for exploring their causes and consequences the investigation of increasing returns can provide a more rigorous framework for developing some of the key claims of recent scholarship in historical institutionalism specific patterns of timing and sequence matter a wide range of social outcomes may be possible large consequences may result from relatively small or contingent events particular courses of action once introduced can be almost impossible to reverse and consequently political development is punctuated by critical moments or junctures that shape the basic contours of social life

not irrational but habitual the importance of behavioural lock in in energy consumption abstract a substantial body of literature has shown that our behaviour is often guided by habits the existence of habits not fully conscious forms of behaviour is important as it contradicts rational choice theory their presence thus calls for the setting of new instruments as they make it unlikely that consumers be capable of exercising control over their energy consumption in reaction to given incentives this is further increased in the evolutionary perspective where the current carbon based socio technical system constrains and shapes consumers choices through structural forces habits being potentially counterintentional they may explain the efficiency paradox in energy as well as the continued increase of energy consumption despite the rising environmental awareness among the population policies aiming at reducing energy consumption should thus specifically address the performance context of habits for instance targeting new residents has proven to be more effective given that their preceding habits have been disturbed the results of our empirical analysis confirm this idea by showing how a change of context makes people more receptive to a proposed measure our analysis of the role played by habits also suggests that individuals do not consider the need to change existing habits as an obstacle even though this is contradicted implicitly in the answers they provided to open questions this unconsciousness is one of the most delicate features of habits and it should thus be accounted for when designing measures given the other characteristics of habits the joint use of feedbacks and commitment strategies appears promising

a snapshot of the european energy service market in 2010 and policy recommendations to foster a further market development abstract as of 2010 the energy service market in europe is still far from utilising its full potential wide scale peer reviewed studies investigating the development and up to date status of the european esco market are scarce this article presents a comprehensive insight of the european esco industry based on the results from a large scale survey carried out 2009 2010 in 39 european countries the observed market development during the period 2007 2010 trends in business practices and factors influencing the esco industry evolution are described finally having considered the remaining barriers and the supporting factors as well as the successful experiences in europe policy measures that could further promote esco activities are proposed

institutional reform and technological practice the case of electricity this article proposes a framework for categorizing possible interrelations between technological and institutional change and applies this framework to the case of the restructuring of the electricity sector it is argued that there is a need for coherence between institutions and technological practice so as to safeguard the satisfactory functioning of electricity infrastructure the identification of possible incoherences between institutions and technological practice allows for a better understanding of the potential drivers for change and the evolutionary processes of which they may be part this article attempts to elaborate the nature of this co evolution in somewhat more detail using specific levels of analysis that are exemplified in a four level model in the case of the restructuring of the electricity sector the institutional framework has changed from a public utility oriented towards a market oriented system however the technological practice remained unchanged a system oriented approach that relies on centralized planning control and operation this discrepancy between institutions and technological practice leads to significant frictions in the functioning of the electricity sector but it also offers opportunities for innovation in order to make liberalization a success it might be necessary to stimulate certain technical developments i e distributed generation and intelligent networks

business model innovation in electricity supply markets the role of complex value in the united kingdom this research investigates the new opportunities that business model innovations are creating in electricity supply markets at the sub national scale these local supply business models can offer significant benefits to the electricity system but also generate economic social and environmental values that are not well accounted for in current policy or regulation this paper uses the uk electricity supply market to investigate new business models which rely on more complex value propositions than the incumbent utility model nine archetypal local supply business models are identified and their value propositions value capture methods and barriers to market entry are analysed this analysis defines complex value as a key concept in understanding business model innovation in the energy sector the process of complex value identification poses a challenge to energy researchers commercial firms and policymakers in liberalised markets to investigate the opportunities for system efficiency and diverse outcomes that new supplier business models can offer to the electricity system

responding to policy change new business models for renewable energy cooperatives barriers perceived by cooperatives members abstract renewable energy cooperatives recs in germany have received considerable attention in recent years their number having risen to nearly a thousand since 2004 this growth has resulted largely from germany s feed in tariff system recent changes in this policy however have made the previous rec business models mostly unprofitable so recs are looking for new business models our study aims at identifying those new models and characterizing the implementation barriers recs face to this end we interviewed rec members and management and observed rec annual general meetings we found three significant barriers first risk aversion on the part of both members and management second concerns about the environmental impacts or the ethics of certain models that while legal are not felt to align with the intentions of lawmakers finally the lack of competencies and time of the mostly unsalaried rec management these barriers could put the future of recs at risk and so threaten the contributions recs make to the german energy transition professionalization partnerships and other strategies can help mitigate this risk if recs are to continue to play an important role in the energy transition policy makers would be wise to consider measures to support their continued growth

the hygienic transition from cesspools to sewer systems 1840 1930 the dynamics of regime transformation this article addresses the topic of transition and system change and proposes endogenous regime transformation as alternative transition path to technological substitution using sociological and institutional insights the dynamics of regime transformation are conceptualised two characteristics are pressure from outsider groups and adjustments in cognitions norms and formal rules enacted by regime insiders the transformation perspective is illustrated with a historical case study the hygienic transition from cesspools to integrated sewer systems in the netherlands the case study is used to make additions to the transformation perspective particularly with regard to tactical and strategic games

a framework linking intangible resources and capabilities to sustainable competitive advantage this article is concerned with the role of intangible resources in business strategy in particular it is concerned with identifying the intangible sources of sustainable competitive advantage sustainable competitive advantage results from the possession of relevant capability differentials regulatory and positional capabilities are concerned with intangible assets functional and cultural capabilities are concerned with competencies a framework linking intangible resources to capabilities has been devised and is used as the basis of a new technique for identifying the relative contribution which the different intangible resources make to competitive advantage the results of the use of this technique in six case studies are reported

platform pricing at sports card conventions platform pricing at sports card conventions we study a new data set of us sports card conventions in order to evaluate the pricing theory of two sided markets conventions are two sided because organizers must set fees to attract both consumers and dealers we have detailed information on consumer price dealer price and since most conventions are local the market structure for conventions we present several findings first consumer pricing decreases with competition at any reasonable distance but pricing to dealers is insensitive to competition and in longer distances even increases with competition second when consumer price is zero and thus constrained dealer price decreases more strongly with competition these results are compatible with existing models of two sided markets but are difficult to explain without such models

towards a new complexity economics for sustainability some of the most important and urgent topics requiring economic analysis and policy advice are the problems of climate change and environmental sustainability and what can be done to alter corporate and individual behaviour to deal with these issues neoclassical economists tend to focus on market solutions such as carbon trading drawing on ideas of perfect rationality of actors and the appropriateness of marginal analysis to link such policies to the whole range of potential actions from legislative and regulatory to changing individual behaviours requires the economy and society to be analysed in its full complexity recognising that marginal analysis can be not just irrelevant but positively harmful when the need is for systemic shifts in economic and social trajectories this article draws upon a seminar series on complexity economics to consider how heterodox economic analysis can be brought to bear on the issue of the environment to develop a realistic policy agenda for change copyright oxford university press

knowledge and competitive advantage the coevolution of firms technology and national institutions this issue of jibs offers reviews of two books that analyse the dynamic interaction between the business environments and business strategies in very different ways the institutional underpinnings for business strategies are a major research topic for comparative management aiming to explain why in different contexts firms pursue different strategies and with different implications for performance j peter murman in knowledge and competitive advantage takes a historical perspective focusing on the co evolutionary processes between national innovation systems business strategies and performance this books thus adds to the industry level longitudinal research reviewed in jibs no 4 2003 tom murtha et al s managing new industry creation and david mckendrick et al s from silicon valley to singapore

ownership consolidation and product characteristics a study of the us daily newspaper market this paper develops a structural model of newspaper markets to analyze the effects of ownership consolidation taking into account not only firms price adjustments but also the adjustments in newspaper characteristics a new dataset on newspaper prices and characteristics is used to estimate the model the paper then simulates the effect of a merger in the minneapolis newspaper market and studies how welfare effects of mergers vary with market characteristics it finds that ignoring adjustments of product characteristics causes substantial differences in estimated effects of mergers jel g32 l13 l82 m37 do mergers affect product characteristics standard merger analyses typically study price effects only and ignore changes in product characteristics this paper endogenizes both it is likely that firms would adjust the features of their products after a merger ignoring this aspect of firm decisions in a merger analysis can lead to a bias in estimated welfare effects specifically i study how ownership consolidation affects product characteristics and welfare in the us daily newspaper market the newspaper market provides an ideal environment for analyzing the effect of mergers on product features for both econometric and economic reasons first of all individual newspapers often circulate in local markets there is substantial variation in demographics and ownership structure across these markets this variation is crucial for this study secondly the characteristics of newspapers are obviously important for welfare for example after an ownership consolidation do newspaper publishers improve or diminish the content quality do they enlarge or shrink the local news ratio do they increase or decrease content variety to address these questions i set up a structural model of the us daily newspaper

a unified presentation of competition analysis in two sided markets the goal of this paper is to present quantitative tools to manage competition policy analysis in two sided platforms based on a common framework for transaction and non transaction platforms we explore tools for relevant market definition critical loss analysis and a small but significant non transitory increase in price ssnip test unilateral effects indicators upward pricing pressure upp and gross upward pricing pressure index guppi and tests for exclusionary practices we review dispersed results in the literature and fill the gaps where appropriate we highlight the required changes from the usual one sided market framework and tools while discussions of antitrust tools can be found in specialized forums devoted to advances in competition policy analysis we organize the material in an integrated framework

transforming the energy sector the evolution of technological systems in renewable energy technology this paper analyses the development and diffusion of technologies that utilize renewable energy sources in germany sweden and the netherlands the analysis enlarges the life cycle model of industry evolution to one where the focus is on the formation and evolution of new technological systems particular focus is on explaining success and failures in shifting from a formative phase into one characterized by positive feedbacks a set of challenges is identified for policy makers attempting to influence the process of transforming the energy sector

going beyond best technology and lowest price on renewable energy investors preference for service driven business models abstract renewable energy is becoming increasingly important for economies in many countries but still in an emerging industry renewable energy requires supportive energy policy helping firms to develop and protect competitive advantages in global competition as a guideline for designing such policy we consult well informed stakeholders within the renewable energy industry investors their preferences serve as explorative indicator for assessing which business models might succeed in competition to contribute to only limited research on renewable energy investors preferences we ask which business models investment managers for renewable energy prefer to invest in we report from an explorative study of 380 choices of renewable energy investment managers based on the stated preferences we modelled three generic business models to calculate the share of investors preferences we find exiting evidence a customer intimacy business model that proposes best services is much more preferred by investors than business models that propose lowest price or best technology policy makers can use those insights for designing policy that supports service driven business models for renewable energy with a scope on customer needs rather than technology or price additionally we state important implications for renewable energy entrepreneurs managers and research

decoupling and recoupling we develop a stylized model that captures the phenomena of decoupling and recoupling in an environment where heterogeneous entrepreneurial sectors face financial constraints in their relationship with a common set of lenders in response to adverse shocks a financially constrained sector must reduce its borrowing and cut down on production in particular as the constrained sector absorbs less and less capital the real interest rate in the economy declines other sectors that compete for the same inputs including capital thus experience lower costs which boosts investment output and profits reflecting the phenomenon of decoupling as long as the shock is small the entrepreneurial sector repays what is owed and the lenders ability to supply funds is unaffected for large shocks however the constrained sector is no longer able to honor its debts in full and lenders experience losses that erode their lending base this induces them to cut their supply of credit to the rest of the economy which reduces output and profit for all other entrepreneurial sectors capturing the phenomenon of recoupling or contagion this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

the effect of evaluation on teacher performance observable teacher characteristics like graduate education and experience beyond the first few years are not typically correlated with increased productivity many researchers and policymakers have suggested that under these conditions the only way to adjust the teacher distribution for the better is to gather information on individual productivity through evaluation and then dismiss low performers this paper offers evidence that evaluation can shift the teacher effectiveness distribution through a different mechanism by improving teacher skill effort or both in ways that persist long run we study a sample of mid career math teachers in the cincinnati public schools cps who were assigned to evaluation in a manner that permits a quasi experimental analysis all teachers in our sample were evaluated by a year long classroom observation based program the treatment between 2003 2004 and 2009 2010 the timing of each teacher s specific evaluation year was determined years earlier by a district planning process to this setting we add measures of student achievement which were not part of the evaluation and use the within teacher over time variation to compare teacher performance before during and after their evaluation year we find that teachers are more productive during the school year when they are being evaluated but even more productive in the years after evaluation a student taught by a teacher after that teacher has been through the cincinnati evaluation will score about 10 percent of a standard deviation higher in math than a similar student taught by the same teacher before the teacher was evaluated under our identification strategy these estimates may be biased by patterns of student assignment that favor previously evaluated teachers or by preexisting positive

the economics of energy service contracts energy service contracting can provide a cost effective route to overcoming barriers to energy efficiency energy service contracts allow the client to reduce operating costs transfer risk and concentrate attention on core activities however the energy services model may only be appropriate for a subset of energy services and energy using organisations a challenge for both business strategy and public policy is to identify those situations in which energy service contracting is most likely to be appropriate and the conditions under which it is most likely to succeed energy service contracting is a form of outsourcing it will only be chosen where the expected reduction in the production cost of supplying energy services can more than offset the transaction cost of negotiating and managing the relationship with the energy service provider production costs will be determined by a combination of the physical characteristics of the energy system and the technical efficiency of the relevant organisational arrangements including economies of scale and specialisation transaction costs in turn will be determined by the complexity of the energy service the specificity of the investments made by the contractor the competitiveness of the energy services market and the relevant legal financial and regulatory rules this paper develops these ideas into a general framework that may be used to assess the feasibility of energy service contracting in different circumstances the framework leads to a number of hypotheses that are suitable for empirical test

mergers coordinated effects and efficiency in the portuguese non life insurance industry we evaluate the impact on market power and efficiency of a series of mergers on three portuguese non life insurance markets we specify and estimate with a panel of firm level data a structural model which includes preferences technology and a market equilibrium condition firms demand curves are not very elastic firms technologies exhibit scale and scope economies and high cost efficiency scores we find that for the period following the mergers there is no evidence of i an increase in market power through coordinated behavior or ii changes in cost efficiency levels in addition social welfare increased

the development of policy instruments in supporting low carbon governance in china abstract this paper examines the development of policy instruments that support the low carbon governance in china the instruments are analysed in five aspects in relation to the key policies in low carbon governance in china including energy conservation developing new energy reforestry developing circular economy and industry restructuring each aspect is discussed in three instrument groups which are 1 law and regulations 2 industry standard and 3 finance and taxation this research suggests that law enforcement for the new established laws should be further strengthened and stricter supervision systems should be in place to safeguard effective implementation of low carbon policies measures and standards especially for those energy condensed sectors more rigorous industry standards regarding energy efficiency should be considered to help eliminate outdated equipments in industries and promote the introduction of more climate friendly technologies the industrial standards should be given strong legal support in accountability in order to enforce their complete application once in operation new policies and instruments need to be introduced in order to reduce carbon print by landfill the backward law and industrial standards in china should be upgraded more regularly therefore to support the low carbon development strategy

globalizing carbon lock in this paper extends the arguments surrounding carbon lock in elaborated in unruh energy policy 28 2000 817 30 2002 317 to countries currently undergoing industrialization it argues that for numerous reasons industrializing countries are unlikely to leapfrog carbon intensive energy development on the contrary carbon lock in may be globalizing and could further constrain climate change mitigation options it is then argued that many policy recommendations ignore carbon lock in possibly limiting their potential for successful implementation the paper then discusses four policy approaches that appear to have advantages given lock in conditions it is recognized however that relative ease of implementation does not necessarily equate with superiority instead it is merely a path dependent outcome of past development decisions pursuing policies on the basis of relative implementation ease may help address the issue of climate change but could also result in sub optimal outcomes along other dimensions of sustainable development

estimating market power in a two sided market the case of newspapers the newspaper industry is a two sided market the readers market and the advertising market are closely linked by inter market network externalities we estimate market power in the italian newspaper industry by building a structural model which encompasses a demand estimation

the role of the business model in capturing value from innovation evidence from xerox corporation s technology spin off companies this paper explores the role of the business model in capturing value from early stage technology a successful business model creates a heuristic logic that connects technical potential with the realization of economic value the business model unlocks latent value from a technology but its logic constrains the subsequent search for new alternative models for other technologies later on an implicit cognitive dimension overlooked in most discourse on the topic we explore the intellectual roots of the concept offer a working definition and show how the xerox corporation arose by employing an effective business model to commercialize a technology rejected by other leading companies of the day we then show the long shadow that this model cast upon xerox s later management of selected spin off companies from xerox parc xerox evaluated the technical potential of these spin offs through its own business model while those spin offs that became successful did so through evolving business models that came to differ substantially from that of xerox the search and learning for an effective business model in failed ventures by contrast were quite limited

searching for effective teachers with imperfect information teaching may be the most scrutinized occupation in the economy over the eaching may be the most scrutinized occupation in the economy over the past four decades empirical researchers many of them economists have past four decades empirical researchers many of them economists have accumulated an impressive amount of evidence on teachers the heteroaccumulated an impressive amount of evidence on teachers the heterogeneity in teacher productivity the rise in productivity associated with teaching geneity in teacher productivity the rise in productivity associated with teaching credentials and on the job experience rates of turnover the costs of recruitment credentials and on the job experience rates of turnover the costs of recruitment the relationship between supply and quality the effect of class size and the monetary the relationship between supply and quality the effect of class size and the monetary value of academic achievement gains over a student s lifetime since the passage value of academic achievement gains over a student s lifetime since the passage of the no child left behind act along with a number of state level educational of the no child left behind act along with a number of state level educational initiatives the data needed to estimate individual teacher performance based on initiatives the data needed to estimate individual teacher performance based on student achievement gains have become more widely available however there have student achievement gains have become more widely available however there have been relatively few efforts to examine the implications of this voluminous literature been relatively few efforts to examine the implications of this voluminous literature on teacher performance in this paper we ask what the existing evidence implies on teacher performance in this paper we ask what the existing evidence implies for how school leaders might recruit evaluate and retain teachers for how school leaders might recruit evaluate and retain teachers we begin by summarizing the evidence on fi ve key points referring to existing we begin by summarizing the evidence on fi ve key points referring to existing work and to evidence we have accumulated from our research with the nation s work and to evidence we have accumulated from our research with the nation s two largest school districts los angeles and new york city first teachers display two largest school districts los angeles and new york city first teachers display considerable heterogeneity in their effects on student achievement gains the stanconsiderable heterogeneity in their effects on student achievement gains the standard deviation across teachers in their impact on student achievement gains is on dard deviation across teachers in their impact on student achievement gains is on the order of 0 1 to 0 2 student level standard deviations which would improve the the order of 0 1 to 0 2 student level standard deviations which would improve the

a low carbon industrial revolution insights and challenges from past technological and economic transformations recent efforts to promote a transition to a low carbon economy have been influenced by suggestions that a low carbon transition offers challenges and might yield economic benefits comparable to those of the previous industrial revolutions this paper examines these arguments and the challenges facing a low carbon transition by drawing on recent thinking on the technological economic and institutional factors that enabled and sustained the first british industrial revolution and the role of general purpose technologies in stimulating and sustaining this and subsequent industrial transformation processes that have contributed to significant macroeconomic gains these revolutions involved profound long drawn out changes in economy technology and society and although their energy transitions led to long run economic benefits they took many decades to develop to reap significant long run economic benefits from a low carbon transition sooner rather than later would require systemic efforts and incentives for low carbon innovation and substitution of high carbon technologies we conclude that while achieving a low carbon transition may require societal changes on a scale comparable with those of previous industrial revolutions this transition does not yet resemble previous industrial revolutions a successful low carbon transition would however amount to a different kind of industrial revolution

collusion between two sided platforms abstract we study the price and welfare effects of collusion between two sided platforms and show that they depend on whether collusion occurs on both sides or a single side of the market and whether users single home or multi home our most striking result is that one sided collusion leads to lower resp higher prices on the collusive resp competitive side if the cross group externalities exerted on the collusive side are positive and sufficiently strong one sided collusion may therefore benefit the users on the collusive side and harm the users on the competitive side our findings have implications regarding cartel detection and damages actions

two sided markets a progress report the paper provides a road map to the burgeoning literature on two sided markets and presents new results it identifies two sided markets with markets in which the structure and not only the level of prices charged by platforms matters the failure of the coase theorem is necessary but not sufficient for two sidedness the paper builds a model integrating usage and membership externalities that unifies two hitherto disparate strands of the literature emphasizing either form of externality and obtains new results on the mix of membership and usage charges when price setting or bargaining determine payments between end users

recent evolutionary theorizing about economic change this famous passage from marshall s principles of economics it first appeared in the fifth edition which came out in 1907 nicely brings out two issues which are as germane to economics today as they were when marshall wrote the first is the heavy reliance by economists in their formal theorizing on the notion of equilibrium the other is the appeal that biological conceptions3x201d have for many economists particularly when their focus is on economic change

a semi parametric analysis of two sided markets an application to the local daily newspapers in the usa summary this paper considers an empirical semiparametric model for two sided markets contrary to existing empirical literature on two sided markets we specify network effects and probability distribution functions of net benefits of the two sides nonparametrically we then estimate the model by nonparametric instrumental variables regression for local daily newspapers from the usa we show that semiparametric specification is supported by the data and the network effects are neither linear nor monotonic with a numerical illustration we demonstrate that the mark up of the newspaper on each side changes drastically with the nonlinearly specified network effects from the case with linear network effects copyright 2015 john wiley sons ltd

quantifying equilibrium network externalities in the ach banking industry we seek to estimate the causes and magnitudes of network externalities for the automated clearinghouse ach electronic payments system using a panel data set on individual bank usage of ach we construct an equilibrium model of consumer and bank adoption of ach in the presence of a network the model identifies network externalities from correlations of changes in usage levels for banks within a network from changes in usage following changes in market concentration or sizes of competitors and from adoption decisions of banks outside the network with small branches in the network and can separately identify consumer and bank network effects we structurally estimate the parameters of the model by matching equilibrium behavior to the data using simulated maximum likelihood and a data set of localized networks and use a bootstrap to recover confidence intervals the parameters are estimated with high precision and fit various moments of the data reasonably well we find that most of the impediment to ach adoption is due to large consumer fixed costs of adoption the deadweight loss from the network externality is moderate the optimal number of ach transactions is about 16 higher than the equilibrium level

the co evolutionary relationship between energy service companies and the uk energy system implications for a low carbon transition abstract the energy service company esco business model is designed to reward businesses by satisfying consumers energy needs at less cost and with fewer carbon emissions via energy demand management and or sustainable supply measures in contrast the revenue of the incumbent energy utility company euco model is coupled with the sale of units of energy which are predominantly sourced from fossil fuels the latter is currently dominant in the uk this paper addresses two questions first why has the esco model traditionally been confined to niche applications second what role is the esco model likely to play in the transition to a low carbon uk energy system to answer these the paper examines the core characteristics of the esco model relative to the euco model the paper then examines how escos have co evolved with the various dimensions of the energy system i e ecosystems institutions user practices technologies and business models to provide insight into how escos might help to shape the future uk energy system we suggest that institutional and technological changes within the uk energy system could result in a more favourable selection environment for escos consequently enabling the esco model to proliferate at the expense of the euco model

who invests in renewable electricity production empirical evidence and suggestions for further research transforming energy systems to fulfill the needs of a low carbon economy requires large investments in renewable electricity production res e recent literature underlines the need to take a closer look at the composition of the res e investor group in order to understand the motives and investment processes of different types of investors however existing energy policies generally consider res e investments made on a regional or national level and target investors who evaluate their res e investments according to least cost high profit criteria we present empirical evidence to show that res e investments are made by a heterogeneous group of investors that a variety of investors exist and that their formation varies among the different types of renewable sources this has direct implications for our understanding of the investment process in res e and for the study of motives and driving forces of res e investors we introduce a multi dimensional framework for analyzing differences between categories of investors which not only considers to the standard economic dimension which is predominant in the contemporary energy literature but also considers the entrepreneurship innovation adoption and institutional dimensions the framework emphasizes the influence of four main investor related factors on the investment process which should be studied in future research motives background resources and personal characteristics

uk innovation systems for new and renewable energy technologies drivers barriers and systems failures abstract a better understanding of the systemic processes by which innovation occurs is useful both conceptually and to inform policy making in support of innovation in more sustainable technologies this paper analyses current innovation systems in the uk for a range of new and renewable energy technologies and generates policy recommendations for improving the effectiveness of these innovation systems although incentives are in place in the uk to encourage innovation in these technologies system failures or gaps are identified in moving technologies along the innovation chain preventing their successful commercialisation sustained investment will be needed for these technologies to achieve their potential it is argued that a stable and consistent policy framework is required to help create the conditions for this in particular such a framework should be aimed at improving risk reward ratios for demonstration and pre commercial stage technologies this would enhance positive expectations stimulate learning effects leading to cost reductions and increase the likelihood of successful commercialisation

the investor specific price of renewable energy project risk a choice experiment with incumbent utilities and institutional investors abstract renewable energy investments in germany have recently soared trebling the output of wind and solar power generation in only ten years while incumbent utilities have lagged behind in terms of investment new entrants have significantly contributed to this growth existing literature has primarily focused on explaining the lethargy of incumbents former investments although there is a growing need to investigate recent investment drivers to secure the necessary power plant capacity at a moderate cost from incumbents and new entrants alike to close this gap a choice experiment involving 1 659 investment choices by 52 european professional investors was conducted in significant contrast to the case with altruistic investors this survey underlines the importance of using financial incentives to attract professional investors given full exposure to electricity price risk incumbent utilities would facilitate projects at a 3 04 risk premium whereas institutional investors demand 6 61 generally incumbent utilities and institutional investors are equally attracted by low risk projects however when risk increases institutional investors are more hesitant to become involved while incumbent utilities confidently navigate these higher risk projects

a coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy this paper proposes a coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy based on the coevolution of ecosystems technologies institutions business strategies and user practices within a multi level micro meso macro perspective this builds on and develops previous coevolutionary analyses of long term technological and industrial change and recent renewed interest within ecological economics on coevolutionary approaches previous work has analysed how the coevolution of technologies and institutions has led to the lock in of current high carbon energy systems and how the coevolution of physical and social technologies and business strategies has brought significant material and welfare benefits to the minority of the world s population living in industrialised countries the coevolutionary framework proposed here may be used to undertake 1 detailed empirical analyses at a micro meso level of the challenges relating to the innovation and adoption of particularly low carbon technologies 2 as a framework for analysing the multi level interaction of social and technological elements within potential transition pathways to a low carbon energy system 3 to assess the implications for economic growth and prosperity of a transition to a low carbon economy and 4 to assist in the development of more formal multi level evolutionary economic models

ecological macroeconomic models assessing current developments our society faces a dilemma while continued economic growth is ecologically unsustainable low or negative rates of economic growth are accompanied by adverse social impacts hence there is a need for macroeconomic tools that can help identify socially sustainable post growth pathways the emerging field of ecological macroeconomics aims to address this need and features a number of new macroeconomic modelling approaches this article provides 1 a review of modelling developments in ecological macroeconomics based on the literature and interviews with researchers and 2 an analysis of how the different models incorporate policy themes from the post growth literature twenty two ecological macroeconomic models were analysed and compared to eight policy themes it was found that environmental interactions and the monetary system were treated most comprehensively themes of income inequality work patterns indicators of well being and disaggregated production were addressed with less detail while alternative business models and cross scale interactions were hardly addressed overall the combination of input output analysis with stock flow consistent modelling was identified as a promising avenue for developing macroeconomic models for a post growth economy however due to the wide interpretation of what the economy entails future research will benefit from employing a range of approaches

quantifying the effects from horizontal mergers in european competition policy this paper starts from a recent case to study how merger analysis in europe may be potentially improved starting from the geographic market definition in the merger decision we formulate and estimate an oligopoly model with differentiated products based on the estimates we compare several alternative market power tests a hypothetical market power test an actual market power test and a comparative market power test our comparison of these alternative tests illustrates that the recently introduced empirical techniques need not be in conflict with traditional policy practices in europe but should be seen as a natural extension of commonly accepted principles furthermore we emphasize the importance of our dynamic comparative market power test in the european context according to this test the relevant point of comparison when assessing a merger is not the status quo but rather a relevant alternative merger scenario that is likely to happen in the event the merger is rejected in a european context the choice is often to accept a sequence of regionally based mergers or rather a sequence of pan european mergers finally we also emphasize the importance of constructing confidence intervals when computing the predicted merger effects especially if one is interested in testing the hypothesis that a merger has no effects

the role of intermediaries in low carbon transitions empowering innovations to unlock district heating in the uk abstract the literature on socio technical transitions considers how technological innovations can be established within the context of an incumbent regime that is often resistant or inflexible to change strategic niche management is an approach to catalysing a transition to a new regime using protected niche spaces to enable development and experimentation with an innovation intermediary actors play an important role in establishing these niches as they facilitate knowledge sharing and build the wider networks and systems needed to support an innovation the influence of intermediaries within socio technical transitions and strategic niche management is still an under researched area in this paper we use a decision theatre research process to collect empirical evidence from a range of local stakeholders involved in establishing new district heating projects in the united kingdom uk this method carried out in a group workshop format enables understanding of the interactions between stakeholders throughout the stages of the district heating development process the study suggests that intermediaries can play a role in supporting niche empowering processes the existing institutional framework surrounding intermediary actors and the geographical scale at which they work within that framework are shown to be influential on actors agency to choose their approach to empowering an innovation the work highlights the potential for intermediaries to support the restructuring of this institutional framework to enable more radical stretch and transform empowering activities

a policy approach to the environmental impacts of technological lock in abstract the broadening spectrum of environmental problems the uncertainty regarding their scale and duration and their possible irreversibility in the context of the growing social preference for environmental quality make it necessary to undertake an ex ante approach to the link between productive activity and environmental quality this link lies in technology and the right approach is to understand how the process of technological change can lead towards sustainability the added value of evolutionary economics in the context of environmental policy resides mainly in the fact that it warns that certain inferior environmental technologies may be locked in to the economic system the results of our model show that it would be advisable to undertake policies expressly aimed at the process of sustainable technological change applying an ex ante precautionary approach in a way that is complementary to the conventional equilibrium oriented environmental policies the nature of these policies and how they might be implemented are questions we will address from this novel approach to the concept of sustainable development in short the main objectives of this paper are to understand more fully the dynamics of the process of technological change its role in sustainable development and to assess the implications of this dynamic approach to techno environmental policy to achieve these goals we have developed an agent based model abm using distributed artificial intelligence dai concepts drawn from the general methodology of social simulation

estimating network effects in two sided markets without data on prices and quantities abstract i develop a semi structural approach to identify network effects on two sided monopoly platforms without data on prices and quantities when total revenue data is available the test is sufficient when separate revenue data is available on the two sides the test is both necessary and sufficient

the governance of sustainable socio technical transitions a quasi evolutionary model of socio technical transitions is described in which regimes face selection pressures continuously differentiated transition contexts determine the form and direction of regime change in response to these pressures the articulation of pressures and the degree to which responses are coordinated and based on resources available within the regime define the transition context four alternative contexts are described endogenous renewal re orientation of trajectories emergent transformation and purposive transitions agency and power in the governance of regime transformation are analysed power to affect change depends on regime membership the distribution of resources for change and expectations

does ecological economics have a future contradiction and reinvention in the age of climate change abstract this paper addresses the role of neoclassical methodologies in ecological economics and the contradictions these methodologies pose to the field s critical founding principles we first consider robert costanza s treatment of nicholas stern s global deal and then survey climate change related articles published in this journal over the past five years this survey reveals how mainstream neoclassical methodologies dominate discourse and do so by marginalizing more critical political economy analyses this situation imperils the field s founding vision of a no growth steady state it also fails to address the related growth dynamics of capitalism without such a critical treatment the field s formal embrace of methodological pluralism actually entails an ideological empiricism that renders ecological economics theoretically incoherent this situation undermines the field s historical promise as an alternative economic paradigm ecological economics now faces a problematic future its survival in a form faithful to its founding vision will require an explicit choice to address its internal contradictions and reinvent itself in ways relevant to our contemporary context without such a choice ecological economics will likely succumb to an implicit acceptance of the hegemony of mainstream economic methodologies and their pro growth imperatives

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

mergers with differentiated products the case of the ready to eat cereal industry traditional merger analysis is difficult to implement when evaluating mergers in industries with differentiated products i discuss an alternative which consists of demand estimation and the use of a model of postmerger conduct to simulate the competitive effects of a merger i estimate a brand level demand system for ready to eat cereal using supermarket scanner data and use the estimates to 1 recover marginal costs 2 simulate postmerger price equilibria and 3 compute welfare effects under a variety of assumptions the methodology is applied to five mergers two of which occurred and for which i compare predicted to actual outcomes

using performance on the job to inform teacher tenure decisions the notion that some high stakes need to be attached to direct measures of teachers class room performance as a control for quality in the work force is an idea gaining traction in public education one such proposal prescribes low ering the barriers to entry into teaching while simultaneously being more selective about which teachers are retained when they become eligible for tenure robert gordon thomas j kane and douglas o staiger 2006 eric a hanushek 2009

measuring market power in the ready to eat cereal industry the ready to eat cereal industry is characterized by high concentration high price cost margins large advertising to sales ratios and numerous introductions of new products previous researchers have concluded that the ready to eat cereal industry is a classic example of an industry with nearly collusive pricing behavior and intense nonprice competition this paper empirically examines this conclusion in particular i estimate price cost margins but more importantly i am able empirically to separate these margins into three sources i that which is due to product differentiation ii that which is due to multi product firm pricing and iii that due to potential price collusion the results suggest that given the demand for different brands of cereal the first two effects explain most of the observed price cost margins i conclude that prices in the industry are consistent with noncollusive pricing behavior despite the high price cost margins leading firms are able to maintain a portfolio of differentiated products and influence the perceived product quality it is these two factors that lead to high price cost margins

competition between networks a study of the market for yellow pages this paper estimates the importance of network effects in the market for yellow pages i estimate three simultaneous equations consumer demand for usage of a directory advertiser demand for advertising and a publisher s first order condition derived from profit maximizing behaviour estimation shows that advertisers value consumer usage and that consumers value advertising implying a network effect i find that internalizing network effects would significantly increase surplus as an application i consider whether the market benefits from monopoly which takes advantage of network effects or oligopoly which reduces market power i find that a more competitive market is preferable copyright 2004 wiley blackwell

risk and global economic architecture why full financial integration may be undesirable integration of global financial markets was supposed to lead to greater financial stability as risks were spread around the world the finan cial crisis has thrown doubt on this conclusion a failure in one part of the global economic system caused a global meltdown the recent crisis has shown that in the absence of appro priate government intervention privately profit able transactions may lead to systemic risk this paper provides a general analytic framework within which we can analyze the optimal degree and form of financial integration within this general framework full integration is not in general optimal indeed faced with a choice between two polar regimes full integration or autarky in the simplified model autarky may be superior

economic effects of media concentration estimates from a model of the newspaper firm by specifying and estimating a 5 equation model of newspaper operations this paper provides evidence useful for addressing several issues concerning media concentration on the cost side the results indicate that there exist significant scale economies in the production of circulation and space on the other hand the evidence suggests that chain newspapers can not produce output more efficiently than independents all things equal on the demand side rival newspapers located in contiguous geographic markets appear to have an important competitive effect on the demand for circulation however broadcast stations do not seem to affect demand for newspaper advertising and circulation

institutional ecological economics abstract new institutional economics and its forerunners have we argue made important contributions to the evolving agenda of ecological economics the conceptualisation of environmental problems as instances of interdependence and the acknowledgement of positive transaction costs are key insights into the nature of environmental problems we also discuss how plurality of behavioural motivations and limited cognitive capacity have important implications for environmental decision making and its analysis we show how evolutionary and collective action theories offer complementary takes on the choice and change of environmental governance institutions and how the concept of social capital can enrich analyses of environmental governance we conclude that an emerging institutional ecological economics has the greatest relative advantage in analysing the design implementation and effectiveness of environmental governance solutions

platform pricing at sports card conventions we study a new data set of u s sports card conventions from the perspective of the pricing theory of two sided markets conventions are two sided because organizers must set fees to attract both consumers and dealers we present several findings first consumer pricing decreases with competition but pricing to dealers is insensitive to competition and in longer distances even increases with competition second when consumer price is zero and thus constrained dealer price decreases more strongly with competition these results are compatible with existing models of two sided markets but are difficult to explain without such models

how renewables will change electricity markets in the next five years photovoltaic pv cells onshore wind turbines internet technologies and storage technologies have the potential to fundamentally change electricity markets in the years ahead photovoltaic cells are the most disruptive energy technology as they allow consumers of all sizes to produce power by themselves new actors in the power market can begin operating with a new bottom up control logic unsubsidised pv markets may start to take off in 2013 fuelling substantial growth where pv power is getting cheaper than grid or diesel backup electricity for commercial consumers managing loads and achieving a good match between power consumption and weather dependent power production will likely become a key issue this consumption production balance may trigger massive innovation and investment in energy management technologies involving different kinds of storage and controls increasing autonomy and flexibility of consumers challenges the top down control logic of traditional power supply and pushes for a more decentralised and multi layered system how rapidly and smoothly this transformation occurs depends to a large extent on the adaptation speed of the regulatory framework and on the ability of market players to develop appropriate business models the paper discusses conflicts of interest hurdles and drivers opportunities and traps for this perspective

liberalizing a distribution system the european car market we quantify the competitive effects of liberalizing the selective and exclusive distribution system in the european car market based on a model of oligopoly pricing with differentiated products we consider two possible competitive effects from liberalization i the creation of international intrabrand competition cross border trade which will result in a reduction of international price discrimination and ii a possible cumulative effect arising from a strengthening of national intrabrand competition which would result in reduced double marginalization we find that the reduction in international price discrimination mainly redistributes consumer gains across countries it has a positive but modest effect on total welfare if liberalization also has the cumulative effect of reducing double marginalization the welfare effects are much higher finally we find that the effects of liberalization on the manufacturers profits are either small or positive this finding implies that international price discrimination and softening competition through a double marginalization mechanism should not be interpreted as main profit motives for the previous distribution system but only as unintended side effects hence the industry rationale for maintaining the previous distribution system should be sought in other areas jel f15 l42

games of survival in the us newspaper industry 1989 games of survival in the us newspaper industry applied economics vol 21 no 5 pp 631 649

uk local authority engagement with the energy service company esco model key characteristics benefits limitations and considerations abstract this paper explores how some uk local authorities las have opted to engage with the energy service company esco model in a bid to enhance their influence over local energy system change and help them to deliver on their political public good objectives three common approaches to la esco model engagement are outlined including the 1 la owned arm s length model 2 private sector owned concession agreement model and 3 community owned and run model the la s decision to establish its own esco or alternatively enter into a partnership with another predominantly depends on its willingness to expose itself to risk the level of strategic control it desires and the resources it has at its disposal however the business case is contingent on the extent to which the national policy and regulatory framework facilitates and obligates las to play an active energy governance role stronger alignment of local and national energy agendas through communication and coordination between different governance actors could help to remove critical barriers to la esco engagement and their wider energy governance activities

developing pathways for energy storage in the uk using a coevolutionary framework abstract a number of recent techno economic studies have shown that energy storage could offer significant benefits to a low carbon uk energy system as it faces increased challenges in matching supply and demand however the majority of this work has not investigated the real world issues affecting the widespread deployment of storage this paper is designed to address this gap by drawing on the systems innovation and socio technical transitions literature to identify some of the most important contextual factors which are likely to influence storage deployment specifically it uses a coevolutionary framework to examine how changes in ecosystems user practices business strategies institutions and technologies are creating a new selection environment and potentially opening up the energy system to new variations of storage for both electricity and heat the analysis shows how these different dimensions of the energy regime can coevolve in mutually reinforcing ways to create alternative pathways for the energy system which in turn have different flexibility requirements and imply different roles for storage technologies using this framework three pathways are developed user led decentralised and centralised which illustrate potential long term trajectories for energy storage technologies in a low carbon energy system

from demand side management dsm to energy efficiency services a finnish case study abstract energy conservation is expected to contribute significantly to climate change mitigation and energy security traditionally energy companies have had strong role in providing demand side management dsm measures however after energy market liberalization in europe energy companies dsm activities declined in response the eu issued directive 2006 32 ec on energy end use efficiency and energy services esd to motivate energy companies to promote energy efficiency and conservation closely followed by directive 2012 27 eu on energy efficiency eed requiring the setting up energy efficiency obligation schemes despite strong political and economic motivation energy companies struggle to develop energy efficiency services in liberalised energy markets due to conflicting institutional demands which arise from contradicting policy requirements and customer relations the main challenges in developing new innovative energy efficiency services evidenced by an in depth case study were 1 the unbundling of energy company operations which makes it difficult to develop services when the contribution of several business units is required and 2 the distrust among energy end users which renders the business logic of energy saving contract models self contradictory on the basis of the research avenues out of these dilemmas are suggested

pricing decisions of the newspaper monopolist in nearly every city in the united states there is only one daily newspaper of general interest given the prevalence of monopoly it seems anomalous that newspapers are typically sold well below cost compaine 5 19 for example reports that sales revenue is only 28 7 percent of total cost moreover it appears that price is below marginal cost since the sales revenue does not cover the cost of the ink and paper used in producing the newspaper 2 if the newspaper publisher were selling only newspapers he or she would be in dire straits but in reality the publisher has two products to sell the newspaper itself and advertising space within the newspaper although very few newspaper customers are also purchasers of advertising space there is an important interaction between the circulation of the newspaper and the sale of advertising space the higher the circulation of the newspaper the greater the demand for advertising and the more advertising there is in the newspaper the greater the circulation of the newspaper 3 as a consequence the publisher has a more complicated pricing problem since the prices of advertising space and of the newspaper have feedback effects upon one another in the next section of this paper we shall derive the publisher s optimal prices for advertising space and for the newspaper under fairly general conditions one purpose of this analysis is to show that there are two meaningful measures of demand elasticity in section iv we discuss some of the associated empirical problems that this poses and relate this to two existing newspaper demand studies

utilities business models for renewable energy a review abstract the transformation of today s electric power sector to a more sustainable energy production based on renewable energies will change the structure of the industry consequently utilities as the major stakeholders in this transformation will face new challenges in their way of doing business they will have to adapt their business models to remain competitive in the new energy landscape the present review of business model literature shows that two basic choices exist utility side business models and customer side business models the two approaches follow a very different logic of value creation while the former is based on a small number of large projects the latter is based on a large number of small projects the article reveals that blueprints for utility side business models are available whereas customer side business models are in an early stage of development applying the business model framework as an analytical tool it is found that existing utility side business models comprise a series of advantages for utilities in terms of revenue potential and risk avoidance this study provides new insights about why utilities will favor utility side business models over customer side business models and why they also should engage in customer side business models in their quest for more sustainable future business models

the dynamic implications of increasing returns technological change and path dependent inefficiency this paper addresses the issue of path dependent selection and inefficiency counterfactual methods and the empirical evidence employed in this research trajectory the general message is basically that the theoretical argument to prove path dependent inefficiency is relatively straightforward while empirical demonstrations as well as the analysis of welfare implications are much more difficult in the first section we briefly state the basic argument explaining how localized learning leads to an incomplete exploration of the variety distribution of a technology we then synthesize the most interesting historical studies which get potential regret results and ask whether these results suggest a large welfare loss to try to answer this question we start from the critical arguments of liebowitz and margolis to discuss the theoretical and empirical difficulties of establishing path dependent inefficiency

do media consumers really dislike advertising an empirical assessment of the role of advertising in print media markets this paper uses data on german consumer magazines observed between 1992 and 2004 to analyze the extent to which consumers dis like advertising we estimate logit demand models separately for the six most important magazine segments in terms of circulation we find little evidence for readers disliking advertising on the contrary we show that readers in many magazine segments appreciate advertising readers of women s magazines business and politics magazines as well as car magazines market segments where advertisements are relatively more informative appreciate advertising while advertising is nuisance to readers of adult magazines a segment where advertisements are particularly uninformative demand for interior design magazines is not well identified our logit demand estimates are confirmed by logit demand models with random coefficients and by magazine specific monopoly demand models

on the competitiveness of grid tied residential photovoltaic generation systems in pakistan panacea or paradox abstract pakistan is experiencing a slow uptake of grid tied residential pv generation systems gtrpvgs despite of steep fall in pv module price higher solar irradiation and enactment of net metering by the government this slow uptake is attributed to the lack of awareness of four major stakeholders namely the house hold utility financier and the policy maker this paper presents a coherent framework that addresses the concerns of the stakeholders using four country specific parameters i e the local solar irradiation pv system costs borrowing and discount rates and electricity tariffs to compute npv irr payback period and levelized cost of electricity lcoe assuming net metering we model the economic payoffs on self consumption and sale of pv electricity at varying net metering rates system sizes load to generation profiles borrowing and discount rates findings suggest economic competitiveness of pv electricity with an irr and payback averaging around 28 and 5 years respectively moreover the lcoe is also found to be significantly lower than the retail rates the findings inform the household and financier on the economic yield utility on efficient tariff setting and government on sustainable policy design finally we argue that gtrpvgs bears huge potential for pakistan suffering from energy deficit unsustainable cost transmission losses and environmental hazards

regulating technological change the strategic reactions of utility companies towards subsidy policies in the german spanish and uk electricity markets abstract this paper focuses on how incumbent electric utilities strategically react to subsidy schemes supporting renewable energy technologies in the uk germany and spain firms coordinate the development of their technological capabilities and their political activities to shape their regulatory environment analysing the diffusion of wind power in these countries we show that the different ways in which firms coordinate their technological and political strategies lead to very different market outcomes both for the firms market share and the size of the overall market although incumbents are usually seen as being resistant to change in energy systems we show that spanish utilities proactively drive the diffusion of wind power we speculate about the relation between the ownership structure of the energy system and its inertia with respect to the integration of new technologies we derive novel policy implications that explicitly take into account the strategic actions of incumbent firms shaping the technological and regulatory system

scaling up local energy infrastructure an agent based model of the emergence of district heating networks abstract the potential contribution of local energy infrastructure such as heat networks to the transition to a low carbon economy is increasingly recognised in international national and municipal policy creating the policy environment to foster the scaling up of local energy infrastructure is however still challenging despite national policy action and local authority interest the growth of heat networks in uk cities remains slow techno economic energy system models commonly used to inform policy are not designed to address institutional and governance barriers we present an agent based model of heat network development in uk cities in which policy interventions aimed at the institutional and governance barriers faced by diverse actors can be explored three types of project instigators are included municipal commercial and community which have distinct decision heuristics and capabilities and follow a multi stage development process scenarios of policy interventions developed in a companion modelling approach indicate that the effect of interventions differs between actors depending on their capabilities successful interventions account for the specific motivations and capabilities of different actors provide a portfolio of support along the development process and recognise the important strategic role of local authorities in supporting low carbon energy infrastructure

escaping carbon lock in this article explores the climate policy implications of the arguments made in understanding carbon lock in unruh 2000 which posited that industrial countries have become locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through path dependent processes driven by increasing returns to scale carbon lock in arises through technological organizational social and institutional co evolution culminating in what was termed as techno institutional complex tic in order to resolve the climate problem an escape from the lock in condition is required however due to the self referential nature of tic escape conditions are unlikely to be generated internally and it is argued here that exogenous forces are probably required

uncertainty of climate policies and implications for economics and finance an evolutionary economics approach the assessment of the socio economic and financial impacts of climate change represents a main source of uncertainty for policy makers and investors however traditional climate economics and financial risk models are not properly equipped to consider the characteristics of climate risks and the opportunities from climate alignment being constrained by equilibrium conditions and linearity of impacts as well as by representative agents and intertemporal optimization given the closing window of opportunity to achieve the 2 c target there is an urgent need for a new wave of models able to embrace uncertainty and complexity deriving not only from climate impacts on socio economic systems but also from their reaction in this regard approaches rooted on evolutionary economics and complexity science could provide complementary insights to traditional climate economics models this special issue contributes to fill in this knowledge gap by collecting nine papers applying evolutionary and complex systems approaches and agent based and network models to climate change economics presented at the special session of the research area environment economics interactions of the european association of evolutionary political economy eaepe s conference 2016 by introducing conceptual and methodological innovations in climate economics and finance the nine articles analyse the conditions for effective climate policies and financial instruments to align countries to the global climate targets compared to the costs of inaction this information is crucial to support decision makers in the analysis of climate finance policies and instruments to foster the transition to a sustainable and inclusive low carbon economy

making sense of institutions as a factor shaping economic performance abstract there has recently been a resurgence of interest in how institutions affect economic performance a review of this literature reveals that the concept of an institution means different things to different scholars both within economics and across the social sciences we discuss what factors unify the different definitions of institutions and develop a concept of institutions useful for the analysis of economic performance and economic growth in particular specifically we develop the notion of institutions as standard social technologies economic growth results from the co evolution of physical and social technologies

submission demand in core economics journals a panel study i introduction academic economics journals have proliferated to around 1 500 providing economists a large number of outlets for publishing manuscripts econlit n d ideas n d although researchers have examined how the demand for submission for academic economics journals responded to nonprice variables such as an editorial policy change on page limit card and dellavigna 2012 surprisingly the price elasticity of demand for submission remains unknown and becomes the focus of this study the objective of this study was to examine empirically what factors influence authors decisions on which economics journal to submit to focusing on three sets of demand factors manuscript submission fee observed journal quality such as impact factor and ranking and journal usage such as abstract views and library subscriptions similar to most of the literature on economics journals we focused on the economics journals indexed in journal citation reports jcr compiled by the institute for scientific information because jcr journals tend to be viewed as the core or leading academic journals two challenges arose in estimating the demand for journal submission first submission fee may be endogenous if supply and demand are simultaneously determined or if economics journals set the fee based on demand variations that the econometrician does not observe and hence cannot explicitly specify in the demand model to reduce the potential endogeneity bias we surveyed journal editors to obtain and use as an instrument the fee paid to a journal referee for reviewing the reviewer fee might serve as a good instrument in this case because the reviewer fee which is a supply side variable generally is paid by the submission fee there is little evidence to support that paying referees is correlated with unobserved journal quality such as journal reputation indeed a recent study by chetty saez and sandor 2014 found that reviewer fees have little or no effects on quality of the reviewer reports based on an experiment with referees at the journal of public economics casting doubt on the relationship between reviewer fee and referee report the second challenge is that journal quality such as journal reputation or editor reputation is not observed by the econometrician our strategy to address this issue was to use panel data to control for unobserved individual journal effect by supplementing the jcr citation data with other publicly available data and our two rounds of surveys of journal editors we constructed a unique panel dataset that contains various journal characteristics such as submission fee fee paid to a journal referee for reviewing and the number of new submissions for the years of 2008 and 2013 thompson scientific institute for scientific information 2008 and 2013 many researchers have analyzed theoretically the role of submission fee and or response times in academic publishing e g azar 2006 cotton 2013 heintzelman and nocetti 2009 leslie 2005 for a recent example cotton 2013 showed that journal quality could be maximized through a combination of both moderate fees and moderate delays when authors have heterogeneous preferences such a result is obviously based on the assumption that authors respond negatively to a submission fee from an empirical perspective submission fees raise the cost of submitting an article and therefore discourage the submission of papers especially those of marginal quality i e a self selection process regarding the quality of authors own manuscripts however several factors can alleviate the negative impact of submission fees on submissions first azar 2005 pointed out that the rewards for publications in good economics journals are very high compared with the relatively low submission fees second submission fees are sometimes paid by department funds and faculty s grants research contracts

price structure in two sided markets evidence from the magazine industry we present and estimate a model of competition in a two sided market the market for magazine readership and advertising using data on magazines in germany we find evidence that magazines have properties of two sided markets the results are consistent with the perception that prices for readers are subsidized and that magazines make all their money from advertisers consistent with advertisers valuing readers more than readers value advertisements our results imply that higher demand on the reader side increases ad rates but that higher demand on the advertising side decreases cover prices