towards a science of sustainability improving the way ecological economics understands human well being abstract ecological economics seeks to recognize what traditional economics often ignores that the economy is embedded in wider social and biophysical systems to date ecological economics has focused on the biophysical dimensions of these interactions yet achieving sustainable development will require difficult decisions regarding which environmental and other assets should be preserved and in what form this emphasizes the importance of understanding why particular environmental resources and services are important to human well being and how social and economic institutions may be structured to make the best use of these and other forms of capital the paper thus examines a variety of approaches to well being characterizing these as interpreting well being as a state of mind as a state of the world as human capability or as the satisfaction of underlying needs the literature surveyed is drawn largely from political philosophy and psychology and includes classical utilitarianism and self evaluative approaches descriptive utilitarianism and preference based approaches the basic needs approach functional approaches and underlying needs based and virtue based approaches particular authors include michalos scitovsky easterlin hirsch galbraith rawls sen maslow boyden and max neef the ideas examined are found to have significant implications for economic theory and policy especially regarding the social construction of preferences the treatment of distributional issues the identification of universal underlying needs and the relationship between the satisfaction of these needs and perceived well being these insights suggest that rising real incomes are unlikely to result in improved community well being calling into question the traditional economic view of progress they also offer a new path to sustainable development in which the primary focus is on the cultivation of appropriate institutions and attitudes rather than on the better management of resources the paper concludes that important aspects of social economic and environmental systems are codetermined and thus that achieving sustainable development will require an expansion of the scope of analysis to encompass a wider system dynamic the most promising approaches to well being in this context are those that identify universal underlying human needs thus avoiding the commodity fetishism of mainstream economics

designing supply contracts contract type and information asymmetry this paper studies the value to a supplier of obtaining better information about a buyer s cost structure and of being able to offer more general contracts we use the bilateral monopoly setting to analyze six scenarios three increasingly general contracts wholesale pricing schemes two part linear schemes and twopart nonlinear schemes each under full and incomplete information about the buyer s cost structure we allow both sides to refuse to trade by explicitly including reservation profit levels for both for the supplier this is implemented through a cutoff policy we derive the supplier s optimal contracts and profits for all six scenarios and examine the value of information and of more general contracts our key findings are as follows first the value of information is higher under two part contracts second the value of offering two part contracts is higher under full information and third the proportion of buyers the supplier will choose to exclude can be substantial

testing liquidity constraints in 10 asian developing countries an error correction model approach an error correction model is used to estimate the fraction of consumers who are liquidity constrained in 10 asian developing countries our estimates of the fraction of consumers who are liquidity constrained range between 0 25 and 0 98 we further investigate whether financial liberalization has resulted in the reduction of liquidity constraints in these countries however the results find support for this only in the cases of south korea sri lanka and taiwan

on sustainability and materiality homo faber a new approach abstract this paper explicitly engages with recent debates in ecological economics on what mode of humanity and person the sustainability project requires e g becker 2006 siebenhuner 2000 and responds to calls to widen our understanding of the human being beyond homo economicus e g bina and guedes vaz 2011 using the example of the increasing attention to well being both within policy and academic circles we seek to contribute to current critical considerations of the sustainable person becker 2010 2012 we do this by incorporating often neglected perspectives from disciplines rooted in the arts and humanities specifically anthropology and philosophy introducing to debates on sustainability the notion of homo faber our aim is threefold 1 to invite creative thinking about the role that materiality and practice play in the constitution of alternative notions of being 2 to soften the anthropocentrism of western worldviews by considering the possibility of a different mode of humanity based upon connection rather than separation interdependence rather than autonomy gibson graham 2011 2 and 3 to encourage deeper reflection about the need for and the challenge of interdisciplinary sustainability research

the relevance of epistemic analysis to sustainability economics and the capability approach abstract this paper considers how epistemic analyses birkin and polesie 2011 foucault 1970 foucault 1990a foucault 1990b may assist with the development of sustainability economics bartelmus 2010 baumgartner and quaas 2010a baumgartner and quaas 2010b and soderbaum 2011 and the capability approach ballet et al 2011 martins 2011 rauschmayer and lesmann 2011 scerri 2012 it was the french social theorist michel foucault 1926 1984 who coined the term episteme to refer to the possibility of knowledge that determines the development of thought and knowledge in a given period for foucault epistemes were the buried foundations of knowledge that his epistemic archaeology could unearth in 2007 foucault was identified as the most cited author of books in the humanities by thomson reuters isi web of science this paper begins with a brief definition and description of epistemic analyses a summary analysis of the modern episteme and neoclassical economics is then provided and this is followed by outline evidence for the emerging episteme finally the opportunity is considered for the emerging episteme to reinforce and enhance sustainability economics and the capability approach

dollar vs percentage markup pricing schemes under a dominant retailer abstract we investigate two very common pricing schemes for a stackelberg dominant retailer percentage markup and dollar markup we show that when a dominant retailer switches from dollar to percentage markup the channel s overall pie and the retailer s pie piece are both enlarged in contrast the manufacturer will be forced to levy a lower wholesale price thus receiving a smaller pie piece despite the larger pie the preceding statements hold regardless of whether the demand is deterministic or stochastic however the effects of switching to percentage markup on the retail price and sales volume will depend not only on whether the demand is stochastic but also on the assumed demand curve shape and on whether demand stochasticity is additive or multiplicative besides presenting a comprehensive set of answers on the comparative performance of dollar and percentagemarkups our results also highlight the often overlooked importance of choosing between i dollar and percentage markup and ii the formats of the assumed stochasticity and demand curves

from rational actor to efficient complexity manager exorcising the ghost of homo economicus with a unified synthesis of cognition research it is now commonplace to note that economics canonical model of humans as rational self interested utility maximizers homo economicus is both descriptively misleading and often insufficiently predictive however certain outdated assumptions tied to homo economicus persist often influencing discourse and research design even in sustainability oriented fields we argue this ghost of homo economicus endures because the diversity of findings that confound the canonical model has surfaced across multiple behavioral and cognitive sciences each with its own terminology and focus area as such a unified accessible synthesis of this new information has yet to emerge in this paper we review recent insights from across the behavioral and cognitive sciences and propose an efficient complexity manager ecm model homo efficens as the best synthesizing option the crux of this model is that our species works within biological limits to efficiently filter massive environmental complexity this is achieved largely through analogical or case based reasoning we explain this synthesized model using a series of accessible metaphors finally we speculate on how this model may enrich future sustainable development research insofar as it points to fruitful units of analysis can stimulate methodological innovation and provide a more explicit theoretical foundation for the field

money as a unit of account we develop a theory that rationalizes the use of a dominant unit of account in an economy agents enter into non contingent contracts with a variety of business partners trade unfolds sequentially in credit chains and is subject to random matching by using a dominant unit of account agents can lower their exposure to relative price risk avoid costly default and create more total surplus we discuss conditions under which it is optimal to adopt circulating government paper as the dominant unit of account and the optimal choice of currency areas when there is variation in the intensity of trade within and across regions

the collaborative enterprise instead of the currently prevailing competitive model a more collaborative strategy is needed to address the concerns related to the unsustainability of today s business this article aims to explore collaborative approaches where enterprises seek to build long term mutually beneficial relationships with all stakeholders and want to produce sustainable values for their whole business ecosystem cases here analyzed demonstrate that alternative ways of doing business are possible these enterprises share more democratic ownership structures more balanced and broader governance systems and a more comprehensive view of organizational goals and performance which goes beyond the narrow concept of financial bottom line and into a stronger and systematic care of the needs and requirements of the different stakeholder groups thanks to this evidence and different theoretical and empirical contributions we suggest that the strength and sustainability of enterprises come from their ability to fit into the environmental social and cultural context in which they operate by creating values for all stakeholders enterprises can involve them and gain deep support based on their commitment this may lead to superior performance from a multiple bottom line perspective

money unit of account and nominal rigidity abstract in order to characterize the properties required to fulfill the roles of money as a unit of account uoa as well as a medium of exchange moe we consider the choice of a uoa in the context of a micro founded model where inflation uncertainty exists and some conversion cost is incurred in using a uoa that is different from an moe we show that it is not the level of inflation but its volatility that matters for the choice of a uoa in the presence of inflation uncertainty money can still become both an moe and a uoa as long as the conversion cost is higher than its maximum buyers are willing to bear for ensuring stable consumption against inflation uncertainty also the choice of a uoa in the presence of fiat money as an moe determines endogenously the nominal price rigidity or flexibility an economy adopting money as a uoa yields the short run nominal rigidity and the phillips curve relationship

an asymmetric error correction model of uk consumer spending this paper augments the granger and lee journal of applied econometrics 4 1989 non symmetric error equilibrium correction model to assess the possibility that in the aggregate consumers respond differently to different types of disequilibrium error this idea is illustrated using an engle granger implementation of the davidson hendry srba and yeo dhsy economic journal 80 1978 model the disequilibrium error is endogenously determined by the long run empirical model and a binary dummy variable captures two alternative states above and below equilibrium spending interaction of the dummy variable with key variables in a short run dynamic model of uk consumer spending augments the dynamics of the dhsy model income elasticities inflation elasticities and speeds of adjustment are all seen to change significantly depending on whether the disequilibrium error is positive or negative and is suggestive of asymmetric behaviour on the part of consumers moreover the asymmetrically augmented mode

mark up pricing and bilateral monopoly abstract if managers use cost based percentage margins when pricing their goods these margins should be determined as equilibrium choices this paper studies the case of bilateral monopoly and compares the nash equilibrium in percentage and in absolute mark ups we show that percentage mark ups lead to lower equilibrium prices and higher downstream profits

nash equilibrium with mark up pricing oligopolists abstract if business managers formulate strategies in terms of mark ups then it is natural to think they will think of their rivals actions in these terms for a market characterized by constant elasticity of demand and supply the mark up equilibrium is derived and compared with the traditional monopoly cournot and perfectly competitive equilibria we also compute the revenue as strategy equilibria

separation of unit of account from medium of exchange the separation of a unit of account uoa from a medium of exchange moe in the commodity money system is investigated by considering explicitly a seller s choice of uoa in terms of either an moe or a unit of metal weight if the likelihood of debasement of an moe and its rate are high enough the price is posted in terms of a unit of metal weight rather than an moe interestingly this moe uoa separated equilibrium yields the flexible nominal price whereas an moe uoa integrated equilibrium yields the sticky one this implies the nominal price rigidity in the fiat money system where moe and uoa are integrated

renegotiation and optimality in agency contracts we analyse renegotiation in a hidden action principal agent model contract renegotiation offers are made by the agent a refinement is imposed on the principal s beliefs if precisely one action is optimal with respect to both the principal s and the agent s contracts the principal believes that that action has been taken with the refinement imposed perfect bayesian equilibrium allocations are identical to the second best in the classical principal agent model without renegotiation when renegotiation is led by the agent and when equilibria satisfy the refinement equilibrium allocations are ex ante efficient incentive contracting is a common mechanism for promoting ex ante investments and for avoiding ex post opportunistic behaviour in a long term or continuing economic relationship the classical principal agent model holmstrom 1979 grossman and hart 1983 is a natural framework for this class of problem in such a model a risk averse agent performs an action on behalf of a risk neutral principal the agent s action is unobservable and affects the principal s revenue in a random fashion the derivation and characterization of efficient compensation schemes have been the major focus in the principal agent literature generally the incentives to motivate a costly action from the agent take the form of profit sharing the agent s reward is made contingent on his random performance outcomes

ambiguity aversion and the absence of wage indexation abstract this paper analyzes optimal wage contracting assuming agents are not subjective expected utility maximizers but are instead ambiguity or uncertainty averse decision makers who maximize choquet expected utility we show that such agents will choose not to include any indexation coverage in their wage contracts even when inflation is uncertain unless the perceived inflation uncertainty is high enough significantly the exercise does not presume any exogenous costs e g transactions costs of including indexation links

stock returns and inflation in a principal agent economy abstract we study a monetary system in which final goods sell on spot markets while labor and dividends sell through contracts firms and workers confuse absolute and relative price changes a positive price level shock makes sellers think they are producing better goods than they really are they split this apparent windfall with workers who get a higher real wage hence unexpected inflation shifts real income from firms the principals to workers the agents and thereby lowers stock returns a predictable money supply rulestrictlypareto dominates random money supply rules journal of economic literatureclassification numbers e43 e51

promise and shortcomings of a green turn in recent policy responses to the double crisis abstract the paper analyses six international scale responses to the financial and climate change double crisis in order to review how they define problems and solutions analyse what underpins the policy choices revealed in these responses the green turn reflect on the implications of the proposed solutions in terms of sustainability and global environmental justice and to suggest three elements for a paradigm shift towards an alternative turn embedded in ecological economics theory the analysis reveals that responses by leading international organisations continue to appeal to the precepts of neoclassical economy we argue that from an ecological economics perspective policy responses under the various labels of green economy green growth sustainable growth green new deal fall well short of what is needed to fight the environmental crisis and rising inequality across and within countries the idea of justice and equity that underpins the mainstream approach seems inadequate in terms of sustaining our environmental base and global environmental justice based on this critical review we propose an alternative turn centred on three elements of a paradigm shift leading to a new economy where the environmental base and global environmental justice are at the centre of the discourse

humans environment and economies from vicious relationships to virtuous responsibility abstract the debates questioning the meaning of growth point to a need for a more holistic understanding of human beings and of the economic actor fundamental to economic theory and practice this contribution turns to virtue ethics in order to reframe the self in more reflexive relational and environmental terms we explore the significance of understanding humans sense of responsibility that is quintessentially relational and of their capacity and need to relate to nature as well as community and society we begin by reviewing the main arguments in the thriving debate in ecological economics around what the characteristics of the human being can contribute to implement an ecologically sustainable development our aim is then to draw a link between this debate and that of virtue ethics that leads to a different understanding of the human being of what can contribute to individual wellbeing and a good life responsibility we argue is not only a value but a virtue that enables individuals to find meaning in acting responsibly towards the environment emphasising the multiple benefits that arise from framing good lives in active terms we conclude reflecting on the challenges to and implications of our proposition for government institutions particularly education

reinterpreting the dhsy 1978 consumption function with hindsight the justification for davidson hendry srba and yeo s dhsy s selection of their favoured equation is shown to be based upon contradicting assumptions about inflation the empirically supported model is argued not to have a theoretically justified error correction interpretation the exclusion of the intercept biases the error correction term such that it becomes significant and negative but undermines the theoretical plausibility of the long run target more generally the statistical need to include an intercept in any regression to avoid parameter bias is demonstrated the rise in inflation in the 1970s is not considered to be a credible explanation of the fall in the average propensity to consume apc from the 1950s and is shown to have questionable empirical support when a below unit income elasticity is allowed for the recent articles which have found support for dhsy s favoured formulation augmented by time varying parameters using the most contemporary uk data should be viewed with caution new interpretations for the dhsy model s persistent success are called for if it is not to be considered that dubious regressions have been resurrected

human development and economic sustainability abstract this paper attempts to integrate the concern for human development in the present with that in the future in arguing for sustainable human development it appeals to the notion of ethical universalism an elementary demand for impartiality of claims applied within and between generations economic sustainability is often seen as a matter of intergenerational equity but the specification of what is to be sustained is not always straightforward the addendum explores the relationship between distributional equity sustainable development optimal growth and pure time preference

terrorism and the invisible hook this article investigates and compares the root causes of transnational terrorism and piracy in order to accomplish this we construct a novel data set that catalogues terrorist activity and piracy over the years 1992 2008 paying particular attention to the arabian sea and indian ocean since 1991 these data are then merged with other information detailing the economic political and security posture of each organization during the same period so that we can examine the relationship between economic prosperity security terrorism and piracy the main conclusion is that terrorism is mostly unrelated to economic conditions while piracy responds to both economic payoffs and military deterrents

house prices borrowing constraints and monetary policy in the business cycle i develop a general equilibrium model with sticky prices credit constraints nominal loans and asset prices changes in asset prices modify agents borrowing capacity through collateral value changes in nominal prices affect real repayments through debt deflation monetary policy shocks move asset and nominal prices in the same direction and are amplified and propagated over time the financial accelerator is not constant across shocks nominal debt stabilises supply shocks making the economy less volatile when the central bank controls the interest rate i discuss the role of equity debt indexation and household and firm leverage in the propagation mechanism finally i find that monetary policy should not target asset prices as a means of reducing output and inflation volatility

counting the cost of the intifada consumption saving and political instability in israel in this paper we investigate some of the ways in whichshort term variations in the magnitude of politicalinstability can impact on macroeconomic performance takingthe example of israel since 1987 several indicators ofpolitical instability are found to have a significant impacton aggregate consumption and savings and explain a large partof poor israeli savings performance over recent years

new evolutionary foundations theoretical requirements for a science of sustainability abstract ecological economics stands in theoretical and ethical opposition to many aspects of neoclassical economic theory despite their sound critiques of that theory ecological economists have not settled on an alternative theory of human behavior as a potential alternative norgaard s socioecological coevolutionary framework remains underspecified in terms of variation heredity and selection i review concepts and insights on human behavior from evolutionary biology and evolutionary social science in order to supply new theoretical tools for ecological economic problems and help refine the coevolutionary framework i argue that a synthetic evolutionary theory of human behavior provides a sufficient alternative to the neoclassical perspective and that cultural evolutionary theory is a necessary prerequisite of a mature economic science ecological coevolutionary or otherwise finally i suggest some potential topics that such a mature theory might begin to tackle

feminism ecology and the philosophy of economics abstract the contemporary discipline of economics pays little heed to either the natural environment or to the work of women a review of the literature on the historical development of western concepts of self and science shows that this is not coincidental rather than suggesting that ecological economics reinforce the identification of women with nature however feminist thought suggests that dualistic thinking about men and women humans and nature can be should be replaced with a fuller picture of human identity and knowledge

structural unemployment cyclical unemployment and income inequality this is the first study that decomposes unemployment into its structural and cyclical components and investigates their impact on income distribution controlling for the influence of inflation increases in structural unemployment have a substantial aggravating impact on income inequality inflation has a progressive impact which is due to the unexpected component the study demonstrates that previous work failed to take into account the stochastic trend behavior of the variables consequently specifications used by previous research cannot predict the behavior of income shares after 1983 whereas the specification used by this paper generates accurate forecasts the results also indicate that a sustained gnp growth is not necessarily associated with an improvement in income inequality because sustained gnp growth can coexist with increased structural unemployment

the assessment consumer expenditure this article aims to illuminate two sets of consumption puzzles the first concerns the behavior of aggregate saving rates in the 1980s and early 1990s collapse and rebound in scandinavia and the u k and apparently a more secular decline in the u s the second set of puzzles concerns various apparent contradictions of the rational expectations permanent income hypothesis e g in time series the excess sensitivity of consumption changes to anticipated income changes and in cross sections the tendency of consumption and income age profiles to follow each other more than standard life cycle theory implies the article discusses in relatively non technical terms the implications both for euler equations and solved out consumption functions of introducing uncertainty credit constraint consumption leisure interactions habits and durability alternative to rational expectations the illiquidity of some assets and financial deregulation it also compares the merits of euler and solved out models of aggregate consumption

values ideology and politics in ecological economics abstract ecological economics is built on a value commitment to study environmental issues and to contribute constructively to a more sustainable development path however many ecological economists still hesitate it appears to depart too much from other scholars by openly addressing issues of values and ideology in this essay the role of the scholar s orientation with respect to values and ideology is addressed it is observed that not only scholars but also actors in society are guided by their ideological orientation this leads to the idea that some of the weaknesses of economic man and profit maximising firm assumptions can be mitigated by introducing a political economic person and a political economic organisation

beyond homo economicus evidence from experimental economics environmental policies are generally based on a model of the human actor taken from neoclassical economic theory this paper reports on laboratory experiments suggesting weaknesses in this model and describes alternative models correcting these weaknesses one finding is that economic actors tend to be hyperbolic as opposed to exponential discounters who discount the immediate future at a higher rate than the more distant future another finding is that economic actors are not self regarding but rather in many circumstances are strong reciprocators who come to strategic interactions with a propensity to cooperate respond to cooperative behavior by maintaining or increasing cooperation and respond to free riders by retaliating against the offenders even at a personal cost and even when there is no reasonable expectation that future personal gains will flow from such retaliation we discuss some implications for policy analysis 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

prudence in bargaining the effect of uncertainty on bargaining outcomes abstract we investigate the outcome of bargaining when a player s pay off from agreement is risky we find that a risk averse player typically increases his equilibrium receipts when his pay off is made risky this is because the presence of risk makes individuals behave more patiently in bargaining strong analogies are drawn to the precautionary saving literature we show that the effect of risk on receipts can be sufficiently strong that a decreasingly risk averse player may be better off receiving a risky pay off than a certain pay off

the life cycle model of consumption and saving a central implication of life cycle models is that agents smooth consumption we review the empirical evidence on smoothing at frequencies from within the year up to across a lifetime we find that life cycle models particular those which incorporate realistic features of markets and goods have more empirical successes than failures we also show that some apparent deviations from theoretical predictions imply very small welfare losses for agents finally we emphasize that the coherence of life cycle models imposes an important discipline when incorporating new features into models

a dynamic model of money credit and consumption a joint model for the uk household sector previous research has investigated consumers expenditure and money demand as separable equations we estimate them jointly as driven by the same influences credit is also included as a potential third variable that might provide a source of additional information about the monetary transmission mechanism consumption money and lending equations are modelled as an interdependent system and the significance of lending for consumption andmoney is tested theresults using uk household sector data show that a stable credit equation does exist in parallel with money demand and consumption equations and that interactions modelled in a conditional vector equilibrium correction system are favoured over independent equations

microeconomic degrowth the case of community supported agriculture in this paper we attempt to build a new microeconomic approach that could be considered as a basis of the degrowth macroeconomic view as degrowth is a critique of the dominant macroeconomic model of the endless search for economic growth its microeconomic foundations can be built by searching a relevant grass root economic initiative to theorise our approach is based upon the case study research of a self harvesting community supported agriculture in belgium the mainstream microeconomic model is based on the well known homo economicus assumption of individual self interest and competitive behaviour by contrast our model is based on a holistic approach of producers and consumers based upon trust cooperation and ecologically responsible behaviours this contribution participates to the flourishing literature on degrowth in ecological economics we begin by reviewing the debate on degrowth and economic behaviour we discuss the case study and its accounting expression that departs from the capitalist profit seeking model we conclude by explaining the limits and challenges of our model that implements degrowth on a small scale and in a capitalist environment

social housing finance in sweden sweden historically had a highly subsidised housing construction and rehabilitation subsidies were mainly channelled through an interest subsidy system which reduced initial capital expenditures a boom in the housing market in the late 1980s turned into a bust in the early 1990s this was due to a combination of factors a lower inflation rate a deep economic recession and reduced interest subsidies in combination with a tax reform the effect was to create a large price fall vacancies a low construction rate and large defaults the bank crisis was counteracted by a tighter credit market with a more thorough screening of borrowers municipal housing companies lost their protected position on the credit market in the early 1990s many of the companies were severely hurt by an increasing number of vacancies and had an insufficient safeguard in terms of a low equity it is thus anticipated that municipal housing companies will be an important target for bank screening in the future and it is antic

housing and financial wealth financial deregulation and consumption the swedish case the effects of using wealth disaggregated as housing and net financial wealth are investigated in an error correction function model data for sweden 1970 92 are used in the analysis unit root tests indicate that consumption income and wealth are all integrated of order one and that the variables cointegrate if wealth is disaggregated financial wealth is crucial in explaining consumption and wealth in disaggregated form improves the models significantly household debt is an important determinant of short run behavior indicating credit rationing there is also evidence that the observed dramatic increase in savings is a consequence of the recent tax reform copyright 1995 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

vertical structure and nash equilibrium a note a frequently cited proposition in industrial organization is that vertical integration of bilateral monopolists improves economic efficiency in the case of fixed proportions production the traditional argument shows that rivalrous firms implementing a stackelberg solution charge a higher price for the final good than they would if they were vertically integrated this paper shows that if rivalrous firms make pricing decisions simultaneously and reach a nash equilibrium instead of the usual stackelberg solution the price of the final good still exceeds that under vertical integration thus the social advantage of cooperation between bilateral monopolists continues to hold under new behavioral assumptions copyright 1991 by blackwell publishing ltd

nominal contracting and monetary targets drifting into indexation we look for a theoretical justification of nominal wage contracts in household diversification of risk in a calibrated general equilibrium model we find from stochastic simulation that if both productivity and monetary shocks are temporary then optimal wage contracts are overwhelmingly nominal the model suggests that the persistence in monetary shocks not only raises wage protection but also reduces welfare in a world where productivity shocks are persistent as both theory and our empirical results for the oced suggest they are this suggests that this central bank practice is due for review

asset market perspectives on the israeli palestinian conflict this paper locates turning points in the israeli palestinian conflict since the late 1980s using asset market data from israel and the palestinian authority pa we find that major escalations in violence such as the outbreak of the intifada in 2000 lead to significant declines in asset prices in both israel and the pa conversely major peace initiatives such as the oslo accords in 1993 and the road map plan in 2003 lead to substantial increases in asset prices on both sides of the conflict an additional novel finding is that asset markets respond positively to the success of politicians who favour a negotiated settlement to the conflict

renegotiation of sales contracts this paper studies moral hazard contracts that may be renegotiated after an agent chooses an unobservable effort unlike in previous models a contract here contains only one compensation scheme and the agent has all the bargaining power in the renegotiation stage using a relatively weak forward induction refinement all equilibria are shown tb be second best efficient renegotiation occurs in every equilibrium if the effort set is rich the only equilibrium initial contract is a sales contract i e a scheme which sells the project to the agent this captures the idea that a party the principal who has an inherently weak renegotiation position will sometimes insist on a simple initial contract

pursuing self interest or self actualization from capitalism to a steady state wisdom economy the co evolution of capitalism democracy and science since 1800 has led to enormous progress but also major existential problems this article asserts that these problems are rooted in neo classical economics narrow focus within human nature on self interest which causes intense conflicts for scarce resources among people societies species and generations it describes how an emphasis on the totality of human nature in life with a focus on self actualization instead of self interest as the main driving force and wisdom rather than wealth as the ultimate aim can lead to a steady state wisdom economy that can simultaneously ensure high personal welfare and collective sustainability

contracts and money why are contracts not fully indexed in a setting in which fully indexed contracts are feasible we find that when price level data are gathered with delay these contracts are not renegotiation proof the contracts that replace them entail a lower level of welfare for the parties to that contract they also imply that real variables respond to nominal shocks

unexpected inflation real wages and employment determination in union contracts this paper examines the effect of nominal contracting provisions on employment determination in union contracts in most contracts the nominal wage rate is wholly or partially predetermined real wage rates therefore contain unanticipated components that reflect unexpected price changes and the degree of indexation the empirical analysis based on a large sample of indexed and nonindexed contracts suggests that unexpected real wage changes are associated with systematic employment responses in the opposite direction the author concludes that nominal contracting provisions play a potentially important role in the cyclical properties and persistence of employment movements in the union sector copyright 1990 by american economic association

environmental sustainability as the first principle of distributive justice towards an ecological communitarian normative foundation for ecological economics abstract the ecological economic concern with environmental sustainability embodies the normative orientations of the field this concern is foremost a matter of distributive justice the definition of which determines the relevance of the appropriate scale and efficient allocation criteria yet it would appear that the discipline lacks a shared internally consistent set of ethical premises by which this concern might be legitimized various authors have embraced a rawlsian conception of liberal justice as the appropriate banner for ecological economics in place of the consequentialist libertarian foundations of neoclassical economics including environmental economics it is argued here that this is insufficient in so far as it is premised on a vision of a discrete self sufficient economic actor instead it is posited that an ecological economic ethic must proceed from an understanding of the economic actor as community member a recognition implicit in recent ecological economic contributions focused on discourse ethics and deliberative democracy an ecological communitarian conception of distributive justice which views the well being of the individual as inseparable from the integrity of its implicate mutually constituting human and non human natural communities is advanced as the appropriate basis for the ecological economic world view in this light the thermodynamic foundations of ecological economics are seen to provide the necessary departure point for normative decision making oriented towards ensuring sustainability in economic organization

nominal contracting theories of unemployment evidence from panel data this paper examines economywide and sector specific responses of real wages to nominal shocks using micro panel data from the national longitudinal survey of young men the observed response patterns provide no support for nominal contracting theories of unemployment which predict that nominal surprises should be negatively correlated with real wages in fact both inflation and money growth surprises are found to be essentially uncorrelated with real wages either a real business cycle model or a model with rigidities in commodity prices could be consistent with these results copyright 1993 by american economic association

motives and performance outcomes of sustainable supply chain management practices a multi theoretical perspective many researchers believe the tremendous industrial development over the past two centuries is unsustainable because it has led to unintended ecological deterioration despite the ever growing attention sustainable supply chain management sscm has received most sscm research and models look at the consequences rather than the antecedents or motives of such responsible practices the few studies that explore corporate motives have remained largely qualitative and large scale empirical analyses are scarce drawing on multiple theories and combining supply chain and business ethics literature we purport that instrumental relational and moral motives are behind a firm s engagement in sscm practices specifically we examine the links between corporate motives sscm practices and firm performance using a sample of 259 supply chain firms in germany we empirically test five hypothesized relationships our results reveal that relational and moral motives are key drivers and that firms exhibiting high levels of moral obligations tend to outperform those primarily driven by amoral considerations findings of this study contribute to multiple literatures espousing sustainability management and can help policy makers stakeholder groups and scholars develop more robust strategies for encouraging firms to practice sscm

testing the stochastic implications of the life cycle permanent income hypothesis using uk regional time series data this paper applies exclusion tests of the pure life cycle permanent income hypothesis lcpih to time series data on each of the eleven standard regions of the uk data are annual and extend from 1975 to 1994 the results obtained suggest that there are considerable differences in consumption behaviour across the regions theory has indicated that a departure of consumption behaviour from that predicted by the lcpih can occur because of a change in unemployment consequently a comparison is undertaken of the empirical results obtained for the eleven regions and the respective unemployment movements following this comparison it is possible to conclude that the contrasting unemployment experiences of the regions of the uk have contributed significantly to yet cannot account for fully the observed differences in consumption behaviour