the management of greenhouse gas emissions and its effects on firm performance abstract climate change is a reality and the dramatic reduction of greenhouse gas ghg emissions by developed countries is a moral obligation it represents also a unique opportunity to modernize the economy and to improve the competitiveness of firms the purpose of this study is to analyze how greater consideration to the impact of their activities on the environment as well as the control and reduction of co2 emissions can improve the economic performance of firms a modern and efficient approach to the management of emissions helps to identify the activities with high energy consumption which can lead to potential savings and also to maximize image return to customers sensitive to environmental issues an econometric model that quantifies these effects is here applied to a sample of large italian firms and evidence demonstrates that the adoption of an ems environmental management system together with an appropriate control of emissions could lead to profits through an increase in demand and productivity however the improvement of productivity is weaker than the increase in demand suggesting that there is a delay between the start of the environmental efforts and the realization of economic performances

testing for asymmetric information in insurance markets the first goal of this paper is to provide a simple and general test of the presence of asymmetric information in contractual relationships within a competitive context we also argue that insurance data are particularly well suited to such empirical investigations to illustrate this claim we use data on contracts and accidents to investigate the extent of asymmetric information in the french market for automobile insurance using various parametric and nonparametric methods we find no evidence for the presence of asymmetric information in this market

multitask agency and contract choice an empirical exploration the multitask agency problem is examined empirically using contracts between private integrated oil companies and their service stations in the city of vancouver the empirical tests assess how variations in the characteristics of one task affect the choice of agent compensation scheme for another comparative statics from the model predict that higher powered incentives will be offered for gasoline sales when the secondary activity is not highly complementary with gasoline retailing where complementarity is measured by the cross price demand effect the covariation in uncertainty and the degree of effort substitutability copyright 1996 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

adverse selection and moral hazard in insurance can dynamic data help to distinguish a standard problem of applied contracts theory is to empirically distinguish between adverse selection and moral hazard we show that dynamic insurance data allow to distinguish moral hazard from dynamic selection on unobservables in the presence of moral hazard experience rating implies negative occurrence dependence individual claim intensities decrease with the number of past claims we discuss econometric tests for the various types of data that are typically available finally we argue that dynamic data also allow to test for adverse selection even if it is based on asymmetric learning jel d82 g22 c41 c14

moral hazard and the demand for physician services first lessons from a french natural experiment abstract this paper presents empirical results on moral hazard in demand for medical care using a longitudinal dataset on 4578 individuals followed during two years the dataset contains two subgroups one for which a copayment rate of 10 for physician visits was introduced in 1994 and an other for which no change occurred during the period of the study this enables us to use these data as coming from a controlled natural experiment we test if the number of visits per agent was modified by this copayment rate the data reject the hypothesis for office visits but do not for home visits this suggests that there is moral hazard in demand for some physician services but also that when non monetary costs are important small changes in monetary price may not induce any major change in behavior

retrospectives the origins of neoclassical microeconomics until recently the standard story line in history of thought textbooks was that a triumvirate of british and continental writers established demarcation between classical economics and neoclassical economics in the early 1870s the authors raise two objections to this potted history the first is that the tools of neoclassical economics were invented earlier recent work has demonstrated that the tools of neoclassical analysis were widely available across europe well before 1870 the notion that neoclassical economics experienced a tripartite immaculate conception around 1870 cannot stand the second objection is that the method of neoclassical economics was invented later as it stands the legend undervalues the key contribution of alfred marshall who put an indelible stamp on neoclassical economics by defining the appropriate method of economic inquiry when we refer to neoclassical economics today we usually mean the collection of tools of economic knowledge available to and invented by marshall channeled and directed into uses dictated by marshall s view of economic science yet as we shall see marshall had an eminent predecessor in method as well in the person of jules dupuit

incentives learning and compensation a theoretical and empirical investigation of managerial labor contracts this article analyzes properties and implications of multiperiod managerial labor contracts under two alternative hypotheses incentives in which productivity depends on unobservable effort and learning in which ability is unknown and is revealed over time shared and conflicting implications of these competing models are developed in terms of experienceearnings profiles and the relation between compensation and performance i empirically examine these theoretical results by using a longitudinal sample of 1 488 chief executive officers followed from 1974 1985 the data yield mixed evidence that generally supports the learning hypothesis over the incentive hypothesis

deductible contracts against fraudulent claims evidence from automobile insurance insurance fraud is now recognized as a significant resource allocation problem in many markets the object of this study is to verify how straight deductible contracts may affect the equilibrium level of falsification in automobile insurance this type of contract is observed in many markets even if it is not optimal under costly state falsification a higher deductible may create incentives to fraud or cheat particularly when the insured anticipates that the claim has a small probability of being audited to verify this proposition we estimate a loss equation for which one of the determinants is the amount of the deductible using a data set of claims filed for damages following an automobile accident with twenty insurance companies in quebec in 1992 because we have access only to reported losses a higher deductible also implies a lower probability of reporting small losses to isolate the fraud effect related to the presence of a deductible in the contract we jointly estimate a loss equation and a

moral hazard and dynamic insurance data this paper exploits dynamic features of insurance contracts in the empirical analysis of moral hazard we first show that experience rating implies negative occurrence dependence under moral hazard individual claim intensities decrease with the number of past claims we then show that dynamic insurance data allow to distinguish this moral hazard effect from dynamic selection on unobservables we develop nonparametric tests and estimate a flexible parametric model we find no evidence of moral hazard in french car insurance our analysis contributes to a recent literature based on static data that has problems distinguishing between moral hazard and selection and dealing with dynamic features of actual insurance contracts methodologically this paper builds on and extends the literature on state dependence and heterogeneity in event history data jel d82 g22 c41 c14

modeling competition and market equilibrium in insurance empirical issues in the last decade or so numerous papers have been devoted to empirical investigations based on contract theory many contributions use insurance data and specifically files pro vided by firms a typical paper would analyze the relationship between individual characteris tics the contracts chosen and the corresponding outcome as measured by claims the natural next step in this research agenda is to model empirically market equilibrium on insurance markets empirical models of com petitive insurance markets are important in many respects first such models are an indis pensable first step for the empirical analysis of existing markets the discussion of optimal pricing strategies or the definition of new insur ance contract would greatly benefit from such models from a policy perspective the design of any regulation requires estimating its likely impact on the market allocation for instance while a ban on specific pricing options based say on gender or age is often advocated on ethi cal grounds a precise assessment of its impact on insurance markets is needed before any deci sion is made and an empirical model is required to provide such an assessment

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

empirical contract theory the case of insurance data abstract while contract theory has reached a high degree of sophistication econometric applications remain scarse one often invoked reason is that adequate data is hard to find we argue that insurance data fit especially well the requirements of econometric testing then we propose some insights on how insurance data can be used to test the predictions of contract theory as an illustration we present some preliminary empirical results relative to the existence of adverse selection of the rothschild and stiglitz type in automobile insurance

the ethology of homo economicus early critics of john stuart mill attacked him for creating a monomaniacal economic man concerned only with the accumulation of money in fact mill s construct possessed a considerably richer psychology including desires for leisure luxury and sexual relations this psychology played a central role in mill s analysis of alternative institutional regimes mill also considered the social origins or ethology of preference structures mill s framework provides a useful reference point for ongoing work in comparative economics and feminist economics in particular mill s emphasis on psychological parsimony needs careful reconsideration by advocates of enriching the motives of economic man

beyond the question does it pay to be green how much green and when abstract this research investigates the relationship between green management and performance in italian firms the analysis compares innovation and productivity of firms with similar features but different environmental activities firms are matched on a rich set of covariates extending the coarsened exact matching to survey data matched data are analysed with parametric and non parametric tests and endogenous treatment regression the analysis shows that the relationship between green management and performance is u shaped green firms are performing no better than firms with no environmental activity especially in energy intensive sectors among green firms more advanced environmental management is associated with higher performance overall the results suggest that green management has strong sectoral patterns and no linear relationship with performance findings suggest that green managers should pursue a comprehensive environmental management system sectoral specific policies to promote environmentally friendly activities are needed when green activities are not paying off

does firm size comfound the relationship between corporate social performance and firm financial performance there has been some theoretical and empirical debate that the positive relationship between corporate social performance csp and firm financial performance ffp is spurious and in fact caused by a third factor namely large firm size this study examines this question by integrating three meta analyses of more than two decades of research on 1 csp and ffp 2 firm size and csp and 3 firm size and ffp into one path analytic model the present study does not confirm size as a third factor which would confound the relationship between csp and ffp that is even if firm size is controlled for across studies comprising on average over 15 000 observations csp and ffp remain positively correlated showing a true score corrected path coefficient p of 0 37

tightening environmental standards the benefit cost or the no cost paradigm ms ff ichael porter and claas van der linde have written a paper that is interesting and to us at least somewhat astonishing it is a defense of environmental regulation indeed an invitation to more stringent regulation that makes essentially no reference to the social benefits of such regulation this approach contrasts starkly with the methods that economists and other policy analysts have traditionally used when assessing environmental or other regulatory programs the traditional approach consists of comparing the beneficial effects of regulation with the costs that must be borne to secure these benefits for environmental regulation the social benefits include the reductions in morbidity or premature mortality that can accompany cleaner air the enhanced recreational opportunities that can result from water quality improvements the increased land values that might attend the cleanup of a hazardous waste site the enhanced vitality of aquatic ecosystems that might follow reductions in agricultural pesticide use or any of the other potentially significant benefits associated with tighter standards from this benefit cost approach emerges the standard tradeoff discussed in virtually every economics textbook porter and van der linde deny the validity of this approach to the analysis of environmental regulation claiming it to be an artifact of what they see as a static mindset in their view economists have failed to appreciate the capacity of

enforcement leverage when penalties are restricted in the united states empirical studies of the enforcement of continuous compliance with environmental regulations especially air and water pollution regulations have repeatedly demonstrated the following i for most sources the frequency of surveillance is quite low ii even when violations are discovered fines or other penalties are rarely assessed in most states iii sources are nonetheless thought to be in compliance a large part of the time the evidence for the apparently low level of enforcement activity is found in a number of case studies of state and local enforcement of air and water quality regulations conducted jointly by the environmental protection agency epa and council on environmental quality ceg together with periodic surveys of implementation of air and water quality legislation conducted by the general accounting office gao these surveys show

atheoretical macroeconometrics a critique abstract the spurious nature of the restrictions used to identify many macroeconometric models has led some researchers to advocate a style of econometric inquiry that is less dependent on prior theoretical restrictions of the sort that were central to the approach of the cowles commission this development which we call atheoretical macroeconometrics is summarized and evaluated in the current paper it is contrasted with an updated version of the cowles commission approach we conclude that while some of the exercises of atheoretical macroeconometrics are valid those that have attracted the most attention and appear the most innovative exogeneity testing impulse response analysis and policy analysis using estimated vector autoregressions are based on incorrect analysis

a resource based perspective on corporate environmental performance and profitability drawing on the resource based view of the firm we posited that environmental performance and economic performance are positively linked and that industry growth moderates the relationship with the returns to environmental performance higher in high growth industries we tested these hypotheses with an analysis of 243 finns over two years using independently developed environmental ratings results indicate that it pays to be green and that this relationship strengthens with industry growth we conclude by highlighting the study s academic and managerial implications making special reference to the social issues in management literature

nonparametric testing for asymmetric information asymmetric information is an important phenomenon in many markets and in particular in insurance markets testing for asymmetric information has become a very important issue in the literature in the last two decades almost all testing procedures that are used in empirical studies are parametric which may yield misleading conclusions in the case of misspecification of either functional or distributional relationships among the variables of interest motivated by the literature on testing conditional independence we propose a new nonparametric test for asymmetric information which is applicable in a variety of situations we demonstrate that the test works reasonably well through monte carlo simulations and apply it to an automobile insurance dataset and a long term care insurance ltci dataset our empirical results consolidate chiappori and salanie s findings that there is no evidence for the presence of asymmetric information in the french automobile insurance market while finkelstein and mcgarry

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

asymmetric information in insurance general testable implications several recent articles on empirical contract theory and insurance have tested for a positive correlation between coverage and ex post risk as predicted by standard models of pure adverse selection or pure moral hazard we show here that the positive correlationproperty can be extended to general setups competitive insurance markets and cases where risk aversion is public we test our results on a french dataset our tests confirm that the estimated correlation is positive they also suggest the presence of market power

it pays to be green a premature conclusion it has been claimed that good environmental performance can improve firms economic performance however because of e g data limitations the methods applied in most previous quantitative empirical studies on effects of environmental performance on economic performance of firms suffer from several shortcomings we discuss these shortcomings and conclude that previously applied methods are unsatisfactory as support for a conclusion that it pays for firms to be green then we illustrate the consequences of these shortcomings by performing several regression analyses of the effect of environmental performance on economic performance using a panel data set of norwegian plants a pooled regression where observable firm characteristics like e g size or industry are controlled for confirms a positive effect of environmental performance on economic performance however the estimated positive effect could be due to omitted unobserved variables like management or technology when the regression model controls for unobserved plant heterogeneity the effect is generally no longer statistically significant hence although greener plants tend to perform economically better the analysis provides little support for the claim that it is because they are greener these empirical findings further indicate that a conclusion that it pays to be green is premature

environmental innovations and profitability how does it pay to be green an empirical analysis on the german innovation survey much of the empirical literature analysing the relation between environmental innovation and competitiveness has focused on the question whether it pays to be green we differentiate between different types of environmental innovations which will be disentangled in those aiming at reducing the negative externalities and those allowing for efficiency increases and cost savings what we analyze is at first the extent to which these two typologies have impacts on firms profitability with opposite signs and secondly whether the motivations driving the adoption of those innovations make the difference in terms of economic gains we find empirical evidence that both the typology of environmental innovation and the driver of their adoption affect the sign of the relationship between competitiveness and environmental performance the empirical strategy is based on a sample of german firms and makes use of a merge of two waves of the mannheim innovation panel in 2011 and 2009 that allow overcoming some endogeneity issues which may arise in a cross section setting

work incentives hierarchy and internal labor markets this paper argues that contracts with payment based on a ranking of employee performance can provide performance incentives even under asymmetric information that prevents payment based on individual performance only being enforceable such contracts also fit with five features of labor markets that have aroused considerable interest 1 hierarchical wage structures 2 internal promotion 3 wage rates that rise with seniority and experience more than productivity 4 the variance of earnings increasing with experience and 5 wage rates attached to jobs rather than individuals with differentials set by administrative procedures rather than by reference to external market wages

econometrics of first price auctions in this paper we propose an estimation method for the empirical study of theoretical auction models we focus on first price sealed bid and descending auctions and we adopt the private value paradigm where each bidder is assumed to have a different private value only known to him for the object that is auctioned following mcfadden 1989 and pakes and pollard 1989 our proposed method is based on simulations specifically the method relies on a simulated nonlinear least squares objective function appropriately adjusted so as to obtain consistent estimates of the parameters of interest we illustrate the proposed method by studying a market of agricultural products where descending auctions are used our analysis takes into account heterogeneity of the auctioned objects and the fact that only the winning bid is observed we estimate the parameters that characterize the distribution of the unobserved private values for each auctioned object

evidence on adverse selection equilibrium signaling and cross subsidization in the insurance market the configuration of equilibrium in the market for automobile collision insurance is examined empirically by representing the premium deductible menu and the demand function as a standard hedonic system using contractual data from a representative insurer we estimate a reduced form hedonic premium equation and the inverse of the marginal bid equation for insurance coverage the data reveal an equilibrium with adverse selection and market signaling but lead us to reject the hypothesis that high risks receive contracts subsidized by low risks

what determines the inclusion in a sustainability stock index a panel data analysis for european companies this paper examines the determinants of the inclusion of european companies in the dow jones sustainability world index and the dow jones stoxx sustainability index in doing so the paper contributes to the micro econometric literature analyzing the determinants and economic effects of sustainability performance in three respects first it examines a broad measure of corporate sustainability behavior and thus does not only apply narrow measures of environmental performance such as toxic releases which is common in other studies second the paper examines the effect of internal assessment processes regarding corporate sustainability performance by an independent financial service institution finally it analyzes the influence of unobserved heterogeneity in the framework of panel data models the analysis shows that the probability for an inclusion in the sustainability indexes strongly decreases if a company does not respond to the written survey of the assessing institution furthermore time invariant random effects and an autoregressive structure in the stochastic components are important factors in contrast a significant influence of past economic performance cannot be confirmed robustly

moral development of the economic actor abstract in this article we argue that the changes in moral content in economics can be explained as an evolution in accordance with the maturing process presented in kohlberg s stages of moral development firstly we describe and discuss the three levels of moral progress pre conventional conventional and post conventional as presented in kohlberg s theory secondly we draw a distinction between classical economics neoclassical economics and ecological economics and discuss to what extent the differences in ethics within the three theories can be explained by referring to the ethical development characterizing kohlberg s moral stages thirdly we discuss some of the hallmarks characterizing economics based upon what kohlberg termed universal principles at the highest stage in the development of moral reasoning to exemplify the evolution of moral reasoning in different economic theories we describe the changes that take place in the image of man over the last 2 300 years the human being in economics has been discussed in this journal with reference to three different relations to himself community and nature we have used the metaphors economic man social man and ecological man to characterize the ethical content of the three first stages at the first stage economic man interpreted as an egocentric individual seeking personal gain characterizes classical economics at the second stage social man seeks the best for a group of people within the perspective of neoclassical economics at the third stage ecological man is aware of the interrelatedness between economy and nature within ecological economics the agent is termed ecological man to indicate the interconnectedness between economy and the ecosystems while being aware of the weakness in predictive power inherent in these kinds of stage theories we find it stimulating to conclude with a description of economics based upon the ideas characterizing the highest level stage 7 in kohlberg s theory we put forward a hypothesis concerning a fourth stage in the development of economics termed neo ecological economics we describe the economic actor as cosmic man cosmic man has an extended self and incorporates all the other images of man

how to be an ecological economist abstract to answer the question how to be an ecological economist we must start by defining the field of ecological economics mainstream economics altogether lacks the concepts required to deal adequately with nature justice and time it was the absence of these three concepts in this otherwise great social science that led to the establishment of ecological economics the interest in nature justice and time is its defining characteristic the main thesis of this paper is that our field is a fragile institution and that the professional existence of an ecological economist is no less fragile however this very fragility also represents freedom scope for free thinking conceptualising and research nevertheless to be able to really use and in turn enjoy the full scope of this freedom an ecological economist needs certain specific characteristics in particular what is termed in the german philosophical tradition urteilskraft and in english power of judgement a description of these characteristics is developed in this paper providing an answer to the question how to be an ecological economist

the impact of environmental performance on firm performance short term costs and long term benefits abstract we examine the intertemporal effect of environmental performance on financial performance and propose a method to assess the environmental performance in a fuller manner based on the weighting various pollutants according to their dangerousness to environment using our improved measures of environmental performance applied to the firm level data from the czech republic the results suggest that while the effect of environmental performance on financial performance is negative for environmental performance lagged by 1 year lag it becomes positive for 2 years lag as a consequence our findings indicate that porter hypothesis holds in the long run

do environmental standards harm manufacturing employment a major issue in the debate about imposing environmental standards on polluting firms is the possibility of negative effects on employment we examine the impact of environmental regulations on employment in an empirical analysis norwegian data are used to study three manufacturing sectors with high shares of units under strict environmental regulations we find that for two of these sectors firms under strict environmental regulations had a higher tendency to increase employment and a lower tendency to exit than firms under weak or no environmental regulation for the third sector environmental regulations had no significant impact on employment i introduction concern for the environment has increased in recent decades in order to control harmful emissions regulators primarily impose environmental standards while governments may be reluctant particularly in a situation with high unemployment to introduce environmental regulations such measures have been welcomed by environmentalists who sometimes even argue that there is no conflict between environmental goals and a low rate of unemployment this paper examines the impact of environmental regulations on employment in an empirical analysis of the relationship between environmental standards and manufacturing employment in norway

choice of contracts in the british national health service an empirical study following major reforms of the british national health service nhs in 1990 the roles of purchasing and providing health services were separated with the relationship between purchasers and providers governed by contracts using a mixed multinomial logit analysis we show how this policy shift led to a selection of contracts that is consistent with the predictions of a simple model based on contract theory in which the characteristics of the health services being purchased and of the contracting parties influence the choice of contract form the paper thus provides evidence in support of the practical relevance of theory in understanding health care market reform

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

estimating cost functions in regulated industries characterized by asymmetric information abstract in this paper a structural model is developed to estimate a cost function that includes both an adverse selection and a moral hazard variable it is shown how traditional cost function estimates may produced biased results if moral hazard is present this gives an alternative reason to feinstein and wolak the econometric implications of incentive compatible regulation in g f rhodes ed advances in econometrics vol 9 159 204 jai press greenwich ct 1991 of why scale economics may be overestimated in regulated industries parameter estimates from our model can be used to design an optimal contract or any other regulatory mechanism we illustrate our approach using data from the norwegian bus transport industry

sustainability economics where do we stand abstract environmental economics which is a branch of resource economics the environment as a scarce resource is essentially about market failures the costs of pollution and pollution abatement and the economics of regulation sustainability economics includes the problem of maintaining economic growth while reducing pollution and or its impacts with special attention to the linked problems of energy supply not to mention the supply other exhaustible resources climate change and most urgently fossil fuel consumption there is a need for integration of resource and environmental economics under a new rubric sustainability economics

collaborative enterprise and sustainability the case of slow food the current and prevailing paradigm of intensive agricultural production is a straightforward example of the mainstream way of doing business mainstream enterprises are based on a negativistic view of human nature that leads to counter productive and unsustainable behaviours producing negative impact for society and the natural environment if we want to change the course then different players are needed which can flourish thanks to their capacity to serve others and creating values for all the participants in the network in which they are embedded in the article through the analysis of the slow food movement and the use of recent theoretical and empirical contributions in behavioural sciences and psychology we support the collaborative enterprise model as an alternative to the still prevailing mainstream business models evidence shows that caring and responsible efforts of economic agents are acknowledged and reciprocated even in highly competitive markets

the performance of long term contracts further evidence from coal markets this article extends my previous work on price adjustment in long term coal contracts to cover a period in which the nominal market prices for coal were below the prices specified in the preexisting long term contracts two related sets of questions are explored first did actual transactions prices for coal delivered pursuant to old contracts follow contractual pricing formulas leading to higher rather than lower prices or did they adapt quickly to changing market conditions second what were the relative roles offormal contractual provisions voluntary renegotiation and breach of contractual promises in determining actual transactions prices quantities and the durability of contractual relations it appears that actual transactions prices for coal delivered pursuant to old contracts were rigid downward following written contractual provisions rather than changes in current market values changing economic conditions led to an increase in renegotiation breach and litigation but the vast majority of existing long term contracts endured through the market downturn without major changes in prices or quantities from those previously agreed to by contract the threat of legal sanctions appears to have played an important role in sustaining contractual promises

does an endogenous relationship exist between environmental and economic performance a resource based view on the horticultural sector the aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between environmental and economic performance from the resource based theory within firms of the fresh fruit and vegetables sector this study considers that the adoption of environment friendly practices has a greater influence on firms opportunities and abilities in the agricultural sector than in manufacturing sectors and leads to closer links between performance variables the reference for this empirical analysis is a panel data of horticultural farming marketing firms in spain the voluntary environmental programmes and the heterogeneity of their application lead us to regard acquiring a competitive advantage as a relevant driver to improve environmental performance in this sector a simultaneous equations model is suggested reflecting the differential environmental effect and the assumption of endogeneity among variables the results show a positive impact of environmental differentiation on profitability and market share also suggesting that the perception of this positive experience implies greater environmental performance

asymmetric information and learning evidence from the automobile insurance market this paper tests the predictions of adverse selection models using data from the automobile insurance market i find that in contrast to what recent research suggests the evidence is consistent w

utopias and realism in ecological economics knowledge understanding and improvisation what we are going through at the present time is not just an economic financial crisis but a crisis of humanity max neef 2010 p 200 despite problems within it it is ecological economics which is now emerging as the most potent opponent to neo classical economics it is ecological economics which addresses the most profound failure of neoclassical economics the failure to deal adequately with resource depletion and environmental destruction both locally and globally costanca 1991 the complex challenges are anchored in a deep conflict between mainstream economics and the natural and social conditions to harmonize this connection it would seem necessary to develop a valid understanding of the interconnectedness between economy nature and society the idea behind this article is four fold firstly we describe and discuss the ontological worldview in ecological economics secondly the epistemological consequences of the ontological preconditions are discussed thirdly some of the main concepts and principles in ecological economics are focused on fourthly we discuss the realism of radical solutions in ecological economics

towards indicators of sustainable development for firms a productive efficiency perspective sustainable development can be reflected by various economic social and environmental factors that are closely interconnected with each other and with the additional dimension of time which stresses the long term perspective of several factors due to their central role in human activities and development firms should play an important part in the attainment of sustainability goals the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the methodology of indicators that allow for the assessment of business participation into sustainable development a fundamental standpoint adopted is to view economic social and environmental efficiency as a necessary but not sufficient step towards sustainability to work out indicators we build on both the concepts of cost benefit analysis and the principles of productive efficiency we assume that we have observations on economic social and environmental factors for a set of decision making units dmus e g firms in an industrial sub sector the efficiency of each dmu is computed from a set of observed data using mathematical programming techniques resulting in dmus that are efficient and define the efficiency frontier among the set of dmus and dmus that are inefficient to cope with the multidimensionality of sustainable development it is important not to base decisions on one unique aggregate sustainability indicator instead it is suggested to develop two or three partial indicators that stress different aspects of the problem the proposed indicators could be used as an aid to detect so called factors of unsustainability and hence to provide for recommendations as to the regulations and incentives or managerial practices that will contribute to overall sustainability c 1999 elsevier science b v all rights reserved