an incentive aligned mechanism for conjoint analysis abstract this article specifies analyzes and validates a rigorous and practical truth telling mechanism game for conjoint applications the mechanism requires only one real product variation and has truth telling in conjoint as its bayesian nash equilibrium thus making it possible to incentive align participants in most conjoint applications using the ipod package as the context the author shows empirically that the mechanism substantially improves purchase prediction compared with a standard conjoint procedure

the microfinance promise in the past decade microfinance programs have demonstrated that it is possible to lend to low income households while maintaining high repayment rates even without requiring collateral the programs promise a revolution in approaches to alleviating poverty and spreading financial services and millions of poor households are served globally a growing body of economic theory demonstrates how new contractual forms offer a key to microfinance success particularly the use of group lending contracts with joint liability for the most part however high repayment rates have not translated into profits and studies of impacts on poverty yield a mixed picture in describing emerging tensions the paper highlights the diversity of innovative mechanisms beyond group lending contracts the measurement of financial sustainability the estimation of economic and social impacts the costs and benefits of subsidization and the potential to reduce poverty through savings programs rather than just credit the promise of microfinance has pushed far ahead of the evidence and an agenda is put forward for addressing critical empirical gaps and sharpening the terms of policy discussion

increasing consumer participation rates for green pricing programs a choice experiment for south korea abstract this study examines the factors that can increase consumer participation rates in green pricing programs by conducting a choice experiment in south korea estimation results were obtained from a conditional logit conditional logit with interaction terms random parameter logit random parameter logit with correlation and individual level coefficient models a novelty of our analysis was the consideration of monetary and non monetary incentives as factors influencing consumer uptake in green pricing programs the estimation results show that increased consumer participation in green pricing programs is positively linked with green energy sources that produce fewer externalities more jobs and monetary incentives such as tax credits or green mileage however there is an inverted u shaped relationship between participation rates and the share of green electricity in total electricity supply mean willingness to pay for fuel cells is highest followed by solar and wind energy estimation from the random parameter logit with allowing for correlations among random coefficients of attributes reveals that consumers are divided into green pro environment consumers and blue growth oriented consumers green consumers prefer a higher green electricity share solar or fuel cell to wind a greater proximity of green power plants to their homes and green mileage or green parks to tax credits in comparison blue consumers favor a lower green electricity share green power plants that are far from their homes and monetary incentives rather than non monetary incentives the results of this study suggest guidelines for the design of successful green pricing programs green pricing programs that are designed with information on types of green energy sources consider the distance of power plants to consumers residences focus on the share of green electricity and incorporate monetary incentives are likely to have increased consumer participation rates

diffusion of green power products in switzerland abstract as in many other european countries green electricity is an emerging product in switzerland as well although the market is yet to be liberalised more than 100 of the 1200 swiss electric utilities offer some sort of green electricity product to their customers successful companies like the municipal utilities of the cities of zurich and berne have reached customer response rates of up to 4 while still maintaining cost based pricing i e charging their customers price premiums of 400 700 per kwh while most of the products still rely on mainly photovoltaics some utilities have started to introduce mixed green electricity products also including wind power with a share of 60 in the swiss generation mix hydropower s role in the green electricity mix was also an issue to emerge causing controversial debate while being renewable hydropower is not considered environmentally benign by all the stakeholders and unlike new renewables solar wind biomass there is little room for new hydropower generation facilities in switzerland the green electricity labelling scheme naturemade tackles that issue the labelling organisation has evolved from a process with broad stakeholder involvement which included environmental ngos scientific institutions green electricity providers renewable energy advocates government bodies and consumer organisations the analysis in this paper is based on a diffusion theory framework it identifies and characterises different phases of past and future market development and stresses the importance of eco labelling as a tool to facilitate the transition from niche to mass market finally we also discuss conclusions that can be drawn from the swiss case towards market development and labelling on a european level

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

the permissibility of nudging for sustainable energy consumption abstract nudges modify decision frameworks in order to steer people s choices in particular directions modifying energy consumption choices through nudging has shown significant promise for promoting sustainable consumption behaviors however policy makers have been reluctant to embrace nudges due to concerns over potential ethical objections this paper argues that the major ethical objections to nudging are not ultimately convincing when applied to energy production and consumption the most common ethical objections claim that nudging is paternalistic and reduces human autonomy it is argued here that energy production and consumption are massively architectured which means that they are strongly influenced by factors external to individuals the infrastructure and framework for producing and consuming energy is largely determined prior to human decision making as a result it is not clear how nudging for sustainable energy consumption could be paternalistic or autonomy reducing ethical objections should thus not be a deterrent for policy makers pursuing nudges for sustainable energy consumption

modeling individual preferences for energy sources the case of iv generation nuclear energy in italy the planned re introduction of nuclear energy in italy was abandoned in the aftermath of the fukushima nuclear accident twenty years earlier soon after the chernobyl accident italians had also voted against nuclear energy however a new nuclear energy technology i e fourth generation is under research and development this paper investigates its social acceptance by means of a robust methodology employing 1 choice experiments 2 structural equation modeling and 3 information treatments within an online nation wide survey results show a great deal of preference heterogeneity the majority of the sampled respondents oppose new nuclear plants in italy with some not willing to accept any monetary compensation at all however another segment of respondents more confident that fourth generation nuclear energy goals will be achieved show a modest support towards the implementation of new nuclear projects additional variables were found to affect opposition

the impact of group lending in northeast thailand abstract much of the literature on group lending focuses on its high repayment rates rather than its goal of promoting borrower welfare most studies that attempt to measure the impact of group lending neglect the issues of self selection and endogenous program placement thus leading to biased estimates of impact one reason for this neglect is the lack of data that would allow for identification of impact this paper surmounts these problems by using data from a quasi experiment conducted in northeast thailand in 1995 1996 program participants were identified in six control villages 1 year prior to receiving loans surveys were then conducted of these control members treatment members in eight older program villages and nonmembers in both types of village this survey design allows for straightforward estimation of impact the results indicate that program loans are having little impact although naive estimates of impact that fail to account for self selection and endogenous program placement significantly overestimate impact

inventory investment in norway abstract it is well known that production is more variable than sales in most oecd countries it is also known that production is less variable than sales in norway this paper investigates why inventory investment in norway shows such a distinct characteristic we find that inventory behavior in norway is well explained by trade balances but little explained by other gdp components and gdp itself we also find that inventory investment in norway is in marked contrast with inventory investment in other oecd countries which is well explained by output fluctuations

residential consumers in the cape peninsula s willingness to pay for premium priced green electricity a number of studies have explored the willingness i e stated willingness as opposed to actual willingness of consumers to pay a premium for green electricity in developed countries however little is known about how this translates into an emerging economy context this study investigates the level of willingness of residential households in south africa s cape peninsula to pay a premium for electricity from renewable energy it methodologically drew on recent contributions in the literature on norm motivated behaviour used to identify testable factors that could influence residential consumers willingness to pay wtp interestingly the study found a significant positive link between household income and wtp for green electricity contrary to the findings of some previous studies not only are higher income households more likely to pay a premium but typically they are also willing to pay a bigger premium it was also further established that the view that green electricity is reliable involvement in the recycling of waste and the belief that everyone should contribute to green electricity generation drive the wtp

mainstreaming microfinance social performance management or mission drift summary what scope is there for the pursuit of explicit development goals in the context of increasing integration of specialized microfinance and commercial banking sectors this question and the idea of mission drift is first analyzed using a model that distinguishes between institutions financial and social performance possibilities preferences and assessment systems the model is used to review findings from action research with an international sample of poverty oriented microfinance institutions that suggest some simple steps for improved social performance management it is then used to illustrate the relationship between social and financial performance more widely across the retail financial services sector and to offer pointers for more policy analysis at this level

preferences for green electricity investment and regulatory incentives abstract this paper develops a theoretical model to investigate how consumers preferences for green electricity affect the incentives of a regulated firm to provide and invest in electricity from green sources optimal incentive regulation implies a trade off between providing an optimal match of consumers with green and brown electricity and efficient incentives to invest in cost reductions we show that a single price cap on green electricity is ineffective as it yields the same expected market outcome as with an unregulated firm price caps on both green and brown electricity are akin to a market share target policy which implements efficient investment but gives an inefficient ex post consumer allocation a single price cap on brown electricity weakly dominates these schemes and gives rise to three different optimal regulation regimes as a function of the underlying technology parameters

factors influencing buying behaviour of green energy consumer green energy has gained significant research attention across the globe due to its ability to reduce environmental damage however for complete acceptance of green energy only government regulations are not enough the willingness to use green energy and contribute to the wellbeing of the environment should spring from within consumers such willingness may be developed by enhancing consumers perceived value of green energy however in order to do so it is necessary to assess existing levels of consumers perceived value towards green energy the present study develops a multidimensional green perceived value scale to measure existing levels of consumers perceived value the scale considers green perceived value as a multidimensional second order construct comprising functional value social value conditional value and emotional value dimensions such an attempt has not been made before which highlights the originality value of the present study the scale can be used to assess consumers perception towards green energy such information would help in formulating strategies that encourage consumers to voluntarily adopt green energy the study also reveals that it is not only the financial aspects that lead consumers to decide on adoption of green energy consumers are also driven by emotional and social considerations thus policy makers could formulate pro green energy programmes and mass messages that appeal to consumers sense of responsibility to voluntarily adopt green energy without having to rely on financial incentives researchers could examine the considered dimensions of the scale further with respect to other constructs related to consumer behaviour

consumers willingness to pay for green electricity a meta analysis of the literature at present electricity generated from power plants using renewable sources costs more than electricity generated from power plants using conventional fuels consumers bear these expenses directly or indirectly through higher prices for renewable energy or taxes the number of studies published over the last few years focusing on people s preferences for renewables has increased steadily making it more and more difficult to identify key explanatory factors that determine people s willingness to pay wtp for renewables we present results of a meta regression on valuation of consumer preferences for a larger share of renewable energy in their electricity mix our meta regression results reveal a number of important factors that explain the differences in wtp values for renewable energy different valuation methods show widely different values with choice experiments producing the highest estimates our results further indicate that consumers wtp for green electricity differs by source with hydropower being the least valued variables that are often omitted from primary valuation studies are important in explaining differences in values these variables describe individual and household characteristics as well as information on the type of power plant that will be replaced by renewables further the marginal effect of a survey conducted in the us is pronounced we also assess the potential for using the results for out of sample value transfer and find a median error of 21 c 2015 elsevier b v all rights reserved

how should consumers willingness to pay be measured an empirical comparison of state of the art approaches abstract this study compares the performance of four commonly used approaches to measure consumers willingness to pay with real purchase data real the open ended oe question format choice based conjoint cbc analysis becker degroot and marschak s bdm incentive compatible mechanism and incentive aligned choice based conjoint icbc analysis with this five in one approach the authors test the relative strengths of the four measurement methods using real as the benchmark on the basis of statistical criteria and decision relevant metrics the results indicate that the bdm and icbc approaches can pass statistical and decision oriented tests the authors find that respondents are more price sensitive in incentive aligned settings than in non incentive aligned settings and the real setting furthermore they find a large number of none choices under icbc than under hypothetical conjoint analysis this study uncovers an intriguing possibility even when the oe format and cbc analysis generate

aggregate inventory behavior in large european economies abstract inventory fluctuations are known to be an important propagation mechanism for u s business cycles this paper compares the significance of inventory fluctuations in the u s with four other major industrial economies in europe a general model of aggregate inventory demand is specified which seeks to encompass the models presented in recent studies of inventory behavior this model is estimated for the large european economies united kingdom west germany france and italy the preferred models that result from this analysis are compared with the empirical evidence for the u s

the production and inventory behavior of the american automobile industry understanding inventory movements is central to an understanding of business cycles this paper presents an empirical study of the behavior of inventories in the automobile industry it finds that inventory behavior is well explained by the assumption of intertemporal optimization with rational expectations the underlying cost structure appears to have substantial costs of changing production as well as substantial costs of being away from target inventory thelatter being a function of current sales given this cost structure whether inventory behavior is stabilizing or destabilizing depends on the characteristics of the demand process in the automobile industry inventory behavior is destabilizing the variance of production is larger than the variance of sales

utility in willingness to pay space a tool to address confounding random scale effects in destination choice to the alps we compare two approaches for estimating the distribution of consumers willingness to pay wtp in discrete choice models the usual procedure is to estimate the distribution of the utility coefficients and then derive the distribution of wtp which is the ratio of coefficients the alternative is to estimate the distribution of wtp directly we apply both approaches to data on site choice in the alps we find that the alternative approach fits the data better reduces the incidence of exceedingly large estimated wtp values and provides the analyst with greater control in specifying and testing the distribution of wtp copyright 2008 oxford university press

factors influencing willingness to pay for the energy star label abstract in the united states nearly 17 of greenhouse gas emissions come from residential energy use increases in energy efficiency for the residential sector can generate significant energy savings and emissions reductions consumer labels such as the us environmental protection agency s energy star promote conservation by providing consumers with information on energy usage for household appliances this study examines how the energy star label affects consumer preferences for refrigerators the results of an online survey of a national sample of adults suggest that consumers are on average willing to pay an extra 249 82 349 30 for a refrigerator that has been awarded the energy star label furthermore the results provide evidence that respondent willingness to pay was motivated by both private energy cost savings and public environmental benefits

willingness to pay lip service applying a neuroscience based method to wtp for green electricity abstract consumers willingness to pay wtp represents a central question for providers of renewable energy most studies on the subject have used contingent valuation and choice experiments however all empirical designs employed to date suffer from serious biases such as strategic behavior we introduce a novel neuroscience based approach to renewable energy related wtp research neuropricing which eliminates some of these biases we tested consumers wtp for two different green electricity products and found wtp for these products to be about 15 above that for a non green electricity tariff our results suggest that neuropricing is indeed able to eliminate strategic behavior moreover this approach allows for wtp studies with much smaller sample sizes than traditional methods require the neuroscience methodology can be used by researchers and marketers alike not only for testing the effects of product attributes on wtp but also for evaluating wtp effects of specific messages in marketing communications thus it may lead to a better understanding of consumer behavior and hence facilitate more successful marketing of renewable energy

wind hydro or mixed renewable energy source preference for electricity products when the share of renewable energy increases abstract while the share of renewable energy especially wind power increases in the energy mix the risk of temporary energy shortage increases as well thus it is important to understand consumers preference for the renewable energy towards the continuous growing renewable energy society we use a discrete choice experiment to infer consumers preferences when the share of renewable energy increases the study results indicate that consumers are generally willing to pay extra for an increasing share of renewable energy but the renewable energy should come from a mixture of renewable energy sources we also found that consumers prefer to trade with their current supplier rather than another well known supplier this study contributes to the energy portfolio theories and the theory of energy diversification in a consumer perspective the managerial implications of this study are also discussed

bric by bric the role of the family household in sustaining a venture in impoverished indian slums we advance understanding of the embedded role of the family household in governing firm performance in an impoverished setting drawing on bricolage theory which articulates how individuals make do with resources at hand we suggest that family household diversity facilitates creativity while family household shared business experience facilitates routinization while initially performance enhancing unfettered creativity and overroutinization have detrimental effects and thus expect the highest levels of performance to occur at moderate levels of family household diversity and shared business experience we find general support for our hypotheses using a large sample of firms and families in impoverished indian households

economic versus belief based models shedding light on the adoption of novel green technologies abstract understanding the determinants for the adoption of novel green consumer technologies is important to effectively foster their diffusion energy and environmental science literature often takes an approach based on economic variables such as objectively measureable household and technology characteristics increasingly also subjective variables based on personal belief are considered on the basis of a survey about the intention to adopt an exemplary novel green consumer technology intelligent thermostats we contribute to the clarification of the explanatory power of these two approaches we first compare the economic model to the belief based model and second investigate how beliefs about the green technology are influenced by personal environmental norms and innovativeness our evaluation shows that the belief based model explains considerably higher variance in the intention to adopt thereby the perceived hedonic satisfaction usefulness habit and facilitating conditions reveal as key determinants moreover environmental norms show lower impact than personal innovativeness in the discussion we consolidate these findings and point to the risk of omitted variable bias when selectively including belief based variables in adoption models our findings suggest that policies can effectively accelerate the early market diffusion of green consumer technologies by incentivizing retailers to introduce and market such technologies

inventories and the structure of macro models the message of this paper can be summed up in two words inventories matter they matter empirically in the sense that inventory developments are of major importance in the propagation of business cycles and they matter theoretically in the sense that recognition of their existence changes the structure of a variety of theoretical macromodels in some fairly important ways this paper is mainly about the implications of inventories for the structure of theoretical macro models but i begin by demonstrating the empirical importance of inventories in business fluctuations this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

what are retail investors risk return preferences towards renewable energy projects a choice experiment in germany citizens own nearly half the renewable energy generation capacity in germany and have been important drivers of the country s energy transition in contrast to citizens important role in financing renewable energies the energy policy and economics literature has traditionally focused on other investors such as incumbent energy firms to close this gap this paper reports on a large scale survey of 1 990 german retail investors conducting a choice experiment with the subset of 1 041 respondents who expressed an interest in investing in community renewable energy projects we present a unique dataset allowing for new insights in risk return expectations of retail investors we find that apart from return on investment respondents are particularly sensitive to the minimum holding period and the issuer of community renewable energy investment offerings a minimum holding period of 10 years implies a risk premium of 2 76 points a subsequent segmentation analysis shows that two groups of potential community renewable energy investors with different risk return expectations can be identified local patriots and yield investors in contrast to professional investors a majority of retail investors use simple decision rules such as calculating payback time or relying on their gut feeling when making investments

us consumers willingness to pay for green electricity abstract we analyze us consumers demand for environmental attributes of deregulated residential electricity services using results from a survey designed to elicit consumers willingness to pay for such attributes and using results from a hedonic analysis of actual price premiums charged for green electricity in several deregulated markets survey results suggest that many population segments are willing to pay for decreased air emissions even if there is no alteration in fuel source furthermore several groups are willing to pay significantly more when emissions reductions stem from increased reliance upon renewable fuels the hedonic analysis suggests that several product features not considered in the survey help explain real price premiums including fuel mix from newly created renewable generation capacity green e certification brand name and state of offer while survey and hedonic results are not easily compared due to limitations of the survey both point to similar values for key environmental attributes though the survey results are likely to overstate actual willingness to pay in sum the results suggest that consumer driven purchases can in part support the future of renewable generation capacity in the united states though reliance upon other policy alternatives may be needed if energy prices spike

what do customers want from improved residential electricity services evidence from a choice experiment abstract improvements in customer satisfaction as well as product service quality represent a common objective of all businesses and electricity services are no exception using choice experiments and a mixed logit model this study quantitatively analyzes customers preferences and their marginal willingness to pay for improved residential electricity services the study provides an ex ante evaluation of customers acceptance of hypothetical electricity services according to the results customers consider the electricity bill and the electricity mix as the two most important attributes when choosing their electricity services customers are willing to pay 2 2 more in the average electricity bill an additional monthly electricity bill of krw 1 064 usd 0 96 for a significant increase in the share of renewable energy which is far less than the actual cost of achieving this renewable target therefore it is better to maintain the current electricity mix in principle and the renewable share should be gradually expanded instead of making a sudden change in the electricity mix in addition customers are willing to pay krw 6 793 usd 6 15 more to reduce blackouts once in a year and krw 64 year usd 0 06 year to reduce a minute of each blackout

random preferences towards bioenergy environmental externalities a case study of woody biomass based electricity in the southern united states article i nfo this paper contrasts alternate methodological approaches of investigating public preferences the random parameter logit rpl where tastes and preferences of respondents are assumed to be heterogeneous and the conditional logit cl approach where tastes and preferences remain fixed for individuals we conducted a choice experiment to assess preferences for woody biomass based electricity in arkansas florida and virginia reduction of co2 emissions and improvement of forest habitat by decreasing risk of wildfires and pest outbreaks were presented to respondents as attributes of using green electricity the results indicate that heterogeneous preferences might be a better fit for assessing preferences for green electricity all levels of both attributes were positive contributors to welfare but they were no statistically significant respondents expressed a positive mean marginal willingness to pay wtp for each attribute level the total wtp for green electricity per kilowatt hour was 0 049 kwh or 40 5 per capita year 1 when converted into future total annual expenditures

bankers at the gate microfinance and the high cost of borrowed logics in this paper we examine how the interaction between influences of commercial banking and poverty alleviation shaped the evolution of modern microfinance using institutional theory as a lens we observe that the commercial banking logic increasingly displaced the microfinance field s foundational poverty alleviation and development principles over time we argue that this process of displacement can occur inadvertently as organizations that embody multiple logics draw disproportionately on only one of those logics when developing legitimating accounts of their activity to stakeholders furthermore we introduce the concept of permeability the extent to which the elements of a logic are ambiguous and loosely coupled to explain why some logics may be more or less open to the influence of other logics we conclude by discussing implications for entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation more generally

designing discrete choice experiments do optimal designs come at a price in discrete choice experiments design decisions are crucial for determining data quality and costs while high statistical efficiency designs are desirable they may come at a price if they increase the cognitive burden for respondents we address this problem by designing 44 experiments that systematically vary numbers of attributes and attribute level differences our results for two product categories suggest that respondents systematically are less consistent in answering choice questions as statistical efficiency increases this relationship holds regardless of the number of attributes and is statistically significant even if one accommodates preference heterogeneity implications for practice and future research are discussed

inner conflict between nuclear power generation and electricity rates a japanese case study abstract since the march 11 earthquake japanese households have been facing a trade off problem between decreasing dependency on nuclear power generation and avoiding an increase in electricity rates we analyze this inner conflict quantitatively adopting two economic psychological approaches first we note that the trade off causes cognitive dissonance after making a choice that results in a wider desirability gap between the chosen and rejected alternatives second the consumer surplus improves by 11 2 with a no choice option for suspending judgment in the presence of cognitive dissonance third individual characteristics such as gender and annual household income are significantly correlated with both cognitive dissonance and a preference for the no choice option

a review of international green power markets recent experience trends and market drivers green power marketing the act of differentially selling electricity generated wholly or in part from renewable sources has emerged in more than a dozen countries around the world almost two million customers worldwide buy green power today this paper reviews green power marketing activity in australia canada japan the us and in a number of countries in europe to gain an understanding of consumer demand for electricity generated from renewable sources it also examines key factors that influence market penetration of green power products such as product designs pricing incentives marketing strategies policies and product certification 2002 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

consumer preferences for electricity tariffs does proximity matter abstract the introduction of renewable energy sources fosters the transformation to an energy system with distributed generation this alters the relation between consumers and power generation sites as generation and consumption spatially converge it allows for new configurations within the energy sector and provides opportunities for marketing regional energy we empirically investigate consumer preferences for electricity generation in proximity to end users focusing on the proximity of generation and providers and present representative data for germany in a discrete choice experiment a sample of 780 consumer households and 173 adopters of a renewable energy system prosumers chose from a range of different electricity tariffs we estimate the willingness to pay for the following attributes shares of regional generation power providers and electricity mixes we find evidence in favor of regional production but in spite of positive attitudes towards local generation from renewable sources willingness to pay is not responsive to higher shares of regional generation in addition a preference for regional providers exists the results show that renewable energy mixes are preferred particularly a solar and hydro mix adopters state slightly more distinct preferences as compared to consumer households thus we find there is potential for business models offering regionally generated electricity

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

morphological analysis of energy services paving the way to quality differentiation in the power sector abstract the activation of the still predominantly passive demand side is necessary to further guarantee a stable power system in the short term and ensure capacity adequacy in the long run a system with a high share of generators with nearly no marginal costs requires new services that facilitate transmitting the right economic signals to the system stakeholders to this end we refine the notion of energy services and propose a framework to systematically design quality differentiated energy services for consumers this approach facilitates a value based economic assessment of energy services that deviates from the marginal cost paradigm we further illustrate pricing options for these new energy service products and outline infrastructural needs and additional use case specific product properties moreover we discuss how the morphological approach can be formalised using a mathematical programming formulation and introduce a complexity measure that facilitates assessing potential adoption obstacles for end consumers additionally we illustrate the practical applicability of these findings by using a prototypical implementation of a decision support system to foster differentiated energy services we recommend a more lenient regulatory regime lowering the barriers for new market entrants

money and the commons an investigation of complementary currencies and their ethical implications the commons is a concept increasingly used with the promise of creating new collective wealth in the aftermath of the economic and financial crises finance and money have been criticized and redesigned to serve the collective interest in this article we analyze three types of complementary currency cc systems community currencies inter enterprise currencies and cryptocurrencies we investigate whether these systems can be considered as commons to address this question we use two main theoretical frameworks that are usually separate the new commons in organization studies and the common good in business ethics our findings show that these monetary systems and organizations may be considered as commons under the common good framework since they promote the common interest by creating new communities nevertheless according to the new commons framework only systems relying on collective action and self management can be said to form commons this allows us to suggest two new categories of commons the social commons which fit into both the new commons and the common good frameworks and the commercial commons which fit the common good but not the new commons framework this research advances a new conceptualization of the commons and of the ethical implications of ccs

some international evidence on inventory fluctuations abstract this paper shows some international evidence that production is more variable than sales in most developed countries but the reverse is true in most developing countries from international perspectives cost shocks do not appear to be the predominant source of fluctuations in inventories contrary to the widely accepted evidence in the postwar united states demand shocks and serial correlations in demand on the other hand appear to be of roughly equal importance for inventory fluctuations

whatever the customer wants the customer gets exploring the gap between consumer preferences and default electricity products in germany abstract in liberalized electricity markets residential customers can choose their preferred provider and select among a variety of different electricity products including green power options successful product design and marketing strategies for green electricity may provide electricity providers with a competitive advantage while at the same time contributing to energy policy objectives this requires however a thorough understanding of customer preferences we investigate the relative importance of different product attributes in creating customer value and find that price and electricity mix are the two most important attributes the german electricity customers we surveyed in 2009 expressed an implicit willingness to pay a premium of about 16 for electricity from renewable sources we conclude that consumers are willing to pay a significant price premium for an upgrade from the current default electricity mix in germany to a more environmentally friendly default electricity mix and discuss implications for marketing strategy and energy policy our findings are based on a dataset of 4968 experimental choices made by 414 german residential consumers collected in a stated preference survey

building sustainable hybrid organizations the case of commercial microfinance organizations we explore how new types of hybrid organizations organizations that combine institutional logics in unprecedented ways can develop and maintain their hybrid nature in the absence of a ready to w

can the production smoothing model of inventory behavior be saved the production smoothing model of inventory behavior has a long and venerable history and theoretical foundations that seem very strong yet certain overwhelming facts seem not only to defy explanation within the production smoothing framework but actually to argue that the basic idea of production smoothing is all wrong most prominent among these is the fact that the variance of detrended production exceeds the variance of detrended sales this paper first documents the stylized facts then it derives the production smoothing model rigorously and explains how the model can be amended to make it consistent with the facts finally it reviews the theoretical and empirical evidence and tries to draw some tentative conclusions

what makes people seal the green power deal customer segmentation based on choice experiment in germany abstract consumers have the power to contribute to creating a more sustainable future by subscribing to green electricity tariffs in order to reach consumers beyond the eco niche identifying the drivers that positively influence the adoption of green electricity is of fundamental importance this paper examines various factors that help to explain the extent to which green electricity subscribers differ from those that display strong preferences towards green electricity but have not yet walked the talk by making use of a latent class segmentation analysis based on choice based conjoint data this paper identifies three groups of potential green electricity adopters with varying degrees of preference for renewable energy findings indicate that socio demographic factors play a marginal role in explaining the differences between green electricity subscribers and potential adopters with the exception that actual adopters tend to be better educated analysis of psychographic and behavioral features reveals that adopters tend to perceive consumer effectiveness to be higher place more trust in science tend to estimate lower prices for green electricity tariffs are willing to pay significantly more for other eco friendly products and are more likely to have recently changed their electricity contract than non adopters policy recommendations associated with these findings are provided

green power voluntary purchases price elasticity and policy analysis abstract green power schemes offer electricity from renewable energy sources to customers for a higher price than ordinary electricity this study examines the demand characteristics of green power in australia and policies which could increase its sales a sample of 250 pooled time series and cross sectional observations was used to estimate a statistically significant elasticity of demand for green power with respect to price of 0 96 with a 95 confidence interval of 68 the wide variation in market penetration between jurisdictions and between countries for green power and the low awareness of green power found by surveys indicate that green power sales could be increased by appropriate marketing and government policies the most cost effective means to increase sales was found to be advertising campaigns although only one australian example was found in the state of victoria in 2005 it was also found that full tax deductibility of the green power premium to residential customers exemption from the goods and services tax and a tax rebate for green power are all probably less cost effective for promoting sales than direct government purchase of green power in terms of cost per unit of increased sales