animal breeding and productivity growth of dairy farms we introduce genetic based technical change into a malmquist productivity index and measure the growth in productivity caused by bovine breeding because breeding is likely to affect milk quality we adjust milk quantities for quality differences we use panel data on icelandic dairy farms from 1997 to 2006 to estimate an input distance function the malmquist productivity index shows that the average productivity growth rate is 1 6 scale effects are the most important source of this growth but 19 of the productivity growth rate is due to breeding if quality differences are ignored the average productivity growth rate is reduced by 83

optimizing systematic technology adoption with heterogeneous agents the traditional operational optimization models of systematic technology adoption commonly assume the existence of a global social planner and ignore the existence of heterogeneous decision makers who interact with each other this paper develops a stylized or conceptual optimization model of systematic technology adoption with heterogeneous agents i e decision makers and uncertain technological learning each agent attempts to identify optimal solutions to adopting technologies for a portion of the entire system the agents in the model have different foresight and different risk attitudes and interact with one another in terms of technological spillover this paper first illustrates that although a well recalibrated representative model can perform well enough when the interest is placed on aggregate variables it could react to a policy a carbon tax in this paper differently from the multi agent model then this paper explores how the agents heterogeneities and interactions affect the optimal solutions of systematic technology adoption the main findings of the study are that 1 the existence of multiple agents implies a slower adoption of advanced technologies in the entire system than assuming the existence of a global social planner 2 with homogeneous agents technological spillover tends to enhance the lock in effect on previous technologies and 3 with heterogeneous agents even a small technological spillover rate can significantly accelerate the adoption of the advanced technology

innovation and productivity across four european countries nber working paper seriesinnovation and productivity across four european countriesrachel griffithelena huergojacques mairessebettina petersworking paper 12722http www nber org papers w12722national bureau of economic research1050 massachusetts avenuecambridge ma 02138december 2006we would like to thank laura abramovsky manuel arellano rupert harrison jordi jaumandreu elizabeth kremp pierre mohnen helen simpson the analysis contained in this paper was fundedby the european commission the esrc and esf under grant res 000 23 0901 and the advancedinstitute of management research aim all errors and omissions remain the responsibility of theauthors the views expressed herein are those of the author s and do not necessarily reflect the viewsof the national bureau of economic research 2006 by rachel griffith elena huergo jacques mairesse and bettina peters all rights reserved short sections of text not to exceed two paragraphs may be quoted without explicit permission providedthat full credit including notice is given to the source

conceptualising environmental responsibility abstract downstream responsibility is rarely addressed in the academic literature and in corporate sustainability reporting we conceptualise downstream responsibility for the example of carbon emissions by establishing a terminology as well as a framework for quantifying downstream carbon footprints by extracting emissions intensive sales chains for a number of australian industry sectors and comparing these to emissions intensive supply chains we demonstrated the ability of input output analysis to quantify emissions responsibility in both directions we extend the definition of downstream responsibility beyond the product use and disposal phases to include what we call enabled emissions this term implies that whatever is sold downstream enables our customers to operate and emit irrespective of whether it is our product that is combusted or that directly combusts fuels or not our structural path analyses and threshold capture relationships reveal stark differences between industries with regard to the data collection efforts necessary to achieve a reasonably complete footprint assessment industries appear to have their own specific carbon footprint profiles and one cannot design generic relevance tests that tell which data to collect moreover we conclude that current completeness standards in carbon reporting cannot be satisfied using relevance thresholds input output analysis and structural path analysis are excellent tools that can help companies undertake screening exercises which in turn help prioritising and streamlining the collection of data needed to establish a corporate downstream carbon footprint compared to conventional manual approaches hybrid life cycle assessments assisted by input output analysis and structural path analysis achieve more complete results with substantially less staff money and time

educational mismatch and promotions to managerial positions a test of the career mobility theory abstractcareer mobility theory suggests that given a certain occupation schooling improves upward mobility in terms of promotion and wage growth we are the first to test the implications of this theory for over and undereducation by means of direct information about promotions to managerial positions using german administrative data entailing an employer reported and hence objective measure of educational requirements we show that overeducated workers are indeed more likely to be promoted and that this career mobility advantage is more pronounced in the early stages of their working lives by contrast undereducated workers are less likely to be promoted to managerial positions moreover in terms of wage growth while overeducated workers benefit more undereducated workers benefit less from promotions than their well matched educational peers altogether these findings strongly support the career mobility theory furthermore by differentiating between internal and external promotions we prov

simple solutions to the initial conditions problem in dynamic nonlinear panel data models with unobserved heterogeneity i study a simple widely applicable approach to handling the initial conditions problem in dynamic nonlinear unobserved effects models rather than attempting to obtain the joint distribution of all outcomes of the endogenous variables i propose finding the distribution conditional on the initial value and the observed history of strictly exogenous explanatory variables the approach is flexible and results in simple estimation strategies for at least three leading dynamic nonlinear models probit tobit and poisson regression i treat the general problem of estimating average partial effects and show that simple estimators exist for important special cases copyright 2005 john wiley sons ltd

inter firm network policies and firm performance evaluating the impact of initiatives in the united kingdom abstract this paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of inter firm networks as a public policy resource that has necessarily required experimentation and adaptation the focus of the paper is an evaluation of public policy network initiatives in the united kingdom from the point of view of the companies participating in these initiatives the study finds that inter firm network initiatives have faced a number of problems resulting in the level of inter firm interaction being generally fairly low and unintensive this has severely limited the number of firms that have benefited from participation as well as the overall impact on firm performance and growth more positively it is shown that the initiatives have resulted in substantial gains for albeit a small number of participating companies the small number of companies achieving substantial benefits were most often those involved in initiatives that were able to formalise sustainable networks the key policy problem is that this situation has occurred in only a very restricted number of circumstances with formal network initiatives being subject to extremely high drop out rates it is suggested that policies aimed at formal network initiatives should be abandoned as a mechanism for creating a critical mass of sustainable networks instead the progression of policy models based on informal initiatives appears to offer the most plausible means of catalysing inter company contact

who s afraid of atmospheric stabilisation making the link between energy resources and climate change abstract the distribution of fossil fuel reserves and resources between different regions and deposits has strong implications for climate change economics and policy the task of stabilising the atmosphere is intimately linked to the question of long term energy supplies as conventional petroleum reserves deplete notwithstanding debates about the scope for reserve extension through continued exploration and development it suggests a supply side component to complement the consumption orientation of existing climate policies the task is to ensure that investment and innovation moves towards the low carbon frontier instead of the high carbon frontier this also implies that the opec countries have little to fear about the long run impact of climate change policy the priority is to deter development of more carbon intensive unconventional petroleum deposits and technologies and to ensure that the existing trends to diversify power generation sources continue and extend more widely over time supply side constraints will not solve the climate problem in themselves but they make the task a lot easier if the opportunities are taken

innovation and performance evidence at micro level this empirical study aims to shed light on the link between innovation and economic performance at micro level based on a comprehensive survey among dairy and crop farms in the netherlands we estimate a structural multi stage model to deliver evidence on the effect of engagement and investment in innovation on the production of product process and organizational or marketing innovations as well as on the effect of such innovations on farm level productivity the results suggest various market and farm behaviour related factors to stimulate an increase in innovation engagement and production furthermore the study reveals that indeed a greater innovation investment per unit innovation input leads to a higher probability of producing at least one successful product process and or organizational or marketing innovation innovation output the production of process and organizational or marketing related innovation leads to significant productivity gains various recommendations towards a more effective and efficient innovation policy are finally given

organic farming in scandinavia productivity and market exit abstract this paper attempts to quantitatively measure the change in the productivity of danish organic farming in recent years based on a translog production frontier framework the technical and scale efficiency at farm level is analysed by following a time trends as well as a general index model specification further this study tries to analyse the significance of subsidies for promoting long term growth in organic production by estimating a bootstrapped bivariate probit model with respect to factors influencing the probability of organic market exit the results revealed significant differences in the organic farms technical efficiencies no significant total factor productivity growth and even a slightly negative rate of technical change in the period investigated evidence has been found for a positive relationship between subsidy payments and an increase in farm efficiency technology improvements and a decreasing probability of organic market exit which was also confirmed for off farm income

a reduced form model for dynamic efficiency measurement application to dairy farms in germany and the netherlands the stochastic distance function model is extended to allow for the inefficiency component of the error term to be autocorrelated as implied by a dynamic model of firm behavior the autocorrelation parameter can then be interpreted as a measure of the persistence of inefficiency the model is viewed from a state space perspective and kalman filtering techniques are proposed for estimation the model is applied to two panels of dairy farms from germany and the netherlands the results suggest a very high degree of persistence of inefficiency through time

overeducation undereducation and the theory of career mobility the theory of career mobility sicherman and galor journal of political economy 98 1 169 92 1990 claims that wage penalties for overeducated workers are compensated by better promotion prospects sicherman journal of labour economics 9 2 101 22 1991 was able to confirm this theory in an empirical study using panel data however the only retest using panel data so far robst eastern economic journal 21 539 50 1995 produced rather ambiguous results in the present paper random effects models to analyse relative wage growth are estimated using data from the german socio economic panel it is found that overeducated workers in germany have markedly lower relative wage growth rates than adequately educated workers the results cast serious doubt on whether the career mobility model is able to explain overeducation in germany the plausibility of the results is supported by the finding that overeducated workers have less access to formal and informal on the job training which is usually foun

institutional barriers to associative city region governance the politics of institution building and economic governance in canada s technology triangle it has been argued that collaborative and associative forms of governance can enhance the economic competitiveness of cities and regions institutionalist approaches to urban and regional economic

the impact of r d investment on productivity new evidence using linked r d lrd data the impact of r d investment on productivity new evidence using linked r d lrd data this paper uses confidential census longitudinal microdata to examine the association between r d and productivity for the period 1972 1985 these data allow for significant improvements in measurement and model specification yielding more precise estimates of the returns to r d our results confirm the findings of existing studies 1 positive returns to r d investment 2 higher returns to company financed research 3 a productivity premium on basic research these results are robust to adjustments for influential outliers also our evidence suggests that the return to company financed r d is an increasing function of firm size i introduction robert solow s studies in the late 1950s dramatically changed perceptions of the sources of economic growth until this time the commonly held view was that improvements in economic welfare were achieved primarily through the use of more inputs in particular capital input however solow 1957 reported that only 10 percent of the twofold rise in u s per capita output during the years 1909 1949 was due to growth in the capital labor ratio the remainder was attributed to more efficient use of inputs or technological change solow also established a framework for estimating technological change a productivity residual or a measure of changes in output that could not be explained by changes in input use the solow residual in modified form has become virtually synonymous with the measurement of total factor productivity tfp growth jorgenson and griliches 1967 demonstrated that under the assumptions of constant returns to scale and competitive factor pricing changes in total factor productivity measure shifts in a production function rather than treat technological change as exogenous or manna from heaven many economists have explored its determinants r d investment is generally regarded as having a strong impact on productivity growth empirical analysis of the r d productivity connection has often been based on estimation of reduced form equations derived from the r d capital stock model griliches 1979 which extends the solow model to include the stock of technical knowledge or knowledge capital as a factor of production in addition to the standard factors of production physical capital labor intermediate materials and energy if the rate of depreciation of knowledge capital is assumed to be negligible tfp growth dtfp is a function of the intensity of r d investment rdint which is usually measured as the ratio of r d expenditure to sales 1 dtf p sub t alpha beta rdin t sub t u sub t where u sub t is a classical disturbance term the coefficient on r d intensity beta is interpreted as both the marginal product of knowledge capital and the rate of return to r d investment 1 estimates of beta at the company or line of business level are interpreted as measures of the private rate of return to r d or those that accrue to the firm or its investors due to incomplete appropriability or other factors this return may not equal the social return to this activity most empirical studies especially those based on aggregate and sectoral data have found evidence of a strong positive correlation between tfp growth and r d investment however results using firm level data have been mixed the finding that these two variables are uncorrelated is cause for concern because it implies that firms may not be able to earn significant returns on their investment in r d making them less likely to undertake this investment in the future even if it is socially desirable for them to do so we believe that it is important to reestimate this relationship because it is highly likely that existing firm level studies have been based on measures of tfp that are crude imprecise and unrepresentative

decomposition of productivity growth using distance functions the case of dairy farms in three european countries within an output distance function framework the total factor productivity growth index is decomposed into four components technical change technical and allocative efficiency and scale component we estimate stochastic translog output distance functions using panel data from dairy farms over the period 1991 94 for three european countries germany the netherlands and poland results indicate that the change in the productivity growth index in germany 6 and poland 5 are mainly dictated by the technical change component in contrast the productivity growth index in the netherlands 3 is influenced by allocative efficiency components

macroanalysis of the economic and environmental impacts of a 2005 2025 european union bioenergy policy using the gtap model and life cycle assessment abstract this paper describes a new tool to assess the medium and long term economic and environmental impacts of large scale policies the approach macro life cycle assessment m lca is based on life cycle assessment methodology and includes additional elements to model economic externalities and the temporal evolution of background parameters the general equilibrium model gtap was therefore used to simulate the economic consequences of policies in a dynamic framework representing the temporal evolution of macroeconomic and technological parameters environmental impacts expressed via four indicators human health ecosystems global warming and natural resources are computed according to policy life cycle and its indirect economic consequences in order to illustrate the approach two 2005 2025 european union eu energy policies were compared using m lca the first policy the bioenergy policy aims to significantly increase energy generation from biomass and reduce eu energy demand for coal the second policy the baseline policy is a business as usual policy where year 2000 energy policies are extended to 2025 results show that compared to the baseline policy the bioenergy policy generates fewer impacts on three of the four environmental indicators human health global warming and natural resources at the world and eu scales though the results may differ significantly at a regional level the results also highlight the key contribution of economic growth to the total environmental impacts computed for the 2005 2025 period a comparison of the results with a more conventional consequential lca approach illustrates the benefits of m lca when modeling the indirect environmental impacts of large scale policies the sensitivity and uncertainty analysis indicates that the method is quite robust however its robustness must still be evaluated based on the sensitivity and uncertainty of additional parameters including the evolution of economic growth

a theory of career mobility this paper analyzes theoretically and empirically the role and significance of occupational mobility in the labor market focusing on individuals careers it provides additional dimensions to the analysis of investment in human capital wage differences across individuals and the relationships among promotions quits and interfirm occupational mobility it is shown that part of the returns to education is in the form of higher probabilities of occupational upgrading within or across firms given an origin occupation schooling increases the likelihood of occupational upgrading furthermore workers who are not promoted despite a high probability of promotion are more likely to quit

the impact of classes of innovators on technology financial fragility and economic growth in this article we study innovation processes and technological change in an agent based model by including a behavioral switching among heterogeneous innovative firms the model is able to replicate via simulations well known industrial dynamic and growth type stylized facts the main original element of the model is that firms are allowed to endogenously change among three different classes namely single innovators collaborative innovators and imitators moreover our analysis focuses on the impact of these three innovation categories on micro meso and macro aggregates we find that collaborative companies are those having the highest positive impact on the economic system furthermore we have paid particular attention to the role of credit market in promoting smart growth for this purpose we analyze the role of banks as sources of external funds for innovative entrepreneurs our results suggest a trade off between short term profit maximization and long term efficiency which prevents banks to foster investment in r d and technological progress the model is then used to study the effect that different innovation policies have on macroeconomic performance

dealing with environmental savings in a dynamical economy how to stop chasing your tail in the pursuit of sustainability abstract in most countries people are urged to change their pattern of consumption and lifestyle in a less energy consuming and more environmental friendly direction but gains in ecoefficiency are likely to be annihilated by a larger consumption the so called rebound effect resulting in an increased throughput in the economy here is an obvious contradiction another contradiction entails from the fact that most governments strive to promote economic growth which includes increased consumption the paper takes a look at various means to handle these contradictions in order to avoid or balance the rebound effect environmental policies including such measures as green taxes may redirect consumption from one kind to another but this demands that the alternative spending is less harmful than the one dissuaded from two other tested means are to alter the sector mix of the economy and to shorten the working hours work sharing to match the increasing efficiency

knowledge capital and performance heterogeneity a firm level innovation study this paper is an empirical analysis of knowledge capital and performance heterogeneity at the firm level we apply new econometric methods to extensive data on innovation and innovative activities

causality between dairy farm size and productivity the direction of causality between dairy farm size and productivity is examined for each state using multivariate granger causality tests the results only partially support the view that technological change has caused increases in dairy farm size the direction of causality appears to be more from size to productivity changes in productivity and average herd size appear driven by price changes

scale economies and inefficiency of u s dairy farms this study employs data drawn from the 2000 agricultural resource management survey a u s department of agriculture sponsored farmers survey the article estimates returns to scale relationships across dairy farms of different sizes and across different regions incorporating variables hypothesized to influence farm performance results point to significant scale economies in u s dairy farms and underscore the importance of taking account of inefficiency when estimating scale economies contrary to previous research the preferred cost function specification does not show a region of decreasing returns to scale this finding helps explain why the average size of dairy farms has been increasing

the dynamics of agricultural biotechnology adoption lessons from series rbst use in wisconsin 1994 2001 this article exploits panel data from wisconsin dairy farmers to examine the dynamics of recombinant bovine somatotropin rbst adoption and to identify the characteristics that distinguish among nonadopters disadopters and early and late adopters panel methods are used to control for omitted variables and endogenous regressors that call into question coefficient estimates derived from cross section adoption models the results however confirm previous findings that larger farms with complementary feeding technologies are more likely to adopt rbst nonadopters appear quite unlikely to become adopters and rbst adoption will remain at rather moderate levels in wisconsin

r d capital rate of return on r d investment and spillover of r d in japanese manufacturing industries the effect of r 50d on productivity growth in japanese manufacturing industries is examined using more accurate firm r 50d expenditure data than widely used data based on financial statements series of r 50d capital are constructed then rate of return on r 50d investment is estimated in addition the impact of other industries r 50d on the productivity growth of an industry is also estimated an attempt is made to determine the effect of electronics technology upon the productivity growth of other industries through the transaction of the intermediate electronics goods with improved quality and through the diffusion of the new technological knowledge discovered japanese technology trade 1977 1981 copyright 1989 by mit press

job mismatches and career mobility does over education assist or hinder occupational advancement career mobility theory hypothesizes that over education leads to a higher level of occupational advancement and wage growth over time

optimal mismatch and promotions i introduction a substantial proportion of workers are employed in jobs for which they appear to be either overqualified or underqualified for instance using data from the panel study of income dynamics sicherman 1991 finds that 40 percent of his sample are overeducated and another 16 percent are undereducated rumberger 1987 reports similar values using data from the quality of employment surveys other studies which find substantial education mismatch include duncan and hoffman 1981 verdugo and verdugo 1989 and hersch 1991 and evidence that a single firm hires both under and overqualified workers is presented here this paper provides an explanation for why firms hire both overqualified and underqualified workers firms hire overqualified workers because these workers require less training for their initial positions such workers also form a pool from which promotions are made which lowers hiring costs for higher level positions within the firm workers accept positions for which they are overqualified to enhance their probability of promotion and because of search and mobility costs but if they fail to be promoted to a position that better matches their qualifications they are more likely to quit firms hire underqualified workers despite their longer training requirement since such workers are less likely to quit and provide continuity of the labor force over time thus contrary to job matching arguments that would explain these hires as a result of imperfect information hiring of seemingly mismatched workers is optimal and these matches are made with perfect information the model developed in this paper yields three testable hypotheses 1 training time for entry level jobs is inversely related to overqualification at the time of hire 2 workers who are overqualified on their current job are those who have failed to be promoted to a job which better matches their qualifications and such workers are more likely to quit and 3 workers overqualified at time of hire are more likely to be promoted to test these hypotheses i use new data collected for this purpose previous empirical research such as that cited above was restricted by data availability to examining only the match between education and the worker s current job thus the quality of the match with the worker s initial job and the match between worker qualifications other than education has gone unexplored however various worker characteristics in addition to education are often substituted for each other in determining a worker s qualification for a job thus i examine additional qualifications including the match between the worker s experience level of previous job and use of skills information on the match between the worker s qualifications and those required for the initial job with the employer is particularly important since entry level qualifications determine training time for the initial job as well as the likelihood of promotion further individual specific training time for the initial job is necessary but typically not available since data sets providing information on training such as the panel study of income dynamics and quality of employment surveys request information on training time for the average worker and not for the individual worker the data set reveals several interesting statistics qualification mismatch at hire is fairly common for this firm 29 percent of the sample report themselves overqualified for their first job with the firm while 13 percent report themselves as underqualified lateral intra firm mobility is common and occurs far more frequently than promotions workers in the sample average 1 3 promotions but four different jobs with the employer this suggests that the job matching process occurs not only by turnover but through intrafirm mobility consistent with the assumptions and implications of the model the empirical results indicate that workers who are overqualified at hire receive less training and more promotions and that workers overqualified for their current job are more likely to quit

overeducation undereducation and asymmetric information in occupational mobility due to short term asymmetric information overeducated and undereducated workers are shown to have different optimal strategies in seeking upward occupational mobility into their next positions undereducated workers typically have other human capital strengths but these strengths are not marketable to outsiders overeducated workers typically have other human capital weaknesses that are not apparent to outsiders while their excess schooling is marketable in labour markets with dynamic asymmetric information this article presents empirical evidence showing that job tenure increases the probability of upward occupational mobility more if individuals are undereducated moreover the probability of finding upward occupational mobility is increased by overeducated workers engaging in firm switching this article also validates prior empirical studies finding overeducated workers more likely to self report engaging in firm switching activities and more likely to experience upward occupational mobility than o

a critical assessment of the evaluation of eu interventions for innovation in the sme sector in wales in this paper the eu structural fund intervention framework is critically assessed in an effort to reflect on the problems faced by policy makers when trying to make sense of the complexity associ

innovation and integration in the agri food industry abstract we deal with the link between innovation and market structure using the empirical example of the danish agri food industry vertical integration may resolve hold up problems and here we test for the importance of vertical integration and networks on innovation we further examine the effects of network relationships on innovation behaviour we use data from an extensive survey of 444 danish firms over two years 2000 and 2005 to estimate a bootstrapped zero inflated poisson regression model the first and most significant result is that organization matters further we find that vertical integration as well as contractual arrangements are significant determinants for firms innovation behaviour the direction of integration is important as well also economies of size seem to play an important role similarly the export orientation of the firm is a significant determinant of innovation whereas the sector the firm is operating in is not significant for its innovation behaviour

the impact of surplus schooling on earnings some additional findings this paper examines the impact of overeducation or surplus schooling on earnings overeducated workers are defined as those with educational attainments substantially above the mean for their specific occupations two models are estimated using data from the 1980 census though our models data and measure of overeducation are different from those used by rumberger 1987 our results are similar our results show that overeducated workers often earn less than their adequately educated and undereducated counterparts

overeducation in the labor market this article examines the reasons for the observed discrepancy between workers actual and required levels of schooling and the resulting differences in returns to schooling overeducated workers are found to be younger and to have lower amounts of on the job training than workers with the required level of schooling they also have higher rates of firm and occupational mobility characterized by movement of higher level occupations the findings suggest that overeducation can be explained by the trade off between schooling and other components of human capital and by the mobility patterns of overeducated workers

positive and negative feedback in consequential life cycle assessment abstract in this paper we develop a typology of consequences that can be used for environmental assessments of investment in technologies as an illustration we estimate how the inclusion of different cause effect chains could affect the estimated greenhouse gas emissions resulting from buying and using a fuel cell bus today in contrast to earlier studies we include cause effect chains containing positive feedback from adoption e g economies of scale and learning we discuss how our findings affect the usefulness and limitations of consequential life cycle assessment lca and how lca methodology in more general can be used to support strategic technology choice a major conclusion is that environmental assessments of investment in emerging technologies should not only include effects resulting from marginal change of the current system but also marginal contributions to radical system change

the diffusion of new agricultural technologies the case of crossbred cow technology in tanzania the recent literature on agricultural technology adoption shows that diffusion of new technologies varies significantly across space and time furthermore puzzles exist about why some seemingly profitable technologies are not adopted especially in livestock production we employ a hazard or duration function to explain diffusion of crossbred cow technology in a unique sample of tanzania farmers a farmer s adoption of crossbred technology depends positively on the proximity of his farm to other users on his schooling and on his access to credit and contact with extension agents

innovation and productivity in developing countries a study of argentine manufacturing firms behavior 1992 2001 abstract following the methodology employed in studies for industrialized countries and using panel data from innovation surveys in argentina with information for 1992 2001 this paper contributes to the nascent literature that analyzes the determinants of innovative inputs and outputs and their impacts on manufacturing firms productivity in developing countries the econometric results show that in house r d and technology acquisition expenditures have positive payoffs in terms of enhanced probability of introducing new products and or processes to the market in turn innovators attain higher productivity levels than non innovators the results also show that large firms have a higher probability of engaging in innovation activities and of becoming innovators

transposing lessons between different forms of consequential greenhouse gas accounting lessons for consequential life cycle assessment project level accounting and policy level accounting abstract greenhouse gas accounting has developed in a number of semi isolated fields of practice and there appears to be considerable opportunity for transposing methodological innovations and lessons between these different fields this research paper identifies three consequential forms of greenhouse gas accounting consequential life cycle assessment project level accounting and policy level accounting these methods are described in detail and then compared in order to identify the key methodological differences and the potential lessons that can be transposed between them analysis of the substantive methodological differences suggests that consequential life cycle assessment could be enhanced by adopting the same structure used in project and policy level accounting which provides a time series of impacts aggregate level analysis and a transparent specification of the baseline and decision scenarios there is a case for conceptualising a unified form of consequential time series assessment of which project policy and product assessments would be sub types

the economics of technical change this paper reviews the recent rapidly growing literature on technical change in the economy it concentrates on innovations and their diffusion at firm and industry level since this was the area designated as relatively weak in earlier literature surveys the review argues that the extensive empirical evidence and theoretical analysis now available presents a basic challenge to neoclassical theory after indicating some weaknesses in the neo schumpeterian literature the paper concludes by advocating an experiment with a new form of assessment by neighboring disciplines to economics itself which would take full account of the fundamental issues at stake in this modern methodenstreit c 1994 academic press inc copyright 1994 by oxford university press

technical change growth and trade new departures in institutional economics this article analyses the main theoretical and policy issues emerging from the literature on the evolutionary institutional economics of technical change the four distinguishing characteristics of which are that technology is often proprietary in nature only a part of knowledge is codifiable in handbooks blueprints patents and so on there are fundamental variations in the above two points across different technological fields and the evolution of knowledge is highly path dependent