equilibria in unidirectional spatial models abstract this paper a characterizes the unique nash equilibrium of the unidirectional hotelling downs game in which firms maximize their market shares for any distribution of the consumers and b analyzes equilibrium behavior in the variation of the game in which each firm aims to secure a larger market share than its competitor in the first case firms employ identical mixed strategies and each of them serves in expected terms a fraction 1 e of the market and in both cases no firm ever locates in a position to the left of the first quartile of the consumers distribution

sustainable innovation business models and economic performance an overview sustainable development requires radical and systemic innovations such innovations can be more effectively created and studied when building on the concept of business models this concept provides firms with a holistic framework to envision and implement sustainable innovations for researchers the concept provides an analytical tool that allows them to assess the interplay between the different aspects that firms combine to create ecological economic and social value in addition the business model concept provides a link between the individual firm and the larger production and consumption system in which it operates this paper provides an introduction to the special issue which emerged from selected papers presented at the erscp emsu 2010 conference held in delft the netherlands papers in the special issue cover a broad range from a conceptual discussion resulting in a research agenda the assessment of diffusion of specific business models such as product service systems the introduction of new management tools for business transition management to case studies on how specific business models evolved in specific communities together these papers provide insight into the promise of the business model concept for understanding and advancing sustainable innovation

the analytics of the pricing of higher education and other services in which the customers are inputs many services provide outputs that depend partially on the customers as inputs the presence of other customers often contributes to the output experienced by each purchaser higher education is the premier example others are legion we provide a simple model that addresses the questions of competitive pricing and allocative efficiency for these types of services prices that charge customers for what they get on net output minus input from the firm both are competitive and support efficient allocations these prices internalize the apparent external effects of customers on each other few examples of such prices exist in the real world

competition between private and public schools vouchers and peer group effects a theoretical and computational model with tax financed tuition free public schools and competitive tuition financed private schools is developed students differ by ability and income achievement depends on own ability and on peers abilities equilibrium has a strict hierarchy of school qualities and two dimensional student sorting with stratification by ability and income in private schools high ability low income students receive tuition discounts while low ability high income students pay tuition premia tuition vouchers increase the relative size of the private sector and the extent of student sorting and benefit high ability students relative to low ability students

productivity gains from geographic concentration of human capital evidence from the cities abstract based on recent theoretical developments the argument is made that the average level of human capital is a local public good cities with higher average levels of human capital should therefore have higher wages and higher land rents after conditioning on the characteristics of individual workers and dwellings this prediction is supported by data for standard metropolitan statistical areas smsas in the united states where the smsa average levels of formal education and work experience are used as proxies for the average level of human capital the alternative explanations of omitted smsa variables and self selection are evaluated an estimate of the effect of an additional year of average education on total factor productivity is computed

what s the point of reciprocal trade negotiations exports imports and gains from trade this paper explains why trade policy makers may prefer reciprocal trade negotiations rtn to unilateral tariff reductions utr for economic reasons it answers puzzles like why wto reciprocity and strengthens the unnecessarily weak case made for the wto by those who downplay or dismiss benefits from foreign tariff reductions ftr rtn is superior to utr because it provides economic benefits that utr cannot namely ftr benefits which are clearer than potentially important utr benefits whereas each policy offers efficiency gains any terms of trade effect of utr generally detracts from these gains while any terms of trade effect of ftr is typically beneficial especially for a small price taking country with this benefit augmenting ftr s efficiency gains moreover benefits from reductions in foreign barriers may come from several sources they are not solely the result of terms of trade improvement or economies of scale the two benefits already noted in the literature though often dismissed for example with foreign ntb elimination possible home benefits are shown even with rising costs and terms of trade deterioration rtn is also superior to utr because by eliminating protection in either ntb or tariff form rtn provides an escape from not only a terms of trade prisoners dilemma but many other previously unrecognised prisoners dilemmas including one in international rent transfers and several others with no economies of scale or terms of trade motivation of course if superior rtn is not an option utr may well be desirable if reciprocity is an option but only in a narrower cu or fta form such reciprocity may still be superior to utr or it may be inferior theory cannot unambiguously rank these

business models as drivers of the low carbon power system transition a multi level perspective abstract decarbonising the electrical power system holds a critical role in climate change mitigation recent developments in technology are helping change the current centralized paradigm into one of integrated distributed clean energy resources in spite of these developments radical transformation is not occurring at a speed to effectively meet environmental targets mostly due to the incumbent carbon lock in trajectory we argue that business model bm innovation dynamics are key drivers in accelerating the low carbon power system transition often operating irrespective of the underlying technology we combine bm theory with the multi level perspective on sociotechnical transitions to present a useful framework to analyze this potential transition this paper presents the application of this framework characterizing relevant bm dynamics of niche and regime business actors and supporting these with illustrative examples particularly we find that new actors in the distributed energy business are achieving market scale by offering financially innovative bms that do not require upfront costs from customers higher penetrations of renewable energy sources in liberalized electricity markets are destabilizing the historical bm of large centralized utilities through erosion of wholesale prices furthermore a shift towards distributed and dynamic energy resources further challenges incumbents and might bring opportunities for bms focused on active customer participation and social value creation as these tendencies are expected to accelerate we find analyses of bms will have important relevance for future power system transition research

benefits and challenges of electrical demand response a critical review advances in it control and forecasting capabilities have made demand response a viable and potentially attractive option to increase power system flexibility this paper presents a critical review of the literature in the field of demand response providing an overview of the benefits and challenges of demand response these benefits include the ability to balance fluctuations in renewable generation and consequently facilitate higher penetrations of renewable resources on the power system an increase in economic efficiency through the implementation of real time pricing and a reduction in generation capacity requirements nevertheless demand response is not without its challenges the key challenges for demand response centre around establishing reliable control strategies and market frameworks so that the demand response resource can be used optimally one of the greatest challenges for demand response is the lack of experience and the consequent need to employ extensive assumptions when modelling and evaluating this resource this paper concludes with an examination of these assumptions which range from assuming a fixed linear price demand relationship for price responsive demand to modelling the highly diverse distributed and uncertain demand response resource as a single centralised negative generator adopting fixed characteristics and constraints

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

innovation process of new ventures driven by sustainability abstract since the brundtland report appeared in 1987 various approaches to realising sustainable consumption and production have come into practice while more traditional approaches like ecodesign and design for sustainability often emphasize optimizing existing products processes and businesses more radical approaches like product service systems and system innovation for sustainability emphasize developing new innovative products and services with higher environmental gains although these studies increased our understanding of sustainability in relation to product design they are criticized for failing to draw on existing theoretical frameworks in the organizational innovation literature berchicci 2005 this paper seeks to explore the innovation process within new ventures driven by sustainability since 1 conventional wisdom suggests that young and new firms have advantages in innovation acs and audretsch 1990 and as such they are the potential candidates of offering radical solutions to the challenges of sustainability and 2 there are few studies that address exploiting sustainable product ideas through new organizations the paper reports on the results of an explorative study involving the use of generative techniques during 19 individual semi structured interviews with eight entrepreneurs and seven innovation support organizations the results suggest that the relative impact of internal and external factors on the innovation process change over time as the new organization forms in addition creating new businesses from sustainability ideals is influenced by the firms ability in understanding and managing the differences between intended and created value and in finding an overlap between customer benefits and clearly defined prioritized sustainability goals

does competition among public schools benefit students and taxpayers tiebout choice among districts is the most powerful market force in american public education naive estimates of its effects are biased by endogenous district formation i derive instruments from the natural boundaries in a metropolitan area my results suggest that metropolitan areas with greater tiebout choice have more productive public schools and less private schooling little of the effect of tiebout choice works through its effect on household sorting this finding may be explained by another finding students are equally segregated by school in metropolitan areas with greater and lesser degrees of tiebout choice among districts

the crime reducing effect of education in this article we study the crime reducing potential of education presenting causal statistical estimates based upon a law that changed the compulsory school leaving age in england and wales we frame the analysis in a regression discontinuity setting and uncover significant decreases in property crime from reductions in the proportion of people with no educational qualifications and increases in the age of leaving school that resulted from the change in the law the findings show that improving education can yield significant social benefits and can be a key policy tool in the drive to reduce crime

educational vouchers when there are peer group effects size matters in this article i study the effects various educational voucher policies have on the sorting of children across schools and the per student expenditure levels at these schools when a child s peer group matters and students differ over income and ability i find that depending on the magnitude of the voucher switching from a public system to a voucher system could entail either welfare gains or losses all voucher policies under consideration lead to greater inequality than the public system however these increases are not monotone in the voucher size several states are considering enacting or have enacted educational voucher plans which entail giving parents money to send their children to private schools both the cities of milwaukee and cleveland have started educational voucher programs during the 1996 1997 school year around 1650 students in milwaukee received vouchers worth 4400 at a total cost of over 7 million in the same year cleveland spent 6 4 million distributing an average voucher of around 2000 to 1996 students other smaller scale voucher plans have sprouted up in school districts around the country proponents claim vouchers give poor parents educational choice for their children and give poor children a chance to succeed where the public schools fail them opponents argue that by funding vouchers resources will be funneled out of the public schools to a small number of students and that the majority of students who are left behind in the public schools will suffer in order to evaluate these proposals a framework is needed that incorporates the factors important to educational outcomes along with family background and educational expenditure many empirical studies have shown that the peer group plays a significant role in educational achievement consider a change in educational policy for example adopting a voucher system such a switch will affect not only

educational vouchers and cream skimming educational vouchers and cream skimming epple and romano 1998 show equilibrium provision of education by public and private schools has the latter skim off the wealthiest and most able students and universal vouchers lead to further cream skimming here we study voucher design that injects private school competition and increases technical efficiencies without cream skimming conditioning vouchers on student ability without restriction on participating schools policies fails to affect significantly cream skimming however by adding restrictions like tuition constraints such vouchers can reap the benefits of school competition without increased stratification this is accomplished while allowing voluntary participation in the voucher system and without tax increases

trade factor prices and the gains from trade with increasing returns to scale existing analyses seem to suggest that national increasing returns to scale are not a very useful tool for analysing trade owing to problems such as multiple equilibria and the tendency towards complete specialization the purpose of this paper is to construct a model in which there are in fact determinant relationships among country size the direction of trade the gains from trade and international factor price differences in the model differences in country size determine the direction of trade which in turn determines factor price differences and limits the possible distribution of the gains from trade commerce international prix des facteurs de production et les gains de l change dans un contexte de rendements croissants a l echelle les analyses conventionnelles semblent suggerer que les rendements croissants h l 6chelle au niveau national ne constituent pas une avenue prometteuse dans l analyse du commerce international parce que de tels rendements creent une presomption en faveur de la specialisation complete et conduisent a des situations d 6quilibres multiples le but de ce m6moire est de construire un mod le dans lequel il existe des rapports determinants entre la dimension du pays la direction des 6changes les gains de l echange et les differentiels internationaux entre les prix des facteurs de production dans ce mod le les differences entre les pays en termes de dimension d6terminent la direction du commerce international laquelle d6termine le differentiel entre les prix des facteurs de production et limite l eventail des r6partitions possibles des gains de l echange

reciprocated unilateralism in trade policy abstract using the menu auction approach to endogenous determination of tariffs and allowing additionally for lobby formation itself to be endogenous this paper analyzes the impact of unilateral trade liberalization by one country on its partner s trade policies we find that such unilateral liberalization may induce reciprocal tariff reductions by the partner country intuitively unilateral liberalization by one country has the effect of increasing the incentives for the export lobby in the partner country to form and to lobby effectively against the import competing lobby there for lower protection

why should trade negotiators negotiate about in recent years there have been growing demands to make trade liberalization contingent on adoption of common labor and environmental standards the straightforward economic answer is that this makes little sense neither the gains from trade nor the gains from appropriate regulation are compromised if other countries impose standards that are weaker than your own it is possible to offer second bet economic rationales for harmonization but these are empirically unconvincing the only serious argument in favor or regulation is political that regulation which is in the national interest may not be politically feasible unless other countries do the same

ability tracking school competition and the distribution of educational benefits abstract to study the effects of ability grouping on school competition we develop a theoretical and computational model of tracking in public and private schools we examine tracking s consequences for the allocation of students of differing abilities and income within and between public and private schools private schools tend to attract the most able and wealthiest students and rarely track in equilibrium public sector schools can maximize attendance by tracking students public schools retain a greater proportion of higher ability students by tracking but lose more wealthy lower ability students to the private sector consequently socioeconomic status is a predictor of track assignment in public schools for the entire population public sector tracking has small aggregate effects on achievement and welfare but results in significant redistribution from lower to higher ability students

choice competition and pupil achievement choice and competition in education have recently found growing support from both policy makers and academics yet evidence on the actual benefits of market orientated reforms is at best mixed moreover although the economic rationale for choice and competition is clear in existing work there is rarely an attempt to distinguish between the two concepts in this paper we study whether pupils in primary schools in england with a wider range of school choices achieve better academic outcomes than those whose choice is more limited and whether primary schools facing more competition perform better than those in a more monopolistic situation in simple least squares regression models we find little evidence of a link between choice and achievement but uncover a small positive association between competition and school performance yet this could be related to endogenous school location or pupil sorting in fact an instrumental variable strategy based on discontinuities generated by admissions district boundaries suggests that the performance gains from greater school competition are limited only when we restrict our attention to voluntary aided schools which have more freedom in managing their governance and admission practices do we find some evidence of a positive causal link between competition and pupil achievement jel i20 h70 r5

why trade liberalisation is good for growth there are three titles that might have been assigned for this paper 1 why is growth so rapid with outer oriented trade strategies 2 do countries with outer oriented trade strategies grow faster and 3 the one actually assigned they are not the same of the three the first is probably the most difficult to answer the second is a factual question and the empirical demonstration is straightforward sachs and warner 1995 the third by focussing on trade liberalisation implies that developing countries have highly restrictive trade regimes and thus asks if a move away from those regimes is good for growth it is far easier to show why especially over time liberalising a restrictive trade regime is conducive to more rapid growth than it is to show why outer oriented trade strategies have been so highly successful trade strategies and development strategies are closely related and it is useful to start by defining a few terms an import substitution is industrialisation strategy was adopted by most developing countries in the years following the second world war in most cases those countries were then predominantly agricultural and exporters of primary commodities the belief then was that rapid industrialisation was the essential if not the sole feature of economic growth and that only by domestically producing goods then imported could developing countries industrialise 1 under is it was intended to provide protection to new industries during their developmental period until they could compete with their counterparts in industrialised countries in practice the is strategy pulled most new resources into import competing activites with a number of negative consequences discussed later and one result was that export earnings grew less rapidly than the demand for foreign exchange and usually less rapidly even than real gdp an almost universal policy response was then to impose restrictive import licensing in response to foreign exchange shortage the stated reasons for this were the need to conserve scarce foreign exchange for essential developmental needs the outcome was of course a restrictive trade regime for reasons to be discussed below as is strategies continued trade regimes increased in restrictiveness and growth slowed hence to discuss trade liberalisation is to address the removal or at least reduction of incentives for is industrialisation and because again to be discussed below growth spurred under an is industrialisation strategy slows

a theory of trade policy leadership abstract this paper constructs a two country model of bilateral trade negotiations in the presence of political uncertainty to demonstrate that unilateral trade liberalization may be an optimal policy for a large country the political uncertainty is due to producer opposition to trade agreement ratification in the foreign country unilateral liberalization by the home country has a salutary effect on negotiations because it mitigates the pain of potential ratification failure on the foreign country it also promotes foreign ratification because it effectively punishes foreign import competing producers for lobbying against an agreement these benefits are shown to outweigh up to a point the terms of trade cost that the home country must suffer when it actually liberalizes unilaterally in equilibrium therefore we see a pattern in which the home country unilaterally liberalizes for several periods until ratification in the foreign country succeeds at which point foreign country finally reciprocates we also demonstrate that contrary to the standard optimal tariff result there may be an inverse relationship between the home country s monopoly power and its optimal unilateral tariff

competition in the public school sector evidence on strategic interaction among us school districts abstract this paper provides evidence on strategic interaction among local school districts the analysis makes use of a significant change in the institutional environment for school districts in michigan in 1996 when the state established a voluntary inter district choice program the school districts participation decisions are modelled as discrete choice decisions using a spatial latent variable model strong effects are found saying that lagged adoptions of neighbors positively affect the current probability of participation a simple test exploiting limitations of student mobility in inter district transfers suggests that the driving force for interdependencies among adoption decisions was competition for students

school vouchers in practice competition will not hurt you abstract since the introduction of school vouchers in 1992 independent and public schools in sweden operate on equal terms we analyze the effects of competition on the public schools using data on the results of 28 000 ninth graders because the decision on which school to attend is a choice variable sample selection models are used to account for the potential endogeneity of the share of students attending independent schools we use instrumental variable estimation we also estimate panel data models on 288 swedish municipalities our findings support the hypothesis that school results in public schools improve due to competition

the attenuation of human capital spillovers abstract this paper uses 2000 census data to estimate the relationship of agglomeration and proximity to human capital to wages the paper takes a geographic approach and focuses on the attenuation of agglomeration and human capital effects differencing and instrumental variable methods are employed to address endogeneity in the wage agglomeration relationship and also to deal with measurement error in our agglomeration and human capital variables three key results are obtained first the spatial concentration of employment within five miles is positively related to wage second the benefits of spatial concentration are driven by proximity to college educated workers an instance of human capital spillovers third these effects attenuate sharply with distance

the merit order effect a detailed analysis of the price effect of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices in germany the german feed in support of electricity generation from renewable energy sources has led to high growth rates of the supported technologies critics state that the costs for consumers are too high an important aspect to be considered in the discussion is the price effect created by renewable electricity generation this paper seeks to analyse the impact of privileged renewable electricity generation on the electricity market in germany the central aspect to be analysed is the impact of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices the results generated by an agent based simulation platform indicate that the financial volume of the price reduction is considerable in the short run this gives rise to a distributional effect which creates savings for the demand side by reducing generator profits in the case of the year 2006 the volume of the merit order effect exceeds the volume of the net support payments for renewable electricity generation which have to be paid by consumers

what if utility vision 2020 future climate frameworks the localization of energy policy energy water linkages consumer driven innovation are among the key words that keep utility strategists awake this essay is an attempt to put these questions into context and derive a possible alternative investment strategy c 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

efficient tuition fees and examinations we assume that students observe only a private noisy signal of their ability and that universities can condition admission decisions on the results of noisy tests if the university observes a private signal of each student s ability which is soft information then asymmetries of information are two sided and the optimal admission policy involves a mix of pricing and pre entry selection based on the university s private information in contrast if all test results are public knowledge then there is no sorting on the basis of test scores tuition alone does the job of implementing an optimal degree of student self selection these results do not depend on the existence of peer effects the optimal tuition follows a classic marginal social cost pricing rule jel d82 h42 i22 j24

the productivity of schools and other local public goods producers abstract i construct an agency model of local public goods producers in which households make tiebout choices among jurisdictions in a world of imperfect information and costly residential mobility i examine producers effort and rent under local property tax finance and centralized finance i show that if there are a sufficient number of jurisdictions conventional local property tax finance can attain about as much productivity as a social planner with centralized finance can even if the social planner is armed with more information than a real social planner could plausibly have the key insight is that decentralized tiebout choices make some information the social planner would need verifiable and other information unnecessary

the market value of variable renewables the effect of solar wind power variability on their relative price this paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the market value of variable renewable energy vre the inherent variability of wind speeds and solar radiation affects the price that vre generators receive on the market market value during windy and sunny times the additional electricity supply reduces the prices because the drop is larger with more installed capacity the market value of vre falls with higher penetration rate this study aims to develop a better understanding on how the market value with penetration and how policies and prices affect the market value quantitative evidence is derived from a review of published studies regression analysis of market data and the calibrated model of the european electricity market emma we find the value of wind power to fall from 110 of the average power price to 50 80 as wind penetration increases from zero to 30 of total electricity consumption for solar power similarly low value levels are reached already at 15 penetration hence competitive large scale renewable deployment will be more difficult to accomplish than as many anticipate

demand response in smart electricity grids equipped with renewable energy sources a review abstract dealing with renewable energy resources rers requires sophisticated planning and operation scheduling along with state of art technologies among many possible ways for handling rers demand response dr is investigated in the current review because of every other year modifications in dr definition and classification announced by federal energy regulatory commission ferc the latest dr definition and classification are scrutinized in the present work moreover a complete benefit and cost assessment of dr is added in the paper measurement and evolution methods along with the effects of dr in electricity prices are discussed next comes dr literature review of the recent papers majorly published after 2008 eventually successful dr implementations around the world are analyzed

is unilateral tariff reduction preferable to a customs union the curious case of the missing foreign tariffs during the past decade and a half an important part of the literature on customs unions has dealt with the question of whether a country might obtain the gains it would achieve from a customs union cu in an alternative way by a unilateral tariff reduction utr utr may involve a partial reduction in tariffs or a reduction all the way to zero a widely accepted conclusion see eitan berglas p 329 c a cooper and b f massell 1965b pp 745 47 roma dauphin ch 2 harry johnson p 280 melvyn krauss pp 417 19 and peter robson is that utr does indeed hold out the prospect for all the gains from a cuwithout the disadvantagesif two important simplifying assumptions are made namely that we ignore economies of scale and the effects of a customs union on the terms of trade 2 in the words of berglas it is important to note that if a preferential trade agreement does not affect the terms of trade then it does not allow for any mutually beneficial policy opportunities which are not open to each of the member countries separately through utr p 329 if this conclusion is correct it is very important in that it undercuts the earlier literature on customs unions the question asked by jacob viner in his pioneering work whether a cu represents a net gain or a net loss in economic efficiencybecomes unimportant except insofar as a customs union is based on terms of trade effects3 or economies of scale 4 since a cu can be summarily rejected in favor of utr the utr case would mean that for economists the puzzle is not to identify the efficiency gains or losses from a cu but rather to explain why countries form customs unions in the first place berglas p 329 cooper and massell 1965b p 247 and johnson p 270 indeed in his survey of cu theory krauss identifies the problem raised by cooper and massellof why countries form customs unionsas the theoretical issue of the past decade the 1960 s just as in the prior one the major issue as explicitly defined by jacob viner 1950 was whether a customs union represented a movement towards freer trade or greater protection p 413 the typical reply to the cooper massell question is countries tend to form a cu for noneconomic reasons berglas pp 329 30 5

business models for people planet profits exploring the phenomena of social business a market based approach to social value creation this article explores the hybrid phenomenon of social business that is both a form of organization and a practice that deliberately harnesses market dynamics to address deeply rooted social issues through the design and implementation of a core product or service this new form of hybrid venture melds the social purpose traditionally associated with non profit organizations with the economic purpose and market based methods traditionally associated with for profit firms this exploratory research inductively explores the process by which social businesses are designed the result suggests that clear intentionality around social purpose drives the design of these ventures and their associated missions and business models such that they can creatively synthesize competing paradigms economic and social purpose within one venture the tight coupling of mission method and operationalization allows for the multi stakeholder promise of the business model to be fulfilled

lobbying the energiewende assessing the effectiveness of strategies to promote the renewable energy business in germany abstract the article examines the influence of renewable energy companies on the decision making process related to the german energy transition it identifies clusters of different lobbying activities and styles through in depth interviews with 20 stakeholders from policy making and business the research used repertory grid technique in combination with homals multivariate analysis its main findings are first although the big four electric utilities operating on the german energy market still possess wide influence companies of renewable energy have developed from a niche into important players of the energy regime second lobbies by the renewable energy sector are mainly aimed at the legislative framework particularly on the renewable energy sources act and the feed in system third interviewees identified 36 different lobby activities the most effective ones are regular and personal maintenance of contact to politicians lobbying within an association knowledge development with correct information and top down contacting of most powerful politicians fourth the statistical analysis reveals clear distinctions between companies with regards to their lobby strategies which are evaluated differently by stakeholders finally the article concludes that companies have a strong influence on political decision making and together with governmental actors form a policy network that strongly shapes the german energy transition

integrative re use systems as innovative business models for devising sustainable product service systems re use implies recovering items from the waste stream to use them in identical or similar processes mostly at consumer level currently re use is restricted to niches but by 2020 the european commission wants to mainstream re use as a waste management option to increase resource efficiency ecologically oriented work integration social enterprises focussing on re use re use eco wises might help accomplish as they not only intend to re integrate marginalised people into the labour market but provide comprehensive re use services e g repair and thus constitute a novel kind of sustainable product service system spss this paper contributes to a scientific framework for re use eco wises by linking existing theoretical knowledge on spss to novel knowledge from three cases representing the variety of re use eco wises in austria for analysis we use the so called business model canvas adding a comprehensive stakeholder consideration results show that re use eco wises contribute to all three dimensions of sustainability by helping reduce waste and increasing resource productivity and by providing jobs and affordable goods for disadvantaged people full implementation however will need additional efforts from all stakeholders involved including the eco wises themselves but also public authorities and society at large

current challenges of germany s energy transition project and competing strategies of challengers and incumbents the case of direct marketing of electricity from renewable energy sources electricity generated by renewable energies res e already accounts for 25 of germany s electricity supply this has led to recent discussions for a better market integration of res e the paper examines how competing actors and their ideas on market integration developed new services for direct marketing according to their respective origins and tried to shape the regulatory framework the paper analyses this process and explains the current shape of the field of direct marketing medium sized structured actors who favoured res e integration via the conventional wholesale power markets and who formed early close coalitions with res e power producers at the same time have been most successful in terms of market shares moreover they have been very successful for different reasons in building up coalitions with governance units and influencing the field rules and routines based on those findings the paper will conclude with some policy advices for the future adjustment of the current regulative frameworks as long as there is no evidence of how res e can be integrated most effectively and efficiently policies should maintain a competition between different direct marketing strategies to find out which strategies serve the best in terms of achieving a successful energy transition

regulation in the market for education and optimal choice of curriculum we analyze educational institutions incentives to set up demanding or lax curricula in duopolistic markets for education with endogenous enrolment of students we assume that there is a positive externality of student achievement on the local economy comparing the case of regulated tuition fees with an unregulated market we identify the following ine ciencies under regulated tuition fees schools will set up ine ciently lax curricula in an attempt to please low quality students even if schools internalize some of the externality on the other hand unregulated schools set up excessively di erentiated curricula in order to relax competition in tuition fees deregulation gets more attractive if a larger fraction of the externality is internalized

admission tuition and financial aid policies in the market for higher education we present an equilibrium model of the market for higher education our model simultaneously predicts student selection into institutions of higher education financial aid educational expenditures and educational outcomes we show that the model gives rise to a strict hierarchy of colleges that differ by the educational quality provided to the students we also develop a new estimation procedure that exploits the observed variation in prices within colleges identification is based on variation in endowments and technology it does not rely on observed variation in potentially endogenous characteristics of colleges such as peer quality measures and expenditures we estimate the structural parameters using data collected by the national center for education statistics and aggregate data from peterson s and the national science foundation

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

the merit order effect of wind and photovoltaic electricity generation in germany 2008 2016 estimation and distributional implications abstract generation from renewable energy sources in germany has experienced a considerable uptake in recent years mainly responsible for this development is the german renewable energy sources act erneuerbare energien gesetz eeg this paper considers redistributive implications of the eeg for different electricity consumers using time series regression analysis we show that electricity generation by wind and pv has reduced spot market prices considerably by 6 mwh in 2010 rising to 10 mwh in 2012 we use these results to build a near term forecasting tool for merit order effects projected to reach 14 16 mwh in 2016 on the other hand the costs of the eeg are passed forward to consumers in the form of a surcharge our findings highlight significant redistributive transfers under the current design of the eeg in particular some energy intensive industries are benefiting from lower wholesale electricity prices whilst being largely exempted from contributing to the costs of the scheme we also highlight implications of our results for other areas for reform of the eeg such as adequate remuneration mechanisms that ensure efficient operation and investment decisions are made under the scheme more generally these findings suggest that policy makers need to integrate distributional assessments into policy design and implementation