modified ecological footprint accounting and analysis based on embodied exergy a case study of the chinese society 1981 2001 abstract the resource consumption of the chinese society from 1981 to 2001 is investigated by ecological footprint ef as an aggregate indicator based on the theory of ecological thermodynamics a modified calculation of ecological footprint termed as embodied exergy ecological footprint eeef in contrast to the conventional one is performed and related overall trends of the chinese society 1981 2001 are analyzed the annual policy for the individual sector is described in detail corresponding to the ef and eeef components comparison of the conventional ef and the eeef based on different views of ecological production is outlined the ef intensity and eeef intensity are also presented to depict the resource consumption level corresponding to unit economic output finally eeef is suggested to serve as a modified indicator of ef towards illustrating the productions of the resource environment population and thereby reflecting the ecological overshoot of the general ecological system

the accounting push and the policy pull balancing environment and economic decisions abstract the use of information in environmental and economic policy has been a theme for over 100 years but standards for integrating environmental and economic information were not adopted until 2012 through the system of environmental economic accounting seea for 20 years the technical push to develop accounts proceeded largely independently of the pull from the intended or likely end users of accounts consequently governments have little knowledge of the accounting or how it might be used we examine why public policy imperatives have not yet pulled environmental accounting into the mainstream and explain how accounting can help reshape government decision making as part of this a model showing the place of accounts in the information system and the policy cycle is presented along with a research agenda and principles for the decision centred design of accounts we conclude that a phased implementation of the accounts as well as additional research into their applications will be needed to build practical understanding and political acceptance of the accounts

catchment metabolism integrating natural capital in the asset management portfolio of the water sector abstract the policy of the water sector demands integrated and resilient asset management the majority of current research focuses on urban or community asset systems to provide a fully integrated approach one needs to delineate the focus of asset management at a catchment scale to include the natural capital the research described in this paper introduces such an approach with the environmental regional input output e rio analysis at its core the novelty of the work is the conceptualisation of a catchment as a complex asset system comprising of multiple subsystems this expands the application of industrial ecology and functional modelling techniques in integrated catchment management and water accounting the catchment metabolism modelling schema created in this paper serves asset water resources and catchment management purposes the schema forms the grounds for structured collaboration among experts for integrated water resources planning and decision making in this paper the process of creating the modelling schema along with the techniques used are presented a live industrial example from the uk water sector poole harbour catchment is used to demonstrate its application

measuring natural capital towards accounts for the uk and a basis for improved decision making the paper describes the ongoing project begun by the uk office for national statistics and the department for the environment food and rural affairs in 2011 to compile comprehensive natural capital accounts for the uk it describes the basis on which the accounts have been constructed discusses key issues which have arisen and presents the results to date it also sets out how restoration accounts for individual projects can not only facilitate conventional cost benefit analysis but also add to relevant material for decision makers more widely the paper describes how natural capital accounts can underpin well based decision making for example in implementation of the uk government s new 25 year plan for the environment in addition by providing information on one of the missing capitals such accounts can augment analysis of the behaviour of the economy generally

national accounting and the valuation of ecosystem assets and their services there has long been interest in integrating the value of environmental stocks and flows into standard measures of economic activity and wealth in particular through the development of adjusted measures of gdp and extended measures of national wealth this paper examines how the valuation of ecosystem services and ecosystem assets can be undertaken in an integrated national accounting setting we clarify the relevant valuation principles most significantly the need to apply the concept of exchange values and explain why the integration of ecosystem services necessitates an extension of the standard production boundary used in economic measurement the main implications of an accounting approach are discussed including the need to distinguish benefits from services the need for valuation methods that exclude consumer surplus and the importance of aligning measures of income and degradation remaining challenges include the treatment of low or negative rents accounting for ecosystem disservices and the derivation of values for ecosystem assets meeting these challenges and advancing work in this area should be the joint focus of economists ecologists and accountants

rates of time preference and valuations of the duration of life abstract this paper develops a multi period markov model of the lifetime choice of occupational fatality risks the empirical model analyzes the wage effects of job risks using the 1982 university of michigan panel study of income dynamics in conjunction with death statistics from the u s national traumatic occupational fatality survey evidence regarding workers intertemporal choices with respect to risks with long term implications is broadly consistent with rational behavior workers implicit real rate of time preference with respect to future life years equals approximately 11 percent this rate of time preference decreases with education

measuring the damages of air pollution in the united states abstract this paper measures the damages due to emissions of air pollution in the united states an integrated assessment model is used to calculate the marginal damage associated with emitting an additional ton of pollution from nearly 10 000 sources in the u s the total damage produced by a source is the marginal damage of an emission its shadow price times the total tons emitted from a specific source adding total damages across all sources yields gross annual damages gad which is a green accounting parallel to gross domestic product gdp gad in 2002 varies between 71 billion and 277 billion 0 7 2 8 of gdp the range of values depends largely on the value of health and the concentration response function relating exposures to fine particulate matter pm 2 5 to adult mortality rates source location also matters urban emissions constitute 52 of total emissions by weight yet they cause nearly three quarters of the gad

cost benefit analysis of various california renewable portfolio standard targets is a 33 rps optimal abstract renewable portfolio standards rpss require a certain fraction of the electricity generated for a given region be produced from renewable resources california s rps mandates that by 2020 33 of the electricity sold in the state must be generated from renewables such mandates have important implications for the electricity sector as well as for the whole society in this paper we estimate the costs and benefits of varying 2020 california rps targets on electricity prices greenhouse gas ghg emissions criteria pollutant emissions the electricity generation mix the labor market renewable investment decisions and social welfare we have extended the rps calculator model developed by energy and environmental economics e3 inc to account for distributions of fuel and generation costs to incorporate demand functions and to estimate the effects of rps targets on ghg emissions criteria pollutant emissions and employment the results of our modeling provide the following policy insights 1 the average 2020 electricity price increases as the rps target rises with values ranging between 0 152 and 0 175 kw h 2008 dollars for the 20 rps to 50 rps respectively 2 the 33 and 50 rps targets decrease the ghg emissions by about 17 6 and 35 8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent mmtco2e relative to the 20 rps 3 the ghg emission reduction costs of the rps options are high 71 94 per ton relative to results from policy options other than rps or prices that are common in the carbon markets and 4 a lower target e g a 27 rps provides higher social welfare than the 33 rps mandate under low and moderate co2 social costs lower than 35 ton while a higher rps target e g 50 is more beneficial when using high co2 social costs or rapid renewable technology diffusion however under all studied scenarios the mandated 33 rps for california would not provide the best cost benefit values among the possible targets and would not maximize the net social benefit objective

environmental accounting for pollution in the united states economy this study presents a framework to include environmental externali ties into a system of national accounts the paper estimates the air pollution damages for each industry in the united states an inte grated assessment model quantifies the marginal damages of air pol lution emissions for the us which are multiplied times the quantity of emissions by industry to compute gross damages solid waste com bustion sewage treatment stone quarrying marinas and oil and coal fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value added the largest industrial contributor to external costs is coal fired electric generation whose damages range from 0 8 to 5 6 times value added jel e01 l94 q53 q56

spatial valuation of forests environmental assets an application to andalusian silvopastoral farms we develop a model that estimates spatially allocated environmental asset values for the simultaneous provision of seven ecosystem services we examine the effect of heterogeneous spatial and economic factors on asset figures and identify potential forestry abandonment problems when continuing with forestry activity becomes unprofitable for the landowner our results show a relevant spatial variability according to forest species distribution and structure we examine potential trade offs among silvopastoral provisioning services water and carbon sequestration services results forecast the abandonment of forestry activity and quantify the significant impact of discount rates and prices on asset values

natural resource accounting for indian states illustrating the case of forest resources abstract our main objective is to set out and apply a seea based methodology to reflect the true value of forest resources in india s national and state accounts we establish that a top down approach using available national databases is both feasible and desirable from a policy perspective in this paper we address four components of value creation in forests timber production carbon storage fuelwood usage and the harvesting of non timber forest products the results of our analysis suggest that prevailing measures of national income in india underestimate the contribution of forests to income the income accounts of the northeastern states in particular are significantly understated by these traditional gdp gsdp measures we are also able to identify some states which performed poorly in the context of our sustainability framework reflecting natural capital losses due to degradation and deforestation our results highlight the need to integrate natural resource accounting into the national accounting framework in order to generate appropriate signals for sustainable forest management and for the conservation of forest resources which are widely used by the poor in india as well as being significant stores of national wealth

sustainability indicators policy and governance issues for ecological economics abstract ecological economics is a major forum for discussion of theoretical and analytical aspects of measuring sustainability the role of sustainability indicators as an evaluation method for sustainability within the emerging context of governance merits further analysis focusing on policy processes surrounding the production of sustainability indicators this paper addresses two questions what is the potential utility of indicators for policy and in what ways can indicators influence governance the former is addressed by exploring three disciplines with long histories of indicator application public administration studies urban studies and environmental sciences the latter is addressed by distilling key perspectives from public policy literature on knowledge utilisation and policy learning which become the foundation for clarifying the notion of policy resonant indicators this clarification is achieved by canvassing the spectrum of the influences on indicators and the mechanisms of their resonance in policy processes the final section of the paper brings these arguments together by exploring two major insights in terms of challenges for ecological economics strengthening indicator theory and practice by addressing four key ingredients and mobilisation of indicators through their active use within the context of governance

dynamically estimating the distributional impacts of u s climate policy with nems a case study of the climate protection act of 2013 we present a new method that enables users of the federal government s flagship energy policy model nems to dynamically estimate the direct energy expenditure impacts of climate policy across u s household incomes and census regions our approach combines nems output with detailed household expenditure data from the consumer expenditure survey improving on static methods that assess policy impacts by assuming household energy demand remains unchanged under emissions pricing scenarios to illustrate our method we evaluate a recent carbon fee and dividend proposal introduced in the u s senate the climate protection act of 2013 s 332 our analysis indicates this bill if enacted would have cut co2 emissions from energy by 17 below 2005 levels by 2020 at a gross cost of less than 0 5 of gdp while offering rebates sufficient to offset increased direct energy expenditures for typical households making less than 120 000 per year and average households in all regions of the united states

are there environmental benefits from driving electric vehicles the importance of local factors we combine a theoretical discrete choice model of vehicle purchases an econometric analysis of electricity emissions and the ap2 air pollution model to estimate the geographic variation in the environmental benefits from driving electric vehicles the second best electric vehicle purchase subsidy ranges from 2 785 in california to 4 964 in north dakota with a mean of 1 095 ninety percent of local environmental externalities from driving electric vehicles in one state are exported to others implying they may be subsidized locally even when the environmental benefits are negative overall geographically differentiated subsidies can reduce deadweight loss but only modestly

development of the seea 2003 and its implementation abstract the preparation of the system of environmental and economic accounts 2003 marks an important milestone in the world of official statistics just as the development of the original guidelines for national accounting in the 1950s was the first step toward today s robust internationally comparable economic statistics the system of environmental and economic accounts 2003 offers hope to bring order and comparability to environmental statistics how the system came to be and why it is an important achievement are outlined this is followed by an overview of its accounting structure a discussion of the implementation of the seea 2003 both in ideal terms and as actually practiced in statistical offices concludes

how does natural resource accounting become powerful in policymaking a case study of changing calculative frames in local energy policy in finland abstract the paper explores the role of natural resource accounting and calculations as tools for inducing movement towards ecologically sound policy making we draw from the theoretical debates in social studies of science and technology sts to understand how calculations gain their power in real world decision making through in depth case analysis of a local energy production decision in finland we study how and under what conditions calculative methods related to environmental valuation affect the rationalities applied in policy decisions on the basis of our analysis we claim that new calculative rationalities do not become significant through changing ways of thinking alone there is a need for shift of calculative framing this shift requires active promotion by powerful actors and furthermore new framings need to become embedded in the rules of the game of decision making our analysis suggests that the methods of sts can provide a valuable tool for economists creation of richer understanding of the dynamics between calculative rationalities and the institutions of decision making in depth case analysis of decision making involving the use of natural resources brings out the multitude of ways in which calculations can take part in or be excluded from the making of natural resource policy

electric sector policy technological change and u s emissions reductions goals results from the emf 32 model intercomparison project the energy modeling forum emf 32 study compares a range of coordinated scenarios to explore implications of u s climate policy options and technological change on the electric power sector harmonized policy scenarios including mass based emissions limits and various power sector only carbon tax trajectories across 16 models provide comparative assessments of potential impacts on electric sector investment and generation outcomes emissions reductions and economic implications this paper compares results across these policy alternatives including a variety of technological and natural gas price assumptions and summarizes robust findings and areas of disagreement across participating models under a wide range of policy technology and market assumptions model results suggest that future coal generation will decline relative to current levels while generation from natural gas wind and solar will increase though the pace and extent of these changes vary by policy scenario technological assumptions region and model climate policies can amplify trends already under way and make them less susceptible to future market changes the model results provide useful insights to a range of stakeholders but future research focused on intersectoral linkages in emission reductions e g the role of electrification effects of energy storage and better coverage of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage beccs can improve insights even further

your money or your life green growth policies and welfare in 2050 this paper proposes a simple index of economic progress that weighs in the monetary cost induced by climate change mitigation policies as well as the health benefits arising from the reduction in local air pollution the shadow price of pollution is calculated indirectly through its impact on life expectancy taking into account the health benefits of mitigation policies significantly reduces their monetary cost in china and india as well as in countries with large fossil based energy producing sectors australia canada and the united states

simulated exchange values and ecosystem accounting theory and application to free access recreation abstract this paper discusses the simulated exchange value method a practical method to estimate values for goods and services currently outside of the market in a manner consistent with the market based figures considered in national accounts the method proposes to simulate in a partial equilibrium context the price that would occur if a good or service outside of the market such as free access recreation in forests were internalized the method takes into account the demand estimated using non market valuation techniques the supply and the market structure the discussion covers the case of a linear demand and the case in which the demand is estimated using discrete choice methods this paper applies the method to free access recreation in the forests of andalusia in the south of spain and compares the results to those obtained using hicksian variations

child care choices and children s cognitive achievement the case of single mothers we evaluate the effect of child care versus maternal time inputs on child cognitive development using single mothers from the nlsy79 to deal with nonrandom selection of children into child care we exploit the exogenous variation in welfare policy rules facing single mothers in particular the 1996 welfare reform and earlier state level policy changes generated substantial increases in their work child care use we construct a comprehensive set of welfare policy variables and use them as instruments to estimate child cognitive ability production functions in our baseline specification we estimate that a year of child care reduces child test scores by 2 1

the economics of schooling production and efficiency in public schools n recent years public and professional interest in schools has been heightened by a spate of reports many of them critical of current school policy these policy documents have added to persistent and long standing concerns about the cost effectiveness and fairness of the current school structure and have made schooling once again a serious public issue as in the past however any renewed interest in education is likely to be short lived doomed to dissipate as frustration over the inability of policy to improve school practice sets in this frustration about school policy relates directly to knowledge about the educational production process and in turn to underlying research on schools although the educational process has been extensively researched clear policy prescriptions flowing from this research have been difficult to derive 2 there exists however a consistency to the research findings that does have an immediate application to school policy schools differ dramatically in quality

participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance this paper introduces a special section devoted to participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance the departing point for this research was the recognition that although there is a relative agreement regarding the need to develop new multi dimensional inclusive and plural approaches to water resource management there is still a deficiency of related methodologies and tools this acknowledgement has motivated the undertaking of the advisor integrated evaluation for sustainable river basin governance research project which aimed at improving the understanding of evaluation processes as part of river basin planning and management and to test the use of specific tools to support the conduct of participatory processes the paper starts with a discussion of the concept of integrated water resources management and an illustration of the water policies that have been adopted in different countries as a response to these trends the conceptual framework that was developed in advisor is then presented as well as the main results from the ex post analysis of the decision processes regarding five water related projects in different european countries this analysis concluded that in most situations the decision making processes fell short of including the interests perceptions and values of affected parties the remaining of the paper introduces the articles that form this special section mostly devoted to the testing of new platforms for participation and deliberation in the final section a discussion on the assumptions and limitations of deliberative processes is presented based on the results from the application of the different methods further research needs on the integration of different deliberative tools and on the integration of deliberation with decision processes are identified

participative multi criteria analysis for the evaluation of water governance alternatives a case in the costa del sol malaga this paper presents the results of a participatory multi criteria evaluation of urban water supply alternatives in costa del sol occidental in malaga spain multi criteria and social research techniques were combined relying on social actors involvement throughout the research work the paper documents that participatory processes allowed to unveil framings perspectives values and interests as well as understanding of the social and institutional context in which the waters are governed the deployment of this methodological approach has in this case provided an extended diagnosis which was the starting point to explore non a priori foreseen management alternatives by the researchers the methodological approach proved useful for problem structuring in a collective flexible and iterative way unveiling existing water management conflicts and their motivations and improving the quality and effectiveness of the information exchange and the reflection process among social actors even if the whole process developed in a research setting rather than in a policy for real one participatory multi criteria evaluation could in this case contribute to identify policy options that could be better defended before all the social actors including the general public thus attempting to achieve shared ground the paper suggests some methodological considerations for applying participatory multi criteria evaluation based on the outcomes of the case study application

the trade off between child quantity and quality an empirical investigation of trade offs between number of children and their scholastic performance confirms that family size directly affects children s achievement though parents show no favori

do peer groups matter peer group versus schooling effects on academic attainment this paper estimates an educational production function educational attainment is a function of peer group parental input and schooling conventional measures of school quality are not good predictors for academic attainment once we control for peer group effects parental qualities also have strong effects on academic attainment this academic attainment is a then a key determinant of subsequent labour market success as measured by earnings the main methodological innovation in this paper is the nomination of a set of instruments very broad regions of birth which as a whole pass close scrutiny for validity and permit unbiased estimation of the production function

recording environmental assets in the national accounts accounting information is a core element of economic decision making at both national and corporate levels it is widely accepted that much economic activity is dependent upon natural capital and natural resources generically termed environmental assets in an accounting context environmental assets are under threat of depletion and degradation from economic activity consequently the incorporation of information on environmental assets into standard accounting frameworks is an essential element in mainstreaming environmental information and broadening the evidence base for economic decisions and the assessment of sustainability this paper describes the treatment of environmental assets within the national economic accounts and summarizes recent developments that extend the accounting approaches as described in the united nations system of environmental economic accounting seea the potential for implementation of accounting standards for environmental assets is shown through a description of work in australia on environmental economic accounting

do we need ecosystem accounts the internationally adopted system of environmental economic accounting measures the interaction between the economy and the natural environment its central framework accounts for the depletion of natural resources but omits environmental degradation notably from pollution a recent companion volume on experimental ecosystem accounting addresses ecosystem degradation but excludes the depletion of natural assets its physical accounts notably on land cover and use could support the management and conservation of ecosystems policies of sustainable economic performance and growth require however integrative information on both depletion and degradation at national and sectoral levels integrated environmental and economic accounts can provide this information without the detour of ecosystem accounting

a retrospective analysis of benefits and impacts of u s renewable portfolio standards abstract as states consider revising or developing renewable portfolio standards rps they are evaluating policy costs benefits and other impacts we present the first u s national level assessment of state rps program benefits and impacts focusing on new renewable electricity resources used to meet rps compliance obligations in 2013 in our central case scenario reductions in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from displaced fossil fuel generated electricity resulted in 2 2 billion of global benefits health and environmental benefits from reductions in criteria air pollutants sulfur dioxide nitrogen oxides and particulate matter 2 5 were even greater estimated at 5 2 billion in the central case further benefits accrued in the form of reductions in water withdrawals and consumption for power generation finally although best considered resource transfers rather than net societal benefits new renewable electricity generation used for rps compliance in 2013 also supported nearly 200 000 u s based gross jobs and reduced wholesale electricity prices and natural gas prices saving consumers a combined 1 3 4 9 billion in total the estimated benefits and impacts well exceed previous estimates of rps compliance costs

sustaining wealth simulating a sovereign wealth fund for the uk s oil and gas resources past and future abstract exhaustible resources and the revenues they generate present a number of broad problems for macroeconomic management for example tax revenues can be large and highly volatile and the stream of revenues is finite an increasing number of countries now view resource funds and or fiscal rules for resource revenues as the answer to these challenges in this paper we explore the consequences for the uk if past revenues arising from the depletion of subsoil assets had been channelled into a sovereign wealth fund we show that had a decision been made to establish such a fund in 1975 this could have been substantial in size by 2018 about gbp 354 billion and moreover would have had a number of benefits such as a reduction in volatility of resource revenues flowing to the treasury crucially the fund s value would have substantially boosted the size of the government balance sheet yielding corresponding fiscal benefits we argue this missed opportunity is underlined further by considering the current debate about shale gas development in the uk notwithstanding considerable uncertainties favourable and optimistic projections for key parameters are required for any shale based fund to match what we simulate based on past experience for conventional subsoil assets

does school quality matter returns to education and the characteristics of public schools in the united states this paper estimates the effects of school quality measured by the pupil teacher ratio average term length and relative teacher pay on the rate of return to education for men born between 1920 and 1949 using earnings data from the 1980 census we find that men who were educated in states with higher quality schools have a higher return to additional years of schooling rates of return are also higher for individuals from states with better educated teachers and with a higher fraction of female teachers holding constant school quality measures however we find no evidence that parental income or education affects average state level rates of return

what s in a name reputation as a tradeable asset the author develops a model in which a firm s only asset is its name which summarizes its reputation and studies the forces that cause names to be valuable tradable assets an adverse selection model in which shifts of ownership are not observable guarantees an active market for names with either finite or infinite horizons no equilibrium exists in which only good types buy good names the reputational dynamics that emerge from the model are more realistic than those in standard game theoretic reputation models and suggest that adverse selection plays a crucial role in understanding firm reputation

the private and public economics of renewable electricity generation generating electricity from renewable sources is more expensive than conventional approaches but reduces pollution externalities analyzing the tradeoff is much more challenging than often presumed because the value of electricity is extremely dependent on the time and location at which it is produced which is not very controllable with some renewables such as wind and solar likewise the pollution benefits from renewable generation depend on what type of generation it displaces which also depends on time and location without incorporating these factors cost benefit analyses of alternatives are likely to be misleading other common arguments for subsidizing renewable power green jobs energy security and driving down fossil energy prices are unlikely to substantially alter the analysis the role of intellectual property spillovers is a strong argument for subsidizing energy science research but less persuasive as an enhancement to the value of installing current renewable energy technologies

anatomy of initial public offerings of common stock initial public offerings of common stocks ipos are typically underpriced in this paper the author develops and tests the hypothesis that underpricing serves as a form of insurance against legal liability and the associated damages to the reputations of investment bankers the empirical results based on samples of ipos that were brought to the market before and after the securities act of 1933 provide considerable support for the implicit insurance hypothesis specifically gross underpricing and market segmentation between prestigious and fringe investment bankers in originating unseasoned new issues appear to be peculiar to the post 1933 era a number of studies have documented that unseasoned common stocks typically garner large positive abnormal returns during a short period following the initial offering in his recent review of the empirical evidence on the initial returns of common stock offerings smith 36 concluded that the returns from offer price to after market price have exceeded fifteen percent his calculations did not include some of the earlier results obtained by mcdonald and fisher 23 and logue 20 when their samples are combined with those in smith s review the initial returns of unseasoned equity offerings appear even larger over seventeen percent these results imply that underwriters consistently offer the securities at substantial discounts from their values that are set in the after market in other words initial public offerings ipos appear to be underpriced what is even more puzzling is the fact that in some time periods underpricing appears to be systematically larger than in other periods ibbotson and jaffe 15 and ritter 29 have documented that during the postwar era there have been a number of periods in which the initial returns of common stocks have been extremely high ritter for example reported that the average return from the offer price to the first after market price was over forty eight percent for ipos in 1980 and 1981 1 similarly the initial returns of unseasoned issues of common stock brought to the market in 1950 1951 1961 and 1968 were unusually large these periods in which ipos were grossly underpriced are referred to as the hotissue markets why do investment bankers underprice ipos why do issuers

participatory processes in the soy conflicts in paraguay and argentina abstract within emerging environmental conflicts different participatory processes have developed as alternatives to the top down models that have dominated policy making in this paper we focus on conflicts over the expansion of soy production we analyze three issues related to top down vs bottom up participatory processes and how they affect the proposals coming out of these processes who counts as stakeholder the role of social movements what counts as participation the role of mobilization and who has power to select stakeholders and issues make decisions and influence preferences to explore these issues we present a case study of two parallel participatory processes in rural areas of paraguay and argentina one of these the roundtable on responsible soy is top down created by large agri business multinationals and international conservation ngos with the support of the governments in the region and has focused on establishing criteria for responsible soy the other is bottom up self organized by peasant and civil society organizations and focused on stopping soy expansion and promoting food sovereignty the findings highlight the potential of bottom up processes to promote true agricultural sustainability while at the same time emphasizing the need for more research on grassroots participatory processes and their potential and limitations in different contexts

why do venture capital firms exist theory and canadian evidence executive summary this paper investigates the role of venture capitalists we view their raison d etre as their ability to reduce the cost of informational asymmetries our theoretical framework focuses on two major forms of asymmetric informa tion hidden information leading to adverse selection and hidden ac tion leading to moral hazard our theoretical analysis suggests four em pirical predictions 1 venture capitalists operate in environments where their relative efficiency in selecting and monitoring investments gives them a comparative advantage over other investors this suggests strong industry effects in venture capital investments venture capitalists should be prominent in industries where infor mational concerns are important such as biotechnology computer software etc rather than in rou tine start ups such as restaurants retail outlets etc the latter are risky in that returns show high variance but they are relatively easy to monitor by conventional financial intermediaries 2 within the class of projects where venture capitalists have an advantage they will still prefer projects where monitoring and selection costs are relatively low or where the costs of informational asymmetry are less severe thus within a given industry where venture capitalists would be expected to focus we would also expect venture capitalists to favor firms with some track records over pure start ups

a matter of location the role of regional social capital in overcoming the liability of newness in r d acquisition activities laursen k masciarelli f and reichstein t a matter of location the role of regional social capital in overcoming the liability of newness in r d acquisition activities regional studies external knowledge acquisition is a precondition for firms competitive advantage however young firms exhibit a lower propensity to acquire external research and development r d than their older counterparts the paper explores the role of regional social capital in moderating this aspect of the liability of newness the results show that young firms operating in regions with low levels of social capital are less likely to acquire r d externally however this is not the case in regions with high levels of social capital suggesting that the liability of newness in terms of acquisition of external r d does not play a role in these regions

ethnic capital and intergenerational mobility this paper analyzes the extent to which ethnic skill differentials are transmitted across generations i assume that ethnicity acts as an externality in the human capital accumulation process the skills of the next generation depend on parental inputs and on the quality of the ethnic environment in which parents make their investments or ethnic capital the empirical evidence reveals that the skills of today s generation depend not only on the skills of their parents but also on the average skills of the ethnic group in the parent s generation

measuring ecological capital state of the art trends and challenges abstract it is essential to assess the value of nature as it provides various benefits for human economic development and well being it has been 20 years since two prominent publications came out in valuing nature new concepts and methods have emerged since then this study aimed to 1 investigate the relationship between the new proposed concept ecological capital and the existing two concepts natural capital and ecosystem services and 2 examine the research trends of ecological capital accounting publications from 1997 to 2017 bibliometric analysis was used to reveal the research trends the results showed that the total number of publications has rapidly increased since 1997 and this growth trend will be maintained in the future the most productive journal country institute and author were ecological economics usa chinese academy of sciences and dr verburg respectively ecosystem services and land were the most frequent types of ecological capital non economic evaluation approaches became less of a favorite over time and economic valuation methods were mostly applied in last five years the integration of different methods has attracted increasing academic attention the progress advantages and limitations of different methods were summarized in this study including seea ecological footprint exergy emergy lca and economic valuation approaches as well as newly developed modelling approaches the last part of this study presented three challenges in this academic field the need to 1 establish a standard framework 2 consider the transfer transport of ecological capital and 3 improve capabilities for decision making

motives behind willingness to pay for improving biodiversity in a water ecosystem economics ethics and social psychology this paper reports on empirical work extending the standard economic approach to valuation by including psychological and philosophical factors more specifically a contingent valuation method survey was applied to biodiversity improvement while simultaneously assessing rights based beliefs consequentialism and the theory of planned behaviour the latter was assessed using measures of attitudes subjective norms and perceptions of control over willingness to pay the results show that standard socio economic explanatory variables are far inferior to those of social psychology and philosophy and that these factors offer a better understanding of the motives behind responses to contingent valuation the implication is that alternative means of measuring an individual s pluralistic values should be taken into account in order to assess the validity and meaning of willingness to pay

monetary accounting of ecosystem services a test case for limburg province the netherlands ecosystem accounting aims to provide a better understanding of ecosystem contributions to the economy in a spatially explicit way ecosystem accounting monitors ecosystem services and measures their monetary value using exchange values consistent with the system of national accounts sna we pilot monetary ecosystem accounting in a case study in limburg province the netherlands seven ecosystem services are modelled and valued crop production fodder production drinking water production air quality regulation carbon sequestration nature tourism and hunting we develop monetary ecosystem accounts that specify values generated by ecosystem services per hectare per municipality and per land cover type we analyse the relative importance of public and private ecosystem services we found that the sna aligned monetary value of modelled ecosystem services for limburg was around 112 million in 2010 with an average value of 508 per hectare ecosystem services with the highest values were crop production nature tourism and fodder production due to the exclusion of consumer surplus in sna valuation calculated values are considerably lower than those typically found in welfare based valuation approaches we demonstrate the feasibility of valuing ecosystem services in a national accounting framework

you are known by the directors you keep reputable directors as a signaling mechanism for young firms in this paper we develop an analytical model of outside directors signaling role a role that is especially important for entrepreneurial firms we formally demonstrate that in the face of a market failure in which stakeholders refuse to align themselves with new firms high quality new ventures may be able to credibly signal their type by appointing reputable directors to their boards however this option is not universally feasible both directors reputations and the quality of their information determine the effectiveness of this strategy in contrast to earlier adverse selection models we demonstrate that when the middlemen directors have incomplete information on firm quality bad and good firms can coexist in equilibrium in this equilibrium the quality of the directors information determines the mix of good and bad firms in the population of surviving firms avenues for future research and normative implications for practitioners are discussed

identification of endogenous social effects the reflection problem this paper examines the reflection problem that arises when a researcher observing the distribution of behaviour in a population tries to infer whether the average behaviour in some group influences the behaviour of the individuals that comprise the group it is found that inference is not possible unless the researcher has prior information specifying the compisition of reference groups if this information is available the prospects for inference depend critically on the population relationship between the variables defining reference groups and those directly affecting outcomes inference is difficult to implossible if these variables are functionally dependent or are statistically independent the prospects are better if the variables defining reference groups and those directly affecting outcomes are moderately related in the population

the effect of competition on the efficiency of secondary schools in england abstract in this paper we calculate the technical efficiencies based upon multiple outputs school exam performance and attendance rates of all secondary schools in england over the period 1993 1998 we then estimate models to examine the determinants of efficiency in a particular year and the determinants of the change in efficiency over the period our results suggest that the greater the degree of competition between schools the more efficient they are the strength of this effect has also increased over time which is consistent with the evolution of the quasi market in secondary education competition is also found to be an important determinant of the change in efficiency over time there is however some evidence of conditional convergence between schools

social capital and the linkages of high tech companies to the military defense system is there a signaling mechanism this study investigates linkages of new israeli high tech companies to the military and defense system we examine the impact of social capital signaling and learning spillovers on resource acquisition in terms of investments and the financial performance of companies with and without linkages social capital signaling and learning spillovers are examined as they impact individual and organizational resource acquisition and performance of 200 new israeli high tech companies the study contributes to the existing literature of entrepreneurship by suggesting the relevance of knowledge spillovers signaling theory and social capital to the context of the interface between defense and civilian spheres

don t rest on your laurels reputational change and young technology based ventures abstract we combine resource based theory and social cognition theory to investigate the factors both limiting and related to between period reputational change of young firms in a dynamic technology based industry an analysis of computer graphics chipmakers during the period 1992 2003 provides evidence that operational signals are related to reputational change specifically receiving a product award in the current period is associated with positive change and gaps in product announcements are associated with negative change we find little support for our hypothesis that the reputations of older firms are less likely to change

economic instruments and the environmental accounts abstract the nordic countries have now had experience with environmental taxes and subsidies as a major component of their environmental policy over an extensive period of time the swedish system of environmental and economic accounts seea include environmental taxes and subsidies as part of the official statistics this article presents the accounts for taxes and subsidies linked to the accounts for emissions data by industry it demonstrates disparities between emissions and environmental taxes as well as where industries or environmental problems are not regulated the data show that in sweden economic instruments are always aimed at particular actors or areas and are never quite as comprehensive as recommended by economic theory the environmental taxes are primarily aimed at fossil fuel use and related emissions and have been mostly applied to the household sector and services sector while industry often has been given exemptions due to concerns about international competition the environmentally motivated subsidies are mainly directed to agriculture fishing and research on renewable resources a fully developed international data set on taxes and subsidies would provide a sound base for comparing the impact on international competitiveness eurostat is promoting the use of environmental accounts data for its member countries by harmonizing methods and engaging in publication of international comparisons

efficient pollution regulation getting the prices right this paper argues for efficient environmental regulations that equate the mar ginal damage of pollution to marginal abatement costs across space the paper estimates the source specific marginal damages of air pollution and calculates the welfare gain from making the current sulfur dioxide allowance trading pro gram for power plants more efficient the savings from using trading ratios based on marginal damages are between 310 and 940 million per year the potential savings from setting aggregate emissions efficiently and from includ ing more sources of air pollution are many times higher jel h23 q53 q58

water accounting in australia abstract this paper introduces water accounting as produced by the australian bureau of statistics abs it provides information about the abs water accounts and highlights the many other organisations involved in the provision and use of water related data in australia the abs water accounts have built upon previous reports on australian water resources and the system of environment and economic accounting un united nations 2003 draft handbook integrated environmental and economic accounting studies in methods series f no 61 rev 1 united nations european commission international monetary fund organisation for economic cooperation and development world bank new york information from the abs water accounts is presented along with examples of their use in economic analyses designed to inform public debate and government decision makers a key feature of the australian environment is that water is relatively scarce when compared with other inhabited continents rainfall displays a high level of spatial and temporal variability and droughts are common in 2004 an intergovernmental agreement on a national water initiative nwi was reached by australia s national and eight state and territory governments the nwi aims to address environmental economic and social concerns about the current and future state of australia s water resources the nwi specifically calls for the preparation of annual water accounts which clearly indicates the expected usefulness of national and regional water accounts

entrepreneurial ability venture investments and risk sharing a number of issues that relate to the desirability and implications of new venture financing are examined within a principal agent framework that captures the essence of the relationship between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists the model suggests 1 as long as the skill levels of entrepreneurs are common knowledge all will choose to involve venture capital investors since the risk sharing provided by outside participation dominates the agency relationship that is created 2 the less able entrepreneurs will choose to involve venture capitalists whereas the more profitable ventures will be developed without external participation because of the adverse selection problem associated with asymmetric information 3 if a costly signal is available that conveys the entrepreneur s ability some entrepreneurs will invest in such a signal and then sell to investors these entrepreneurs however need not be the more able ones the implications for new venture financing of these and other findings are discussed and illustrated by example

the seea based integrated economic environmental modelling framework an illustration with guatemala s forest and fuelwood sector this paper develops and operationalizes the integrated economic environmental modelling ieem platform which integrates environmental data organized under the first international system of environmental economic accounting with a powerful dynamic economy wide modelling approach ieem enables the ex ante economic analysis of policies on the economy and the environment in a quantitative comprehensive and consistent framework ieem elucidates the two way interrelationships between the economy and environment considering how economic activities depend on the environment as a source of inputs and as a sink for their outputs in addition to standard economic impact indicators such as gross domestic product income and employment ieem generates indicators that describe policy impacts on the use of environmental resources wealth and environmental quality which together determine prospects for future economic growth and well being to illustrate the analytical capabilities of ieem the model is calibrated with guatemala s seea and applied to analysis of its forest and fuelwood sector where negative health and environmental impacts arise from inefficient fuelwood use

peer group effects on the academic performance of italian students we analyse peer effects among students of a middle sized italian public university we explain students average grade in exams passed during their second level degree course on the basis of their pre determined measures of abilities personal characteristics and peer group abilities thanks to a rich administrative data set we are able to build a variety of definitions of peer groups describing different kinds of students interaction based on classes attended together or exams taken in the same session self selection problems are handled through two stage least squares estimations using as an instrument the exogenous assignment of students to different teaching classes in the compulsory courses attended during their first level degree course we find statistically significant positive peer group effects which are robust to the different definitions of peer group and to different measures of abilities

a new era of pollution progress in urban china abstract over the last 30 years china s economy has boomed this trend has lifted hundreds of millions of chinese out of poverty but it has also sharply increased local regional and global pollu

choices and the value of natural capital sustainability requires maintaining opportunities for future generations so they can meet their needs opportunities are passed to future generations through a set of capital assets nature provides an important class of these assets but markets seldom reveal the marginal value of natural capital rather the marginal social worth or asset price must be imputed based on intertemporal exchange in the context of assessing whether intertemporal allocation rules lead to sustainable development appropriate asset prices must be based on the actual allocations and trade offs society makes therefore measuring economic programmes that enable the measurement of asset prices is an important empirical task we review the theory of measuring natural capital asset prices and discuss the key elements of measuring economic programmes that enable the measurement of natural capital asset prices we place the measurement of economic programmes and natural capital asset prices in the context of wealth based sustainability metrics