what drives corporate social performance the role of nation level institutions based on whitley s national business systems nbs institutional framework we theorize about and empirically investigate the impact of nation level institutions on firms corporate social performance csp using a sample of firms from 42 countries spanning seven years we construct an annual composite csp index for each firm based on social and environmental metrics we find that the political system followed by the labor and education system and the cultural system are the most important nbs categories of institutions that impact csp interestingly the financial system appears to have a relatively less significant impact we discuss implications for research practice and policymaking

new evidence in the pursuit of locating new businesses abstract finding good generalizable samples has long been an achilles heel for those interested in entrepreneurship related phenomena practitioners policy makers and researchers frequently desire to take the pulse of entrepreneurial activity but struggle in doing so for example friedman 1995 reported that california overestimated job loss by 2 4 times because of failure to account for newer more robust firms with the goal of being able to better identify new businesses this research addresses the following questions 1 which sample sources best identify new businesses 2 are the characteristics of a sample drawn from one source similar to those drawn from a different source 3 how accurate are the different sample sources in the information they report and 4 how practical and cost effective are the different sample sources we pursued answers to these questions by examining the state sales tax file and comparing it with the previously examined sources of the state unemployment insurance file es202 and dun bradstreet s dun s market indicator file dmi birley 1984 aldrich et al 1989 the phonebook was also used to examine its overlap with the three primary sources in making these comparisons we evaluate generalizability issues accuracy of founding date cost practicality and other auxiliary information sales tax file our findings suggest that the sales tax file is a rich source for identifying generalizable samples the accuracy of the founding data was correct over 70 of the time and it appears to identify businesses very early in the start up phase the data also are available in machine readable format give some helpful auxiliary information and the cost of obtaining the file was negligible another advantage of the sales tax file is its ability to identify new businesses that do not have visible on street locations thus the sales tax file appears to be a very credible source for identifying firms early in the start up process es202 file dmi file and phone book our study affirms earlier studies that found major limitations with both the es202 and dmi files more specifically this study found that both sources have substantial limitations in identifying new start up firms and they both appear to be slow in removing firms from their records once they have moved or gone out of business as for the phonebook as it is only issued annually it takes some time for new businesses to be listed in the directory furthermore because so many of the new businesses identified by the sales tax file initially operate out of the entrepreneur s home 58 in our survey sample the enumeration phonebook method would miss many new businesses unless they had a business phone listing and a business sign on their residential property thus we do not consider the enumeration phonebook method to be very practical nor the best method for identifying new firms in sum these findings give renewed hope in locating generalizable samples of new businesses although the sales tax file is not a perfect source it represents a very attractive alternative for those interested in identifying entrepreneurial firms early in the start up phase these findings should assist practitioners policy makers and researchers in making better sample selections which should lead to more accurate indicators of new business start ups fewer sample biases and ultimately to a better understanding of the determinants of new venture failure and success

input orientated data envelopment analysis framework for measuring and decomposing economic environmental and ecological efficiency an application to oecd agriculture this paper presents an input orientated data envelopment analysis dea framework which allows the measurement and decomposition of economic environmental and ecological efficiency levels in agricultural production across different countries economic environmental and ecological optimisations search for optimal input combinations that minimise total costs total amount of nutrients and total amount of cumulative exergy contained in inputs respectively the application of the framework to an agricultural dataset of 30 oecd countries revealed that i there was significant scope to make their agricultural production systems more environmentally and ecologically sustainable ii the improvement in the environmental and ecological sustainability could be achieved by being more technically efficient and even more significantly by changing the input combinations iii the rankings of sustainability varied significantly across oecd countries within frontier based environmental and ecological efficiency measures and between frontier based measures and indicators

an empirical test of a cross national model of corporate social responsibility most models of corporate social responsibility revolve around the controversy as to whether business is a single dimensional entity of profit maximization or a multi dimensional entity serving greater societal interests furthermore the models are mostly descriptive in nature and are based on the experiences of western countries there has been little attempt to develop a model that accounts for corporate social responsibility in diverse environments with differing socio cultural and market settings in this paper an attempt has been made to fill this gap by developing a two dimensional model of corporate social responsibility and empirically testing its validity in the context of two dissimilar cultures australia and bangladesh the two dimensions are the span of corporate responsibility narrow to wider perspective and the range of outcomes of social commitments of businesses cost to benefit driven perspective the test results confirm the validity of the two dimensional model in the two environments the factor analysis revealed two leading dimensions cluster analysis pointed to two distinctive clusters of managers in both australia and bangladesh one consisting of managers with a broad contemporary concept of social responsibility and the other with a limited narrow view the paper concludes that corporate social responsibility is two dimensional and universal in nature and that differing cultural and market settings in which managers operate may have little impact on the ethical perceptions of corporate managers

toward a theory of sustainable entrepreneurship reducing environmental degradation through entrepreneurial action this article explains how entrepreneurship can help resolve the environmental problems of global socio economic systems environmental economics concludes that environmental degradation results from the failure of markets whereas the entrepreneurship literature argues that opportunities are inherent in market failure a synthesis of these literatures suggests that environmentally relevant market failures represent opportunities for achieving profitability while simultaneously reducing environmentally degrading economic behaviors it also implies conceptualizations of sustainable and environmental entrepreneurship which detail how entrepreneurs seize the opportunities that are inherent in environmentally relevant market failures finally the article examines the ability of the proposed theoretical framework to transcend its environmental context and provide insight into expanding the domain of the study of entrepreneurship

weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis reply to fare and grosskopf fare and grosskopf this issue claim that a single abatement factor suffices for modeling weak disposability in nonparametric production models and that the kuosmanen 2005 technology that uses multiple abatement factors is larger than necessary this article demonstrates by a numerical example that a single abatement factor does not suffice to capture all feasible production plans and that its use leads to the violation of convexity one of the maintained assumptions of the model we also prove that the kuosmanen technology is the correct minimum extrapolation technology under the stated axioms

complementarity and external linkages the strategies of the large firms in biotechnology in biotechnology large firms enter into different kinds of linkages with universities and small medium sized research intensive firms we test the hypothesis that the strategies of external linkage of the large firms with other parties are complementary to one another we show that if any two strategies are complementary i e undertaking more of one strategy raises the marginal value of the other then they are positively correlated using data for a sample large us european and japanese chemical and pharmaceutical producers we find that the strategies above are positively correlated even after controlling for firm specific characteristics

economic and policy analysis for solar pv systems in indiana in recent years the energy market in the us and globally is expanding the production of renewable energy solar energy for electricity is also expanding in the us indiana is one of the states expanding solar energy with solar photovoltaic pv systems therefore we conduct benefit cost analysis with several uncertain input variables to determine the economics of adopting solar pv systems in indiana based on policy instruments that could increase adoption of solar pv systems the specific objectives are analyses of the cost distribution of solar pv systems compared with grid electricity in homes and estimating the probability that solar can be cheaper than electricity from grids under different policy combinations we first do the analysis under current policy and then the analysis under potential policy options for a variety of scenarios also the results inform government policy makers on how effective the alternative policies for encouraging solar pv systems are the results show that current policies are important in reducing the cost of solar pv systems however with current policies there is only 50 50 chance of solar being cheaper than electricity from grids if potential policies are implemented solar pv systems can be more economical than grid electricity

debt deleveraging and the liquidity trap a fisher minsky koo approach in this paper we present a simple new keynesian style model of debt driven slumps that is situations in which an overhang of debt on the part of some agents who are forced into rapid deleveraging is depressing aggregate demand making some agents debt constrained is a surprisingly powerful assumption fisherian debt deflation the possibility of a liquidity trap the paradox of thrift a keynesiantype multiplier and a rationale for expansionary fiscal policy all emerge naturally from the model we argue that this approach sheds considerable light both on current economic difficulties and on historical episodes including japan s lost decade now in its 18th year and the great depression itself

how to restore equitable and sustainable economic growth in the united states abstract today s weakness in the us economy results from lack of aggregate demand due to high and growing inequality underinvestment in public infrastructure and technology that is complementary to private capital continuing mild austerity difficulties encountered in making the structural transformation from manufacturing to a service based economy and a financial sector failing to provide adequate funds to smes an agenda to restore growth includes a carbon price inducing climate investments increased public investments in infrastructure and technology fighting inequality through redistribution and rewriting the rules structuring the economy and reforming the financial sector and the global reserve system

demand pull technology push and government led incentives for non incremental technical change abstract rising expectations about future demand for new technologies increase the incentives for investments in innovation by enlarging payoffs to successful innovations how well does this notion of demand pull apply to non incremental technological change when demand is largely attributable to actions by governments in this case inventors of the most important inventions did not respond positively to strong demand pull policies filing of highly cited patents declined precipitously just as demand for wind power created a multi billion dollar market three explanations for this apparent inconsistency with the demand pull hypothesis played a role 1 the rapid convergence on a single dominant design limited the market opportunity for non incremental technical improvements 2 even though the policies implemented were stringent enough to stimulate demand uncertainty in their longevity dampened the incentives for inventions that were likely to take several years to pay off and 3 alternative explanations such as declining r d funding and weakening presidential engagement on energy appear to have been important

efficiency and environmental regulation this paper proposes an extension of the enhancedefficiency indices of fare grosskopf lovell andpasurka 1989 that considers undesirable outputsasymmetrically by assuming that firms can freelydispose of some undesirable productions but areduction of other bad outputs generates a cost interms of desirable outputs this methodologicalapproach is used to analyse the relative efficiency ofa sample of spanish producers of wooden goods andfurnishings whose production process generates fourdifferent wastes we obtain efficiency indices thatserve to measure the impact on firm performance inseveral scenarios related to environmental regulationsaimed to reduce the production of wastes whenenvironmental regulations are assumed it is foundthat firms would have to sacrifice important amountsof potential desirable output in order to reallocateinputs into waste reduction secondly we find thatfirms associated with a technological institute aswell as firms located at a marshallian type industrialdistrict are likely to be less affected byregulations

neoclassical growth the j curve for abatement and the inverted u curve for pollution abstract this paper reexamines the neoclassical environmental growth model of forster to gain insights into the dynamic relationships among pollution abatement effort and economic development whereas the model has heretofore been used to examine steady state levels of capital consumption and environmental quality it also provides a theoretical basis for recent empirical research on j curves for abatement effort and inverted u curves for pollution

key sectors in input output production networks an application to brexit this paper presents the first detailed and holistic description of the european production network epn and provides different rankings of the most systemically important industries involved in brexit employing techniques of complex networks analysis and input output traditional tools the study identifies those industries that are key in the complex structure of the uk eu trade relationships the method developed would help policy makers to better understand which tariff would have a more distortive impact which export sector should be pushed which imports should be safeguarded such information may have foremost importance in the negotiations between the uk and eu our findings suggest that brexit would be not just a problem for the uk as it is often portrayed but any form of brexit could propagate affecting the global production system further by inspecting industries centrality within the epn we find that the uk could be less exposed to trade barriers than eu countries

a comment on weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis in his 2005 paper in this journal kuosmanen argues that shephard s specification of weak disposability in activity analysis dea models is not correct we show that shephard s specification does satisfy weak disposability and is the smallest technology to do so

technical change sectoral dislocation and barriers to labor mobility factors behind the great recession abstract the global financial and economic crisis which began in late 2007 great recession is the worst international crisis since 1929 great depression and still affects many countries this paper attempts to determine if the theory of extended crises presented by delli gatti et al 2012 is consistent with empirical evidence the analysis is carried out using two approaches the first part of the paper is purely descriptive and is dedicated to a comparison between structural differences and different patterns of development in six countries france germany italy spain uk and us using data on the major world economies klems and stan since 1970 we show that the fundamentals behind the extended crisis theory apply to these economies we focus particularly on italy germany and the us among large economies italy is one of the most affected and still not recovering even though the italian financial sector appeared to have been less exposed to the 2008 shock than other countries the crisis in italy could be directly connected to the failure of the italian economy to move to an economic system based on more skill intensive production in particular in the service sector as in the us the us financial sector was extremely exposed to the 2008 sub prime crisis but us economy recovered much faster than in many european countries germany is the leading european economy generally considered in european public debate as the example to be followed in the last part of the paper the analysis is broadened involving more countries in a panel analysis approach different specifications of panel probit logit models are presented in a first attempt to investigate the roles of both structural features and financial shock in explaining the extent of the crisis in different countries

organizational inertia and momentum a dynamic model of strategic change this study provides an empirical test of hannan and freeman s theory of structural inertia we examined the changes organizations undertook in response to a major environmental change in addition

sustainable entrepreneurship is entrepreneurial will enough a north south comparison based on an analysis of 44 cases in canada tunisia and cameroon this research attempts to determine the fundaments of sustainable entrepreneurship se in an international perspective and to shed the light on the potential impact of economic institutional and cultural dimensions upon diverse levels of sustainability in small and medium size firms smes neo institutional and entrepreneurship theories were combined in an integrative conceptual model to fully embrace the meanings and practices of se and to question the culture free argument of some prescriptions as well as some international programs the analysis of the rationale behind entrepreneurs committed to sustainability in the three countries compared to less engaged firms shows that entrepreneurs individual values are crucial in all cases socio cultural specificities and institutional realities can however be more or less inductive to the adoption of sustainable practices in smes this study also demonstrates that external stimuli are needed in tunisia and cameroon to reach the same environmental involvement as found in canada moreover support programs to assist smes with the adoption of sustainable practices and communication about the issue have to be tailored to the entrepreneur s motives the firms levels of openness to sustainability the socio cultural practices already embedded and the countries priorities implications for policy management and research are also discussed

energy based economic development abstract the fields of economic development and energy policy and planning have converged in recent years to form an emerging discipline which we term energy based economic development ebed despite the significant amount of stimulus funds as well as state and local funding that are being allocated to ebed initiatives in the united states the emerging discipline has received scant attention in the energy policy and development literature the link between energy and economic development in the literature is still theoretical mostly focused on the need for and the potential benefits of ebed and rarely applied furthermore funding for ebed has outpaced understanding of the discipline development of rigorous technical approaches and meaningful ways to measure impact such information would not only help practitioners and policymakers more thoroughly understand the confines of the discipline and shape goals and approaches accordingly but also help researchers identify track and evaluate a variety of activities in the field with national and international attention focused on the convergence of these fields researchers and practitioners have a rare opportunity to develop and implement the tools necessary to evaluate and communicate the potentially broader impacts that ebed may hold for society if ways to leverage and sustain the injection of funds in this discipline are not identified the opportunity may end before we can achieve either energy policy or economic development goals in an attempt to respond to this need this analysis explores the connection between energy and economic development beginning with a review of the trends in each field and the goals that each seeks to achieve on the basis of this information we define the discipline of ebed review the existing literature on it and offer insights and perspectives on its emergence

a kuznets curve in environmental efficiency an application on oecd countries the role of the environment is an important issue in policy making andthe accurate assessment of the environmental conditions is vital inthis paper using nonparametric techniques an environmental efficiencyindex is developed for each of the oecd countries these indexes allowone both to do cross section comparisons on the state of each country sproduction process in its treatment of undesirable outputs and also totrace each country s modification of their production processesovertime furthermore in this study we investigate the factorsunderlying societies environmental concerns that eventually lead tochanges in the environmental efficiency the results provide furtherempirical evidence for the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis

the tale of two great crises abstract the great depression of 1929 and the great financial crisis of 2008 have been the two big events of the last 75 years not only have they produced serious economic consequences but they also changed our view of economics and policymaking the aim of this work is to compare these two great crises and highlight similarities as well as differences monetary policy the exchange rate system and the role of banks are our fields of investigation we find interesting parallels between the two big events but also differences in their specific developments

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

the transition from dirty to clean industries optimal fiscal policy and the environmental kuznets curve abstract this paper investigates privately and socially optimal patterns of economic development in a two sector endogenous growth model with clean and dirty goods we consider a second best fiscal policy framework in which distortionary taxes jointly influence economic growth and environmental quality in this policy setting three conditions produce an environmental kuznets curve ekc i dirty output is bounded ii clean output grows endogenously and iii growth in the dirty sector reduces growth in the clean sector these conditions do not arise with a consumption externality but can emerge with a production externality endogenous labor supply implications are also investigated although not necessary for producing an ekc endogenous labor supply provides additional linkages that produce an ekc under circumstances in which it would otherwise not appear

reexamining the empirical evidence for an environmental kuznets curve this paper uses an updated and revised panel data set on ambient air pollution in cities worldwide to examine the robustness of the evidence for the existence of an inverted u shaped relationship between national income and pollution we test the sensitivity of the pollution income relationship to functional forms to additional covariates and to changes in the nations cities and years sampled we find that the results are highly sensitive to these changes and conclude that there is little empirical support for an inverted u shaped relationship between several important air pollutants and national income in these data

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

the pandemic economic crisis precautionary behavior and mobility constraints an application of the dynamic disequilibrium model with randomness this article analyzes the economic impact of the pandemic providing insights into the consequences of alternative policies our framework focuses on three key features i covid 19 is a sectoral shock of unknown depth and duration affecting some sectors and technologies more than others ii there are constraints in shifting resources across sectors and iii there is a high level of uncertainty about the disease and its economic aftermath inducing a high level of precautionary behavior by some agents and leading to others facing more severe credit constraints because of macroeconomic externalities precautionary behavior exacerbates the downturn and even sectors where covid 19 does not directly affect consumption or production may face unemployment multipliers associated with different government expenditure programs differ markedly the article describes policies that can mitigate precautionary behavior leading to reduced unemployment greater wage flexibility may lead to increased unemployment the precautionary behavior is the antithesis of equilibrium behavior suggesting that standard equilibrium approaches may not provide the appropriate framework for analyzing the pandemic individuals know that they don t know the future that existing and newly made contracts and plans may be broken and that they need to be able to respond to these unknowable contingencies

does trade openness improve environmental quality the literature on trade openness economic development and the environment is largely inconclusive about the environmental consequences of trade this study treats trade and income as endogenous and estimates the overall impact of trade openness on environmental quality using the instrumental variables technique we find that whether or not trade has a beneficial effect on the environment varies depending on the pollutant and the country trade is found to benefit the environment in oecd countries it has detrimental effects however on sulfur dioxide so2 and carbon dioxide co2 emissions in non oecd countries although it does lower biochemical oxygen demand bod emissions in these countries we also find the impact is large in the long term after the dynamic adjustment process although it is small in the short term

multilateral productivity comparisons when some outputs are undesirable a nonparametric approach multilateral productivity comparisons of firms producing multiple outputs some of which are undesirable are obtained by making two modifications to the standard farrell approach to efficiency measurement the restriction that production technology satisfy strong disposability of outputs is relaxed to allow for the fact that undesirable outputs may be freely disposable and the efficiency measures are modified to allow for an asymmetric treatment of desirable and undesirable outputs performance measures that satisfy these requirements are calculated as solutions to programming problems the methodology is applied to a sample of mills producing paper and pollutants

helping infant economies grow foundations of trade policies for developing countries conventional wisdom has it that trade enhances economic efficiency and thus promotes growth at least since robert m solow s 1957 pioneering work however technological progress has been recognized as the dominant factor in determining the rate of growth this is presumably even more true for developing countries for which the possibilities of closing the knowledge gap with advanced industrial countries offers especially large growth potential we examine the impact of trade restrictions in economies in which technological spillovers within countries and across industries are fundamental to the process of growth see kenneth j arrow 1962a 1962b paul m romer 1986 stiglitz 1987 since that work it has been clear that markets by themselves do not necessarily or in general lead to overall dynamic efficiency and that there are often trade offs between static inefficiencies e g associated with patent protection and long term growth we find here in particular that the dynamic benefits of broad trade restrictions may outweigh their static costs our analysis provides the basis of an infant economy as opposed to an infant industry argument for protection this paper develops a simple two sector model with an industrial modern and a traditional craft or agricultural sector there are four key features to the model a there are spillovers from the industrial sector to the craft sector for which firms in the industrial sector are not compensated b such spillovers are geographically based that is it is only productivity increases in the industrial sector in the developing countries that affect productivity increases in the traditional sector c innovations are concentrated in the industrial sector and d size is among the important determinants of the pace of innovation in the industrial sector earlier critiques of trade policies encouraging the development of the industrial sector in developing countries ignored these spillovers they argued in effect that korea would always have a comparative advantage in growing rice therefore it was foolish for it to try to restrict imports of industrial goods even if by so doing productivity in the industrial goods sector was increased it could never catch up so the protection would have to be permanent year after year the country would have been better off if it simply specialized in its own comparative advantage growing rice korea could and did catch up however at least in certain areas if catch up is possible then dynamic comparative advantage differs from static comparative advantage but even if korea s comparative advantage remained in agriculture industrial protection might be desirable because by supporting it one might have a more dynamic agricultural traditional sector trade restrictions enhance the size of the industrial sector the benefits spill over to the rural sector and national income grows at a possibly far faster pace after presenting the model we explain why the underlying hypotheses are plausible and argue that the model is broadly consistent with historical experience and empirical evidence

where modern macroeconomics went wrong this paper provides a critique of the dsge models that have come to dominate macroeconomics during the past quarter century it argues that at the heart of the failure were the wrong microfoundations which failed to incorporate key aspects of economic behaviour e g incorporating insights from information economics and behavioural economics inadequate modelling of the financial sector meant they were ill suited for predicting or responding to a financial crisis and a reliance on representative agent models meant they were ill suited for analysing either the role of distribution in fluctuations and crises or the consequences of fluctuations on inequality the paper proposes alternative benchmark models that may be more useful both in understanding deep downturns and responding to them

the great depression versus the great recession in the u s how fiscal monetary and financial polices compare abstract this study reviews the financial distress that triggered and amplified the financial crises of the great depression and great recession and compares macroeconomic and financial policy responses shadow banking funded the build up of the financial excesses that preceded both the quicker and forceful response of monetary and fiscal policy during the great recession and stronger action to restore market functionality mitigated the downturn and aided recovery nevertheless actions to address the mortgage debt overhang were slower post depression reforms focused on preventing deposit runs and post great recession reforms on preventing runs on bank debt and shadow banks while boosting capital buffers

eco efficiency and convergence in oecd countries this paper assesses the convergence in eco efficiency of a group of 22 oecd countries over the period 1980 2008 in doing so three air pollutants representing the impact on the environment of economic activities are considered namely carbon dioxide text co 2 nitrogen oxides text no mathrm x and sulphur oxides text so mathrm x furthermore eco efficiency scores at both country and air pollutant specific level are computed using data envelopment analysis techniques then convergence is evaluated using the recent approach by phillips and sul econometrica 75 1771 1855 2007 which tests for the existence of convergence groups first we find that eco efficiency has improved over the period with the exception of text no mathrm x emissions second switzerland is the most eco efficient country followed by some scandinavian economies such as sweden iceland norway and denmark in contrast southern european countries such as portugal spain and greece in addition to hungary turkey canada and the united states are among the worst performers finally we find that both the most eco efficient countries and the worst tend to form clubs of convergence

leaders and followers perspectives on the nordic model and the economics of innovation abstract what kinds of social and economic systems are most conducive to innovation we formulate a simple model in which countries can close the gap with the technological leader but where the cost of doing so may be so high that the country chooses to remain laggards observed disparities in productivity may be the result of a recognition that the cost of closing the gap exceeds benefit and there may therefore exist an international equilibrium in which there are leaders and followers even if it is granted that the united states is the leader and scandinavia are followers there are theoretical grounds for arguing that the nordic model may in fact be better for innovation suggesting that if the us adopted some of the nordic institutions innovations would be higher and societal welfare would be improved even more

a conditional directional distance function approach for measuring regional environmental efficiency evidence from uk regions abstract this paper by using conditional directional distance functions as introduced by simar and vanhems j econometrics 166 2012 342 354 modifies the model by fare and grosskopf eur j operat res 157 2004 242 245 and examines the link between regional environmental efficiency and economic growth the proposed model using conditional directional distance functions incorporates the effect of regional economic growth on regions environmental efficiency levels the results from uk regional data reveal a negative relationship between regions gdp per capita and environmental inefficiency up to a certain gdp per capita level after that level it appears that the relationship becomes positive as an overall result the regional environmental inefficiency gdp per capita relationship appears to have a u shape form

the effects of embeddedness on the entrepreneurial process abstract this paper uses giddens theory of structuration to develop the conception of entrepreneurship as an embedded socio economic process the qualitative examination of the actions of rural entrepreneurs finds that embeddedness plays a key role in shaping and sustaining business being embedded in the social structure creates opportunity and improves performance embedding enabled the entrepreneurs to use the specifics of the environment thus both recognition and realisation of opportunity are conditioned by the entrepreneurs role in the social structure

robotization and labour dislocation in the manufacturing sectors of oecd countries a panel var approach robots are the most important innovation which has affected the production process in the last three decades thanks to the latest advances in technology they have been able to perform an ever inc

measuring the effect of economic growth on countries environmental efficiency a conditional directional distance function approach using a recently developed probabilistic approach of a conditional directional distance function we measure the effect of economic growth on countries environmental efficiency in carbon dioxide emissions for a sample of 99 countries over the period of 1980 2010 our approach directly accounts for the exogenous factors influencing countries environmental production therefore we do not impose the separability condition on the estimated environmental efficiencies when examining the entire sample as well as the sample of developed countries our results reveal an inverted u shaped relationship between countries gdp per capita and environmental efficiency however when examining the relationship for the sample of developing countries the results reveal an n shaped form moreover our results show that countries ratifying the kyoto protocol tend to have higher efficiency scores implying that their mitigation activity is less costly

measurement of agricultural total factor productivity growth incorporating environmental factors a nutrients balance approach this article proposes to use nutrient orientated environmental efficiency ee measures to construct a nutrient total factor productivity index ntfp since nutrient orientated ee measures are consistent with the materials balance principle ntfp index is superior to other existing tfp indexes an empirical study on the environmental performance of an agricultural sector in 30 oecd countries from 1990 to 2003 yielded several important findings first these countries should be able to produce current outputs with at least 50 less aggregate eutrophying power implying that they should have been able to substantially reduce the potential for eutrophication second traditional tfp has grown by 1 6 per annum due to technical progress however there are lags in the responses of several countries to this technical progress third environmental tfp has grown at a slower rate than traditional tfp growth due to reductions in nutrient orientated allocative efficiency finally changes in input combinations could have significantly improved environmental efficiency and productivity these findings favor policy interventions and faster technological transfer to improve environmental performance

which renewable energy policy is a venture capitalist s best friend empirical evidence from a survey of international cleantech investors governments around the world have adopted ambitious targets to increase the share of renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions they pursue a variety of policy approaches to achieve these targets it has been a popular theme for contributions in energy policy to investigate the effectiveness of such policies this article adds a new perspective to the debate namely looking at the policy preferences of private investors in innovative clean energy technology firms we surveyed 60 investment professionals from european and north american venture capital and private equity funds and asked them to assess the effectiveness of various policies in terms of stimulating their interest to invest in innovative clean energy technologies in addition to quantitative rankings we use qualitative interview data to capture additional information on why investors prefer some policies over others the combined analysis compensates for the inherent limitations of a quantitative ranking using generic policy types the results of this exploratory analysis demonstrate that all other things being equal investors in our sample perceived feed in tariffs to be the most effective renewable energy policy the overall preference for feed in tariffs is even more pronounced among investors based in europe and with higher exposure to clean energy

a social capital paradox entrepreneurial dynamism in a small world clean technology cluster abstract clean tech entrepreneurs have struggled to gain investor confidence because of some particular characteristics and circumstances of the industry this research combines network and sustainable development literature in the clean tech context to support the logic of a new investment approach that may stimulate sustainable investing in clean tech theory is proposed to suggest that there may be an advantageous social capital paradox where strong ties in a cluster lead to dynamism rather than decay the clean tech industry provides a context where strong ties offer network stability in a small world cluster such that it is a value creating organizational form offering greater dynamism two related propositions are developed to support the social capital paradox they lead to a theoretical conclusion that long term integrated partner solutions where partners are also resource constrained lead to successful alliances supporting a dynamic cluster that will grow over time a practical conclusion is that investing in a connected cluster of firms might be less risky compared to investing in a new firm or even a portfolio of well diversified assets de risking clean production investments may be achievable through a small world network cluster backed security

economic growth and environmental efficiency evidence from us regions abstract this paper proposes a conditional directional distance function estimator in order to examine the link between regional environmental efficiency and gdp per capita levels as an illustrative example we apply our model to us regional data revealing an inverted u shape relationship between regional environmental efficiency and per capita income the results derived from a non parametric regression indicate a turning point at 49 000 dollars

total factor productivity and the environmental kuznets curve abstract empirical studies support the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis ekc for some pollutants as income increases pollution increases reaches a peak and eventually decreases while relying mostly on cross sectional data the interpretations assert that the ekc is a by product of economic growth over time in doing so and in neglecting the role of important country specific characteristics these studies overlook potential econometric problems and introduce policy misconceptions differences in total factor productivity tfps account for much of the variation in income across countries with important implications for environmental quality we develop a theoretical model where different tfps produce a cross sectional ekc even if the dynamic path of environmental quality to its steady state in individual countries suggest otherwise the cross sectional ekc depends on diminishing returns to scale in environmental protection on the curvatures of the utility function with respect to consumption and of the environmental protection function and the elasticities of steady state consumption and environmental expenditures with respect to variation in tfps

searching for a kuznets curve in environmental efficiency using kernel estimation abstract the paper constructs environmental efficiency indexes for a sample consisting of high and low income countries using nonparametric production frontier techniques and then establishes an environmental kuznets relationship for environmental efficiency by nadaraya watson kernel estimation methodology

a positive theory of social entrepreneurship i propose a theory aimed at advancing scholarly research in social entrepreneurship by highlighting the key trade off between value creation and value capture and explaining when situations of simultaneous market and government failure may arise i suggest that social entrepreneurship is the pursuit of sustainable solutions to neglected problems with positive externalities i further discuss the situations in which problems with externalities are likely to be neglected and derive the central goal and logic of action of social entrepreneurs in contrast to commercial entrepreneurs overall this article provides a conceptual framework that allows understanding the growing phenomena of social entrepreneurship and its role in the functioning of modern society

convergence versus divergence of csr in developing countries an embedded multi layered institutional lens this paper capitalizes on an institutional perspective to analyze corporate social responsibility csr orientations in the lebanese context specifically the paper compiles a new theoretical framework drawing on a multi level model of institutional flows by scott institutions and organizations ideas and interests 2008 and the explicit implicit csr model by matten and moon acad manag rev 33 2 404 424 2008 this new theoretical framework is then used to explore the csr convergence versus divergence question in a developing country context the findings highlight the usefulness of the compiled multi layered institutional framework and the varied nuances and profound insights it offers in analyzing csr in context they also suggest that a cosmetic level of global convergence in explicit csr may materialize in light of mimetic isomorphic pressures but that the path dependence hypothesis is indeed salient in light of national history trajectories and socio politico configurations the findings correspond most closely to patterns of csr crossvergence combining elements of both convergence and divergence and reflecting in complex hybridized csr expressions the findings and their implications are presented and assessed

exploring the existence of kuznets curve in countries environmental efficiency using dea window analysis abstract this paper using data envelopment dea window analysis and generalized method of moments gmm estimators examines the existence of a kuznets type relationship between countries environmental efficiency and national income specifically it measures the environmental efficiency of 17 oecd countries by constructing environmental efficiency ratios for the time period 1980 2002 the analysis with the application of dynamic panel data reveals that there isn t a kuznets type relationship between environmental efficiency and income allowing for dynamic effects we find that the adjustment to the target ratio is instantaneous we also find that increased economic activity does not always ensure environmental protection and thus the path of growth is important in addition to the growth itself

embedding corporate social responsibility in corporate governance a stakeholder systems approach current research on corporate social responsibility csr illustrates the growing sense of discord surrounding the business of doing good dobers and springett corp soc responsib environ manage 17 2 63 69 2010 central to these concerns is that csr risks becoming an over simplified and peripheral part of corporate strategy rather than transforming the dominant corporate discourse it is argued that csr and related concepts are limited to emancipatory rhetoric defined by narrow business interests and serve to curtail interests of external stakeholders banerjee crit sociol 34 1 52 2008 the paper addresses gaps in the literature and challenges current thinking on corporate governance and csr by offering a new conceptual framework that responds to the concerns of researchers and practitioners the limited focus of existing analyses is extended by a holistic approach to corporate governance and social responsibility that integrates company shareholder and wider stakeholder concerns a defensive stance is avoided by delineating key stages of the governance process and aligning profit centred and social responsibility concerns to produce a business based rationale for minimising risk and mainstreaming csr

intersectoral labor mobility and the growth of the service sector one of the most striking changes in the u s economy over the past 50 years has been the growth in the service sector between 1950 and 2000 service sector employment grew from 57 to 75 percent of total employment however over this time the real hourly wage in the service sector grew only slightly faster than in the goods sector in this paper we assess whether or not the essential constancy of the relative wage implies that individuals face small costs of switching sectors and we quantify the relative importance of labor supply and demand factors in the growth of the service sector we specify and estimate a two sector labor market equilibrium model that allows us to address these empirical issues in a unified framework our estimates imply that there are large mobility costs output in both sectors would have been double their current levels if these mobility costs had been zero in addition we find that demand side factors that is technological change and movements in product and capital prices were responsible for the growth of the service sector

start up sustainability an insurmountable cost or a life giving investment abstract an outstanding question in the entrepreneurship literature reigns given recent emphases on sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility if small start ups are generally stretched for time and resources does it enhance their chances for survival and success to be sustainable and socially responsible new firms can aid in rectifying pressing environmental and social issues by being more sustainable while many entrepreneurs like a sustainable business model and or mission investment may not follow so willingly this paper examines a sample of 300 start ups across thirty cities around the world to consider whether sustainability is rewarded by investors investors signal confidence in start ups when they infuse life extending investments into them this analysis also considers whether a more sustainable national context affects investor confidence and whether a sustainable firm within a sustainable national context gains more investor attention and investment results show that investors avoid sustainable firms particularly those that are environmentally sustainable moreover investors enjoy national contexts that are socially responsible but pay no attention to those that are environmentally conscious in addition firms that are sustainable in a sustainable national context are not better off for attracting investment insights for policy are that mainstream investors are attracted by national social policies but these investors are unlikely to be the main force behind sustainable venture growth under today s conditions

weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis with undesirable outputs environmental economics and natural resources group at wageningen university in the netherlands weak disposability of outputs means that firms can abate harmful emissions by decreasing the activity level modeling weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis has caused some confusion this article identifies a dilemma in these approaches conventional formulations implicitly and unintentionally assume all firms apply uniform abatement factors however it is usually cost effective to abate emissions in those firms where the marginal abatement costs are lowest this article presents a simple formulation of weak disposability that allows for non uniform abatement factors and preserves the linear structure of the model

the two faces of market support how deployment policies affect technological exploration and exploitation in the solar photovoltaic industry the recent years have seen a strong rise in policies aiming to increase the diffusion of clean energy technologies while there is general agreement that such deployment policies have been very effective in bringing technologies to the market it is less understood how these policies affect technological innovation to shed more light on this important question we conducted comparative case studies with a global sample of 9 firms producing solar photovoltaic pv modules complemented by in depth interviews with 16 leading pv industry experts we propose that on the one hand policy induced market growth serves as an important catalyst for innovative activity as it raises the absolute level of firm investments in technological exploration on the other hand however deployment policies create an incentive for firms pursuing more mature technologies to shift their balance between exploitation and exploration toward exploitation firms focusing on less mature technologies cannot tap the potentials of exploitative learning to the same extent as those with more mature technologies therefore stimulating strong market growth may raise the barrier to market entry for less mature technologies we conclude that when designing deployment policies great care should be taken to avoid adverse effects on technological diversity and a premature lock in into more established technologies

a calibration procedure for analyzing stock price dynamics in an agent based framework in this paper we introduce a calibration procedure for validating of agent based models starting from the well known nancial model of brock and hommes 1998 we show how an appropriate calibration enables the model to describe price time series we formulate the cal ibration problem as a nonlinear constrained optimization that can be solved numerically via a gradient based method the calibration re sults show that the simplest version of the brock and hommes model with two trader types fundamentalists and trend followers replicates nicely the price series of four dierent markets indices the s p 500 the euro stoxx 50 the nikkei 225 and the csi 300 we show how the parameter values of the calibrated model are important in interpret ing the trader behavior in the dierent markets investigated these parameters are then used for price forecasting to further improve the forecasting we modify our calibration approach by increasing the trader information set finally we show how this new approach im proves the model s ability to predict market prices

green investment trends and determinants abstract this paper fills a gap in the macroeconomic literature on renewable sources of energy it offers a definition of green investment and analyzes the trends and determinants of this investment over the last decade for 35 advanced and emerging countries we use a new multi country historical dataset and find that green investment has become a key driver of the energy sector and that its rapid growth is now mostly driven by china our econometric results suggest that green investment is boosted by economic growth a sound financial system conducive to low interest rates and high fuel prices we also find that some policy interventions such as the introduction of carbon pricing schemes or feed in tariffs which require use of green energy have a positive and significant impact on green investment other interventions such as biofuel support do not appear to be associated with higher green investment

monetary policy and large crises in a financial accelerator agent based model abstract an accommodating monetary policy followed by a sudden increase of the short term interest rate often leads to a bubble burst and to an economic slowdown through the implementation of an agent based model with a financial accelerator mechanism we are able to study the relationship between monetary policy and large scale crisis events a two step computational approach is proposed which performs i a pattern search of double dip episodes and ii counter factual simulations implementing unconventional monetary policy the main results can be summarized as follow a sudden and sharp increases of the policy rate can generate recessions b after a crisis returning too soon and too quickly to a normal monetary policy regime can generate a double dip recession while c keeping the short term interest rate anchored to the zero lower bound in the short run can successfully avoid a further slowdown

is there an environmental kuznets curve for sulfur abstract most existing estimates of the environmental kuznets curve ekc for sulfur which use samples of mainly high income countries indicate a maximum emissions turning point at middle to lower high income levels of gdp per capita we use a larger and more globally representative sample than previous sulfur ekc studies we find that sulfur emissions per capita are a monotonic function of income per capita when we use a global sample and an inverted u shape function of income when we use a sample of high income countries a model estimated in first differences results in a monotonic ekc when estimated with both high income and global samples reductions in emissions are time related rather than income related

monetary factors in the great depression this paper examines the role of monetary policy in the early stages of the great depression and considers the mechanism whereby this policy may have affected real activity i conclude that the depression was preceded by a dramatic shift towards a highly contractionary monetary policy the economic impact of this policy seems unlikely to have come through the conventional keynesian channels of a shortage of liquidity and high ex ante real interest rates but instead may have operated through unanticipated deflation and after 1930 through the disruption of financial intermediation as a consequence of the banking panics

green entrepreneurship in transition economies a case study of bosnia and herzegovina abstract the countries with transition economies are under pressure to increase entrepreneurial activities that will enable fast growth with minimum impact on natural resources despite specific challenges the economies in transition face development of sustainable entrepreneurship has not been in focus of the academic research this leaves some open questions such as those concerning the role and mode of operation of public policies level of risk and its influence on entrepreneurship creativity role of knowledge in diffusing entrepreneurial values and fostering aspirations externalities created for the society and the connection between sustainability and entrepreneurship this paper aims to introduce a discussion on sustainable entrepreneurship in countries with economies in transition the research carried out included i review of literature and statistical data on entrepreneurial environment ii structured interviews with representatives of government civil society business sector and academia to understand the society s perception of green entrepreneurship and iii analysis of case studies on green entrepreneurs it can be concluded that entrepreneurs in economies in transition do not seem to be ready to respond to the challenges or to take any risks by investing in green business but also that the government and educational institutions do not recognize their own role and fail to support the development of green entrepreneurship for those green oriented businesses the key sociological constructs are personal motivation and mission locality and a forward thinking orientation in terms of sustainability all businesses managed to achieve the economic environmental and social value creation without any support from the government

sustainable development and entrepreneurship past contributions and future directions this article discusses the emerging research concerned with sustainable development and entrepreneurship which is the focus of this special issue of the journal of business venturing entrepreneurship has been recognized as a major conduit for sustainable products and processes and new ventures are being held up as a panacea for many social and environmental concerns however there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the nature of entrepreneurship s role and how it may unfold we begin with an overview of sustainable development and the role of entrepreneurship and outline recent contributions exploring this role we then summarize the papers presented in this special issue and conclude with suggestions for further research

clean energy policies and green jobs an evaluation of green jobs in u s metropolitan areas state and local governments in the u s are actively promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency to seek economic development opportunities and create green jobs this study evaluates the employment effects of state and local clean energy and climate policies in u s metropolitan areas msas in 2006 the regression analysis shows that both state and local clean energy policies have positive and statistically significant impacts on green jobs at the metropolitan level the results from two stage probit least squares 2spls indicate that every additional state clean energy policy tool adopted is associated with 1 more green jobs in the msa on average msas with iclei membership maintain 9 3 more green jobs than msas without iclei membership ceteris paribus

a network analysis using metadata to investigate innovation in clean tech implications for energy policy abstract clean technology clean tech is a large and increasing sector research and development r d is the lifeline of the industry and innovation is fostered by a plethora of high tech start ups and small and medium sized enterprises smes any empirical based attempt to detect the pattern of technological innovation in the industry is challenging this paper proposes an investigation of innovation in clean tech using metadata provided by crunchbase metadata reveal information on markets products services and technologies driving innovation in the clean tech industry worldwide and for san francisco the leader in clean tech innovation with more than two hundred specialised companies a network analysis using metadata is the employed methodology and the main metrics of the resulting networks are discussed from an economic point of view the purpose of the paper is to understand specifically specializations and technological complementarities underlying innovative companies detect emerging industrial clusters at the global and local metropolitan level and finally suggest a way to realize whether observed start ups smes and clusters follow a technological path of complementary innovation and market opportunity or instead present a risk of lock in the discussion of the results of the network analysis shows interesting implications for energy policy particularly useful from an operational point of view

mobility constraints productivity trends and extended crises abstract in this paper we propose an interpretation of the current global financial crisis which emphasizes sectoral dislocation following localized technical change in the presence of barriers to labor mobility this tale is reminiscent of a similar tale concerning the great depression in the 30s technical change was localized in agriculture where income fell because rising productivity could not be offset by a shrinking labor force due to the costs of moving out of agriculture for unemployed workers inelastic demand for agricultural output meant that as output increased income declined as individual incomes fell below the level necessary to finance the transition to manufacturing excess labor became trapped in agriculture reducing wages and exacerbating the rise in output shrinking incomes in agriculture reverberated on the other sectors mainly manufacturing causing a large depression nowadays it is manufacturing that plays the role of epicenter of technical change falling incomes in manufacturing yield a lack of demand for goods produced in the rest of the economy namely the service sector this may be the deep rooted cause of the long lasting slump and the painfully slow recovery