life cycle value analysis for sustainability evaluation of bioenergy products abstract bioenergy products appear to be practical effective and environmentally sustainable renewable energy resources which simultaneously reduce fuel associated environmental impacts and increase economic value of the products the use of bioproducts may not always have a net positive environmental or economic attributes therefore an adequate sustainability evaluation tool for the products which incorporates life cycle approach is generally desired this paper presents an informative value analysis which couples concepts of life cycle energy efficiency and production cost ratios for a feasible assessment of function value for bioenergy products bioenergy products that are selected for the value assessment in this study include biodiesel bioethanol and biocharcoal this study is divided into two parts value factor development along with discussions on the results of value analysis for bioenergy products and a sensitivity analysis in determining influential factors for value factor estimations the results showed that microalgae biodiesel and biochar had the lowest and the highest function values respectively among assessed bioenergy systems this was mainly due to the significant difference in energy input in manufacturing design and production cost future improvements in bioenergy production can be anticipated for developing bioenergy products with high value factors which demonstrate high economic viability environmental performance and social acceptability this analysis can be of interest to bioenergy production planners for sustainable product development

original innovation learnt innovation and cities evidence from uk smes one of the key benefits of cities is that they allow the exchange of knowledge and information between economic actors this may have two effects it may create the conditions for entirely new innovations to emerge and it may allow firms to learn innovations from those nearby yet few studies have considered the impact of an urban location on whether innovations are original or learnt this paper tests these hypotheses using survey evidence for over 1600 uk smes it is shown that while urban firms tend to be both product and process innovators urban firms are disproportionately likely to introduce process innovations which are only new to the firm rather than entirely original instead the urban advantage in product innovation appears to come from a combination of the effects the results highlight a need for a nuanced view of the link between cities and innovation

monetization of health damages from road noise with implications for monetizing health impacts in life cycle assessment abstract there are decision situations where environmental impacts need to be compared with other costs or benefits that by their nature are expressed in terms of money supporting these decisions may require the expression of environmental impacts in monetary units using the example of health impacts from road noise we apply five different monetization approaches and quantify the monetary values of one year of sleep disturbance chf 2500 16 000 and interference with communication 1500 10 000 in life cycle assessment many health endpoints need to be evaluated at the same time therefore we illustrate here the transferability problem between health impacts measured in disability adjusted life years dalys and monetized health impacts using the example of health impacts due to 1000 truck kilometres it is concluded that available monetization methods need careful adaptation for their use to monetize environmental health impacts that the daly accounting system may support the systematic monetization and the selection of relevant health endpoints and that it may well be justified for lca purposes to perform some novel primary willingness to pay studies

power in firm networks what it means for regional innovation systems christopherson s clark j 2007 power in firm networks what it means for regional innovation systems regional studies 41 1223 1236 the role of power within regional firm networks is noted in empirical studies but insufficiently theorized it is suggested that network functioning is conflictual and that more powerful network members particularly transnational corporations tncs leverage regional resources to advance their sustainable competitive advantage the agendas and power exercised by tncs within regionalized firm networks have significant implications for regional policy and the uneven allocation of resources and capacities within and among regions the findings indicate that transnational firm access to resources that are critical to innovation including university research and skilled labour negatively affects the potential for innovation by small and medium size firms christopherson s et clark j 2007 le pouvoir au sein des reseaux d entreprise son importance pour les systemes d

pioneers and followers competitive tactics environment and firm growth abstract market pioneering where a firm is first to offer a distinctively new product to the market is a commonly recognized form of corporate entrepreneurship as with other forms of corporate entrepreneurship the linkage between market pioneering and firm performance has received limited empirical attention much of which has yielded inconsistent results nonetheless two conclusions regarding when and how pioneering relates to firm performance are revealed in the literature first theory and past research suggest that pioneering is an environment specific phenomenon that is certain types of environments may be most likely to encourage or reward the actions of pioneers while these same actions may meet with limited success in other environments second theory and past research suggest that firm performance is affected by the fit between a firm s pioneer follower status and its competitive tactics in other words market entry order moderates the effectiveness of a firm s competitive tactics such that certain tactics will be most effective when employed by market pioneers while other tactics will be most effective when employed by market followers considered jointly the preceding observations suggest that insights might be gained regarding the effective management of market pioneering and market following by seeking to understand a how these phenomena are manifested in different industry environments and b what pioneers and followers do differently in these environments to promote their performance the research described in this paper addresses these issues in particular this paper develops theory that describes how particular competitive tactics are thought to relate to firm sales growth rate among market pioneers and market followers in two distinct environmental settings hypotheses are developed based on the following research propositions p1 in hostile environments pioneers and followers will differentially benefit in achieving high sales growth rates from their reliance on relatively high prices relatively broad product lines relatively broad served geographical markets relatively advanced process technologies and relatively advantageous purchasing arrangements p2 in benign environments pioneers and followers will differentially benefit in achieving high sales growth rates from their reliance on relatively high quality products relatively strong product warranties relatively high advertising and promotion expenditures relatively strong control over distribution channels employed and relatively large numbers of distribution channels employed to test the hypothesized relationships data were collected from the senior managers of 103 independent nondiversified manufacturing firms operating in 75 industries cluster analysis anova and correlational analysis were employed as the principal analytical techniques the results suggest that market pioneers grow neither more nor less rapidly than market followers however in hostile environments pioneering may enable firms to break out of the dominant price based mode of competition and grow in spite of charging high prices this ability of pioneers to excel in hostile environments seems to be further facilitated by limiting product line breath to a small number of product offerings that provide a tight fit with market needs pioneers in hostile environments also appear to be relatively better served than followers from gaining a wide geographical distribution for their products followers in hostile environments on the other hand should seek to reduce their cost structures in order to effectively sustain low price strategies the employment of advanced process technologies and the pursuit of purchasing advantages were actions which proved to be more advantageous for followers than for pioneers in hostile environments the managerial implications of this research applicable to benign environment firms are quite different other things being equal relatively high prices may not be as detrimental to growth among followers in benign environments as they are among followers in more hostile environments benign environment followers may in fact be better off when they charge relatively high prices and compete on non price bases the results also suggest that in benign environments offering products with warranties superior to those of competitors may have a significantly more positive effect on sales growth among pioneers than followers moreover employing a large number of distribution channels appears to benefit pioneers more than followers however among the sampled firms benign environment pioneers that realized the greatest growth did not have extensive control over distribution channel members therefore benign environment pioneers may grow more quickly if they target their distribution related resources toward expanding their channels rather than toward controlling some smaller number these channels this study contributes to the pioneering literature by having corroborated several findings of the pims based studies regarding tactical differences between pioneers and followers and by having further documented the relevance of market entry order or pioneer follower status as a moderator of the performance associated with particular competitive tactics moreover by having examined the tactics performance relationships of pioneers and followers in two distinct environmental settings this study adds specificity and empirical support to the emerging theoretical paradigm that depicts pioneering as an environment specific phenomenon finally this study contributes to the literature on coping with hostility by having theorized about and empirically identified common and effective bases for competition under varying levels of environmental hostility

sources procedures and microeconomic effects of innovation fabio arcangeli paul david frank engelman christopher freeman massimo moggi richard nelson luigi orsenigo nathan rosenberg michele salvati g n von tunzelman two anonymous referees and the participants at the meeting of the committee on distribution growth and technical progress of the italian national research council cnr rome november 16 1985 have helped with various redraftings a particularly grateful acknowledgment is for the insightful and patient help of moses abramovitz this work has been undertaken at the science policy research unit spru university of sussex as part of the research program of the designated research centre sponsored by the economic and social research council esrc earlier support to the research that led to this paper by the italian national research council cnr is also gratefully acknowledged the statistical research has been undertaken with the assistance of stephano brioschi ilaria fornari and giovannu prennushi

innovation in europe a tale of networks knowledge and trade in five cities this paper identifies four groups of theory that seek to explain the relationships between innovation and space these are traditional agglomeration theory networking learning and new competitiveness theory evidence on the last three most recent theories is sought by analysing the results of comparable surveys of innovative firms in amsterdam london milan paris and stuttgart the empirical results show that differences occur in the external relationships between firms and the global economy with respect to specific innovation projects broadly speaking the main differences identified show that in regional cities such as stuttgart and milan innovative activities are more linked to their regional and national economies than they are in the international world cities such as paris and london this suggests that attempts to generalize the network paradigm on industrial production are premature at least as far as innovation is concerned conversely the data demonstrate the significance of trading syste

pricing environmental externalities in the power sector ethical limits and implications for social choice abstract during the last decade a series of valuation studies have made attempts at estimating the external environmental costs of various power generation sources the purposes of this paper are a to explore some of the ethical limits of the economic valuation of environmental impacts and b to analyze what the implications are of these limits for the social choice between different electric power sources environmental valuation based on welfare economic theory builds on restrictive behavioral foundations and can only partly model moral values although such values are an essential part of people s preference towards the environment in addition public preferences are seldom exogenously given as is commonly assumed in economic theory but are instead formed in public discourse for this reason the range of electricity externalities where economic valuation and thus cost benefit analysis should be applied is likely to be narrower than often assumed after analyzing the scope methodology and the results of the so called externe project the paper concludes that many power generation externalities are either inherently new or inherently complex in these cases the initial challenge lies not in discovering private preferences but in specifying the conditions for public discourse over common ways of understanding what the pertinent issues are about this implies that research on the environmental externalities of power generation must in addition to refining the theory and the applications of existing non market valuation techniques also address the instruments and content of political and moral debate

evolutionary theories in environmental and resource economics approaches and applications recent advances in evolutionary theory have important implications for environmental economics a short overview is offered of evolutionarythinking in economics subsequently major concepts and approaches inevolutionary biology and evolutionary economics are presented andcompared attention is devoted among others to darwinian selection punctuated equilibrium sorting mechanisms lamarckian evolution coevolution and self organization basic features of evolution such assustained change irreversible change unpredictability qualitativechange and disequilibrium are examined it is argued that there are anumber of fundamental differences as well as similarities betweenbiological and economic evolution next some general implications ofevolutionary thinking for environmental economics are outlined this isfollowed by a more detailed examination of potential uses ofevolutionary theories in specific areas of environmental economics including sustainability and long run development theories technologyand environment ecosystem management and resilience spatial evolutionand environmental processes and design of environmental policy

networks of innovators a synthesis of research issues abstract this paper will first summarise some key findings of empirical research in the 1960s on the role of external sources of scientific technical and market information in successful innovation by business firms this work demonstrated unambiguously the vital importance of external information networks and of collaboration with users during the development of new products and processes moreover the dilemmas of cooperative research in competitive industries were recognised and studied long ago 35 62 76 what then is new about the present wave of interest in networks of innovators are there new forms of organisation or new technologies or new policies which justify renewed research efforts since they go beyond those developments already analysed in earlier empirical and theoretical work section 2 reviews the evidence of new developments in the 1980s in industrial networks regional networks and government sponsored innovative activities it shows that there has indeed been a major upsurge of formal and semi formal flexible networks in the 1980s including some new types of network it also shows that some older forms of research cooperation have been modified and transformed the papers at montreal largely concentrated on the role of regional supplier networks which are a good example of such new wine in old bottles this paper attempts to locate the regional network discussion within a wider context of new developments in networking section 3 discusses the causes of these new developments and whether they are likely to remain a characteristic of national and international innovation systems for a long time to come or prove to be a temporary upsurge to be overtaken later by a wave of take overs and vertical integration finally section 4 sums up some of the other key issues which require further research and debate and the implications for social science theory

the new approach to wilderness preservation through benefit cost analysis over the last 15 years economists of resources for the future led by john krutilla have been developing a new approach to wilderness preservation this paper offers a concise exposition of their approach and adds a few new steps the basic ingredient of the new approach is a perception of declining net benefits of wilderness development and rising net benefits of wilderness preservation over time these alter the entire shape of the benefit cost analysis of potential development the new steps involve reversibility postponability and recognition of multiple interest rates

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

the rise of europe atlantic trade institutional change and economic growth the rise of western europe after 1500 is due largely to growth in countries with access to the atlantic ocean and with substantial trade with the new world africa and asia via the atlantic this trade and the associatedcolonialism affected europe not only directly but also indirectly by inducing institutional change where initial political institutions those established before 1500 placed significant checks on the monarchy the growth of atlantic trade strengthened merchant groups by constraining the power of the monarchy and helped merchants obtain changes in institutions to protect property rights these changes were central to subsequent economic growth

small distributed generation versus centralised supply a social cost benefit analysis in the residential and service sectors abstract this paper aims at measuring the social benefits of small chp distributed generation dg in the residential and service sectors we do this by comparing the social costs of decentralised and centralised supplies simulating ideal situations in which any source of allocative inefficiencies is eliminated this comparison focuses on assessing internal and external costs the internal costs are calculated by simulating the optimal prices of the electricity and gas inputs the external costs are estimated by using and elaborating the results of the dissemination process of the externe project one of the most recent and accurate methodologies in this field the analysis takes into account the main sources of uncertainty about the parameter values including uncertainty about external cost estimations despite these sources of uncertainty the paper concludes that centralised supply is still preferable to small dg in fact the overall range of dg social competitiveness is restricted even considering further remarkable improvements in dg electrical efficiency and investment costs the results are particularly unfavourable for the residential sector whereas in the service sector the performance of dg technologies is slightly better

the rate of time preference implications for the greenhouse debate abstract if one adopts a real annual discount rate of 5 or more and there are no significant climate impacts for half a century these impacts have a present value that is virtually negligible within a cost benefit framework it then becomes exceedingly difficult to justify any near term actions other than no regrets policies in the greenhouse debate it is important to draw a clear distinction between prescriptive and descriptive reasoning a philosopher or an economist may counsel a low or a zero rate of time preference but this advice does not provide a good description of the collective outcome of individual choices in particular it implies an unrealistically rapid increase in the rate of savings and investment

external cost of coal based electricity generation a tale of ahmedabad city abstract electricity production causes unintended impacts their exclusion by the market leads to suboptimal resource allocations monetizing and internalizing of external costs though challenging and debatable leads to a better allocation of economic resources and welfare in this paper a life cycle analysis lca on the production of electricity from conventional coal based electricity generation system has been performed in order to examine the environmental impacts of coal based electricity generating systems in the twin city of ahmedabad and gandhinagar in western india by using dose response functions we make an attempt to estimate the damages to human health crops and building materials resulting from the operation of coal power plants and its associated mines further we use geographic information system to account for spatially dependent data finally monetary values have been assigned to estimate the damage to human health crops and building materials this study reveals that the health as well as on non health impacts of air pollution resulting from coal based electricity generation may not be ignored both in absolute as well as economic value terms

innovation networks and vertical integration abstract a central debate in industrial policy today is that between proponents of large vertically integrated firms on the one hand and those of networks of small specialized producers on the other this paper argues that neither institutional structure is the panacea its supporters claim the menu of institutional alternatives is in fact quite large and both firms and networks of which there are several kinds can be successful growth promoting adaptations to the competitive environment industrial structures vary in their ability to coordinate information flows necessary for innovation and to overcome power relationships adverse to innovation the relative desirability of the various structures then depends on the nature and scope of technological change in the industry and on the effects of various product life cycle patterns the principal policy conclusion of this analysis is that the government s role ought to be facilitating rather than narrow and prescriptive allowing scope for firms to develop organizational forms that are best adapted to their particular environments

social multi criteria evaluation methodological foundations and operational consequences in order to address contemporary issues economics and decision sciences need to expand their empirical relevance by introducing more and more realistic thus more complex assumptions in their models one of the most interesting research directions in the field of public economics is the attempt to introduce political constraints interest groups and collusion effects explicitly j j laffont incentives and political economy 2000 the main argument developed here is the proposal of the concept of social multi criteria evaluation smce as a possible useful framework for the application of social choice to the difficult policy problems of our millennium where as stated by funtowicz and ravetz facts are uncertain values in dispute stakes high and decisions urgent this paper starts from the following main questions 1 why social multi criteria evaluation 2 how should such an approach be developed the foundations of smce are set up by referring to concepts from complex system theory and philosophy such as reflexive complexity post normal science and incommensurability to give some operational guidelines on the application of smce basic questions to be answered are 1 how is it possible to deal with technical incommensurability 2 how can we deal with the issue of social incommensurability to answer these questions using theoretical considerations and lessons learned from real world case studies is the main objective of the present article

social choice uncertainty about external costs and trade off between intergenerational environmental impacts the emblematic case of gas based energy supply decentralization abstract the performance of the small natural gas fired power technologies has improved remarkably over the last decade this has aroused the interest of operators regulators and legislators in natural gas fired distributed generation gas fired dg namely the integrated or stand alone use of small modular gas fired power generation close to the point of consumption as an alternative to large power generation and electricity transport over long distances gas fired dg can provide an important benefit from the environmental point of view customer proximity in fact greatly increases the potential for combined heat and power generation involving energy saving and reduced greenhouse gas ghg emissions unfortunately this kind of decentralized supply also determines higher non ghg emissions mainly nox compared to the best available central power technology which occur in urban areas high populated instead of extra urban areas where large power plants are generally located it is therefore difficult to make a reliable evaluation of gas fired dg environmental benefits without comparing centralized and decentralized models in terms of external costs that is without an analysis which allows us to compare the extent of global and local regional impacts in terms of monetary damage if on the one hand this underlines the potential importance of the methods adopted to assess the economic value of environmental externalities even for policy decisions that are binary i e the choice between different energy technologies on the other it raises the crucial question of the uncertainty about the economic estimates this article aims at demonstrating that the uncertainty about external costs even if large does not undermine the possibility of verifying whether gas fired dg is preferable or not to centralized supply the paper compares centralized and decentralized models in terms of the external environmental costs which are calculated by using the results of the available studies in this field in particular the results of the dissemination process of the so called externe project one of the most recent and accurate methodologies and the results of a meta analysis with regard to the marginal cost of ghg emissions the uncertainty about external costs is substantial but not so large that it is not possible to say anything about the environmental raking of alternative technology solutions involving trade off between the impacts of different pollutants or between different kinds of impacts the literature on external costs provides several studies accounting for a large part of uncertainty by means of appropriate statistical and sensitive analysis by using and elaborating these results the analysis described in this paper seems to support the conclusion that centralized supply and especially the completely electric solution based on the reversible electric heat pump is still preferable to natural gas fired chp distributed generation this is not a definitive conclusion but we hope a useful scientific based contribution for policy decisions under the state of the art in fact this result has an interesting policy implication it suggests unless questioning the current enthusiasm on natural gas fired chp distributed generation deployment e g the european commission is indeed advocating dg as a contribution to ghg emission reduction and helps us to reflect upon gas fired dg supporting environmental policies which focus on the reduction of ghg emissions and totally disregard the possible trade off between the impacts of global and local regional pollutants unless one denies the rationality attributed to making tradeoffs on the basis of ethical limits of economic valuations even in this case however cost benefit analysis seems to be legitimate and a necessary step of the public discourse we think that the results of this paper are emblematic from this point of view

limits to the value of external costs based on recent insights from the field of risk analysis this paper examines some of the difficulties encountered in attempts to characterise the environmental effects of energy options as monetary externalities more than 20 different dimensions of environmental appraisal are identified and discussed in relation to the historic literature on risk assessment and a number of recent influential environmental valuation studies a survey is conducted of the results obtained over more than a decade for the external environmental costs of electricity supply options theoretical and methodological criticisms are lent support by the finding that environmental valuation results vary over a very wide range of values yielding a variety of rank orderings for the different generating options in addition the values derived for energy externalities are found to be vulnerable to the possible influence of a price imperative the paper concludes by pointing to approaches to the social appraisal of generating technologies which offer greater transparency rigour and accessibility in addressing plural and intrinsically subjective value judgements concerning the different forms and dimensions of environmental effects

income volatility of energy crops the case of rapeseed abstract the adoption of energy crops may generate significant benefits from reduced foreign energy dependence improved rural economies and achieved environmental goals nevertheless important issues arise as these crops are strongly competed by other presumably more standard uses of farmland and their choice will be restrictive unless profit becomes a powerful motive for farmers the abolishment of specific policies supporting first generation biofuels gives rise to the question whether the tactic of bioenergy land use change is just to be abandoned by european farmers the present paper endeavours to evaluate the reduction in income volatility in the case of the rapeseed energy crop a cultivation extensively used in biofuels in the european union employing the concept of entropy the results provide a vague picture regarding the limitations in rapeseed income volatility among the european member states consequently the issue of income uncertainties as a determinant of bioenergy cropland demand has been left pending the innovation of the study lies in the use of entropy concept and the kapetanios and shin unit root test in the case of income volatility for energy crops in the european context the estimation of the random components with the assistance of auto regressive integrated mean average models may provide a tool for confining income uncertainties with the assistance of other policy schemes including insurances within the common agricultural policy

impact on firms of the use of knowledge external sources a systematic review of the literature this study summarizes the main conclusions from a systematic review of the empirical literature regarding the impact on firms of the use of knowledge external sources universities research institutes and knowledge intensive business services with the aim to organize the literature we classify the different works according to the research question addressed i which firms use knowledge external sources ii do firms using knowledge external sources achieve better results and iii which firms benefit the most from using knowledge external sources stylized facts are that larger more r d intensive and high tech firms are more likely to use knowledge external sources and that use of knowledge external sources is associated to firms higher technical results less attention has been paid to the third question and evidence is not conclusive several recommendations for future research emerge first to take in greater consideration methodological issues so that potential biases in the results caused by sample selection and endogeneity are handled properly second to pay more attention to heterogeneous outcomes third to use continuous indicators of depth and breadth of links allowing for non linear relationships and fourth to extend evidence for developing countries and service industries

ecological pricing and transformity a solution method for systems rarely at general equilibrium abstract this paper outlines a new method for determining ecological prices transformities in complicated ecological economic systems where non equilibrium prices are likely to be prevalent that is an eigenvalue eigenvector mathematical solution method for solving an overdetermined homogeneous system of simultaneous linear equations is proposed and tested previous mathematical approaches to the problem of ecological pricing are reviewed before proceeding with an explanation of the new solution method for the determination of ecological prices the proposed method seeks to avoid the need to make a number of untenable assumptions used in previous methods e g the assumption that there necessarily needs to be an equal number of processes and quantities in the ecological economic system the paper also provides practical advice and an algorithm for solving the ecological pricing problem for example advice on how to overcome the problem of ill conditioned matrices which are sometimes encountered

the long term effects of africa s slave trades can part of africa s current underdevelopment be explained by its slave trades to explore this question i use data from shipping records and historical documents reporting slave ethnicities to construct estimates of the number of slaves exported from each country during africa s slave trades i find a robust negative relationship between the number of slaves exported from a country and current economic performance to better understand if the relationship is causal i examine the historical evidence on selection into the slave trades and use instrumental variables together the evidence suggests that the slave trades have had an adverse effect on economic development

the plight of the biomass power generation industry in china a supply chain risk perspective abstract for the past several years the biomass power generation industry in china has witnessed notably rapid development however many biomass power generation manufacturers in china are currently making small profits or suffering losses and the entire biomass supply chain does not function well which not only poses a challenge for the stable operation of enterprises but also may impact the smooth development of the biomass power industry from the perspective of supply chain risk this paper explores the reasons for the current plight and the future obstacles that the chinese biomass power generation industry may face identifying such risks as market risk production risk technology risk economic risk and management risk in the upstream midstream and downstream of the biomass supply chain and ordering the degrees of risk controllability by the government and enterprises it is determined that joint effort by both the chinese government and the biomass power generation enterprises is an ideal choice for risk control coming out of the plight however at present more problems should go to the government for solutions than to the enterprises to guide the healthy development of the industry the chinese government should play a more prominent role in promulgating supporting policies in each stage of the supply chain and strengthening the supervision and control of biomass projects last specific measures taken by the chinese government and the enterprises are proposed

choices without prices without apologies valuing is usually regarded as a process of compressing information about attributes into a single metric armed with this reduced form of compact information the consumer can consider a particular object with a particular price attached or implied and make an informed decision but the process of valuing is less straightforward than we ordinarily suppose when environmental goods and services become the object of information compaction it is possible that important information is lost we comment on the choice problem germane to environmental goods and services and challenge the presumption that environmental choices made without explicit pricing are inferior to those in which hypothetical valuation studies are undertaken

danish energy reform policy implications for renewables abstract for decades renewables have been promoted in denmark by the feed in model fixed price scheme with favourable tariffs for green electricity this has resulted in successful penetration of wind power covering more than 13 of danish electricity consumption 2001 changing the promotional scheme to a quota based system with tradable green certificates has been on the political agenda since 1999 this article discusses danish energy policy with focus on the implications for the penetration and deployment of renewables it has turned out to be more complicated than anticipated to create an efficient operational system for trade in green certificates and the starting date for trading has been postponed several times the national green certificates market was to be fully operational by the beginning of 2003 however political negotiations in the fall of 2001 seem to postpone the initiation of the certificate market until 2005 transitional rules for green electricity during the period from 2003 to 2005 are under negotiation after a national election in november 2001 this situation has created widespread uncertainty among potential investors in green electricity the article evaluates a number of problems related to the shift in danish energy policy

eliciting public values for complex policy decisions several approaches exist to illuminate and clarify public values relevant for making public policy decisions these include surveys indirect and direct value elicitation focus groups and public involvement this paper describes a new approach called the public value forum which combines elements of focus groups and direct multiattribute value elicitation techniques two public value forums were conducted with selected members of the west german public to elicit values relevant for setting long term energy policies the purposes of conducting the value forums were to examine the feasibility of eliciting values from laypeople and combining them with factual assessments of experts to determine the extent to which values elicited formally conflict with values elicited informally and to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the public value forum the results indicate that the public value forum is feasible that the participants felt comfortable with the procedure and that they were eager to resolve inconsistencies between their intuitive judgments and the multiattribute models there was substantial conflict between the formally and informally elicited values however the participants were able to resolve those conflicts in the course of the value forum tending towards more moderate alternatives in the process the public value forum provided useful information for the policy process and education for the participants however because it is expensive and time consuming its main application may involve small samples of opinion leaders and stakeholder representatives rather than large representative samples of the general public

using conjoint analysis to quantify public preferences over the environmental impacts of wind farms an example from spain this paper focuses on the effect on people s utility of the potential environmental impacts of wind farm developments we report on research designed to provide insight into their preferences and we show how two alternative choice modelling techniques can be used to estimate them our results show that significant social costs in the form of environmental impacts can be associated with wind farm developments as relative environmental values are revealed by these methods it would be possible to develop wind farms in such a way that minimises the total social costs of the investment and which maximises its net benefits

social sustainability assessments in the biobased economy towards a systemic approach abstract the majority of impact assessments for the biobased economy are primarily focused on the environmental and techno economic aspects while social aspects are rarely considered this study proposes a modified systemic approach for a social sustainability impact assessment of the biobased economy based on a review on the common methodologies for assessing social impacts accordingly the proposed approach follows the four general iterative steps of social life cycle analysis slca as it considers all life cycle phases of the biobased economy the systemic approach considers the potential social impacts on local communities workers and consumers as the main three groups of the stakeholders the review showed that the most common social indicators for inventory analysis within the biobased economy include health and safety food security income employment land and worker related concerns energy security profitability and gender issues multi criteria decision analysis mcda was also highlighted as the broadly utilized methodology for aggregating the results of impact assessments within the biobased economy taking a life cycle perspective this study provides a holistic view of the full sustainability of research design and innovation in the biobased economy by suggesting the integration of the social aspects with techno economic and an environmental life cycle assessment our proposed systemic approach makes possible to integrate the social impacts that are highly valued by the affected stakeholders into the existing sustainability models that focus only on environmental and techno economic aspects we discuss the steps of the proposed systemic approach in order to identify the challenges of applying them within the biobased economy these challenges refer mainly to the definition of the functional unit and system boundaries the selection and the analysis of social indicators inventory analysis the aggregation of the inventory to impact categories and the uncertainties associated with the social sustainability evaluation the result of this review and the proposed systemic approach serve as a foundation for industry and policy makers to gain a better insight into the importance of social sustainability impacts assessment within the biobased economy

modeling the bio refinery industry in rural areas a participatory approach for policy options comparison the development of bio refineries has become a relevant topic in the eu s agenda however the promotion of a new industry in rural areas is typically hindered by the scarcity of human capital lack of information infrastructures and competing interests in this context public support is unavoidable to assist promotion of this innovative sector the various policy options reveal some strengths and drawbacks posing the problem of finding the best trade off to public decision makers in this paper we aim at developing a methodology to support policy decision making within the biorefinery framework with the purpose of determining a way to identify the most suitable policy option given the actual uncertainty in developing the bio refinery industry in rural areas the empirical experiment based on a simulation of the enforcement of four identified policy instruments highlights that although subsidies and incentives to profitability of dedicated crops appear to have the greatest effects on the development of bio refinery the best performances are exhibited by technological innovation and information options

historical origins of firm ownership structure the persistent effects of the african slave trade this paper uses evidence from the historical african slave trade to extend prior theory linking modern firm ownership structure to institutions and social capital we argue that institutions and so

on the contribution of external cost calculations to energy system governance the case of a potential large scale nuclear accident abstract the contribution of nuclear power to a sustainable energy future is a contested issue this paper presents a critical review of an attempt to objectify this debate through the calculation of the external costs of a potential large scale nuclear accident in the externe project a careful dissection of the externe approach resulted in a list of 30 calculation steps and assumptions from which the 6 most contentious ones were selected through a stakeholder internet survey the policy robustness and relevance of these key assumptions were then assessed in a workshop using the concept of a pedigree of knowledge overall the workshop outcomes revealed the stakeholder and expert panel s scepticism about the assumptions made generally these were considered not very plausible subjected to disagreement and to a large extent inspired by contextual factors such criticism indicates a limited validity and useability of the calculated nuclear accident externality as a trustworthy sustainability indicator furthermore it is our contention that the externe project could benefit greatly in terms of gaining public trust from employing highly visible procedures of extended peer review such as the pedigree assessment applied to our specific case of the external costs of a potential large scale nuclear accident

diversity and ignorance in electricity supply investment addressing the solution rather than the problem the need for diversity has been cited as a rationale for important recent investment decisions in the uk electricity supply sector it is invoked as the principal argument for continuing major government intervention yet there exists no formal analytical basis for the concept why is diversity good what is meant by diversification what is it that must be diversified what trade off should be struck between diversity and other measures of performance the resulting ambiguity causes confusion and is vulnerable to special pleading despite this this paper argues that diversification offers a superior alternative to probabilistic approaches towards uncertainty and ignorance in electricity supply investments and proposes a formal analytical approach a quantitative index of diversity is borrowed from information theory and used to derive a value for the government s implicit willingness to pay for diversity in the uk electricity supply mix this is then applied in a pilot exercise to the problem of optimizing the diversity and financial performance of the supply portfolio although provisional the results are relevant to the government s forthcoming nuclear review particularly in assessing the relative levels of support for nuclear power and renewable energy

the columbian exchange a history of disease food and ideas this paper provides an overview of the long term impacts of the columbian exchange that is the exchange of diseases ideas food crops technologies populations and cultures between the new world and the old world after christopher columbus voyage to the americas in 1492 we focus on the aspects of the exchange that have been most neglected by economic studies namely the transfer of diseases food crops and knowledge between the two worlds we pay particular attention to the effects of the exchange on the old world

cooperative ties and the impact of external factors upon innovation in an industrial district some insights from the north staffordshire table and giftware sector tomlinson p r and jackson i cooperative ties and the impact of external factors upon innovation in an industrial district some insights from the north staffordshire table and giftware sector regional studies drawing upon a sample of 118 firms this paper explores the impact of cooperative ties and the role of institutions upon innovation in the uk ceramic table and giftware sector it is found that locational economies are important for aiding innovation with firms in the north staffordshire industrial district holding an inherent advantage vis a vis non district firms however while close vertical ties enhance innovation recent concerns have arisen that horizontal collaboration between district and asian firms is having a detrimental impact upon innovative capacity within the district finally institutions also appear to play an important role in facilitating the innovation process tomlinson p r and jackson i 118

post the washington consensus economic governance and industrial strategies for the twenty first century recent events in the global economy have led to a growing dissatisfaction with the neo liberal economic paradigm that has dominated economic policy over the last 30 years and the increasing concentration of and abuse of economic power within the corporate sector that has ensued however amidst calls for a new approach to economic management there is a danger that a new policy framework may overlook underlying economic governance structures that exist and may evolve within the economy such oversight has implications for development this paper seeks to demonstrate that the long run efficacy of industrial strategy depends upon designing appropriate economic governance structures that serve the wider public interest it does so by exploring past experiences of industrial strategy drawing lessons from the usa the uk japan the third italy and the emerging and transition economies we also offer some suggestions for ways forward

external costs of energy do the answers match the questions looking back at 10 years of externe abstract while the claim for getting prices right is quite popular in conceptual policy papers the implementation of appropriate internalisation strategies is still hampered by a lack of reliable external cost data great expectations were set into the externe project a major research programme launched by the european commission at the beginning of the 1990s to provide a scientific basis for the quantification of energy related externalities and to give guidance supporting the design of internalisation measures after more than a decade of research the externe label became a well recognised standard source for external cost data looking back into the externe history the paper pursues how emerging new scientific insights and changing background assumptions affected external cost estimates and related recommendations to policy over time based on externe results the usefulness and inherent limitations of external cost estimates for impact categories like climate change or nuclear waste disposal is discussed the paper also gives examples on how external costs in spite of remaining uncertainties are successfully used to support environmental policy

green certificate trading in the netherlands in the prospect of the european electricity market the support system for green electricity in the netherlands has been one of the most complex and complicated systems across europe a voluntary trade of green certificates or green labels was one of the schemes used in the policy models of the 1990s the liberalization of the electricity market has attracted substantial changes in the degree and nature of commitment by energy companies and political authorities for renewable electricity in 2001 a new mechanism for the voluntary trade of green certificates has become operational replacing the green label trade system one terminated in the end of 2000 this paper presents the two systems of green certificates trade developed in the netherlands and discusses their market stimulation potential in the very different economic and industrial circumstances that has surrounded each of them the paper argues for a need to enable a support system that reduces investment risks as much as possible and removes the residual but still strong institutional administrative and social barriers for renewables deployment but before this a clear governmental vision on the role of renewables in current energy supply systems is first needed backed by a coherent policy and sufficient support along the economic dimension of renewables market diffusion

supply chain and logistics issues of bio energy production abstract within the concert of renewable energy technologies bio energy can play a decisive role during the next decades when smartly designed and applied under favorable conditions in this respect efficient and effective supply chain and logistics management represent one key parameter this paper presents a literature review of articles published in english speaking peer reviewed journals from 2000 to 2009 which cover the interface of bio energy production and issues of logistics and supply chain management first the articles are assessed according to descriptive criteria such as journal year of publication and research design applied then issues and challenges of designing and operating biomass chains that secure stable and competitively priced feedstock supply for bio energy plants have been classified 1 into the operations harvesting and collection storage transport and pre treatment techniques as well as 2 into overall supply system design although biomass supply chains for energy use are manifold in terms of size design and functioning most relevant issues regarding supply chain management and logistics of bio energy production are identified the findings are discussed against the backdrop of bio energy as sustainable renewable energy option

sustainability guided promotion of renewable electricity generation in recent years the threat of global climate change high fuel import dependence and rapidly rising electricity demand levels have intensified the quest for more sustainable energy systems this in turn has increased the need for policy makers to promote electricity generation from renewable energy sources guaranteed prices coupled with a buy back obligation for electricity fed into the grid is a popular renewables promotion instrument especially in europe more recently driven mainly by electricity market liberalisation efforts quota targets for the share of renewables in combination with tradable green certificates tgc have received considerable attention tgc offer a greater theoretical potential for economic efficiency gains due to price competition and the greater flexibility assigned to the obliged parties while guaranteed prices and tgc schemes support the operation of renewable energy technology systems bidding schemes for renewable energy generation capacity are used to raise economic efficiency on the plant construction side all of these policy instruments suffer from the shortcoming that they do not explicitly account for the often widely varying environmental social and economic impacts of the technologies concerned in this paper we propose a methodology for the design of renewable energy policy instruments that is based on integrated assessment in particular we argue that using participatory multicriteria evaluation as part of the design of renewable energy promotion policies would make it possible 1 to differentiate the level of promotion in a systematic and transparent manner according to their socio ecological economic impact and 2 to explicitly account for the preferences of stakeholders a further problem of existing tgc and bidding schemes is that diversity of supply could be severely diminished if few low cost technologies were allowed to dominate the renewable energy market to ensure a certain diversity of technologies our scheme suggests the use of different technology bands for technologies that are relatively homogeneous with respect to their maturity

innovation and inter firm linkages new implications for policy abstract this article discusses the implications for competition innovation and learning of different forms of inter firm linkage ways to govern them different generic systems of innovation and government policy it employs a transformed theory of transactions that can deal with innovation and learning and brings in trust next to opportunism nooteboom b 1996a trust opportunism and governance a process and control model organization studies 17 6 985 1010 nooteboom b 1996b towards a learning based model of transactions in groenewegen j ed tce and beyond kluwer deventer pp 327 349 nooteboom b 1999a inter firm alliances analysis and design routledge london while trust has its limits and should not be blind it can lower transaction costs for learning and innovation it takes the resource competence perspective supported by a theory of knowledge developed in earlier publications according to this theory people perceive interpret and evaluate the world according to cognitive categories that have developed in interaction with the physical and social environment as a result people will perceive understand and evaluate differently to the extent that they have developed in different environments without interaction nooteboom b 1992 towards a dynamic theory of transactions journal of evolutionary economics 2 281 299 nooteboom 1999a this theory yields the notion of external economy of cognitive scope people and firms need outside sources of cognition and competence to complement their own that is the fundamental reason why inter firm linkages are important especially for innovation in order to produce high added value and novelty by utilizing the opportunities of complementary competencies firms need to make relation specific investments which creates risks of hold up and spill over building on earlier work the article identifies different instruments for the control of those risks nooteboom 1996a nooteboom 1996b nooteboom et al 1997 effects of trust and governance on relational risk academy of management journal 40 2 308 338 nooteboom 1999a it identifies two generic kinds of innovation systems in terms of the mix of instruments for relational governance and discusses their merits and flaws with respect to quality of products diffusion incremental and radical innovation one is close to practices in continental europe and japan another is close to anglo american practice there is a certain tendency for the first to gravitate to the second the article warns about the dangers involved and explores a possible third way

sustainable and integrated bioenergy assessment for latin america caribbean and africa sibyl lacaf the path from feasibility to acceptability abstract uncertainties in evaluating bioenergy projects have lead policymakers to adopt a restrictive approach or even refuse to evaluate projects when the available information is limited or a clear perception of its benefits and impact is lacking indeed despite its potential advantages a bioenergy system poses several conceptual and operational challenges for academic as well as practical scrutiny because the inherent relationship and the intersection of areas related to energy production and agricultural activity requires a deeply integrated assessment the aim of this paper is to review the available works in this field and propose an approach for supporting policymakers in the taking decision process of deploying sustainable bioenergy systems the sibyl lacaf framework provides a comprehensive framework for addressing the inherent complexity of the subject and its sustainability and acceptability as part of the evaluation process with this approach different and complementary evaluation methods are reviewed and set in a logical and sequential structure to draw a group of indicators used for assessing a given project with the help of a strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats swot matrix when acceptability is identified as an issue a public consultation and communication pc c scheme can complement this process the suggested application for mozambique indicate that an acceptable outcome is possible even when considering the data requirements and constraints of developing countries thus the potential of this integrated approach outweighs such limitations

lessons from first generation biofuels and implications for the sustainability appraisal of second generation biofuels the emergence of second generation 2g biofuels is widely seen as a sustainable response to the increasing controversy surrounding the first generation 1g yet sustainability credentials of 2g biofuels are also being questioned drawing on work in science and technology studies we argue that controversies help focus attention on key often value related questions that need to be posed to address broader societal concerns this paper examines lessons drawn from the 1g controversy to assess implications for the sustainability appraisal of 2g biofuels we present an overview of key 1g sustainability challenges assess their relevance for 2g and highlight the challenges for policy in managing the transition we address limitations of existing sustainability assessments by exploring where challenges might emerge across the whole system of bioenergy and the wider context of the social system in which bioenergy research and policy are done key lessons arising from 1g are potentially relevant to the sustainability appraisal of 2g biofuels depending on the particular circumstances or conditions under which 2g is introduced we conclude that sustainability challenges commonly categorised as either economic environmental or social are in reality more complexly interconnected so that an artificial separation of these categories is problematic

who co operates for innovation and why an empirical analysis abstract in recent years there has been growing interest in co operative arrangements for innovation with some commentators arguing innovation is no longer the province of individual firms but depends increasingly on collective action this paper examines the response to the uk s version of the second european community innovation survey cis 2 to investigate the patterns of co operation between innovating firms and external partners the analysis shows the relationship between innovation and co operation is not straightforward from a subjective i e firm based perspective it is clear that most firms still develop their new products processes and services without forming formal co operative arrangements for innovation with other organisations however firms that engage in r d and that are attempting to introduce higher level innovations i e new to the market rather than new to the firm innovations are much more likely to engage in co operative arrangements for innovation consequently if an objective i e innovation based perspective is taken which weighs innovations by their significance then it is likely that a significant proportion of high level innovations are developed through co operative arrangements although unfortunately the cis 2 does not indicate the direct significance of these arrangements to the development of the innovations in summary the extent of co operative arrangements for innovation appears to depend on the type of firms being considered and on what is meant by innovation

structuring west germany s energy objectives for this article a comprehensive and politically legitimate list of criteria to evaluate energy systems was constructed from interviews with leading representatives of a broad spectrum of west german society in the interviews we probed the fundamental values of nine political and social organizations including the catholic and lutheran churches the federation of german labour unions the association of german industries and the german nature society a hierarchical representation of value criteria was logically structured for each group separately and then aggregated into a combined value tree the result facilitates communication and constructive compromise promotes the creation of policy options and helps evaluate future energy systems

developing a sustainability framework for the assessment of bioenergy systems the potential for biomass to contribute to energy supply in a low carbon economy is well recognised however for the sector to contribute fully to sustainable development in the uk specific exploitation routes must meet the three sets of criteria usually recognised as representing the tests for sustainability economic viability in the market and fiscal framework within which the supply chain operates environmental performance including but not limited to low carbon dioxide emissions over the complete fuel cycle and social acceptability with the benefits of using biomass recognised as outweighing any negative social impacts this paper describes an approach to developing a methodology to establish a sustainability framework for the assessment of bioenergy systems to provide practical advice for policy makers planners and the bioenergy industry and thus to support policy development and bioenergy deployment at different scales the approach uses multi criteria decision analysis mcda and decision conferencing to explore how such a process is able to integrate and reconcile the interests and concerns of diverse stakeholder groups

modeling of biomass to energy supply chain operations applications challenges and research directions reducing dependency on fossil fuels and mitigating their environmental impacts are among the most promising aspects of utilizing renewable energy sources the availability of various biomass resources has made it an appealing source of renewable energy given the variability of supply and sources of biomass supply chains play an important role in the efficient provisioning of biomass resources for energy production this paper provides a comprehensive review and classification of the excising literature in modeling of biomass supply chain operations while linking them to the wider strategic challenges and issues with the design planning and management of biomass supply chains on that basis we will present an analysis of the existing gaps and the potential future directions for research in modeling of biomass supply chain operations

inter firm collaboration and technology development partnerships within us manufacturing industries the paper examines the conditions under which firms enter into technology development partnerships with customers suppliers and other firms three conceptual approaches to inter firm collaboration are examined namely transactions costs theory resource strategy theories of the firm and network theory drawing upon data collected in a mailed questionnaire survey of us manufacturing establishments in the chemical electronics and instruments industries i assess empirically various determinants of inter firm collaboration in technology development the empirical work suggests that large firms and firms located in major urban centres are more likely to enter into technology development partnerships firms located in a specialized industrial agglomeration do not demonstrate a greater propensity toward entering into technology development partnerships with customers suppliers or other firms cet article cherche a examiner les conditions sous lesquelles les entreprises concluent des partenariats technolo

firm organization industrial structure and technological innovation abstract the formal and informal structures of firms and their external linkages have an important bearing on the rate and direction of innovation this paper explores the properties of different types of firms with respect to the generation of new technology various archetypes are recognized and an effort is made to match organization structure to the type of innovation the framework is relevant to technology and competition policy as it broadens the framework economists use to identify environments that assist innovation

intergenerational equity discounting and the role of cost benefit analysis in evaluating global climate policy when public policies with impacts far into the future are being debated the question inevitably is raised whether cost benefit analysis which discounts future costs and benefits is not biased against future generations and whether if such discounting is appropriate at all a lower rate should be used to avoid such bias the debate on global climate change is no exception this paper sketches and analyses the welfare foundations of cost benefit analysis and from this perspective analyses the role of cost benefit analysis in the climate policy debate particularly with reference to intergenerational effects the paper concludes that the cost benefit criterion cannot provide a definitive basis for deciding whether we should commit to a longer term programme to moderate climate change the issues of intergenerational equity are not that global climate change will significantly lower the gnp of future generations but relate to the possibility of science fiction like changes in the planet that will produce catastrophic effects in the future and the typical way in which the cost benefit problem is posed obscures the basic choices that we should be evaluating

regional economic impacts of biomass based energy service use a comparison across crops and technologies for east styria austria abstract biomass action plans in many european countries seek to expand biomass heat and fuel supply mainly to be supplied by peripheral agricultural regions we develop a two plus ten region energy focused computable general equilibrium cge model that acknowledges land competition in analysing the sub state local regional economic implications of such a strategy embedded within a global context our model is based on a full cost analysis of selected biomass technologies covering a range of agricultural and forestry crops as well as thermal insulation the local regional macroeconomic effects differ significantly across technologies and are governed by factors such as net labour intensity in crop production the high land intensity of agricultural biomass products crowds out conventional agriculture and thus lowers employment and drives up land prices and the consumer price index the regional economic results show that net employment effects are positive for all forestry based biomass energy and also show for which agriculture based biomass systems this is true even when accounting for land competition when regional consumer price development governs regional wages or when the agricultural sector is in strong enough competition to the international market positive employment and welfare impacts vanish fully for agriculture based bio energy

the dynamics of innovation from national systems and mode 2 to a triple helix of university industry government relations abstract the triple helix of university industry government relations is compared with alternative models for explaining the current research system in its social contexts communications and negotiations between institutional partners generate an overlay that increasingly reorganizes the underlying arrangements the institutional layer can be considered as the retention mechanism of a developing system for example the national organization of the system of innovation has historically been important in determining competition reorganizations across industrial sectors and nation states however are induced by new technologies biotechnology ict the consequent transformations can be analyzed in terms of neo evolutionary mechanisms university research may function increasingly as a locus in the laboratory of such knowledge intensive network transitions

integrated assessment of sustainability trade offs and pathways for global bioenergy production framing a novel hybrid approach abstract current controversies and debates on bioenergy production in the areas of greenhouse gases emission reduction food and energy security social exclusion and welfare erosion and ecosystem deterioration attest to the challenges which the bioenergy sector has to overcome to achieve its global production potentials because it is yet an evolving sector the sustainability of bioenergy production in different regions is very elusive experiences show that bioenergy policies in one region can have impacts not only on its own but also on other regions social economic and ecological sustainability it is thus important to assess development pathways for bioenergy to exploit the potential benefits and forestall any unnecessary costs this paper frames a novel hybrid approach for assessing bioenergy potentials for regions with diverging economic social and ecological systems the approach is based on a conceptual framework that takes into account trade offs decisions on sustainability goals and production options in the assessment of bioenergy pathways it combines different empirical techniques for the systematic investigation of trade offs and pathways including fuzzy logic conjoint logit and path analyses to show the relevance and utility of these techniques for the integrated assessment of trade offs and pathways in bioenergy development we illustrated their application using results and data from previous related studies

renewable energy costs potentials barriers conceptual issues renewable energy can become the major energy supply option in low carbon energy economies disruptive transformations in all energy systems are necessary for tapping widely available renewable energy resources organizing the energy transition from non sustainable to renewable energy is often described as the major challenge of the first half of the 21st century technological innovation the economy costs and prices and policies have to be aligned to achieve full renewable energy potentials and barriers impeding that growth need to be removed these issues are also covered by ipcc s special report on renewable energy and climate change to be completed in 2010 this article focuses on the interrelations among the drivers it clarifies definitions of costs and prices and of barriers after reviewing how the third and fourth assessment reports of ipcc cover mitigation potentials and commenting on definitions of renewable energy potentials in the literature we propose a consistent set of potentials of renewable energy supplies

innovation and cooperation in the small firm sector evidence from northern britain freel m s and harrison r t 2006 innovation and cooperation in the small firm sector evidence from northern britain regional studies 40 289 305 over the last 20 years network based models of innovation led economic development have grown increasingly popular to both the polity and the academy in contrast to earlier linear conceptions innovation is viewed as a systemic phenomenon in which interactive learning and cooperative entrepreneurship are fundamental the way that systems and in turn networks are usually defined is by the volume and characteristics of the linkages that bind them together accordingly drawing upon a recent survey of small firms in scotland and northern england 1347 responses the paper is concerned with mapping the extent of small firm innovation related networking and understanding the unique contribution such networks make to the successful introduction of new products and processes importantly it investigated the impact of networking on innovation in both manu

innovation learning and industrial organisation innovation learning and organisation are analysed from a perspective which seeks to integrate evolutionary economics the resource competence view of the firm an extended theory of transaction costs and insights derived from cognitive science firms are subject to selection by competitive forces but they also adapt by organisational learning uncertainty is crucial in this and to deal with it we need a logic of abduction a heuristic to move from present competence to novel competence while surviving in the process such a heuristic is specified and some features are clarified by means of the notion of a script taken from cognitive science the heuristic is applied in an analysis of changes of industrial structure the complementarity of large and small firms the roles of multinational enterprises and industrial districts