identifying roles of international institutions in clean energy technology innovation and diffusion in the developing countries matching barriers with roles of the institutions abstract the development of clean energy technologies is a central issue in climate change negotiation the signatory countries to the united nations convention on climate change agreed to organize the technology executive committee and the climate technology centre and network the objectives of this paper are twofold the first objective is to show a broad landscape of barriers in technology development the paper summarizes the results of key case studies that were conducted to uncover technology specific barriers in technology development these case studies include both technologies for industrial use such as wind bio energy and building energy efficiency and technologies for individual use such as light emitting diodes and photovoltaic panels the case studies also contain technologies at the innovation stage such as integrated gasification combined cycle and carbon capture and storage the second objective of this paper is to highlight and define roles of international institutions in overcoming identified barriers in clean energy technology development in this paper four areas of focus for international institutions are discussed including 1 increasing r d cooperation at the innovation stage 2 facilitation of intellectual property rights 3 supporting finance and 4 enhancing the enabling environment at the diffusion stage

proprietary public finance and economic welfare abstract we develop a positive theory of public finance in which the objective of tax and spending policy is to extract rents for the incumbent ruler the analysis shows how dependence of the incumbent ruler s survival probability on his tax and spending policy can lower the equilibrium tax rate and increase the equilibrium amount of spending on productive public services but only until the minimum credible tax rate which depends on the ruler s endogenous survival probability becomes a binding constraint the central result of the analysis is that if a relatively benevolent tax and spending policy is both necessary and sufficient for a high survival probability then the ruler s equilibrium policy is relatively benevolent

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

truth trust and market transactions what do we know john humphrey and hubert schmitz have recently made an important contribution to the literature on trust and economic transactions between firms unfortunately the evidence that high levels of societal trust contribute significantly to economic growth is far less reliable than they suggest we need more research but research informed by greater conceptual clarity about trust and the institutional arrangements that contribute to trust the framework presented here for conceptualising the various sources of trust should help guide empirical research

functional unpleasantness the evolutionary logic of righteous resentment economics experiments and everyday experience cast doubt on the assumption that people are self interested in divide the dollar ultimatum games participants turn down offers that would make them objectively better off similarly drivers stuck in a traffic jam fume at cars cruising by on the shoulder many stuck drivers would punish the moving ones if they could even at some cost to themselves such strategies appear irrational because they make the punisher worse off than accepting the situation or offer we examine explanations for costly punishment and relax the presumption that punishers themselves prefer cooperation using evolutionary game theory to show how uncooperative punishers can support cooperation

identifying barriers in the diffusion of renewable energy sources abstract rapid diffusion of renewable energy sources res in the electricity power sector is crucial if the eu wants to fulfill its 2050 co2 reduction commitments for this reason identifying and alleviating all barriers that hinder the development of res is necessary to the successful deployment of these technologies this paper discusses the main barriers in the diffusion of wind and photovoltaic pv solar power in the greek electricity sector by drawing on the literature of technological innovation systems and system functions furthermore we provide an explanation of the different diffusion rates between the two technologies inadequate financial resources low grid capacity delays in the issuance of building permits opposition from local communities to the construction of wind farms and the lack of a stable institutional framework are among the most important barriers that inhibit the diffusion of the wind and pv solar power the nature of the barriers identified in this study calls for policy intervention

the effects of regional sizing on growth in this paper a micro founded model dealing with the effects of regional sizing on economic growth is developed departing from bigger sizes reduction involves more efficient public choices because of proximity to individual preferences and needs but also creates the risk of underestimation of the real profitability of public expenditure by local governments due to cross border spillovers and predator behaviors hence the optimal size depends on the relative strength of both effects moreover we show that different institutional arrangements between fiscal tiers involve different results for each possible size using data from the spanish regions during the period 1984 1996 the relationship between productive spending and jurisdiction size is then analyzed

money not morale the impact of desires and beliefs on private investment in photovoltaic citizen participation initiatives abstract a transition towards renewable energy production is one proposed solution as one means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in this regard photovoltaic citizen participation initiatives are a cornerstone in fostering the diffusion of renewables allowing for active citizen engagement this article investigates the drivers behind people s decision to participate in two selected austrian citizen participation initiatives in the field of photovoltaics based on a survey of 870 potential adopters in addition to commonly used indicators variables assessing both people s desires their goals or preferences with respect to energy autonomy environmental protection financial aspects etc and their beliefs how likely they think their participation in a citizen participation initiative in the field of photovoltaics will help them achieve these goals are also included in the analysis the findings show that people s desires are not decisive in deciding on pv participation and that financial beliefs are the main driver behind joining such an initiative this focus on financial gain clearly poses a risk in any attempted transition towards renewable energy production as it indicates that adopters may withdraw from participation as soon as a more attractive investment opportunity becomes available it also indicates that subsidized feed in tariffs are likely to be essential in any long term transition policy

local rulemaking enforcement and compliance in state owned forest commons abstract the literature on rule compliance is divided between those urging greater autonomy for stakeholders in rulemaking processes and those arguing for increased enforcement however recent experimental evidence highlights the potential for synergies between participatory rulemaking and enforcement this paper therefore seeks to build upon these findings to explore the relationship between local rulemaking local monitoring and compliance in field settings the results which draw upon data about the behavior of 93 fuelwood user groups in state owned forest commons in asia africa and latin america suggest that the average group is more likely to comply with rules when local rulemaking is combined with local monitoring however in some contexts it appears that local rulemaking in particular and other institutional arrangements in general may yield similar results

politics and economics in weak and strong states abstract while much research in political economy points out the benefits of limited government political scientists have long emphasized the problems created in many less developed nations by weak states which lack the power to tax and regulate the economy and to withstand the political and social challenges from non state actors i construct a model in which the state apparatus is controlled by a self interested ruler who tries to divert resources for his own consumption but who can also invest in socially productive public goods both weak and strong states create distortions when the state is excessively strong the ruler imposes such high taxes that economic activity is stifled when the state is excessively weak the ruler anticipates that he will not be able to extract rents in the future and underinvests in public goods i show that the same conclusion applies in the analysis of both the economic power of the state i e its ability to raise taxes and its political power i e its ability to remain entrenched from the citizens i also discuss how under certain circumstances a different type of equilibrium which i refer to as consensually strong state equilibrium can emerge whereby the state is politically weak but is allowed to impose high taxes as long as a sufficient fraction of the proceeds are invested in public goods the consensually strong state might best correspond to the state in oecd countries where taxes are high despite significant control by the society over the government

credibility and policy convergence in a two party system with rational voters the traditional approach to modeling political parties behavior based upon the contribution of anthony downs 1957 assumes that the parties unique objective is to win elections thus they maximize their popularity the crucial implication of this assumption for a two party system is that if the two parties have the same information about voters preferences full convergence of policies results from electoral competition this is the crucial implication of the median voter theorem more generally it may be argued that different parties are motivated differently because they represent different constituencies parties may not care only about winning elections per se but also about the quality of the policies resulting from an election in this case the candidates of the two parties view winning an election not only as a goal per se but also as a means of implementing a better policy for their respective constituencies this paper shows that electoral competitions imply dynamic inconsistency if the voters are modeled as rational and forwardlooking agents and parties do not care exclusively about being elected but also about which policy to implement once elected the dynamic inconsistency arises as follows the parties have an incentive to announce convergent platforms to increase their chances of election however if the elected party is not committed to its electoral platform it has an incentive to follow its most preferred policy rather than the policy announced in its platform if voters are rational they account for this incentive thus in general in a one shot electoral game the only timeconsistent equilibrium is one in which no convergence is possible the two parties follow their most preferred policies and the voters rationally expect this outcome full convergence of parties platforms results only as a limiting case when the parties are completely indifferent with respect to the quality of the policies resulting from the election thus these results differ from the existing literature on ideologically motivated politicians for instance donald wittman 1977 1983 randall calvert 1985 which implicitly assumes the possibility of binding commitments to electoral platforms complete or partial policy convergence can be the outcome of political competition if the interaction between the parties and the voters is modeled as an infinitely repeated game in fact if the candidates have concave objective functions the welfare maximizing policy rule implies a complete convergence of parties policies however this cooperative and agreed upon policy may or may not be sustainable as a subgame perfect equilibrium depending on parameter values in particular it depends on the discount rates of the two parties the degree of polarization of their preferences and the relative popu graduate school of industrial administration carnegie mellon university pittsburgh pa 15213 and national bureau of economic research cambridge ma 02138 this paper is based upon a chapter of my unpublished doctoral dissertation at harvard university i am greatly indebted to jeffrey sachs for directing my attention toward these issues and for many conversations i also wish to thank andrew abel dilip abreu olivier blanchard ramon caminal andrew caplin alex cukierman morris fiorina benjamin friedman herschel grossman howard rosenthal and the referees for very useful comments the responsibilitv af anv n mtnkieis af calrirp nfnlv mine the result of policy convergence in a two party system is more general than the median voter theorem for discussions of convergence results not at the median see john ledyard 1984 peter coughlin 1984 coughlin and shmuel nitzan 1981 melvin hinich 1977 for earlier work on spatial competition see richard mckelvey 1975 hinich ledyard and peter ordeshook 1972 1973 and the references quoted therein the present paper focuses on the result of convergence rather than on the median voter theorem per se

introduction a symposium on the predatory state economists have adopted two broad perspectives on the state contractual i e provider of public goods and services and predatory coercive and extractive by a predatory state we mean a state that promotes the private interests of dominant groups within the state such as politicians the army and bureaucrats or influential private groups with strong lobbying powers neo institutional economists support an extended version of the contractual perspective in which the state is not simply a benevolent dictator but may itself be composed of predators however it considers predation as only a means to promote protection by contrast a predatory vision of the state argues that while protection and predation are two faces of the same coin a predatory state protects only to promote its predation on the private sector this symposium explores how a predatory approach to the state can shed light on all types of state from liberal democratic to authoritarian and failed ones both in the past and present

nation states vs united empire effects of political competition on economic growth is political fragmentation i e nation states more favorable to economic growth than political unification i e a united empire this study develops an endogenous growth model to analyze the growth effects of fragmentation versus unification under unification the economy is vulnerable to excessive leviathan taxation and possibly subject to the costs of unifying heterogeneous populations under fragmentation the competing rulers are constrained in taxation but spend excessively on military defense if capital mobility is above below a threshold then fragmentation unification would favor growth and this threshold is increasing in the degree of defense competition and decreasing in the costs of heterogeneity

corruption in a model of growth political reputation competition and shocks the article tries to incorporate political corruption toplevel corruption into economic growth analysis we propose amicroeconomic framework an agent of the public sector who wantsto optimize his cash flow resulting from budget misappropriations will be highly sensitive to the instability related to his office the natural equilibrium for the politician will be to fall into a high political instability low growth trap in whichcorruption appears endemic however the control of corruption bysociety will be possible we consider a model in which alternativepoliticians compete with the incumbent politician but benefit from a common political reputation it is shown that this situation leads to dynamic collective reputation which should restrain misappropriationpractices this theoretical framework will be useful in defining a sustainable degree of political competition and inunderstanding the asymmetric effects of extrinsic shocks on thegrowth process

inflation and reputation with generic policy preferences this paper analyzes a reputational equilibrium for inflation under the generic assumption that monetary policy reflects proximate preferences for low expected inflation and positive unexpected inflation the paper stresses the qualitative implication that in a reputational equilibrium the policymaker behaves as if he is concerned about controlling inflation even though he does not have a direct preference for a low actual inflation rate the analysis also shows how the equilibrium inflation rate depends on a decision interval that reflects the underlying real objectives of monetary policy and that determines how fast private agents would react to opportunistic behavior by the policymaker copyright 1990 by ohio state university press

savings and predation we contrast the relationship between predation and the savings of its potential victim in two different simple models in the first model predation is an exogenous event in which savings are expropriated with some fixed probability in such a setting the higher the probability of expropriation the lower are savings in the second model we endow the predatory agent with a decision whether to expropriate or to devote his efforts to some productive endeavor in this second model the endogenous probability of expropriation can easily be positively correlated with savings in addition we show that predation is more damaging to the savings and utility of the victim in the second model jel d91 d74

the distribution of income in the presence of appropriative activities we examine the distribution of income when agents allocate their initial endowments between production and appropriation arms investments influence or rent seeking activities final output depends on the productive contributions of the agents but is divided between them according to their relative contributions in appropriation various possible improvements in an agent s useful productivity reduce the agent s equilibrium share of income but increases in initial endowments increase an agent s share we contrast our results to those that would obtain in the competitive counterpart to our model and discuss its relevance both for history and for the present the results extend to a class of models where distribution is determined between two groups of agents with agents within each group behaving non cooperatively but without exhibiting the free rider problem

a theory of trust based systems of intermediation recent studies have analysed the economic benefits of belonging to high trust networks and the biological foundations of individual trust but much scepticism remains regarding the precise role of trust in economic transactions as well as gaps between micro and macro concepts of trust this paper links individual and institutional trust by modelling the costs associated with accessing market law and trust based intermediation systems and identifies the conditions under which one of the three systems may be more advantageous for rational actors and thus more likely to emerge the discussion concentrates on examples drawn from development policy to illustrate how the three systems operate together and how the failing of the trust system affects the legal and market systems

values and marginal preferences in international business in a recent paper in this journal maseland and van hoorn argued that values surveys tend to conflate values and marginal preferences this assertion has been challenged by brewer and venaik who claim that the wording of most survey items does not suggest that these elicit marginal preferences this commentary responds to their claim and restates our original argument we stress that the distinction between values and marginal preferences is a conceptual rather than a semantic issue conflation of the two is a problem of stated preferences methods in general regardless of question formats what is more we argue that support for the marginal preferences interpretation of values survey data does not come from the specific wording of questions used in surveys but from a growing number of paradoxical relations between values ratings and outcomes in values research implications are twofold first we argue that in order to measure values we need to look at alternatives to the stated preferences approach such as revealed preferences and experienced preferences of which the latter seems most promising second we find that values surveys eliciting marginal preferences are useful for understanding and predicting differences in behavior in a given context

let s do it ourselves individual motivations for investing in renewables at community level renewable energy communities have multiplied the last years in many countries even in contexts that the structural conditions are not favorable the paper analyses individual motivations for partaking in local renewable projects and generating energy jointly in an investment community in order to inform policy debates on how to support such communities to do so we applied a socio psychological approach for studying renewable energy communities in germany and the netherlands our results show that mainly gain such as decreasing energy costs and normative such as addressing climate change considerations played a role in the decision but in the background hedonic motivations were also present such as having fun and integrating in a community each of the groups examined emerged in already existing strong communities where trust was relatively high which seems to be an important condition for the realization of local energy projects consequently we argue that tailor made incentives addressing the different types of motivations can be more effective for the support and spread of renewable energy communities

the role of the business model in capturing value from innovation evidence from xerox corporation s technology spin off companies this paper explores the role of the business model in capturing value from early stage technology a successful business model creates a heuristic logic that connects technical potential with the realization of economic value the business model unlocks latent value from a technology but its logic constrains the subsequent search for new alternative models for other technologies later on an implicit cognitive dimension overlooked in most discourse on the topic we explore the intellectual roots of the concept offer a working definition and show how the xerox corporation arose by employing an effective business model to commercialize a technology rejected by other leading companies of the day we then show the long shadow that this model cast upon xerox s later management of selected spin off companies from xerox parc xerox evaluated the technical potential of these spin offs through its own business model while those spin offs that became successful did so through evolving business models that came to differ substantially from that of xerox the search and learning for an effective business model in failed ventures by contrast were quite limited

what does it take for a roving bandit settle down theory and an illustrative history of the visigoths a roving bandit provides exclusive rivalrous collective goods to members of its in group a stationary bandit further provides inclusive non rivalrous public collective goods to the out group the inclusive goods are an input to the production of the exclusive goods enjoyed by the in group as such the transition from roving to stationary bandit is likely to involve the redefinition of the in group its collective interest and the type of goods that it provides to illustrate these points i employ a case study of the roving visigothic confederacy as it evolved during the fourth and fifth centuries towards the stationary visigothic kingdom the illustration provides insights into why competition amongst roving bandits does not always or often lead to the emergence of a non predatory state

breakthrough without subsidies pv business model experiments in the netherlands despite a lack of steady governmental support for pv in the netherlands over the last decade from 2008 onwards an increased number of initiatives started experimenting with new business models for pv though absolute numbers of installed capacity are still low this is a promising sign in this article we aim to contribute to the understanding of these developments by using insights from both business model and transition studies literature i e strategic niche management by performing a literature study and a series of interviews we found three main types of business models customer owned community shares and third party financial viability of these was found to be heavily dependent on net metering regulations which are surrounded by uncertainty and struggle about its meaning and application also the overall pv niche is maturing we found several local and national organizations lobbying for expansion of the space for pv business model experiments and enabling knowledge sharing and networking between initiatives furthermore a number of regime players is getting involved in the pv niche considering the current economic turndown and related subsidy cuts in many other countries we believe the netherlands with its relatively poor and unstable support system could serve as an example

three is a crowd exploring the potential of crowdfunding for renewable energy in the netherlands there is a huge gap between demand and supply of finance for energy transitions and the financial and economic crisis have had a negative impact in the already meagre funds for transforming the energy system towards renewable sources in this paper we explore whether crowdfunding for renewable energy as a novel sociotechnical practice developed in a niche has the potential to break through and transform both the energy and the financial regimes utilising the multi level perspective theory we empirically investigate crowdfunding platforms linked to renewable electricity projects in the netherlands the main conclusion is that the volume of crowdfunding today is low but the dynamic of these projects holds potential there is limited indication of learning processes until now as well as limited support from regime actors pointing at a low level of niche stabilization and break through potential which may however be related to the early stage of development of crowdfunding in the netherlands on the other hand the heterogeneity of crowdfunders is very promising platforms dedicated to renewable electricity exclusively and with an investment based business model seem to be the most successful we show how governmental market regulation and support mechanisms are shaping crowdfunding as a business model and discuss the implications for other countries

evolutionary origins of the endowment effect evidence from hunter gatherers the endowment effect the tendency to value possessions more than non possessions is a well known departure from rational choice and has been replicated in numerous settings we investigate the universality of the endowment effect its evolutionary signi cance and its dependence on environmental factors we experimentally test for the endowment effect in an isolated and evolutionarily relevant population of hunter gatherers the hadza bushmen of northern tanzania we nd that hadza living in isolated regions do not display the endowment effect while hadza living in a geographic region with increased exposure to modern society and markets do display the endowment effect jel c93 d12 o15 this paper uses a natural experiment in a hunter gatherer population to provide evidence on three questions the universality of a behavioral bias the endowment effect its dependence on cultural factors and its evolutionary signi cance systematic deviations from rational behavior have been extensively documented along with their importance for market outcomes yet evidence on the three questions above is sparse especially for biases in economic decisions first most experiments are conducted in industrialized societies and in particular on college campuses so biases could be the result of shared experiences as opposed to innate features of human behavior second cross cultural experiments typically compare very different groups making it hard to attribute differences in behavior to a speci c cultural factor due to omitted variable bias roth et al 1991 henrich et al 2001 2006 third while many contributions in economics have proposed evolutionary

the politics of ambiguity politicians face a trade off between the policies that maximize their chances of reelection and their most preferred policies or the policies most preferred by the constituency which they represent this paper analyzes this trade off in a dynamic electoral model in which the voters are not fully informed about the preferences of the incumbent first we show that the incumbent follows a policy which is intermediate between the other party s ideal policy and his own ideal policy second we show that often the incumbent has an incentive to choose procedures which make it difficult for voters to pinpoint his preferences with absolute precision thus politicians may prefer to be ambiguous

in search of homo economicus behavioral experiments in 15 small scale societies we can summarize our results as follows first the canonical model is not supported in any society studied second there is considerably more behavioral variability across groups than had been found in previous cross cultural research and the canonical model fails in a wider variety of ways than in previous experiments third group level differences in economic organization and the degree of market integration explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation the greater the level of cooperation in experimental games fourth individual level economic and demographic variables do not explain behavior either within or across groups fifth behavior in the experiments is generally consistent with economic patterns of everyday life in these societies

the power to tax analytical foundations of a fiscal constitution preface 1 taxation in constitutional perspective 2 natural government a model of leviathan 3 constraints on base and rate structure 4 the taxation of commodities 5 taxation through time income taxes capital taxes and public debt 6 money creation and taxation 7 the disposition of public revenues 8 the domain of politics 9 open economy federalism and taxing authority 10 toward authentic tax reform prospects and prescriptions epilogue notes selected bibliography index

institutional influences on business model choice by new ventures in the microgenerated energy industry abstract business model choice plays an important source of competitive advantage for new ventures in the microgeneration sector yet existing literature focuses on strategic management of internal resources as the constraints in this choice process in the energy sector external factors may be at least as influential in shaping these business models this paper examines the roles of politico institutional and socio institutional dynamics in the choice of business models for microgeneration ventures business models have traditionally been viewed as constructions of the internal values strategies and resources of organizations but this perspective overlooks the role that external forces have on these models particularly in more highly institutionalized contexts like microgeneration when these factors are introduced into the existing framework for business model choice the business model based less on firm decision making and more about variables that exist within national innovation systems and political structure local socio technological conditions and cognitive abilities of the entrepreneur and corresponding stakeholders

crowdfunding for renewable and sustainable energy projects an exploratory case study approach abstract global warming has become one of the major challenges faced by the world today use of renewable energy can help mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and environmental pollution however owing to high up front costs and the risk of commercializing renewable energy initiatives compared with conventional technology a barrier exists in securing financing of renewable energy projects this article aims to explore the knowledge of the emerging crowdfunding in general and more specifically to focus on how best to employ this new funding source for renewable and sustainable energy projects firstly incorporation of literature findings is undertaken from two fields crowdfunding and renewable energy development a case study approach is employed to demonstrate how crowdfunding has been applied in renewable projects eight international cases were chosen to represent various crowdfunding models that differ in terms of reward and returns associated with the investment crowdfunding can play a significant role at the start of a renewable and sustainable energy project s life cycle a variety of crowdfunding approaches may be used to finance the early stages of renewable energy development particularly when stakeholders are the beneficiaries or the concerned groups related to environmental protection and sustainability crowdfunding is also suitable for supporting research and development efforts of innovative green technology start ups this article introduces crowdfunding as a new source of green financing and gives evidences for using crowdfunding in renewable and sustainable energy development in comparison with other funding sources

economics and identity this paper considers how identity a person s sense of self affects economic outcomes we incorporate the psychology and sociology of identity into an economic model of behavior in the utility function we propose identity is associated with different social categories and how people in these categories should behave we then construct a simple game theoretic model showing how identity can affect individual interactions the paper adapts these models to gender discrimination in the workplace the economics of poverty and social exclusion and the household division of labor in each case the inclusion of identity substantively changes conclusions of previous economic analysis

free riding and ethnic heterogeneity abstract this paper provides a new explanation for lower levels of public good provision in heterogeneous societies compared to their homogeneous counterparts social sharing norms force rich individuals to share part of their income with their poor relatives but do not apply across different ethnic groups because there is a more extensive redistribution in more homogeneous societies the cost of contributing to the public good is lower the model predicts the level of public goods provision and welfare monotonically decreases with the number of different ethnic groups

on revolt and endogenous economic policy in autocratic regimes numerous empirical studies have investigated the direction of causality between democracy and economic growth as well as the level of income per capita but this empirical work has been paralleled by relatively few theoretical models that endogenize the institutional structure of the regime moreover the different types of autocratic regimes have received relatively little attention this paper develops a game theoretic model of endogenous economic policy in autocratic regimes facing a revolt or an insurgency in this model there are three players the regime the rebels and the masses there are three stages in the game in the first stage the regime determines the level of infrastructure and the tax rate in the second stage the masses allocate their time between production and helping the rebels in the third stage the regime and the rebels simultaneously choose their fighting effort levels in a contest in which the probability of survival of the regime is determined it is found that autocratic regimes facing a revolt endogenously sort themselves into tinpot regimes that maximize their consumption at the cost of their survival and weak and strong totalitarian regimes that maximize their probability of survival at the expense of their consumption empirical implications of the model are derived and the relevance of the model to public policy is discussed

social preferences in the lab a comparison of students and a representative population we report from a lab experiment conducted with a sample of participants that is nationally representative for the adult population in norway and two student samples economics students and non economics students the participants make choices both in a dictator game a non strategic environment and in a generalized trust game a strategic environment we find that the representative sample differs fundamentally from the student samples both in the relative importance assigned to different moral motives efficiency equity and reciprocity and in the level of selfish behavior it is also interesting to note that the gender effects observed in the student samples do not correspond to the gender effects observed in representative sample finally whereas economics students behave less pro socially than non economics students the two student groups are similar in the relative importance they assign to different moral motives

modelling the effectiveness of climate policies how important is loss aversion by consumers abstracts reliable decarbonisation policies can only be developed with a thorough understanding of how consumers choose between energy technologies current energy models assume optimal consumer decisions which may result in expectations of the effectiveness of climate policies that are far too optimistic prospect theory on the other hand aims to model real life choices based on empirical observations that losses have a relatively larger influence on decisions than gains relative to a reference point here we show for the first time how loss aversion can be included into a global energy model with high spatial resolution using heating technology uptake as a case study we simulate the future heating technology diffusion for 59 world regions covering the globe with and without the consideration of loss aversion we find that ignoring the implications of loss aversion overestimates the market uptake of renewables in individual countries as well as on the global level as a consequence loss aversion results in higher projected co2 emissions by households and the need for much stronger policy instruments for achieving decarbonisation targets in the case of residential heating a carbon tax of 200 tco2 is projected to reduce overall emission levels to a similar extent than a carbon tax of 100 tco2 without the consideration of loss aversion even for similar degrees of decarbonisation accounting for loss aversion implies substantial changes in the underlying technology composition technology choices become subject to a conservative shift towards low carbon technologies which are relatively less efficient but already more established in local markets

why did pre modern states adopt big god religions over the past two millennia successful pre modern states in eurasia adopted and cultivated big god religions that emphasize i the ruler s legitimacy as divinely ordained and ii a morality adapted for large scale societies that can have positive economic effects we make sense of that development by building on previous research that has conceptualized pre modern states as maximizing the ruler s profit we model the interaction of rulers and subjects who have both material and psychological payoffs the latter emanating from religious identity overall religion reduces the cost of controlling subjects through the threat of violence increases production increases tax revenue and reduces banditry a big god ruler who also is a believer has stronger incentives to invest in expanding the number of believers and the intensity of belief as well as investing in state capacity furthermore such investments often are complementary mutually reinforcing one another thus leading to an evolutionary advantage for rulers that adopted big god religions

endogenous authoritarian property rights abstract taxation and state enforcement of property rights share many common resources both are involved in determining the revenue of the state due to these interactions taxation and property rights enforcement of a proprietary state are complementary any change in the administrative capacity of the state that increases the taxation rate also increases the level of property rights enforcement and vice versa the capacity and incentive of the proprietary state to tax are also essentially the capacity and incentive to enforce property rights extra enforcement powers of the proprietary state might therefore increase rather than decrease production

where do social preferences come from where do preferences for fairness come from we use a unique field setting to test for a spillover of sharing norms from the workplace to a laboratory experiment fishermen working in teams receive random income shocks catching fish that they must regularly divide among themselves we demonstrate a clear correlation between sharing norms in the field and sharing norms in the lab furthermore the spillover effect is stronger for fishermen who have been exposed to a sharing norm for longer suggesting that our findings are not driven by selection effects our results are consistent with the hypothesis that work environments shape social preferences

introduction to the economics of religion after a very long hiatus economists have begun again to study the relationship between economics and religion this article seeks to summarize and evaluate the principal themes and empirical findings that have appeared in some 200 recent papers on the economics of religion although some of the research concerns the economic consequences of religiosity most applies standard economic theory to the study of individual religious activity the characteristics of religious groups and the impact of regulation and competition on religious markets

a positive theory of the predatory state while the distinction between public and private goods is essential in developing a normative theory of non predatory states the focus of this article is on a positive theory of predatory states since the predatory relationship between the state and its subjects depends on the power of the state to grab or to appropriate coercively and the subject s ability to escape or hide the boundaries of the state are decided by the nature of the assets that can be taken more or less easily accordingly i will introduce a new distinction between captive and fugitive assets that positively captures the frontiers of a state space the us railroading in the nineteenth century provides an illustration regarding the explanatory power of an asset appropriating perspective of the state compared to a public goods approach

a note on the theory and measurement of trust in explaining differences in economic growth this paper takes issue with the trend to attribute differences in economic growth rates to differences in interpersonal trust i discuss the world values survey wvs measure that is used to operationalise trust at the macro level i hypothesise that there is a mismatch between the theoretical argument and the empirical operationalisation of trust instead of measuring trust the wvs measure may instead proxy the well functioning of institutions i provide circumstantial evidence for this thesis by a principal components analysis of trust and institutions and a robustness test of zak and knack s 2001 trust and growth economic journal vol 111 295 321 seminal study on trust and economic growth

causes of noncompliance with international law a field experiment on anonymous incorporation using two field experiments we probe the efficacy of international rules mandating that incorporation services establish their customers true identities the standards were designed to prevent anonymous shell corporations central to money laundering corruption and other crimes posing as consultants seeking confidential incorporation we randomly assigned six experimental conditions in emails varying information about monetary reward international and domestic law and customer risk to 1 793 incorporation services in 177 countries and 1 722 u s firms firms in tax havens obey the rules significantly more often than in oecd countries whereas services in poor nations sometimes prove more compliant than those in rich countries only the risk of terrorism and specter of the internal revenue service decrease offers for anonymous incorporation but they also lower compliance offers to pay a premium reduce compliance the risk of corruption decreases response rates but alarmingly also decreases compliance rates raising international law has no significant effect

a framework for mapping and comparing behavioural theories in models of social ecological systems formal models are commonly used in natural resource management nrm to study human environment interactions and inform policy making in the majority of applications human behaviour is represented by the rational actor model despite growing empirical evidence of its shortcomings in nrm contexts while the importance of accounting for the complexity of human behaviour is increasingly recognized its integration into formal models remains a major challenge the challenges are multiple i there exist many theories scattered across the social sciences ii most theories cover only a certain aspect of decision making iii they vary in their degree of formalization iv causal mechanisms are often not specified we provide a framework mohub modelling human behavior to facilitate a broader inclusion of theories on human decision making in formal nrm models it serves as a tool and common language to describe compare and communicate alternative theories in doing so we not only enhance understanding of commonalities and differences between theories but take a first step towards tackling the challenges mentioned above this approach may enable modellers to find and formalize relevant theories and be more explicit and inclusive about theories of human decision making in the analysis of social ecological systems

dictators development and the virtue of political instability a large body of literature stresses the benefits of regime stability for economic growth in poor countries this view however discounts the gains from threats to regime security when populations living under dictatorial regimes cannot benefit from the disciplining of political competition available to voters in democracies this paper applies a model of economic growth to study the sources of the differences in economic performance and repression policy among dictatorships as well as the parallel in dictatorial regimes of the benefits achieved through political competition in democracies threats to the security of dictatorial regimes are shown to be a means of benefiting the population through the responses of the regime

kleptocracy and divide and rule a model of personal rule many developing countries have suffered under the personal rule of kleptocrats who implement highly inefe cient economic policies expropriate the wealth of their citizens and use the proceeds for their own glorie cation or consumption we argue that the success of kleptocrats rests in part on their ability to use a divide and rule strategy made possible by the weakness of institutions in these societies members of society need to cooperate in order to depose a kleptocrat yet such cooperation may be defused by imposing punitive rates of taxation on any citizen who proposes such a move and redistributing the benee ts to those who need to agree to it thus the collective action problem can be intensie ed by threats which remain off the equilibrium path in equilibrium all are exploited and no one challenges the kleptocrat kleptocratic policies are more likely when foreign aid and rents from natural resources provide rulers with substantial resources to buy off opponents when opposition groups are shortsighted when the average productivity in the economy is low and when there is greater inequality between producer groups because more productive groups are more dife cult to buy off jel o12 h00

investment in the absence of property rights the role of incumbency advantages in many situations the individuals who can generate some output must enter a contest for appropriating this output this paper analyses the investment incentives of such agents and the role of incumbency advantages in the contest depending on the advantages an increase in the productivity of the investment can decrease or increase the amount of investment the results are applied to autocrats investment behavior and job specific investment in organizations

is competition good for trust cross country evidence using micro data abstract this paper empirically analyzes implications of market competition for generalized trust of about 80 000 individuals in about 60 countries we find that competition amplifies the trust generating effect of market integration for highly integrated individuals

trust membership in groups and household welfare evidence from kwazulu natal south africa unfortunately these two literatures have remained largely unconnected the group and network literature concludes that participation has important economic benefits even when the stated function of the group is noneconomic in most cases however the mechanisms by which groups and networks achieve this are unclear the determinants of trust and participation in groups literature highlights the importance of income and social homogeneity what remains less understood is whether and how trust can be generated for example via participation in groups this article links the empirical literatures referenced above by exploring the relationship between membership in groups and trust specifically using longitudinal data from kwazulu natal province south africa we examine 1 the importance of trust in the decision to join groups 2 the subsequent ability of groups to generate trust and 3 the effect of group membership and trust on a measure of well being per capita household income in addition we disaggregate groups into financial and nonfinancial and we categorize trust in people by agent or actor therefore we can explore whether trust in different kinds of actors is important for participation in different kinds of groups and whether participation in different kinds of groups is important for generating trust in different kinds of actors excerpt

mobilizing private finance for low carbon innovation a systematic review of barriers and solutions this paper analyses the field of innovation studies regarding barriers to low carbon innovation and consequences for finance investment and divestment and contributes to a more holistic understanding of the underlying mechanisms a combination of technological barriers combined with economic barriers institutional and political barriers contribute to sub optimal low carbon investment all along the innovation cycle policy makers need to take a systemic approach to enable the redirection of diverse private financial sources instruments range from cutting dirty r d subsidies and support for clean technology innovation and diffusion levelling the institutional playing field and making risks of high carbon and low carbon technologies transparent to providing a consistent but adaptive long term transition strategy this would allow financiers to gradually shift their investments away from high carbon mainstream markets and scale low carbon technology niche markets however financiers also need to sharpen their competencies with regard to new clean technologies and markets

seigniorage inflation and reputation abstract this paper derives a reputational equilibrium for inflation in a model in which the sovereign obtains valuable seigniorage by issuing fiat money in exchange for real resources with contemporaneous perception of actual sovereign behavior and immediate adjustment of real cash balances to new information the friedman elasticity solution for maximal seigniorage is a reputational equilibrium more generally the objective of maximal seigniorage produces an equilibrium inflation rate equal either to a generalization of the friedman elasticity solution or to the rate at which the sovereign discounts future seigniorage adjusted for the growth rate whichever is larger the model formalizes the conjecture that inflation rates in excess of the friedman solution are attributable to high discount rates for future seigniorage

comparing drivers barriers and opportunities of business models for renewable energies a review abstract this article systematically reviews the emerging field of research on business models for renewable energies differentiating between developing and industrialized countries the key findings on developing countries are as follows first there is a lack of quantitative data second opportunities are driven primarily by unfulfilled basic needs and micro finance whereas corruption and weak electricity grids are the main barriers and third business models should be replicable the key findings on industrialized countries are as follows first opportunities are driven primarily by climate change mitigation and energy efficiency improvements second stuck thought patterns and high costs of energy storage are important barriers and third cooperation is a key in future business models to handle increasing complexity this review reveals implications for researchers and policy makers promising avenues for future research are the analysis of intermodal business models and opportunities concerning energy self supply and renewable district heating policy makers are advised to design legal frameworks that account for the global nature of the renewable energy challenge and are simultaneously adapted to regional disparities