vertical integration and right of first refusal abstract we consider a partially integrated industry and examine the effects of contracts with a right of first refusal whereby the vertically integrated firm has the option to match a quote from an independent supplier to supply an independent downstream firm

an analysis of policy initiatives to promote strategic research partnerships strategic research partnerships srps have become a salient feature of the us national innovation system we provide an overview of srps and examine the antecedents and consequences of centerpiece legislation designed to stimulate the formation of srps the national cooperative research act ncra of 1984 ncra allows firms to disclose their research joint ventures rjvs to the department of justice which enabled them to significantly reduce their exposure to antitrust litigation we estimate an econometric model of trends in rjv filings and find that as intended by the legislation the propensity of firms to engage in rjvs is sensitive to changes in the global competitiveness of us high technology industries more importantly our results suggest that the establishment of the commerce department s advanced technology program which provides financial support to firms that engage in collaborative research projects induced firms to engage in additional privately financed rjvs this is a spillover mechanism that warrants further attention as national innovation systems evolve

an assessment of the current structure of food demand in urban china we evaluate the current structure of food demand in urban china by using household expenditure survey data from five provinces two complementary analyses are undertaken first an aggregate analysis based on a fractional logit model is used to examine how households allocate food expenditures across the food at home fah and food away from home fafh categories this is followed by a disaggregated analysis of how households allocated their fah expenditures across 12 commodity categories a quadratic almost ideal demand system quaids is used we find evidence of significant food purchase substitution and complementarity

the innovation impact of the eu emission trading system findings of company case studies in the german power sector abstract this paper provides a detailed analysis of how the european emission trading system eu ets as the core climate policy instrument of the european union has impacted innovation towards this end we investigate the impact of the eu ets on research development and demonstration rd d adoption and organizational change in doing so we pay particular attention to the relative influences of context factors policy mix market factors and public acceptance and firm characteristics value chain position technology portfolio size and vision empirically our qualitative analysis is based on multiple case studies with 19 power generators technology providers and project developers in the german power sector which were conducted in 2008 09 we find that the innovation impact of the eu ets has remained limited so far because of the scheme s initial lack of stringency and predictability and the relatively greater importance of context factors additionally the impact varies significantly across technologies firms and innovation dimensions and is most pronounced for rd d on carbon capture technologies and organizational changes our analysis suggests that the eu ets on its own may not provide sufficient incentives for fundamental changes in corporate innovation activities at a level which ensures political long term targets can be achieved

vertical integration market foreclosure and consumer welfare in the cable television industry i examine the effects of vertical integration between programming and distribution in the cable television industry i assess the effects of ownership structure on program offerings prices and subscriptions and i compare consumer welfare across integrated and unintegrated markets the results of this analysis suggest two general conclusions first integrated operators tend to exclude rival program services suggesting that certain program services cannot gain access to the distribution networks of vertically integrated cable system operators second vertical integration does not harm and may actually benefit consumers because of the associated efficiency gains

vertical organization of production and firm growth this paper empirically explores if different vertical organizational forms i e vertical integration versus dis integration give rise to unlike growth behaviors within the same industry an econometric analysis is conducted in a sample of around 500 italian machine tool mt builders for the period 1998 2007 implementing instrumental variables to control for the endogeneity of the organizational form in the relation ceteris paribus vertically integrated firms result to be characterized by a less dispersed distribution of growth rates than their dis integrated counterparts several concurring factors such as adjustment costs organizational slacks and a better management of fluctuations in the markets of intermediate and final products may explain the more a stablea growth profile of vertically integrated firms by means of analyzing how different organizational forms map into the distribution of output growth rates this work provides insight into the firm dynamics in a mature industry in which both vertically integrated and dis integrated firms coexist

firm incentives to promote technological change in pollution control reply abstract the process of technological change in pollution control is broken into three basic steps innovation diffusion and optimal agency response firm incentives to promote these steps are then examined under five regulatory regimes direct controls emission subsidies emission taxes free marketable permits and auctioned marketable permits on a relative basis emission taxes and auctioned permits provide the highest firm incentives to promote technological change at times free permits generate lower incentives direct controls which are common regulatory tools usually provide the lowest relative firm incentives to promote technological change

evaluating prior beliefs in a demand system the case of meat demand in canada an almost ideal demand system for meats is estimated using canadian data a bayesian approach is used to impose inequality restrictions on substitution elasticities via monte carlo integration and importance sampling in order to conform with prior beliefs about curvature and monotonicity restrictions and substitution relationships results are more consistent with the concavity and monotonicity restrictions from demand theory than with the added restriction that all meats are substitutes

household food demand in rural china this article explores rural household food consumption behaviour in china using a large household data set from jilin province data are classified into four main food groups grain vegetable products animal products and other foods a household food demand system incorporating four household characteristics is estimated using an la aids model assuming a three stage budgeting procedure expenditure elasticities for a range of food groups are estimated with a particular focus on animal products the inclusion of household characteristics did not have a big impact on the elasticity values in any of the three stages of the budgeting process the total expenditure elasticity for grain stage ii was 0 64 suggesting substantial future growth in household demand for fine grains such as rice and wheat as per capita incomes continue to grow in rural areas the highest conditional and total expenditure elasticity values were for the animal products stage ii group 1 22 and 0 76 respectively within this

the role of policy instruments in the innovation and diffusion of environmentally friendlier technologies popular claims versus case study experiences abstract moving towards sustainability will require that new environmentally friendlier technologies are developed and widely adopted policy instruments that promote eco efficiency are therefore necessary some claims frequently made in the literature on the relationship between policy instruments and technological development are examined the claims concern regulations environmental taxation and funding of research and development the claims are explored on the basis of empirical evidence from two sectors the pulp and paper industry and the marine engine industry little support was found for some of the claims in some cases even contradictory findings and for some claims the findings differed between the sectors and even within a sector depending on the issue

measurement of vertical integration an index of vertical integration is constructed as a tool to examine how the average level of vertical integration has changed over time the hypothesis that if vertical integration can lower costs or reduce risks more firms will integrate vertically is subjected to an empirical test using the vertical industry connection index a randem sample of firms is selected from the compusat data base the results support the contention that vertical integration has increased in contrast with laffer s findings 17 references 10 figures 3 tables

determinants of environmental investments testing the structural model abstract the main purpose of this study is to provide the needed additional quantitative evidence regarding the introduction of environmental technologies and to increase the possibility for generalization and thus policy application of conclusions to achieve that purpose a conceptual model is developed and then tested on a large database of firms from various industries with the use of structural equation modeling the results show that policy measures past environmental investments the importance of environmental technologies for customers and the firm performance have a positive effect on environmental investments furthermore the results show that policy measures are a second order three factor construct

vertical integration and firm boundaries the evidence since ronald h coase s 1937 seminal paper a rich set of theories has been developed that deal with firm boundaries in vertical or input output structures in the last twenty five years empirical evidence that can shed light on those theories also has been accumulating we review the findings of empirical studies that have addressed two main interrelated questions first what types of transactions are best brought within the firm and second what are the consequences of vertical integration decisions for economic outcomes such as prices quantities investment and profits throughout we highlight areas of potential cross fertilization and promising areas for future work

the transition to chlorine free pulp revisited nordic heterogeneity in environmental regulation and r d collaboration the purpose of this paper is to analyze the development paths leading to the transition to cleaner bleaching technologies in the pulp industry it devotes particular attention to the key features o

success factors for environmentally sustainable product innovation a systematic literature review the growing awareness regarding environmental sustainability has fully reached business reality consumers and companies alike are looking for alternatives to mitigate pressing environmental demands resulting from continuous population and economic growth on the other hand companies must deal with an increasingly competitive scenario where innovation is regarded as a survival need in most markets it is thus clear that systematic academic research is paramount to guide companies to succeed in environmentally sustainable product innovation in this context this paper i consolidate extant research and aggregate findings of different studies on environmentally sustainable product innovation through an interpretative framework of published literature on the topic and ii map critical success factors that drive the success of product innovation developed in this new logic of production and consumption to achieve these objectives a systematic literature review on environmentally sustainable product innovation was conducted results show that there are four main critical success factors for environmentally sustainable product innovation market law and regulation knowledge interfunctional collaboration innovation oriented learning and r d investments the factors identified in this research and corresponding variables were subjected to a brief empirical test by professionals the test allowed a preliminary approval of the developed framework and identification of the most important variables within each factor a research agenda based on the state of the art on the topic is also proposed

institutional factors influencing strategic decision making in energy policy a case study of wind energy in france and quebec canada abstract this article studies the different institutional factors that influence a strategic wind energy decision making process through a comparative transnational study of quebec canada and france research confirms that political choices are dynamic and vary with a change in the wind energy context the balance of power between pressure groups supranational influences energy evaluation approaches and social acceptance until the 90 s an initially unfavorable national energy context combined with a neocorporatist culture as defined by szarka 2004 1 limited the place of wind energy in both jurisdictions in the 2000 s a political window opened when the private sector penetrated the market with the deregulation of the electricity sector exogenous pressure from the european union in france endogenous pressure from social actions in quebec and a more favorable energy context in both cases however this political window was short lived due to social acceptance issues in quebec political will was stronger until 2013 now the social controversy surrounding wind energy has shifted from the local to the national level projects are better accepted locally because of local financial involvement but an anticipated electricity surplus questions the relevance of new energy projects in france political support depends on the government in power between 2005 and 2013 the reduction in annual wind power installations from 1246 mw to 621 mw was due to the major influence of the anti wind lobby on a right wing government after 2013 the left wing government s arrival coincided with a phasing out of several regulatory and financial uncertainties today both jurisdictions are at a crossroads and the future energy mix will depend on the relative influence of the institutional components identified in our opinion key solutions to more sustainable political choices are conditioned by an improvement in the way projects and policies plans and programs are assessed

corporate growth and industrial dynamics evidence from french manufacturing this work explores basic properties of the size and growth rates distributions of firms at the aggregate and disaggregate levels using an extensive dataset on french manufacturing firms we investigate which properties of firm size distributions and growth dynamics characterize the aggregate dynamics and are at the same time robust under disaggregation our analysis is based on non linear robust regression methods which have never been applied before to this kind of data the growth rates distributions we observe are well described by a subbotin distribution with a shape parameter significantly lower than 1 suggesting a noticeable departure from the laplace behavior reported in previous works on italian and us data at the same time the variance of growth rates depends negatively on size and the relationship does not seem to be linear with larger firms possibly displaying lower variability in their growth dynamics at the disaggregate level we observe significant heterogeneity in the firm size distributions across sectors while the shape of the sectoral growth rates density displays a surprising degree of homogeneity

china s food economy to the twenty first century supply demand and trade this paper accounts for the structural changes now taking place in china and suggests that china is not likely to become either an enormous importer or exporter of grain ultimately though china s grain balances will depend on decisions made by chinese policymakers rather than natural resource constraints p v this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

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

gibrat s law and diversification this article presents an analysis of the growth patterns of the worldwide top 200 firms in the pharmaceutical industry a test of the gibrat s law of proportionate effect is performed and we find in line with previous literature a violation concerning the variance of growth using disaggregated data on sub markets we are however able to show that this violation can be completely accounted for by a diversification effect namely a scale relation between the number of sub markets in which a firm is active and its size to interpret these findings we propose a stochastic branching model of firm diversification consistent with a notion of cumulative corporate competences

vertical integration and efficiency an application to the italian machine tool industry this paper analyzes the relationship between firm efficiency and vertical integration in the italian machine tool mt industry the link may really be the result of a two way causality the effect may run from productive efficiency to the type of vertical organization i e vertical integration or outsourcing as a self selection mechanism or an effect from the organizational mode to the firm s performance may also be at work this relationship is empirically investigated in a novel panel dataset comprising about 500 italian mt builders implementing two equations and instrumental variables for the two directions of causality the evidence clearly indicates the self selection mechanism of the most efficient firms in vertically integrated structures while an effect from the organizational mode to the firm s efficiency is not supported

the role of linkages in firm performance evidence from southern italy abstract this paper estimates the probability of success of post entry performance of new firms using survey data from a group of southern italian small firms several factors involving inter firm linkages contribute to success especially production for order and subcontracting the empirical investigation supports hirschman s idea on the industrialization process and positive assessments of the downsizing phenomenon in italy

economic incentives for environmental protection integrating theory and practice for decades economists have been extolling the virtues of market based or economic incentive approaches to environmental protection some 70 years ago arthur cecil pigou 1920 suggested corrective taxes to discourage activities that generate externalities a half century later j dales 1968 showed how the introduction of transferable property rights could work to promote environmental protection at lower aggregate cost than conventional standards from these two seminal ideas corrective taxes and transferable property rights a substantial body of research has developed both environmental taxes and marketable permits are coming of age in the policy arena examples include the introduction of marketable permits in the united states to control acid rain the use of changes in europe to limit air and water pollution and the employment of deposit refund schemes for products ranging from beverage containers to batteries the introduction of these tools on a large scale provides a unique opportunity to extend the frontiers of knowledge this essay strives to identify prominent issues that merit investigation 8 refs

dynamic incentives of environmental regulations the effects of alternative policy instruments on technology diffusion abstract we develop a framework for comparing empirically the effects of alternative environmental policy instruments on the diffusion of new technology market based and command and control approaches can he quantitatively compared by estimating the economic penalty that firms through their actions reveal to be associated with violation of standards in the context of concerns about global climate change we empirically examine the likely effects of pigouvian taxes technology adoption subsidies and technology standards we employ state level data on the diffusion of thermal insulation in new home construction comparing the effects of energy prices insulation cost and building codes

disruption disintegration and the dissipation of differentiability this paper proposes a deductively derived model to help managers who preside over decisions to integrate or outsource to assess ex ante whether when and why it might be strategically and competitively important to develop internal capabilities to perform certain activities in house and when it would be sensible and safe to outsource elements of value added among the paper s conclusions are that the competitive advantage from vertical integration is strongest in tiers of the market where customers are under served by the functionality or performance available from products in the market vertical integration tends to be a disadvantage when customers are over served by the functionality available from products in the market vertically integrated firms will therefore often dominate in the most demanding tiers of markets that have grown to substantial size while a horizontally stratified or disintegrated industry structure will often be the dominant business model in the tiers of the market that are less demanding of functionality

subcontracting in italian industry labour division firm growth and the north south divide giunta a nifo a et scalera d subcontracting in italian industry labour division firm growth and the north south divide regional studies the aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of subcontracting on italian manufacturing firms growth in the second half of the 1990s the main results are 1 producing as subcontractors does not penalize firms but can be a positive determinant of growth especially when coupled with the propensity to innovate 2 since a non linear relationship between growth and subcontracting emerges an organizational mode not fully specialized in either subcontracting activity or direct sales may be optimal and 3 the deep dualism of the italian industrial structure is confirmed as southern subcontractors show poorer performances and slower growth giunta a nifo a and scalera d 90 1 2 3

what do firms know what do they produce a new look at the relationship between patenting profiles and patterns of product diversification in this work we analyze the relationship between the patterns of firm diversification if any across product lines and across bodies of innovative knowledge proxied by the patent classes where the firm is present putting it more emphatically we investigate the relationship between what a firm does and what a firm knows using a newly developed dataset matching information on patents and products at the firm level we provide evidence concerning firms technological and product scope their relationships the size scaling and coherence properties of diversification itself our analysis shows that typically firms are much more diversified in terms of products than in terms of technologies with their main products more related to the exploitation of their innovative knowledge the scaling properties show that the number of products and technologies increases log linearly with firm size and the directions of diversification themselves display coherence between neighboring activities also at relatively high degrees of diversification these findings are well in tune with a capability based theory of the firm

public policy as a part of transforming energy systems framing bioenergy in finnish energy policy abstract government interventions have been identified as important for energy systems change because they can either facilitate or hinder transitions toward more sustainable energy systems this article analyses how bioenergy options have been framed in finnish policy strategies and how the framing has changed over time the empirical material includes the content of 15 government programmes and nine national energy climate strategies on the basis of this assessment both the link between bioenergy framings in strategies and the actual transformation of finnish bioenergy systems are explored on the basis of bioenergy framings the development of energy policy can be divided into three phases support for domestic energy sources in 1979 1991 support for wood and industry based bioenergy in 1992 1998 and diversified bioenergy in the context of climate change in 1999 2010 for two decades primarily wood based bioenergy was supported despite alternative technological developments occurring elsewhere after the turn of the millennium the importance of climate policy increased and alternative bioenergy sources were raised on the government policy agenda also resulting in some new policy instruments rather than adopting a visionary outlook to guide system transformation climate and energy policy has strengthened those technological options that have been selected elsewhere if public policies are to enhance the shift toward low carbon sustainable energy systems they would need to be more comprehensive be more consistent over time and emphasise energy use more

demand for cereal grains in asia the effect of urbanization abstract this paper analyzes the effects of urbanization on demand for cereal grains rice wheat and coarse grains in nine asian countries a complete demand system almost ideal demand system in linear form is estimated in two stages based on aggregate time series data from 1960 to 1988 in the high income countries i e japan and south korea urbanization was observed to significantly reduce demand for cereal grains in the lower income countries demand for cereal grains either increased or remained the same with urbanization among cereal grains urbanization has had negative effects on demand for rice and coarse grains but consistently positive effects on demand for wheat only japan and thailand among the countries studied have negative income elasticities of demand for total cereal grains and for rice in particular hence rice remains a necessity and a normal good in most asian countries previous estimates of income elasticities of rice based on time series aggregate data tend to be lower than those based on cross section household level data when urbanization is explicitly specified in the demand model the estimates of income elasticities from time series data turn out to be consistent with those from cross section data

explaining the distribution of firm growth rates empirical analyses on aggregated datasets have revealed a common exponential behavior in the shape of the probability density of corporate growth rates we present clear cut evidence on this topic using disaggregated data we explain the observed regularities proposing a model in which firms ability to take up new business opportunities increases with the number of opportunities already exploited a theoretical result is presented for the limiting case in which the number of firms and opportunities go to infinity moreover using simulations we show that even in a small industry the agreement with asymptotic results is almost complete

vertical integration and dis integration of computer firms a history friendly model of the co evolution of the computer and semiconductor industries in this article we present a history friendly model of the changing vertical scope of computer firms during the evolution of the computer and semiconductor industries the model is history friendly in that it attempts at replicating some basic stylized qualitative features of the evolution of vertical integration on the basis of the causal mechanisms and processes which we believe can explain the history these factors are identified in the coevolution of capabilities the size of markets and the structure of industries in particular the basic assumption is that the principal force behind the patterns of vertical integration and disintegration of computer firms was the differential development of capabilities for designing and producing semiconductors among firms on this basis the changing boundaries of firms are analyzed in the context of dynamic and uncertain technological and market environments characterized by periods of technological revolutions punctuating periods of relative technological stability and smooth technical progress the model illustrates how the patterns of vertical integration and specialization in the computer industry change as a function of the evolving levels and distribution of firms capabilities over time and how they depend on the coevolution of the upstream and downstream sectors specific conditions in each of these markets the size of the external market the magnitude of the technological discontinuities the lock in effects in demand exert critical effects and feedbacks on market structure and on the vertical scope of firms as time goes by copyright 2008 oxford university press

the ambiguity of innovation drivers the adoption of information and communication technologies by public water utilities abstract information and communication technologies have the potential to increase productivity improving efficiency and eventually raising the quality of water services although this potential is recognized great variation exists in the way water utilities adopt information and communication technologies based on literature review and empirical data drawn from the three case studies a municipality in greece an airport in italy and a water utility in the netherlands developed under the eu funded waternomics project the paper highlights how environmental organizational and individual factors explain technology adoption the paper pays particular attention to the idiosyncrasies of the water services sector which influence this process these include include the social and conomic importance of water supply the monopolistic nature of the sector and increased commercialization of public water utilities our cases suggest that drivers of technology adoption appear to be somewhat ambiguous in the water services sector in that they impact adoption in diverse locations differently our cases also suggest is that the prioritization of the factors that determine adoption are dynamic and change over time

lessons learned in france and quebec regarding financial and legal mechanisms to develop renewable energy a hybrid model as an acceptable solution for onshore wind abstract this article shows that the unfavorable context of emergence as well as neo corporatism limited the weight of wind energy in france and quebec and delayed the project development and the wind industry as a whole indeed the level of political will to wind energy development in both jurisdictions is fluctuating and characterized by a lack of continuity in policy or regulatory instruments the efficiency of the pricing mechanisms depends on its political design while the french feed in tariff is inefficient in terms of installed capacity and is deemed too expensive by opponents the first two calls for tenders in quebec fare quite well on that front however they are perceived as unacceptable due to the multinational companies involved and the implantation of large scale wind farms in inhabited areas the third community call for tender while generally better accepted locally is poorly regarded among the cooperative movement and at the national level because of the competition with the municipal sector and higher costs to society in both cases a hybrid pricing model would achieve a better balance between costs to society and local development thus promoting social acceptance through a greater diversity in ownership types and wind farms size

the innovation effects of environmental policy instruments a typical case of the blind men and the elephant abstract in this paper we examine the innovation effects of environmental policy instruments in four literatures theoretical models on incentives for eco innovation econometric studies based on observed data survey analysis based on stated information and technology case studies the aim of this paper is to critically examine the methods and the results we argue that the case studies literature even when its results are specific and difficult to generalise is a necessary source of empirical evidence about policy impacts and the factors responsible for these impacts pointing to issues that are neglected in the theoretical and econometric literature such as the specifics of the innovation context and policy interaction effects the paper states five synthesised findings and makes a plea for multi method analysis one other important synthesised finding is that the influence of market based instruments on innovation such as emission trading and taxes is far weaker than assumed

productivity market selection and corporate growth comparative evidence across us and europe this paper analyses the patterns of market selection in manufacturing industries of france germany uk and usa we first disentangle the contribution to industry level productivity growth of within firm productivity changes and between firm reallocation of shares the evidence corroborates the notion that within firm learning prevails over market selection forces with larger firms driving such innovation and learning processes second we address the strength of selection by exploring to what extent firm growth rates are shaped by relative productivity levels as compared to variation thereof our key finding is that although changes in relative efficiency have a greater impact on growth than relative efficiency levels there is an overall weak relationship between productivity and growth and therefore a weak power of selection forces in all countries the results hold across firms of different size but we also find that selection bites more on smes

contributing to differentiated technology policy making on the promotion of energy efficiency technologies in heavy industrial sector a case study of china abstract promoting energy efficiency technologies eets in heavy industrial sector is a crucial approach for energy conservation worldwide due to the existence of various barriers the diffusion of eets is often slow and is largely influenced by policy incentives insufficient consideration of the heterogeneity of eets makes the one size fits all policy design scheme ineffective and inefficient in practice therefore this paper analyzes the design of differentiated technology policies to accelerate the promotion of eets the analysis is based on technology classification results from a bottom up technology evaluation system technical attributes were qualitatively analyzed and the 130 total technologies were divided into three segments 76 main production process technologies pp 39 process integrated resource and energy recycling technologies rer and 15 pollution control technologies pc then the 115 pp and rer technologies were quantitatively analyzed by calculating benefit cost ratio investment payback time and technical penetration the evaluation results proved that eets had marked differences in economic efficiency and technical maturity with dynamic investment payback time ranging from 0 3 to 11 years and penetrations ranging from 1 to 80 graphing investment payback time on a vertical axis and technical penetration on a horizontal axis the 115 technologies were classified into four quadrants features and policy support demands of those three types of technologies in the four quadrants were discussed and corresponding technology policies were proposed the thorough technical investigations in this study also provided a complete technological database for policy making which was freely offered on the website of china s ministry of industry and information technology

an econometric analysis of rice consumption in the people s republic of china abstract rice is the most important staple food in the people s republic of china prc in many asian countries rice appears to have become an inferior good with income increases leading to declines in per capita consumption as other food products are substituted for rice in this study human rice consumption is analyzed with a model that allows income elasticities to vary with income levels an additional equation accounting for rice disappearance as seed livestock feed industrial uses and exports is also estimated the results of the analysis indicate that rice has become an inferior good in china and per capita consumption is likely to decline in the future population growth and the growing use of rice for other purposes means that total rice disappearance will continue to increase although at a rate that is lower than has historically been the case the predicted changes in rice consumption will create pressures to adjust production and trade patterns for rice as well as other agricultural products

overcoming scarcities through innovation what do technologists do when faced with constraints abstract the question that still divides many debates about sustainability is the possibility of technological substitution of scarce natural resources while there is considerable debate among economists whether technology can mitigate scarcities through development of substitutes there is little actual research on the mechanisms and limitations of this substitution process in this study i seek to build a bridge between scarcity and innovation literatures to study when technologists decide to develop technological substitutes my starting point is the theory of technology as a recombination of existing mental and physical components combining this theory with modern scarcity literature that differentiates between absolute relative and quasi scarcities yields a more nuanced framework for understanding both different types of scarcities and how technologists decide whether or not to develop or adopt technological substitutes this improves our understanding of the possibilities and limitations of scarcity induced innovation i then illustrate the use of this framework with two brief historical case studies about constraint induced innovation i conclude that the mainstream economic practice of assuming that substitution will occur automatically even in cases of absolute scarcity may hide extremely important phenomena from discussion and debate behind a veil of circular reasoning

environmental taxes on fuels and electricity some experiences from the nordic countries in economic theory environment based energy taxation provides a direct financial incentive for environmentally sound economic behaviour in the energy field in practice only a few countries have implemented such taxes unilaterally in the 1990s to be effective environment based energy taxes seem to need international implementation the eu commission has made three proposals in 1992 1995 and 1997 but so far none of them has proceeded in the negotiations in this article we focus on implemented environmental taxes on fuels and electricity in the nordic countries firstly the idea of environment based taxes as a part of sustainable energy policy is presented secondly we review the impacts of this kind of taxes on the environment energy production and consumption income distribution and competitiveness via estimates presented in the literal sources thirdly we review comparative studies of environmental taxes on energy from a methodological perspective and finally we analyse the use of energy tax comparisons in political decision making a recent energy tax reform in finland is used as an example

the potential for improvements in energy efficiency and co2 emissions in the eu27 cement industry and the relationship with the capital budgeting decision criteria this paper performs a cost effectiveness analysis of some of the best available technologies bat that can contribute to decreasing the energy consumption and co2 emissions in the european union s eu27 cement industry several capital budgeting decision criteria have been used the payback period the net present value and the internal rate of return to study whether or not an investment should be considered worthwhile the results show that independent of the capital budgeting decision criteria used the number of cost effective retrofitting possibilities available is large compared to the rate of improvements that the industry undertakes annually this shows the insensitivity of the industry to financial criteria when it comes to making their investment decisions the possible thermal energy improvement in the clinker production if all these bats were implemented has been quantified to be around 10 this achievement would place the cement industry in the upper bound of the benchmark range for clinker manufacture however considering the delays observed nowadays in terms of diffusion of bats in the cement industry it requires a conducive policy environment that combines support for both technology development and to their deployment

incentives for advanced pollution abatement technology at the industry level an evaluation of policy alternatives abstract in this research we evaluate the incentive effects of five environmental policy instruments to promote the development and adoption of advanced pollution abatement technology in a heterogenous industry from most to least incentive the policy instruments can be rank ordered as follows i auctioned permits ii emissions taxes and subsidies iii issued marketable permits iv performance standards including performance standards in this list necessitates the assumption that they are differentiated between heterogeneous firms before the technology adoption in a way which replicates the initial emissions control distribution of the efficient incentive based instruments with the starting point normalized in this fashion the instrument rankings are invariant with respect to the size of firms the size of the industry or the industry s abatement cost structure

reconciling quantile autoregressions of firm size and variance size scaling the aim of this paper is to understand what economic mechanisms may cause the law of proportionate effect to break down for fast growing and shrinking firms recent evidence has highlighted that the first order coefficients of quantile auto regression of firm size decline across quantiles our theoretical results show that negative variance size scaling is sufficient to yield a decline in quantile auto regression coefficients if firm log size is laplace distributed conditional on size one period ahead however it is sufficient only for declining auto regression coefficients for fast growing firms under asymmetric laplace conditional log size if skewness is decreasing with size in other words if the growth of large firms is less dispersed and more left skewed size is a disadvantage for the growth of fast growers but not necessarily an advantage for fast decliners thus size related determinants of negative growth skewness such as diseconomies of growth market power and managerial attention issues impact on how the lpe is violated using data on dutch manufacturing companies from the business register of enterprises observed between 1994 and 2004 our empirical estimates of quantile regression models confirm the evidence of declining quantile regression coefficients for small medium firms 20 199 employees mainly in the right most quantiles and for the same subsample we find that growth rates variance and skewness are decreasing with size the theoretical propositions of the paper are thus corroborated

emission intensive growth and trade in the era of the association of southeast asian nations asean integration an empirical investigation from asean 8 abstract this paper attempts to shed some light on the energy consumption and associated emissions linking recent trade integration for eight economies in the asean region brunei darussalam cambodia indonesia malaysia philippines singapore thailand and vietnam considering the heterogeneity across the panel of countries a long run relationship is established between output energy trade and emissions over a period of three decades the role of transportation is considered in this respect the overall findings indicate that the environmental consequences of economic growth are alarming for most of the countries in the panel and non renewable energy consumption is the key contributing factor towards environmental deterioration in the asean region of the eight it is further established that five economies from the region cambodia indonesia malaysia thailand and vietnam predominantly engage in emission intensive trade and an increase in future energy demand and environmental degradation is projected for these countries we suggest that the implementation of economic and trade policies in future should align with the energy sector in this respect renewable energy sources will play a greater role in sustainable growth and development across the countries

elasticities in aids models in the literature a variety of approaches have been used to calculate demand elasticities in almost ideal demand system aids models of demand it is common to estimate the linear approximate almost ideal demand system la aids instead of the aids when the la aids is estimated all of the previously reported approaches to compute elasticities are theoretically incorrect this paper presents correct formulas for la aids elasticities and illustrates the potential errors from using incorrect computing the almost ideal demand system aids of deaton and muellbauer 1980a b has become popular in recent years anderson and blundell blanciforti and green 1983a b blanciforti green and king chalfant eales and unnevehr fujii khaled and mak fulponi heien and willett murray parsons ray a variety of approaches to computing elasticities has been used and some of the approaches may lead to significant errors this paper clarifies the differences between alternative approaches to estimating demand elasticities in aids models

rural chinese food consumption the case of guangdong chinese consumer behavior is analyzed based on rural guangdong household survey data for most food items own price elasticities estimated with an aids model are inelastic commodity substitution due to relative price changes is small except in the case of grain commodities most responsive to expenditure changes are meats poultry fruits sweets and durable goods

the effects of climate policy on corporate technological upgrading in energy intensive industries evidence from china abstract the innovation effect is an important component when measuring the performance of environmental policy instruments based on a questionnaire survey this research has examined corporate energy conservation and emission reduction efforts in energy intensive industries in china under the pressure of different climate policies and in particular looked into their adoption of those technological innovation and diffusion activities the results show a large variety of corporate adoption of energy saving practical activities in general climate policies have played a greater role in promoting the adoption of managerial energy saving activities in respondent companies while comparatively their influences on the adoption of technology upgrading activities are relatively weak regulatory measures have exerted greater pressure and influence on corporate short term behavioural change as stated by the respondent companies however market based instruments show greater incentive effect in promoting adoption of energy conservation and emission reduction activities that refer to corporate long term oriented strategic planning or adjustment for instance they exert a significant incentive effect on increasing long term research and development investment for technological innovation and also play an important role in optimising corporate organisational structure the econometric analysis further proves the influences of market based instruments in promoting corporate adoption of technological innovation and diffusion activities

linking induced technological change and environmental regulation evidence from patenting in the u s auto industry a b s t r a c t this article uses a carefully screened patent database in automobile emission control technologies and a detailed regulatory action analysis to examine firms innovation in response to u s technology forcing auto emissions standards enacted between 1970 and 1998 the study finds that under the performance based technology forcing pbtf auto emissions regulations both automakers and compo nent suppliers innovated and introduced more advanced emission control technologies for automobile applications the study also shows that stringent pbtf regulation temporarily induced domestic u s firms to become more innovative than foreign firms that operated in the local u s market during the early phase of the regulatory regime findings of this research strongly imply that government intervention in the form of technology forcing regulation can drive firms to invest in technological innovation

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

environmental policy reconsidered the role of technological innovation abstract this paper discusses recent environmental policy wisdom in the light of technological and organizational innovation starting from empirical evidence it argues that the main econometric models which are used in environmental policy analysis do not consider properly the determinants and effects of innovation and offer unreliable estimates of policy effects some solutions to the latter problem show that the integration between environmental policy and industrial policy can be more efficient than traditional environmental policies in the protection of the environment technological cooperation moreover can be an important instrument to stabilize international environmental agreements

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

industrial symbiosis and the policy instruments of sustainable consumption and production abstract industrial symbioses iss and eco industrial parks eips are key concepts of industrial ecology ie the aim of iss and eips is to minimise inefficient material and energy use by utilising local by product and energy flows industrial symbioses tend to develop through spontaneous action of economic actors for gaining of economic benefit but these systems can be designed and promoted via policy instruments as well a literature review showed that national programmes for eco industrial parks can be found in different parts of the world in the action programmes and other sustainable consumption and production scp policy documents of the eu on the other hand industrial symbioses gain less recognition as a path to enhanced sustainable production in this article we consider this and also analyse how the evolution and environmental performance of an industrial symbiosis system centred on a finnish pulp and paper mill have been affected by scp policy instruments with regard to the system forming the subject of the case study and finnish industrial systems in general policy instruments have succeeded in reducing emissions but not in systematically encouraging operators toward symbiosis like activities all in all few studies exist on the overall impact of policy instruments promoting design of eco industrial parks it is not self evident that symbiosis like production systems would be sustainable in every case as the background assumptions for political promotion of eips suggest we concluded that industrial symbioses should be analysed and developed on a life cycle basis with documentation of the real environmental benefits due to efficient resource use and decreased emissions in comparison to standalone production iss can then bring eco competitiveness to companies in relation to scp tools such as environmental permits ecolabels and future product regulation based on the ecodesign directive in europe indirect encouragement of symbiosis through land use regulation and planning in such a way that material fluxes between companies are possible both in operations and in financial terms may prove effective the same holds for waste policies that encourage increased reuse of a company s waste by other enterprises

price and expenditure elasticities of residential energy demand during urbanization an empirical analysis based on the household level survey data in china abstract urbanization one of the most obvious characteristics of economic growth in china has an apparent lock in effect on residential energy consumption pattern it is expected that residential sector would become a major force that drives china s energy consumption after urbanization process we estimate price and expenditure elasticities of residential energy demand using data from china s residential energy consumption survey crecs that covers households at different income levels and from different regional and social groups empirical results from the almost ideal demand system model are in accordance with the basic expectations the demands for electricity natural gas and transport fuels are inelastic in the residential sector due to the unreasonable pricing mechanism we further investigate the sensitivities of different income groups to prices of the three types of energy policy simulations indicate that rationalizing energy pricing mechanism is an important guarantee for energy sustainable development during urbanization finally we put forward suggestions on energy pricing reform in the residential sector based on characteristics of china s undergoing urbanization process and the current energy consumption situations

driving factors for the success of the green innovation market a relationship system proposal this study aims to map out the relationships that make up green innovation initiatives in brazilian industry the sample comprised 100 managers at manufacturing companies most of them operating in the business of farm machinery and equipment 45 managers and steel structures 14 managers to develop this study medeiros et al j clean prod 65 76 86 2014 study mapping critical factors that drive the success of green product innovation and the paradigm of complexity was used as a reference study based on the results it was possible to identify that the operational dynamic of the factors and variables that affect market success do not happen in an isolated or fragmented way they occur systematically with different contingencies and structured basic and intermediate skills in order to meet the expectations of consumers laws and environmental legislation initially the technological expertise factor was noted as very important for sustaining green product innovation furthermore since proactive leaders are an important factor for successfully developing environmentally sustainable products it must be added to technological expertise as the foundation for developing green innovation after defining the basis for green product innovation the intermediary conditions necessary for using the available technology appropriately were mapped out in this sense variables such as elimination of cultural barriers capacity for critical reflective analysis and experimentation are also very important in addition some of the variables of the cross functional collaboration and market knowledge factors were a part of the structure that organizations need to transform potential into developing green products which is the basis for the third level of the model the fourth level of the model has the meeting consumer expectations and following law and legislation factors which make up the main goals for developing environmentally sustainable products according to a number of surveys that were conducted

command and control revisited environmental compliance and technological change in swedish industry 1970 1990 this paper addresses the issue of environmental policy instrument choice for achieving deep emission reductions in the industrial sector specifically it provides a a theoretical and empirical

the competitive characteristics of u s manufacturers in the machine tool industry this paper examines the competitive characteristics of u s manufacturers in the machine tool mt industry after several decades of decline this industry has recently shown signs of a modest but sustained recovery empirical evidence from a national survey of 104 mt producers suggests that the revival of this sector has been driven by a combination of factors including renewed export involvement improved customer support and better product design although most mt companies are small to medium sized enterprises smes the survey data show that very small smes are poorly represented in the recovery thrust of the industry as a whole our principal conclusion is that the mt industry has been following an export led path toward stabilization but that certain types of small producers are unlikely to thrive for very long the most serious problems facing small producers include shrinking local markets import competition shortages of skilled labor and cyclical demand

modes of governance for municipal energy efficiency services the case of led street lighting in germany energy efficiency retrofits are often impeded by high perceived investment risks long payback periods and a lack of skills at the municipal level these issues are particularly pronounced as procuring implementing and managing retrofits can exceed existing municipal governance capacities the diffusion of municipal led street lighting as a replacement for conventional lighting serves as an example this paper argues that technological e g complexity and maturity economic e g selling services vs products and financing costs institutional e g property situation and contracts and competency barriers to retrofitting e g lack of measurement capacity and qualified facilitators translate into transaction costs we develop a taxonomy of appropriate modes of municipal retrofitting governance based on transaction costs economics the findings indicate that more market based solutions energy performance contracts in particular can facilitate the procurement of innovative energy efficiency retrofitting solutions and associated investments among municipalities if neutral tenders open book accounting municipal ownership and intermediary organisations allow municipalities to choose appropriate governance structures for particular technologies and retrofits