dismantling the relationship between energy innovations and power abstract dominant conceptual models describe energy innovations as struggles between regime and niche actors that develop at the margins of established energy systems and work against dominant energy regimes contrary to this conceptualisation this paper argues that energy innovations develop through a more nuanced set of relationships which lead to distinct innovation outcomes based on three case studies in germany and scotland this paper finds that energy innovations develop in accordance with independent of or in opposition to regime structures showing that a project s relative position within these structures influences the type and quality of its development making use of situational analysis the paper challenges essentialising tendencies among scholars working with the multi level perspective instead of understanding regime and niche as separable entities situational analysis allows understanding how agency and innovations of local renewable energy projects transcend the boundaries of levels or systems policy makers are advised to acknowledge these complex interrelations side effects of policies deliberately directed towards other sectors might have significant effects on the energy sector

the rise and fall of social problems a public arenas model this paper develops a model of the process through which social problems rise and fall treating public attention as a scarce resource the model emphasizes competition and selection in the media and other arenas of public discourse linkages among public arenas produce feedback that drives the growth of social problems growth is constrained by the finite carrying capacities of public arenas by competition and by the need for sustained drama the tension between the constraints and forces for growth produces successive waves of problem definitions as problems and those who promote them compete to enter and to remain on the public agenda suggestions for empirical tests of the model are specified

power the missing element in sustainable consumption and absolute reductions research and action in this essay we aim to demonstrate the value of a power lens on consumption and absolute reductions specifically we illuminate what we perceive to be a troublesome pattern of neglect of questions of power in research and action on sustainable consumption and absolute reductions in pursuit of our objectives we delineate how many of the informal and implicit theories of social change of scholars and activists in sustainable consumption and sustainable development fail to address power in a sufficiently explicit comprehensive and differentiated manner and how that failure translates into insufficient understandings of the drivers of consumption and the potential for and barriers to absolute reductions second we develop the contours of a power lens on sustainable consumption third we illustrate the value of such a power lens with a particular focus on the case of meat consumption

inflation and asset returns in a monetary economy postwar u s data are characterized by negative correlations between real equity returns and inflation and by positive correlations between real equity returns and money growth these patterns are closely matched quantitatively by an equilibrium monetary asset pricing model the model also implies negative correlations between expected asset returns and expected inflation and it predicts that the inflationasset return correlation will be more strongly negative when inflation is generated by fluctuations in real economic activity than when it is generated by monetary fluctuations the co movements of real asset returns inflation and money growth have been studied extensively over the past fifteen years table i displays some of the statistical properties of these series using quarterly u s data from 1959 to 1990 note first the significantly negative correlation between real equity returns and inflation note also the negative correlation between inflation and the ex post real return to nominally riskless bonds while this fact is not particularly surprising numerous studies conclude that the correlations between ex ante real asset returns and expected inflation are also negative 2 in contrast to these patterns the correlation between money growth and real equity returns is weakly positive in the data while the correlation between money growth and the real bond return is virtually zero initially these empirical patterns were viewed as anomalies negative correlations between inflation and ex post real stock returns contradict the traditional view that equities ought to act as an inflation hedge 3 negative correlations between expected inflation and ex ante real returns violate the

some examples of dynamic cournot duopoly with inventory this article analyzes a two period game where firms can produce inventory in the first period for sale in the second period we assume that revenues and costs are time invariant and that the firms are symmetric we focus on the nature and the existence of the subgame perfect equilibrium of this model we use examples to show that the nash value functions defined on the joint inventory vector are likely to be ill behaved in particular they need not be concave nor even continuous in the firm s own inventory as a result asymmetric equilibrium is possible when average production costs are falling single firm operation can occur in equilibrium nonexistence is also a distinct possibility

a time series analysis of representative agent models of consumption andleisure choice under uncertainty this paper investigates empirically a model of aggregate consumption and leisure decisions in which utility from goods and leisure is nontime separable the nonseparability of preferences accommodates intertemporal substitution or complementarity of leisure and thereby affects the comovements in aggregate compensation and hours worked these cross relations are examined empirically using postwar monthly u s data on quantities real wages and the real return on the one month treasury bill the estimated values of the parameters governing preferences differ significantly from the values assumed in several studies of real business models several possible explanations of these discrepancies are discussed

business actors political resistance and strategies for policymakers abstract existing energy policies remain well short of achieving a rapid transformation to a low carbon system of energy supply one of the principal reasons has been political resistance from incumbent fossil fuel industries while numerous studies have demonstrated the influence of business actors across multiple policy domains less work has examined the behaviour of business actors in individual energy centric industries namely the oil gas coal utility and renewable industries accordingly this paper examines the role of business actors in the us energy sector and asks what should policymakers do drawing on new empirical data primarily semi structured interviewers with business actors across the us energy sector this paper argues that there are specific strategies policymakers can employ to help overcome the resistance from incumbent fossil fuel industries specifically these are to entrench and build existing interests via targeted sector specific policies exploit inter industry and intra industry divisions and shift existing interests with policies that induce changes in industry investment and structure

comment sequential moment restrictions in panel data 1992 comment sequential moment restrictions in panel data journal of business economic statistics vol 10 no 1 pp 20 26

speculative storage in imperfectly competitive markets markets for many commodities are characterized by imperfectly competitive production as well as substantial storage by speculators who are attracted by significant price volatility we examine how speculative storage affects the behavior of an oligopoly producing a commodity for which demand is subject to random shocks speculators compete with consumers when purchasing the commodity and then subsequently compete with producers when selling their stocks resulting in two opposing incentives on the one hand producers would like to increase production to capture future sales in advance by selling to speculators while on the other hand they would like to withhold production to deter speculation thereby eliminating the additional supply from speculators in future periods we find that the incentive to sell to speculators can be quite strong potentially resulting in prices sufficiently high to drive consumers from the market furthermore these incentives are non monotonic in the number of producers speculative storage occurs more frequently in a relatively concentrated oligopoly than in the extremes of monopoly or perfect competition

inventories market structure and price volatility abstract the effect of inventories on the level and volatility of price is analyzed under alternative market structures in a fairly general setting it is shown that inventories have no effect on the average level of prices in a cournot duopoly in the absence of depreciation the effect of storage on price volatility is analyzed in a more restrictive linear quadratic setting in which it is found that imperfectly competitive producers make less use of inventories for smoothing random fluctuations than is efficient the effect of market structure on price volatility depends on whether demand shocks or cost shocks are more important

the governance of sustainable socio technical transitions a quasi evolutionary model of socio technical transitions is described in which regimes face selection pressures continuously differentiated transition contexts determine the form and direction of regime change in response to these pressures the articulation of pressures and the degree to which responses are coordinated and based on resources available within the regime define the transition context four alternative contexts are described endogenous renewal re orientation of trajectories emergent transformation and purposive transitions agency and power in the governance of regime transformation are analysed power to affect change depends on regime membership the distribution of resources for change and expectations

the co evolution of policy mixes and socio technical systems towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions abstract understanding how policymaking processes can influence the rate and direction of socio technical change towards sustainability is an important yet underexplored research agenda in the field of sustainability transitions some studies have sought to explain how individual policy instruments can influence transitions and the politics surrounding this process we argue that such individual policy instruments can cause wider feedback mechanisms that influence not only their own future development but also other instruments in the same area consequently by extending the scope of analysis to that of a policy mix allows us to account for multiple policy effects on socio technical change and resultant feedback mechanisms influencing the policy processes that underpin further policy mix change this paper takes a first step in this regard by combining policy studies and innovation studies literatures to conceptualise the co evolutionary dynamics of policy mixes and socio technical systems we focus on policy processes to help explain how policy mixes influence socio technical change and how changes in the socio technical system also shape the evolution of the policy mix to do so we draw on insights from the policy feedback literature and propose a novel conceptual framework the framework highlights that policy mixes aiming to foster sustainability transitions need to be designed to create incentives for beneficiaries to mobilise further support while overcoming a number of prevailing challenges which may undermine political support over time in the paper we illustrate the framework using the example of the zero carbon homes policy mix in the uk we conclude with deriving research and policy implications for analysing and designing dynamic policy mixes for sustainability transitions

optimal instruments in time series a survey abstract this article surveys estimation in stationary time series models using the approach of optimal instrumentation we review tools that allow construction and implementation of optimal instrumental variables estimators in various circumstances in single and multiperiod models in the absence and presence of conditional heteroskedasticity by considering linear and non linear instruments we also discuss issues adjacent to the theme of optimal instruments the article is directed primarily towards practitioners but econometric theorists and teachers of graduate econometrics may also find it useful

is the choice of renewable portfolio standards random this study investigated factors influencing the adoption or intention to adopt renewable portfolio standards rps by individual states in the united states u s theory of adoption of innovation was applied as a conceptual framework a logistic model was used to achieve the task gross state product gsp growth rate of population grp political party dominancy education level natural resources expenditure and share of coal in electricity generation were used as explanatory variables results indicated that the model predicts the dependent variable state s choice of adopting or not adopting rps 82 times correctly out of 100 results also suggested that education followed by political party dominancy gsp and grp are shown to have large impacts on the probability of rps adoption

conceptualising multi regime interactions the role of the agriculture sector in renewable energy transitions abstract the agriculture sector plays an important role in renewable energy transitions owing to its historical involvement in managing key resources particularly land and biomass we develop the multi level perspective in relation to these emergent transition processes conceptualising transitions towards renewable electricity production as examples of multi regime interaction between national level agriculture and electricity regimes we focus particularly on the role of niche anchoring into multiple regimes as the mechanism through which multi regime interaction occurs utilising case studies in germany the czech republic and the united kingdom analysis suggests the birth of a new fiat regime oriented towards renewable electricity production we suggest that fiat regimes which are heavily dependent on policy supports are often multifunctional in nature in addition we argue that agriculture s inherent connection to land demonstrates one of the specific characteristics of fiat regimes fiat regimes are constructed largely in response to policy efforts to produce or protect public goods such as natural resources as opposed to market regimes based on technological developments findings demonstrate support for the special case of the agriculture sector in transition processes high degrees of policy involvement led to windows of opportunity created largely in response to national and international policy agendas and the multiple functions of agriculture were reflected in competition between agriculture and electricity sectors over natural resource access as renewable energy currently represents a secondary transition in the agriculture sector we suggest that further attention needs to be paid to the impact of fiat regime policies on secondary transition processes

the role of obsolescence and inventory costs in providing commitment this paper modifies the cournot and stackelberg models to allow the firms to sell less than they have produced and to store the unsold portion of their output as inventory even if one of the firms can choose its output before the other if it is costless to carry unsold goods forward then the cournot outcome emerges we show however that costs of carrying the inventory forward endow the firms with a limited degree of commitment to sell what they have produced this partially restores the first mover advantage if the firms choose their outputs simultaneously the cournot outcome emerges and has locally consistent conjectures

intertemporal preferences and labor supply in this paper the authors examine whether nonseparable preference structures ar e important in characterizing life cycle labor supply using longitud inal data on prime age males from the panel study of income dynamics they estimate a model of life cycle leisure and consumption under un certainty in which intertemporal preferences are allowed to be nonsep arable in leisure the model tests several alternative specifications considered in the literature they investigate the robustness of the ir findings to certain forms of population heterogeneity and types of model misspecification across alternative specifications the autho rs find that the standard assumption of intertemporally separable pre ferences for leisure is not consistent with the data copyright 1988 by the econometric society

conflicting strategies towards sustainable heating at an urban junction of heat infrastructure and building standards approaches to sustainability transitions stress the possibility of aligning actors around a shared vision of the future e g at the scale of a city empirical accounts reveal how difficult such

getting round the lock in in electricity generating systems the example of the gas turbine abstract the purpose of this paper is to show how in a situation of lock in in the environment of electricity generation a new technology can succeed in overcoming this situation and become competitive our study will show that it is possible to get round the lock in by bringing into play the increasing returns of adoption in particular production niches where the existence of powerful constraints of techno economic consistency leads to a path of increasing specification then a hybridization of the competing technologies will allow the new technology to emerge from the original niche and take advantage of the increasing returns of adoption which were hitherto the reserve of the former technology we shall then draw lessons from the example of the gas turbine in comparison with the basic model of b arthur

normative contestation in transitions in the making animal welfare concerns and system innovation in pig husbandry previous studies of system innovations mainly focused on historical cases that were driven by commercial motivations of pioneers and entrepreneurs this article investigates a system innovation in the making that is driven by normative concerns such as sustainability or animal welfare initially formulated by outsiders like special interest groups our central research question is how when and why is normative contestation of existing regimes effective in influencing the orientation of transitions in the making the conceptual framework enriches innovation studies and the multi level perspective with insights from social movement theory smt and political science smt is used to analyze the build up of normative pressure through framing resource mobilization and political opportunity structures from political science we use the notion of multiple streams in our analysis a problem regulatory market and technology stream the research design consists of a comparative case study of pig husbandry systems one case analyses the sub sector of pregnant sows where normative pressures after several decades led to the changes advocated by the contestants the second case concerns the sub sector of pig fattening where normative pressure was less successful the difference is partly explained by the normative pressure for pregnant sows being larger than for fattening pigs the other part of the explanation is that in the first case normative pressure aligned better with the three other streams regulatory market and technology to lead to the changes desired by the contestants 2010 elsevier b v all rights reserved

the hygienic transition from cesspools to sewer systems 1840 1930 the dynamics of regime transformation this article addresses the topic of transition and system change and proposes endogenous regime transformation as alternative transition path to technological substitution using sociological and institutional insights the dynamics of regime transformation are conceptualised two characteristics are pressure from outsider groups and adjustments in cognitions norms and formal rules enacted by regime insiders the transformation perspective is illustrated with a historical case study the hygienic transition from cesspools to integrated sewer systems in the netherlands the case study is used to make additions to the transformation perspective particularly with regard to tactical and strategic games

capacity output and sequential entry two crucial assumptions frequently made in industrial organization are that an established firm deters entry either by a constant high output the sylos postulate or by high excess capacity the excess capacity hypothesis these assumptions may be an accurate description of the observed conduct of firms in some industries however when the rules of the post entry game are clearly specified the optimal output and investment strategies of an established firm may depart considerably from these behavioral assumptions because of this possible inconsistency with rational behavior any conclusions about the formation of industry based upon either assumption are highly suspect what is more these assumptions avoid the main issue of whether entry deterrence is worthwhile at all this paper presents a dynamic model of entry in which established firms pursue a cournot nash alternatively stackelberg strategy toward a potential entrant the entrant behaves in cournot nash fashion and chooses output on the basis of expected postentry profits at the equilibrium of the post entry game within this framework a constant output entry deterring strategy would involve maintenance of an entry deterring output level before and after entry is threatened an excess capacity entry deterring strategy would involve holding excess capacity at an entry deterring level and increasing output to that level after entry is threatened special conditions are presented under which the sylos postulate or the excess capacity hypothesis will accurately describe optimal entry deterring strategies in addition special conditions are examined under which the established firm maintains a constant output or holds pre entry excess capacity when large scale entry does in fact take place the analysis shows that in general established firm reactions to entry are quite different from these special cases the sylos postulate see joseph bain paolo sylos labini franco modigliani 1958 asserts not only that potential entrants expect established firms to maintain their output constant as entry occurs but that established firms keep output constant at a level that deters entry whether or not it is profitable to do so hailed as a welcome major breakthrough on the oligopoly front modigliani 1958 the sylos postulate underlies many papers in the large theoretical and empirical literature on limit pricing yet the sylos postulate ignores both the strategic interaction between firms and the dynamic aspects of entry 2 unless the established firm s monopoly output exceeds the entrydeterring level the established firm with a general cost function able to choose an entry deterring output level will instead always desire a lower output level before entry for the special case where capacity is an upper bound on output and the established firm is a stackelberg leader in the post entry game

deep transitions emergence acceleration stabilization and directionality abstract industrial society has not only led to high levels of wealth and welfare in the western world but also to increasing global ecological degradation and social inequality the socio technical systems that underlay contemporary societies have substantially contributed to these outcomes this paper proposes that these socio technical systems are an expression of a limited number of meta rules that for the past 250 years have driven innovation and hence system evolution in a particular direction thereby constituting the first deep transition meeting the cumulative social and ecological consequences of the overall direction of the first deep transition would require a radical change not only in socio technical systems but also in the meta rules driving their evolution the second deep transition this paper develops a new theoretical framework that aims to explain the emergence acceleration stabilization and directionality of deep transitions it does so through the synthesis of two literatures that have attempted to explain large scale and long term socio technical change the multi level perspective mlp on socio technical transitions and techno economic paradigm tep framework

gmm estimation of a money in the utility function model the implications of functional forms this paper studies consumer demand for real balances by allowing money to enter directly into an aggregate utility function as an asset that provides liquidity services the essay extends existing literature by investigating a money in the utility function model under a variety of specifications of the representative agent s objective function the empirical analysis employs the generalized method of moments technique to estimate the coefficients of the euler equations derived from the structural model the parameter estimates are compared across specifications of the utility function and across data sets the results provide some support for the view that the liquidity services provided by real balances contribute to utility

the welfare effects of unbundling gas storage and distribution we use a stylized gas system to study the use of access to gas storage in a seasonal model in a duopoly setting we find that welfare is higher under vertical integration and open access organization than under separate management of storage and distribution this raises questions about recent regulatory reforms in the gas sectors in the us and europe supporting the separation of storage and merchant activities in the absence of other justifying reasons such as encouraging competition by creating a level playing field separating the management and accounting functions of storage activities from those of distribution may be a better option than real divestiture on the basis of welfare arguments

trendy solutions why do states adopt sustainable energy portfolio standards abstract thirty four states had adopted sustainable energy portfolio standards seps or similar goals by the end of 2008 with 14 adoptions since 2006 there appears to be something trendy about seps and states may adopt seps when internal variables would indicate otherwise this analysis extends the current discussion of seps adoption beyond internal variables relying on innovation and diffusion theory logistic regression with seps adoption as the dependent variable is used to test internal determinants and diffusion measures for the years 1997 2008 of the internal determinants variables affluence and government ideology were found to be positive and significant the results show that regional and neighbor diffusion variables are significant in seps adoption decisions even when accounting for ideological distance from previous adopters

generalized method of moments and macroeconomics we consider the contribution to the analysis of economic time series of the generalized method of moments estimator introduced by hansen we outline the theoretical contribution conduct a small scale literature survey and discuss some ongoing theoretical research

from green technology development to green innovation inducing regulatory adoption of pathogen detection technology for sustainable forestry technological entrepreneurship has been widely acknowledged as a key driver of modern industrial economies and more recently a panacea for environmental and social problems however our current understanding of how green technology ventures emerge and diffuse more sustainable innovations remains limited we advance theory on green entrepreneurship by drawing on institutional work to refine and extend our understanding of how entrepreneurs may influence government policies and practices in their attempts to diffuse green technology we develop a theoretical framework that combines institutional work with a search tool the technological commercial organizational and societal tcos framework of innovative uncertainties which identifies key opportunities hurdles and potential unintended consequences at early stages of technology development we present a detailed case study of a potential university based green tech venture developing pathogen detection technology for forestry protection foreign pathogens spread by international trade can have major detrimental impacts on forests and the industries that rely on them our analysis found that green technology demonstrating technological feasibility is necessary but not sufficient green tech ventures must also engage in institutional work in this case articulating the technology s benefits to regulators to establish legitimacy and avoid misuse that can hinder its adoption we thus add to previous studies by emphasizing that institutional work could be a main activity for a green tech venture a core entrepreneurial strategy rather than an afterthought

green energy laws and republican legislators in the united states abstract the policy context for green energy laws in the united states has changed over the past few years because the republican party has increasingly opposed renewable electricity and other green energy policies in this study we draw on a database of 6071 votes on rps renewable portfolio standards and pace property assessed clean energy laws by individual state legislators in the united states to examine the circumstances shaping republican votes for green energy laws from 2007 2011 we find that votes on these laws are indeed increasingly partisan with republicans supporting rps laws especially less than democrats however republicans support for these laws is higher in states with weaker fossil fuel industries furthermore republicans tend to support the laws where median household income is lower environmental organizations are weaker labor environmental coalitions are absent and the proportion of democrats in the legislature is lower suggesting a reactive effect against green energy policies in more progressive settings

sustainability transitions a political coalition perspective in the case of technology transitions to low carbon sources of energy there is growing evidence that even in countries with a strong political consensus in favor of a transition the pace has been slow in comparison with the need to reduce greenhouse gases one factor that affects the slowness of the transition is political resistance from the incumbent industrial regime using data on the mobilization of resistance from the fossil fuel industry in the united states the study builds on the growing literature on the political dimensions of sustainability transitions by drawing attention to the role of incumbent regime coalitions grassroots coalitions in support of green transition policies and countervailing industrial power case studies of political coalitions for ballot propositions in the u s are used to show how countervailing industrial power especially from the technology and financial sector can tip the balance of electoral spending in favor of grassroots organizations

what does the term structure tell us about future inflation abstract this empirical analysis indicates that for maturities of six months or less the term structure of nominal interest rates provides almost no information about the future path of inflation but does provide information about the term structure of real interest rates however as maturities lengthen to nine and twelve months the nominal term structure begins to contain information about future inflation but ceases to provide information about the real term structure these results are explained by differences in the relative variability of expected future inflation changes and real term structure slopes at different points in the term structure

access to natural gas storage facilities strategic and regulation issues abstract in this paper we analyze the strategic function of gas storage focusing on how gas storage decisions impact competition between gas companies on both spot and downstream markets using a two tier oligopolistic structure we first show that gas storage is actually used strategically even in a symmetric oligopolistic setting along the gas value chain storage is then a way to intensify competition on the spot market second we analyze the setting where a company has favored access to storage for example due to a historical monopolistic position and we analyze this as a leadership situation in the context of tpa regulation we then show that this setting compels the leader to adopt a strategic storage decision this strategy consists of levels of gas stored being greater than supplies available in the downstream market such a leader decision is part of a strategy to raise a rival s costs furthermore one can think that optimal regulation of the access to storage facilities would prevent such a behavior however especially when storage is not too costly we show that preventing a storage strategy for the leader is not optimal since the strategy helps to reduce the spot market price

inventory holding as a strategic weapon to deter entry recent papers by dixit 1980 and eaton and lipsey 1981 have explored the strategic use of committed product specific capital by an incumbent firm in order to influence a post entry equilibrium and in some cases make entry unattractive by committing or sinking part of the production costs prior to entry the incumbent creates a credible shift in its own reaction function if entry should occur in this way the payoffs in the post entry equilibrium can be influenced to the incumbent s advantage the entry game thus consists of two stages the first in which the incumbent is able to strategically commit itself prior to entry and the second or post entry period in which a duopoly equilibrium is realized the more costs that are put up front by the incumbent the greater is the post entry output it will wish to sell for a given output of the entrant and the lower will be the resulting equilibrium price if the set up or fixed costs of entry are sufficiently high entry may be rendered unprofitable this paper extends the idea in a natural way all the production costs of a quantity of output can be sunk or committed by stockpiling inventory of the product the stock of inventory held by the incumbent firm represents a credible shift in its reaction function in response to entry in the following way the inventory is a stock that can be sold off over time in a way consistent with intertemporal profit maximization constrained by the presence of the entrant moreover the threat to sell off the inventory in response to entry is credible since given that entry has occurred the opportunity cost of the inventory is zero it seems reasonable to require that any strategic asymmetry between incumbent and entrant should be restricted to commitments made by the former prior to entry conditional on such commitments the post entry game should give neither firm a strategic advantage this requirement is the same as the game theoretic concept of perfectness 1 entry can be credibly deterred because the entrant knows that were entry to take place it would be in the incumbent s own interest to follow the anticipated sales programme of inventory in order to demonstrate that entry may be deterred by holding a stock of inventory that is sufficiently large that deterrence can be made the perfect equilibrium of the complete entry game the properties of the equilibrium with entry must be derived the post entry equilibrium is modelled here as a pair of nash strategies in sales programmes if the sales programme anticipated by the entrant in the post entry equilibrium implies a negative present value entry will be deterred thus successful entry deterrence implies that the equilibrium with entry is never realized the incumbent can then continue to receive monopoly profits less the holding cost of the inventory which serves as a credible deterrent to entry but is never sold