heterogeneity and misspecifications in learning abstract in this paper we consider a linear stochastic univariate forward looking model with one lag under adaptive heterogeneous learning the system is populated by two different types of agents who learn through recursive least squares techniques the parameter values in their forecasting models the two groups are constrained to have different information sets one being always a subset of the other we analyze convergence of these two interacting learning processes under different specifications of the forecasting model and in one case we find that an heterogenous expectations equilibrium emerges

the inverted pyramid a neo ricardian view on the economy environment relationship abstract in ecological economics natural resources which may contribute only a small amount to gdp are viewed as fundamental to the functioning of the economy they are sometimes pictured as sitting at the base of an inverted pyramid with the rest of the economy balanced on top of them in this paper we show that when prices are set by markup a standard heterodox assumption then the inverted pyramid picture of the economy emerges naturally in a neo ricardian model we demonstrate the use of the model with brief applications to biophysical economics the paper is one of a growing number that use heterodox macroeconomics to address questions in ecological economics

labor productivity and the law of decreasing labor content this paper analyzes labor productivity and the law of decreasing labor content ldlc originally formulated by farjoun and machover 1983 first it is shown that the standard measures of labor productivity may be rather misleading owing to their emphasis on monetary aggregates instead the conventional classical marxian labor values provide the theoretically and empirically sound measures of labor productivity the notion of labor content and the ldlc are therefore central in order to understand the dynamics of capitalist economies second some rigorous theoretical relations between different forms of proflt driven technical change and productivity are derived in a general input output framework with flxed capital which provide deterministic foundations to the ldlc third the main theoretical propositions are analyzed empirically based on a new dataset of the german economy

the so called transformation problem revisited a brief comment this comment deals with lipietz s presentation of a solution which had been proposed to the transformation problem lipietz s account can be criticized in two respects first his attempt to integrate the familiar morishima type approach with the newer one is based on a confusion between the conceptual and factual determination of the value of labor power second his demonstration of the mathematical conditions for the validity of the new interpretation rests on an inappropriate conceptualization of the price and quantity mechanisms associated with capitalist competition moreover his results could not be applied to a more general framework which took account for example of joint production

dynamic predictor selection in a new keynesian model with heterogeneous expectations abstract this paper introduces dynamic predictor selection into a new keynesian model with heterogeneous expectations and examines its implications for monetary policy we extend branch and mcgough 2009 by incorporating endogenous time varying predictor proportions along the lines of brock and hommes 1997 we find that periodic orbits and complex dynamics may arise even if the model under rational expectations has a unique stationary solution the qualitative nature of the non linear dynamics turns on the interaction between hawkishness of the government s policy and the extrapolative behavior of non rational agents

from agriculture to rurality new approaches in territorial economics in the first part the paper presents the evolution of the rural develoment theories from 50s to nowadays consequently in the second part it is addressed the issue of how the transition from subsistance economy to traditional economy to agricultural economy to rural economy could delineate virtuous processes of local development in specific contexts this concept is futher developed in the third part where territorial development is analysed in accordance with international studies and more specifically with european ones and in the forth where the topic is critically focused in the framework of the brazilean literature

the investor specific price of renewable energy project risk a choice experiment with incumbent utilities and institutional investors abstract renewable energy investments in germany have recently soared trebling the output of wind and solar power generation in only ten years while incumbent utilities have lagged behind in terms of investment new entrants have significantly contributed to this growth existing literature has primarily focused on explaining the lethargy of incumbents former investments although there is a growing need to investigate recent investment drivers to secure the necessary power plant capacity at a moderate cost from incumbents and new entrants alike to close this gap a choice experiment involving 1 659 investment choices by 52 european professional investors was conducted in significant contrast to the case with altruistic investors this survey underlines the importance of using financial incentives to attract professional investors given full exposure to electricity price risk incumbent utilities would facilitate projects at a 3 04 risk premium whereas institutional investors demand 6 61 generally incumbent utilities and institutional investors are equally attracted by low risk projects however when risk increases institutional investors are more hesitant to become involved while incumbent utilities confidently navigate these higher risk projects

the 40 neoclassical aggregate theory of production the assumption that production in an economic system may be described by an aggregate neoclassical production function is at the heart of most modern equilibrium neoclassical business cycles and growth models its validity requires stringent assumptions on individual production functions and market structure in this article the likelihood that an aggregate neoclassical production function could emerge from a simple heterogeneous production system is assessed by the use of computer simulations the conclusion is that there exists a world of significant size for which the aggregate neoclassical theory of production does not hold

financial incentives to mobilise local citizens as investors in low carbon technologies a systematic literature review abstract mobilising greater levels of private finance through local citizen investment in low carbon technologies can help bridge the capital shortfall to meeting climate objectives while also building societal support for the low carbon transition within this context we undertake a systematic review of literature assessing the impact of technology specific economic and financial incentives promoting greater levels of investment in low carbon technologies from local citizen investors both individuals and community groups we focus in particular on the impact of feed in tariffs compared to quota schemes grants tax incentives and soft loans the analysis suggests that local citizen investors do not necessarily act in an economically rational manner in response to these incentives it underscores the importance of understanding the preferences of target demographics the local context as well as the characteristics of the technologies in question and suggests interventions should be considered as part of wider policy packages while identifying challenges to be overcome through instrument design we find that feed in tariffs grants and tax incentives can be successful in mobilising greater levels of investment from local citizen investors but that soft loans tend to be less effective as a stand alone instrument the review identifies areas meriting further exploration in this emerging field of research

approximate surrogate production functions the cambridge debate showed that an aggregation of capital is not possible in general a recent investigation has found one example for reswitching and several for reverse capital deepening but the paradoxes appear to be infrequent the paper provides a theoretical justification of this result and shows how wage curves of input output matrices with small non dominant eigenvalues become quasi linear with some numeraires large random systems lead to the genesis of such states approximate surrogate production functions then seem possible a family of economic systems with constant capital composition allows construction of a surrogate production function copyright oxford university press

difficulty is critical the importance of social factors in modeling diffusion of green products and practices abstract despite the very positive as measured by market surveys attitude towards eco innovations and sustainability in general the actual market penetration of green products and practices generally falls behind the expectations in this paper we argue that considering difficulty of engagement as used in the campbell paradigm is of critical importance when modeling diffusion of eco innovations such a notion of difficulty possesses three desired properties i parsimony it is represented by a single value ii interpretability it can be regarded as an estimator of the otherwise complex notion of behavioral cost and iii applicability it can be easily measured through market surveys in an extensive simulation and analytical study involving empirically measured difficulty and an agent based model spanned on different social network structures we show that innovation adoption may exhibit abrupt changes in market penetration as a result of even small changes in difficulty the latter may be of particular interest to policy makers who have to make strategic decisions when introducing socially but not necessarily individually desired products and practices like dynamic or green electricity tariffs

does gender inequality affect household green consumption behaviour in china abstract in this paper we examine whether gender inequality affects a household s decision to adopt green consumption behaviour in china building upon the literature that claims women tend to be more environmentally friendly than men we hypothesise that households in which women play a stronger role adopt greener consumption lifestyles based on a nationwide survey our empirical results show that households in counties with greater gender inequality use less energy efficient electric products and are less willing to save energy the results are robust to a number of variations in our empirical models social and economic factors are included to further explore the mechanisms underlying households decisions our findings provide new insights into green development from a micro level bottom up perspective they are relevant for policy makers because they indicate that promoting gender equality can have a favourable impact on green development

an empirical investigation of paradoxes reswitching and reverse capital deepening in capital theory this paper examines the empirical relevance of the capital controversy the price model of sraffa and the dual models of the price and quantity systems of von neumann become the basis of the investigation in the course of the controversy it proved easy to construct theoretical examples which contradicted the fundamental neoclassical hypothesis of an inverse capital demand function this paper presents empirical examples for the first time thiry two input output tables from the oecd database serve as data as a result one envelope is found which involves reswitching reverse substitution of labour or reverse capital deepening are observed in about 3 65 of tested cases they involve at least two switchpoints copyright 2006 oxford university press

profits equal surplus value on average and the significance of this result for the marxian theory of accumulation being a new contribution to engels prize essay competition based on random matrices and on manuscripts recently published in the mega for the first time marx s justification of his theory of surplus value in the face of unequal compositions of capital by interpreting total profits as a redistribution of surplus value is not correct in general however it is shown here that the equality holds if the input matrices are random and the labour theory of value holds in a sense to be specified on average manuscripts recently published for the first time confirm that to the end marx trusted his approach to the theory of value in that he continued to use the identity of the aggregates of capital and surplus in value and in price terms his insistence was rooted in his philosophy an attempt is made to clarify his use of a hegelian methodology by comparing hegel s and marx s approaches to the foundation of the infinitesimal calculus the article concludes with marx s late reconsiderations of his theory of the falling rate of profit which also continue to be based on the equality of profit and surplus value

uptake and usage of cost reflective electricity pricing insights from psychology and behavioural economics abstract the australian electricity industry like many other countries globally is currently facing the complex challenge of reforming electricity tariffs momentum is growing for transitioning residential consumers toward more cost reflective pricing that better reflects the true costs of generation and supply and sends a price signal that presumably incentivises reduced consumption during peak periods under such tariffs customers pay more for electricity used during times of peak demand unlike traditional flat rate tariffs where the price remains stable regardless of time or demand pilot trials indicate that cost reflective tariffs might succeed in reducing peak demand but often only for a small minority of customers such that population wide demand response is minimal or insignificant in this paper we apply insights from psychology and behavioural economics to identify how cost reflective pricing can be designed depicted and delivered to enhance customer uptake and optimal usage thereby facilitating appropriate demand response for a larger cross section of the population by carefully considering the likely impact of relevant cognitive biases and psychological factors which routinely shape human decision making and behaviour we are able to propose practical strategies that industry can adopt to maximise the prospect of cost reflective pricing achieving significant population level peak demand reductions while providing shared benefits for customers retailers networks and regulators alike

household energy use applying behavioural economics to understand consumer decision making and behaviour household energy conservation has emerged as a major challenge and opportunity for researchers practitioners and policymakers consumers also seem to be gaining greater awareness of the value and need for sustainable energy practices particularly amid growing public concerns over greenhouse gas emissions and climate change yet even with adequate knowledge of how to save energy and a professed desire to do so many consumers still fail to take noticeable steps towards energy efficiency and conservation there is often a sizeable discrepancy between peoples self reported knowledge values attitudes and intentions and their observable behaviour examples include the well known knowledge action gap and value action gap but neither is household energy consumption driven primarily by financial incentives and the rational pursuit of material interests in fact people sometimes respond in unexpected and undesirable ways to rewards and sanctions intended to shift consumers cost benefit calculus in favour of sustainable behaviours why is this so why is household energy consumption and conservation difficult to predict from either core values or material interests by drawing on critical insights from behavioural economics and psychology we illuminate the key cognitive biases and motivational factors that may explain why energy related behaviour so often fails to align with either the personal values or material interests of consumers understanding these psychological phenomena can make household and community responses to public policy interventions less surprising and in parallel can help us design more cost effective and mass scalable behavioural solutions to encourage renewable and sustainable energy use among consumers

behavioral innovations the missing capital in sustainable development abstract many scholars argue that environmental issues can be addressed through technological innovation a proposal which echoes a lasting debate between environmental and ecological economics about the substitution rate between natural and manufactured capital in addition to these two established types of capital this paper introduces the idea of behavioral capital we define behavioral capital as the latent potential of behavioral change to affect improvement in environmental quality our contribution argues that technological and traditional regulatory innovations serve as insufficient tools for addressing modern environmental issues and ensuring sustainable development without discarding these solutions we contend that because human behavior is a significant contributor to environmental problems it should be regarded as a key component of continued solutions we suggest that the dual interest theory can serve as an integrative framework for behavioral innovations related to environmental issues in suggesting this we assume that behavioral innovations can both overcome some of the limitations of technological innovations and offer new solutions our main insight is to suggest that some depletion of natural capital but not all can be offset by behavioral changes without decreasing or even increasing subjective well being

understanding household energy use decision making and behaviour in guinea conakry by applying behavioural economics abstract for decades generalized frauds have left the electrical sector of guinea with an entirely defective financial scheme as a developing nation guinea s electricity consumption has been relatively low for a long time although it has been increasing recently due to increasing power generation the growth in power capacity is due to the construction of two new dams kaleta dam 240 mw which is already operational and souapiti dam 550 mw which is still under construction taking into account that the country has so far been without electricity there is a need to assess and predict consumer behaviour before the full completion of these projects the aim of this study is to make the household and community reactions to public policy interventions less surprising however even sufficient knowledge of how to conserve energy and a stated desire to do so many consumers still fail to take perceptible measures to increase energy efficiency and conservation why is this so by focusing on crucial insights from behavioural economics and psychology we highlight the incentive factors the basic cognitive biases and the psychological phenomena that cause this disconnect understanding these factors can help us to design sustainable energy use among consumers in guinea conakry

expectations and the stability problem for optimal monetary policies eine auf den fundamentaldaten beruhende regelbindung der geldpolitik ohne selbstverpflichtung die bei vollkommen rationalen erwartungen der privaten akteure optimal ware ist instabil wenn diese akteure de facto den ublichen regeln des adaptiven lernens folgen dieses problem lasst sich dadurch beheben dass die erwartungen privater akteure berucksichtigt und in geeigneter weise in die optimale geldpolitik einbezogen werden diese eindeutige schlusfolgerung gilt auch dann wenn sich der geldpolitische entscheidungstrager und die privaten akteure in einem simultanen lernprozess befinden unsere ergebnisse zeigen wie wichtig es ist die geldpolitik angemessen zu gestalten und dabei nicht nur die fundamentaldaten sondern auch direkt die beobachteten erwartungen privater haushalte und unternehmen zu berucksichtigen

energy efficiency policy analysis using socio technical approach and system dynamics case study of lighting in latvia s households abstract worldwide the lighting sector demands around 1 5 of total electricity used while the diffusion of new lighting technologies occurs quickly and prices for these technologies drop at the same time around 1 3 of households in developed european countries continue to choose incandescent light bulbs this phenomena shows a large potential for saving electricity therefore the aim of our research is to model the diffusion of innovation for energy efficiency solutions in households in latvia the methodology combines an empirical study with system dynamics modelling the model showed that electricity consumption in households decreased by 14 from the year 2015 until the year 2040 the sensitivity analysis shows that changes in the parameters used in this analysis caused expected behaviour where the uncertainly in electricity consumption in households accounted for 16 in the year 2040 although this developed system dynamics model was based on a specific process of diffusion of innovation its general application to other products and services is possible since the developed model serves as a white box the structure of the model can be used for other studies the model can be enhanced with the newest results or adapted for other case studies

the fund flow approach a critical survey the fund ow approach to production theory was proposed by nicholas georgescu roegen almost half a century ago and it provides a description of production as a process unfolding in time and entailing a temporal coordination between dierent elements despite the initial interest the approach has seldom received attention by mainstream economists and it is not yet well known the paper critically surveys georgescu roegen s model together with i the later developments and modications ii the recent criticisms focused on its limitations due to the instrumental assumption of constant eciency for funds the paper concludes by discussing the limits and comparative merits and suggesting possible applications

recent experiences with tariffs for saving electricity in households abstract financial incentives or disincentives in the form of electricity tariffs can be used to encourage energy efficiency in this paper two simple tariffs aimed at residential consumers are reviewed progressive tariffs pts which penalise high consumption of electricity and electricity saving feed in tariffs esfits which provide incentives to reduce consumption of electricity the effectiveness of these tariffs is quantified and compared using the price elasticity for pt and an incentive elasticity for esfit the results indicate that pts are more effective in mobilising electricity saving than esfits and confirm biases in human decision making here loss aversion while further research is necessary we propose a tariff which would motivate consumers to reduce their consumption by offering both an incentive for reaching an energy saving goal and a disincentive for failing to reach this goal the flexibility of such a tariff makes it a promising solution suitable for application in countries with a comparatively high household income and liberalised retail electricity market

an investigation of the rationality of consumer valuations of multiple health risks after developing a conceptual analysis of consumer valuation of multiple risks we explore both economic and cognitive hypotheses regarding individual risk taking using a sample of over 1 500 consumers our study ascertains risk dollar tradeoffs for the risks associated with using an insecticide and a toilet bowl cleaner we observe the expected positive valuation of risk reductions and find empirical support for a diminishing in the valuation of risk reduction as the extent of the risk reduction increases we also find evidence of certainty premiums for the total elimination of one risk but no strong evidence of additional certainty premiums for the elimination of multiple risks strong reference risk effects are evident as increases in risk were valued much more greatly than were decreases

understanding the marxian notion of exploitation a summary of the so called transformation problem between marxian values and competitive prices the ending in the second part of the article the author examines the so called problem of transformation first he analyze certain contradiction faced by marx in the third volume of capital in studying the question of how to transform the cost into the price then he turns to the problem of inverse transformation and argues that marx procedure works only in a single case equal organic composition of capital the third part of the article bibliography provides an overview of the work on the analysis of marx s theory

animal spirits heterogeneous expectations and the amplification and duration of crises we introduce a simple equilibrium model of a market for loans households lend to firms and form expectations about their loan default probability under heterogeneous expectations with switching between forecasting strategies driven by reinforcement learning even a small fraction of pessimistic traders has a large aggregate effect causing a heterogeneous expectations risk premium i e significantly higher contract rates for loans and significantly lower output our stylized model illustrates how animal spirits and heterogeneous expectations may lead to aconfidence loss and to financial instability amplifying the magnitude of economic crises and slowing down recovery

the aggregate production function is not neoclassical standard postulates concerning the aggregate production function are about marginal productivities and the associated demands for labour and capital these demands are supposed to be negatively related to the factor prices namely the wage rate and the interest rate the theoretical cases in which these neoclassical properties fail to hold are regarded as anomalies we compute the aggregate values for production capital and labour and find that the neoclassical postulates do not hold for the detailed dataset that we consider the obvious implication of this result is that the models and analysis based on the aggregate neoclassical production functions are ill founded as they are based on something that does not exist

consumer rationality and the status quo received microeconomic theory presumes rational consumers maximize utility over all commodity bundles recent analysis however suggests that a consumer s status quo may limit economic rationality bias consumer decisions and induce serious errors in survey based valuations of public and private goods using regression and choice theoretic frameworks we investigate the existence of status quo effects in the consumer valuation of a particular unpriced product the reliability of residential electrical service such valuations have become important in electric utility resource planning and rate making we find substantial status quo effects which must be addressed in welfare comparisons regarding electric service reliability

sustainable production and consumption systems cooperation for change assessing and simulating the willingness of the firm to adopt develop cleaner technologies the case of the in bond industry in northern mexico abstract over the last decade literature on the greening of industry and environmental policy has provided numerous important insights into the determinants of the firm s innovative behaviour in cleaner technologies however this literature still lacks empirically tested theoretical models this paper contributes to fill this gap proposing a definitional system that enables the testing of hypotheses of dependence between willingness to innovate in cleaner technologies and its determinants and to explore the conditions under which the firms innovative behaviour could be fostered regression and simulation outcomes indicate against the general wisdom that stringent environmental regulation without consideration to the dynamics of technical change and environmental and economic risk perceptions in the part of firms would play against the promotion of innovation in cleaner production

exploring the role of households hurdle rates and demand elasticities in meeting danish energy savings target abstract the eu s energy efficiency directive eed sets a binding target for energy savings in eu member states the eed further requires member states to perform ex ante evaluations of energy efficiency policies implemented to achieve these savings however ex ante evaluation of energy efficiency policies is difficult as it requires detailed modelling of end users investment and energy demand behaviour this paper details the danish interact modelling approach for ex ante evaluation of energy efficiency policies directed at residential heating interact integrates the energy system model times dk into a computable general equilibrium framework the paper explores the potential for meeting denmark s eed target through a policy induced increase in households investments in energy efficiency retrofits the paper considers the effect of energy efficiency policies on households investment behaviour by applying different levels of hurdle rates on households investments in energy efficiency retrofits the paper shows that reducing the hurdle rate from 25 to 4 could meet more than a third of danish energy saving requirements for the period 2021 2030 this result includes a direct rebound effect of 31 finally the paper demonstrates that reducing the hurdle below 10 has a substantial negative impact on households disposable income making such policy less viable from a policy perspective

the transformation problem abstract the history of the marxian transformation problem is surveyed from 1885 to the present particular emphasis is placed on the less well known literature and the focus is on problems of interpretation rather than on technicalities a substantial bibliography is provided

a resource based perspective on corporate environmental performance and profitability drawing on the resource based view of the firm we posited that environmental performance and economic performance are positively linked and that industry growth moderates the relationship with the returns to environmental performance higher in high growth industries we tested these hypotheses with an analysis of 243 finns over two years using independently developed environmental ratings results indicate that it pays to be green and that this relationship strengthens with industry growth we conclude by highlighting the study s academic and managerial implications making special reference to the social issues in management literature

intrinsic heterogeneity in expectation formation we introduce the concept of misspecification equilibrium to dynamic macroeconomics agents choose between a list of misspecified econometric models and base their selection on relative forecast performance a misspecification equilibrium is a stochastic process in which agents forecast optimally given their choices with forecast model parameters and predictor proportions endogenously determined under appropriate conditions the misspecification equilibrium will exhibit intrinsic heterogeneity in which all predictors are used at all times even in the neoclassical limit in which only the most successful predictors are used this equilibrium is attainable under least squares learning and dynamic predictor selection based on average profits

decision making over time and under uncertainty a common approach this paper considers a number of parallels between risky and intertemporal choice we begin by demonstrating a one to one correspondence between the behavioral violations of the respective normative theories for the two domains i e expected utility and discounted utility models we argue that such violations or preference reversals are broadly consistent with three propositions about the weight that an attribute receives in both types of multiattribute choice specifically it appears that 1 if we add a constant to all values of an attribute then that attribute becomes less important 2 if we proportionately increase all values of an attribute or if we change the sign of an attribute from positive to negative then that attribute becomes more important the generality of these propositions as well as the constraints they would impose on separable representations of multiattribute preferences is discussed

when one size does not fit all a problem of fit rather than failure for voluntary management standards voluntary management standards for social and environmental performance ideally help to define and improve firms related capabilities these standards however have largely failed to improve such performance as intended over emphasis on institutional factors leading to adoption of these standards has neglected the role of firms existing capabilities external pressures can drive firms to adopt standards more than their technical capacity to employ them this can lead to problems of fit between institutional requirements and a firm s existing capabilities we describe a conceptual model that considers the impact of an interaction between a firm s institutional requirements and its existing capabilities on standards failure we suggest solutions that align institutional requirements to appropriate governance forms as a means to improve standards success we contribute to theory by describing the role of firms internal capabilities to the success of voluntary management standards and the reliability of self regulation generally

striving to be green the adoption of total quality environmental management many firms are undertaking environment friendly organizational change by applying the philosophy of total quality management with its emphasis on reducing waste and increasing efficiency their objective is to improve their management of pollution and increase customer satisfaction this article investigates the factors that lead to total quality environmental management tqem by large firms we find that internal considerations stemming from a firm s technical capability size absolute and relative to competing firms extent of operations and volume of past emissions are strongly associated with the tqem adoption decision the first four factors are proxies for the firm s costs and capabilities of adopting tqem while the fifth factor is related to the benefits from increasing efficiency and waste reduction and thus proxies for internally generated demand for tqem the desire to improve a firm s image with customers earning good will with regulators and the anticipation of future regulations do not a

regional level household energy consumption determinants the european perspective abstract starting from the assumption that household energy use is manifold and intertwined shaped by many factors which overlap not only at the individual level but also at a higher level of scales the paper developed a more integrated approach to its determinants to assess them and also to find out whether there is a difference between regional level factors that determine it universally and those that are context dependent the static and dynamic panel analyses were employed in 64 european regions over the period from 2005 to 2013 our findings suggest that there are common energy consumption determinants and those ones that are dependent on the regions level of development while the sign of the impact of the former is the same across regions the impact of the latter may differ depending on the character of the energy policy measures applied findings also suggest that energy policy authorities have opportunities to develop and encourage energy efficiency and sustainable use of energy of the household sector by creating regional specific demand side energy efficiency programs and measures as well as user practices in relation to technology

nudging a promising tool for sustainable consumption behaviour abstract success of strategies for solving problems of climate change resource efficiency and environmental impacts increasingly depend on whether changes in public behaviour can and will supplement the technical solutions available to date a renewed perspective on existing policy tools and potential strategies for behaviour change are entering public debate that have implications for behaviour of individuals but that also raise critical questions about the role of the government in the society and transition to sustainability the guiding question is whether it is possible to help individuals make better decisions for themselves and society at large by overcoming limitations of human cognitive capacity and behavioural biases in order to answer these questions this article 1 analyses existing academic knowledge on nudging and choice architecture 2 investigates lessons about effectiveness of applied nudging tools and approaches in consumption domains of energy use in the home food and mobility 3 discusses opportunities and limitations for devising more successful nudges in the three consumption domains and 4 outlines critical issues concerning the legitimacy of nudging the article shows that lately applications of behavioural sciences and behavioural economics such as nudge have been helping policy makers in different countries and sectors to more systematically integrate behavioural insights into policy design and implementation however the size of the effects of policy interventions and the actual outcomes of interventions in different contexts are very diverse results from one experiment cannot be indiscriminately generalised to a different context or to a wider population the problem is the complexity of human behaviour and the diversity of factors that influence it despite that nudging is a useful strategy for inducing changes in context specific behaviour nudge tools are seen as a complement to the traditional policy instruments rather than as a substitute for laws and regulations and economic tools the article is based on the project funded by the swedish epa environmental protection agency that resulted in a report nudging advancing swedish policy making with academic insights and practical experiences of changing behaviour mont et al 2014 which served as an input to the swedish epa recommendations to the swedish government on policy measures for sustainable consumption naturvardsverket 2014

sustainable production framework for cement manufacturing firms a behavioural perspective abstract understanding sustainable production is becoming increasingly important for production and operations managers mainly due to a shortage in natural resources sustainability requires many changes in behaviour at all levels few studies within the sustainable production literature have empirically disentangled the underlying behavioural concepts of sustainable production to address this gap this study utilizes the theory of planned behaviour tpb to develop a theoretical framework to explain sustainable production behaviour survey data gathered from 128 indian cement manufacturing units suggest that attitude subjective norms or social pressures and perceived behavioural control are predictors of the intention for sustainable production which then predicts sustainable production behaviour the research contribution of this study is twofold firstly the current study highlight that the influence of social pressures or subjective norms on intention is greater than attitude and perceived behavioural control and secondly it may be noted that intention is not a strong predictor of the sustainable production behaviour finally our study based on limitations offers extensive future research directions

an institutional framework for the development of sustainable and competitive power market in pakistan abstract pakistan is continuously striving for sustainable and competitive power market under the comprehensive power sector reform program pakistan shifted its power market from monopoly model to single buyer model by unbundling water and power development authority wapda and establishing national transmission and dispatch company ntdc current severe power situation in the country is triggering the government of pakistan gop to accelerate the implementation of intended reform program and to readily undertake next planned transformation i e from single buyer model to wholesale market model this research endeavors the future dynamics of power market after the structural spin off by pre assessment of upcoming wholesale power market market power of both public and private electricity generators has been computed using 8 largest firm concentration ratio herfindahl hirschman index hhi and residual supply index rsi the findings suggest that future power market will function with non existence of market power except in the periods of peak electricity demand and maximum hydro generation furthermore insufficient installed capacities and underutilization of public thermal units may enable some players to exercise market power for sustainable and competitive power market an empirically supported framework has been proposed based on the analysis the framework proposes utilization of huge available renewable energy potential for future which will protect the whole infrastructure from market power it recommends respective roles and responsibilities for the smooth transition among market models the framework will be supportive in terms of successful and smooth transition from single buyer model to wholesale market model and potential of wind solar biogas to be properly explored and utilized to reduce energy gap

the impact of singapore s residential electricity conservation efforts and the way forward insights from the bounds testing approach abstract this article provides fresh empirical evidence of residential electricity demand in singapore over the period of 1980 2014 using the bounds testing procedure to cointegration the residential electricity demand comprises of income price temperature rainy days old age dependency and the impact of energy efficiency policies our results are consistent with previous studies where income and price elasticities are inelastic hence from a policy perspective subsidies will not be effective in reducing electricity demand we also found that old age dependency is an important determinant that reduces electricity consumption at least in the short run suggesting that policies that target the younger population may bring more savings the model findings suggest that in general energy efficiency interventions introduced after 2007 which comprises of both informational strategies and efficiency standards were effective in reducing household electricity consumption however in order to realise greater electricity reduction potential policy efforts have to intensify into the future with the main objectives being to permanently change energy habits and consider the role of hassle costs when rolling out energy saving measures

one million miles to go taking the axiomatic road to defining exploitation this paper analyses the marxian theory of exploitation a general axiomatic approach is developed which is appropriate to study the concept of exploitation what it is and how it should be captured empirically two properties are presented that capture some fundamental marxian insights it is shown that contrary to the received view there exists a nonempty class of definitions of exploitation that preserve the relation between exploitation and profits called profitexploitation correspondence principle in general economies with heterogeneous agents complex class structures and production technologies with heterogeneous labour inputs however among the main approaches only the so called new interpretation satisfies the profitexploitation correspondence principle in general jel b51

a re in statement of the labour theory of value this paper surveys and argues for an account of labor values and prices in the marxian tradition that is not subject to the usual criticisms concerning their conceptual coherence and empirical relevance this reformulation first suggested independently of each other by g dumeenil and d k foley provides a powerful account that overturns almost a century of misconceived orthodoxy in doing so it enables a theoretically coherent account of the value of labor power and an empirical account of the fundamental categories of capitalism copyright 1994 by oxford university press

motivating non ratepaying households with feedback and social nudges a cautionary tale abstract behavioral interventions have been shown to be valuable instruments in reducing energy use among ratepaying customers but their effect on non ratepayers has received less attention this study uses a randomized controlled trial research design to examine the effect of feedback and a social nudge in the form of peer comparison on energy consumption of non ratepaying households the study setting is a university family housing complex and findings are based on hourly observations of energy use by 62 households over thirteen weeks our results suggest that neither feedback or peer comparison is an effective instrument to reduce energy use of non ratepaying households and may even increase energy consumption in some contexts we find heterogeneous effects among households that are low and high users of energy in the pre treatment period with high users increasing energy consumption in response to feedback thus caution is needed in applying behavioral interventions when financial incentives to reinforce intended effects are absent

monetary policy expectations and commitment commitment in monetary policy leads to equilibria that are superior to those from optimal discretionary policies a number of interest rate reaction functions and instrument rules have been proposed to implement or approximate commitment policy we assess these rules in terms of whether they lead to a rational expectations equilibrium that is both locally determinate and stable under adaptive learning by private agents a reaction function that appropriately depends explicitly on private sector expectations performs particularly well on both counts

prices information and nudges for residential electricity conservation a meta analysis incentivising households to lower their electricity consumption is increasingly used as a tool to create a more flexible electricity demand previous reviews estimate that electricity savings of 6 4 7 4 can be achieved through monetary informational and behavioural incentives this papers argues that a more realistic estimate is of a 1 9 3 9 reduction in consumption based on the most recent experimental data from both peer reviewed and grey literature sources using data from 52 studies published during the smart grid era 2005 onwards the effects of incentives from 128 observations amounting to 713 002 households are analysed the results show that individual and real time feedback as well as personalised advice on how to save electricity are more effective than feedback on electricity costs and general electricity savings tips which lead to relative increases in consumption despite improvements in the quality of more recent studies the analysis highlights the importance of methodological rigour in carrying out and reporting effects of incentives an absence of a control group of socio demographic data and the self selection of participants into treatment leads to overestimation of effects

learning about monetary policy rules when the housing market matters abstract in this paper we study a general equilibrium model with a housing market and use stability under adaptive learning as a criterion to evaluate monetary policy rules an important feature of the model is that there exist credit constrained borrowers who use their housing assets as collateral to finance purchases we evaluate both conventional taylor rules and rules that incorporate other targets such as housing prices we find that the effect of responding to housing prices in addition to output and inflation depends critically on the assumed information structure of the economy

between berlin and cambridge classical conceptions of the general economic equilibrium in the late 1920s this paper deals with some contributions to the debate on general economic equilibrium between the two world wars originating in cambridge and berlin they differed from the viennese contributions of the walrasian perspective traditionally considered by the literature they can be defined to represent the classical approach to general equilibrium the authors considered are the italian born economist piero sraffa the german mathematician robert remak and the russian born economist wassily leontief the paper focuses in particular on the intellectual origins of their contributions in the russian german theoretical debate of the period 1890 1910 involving classical economists marx and walras these connections emerge clearly in the contributions of the german russian mathematical school between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries

european economic integration and comparative advantages on the basis of a set of input output tables we computed the european net product possibility frontier nppf for the years from 1995 to 2011 during this period several barriers to trade have been removed allowing higher levels of trade and regional integration subsequently we propose a method to check whether the prediction to be derived from comparative advantages cas theory namely a specialization pattern that allows to reach the nppf is verified the results suggest that cas were not exploited well during the period considered and no positive trend emerged the implication of our results is that there is ample scope for a coordinated policy aimed at improving allocation of resources further research on this topic seems to be necessary

value price and exploitation the logic of the transformation problem this paper tries to clarify the logical structure of the relationship between labor values and prices from an axiomatic perspective the famous transformation problem is interpreted as an impossibility result for a specific interpretation of value theory based on specific assumptions and definitions a comprehensive review of recent literature is provided which shows that there are various theoretically relevant and logically consistent alternative interpretations based on different assumptions and definitions

consumer demand for time of use electricity tariffs a systematized review of the empirical evidence abstract time of use tou tariffs if widely adopted could help make electricity more secure clean and affordable however quite little is known about whether consumers will switch to a tou tariff or what might increase uptake if switching rates are lower than required this paper presents the results of a systematized review and meta analysis combining the results of 66 measures of uptake to a variety of tou tariffs across 27 studies conducted in six countries it provides the first robust estimate of consumer demand and correlates of demand for tou tariffs that is not based on the results from just a single study or tariff four main conclusions emerge first if consumers are left to opt in to tou tariffs uptake could be as low as 1 unless efforts are made to close the intention action gap otherwise enrolment could reach 43 second if enrolment is opt out uptake could approach 100 third whilst national surveys indicate the potential appetite for tou tariffs in a population they are insufficient for predicting future tou tariff adoption rates the median proportion of domestic energy bill payers who say they would be willing to switch to a tou tariff in national surveys is five times higher than the median enrolment rate to tou tariffs offered by utilities fourth real time pricing tariffs in which the price of electricity varies freely throughout the day are less popular than static tou tariffs which have fixed peak and off peak rates this paper discusses the limitations of opt out enrolment for tou tariffs and presents results suggesting that small upfront payments bill protection and automation are promising alternative methods of increasing opt in enrolment policymakers and researchers should now consider how recruitment will be performed weighing up the benefits to society as a whole against the distributional impacts for individuals and groups

class and exploitation in general convex cone economies abstract in this paper we examine what appropriate formulations for labor exploitation are in order to explain the emergence of class and exploitation status in capitalist economies given the well known controversy pertaining to plausible formulations for labor exploitation in joint production economies we propose an axiom axiom for labor exploitation le which every appropriate formulation of labor exploitation should satisfy using this axiom the necessary and sufficient condition for plausible formulations of labor exploitation is characterized to verify class exploitation correspondence principle cecp roemer 1982 according to this cecp no longer holds in general convex cone economies if the well known formulations of labor exploitation such as morishima 1974 and roemer 1982 chapter 5 are applied therefore we propose two new definitions of labor exploitation each of which verifies cecp

profit driven corporate social responsibility as a bayesian real option in green computing the idea that socially responsible investments can be viewed in terms of real options is relatively new we expand on this notion by demonstrating how real option theory within a bayesian decision making framework can be used by managers to help when making green technology investment decisions the bayesian decision framework provides a more flexible approach to investment decision making because it adjusts for new information responding to a call for multidisciplinary and multifaceted research in environmental sustainability this paper integrates ethics finance and information technology by viewing investments in environmentally friendly technology as a profit driven csr real option our model provides managers with the analytic tool needed to make the business case for csr initiatives providing an opportunity for firms to create economic social and ecological solutions that benefit all stakeholders the practical applicability of our model is demonstrated in an illustrative case scenario based on real data

explaining electricity demand and the role of energy and investment literacy on end use efficiency of swiss households abstract this paper estimates the level of transient and persistent efficiency in the use of electricity in swiss households using the newly developed generalized true random effects model gtrem an unbalanced panel dataset of 1994 swiss households from 2010 to 2014 collected via a household survey is used to estimate an electricity demand frontier function we further investigate whether energy and investment literacy have an influence on the household electricity consumption the results show significant inefficiencies in the use of electricity among swiss households both transient 11 and persistent 22 we note that the high persistent inefficiency is indicative of structural problems faced by households and systematic behavioral shortcomings in residential electricity consumption these results indicate a considerable potential for electricity savings and thus reaching the reduction targets defined by the swiss federal council as part of the energy strategy 2050 wherein end use efficiency improvement is one of the main pillars the results support a positive role of energy and in particular investment literacy in reducing household electricity consumption policies targeting an improvement of these attributes could help to enhance efficiency in the use of energy within households

on measuring the deviation of prices from values it has often been found useful to measure in some way the extent to which with profit prices diverge from zero profit values but it is not satisfactory to employ a measure which varies with the choice of numeraire for this element of arbitrariness has nothing to do with the central idea of asking how much the direction of the price vector differs from that of the value vector the authors develop a measure which involves no numeraire and then illustrate its use with data from the united kingdom the irish republic and australia copyright 1998 by oxford university press

technological change in canada 1961 80 an application of the surrogate wage function this paper applies c ozol s surrogate wage function to canadian input output data to analyz e the general properties of technological change during the 1961 80 p eriod technological change manifests itself in the shifts of the est imated surrogate wage curves which indicate the changing capital and labor intensities of the production system the empirical results of this study imply that technological progress in canada is generally l abor saving over the entire 1961 80 period and capital saving over th e 1961 66 period the actual tendencies of the technological evolutio n investigated appear to be explained by the continuous mechanization of the production process

labour time versus alternative value bases a research note this paper provides empirical support for the law of value understood as the proposition that embodied labor time is conserved in exchanges of commodities market prices are well correlated with the sum of direct and indirect labor content is it possible to produce equally good correlations by taking the sum of direct and indirect x content where x is some input other than labor time the authors repeat the analysis for electricity iron and steel and oil and show that the answer is no the high correlations in the case of labor time are therefore not a statistical artifact copyright 1997 by oxford university press

promoting household energy conservation in low income households through tailored interventions in grahamstown south africa abstract there is consensus among researchers and policy makers that households are major consumers of energy which results in serious environmental and financial costs however low income households in particular are often energy insecure and spend a substantial proportion of their income on energy expenditure therefore promoting household energy conservation is considered one of the key pathways to achieving sustainability in both environmental and financial terms this study examines the effectiveness of intervention strategies designed to promote energy conservation using data gathered among low income households in grahamstown south africa a total of 103 households participated in the experimental study energy conservation strategies including print media interactive face to face discussions and feedback were variably applied to different households the results show that the interventions were more effective in promoting energy conservation when applied conjointly rather than separately these results suggest that promoting pro environmental behaviour even among low income households is a possibility further household energy reduction had significant relationships with participants self reported actions and personal values but not with demographic characteristics this study provides useful insights into the complex interplay of personal and situational factors that shape household energy consumption the study underscores the important role that household driven programmes could play in promoting sustainable energy use with support from local municipal government

pollution reduction preferences of u s environmental managers applying ajzen s theory of planned behavior we modified ajzen s theory of planned behavior to analyze the behavioral preferences of environmental managers we used structural equation analysis to link the source reduction preferences of 295

public praise vs private pay effects of rewards on energy conservation in the workplace any solution to rising levels of co2 depends on human behavior one common approach to changing human behavior is rewarding desired behavior because financial incentives often have side effects that diminish efficacy we predict that social rewards are more effective because they invoke adherence to descriptive and injunctive social norms we investigated this by measuring electricity use for 13 weeks at a dutch firm each week employees were rewarded for conserving energy they either received monetary rewards 0 5 or social rewards grade points with a descriptive comment rewards were either private or public in both the short and long term public rewards outperformed private rewards and social rewards outperformed monetary rewards this suggests that private monetary rewards although popular may be ineffective instead public social rewards may be a more promising approach to stimulating energy conservation we argue that this approach should be considered more frequently by policy makers

learning in a credit economy abstract in this paper we analyze a credit economy a la kiyotaki and moore 1997 credit cycles journal of political economy 105 211 248 enriched with learning dynamics where both borrowers and lenders need to form expectations about the future price of the collateral we find that under homogeneous learning the msv ree for this economy is e stable and can be learned by agents but when heterogeneous learning is allowed and uncertainty in terms of a stochastic productivity is added expectations of lenders and borrowers can diverge and lead to bankruptcy default on the part of the borrowers

competition and norms a self defeating combination this paper investigates the effects of information feedback mechanisms on electricity and heating usage at a student hall of residence in london in a randomised control trial we formulate different treatments such as feedback information and norms as well as prize competition among subjects we show that information and norms lead to a sharp more than 20 reduction in overall energy consumption because participants do not pay for their energy consumption this response cannot be driven by cost saving incentives interestingly when combining feedback and norms with a prize competition for achieving low energy consumption the reduction effect while present initially disappears in the long run this could suggest that external rewards reduce and even destroy intrinsic motivation to change behaviour

exploring new ways of assessing the effect of regulation on environmental management abstract studies indicate that while a variety of factors positively influence voluntary environmental management regulatory pressures are among the most important however most research examines samples representing large manufacturers or single industries essentially assuming a level of regulatory constraint using a sample of heterogeneous facilities this study finds that facilities can be classified according to the level of regulatory constraint and that group membership impacts the choice of environmental management strategy when assessed within a utility maximization framework more extensively regulated facilities implement more individual environmental management practices but participate in fewer formal voluntary environmental programs veps compared to other facilities

scenario analysis of energy saving and co2 emissions reduction potentials to ratchet up japanese mitigation target in 2030 in the residential sector abstract this paper assesses to what extent co 2 emissions from electricity in the residential sector can be further reduced in japan beyond its post 2020 mitigation target known as intended nationally determined contribution indc the paper examines the reduction potential of electricity demand and co 2 emissions in the residential sector by conducting a scenario analysis electricity consumption scenarios are set up using a time series regression model and used to forecast the electricity consumption patterns to 2030 the scenario analysis also includes scenarios that reduce electricity consumption through enhanced energy efficiency and energy saving measures the obtained results show that japan can reduce electricity consumption and co 2 emissions in the residential sector in 2030 more than the japanese post 2020 mitigation target indicates at the maximum the electricity consumption could be reduced by 35 twh which contributes to 55 4 mtco 2 of emissions reduction in 2030 compared to 2013 if the voluntarily targeted co 2 intensity of electricity is achieved the result implies that japan has the potential to ratchet up post 2020 mitigation targets discussed under the paris agreement of the united nations framework convention on climate change unfccc

assessment of reasonably achievable ghg emission reduction target in lithuanian households abstract lithuania has developed several important climate change mitigation policy documents however there are no attempts in lithuania to develop local climate change mitigation policies or to decentralize climate change mitigation policy the aim of the paper is to analyse climate change mitigation policies in households the paper presents the framework for the assessment of reasonably achievable ghg emission reduction raer potential in households based on behavioral changes related to energy consumption the paper presents the results of empirical application of developed framework in lithuanian households community based social marketing approach was implemented and ghg emission reduction potential was assessed in focus groups of kaunas region county during preparation of sustainable development strategy and long term strategic development plan for kaunas region county

labour values prices of production and the missing equalisation tendency of profit rates evidence from the german economy during recent years several empirical studies have found that deviations from labour values to market prices are quite small however most of these articles do not offer a detailed reason for this result in this paper two theoretical justifications of the labour theory of value are brought together with some data concerning labour values prices of production and market prices on the basis of german input output tables from 2000 and 2004 in addition the statistical characteristics of profit rates are analysed both of the theoretical arguments are much in line with the empirical observations because there is only a slight transformation tendency and at the same time profit rates and capital intensity are negatively correlated moreover during the period under observation the german economy seems to be in a state of statistical equilibrium copyright oxford university press

learnability of an equilibrium with private information abstract this paper investigates the learnability of an equilibrium with private information agents of each type have their own private information about an exogenous variable and conduct adaptive learning with a heterogeneously misspecified perceived laws of motion plm that includes only this variable the paper shows that the existence of private information has a nonnegative impact on the learnability of the equilibrium that is the condition for learnability is unaffected or relaxed by heterogeneity and or misspecification in plms caused by private information in a new keynesian model with private information about fundamental shocks the learnability of the equilibrium is ensured by the taylor principle of monetary policy the paper also confirms that these results hold true not only in the presence of private information but also in a variety of informational structures

energy conservation nudges and environmentalist ideology evidence from a randomized residential electricity field experiment nudges are being widely promoted to encourage energy conservation we show that while the electricity conservation nudge of providing feedback to households on own and peers home electricity usage works with liberals it can backfire with conservatives our regression estimates predict that a democratic household that pays for electricity from renewable sources that donates to environmental groups and that lives in a liberal neighborhood reduces its consumption by 3 percent in response to this nudge a republican household that does not pay for electricity from renewable sources and that does not donate to environmental groups increases its consumption by 1 percent

citizens views on electricity use savings and production from renewable energy sources a case study from a greek island abstract a country s economic growth is closely linked to the availability generation distribution and use of energy at the same time the increased rate of global energy consumption is a risk to development and to the efforts to safeguard people s living standards for the future the production of electricity from res substantially contributes to the energy security of states and to environmental protection greece has a valuable and exploitable potential in several res and can significantly increase their use however various significant institutional changes have taken place in greece over the last decades involving changes to the energy mix the penetration of res and attracting foreign investment the present research took place on the island of andros greece with the help of a questionnaire and face to face interviews it is noted that the respondents agree with the need to save energy and to expand the use of green energy they say they are slightly satisfied by the messages given through the mass media they have insufficient information regarding res systems that can be used in households and believe that a major subsidy from the state would lead to their purchase

the impacts of energy efficiency policies meta analysis abstract this paper attempts to quantitatively summarize the existing empirical evidence on the effects of energy efficiency policies on energy demand and on the price of associated durable goods as well as to identify the main factors that systematically affect the estimated impacts to this end a meta regression analysis of the effects of energy efficiency policies is carried out on the basis of an extensive review of the existing literature selecting those studies that analyze the impact of energy efficiency policies with respect to a business as usual setting taking into account the econometric problems associated with this type of analysis intra class correlation cross sectional dependence publication bias in pursuit of robust outcomes the results show that the studies analyzing the effects of energy efficiency policies estimate a significant impact of these policies on energy demand 10 5 8 8 and the price of related durable goods 7 9 6 the main factors that influence results are the policy instrument the targeted sector the type of country the analyzed period the consideration of free riders and the type of analysis data and publication energy demand and the sector and analyzed period price of durables

the whiggish foundations of marxian and sraffian economics the first half of the paper discusses what is wrong with whig history and why it is wrong to distort the past the author s views are compared with those of noted historians of economics this discussion provides motivation for the second half of the paper which focuses on whiggish accounts of the scientifically progressive character of mainstream marxian and sraffian economics that rest heavily upon proofs of internal inconsistency in marx s own theories the paper argues that the inconsistencies are actually products of whiggish misinterpretation thus it is not the case that progress has taken place through correction of error mainstream marxian and sraffian theories are not corrections of the original theories but alternatives to them

explaining the energy efficiency gap expected utility theory versus cumulative prospect theory abstract energy efficiency is one of the key factors in mitigating the impact of climate change and preserving non renewable resources although environmental and economic justifications for energy efficiency investments are compelling there is a gap between the observable and some notion of optimized energy consumption the so called energy efficiency gap behavioral biases in individual decision making have been resonated by environmental research to explain this gap to analyze the influence of behavioral biases on decisions upon energy efficiency investments quantitatively we compare expected utility theory with cumulative prospect theory on basis of a real world example we illustrate how the extent of the gap is influenced by behavioral biases such as loss aversion probability weighting and framing our findings indicate that cumulative prospect theory offers possible explanations for many barriers discussed in literature for example the size of the gap rises with increased risk and investment costs because behavioral biases are systematic and pervasive our insights constitute a valuable quantitative basis for environmental policy measures such as customer focused and quantitatively backed public awareness campaigns financial incentives or energy savings insurances in this vein this paper may contribute to an accelerated adaption of energy efficiency measures by the broader public