meta paradigm change and the theory of the firm many seemingly unrelated debates on the theory of the firm are in fact part of a single deeper transformation of the social sciences as the foundational assumptions of 20th century social science have slowly been shown by science to be false new sub paradigms have emerged which cumulatively drop i theoretical assumptions about markets to explain firms ii epistemological assumptions about knowledge to explain diversity and iii metaphysical assumptions about causality to explain technical change debates occur across each of these levels

china s balance of emissions embodied in trade approaches to measurement and allocating international responsibility international trade is characterized not only by the flow of capital and goods but also by the energy and emissions embodied in goods during their production this paper investigates the evolving role that chinese trade is playing in the response to climate change by estimating the scale of emissions embodied in china s current trade pattern and demonstrating the magnitude of the difference between the emissions it produces some of which are incurred to meet the consumption demands of the rest of the world and the emissions embodied in the goods it consumes estimating china s emissions on a consumption rather than a production basis both lowers its responsibility for carbon dioxide co2 emissions in 2006 from 5 500 to 3 840mtco2 and reduces the growth rate of emissions from an average of 12 5 per cent p a to 8 7 per cent p a between 2001 and 2006 the analysis indicates that a reliable consumption based accounting methodology is feasible and could improve our understanding of which actors and states are responsible for emissions for example recent emissions reductions by developed countries may lack credibility if production has merely been displaced to countries such as china moreover in the current institutional context production methodologies encourage leakages through trade that may do more to displace than to reduce emissions both equity and efficiency concerns therefore suggest that emissions embodied in trade should receive special attention in the distribution of post kyoto abatement burdens

testing alternative theories of the firm transaction cost knowledge based and measurement explanations for make or buy decisions in information services firms boundary choices have undergone careful examination in recent years particularly in information services while transaction cost economics provides a widely tested explanation for boundary choice more recent theoretical work advances competing knowledge based and measurement cost explanations similar to transaction cost economics these theories examine the impact of exchange attributes on the performance of markets and hierarchies as institutions of governance these theories however offer alternative attributes to those suggested by transaction cost economics or offer alternative mechanisms through which similar attributes influence make buy choices traditional empirical specifications of make buy models are unable to comparatively test among these alternative theories by developing and testing a model of comparative institutional performance rather than institutional choice we examine the degree of support for these competing explanations of boundary choice hypotheses are tested using data on the governance of nine information services at 152 companies our results suggest that a theory of the firm and a theory of boundary choice is likely to be complex requiring integration of transaction cost knowledge based and measurement reasoning 1998 john wiley sons ltd

the impact of domestic trade on china s regional energy uses a multi regional input output modeling to systematically reveal how domestic trade impacts on china s regional energy uses an interprovincial input output modeling is carried out to address demand derived energy requirements for the regional economies in 2007 based on the recently available data both the energy uses embodied in final demand and interregional trade are investigated from the regional and sectoral insights significant net transfers of embodied energy flows are identified from the central and western areas to the eastern area via interregional trade shanxi is the largest energy producer and interregional embodied energy deficit receiver in contrast to guangdong as the largest energy user and surplus receiver by considering the impacts of interregional trade the energy uses of most eastern regions increase remarkably for instance shanghai hainan zhejiang beijing jiangsu and guangdong have their embodied energy requirements 87 49 19 97 13 64 12 60 6 46 and 6 38 times of their direct energy inputs respectively in contrast the embodied energy uses of some central and western regions such as inner mongolia shanxi xinjiang shaanxi and guizhou decrease largely the results help understand the hidden network linkages of interregional embodied energy flows and provide critical insight to amend china s current end reduction oriented energy policies by addressing the problem of regional responsibility transfer

shared producer and consumer responsibility theory and practice abstract over the past decade an increasing number of authors have been examining the nexus of producer versus consumer responsibility often dealing with the question of how to assign responsibility for internationally traded greenhouse gas emissions recently a similar problem has appeared in drafting the standards for the ecological footprint while the method traditionally assumes a full life cycle perspective with full consumer responsibility a large number of producers businesses and industry sectors have started to calculate their own footprints see www isa org usyd edu au adding any producer s footprint to other producers footprints or to population footprints which all already cover the full upstream supply chain of their operating inputs leads to double counting the sum of footprints of producers and consumers is larger than the total national footprint the committee in charge of the footprint standardisation process was hence faced with the decades old non additivity problem posing the following dilemma for the accounting of footprints or any other production factor if one disallows double counting but wishes to be able to account for producers and consumers then one cannot impose the requirement of full life cycle coverage the supply chains of actors have to be curtailed somehow in order to avoid double counting this work demonstrates and discusses a non arbitrary method of consistently delineating these supply chains into mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive portions of responsibility to be shared by all actors in an economy

the organization of work a historical dimension abstract an evaluation of the organizational efficiencies of various modes of production by o e williamson has led him to conclude that given identical technologies the factory was more efficient than the putting out system the superior organizational efficiency of the former he maintains was one reason for the transition to factory production during the nineteenth century this paper challenges that view it is argued that the way in which williamson evaluates efficiency is open to methodological and other objections and that there is limited empirical support for his hypothesis given an identical technology the evidence suggests that the putting out system was usually able to compete with the factory

analysis of co2 emissions embodied in china s bilateral trade a non competitive import input output approach co2 emissions embodied in international trade are critical to the national carbon mitigation strategy studies estimating embodied co2 emissions in china often overestimate actual values this work calculates china s co2 emissions embodied in bilateral trade with the usa european union japan and other countries using a modified non competitive import input output method and latest data the results show that net co2 emissions embodied in china s trade in 2007 were only 400 million tons much lower than previous estimations accordingly china s co2 emission on the consumption side in 2007 dropped to 5 628 billion tons with the transfer part accounting for 6 6 of total co2 emissions calculated for the production side it is concluded that because co2 emissions embodied in trade are not as great as previously estimated china should place more emphases on energy saving and emission reduction on its own side instead of emission transfer to substantially mitigate co2 emissions

can the new forms of investment substitute for the old forms a transaction costs perspective this paper uses transaction costs theory is used to explain the features of the new contractual alternatives to foreign direct investment the new forms to assess their efficiency and to forecast their future development

sourcing by design product complexity and the supply chain this paper focuses on the connection between product complexity and vertical integration using original empirical evidence from the auto industry a rich literature has addressed the choice between internal production and external sourcing of components in the auto industry more recent literature has developed the concept of product architecture as another choice variable that may be one of the important contributors to product complexity in this paper we connect these two important decisions and study them jointly we use the property rights approach to argue that complexity in product design and vertical integration of production are complements that in house production is more attractive when product complexity is high as firms seek to capture the benefits of their investment in the skills needed to coordinate development of complex designs we test this hypothesis with a simultaneous equations model applied to data from the luxury performance segment of the auto industry we find a significant and positive relationship between product complexity and vertical integration this has implications for optimal incentive structures within firms as well as for interpreting firm performance

a household hedonic model of rice traits economic values from farmers in west africa abstract new crop varieties often have been promoted in developing countries based upon superior yield vis a vis locally available varieties this research presents a hedonic price model for upland rice by drawing upon the input characteristics and consumer good characteristics model literature model specification tests determine that a combination of production and consumption characteristics best explains the willingness to pay for new upland rice varieties the household model specification determined that five traits explain the willingness to pay for new rice varieties plant cycle length plant height grain colour elongation swelling and tenderness yield was not a significant explanatory variable of the willingness to pay for seed the implications of this model are two fold first varietal development and promotion must include post harvest characteristics in addition to production traits when determining which varieties to promote for official release secondly non yield production characteristics such as plant height and cycle length are significant factors in producer s assessments of the value of a new variety overall this paper provides an alternative explanation for limited adoption of modern upland rice varieties in west africa varietal evaluation programs have focused too narrowly on yield evaluation and have not promoted varieties with superior non yield characteristics than locally available varieties

a hedonic price model for rough rice bid acceptance markets several quality factors are important in valuing rough rice this paper first evaluates the ability of federal grades to explain these factors second the discounts associated with various quality factors are estimated finally the factors affecting acceptance of a bid are investigated the results indicate grades are useful but inadequate in explaining observed quality differentials the major quality factor in determining price was head yield stinkbug damage was the most important quality factor of those that producers could control the probability of acceptance increased with higher than expected bids smaller lot sizes more bidders and as the marketing season progressed

china s 2020 clean energy target consistency pathways and policy implications abstract china has proposed its 2020 clean energy target together with the climate change target of reducing co2 intensity of the economy by 40 45 below the 2005 level this article investigates the feasibility of these targets by testing their consistency under possible economic development scenarios we analyse these targets from two perspectives consistency with the overall economic growth and consistency with the international society s expectation on china s greenhouse gas ghg abatement responsibilities the main findings are under the recently announced 2020 target of gross domestic product gdp that is double the 2010 level the adoption of a 15 clean energy target could result in excessive primary energy demand and then with 40 45 gdp co2 intensity reduction co2 emissions in 2020 could substantially exceed the international energy agency iea 450 ppm scenario for china thus we propose a 17 clean energy target that can reconcile the domestic plan with international expectation our article also outlines the pathways to realise clean energy development into 2020 and proposes policy recommendations

carbon emission flow in the power industry and provincial co2 emissions evidence from cross provincial secondary energy trading in china abstract the accurate calculation of co2 emissions in every province in china is the basis for developing regional energy policies there is a huge fossil fuel reserve and production capacity in western china whereas their underdeveloped social and economic status means that there is lower demand the more developed eastern coastal regions of china show dynamic economic momentum and hence higher energy demand based on the carbon emission flows in network theory this paper proposes an approach to recalculate provincial co2 emissions from the perspective of secondary energy consumption this approach attributes co2 emissions to final energy consumers after considering cross provincial secondary energy trading especially cross provincial electric power trading in the regional power grid given the uneven distribution of energy resources and the imbalance of energy consumption among regions cross provincial secondary energy trading in china is significant especially in the power industry by adopting the approach proposed in this paper the provincial carbon intensity and the corresponding energy policy can be modified to make energy end users pay rather than the primary producer

the economics of energy service contracts energy service contracting can provide a cost effective route to overcoming barriers to energy efficiency energy service contracts allow the client to reduce operating costs transfer risk and concentrate attention on core activities however the energy services model may only be appropriate for a subset of energy services and energy using organisations a challenge for both business strategy and public policy is to identify those situations in which energy service contracting is most likely to be appropriate and the conditions under which it is most likely to succeed energy service contracting is a form of outsourcing it will only be chosen where the expected reduction in the production cost of supplying energy services can more than offset the transaction cost of negotiating and managing the relationship with the energy service provider production costs will be determined by a combination of the physical characteristics of the energy system and the technical efficiency of the relevant organisational arrangements including economies of scale and specialisation transaction costs in turn will be determined by the complexity of the energy service the specificity of the investments made by the contractor the competitiveness of the energy services market and the relevant legal financial and regulatory rules this paper develops these ideas into a general framework that may be used to assess the feasibility of energy service contracting in different circumstances the framework leads to a number of hypotheses that are suitable for empirical test

the firm as a nexus of treaties part 1 knowledge its acquisition sharing and or asymmetry the participatory generation of information rents and the theory of the firm masahiko aoki common knowledge and the co ordination of economic activities jacques cremer profit sharing information and employment matti pohjola part 2 vertical integration and the strategic management of the enterprise what is vertical integration michael h riordan vertical integration transaction costs and learning by using kurt lundgren the firm as a nexus of internal and external contracts torger reve part 3 issues of labour organization the viability of worker ownership an economic perspective on the political structure of the firm henry hansmann intellectual skill and the role of employees as constituent members of large firms in contemporary japan kazuo koike the implicit contract for corporate law firm associates ex post opportunism and ex ante bonding robert h mooking part 4 finance and the political structure of the firm capital structure as a mechanism of control a comparison of financial systems erik berglof long term contracts in financial markets hakan lindgren the principle of external accountability in competitive markets herbert gintis union militancy and plant designs kar ove moene can transaction cost economics explain trade associations marc schneiberg and j rogers hollingsworth

china s provincial co2 emissions embodied in international and interprovincial trade trades create a mechanism of embodied co2 emissions transfer among regions causing distortion on the total emissions as the world s second largest economy china has a large scale of trade which results in the serious problem of embodied co2 emissions transfer this paper analyzes the characteristics of china s co2 emissions embodied in international and interprovincial trade from the provincial perspective the multi regional input output model is used to clarify provincial co2 emissions from geographical and sectoral dimensions including 30 provinces and 28 sectors two calculating principles production accounting principle and consumption accounting principle munksgaard and pedersen 2001 are applied the results show that for international trade the eastern area accounts for a large proportion in china s embodied co2 emissions the sectors as net exporters and importers of embodied co2 emissions belong to labor intensive and energy intensive industries respectively for interprovincial trade the net transfer of embodied co2 emissions is from the eastern area to the central area and energy intensive industries are the main contributors with the largest amount of direct co2 emissions the eastern area plays an important role in co2 emissions reduction the central and western areas need supportive policies to avoid the transfer of industries with high emissions

the market valuation of the fgis grain quality characteristics the issue addressed in this paper is whether the grain quality factors used by the federal grain inspection service in determining the quality grades of wheat exported by the united states including test weight dockage moisture content percentage of foreign material percentage of shrunken and broken kernels and protein content are characteristics that influence the price of wheat for export using shiplot data on the transactions price for hard red winter wheat hard red spring wheat and soft white wheat and the associated quality characteristics covering the period january 1990 to october 1991 and exported to 63 countires the results suggest that only the test weight and the protein content are characteristics consistently valued by the market

how to deliver foreign aid the case of projects governed by the spanish international agency summary international agencies use two alternative modes of governance to deliver international aid projects under bilateral agreements with recipient governments in house or through incumbent ngos through the lenses of institutional and transaction cost economics this article examines 95 international aid projects delivered in morocco and ecuador by the spanish international agency finding that those projects delivered in house present different features than those projects outsourced through incumbent ngos specifically international aid projects delivered in house involve important investments in specific assets are much more complex and can turn the public agency into a hostage of its own disbursement

integration of the sales force an empirical examination this article develops and tests a model of integration of a marketing function personal selling the model derived from transaction cost analysis as developed principally by williamson is formulated as a logistic function which is estimated with data from the electronic components industry as expected integration is associated with increasing levels of asset specificity difficulty of performance evaluation and the combination of these two factors contrary to the transaction cost model neither frequency of transactions nor interaction of specificity and environmental uncertainty is significantly related to integration the transaction cost model improves significantly upon the fit of a simple model relating integration to company size alone these results suggest that for studying transactions of this kind it is fruitful to view the firm as a governance structure

changes of co2 emissions embodied in china japan trade drivers and implications co2 emission embodied in trade is an important aspect to respond international carbon mitigation half of china s emission increase was due to production of exports in order to analyze the reason of such a rapid emission increase embodied co2 emission flows between china and japan for the period of 2000 2009 were estimated in this study by using emission embodied in bilateral trade eebt approach in order to raise policy implications for both countries from trade perspective decomposition analysis was further conducted in order to identify driving forces underlying changes during the study period moreover the concept of dependence on traded co2 was proposed for analyzing mutual dependence of china and japan s carbon emission and economy the results show that china was a net exporter of embodied co2 emissions between china and japan trade but both china s exported emissions and net emission transfer to japan began to decrease after 2007 more emissions were embodied in more advanced and less carbon intensive products especially for china s exports driving force analysis shows that trade volume was the main driver for the increase of embodied emissions and technology effect contributed mainly to the decrease the absolute value of technology effect was even larger than activity effect in some years this study also reveals that japan was relatively more dependent on china s co2 emissions and showed an increasing trend over the last decade while china s economic development was more dependent on imports from japan and such a situation reversed after 2006 this study suggests that china should further reduce its emission intensity for narrowing the gap of embodied emissions between the bilateral trade flows and japanese energy saving technologies should be transferred to china

mitigating contractual hazards unilateral options and contract length in this article we consider the ways in which the desire for efficient low cost adaptation to change influences the tradeoff between the design and duration of long term contractual relationships we examine the distortions in contract terms occasioned by nonprice competition for natural gas in the presence of wellhead price regulation deviations from optimal contract incentives significantly raise the cost of being bound to long term agreements and shorten the duration of contracts the approach we adopt suggests a method for empirically assessing the efficiency of alternative contracting practices and legal standards

vertical integration in the u s auto industry a note on the influence of transaction specific assets abstract recent refinements in the theory of the firm suggest that organization form may be sensitive not only to the degree to which assets are specific to a transaction but also to the type of capital employed this paper reports evidence regarding the relative influence of transaction specific investments in physical and human capital on the pattern of vertical integration using new data obtained directly from u s auto manufacturers the results support the proposition that investments in specialized technical know how have a stronger influence than those in specialized physical capital on the decision to integrate production within the firm

the impacts of liquidity dynamics on emissions allowances price different evidence from china s emissions trading pilots abstract the liquidities of china s emissions trading markets have significant impacts on emissions allowances price movement and pricing efficiency liquidity measures on illiquidity ratio and trade values indicate hubei emissions allowances hbea product has the highest liquidity shenzhen allowances sza and guangdong emissions allowances gdea products have the higher liquidity than beijing emissions allowances bea and shanghai emissions allowances shea products while tianjin emissions allowances tjea product has the lowest market liquidity in considered china s emissions trading pilots the dynamics of the illiquidity ratios for all selected emissions allowances products are negatively related with emissions allowances returns and trade volumes for bea tjea sza and hbea products are also negatively related with emissions allowances returns the dynamics of daily illiquidity ratios and trade based liquidity in beijing tianjin guangdong shenzhen hubei emissions pilots have significant volatility clustering impacts on the variances of regional emissions allowances returns previous market shocks of overnight and intraday price variations have the more persistent influences on the gdea returns than hbea returns reflecting greater inter day price ranges clustering effect

regional allocation of co2 emissions allowance over provinces in china by 2020 the mitigation efforts of china are increasingly important for meeting global climate target since the rapid economic growth of china has led to an increasing share in the world s total co2 emissions this paper sets out to explore the approach for realizing china s national mitigation targets submitted to the unfccc as part of the copenhagen accord that is to reduce the intensity of co2 emissions per unit of gdp by 40 45 by 2020 as well as reducing the energy intensity and increasing the share of non fossil fuel consumption through regional allocation of emission allowance over china s provinces since the realization of china s mitigation target essentially represents a total amount emission allowance allocation problem an improved zero sum gains data envelopment analysis optimization model which could deal with the constant total amount resources allocation is proposed in this study by utilizing this model and based on several scenarios of china s economic growth co2 emissions and energy consumption a new efficient emission allowance allocation scheme on provincial level for china by 2020 is proposed the allocation results indicate that different provinces have to shoulder different mitigation burdens in terms of emission intensity reduction energy intensity reduction and share of non fossil fuels increase

how can china reach its co2 intensity reduction targets by 2020 a regional allocation based on equity and development in late 2009 the chinese government committed to cut its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product gdp by 40 to 45 of 2005 levels by 2020 this has raised the issue of how to allocate the co2 reduction target regionally to meet the national reduction target to meet this objective the following aspects may be taken into consideration equity principles common but differentiated responsibilities intensity reduction target fulfillment and economic difference and reduction potential among provinces this paper selects per capita gdp accumulated fossil fuel related co2 emissions and energy consumption per unit of industrial added value as indicators for emission reduction capacity responsibility and potential respectively based on these three indicators a comprehensive index is developed and an intensity allocation model constructed as decision makers may have different preferences when allocating the reduction burden we allocate different weights to the indicators analyzing the results using cluster analysis the following aspects may also be considered together with the national regional development strategy to determine how to share the burden the reduction potential of various regions implementation potential of the plans and promotion of a highly efficient low carbon economic development model

accounting for china s regional carbon emissions in 2002 and 2007 production based versus consumption based principles abstract analysing the characteristics of virtual carbon flows among regions is essential for china to deploy effective regional mitigation strategies this study established a multi regional input output model to assess the characteristics of interregional carbon flows and account for carbon emissions by different regions according to one production based and two consumption based accounting principles results indicate that interregional carbon flows grew from 136 4 mtc in 2002 to 377 8 mtc in 2007 the proportion of total national emissions represented by interregional carbon flows rose from 15 2 in 2002 to 21 1 in 2007 therefore different accounting principles tend to have more and more different impacts on the emission responsibility that a region is assumed to take according to the results under different accounting principles the northeast and northwest regions will need to assume much greater emission responsibilities under the production based principle than under either of the consumption based principles the eastern coastal and southern coastal regions in contrast will need to assume much greater emission responsibilities under the two consumption based principles moreover the carbon flows from the central and northwest regions to the eastern coastal region were the greatest contributors to both the total interregional carbon flows in 2007 and the growth in interregional carbon flows from 2002 to 2007 given this situation and considering the economic disparity among these regions methods similar to the joint implementation could be considered when discussing the regions emission responsibilities results also indicate that the total use direct emission principle is a more feasible and practical consumption based choice

knowledge market failure and the multinational enterprise a comment the purpose of this note is to comment briefly on two papers published in this journal kogut and zander 1993 and love 1995 kogut and zander k z argue that market failure is not necessary to explain the existence of multinationals or indeed any firm love argues that the existence of a firm necessarily reflects a market failure but that opportunism is not necessary for market failure to occur i have problems with the logic of both papers

the effect of trade between china and the uk on national and global carbon dioxide emissions we estimate the amount of carbon dioxide embodied in bi lateral trade between the uk and china in 2004 developing and applying the method of shui and harriss 2006 tile role of co2 embodiment in us china trade energy policy 34 4063 4068 the most recently available data on trade and co2 emissions have been updated and adjusted to calculate the co2 emissions embodied in the commodities traded between china and the uk it was found that through trade with china the uk reduced its co2 emissions by approximately 11 in 2004 compared with a non trade scenario in which the same type and volume of goods are produced in the uk in addition due to the greater carbon intensity and relatively less efficient production processes of chinese industry china uk trade resulted in an additional 117 mt of co2 to global co2 emissions in the same one year period compared with a non trade scenario in which the same type and volume of goods are produced in the uk this represents an additional 19 to the reported national co2 emissions of the uk 555 mt y in 2004 and 0 4 of global emissions these findings suggest that through international trade very significant environmental impacts can be shifted front one country to another and that international trade can but does not necessarily result in globally increased greenhouse gas emissions these results are additional to the environmental consequences of transporting goods which are not robustly quantified here c 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

a resource based theory of the firm knowledge versus opportunism this paper develops a resource based knowledge based theory of the firm its thesis is that the organizational mode through which individuals cooperate affects the knowledge they apply to business activity we focus on the polar cases of organization within a firm as compared to market contracting there will be a difference in the knowledge that is brought to bear and hence in joint productivity under the two options thus as compared to opportunism based transaction cost theory we advance a separate yet complementary answer to the question why do firms exist our aim is to develop an empirically relevant and complementary theory of why firms are formed a theory based on irreducible knowledge differences between individuals rather than the threat of purposeful cheating or withholding of information we assume limited cognitive abilities on the part of individuals bounded rationality and assume that opportunistic behavior will not occur the latter allows us to determine whether resource based

co2 mitigation potential of ccs in china an evaluation based on an integrated assessment model abstract carbon capture and storage ccs has been viewed as an emission abatement option with great potential in china as coal has dominated china s energy consumption china has already started to pay attention to ccs as well as to the proposed the concept of ccus which adds co 2 utilization into the chain of capture transportation and storage however ccs is still in the early stages of its technological development and the high cost with several internal and external uncertainties make the role that ccs can play in china s future emission reduction unclear from the perspective of general equilibrium analysis this paper introduces ccs into a regional energy economy environment integrated assessment model and makes a comprehensive evaluation of ccs s potential for future development and contribution to emission abatement in china at climate policy level the potential contribution of ccs in emission abatement has been evaluated against different future emission constraint scenarios in china at technological level the effects of endogenous learning and policy incentives on ccs have been investigated and the substitution capacities of ccs and non hydro renewables to fossil energy have been discussed as well as their technology penetration rates furthermore the impact of co 2 utilization on the development of ccs has also been discussed

an index decomposition analysis of china s interregional embodied carbon flows abstract being the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world china also possesses enormous regional disparities in terms of carbon dioxide emissions significant carbon emission flows from developed regions to undeveloped regions through inter regional trade have been observed in china in order to examine the determining factors of such virtual carbon flows an index decomposition analysis was conducted to investigate emissions embodied in trades among eight regions which were grouped with recourse to the latest available provincial i o tables in china this paper finds that trade balance and energy intensity are two most salient factors with regard to interregional carbon flows in the largest outsourcing region the northwest region of china the two factors account for 35 6 59 1 of the total carbon surplus respectively thus china is experiencing more efficiency losses than efficiency gains resulting from carbon transfers in order to switch to a future efficiency gain situation policies and supports for technology innovation in and transfer to inland regions as well as enhanced technology standards for expanded carbon intensive productions in less developed regions are suggested to complement the current policy of carbon intensity target

carbon emissions embodied in value added chains in china abstract the literature on carbon leakage and embodied carbon in regional trade is extensive however many studies are primarily concerned with emissions embodied in demand supply chains and ignore the issue of carbon transfer behind the value added chains we promote a model to calculate value based emissions vbes and carbon emissions embodied in the value added chain using the multi regional input output model mrio taking china as an example vbes and carbon emissions embodied in value added chains at the sub national level based on mrio tables for 1997 and 2007 in china were analyzed transferred carbon emissions embodied in regional value added chains in china showed rapid growth between 1997 and 2007 however the absolute values of inter regional net transferred carbon emissions embodied in value added chains were small and showed a declining trend therefore the regional inequality between economic growth and carbon emissions pollution reduced between 1997 and 2007 although the amount of emissions embodied in regional value added chains increased as of the inter regional economic link in china gained close proximity

characteristic supplies and demands in a hedonic framework u s market for cotton fiber attributes hedonic price analysis has frequently been used to determine agricultural commodity characteristics values while hedonic price theory consists of a two stage process second stage commodity characteristics equations have not been successfully estimated until now the estimated system consisted of 11 first stage equations to determine cotton characteristics values the second stage consisted of 24 characteristic demand and 20 characteristic supply equations to model the underlying characteristic market structure cotton characteristic values were shown to vary across regions and over time as characteristic supplies and demands varied

using transaction cost economics to explain outsourcing of accounting this study explores whether smes involved in the outsourcing of accounting tasks differ in terms of transactional and personal ceo characteristics from others that perform the same tasks within the company we rely on the transaction cost economics tce model while controlling for age educational background and trust of the sme executive in the external accountant a survey was developed to investigate the outsourcing by belgian smes both of routine entry of invoices interim reporting and non routine period end accounting preparation of financial statements accounting tasks for the routine accounting tasks frequency was significantly associated with outsourcing meanwhile for non routine accounting tasks asset specificity and frequency were significantly associated high frequency tasks were associated with lower levels of outsourcing similarly higher asset specificity was associated with lower levels of outsourcing furthermore the educational background of the ceo as well as the ceo s level of trust in the external accountant was significantly associated with outsourcing confirming the upper echelon theory having a more educated ceo was associated with lower levels of outsourcing both for routine and non routine accounting tasks

buyer preferences for sheep and goats in southern nigeria a hedonic price analysis abstract a survey of two rural markets in southwest nigeria over 14 months showed that supplies sales and prices of sheep and goats varied widely during the period with a sharp peak during the muslim festival of eid el kabir and a smaller peak during the christmas new year period local west african dwarf wad sheep and goats and northern y ankasa sheep and red sokoto goats were traded in the markets and animals were purchased for rearing trading ceremonies butchering catering sacrifice and festivals there were significant differences between species breeds purchased for various purposes a hedonic price model was fitted to determine factors influencing price after adjustments were made for age weight sex time of transaction and market wad sheep commanded higher prices than wad goats and red sokoto goats for all purposes except for butchering catering red sokoto goats commanded similar or lower prices than wad goats depending on the purpose for purchase and y ankasa sheep principally purchased for the eid el kabir festival commanded marginally higher prices than wad sheep the market share of wad sheep is currently small and is under competition from northern sheep and goats so increased production of wad sheep in the south will benefit both producers and consumers in the area in general the results indicate that buyers have preferences for specific breeds and species for specific purposes so producers and sellers may benefit by targeting specific buyer categories and times of the year

profitability transactional alignment and organizational mortality in the u s trucking industry the winds of creative destruction rarely blow more fiercely than in a newly deregulated environment managers simultaneously face a novel focus on operating efficiency and an onslaught of new competitors what must managers do to enable their firms to survive in such an environment what factors bear on firms survival this paper presents an analysis of mortality of large motor carriers in the u s interstate for hire trucking industry after deregulation it examines this phenomenon through a multidisciplinary lens that encompasses organizational ecology neoclassical economics and transaction cost economics the paper posits that carrier mortality is a function of both firm level and industry level attributes which are drawn from both ecological and economic theories while each of these theories separately informs motor carrier mortality the inclusion of predictions derived from both disciplines in one model significantly increases explanatory power over either theory evaluated alone the empirical analysis is among the first to show increased mortality when firms do not adhere to operating policies consistent with transaction cost minimization principles in sum managers are well advised to adopt a multidisciplinary approach to strategy to ensure their firms survival 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

towards an economic theory of the multiproduct firm this paper outlines a theory of the multiproduct firm important building blocks include excess capacity and its creation market imperfections and the peculiarities of organizational knowledge including its fungible and taut character a framework is adopted in which profit seeking firms are seen to diversify in order to avoid the high transactions costs associated with using various markets to trade the services of various specialized assets neoclassical explanations of the multiproduct firm are shown to be seriously deficient

the determinants of trust in supplier automaker relationships in the us japan and korea we examine the determinants of trust in 453 supplier automaker relationships in the us japan and korea we define trust and derive a model of its determinants drawing upon 1 an embeddedness relationship based perspective 2 a process based perspective and 3 an economic hostage based perspective our findings indicate strong support for the process based perspective in all countries embeddedness was only important in japan and the economic hostage based variable stock ownership was not important in any country

modes of foreign entry a transaction cost analysis and propositions a frontier issue in international marketing is the appropriate choice of entry mode in foreign markets the objective of this paper is to offer a transaction cost framework for investigating the entry mode decision this framework provides 1 a theoretical basis for systematically interrelating the literature into propositions 2 propositions about interactions which resolve the apparently contradictory arguments advanced to date specifically the paper illustrates the feasibility of clustering 17 entry modes into the degree of control the mode provides the entrant proposes that the most appropriate i e most efficient entry mode is a function of the tradeoff between control and the cost of resource commitment advances testable propositions delimiting the circumstances under which each mode maximizes long term efficiency

ghg emissions from electricity consumption a case study of hong kong from 2002 to 2015 and trends to 2030 abstract electricity consumption in cities is steadily increasing using a life cycle approach and fuel mix data from power companies sustainability reports this paper analyzes greenhouse gas ghg emissions from electricity consumption in hong kong the results show that coal contributed on an average 74 3 percent liquefied natural gas 25 1 percent and oil 0 6 percent of the thermal energy consumed for generating electricity in hong kong between 2002 and 2015 besides hong kong imported an average of 7 96 billion kwh per year net electricity from a nuclear power plant in shenzhen during this period ghg emissions from annual electricity consumption ranged between 27 0 and 34 1 million tons mt and the emission factor ranged between 702 and 792 g co2 eq kwh hong kong s gross domestic product gdp increased steadily from usd 176 billion in 2002 to usd 297 billion by 2015 as a result hong kong s electricity productivity increased from 4 62 to 6 75 usd kwh while ghg emission from electricity consumption per gdp decreased from 0 153 to 0 104 mt co2 eq usd billion hong kong s annual electricity consumption was predicted over the short term period 2016 2020 and medium term up to year 2030 electricity consumption is likely to increase to 44 63 billion kwh by 2030 while ghg emissions from electricity consumption would increase to 33 92 mt of co2 eq the implications are discussed at the end of the paper