is there private information in the fx market the tokyo experiment it is a common view that private information in the foreign exchange market does not exist we provide evidence against this view the evidence comes from the introduction of trading in tokyo over the lunch hour lunch re turn variance doubles with the introduction of trading which cannot be due to public information since the flow of public information did not change with the trading rules having eliminated public information as the cause we exploit the volatility pattern over the whole day to discriminate between the two alternatives private information and pricing errors three key re sults support the predictions of private information models first the vola tility u shape flattens greater revelation over lunch leaves a smaller share for the morning and afternoon second the u shape tilts upward an impli cation of information whose private value is transitory finally the morning exhibits a clear u shape when tokyo closes over lunch and it disappears when trading is introduced

market segmentation and willingness to pay for green electricity among urban residents in china the case of jiangsu province the objective of this study is to identify market segments and estimate the residents willingness to pay wtp for green electricity green e in china for the large scale promotion of energy projects from renewable sources that do not rely solely on energy policies based on an analysis of non use values of green e as well as the application of the contingent valuation cv method and payment card pc introduction technology the average wtp ranges from rmb 7 91 yuan month to 10 30 yuan month approximately us 1 15 1 51 month with an exchange rate of 6 83 yuan us yuan us for urban residents in jiangsu province the current work also explores the differences in demographic variables across varying wtp amounts and the different marginal effects of demographic variables at the same level of wtp the findings reveal that there are significant differences in demographic variables such as level of education household income and location of residence across the population segments moreover the finding that some respondents with high income and higher education prefer higher wtp amounts to lower wtp amounts suggests that green e is a luxury product and consequently a veblen effect exists in certain chinese market segments

preferences for energy efficiency vs renewables how much does a ton of co2 emissions cost concerns about climate change are growing and so is the demand for information about the costs and benefits of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions this paper seeks to estimate the benefits of climate change mitigation as measured by the public s willingness to pay for such policies we investigate the preferences of italian and czech households towards climate change mitigation policy options directly related to residential energy use we use discrete choice experiments which are administered in a standardized fashion to representative samples in the two countries through computer assisted web interviews our preferred estimates of the willingness to pay per ton of co2 emissions avoided is 133 for the italians and 94 euro for the czech respondents at 2014 purchasing power parity we find evidence of considerable heterogeneity in wtp driven by income the two samples differ in their within sample income elasticities of wtp but comparison across the two countries suggests an income elasticity of wtp of one or even greater than one for certain mixed logit specifications

assessment of public acceptance and willingness to pay for renewable energy sources in crete abstract the aim of this study is to analyse and to evaluate the citizens public acceptance and willingness to pay wtp for renewable energy sources res in crete for this purpose a contingent valuation study was conducted using a double bound dichotomous choice format to elicit people s wtp and factors affecting it residents of 1440 households all over crete were interviewed face to face major conclusions can be used as a basis for sustainable energy planning for policies and the formulation of awareness campaigns and for res investment programs and projects in order to prepare implementation conditions and enhance public acceptance of renewable energy investments and programmes mean wtp per household was found to be 16 33 to be paid quarterly as an additional charge on the electricity bill larger willingness to pay was reported by those with high family income and residence size those having a higher level of energy information and awareness concerning climatic change those who have invested in some energy saving measures and those who suffer from more electricity shortages than others

non walrasian equilibria with speculation abstract the paper examines equilibria with out of equilibrium trading there are two types of consumers speculators who feel they have insight into where the ultimate equilibria price of the economy will be and non speculators the limit of the price process is a pareto optimum if and only if speculators are right and at the limit all consumers have zero excess demand when speculators are wrong price processes may converge to non pareto optimal limits with zero excess not every price process has a limit and not every limit of every price process will lead to zero excess demand

the social structure of a national securities market in this article a national securities market the stock options market is characterized as a social structure represented by the networks of actors who traded options on the floor of a major securities exchange trading among actors exhibited distinct social structural patterns that dramatically affected the direction and magnitude of option price volatility the argument that this market is socially structured is constructed in four parts behavioral assumptions about the nature of economic actors models of micronetworks models of macronetworks and price consequences in the ideal typical model of the market actors are assumed to be hyperrational and never to act opportunistically with these behavioral assumptions the micronetworks of actors should be expansive a condition which would result in undifferentiated and homogeneous macronetworks such macronetworks would tend to reduce the volatility of option prices but in the empirical market studied here actors are subject to bounded rationality a

environmental pricing of externalities from different sources of electricity generation in chile abstract the rapid increase in electricity demand in chile means a choice must be made between major investments in renewable or non renewable sources for additional production current projects to develop large dams for hydropower in chilean patagonia impose an environmental price by damaging the natural environment on the other hand the increased use of fossil fuels entails an environmental price in terms of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change this paper studies the debate on future electricity supply in chile by investigating the preferences of households for a variety of different sources of electricity generation such as fossil fuels large hydropower in chilean patagonia and other renewable energy sources using double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation a novel advanced disclosure method and internal consistency test are used to elicit the willingness to pay for less environmentally damaging sources policy results suggest a strong preference for renewable energy sources with higher environmental prices imposed by consumers on electricity generated from fossil fuels than from large dams in chilean patagonia policy results further suggest the possibility of introducing incentives for renewable energy developments that would be supported by consumers through green tariffs or environmental premiums methodological findings suggest that advanced disclosure learning overcomes the problem of internal inconsistency in sb db estimates

speculation incomplete currency market participation and nonfundamental movements in nominal and real exchange rates abstract this paper studies possible nonfundamental movements in nominal and real exchange rates arising from a world economy with speculation incomplete participation in international currency markets and nontraded goods the model is capable of generating equilibria which display comovements in nominal and real exchange rates not unlike those observed in actual economies

consumers in the green electricity market in finland abstract green electricity i e electricity produced from environmentally less harmful sources and marketed as such has been available to finnish households since 1998 but the demand for it has remained low in this paper we discuss the barriers identified by consumers to purchasing green electricity and contrast these with the interpretation energy sector actors give to consumer passivity the empirical material consists of thematic interviews energy policy actors often assume that consumers passivity signifies their lack of interest or low environmental consciousness this results partly from the failure to differentiate between the roles of consumer and citizen the interpretation the energy sector actors give to consumer passivity and the role they assign to consumers affect the direction of green electricity policy we argue that consumers need more information on both the environmental impact of different electricity products and in particular about the electricity supply and electricity contracts in a liberalised electricity market if they are to become active in the market

sources of meteor showers and heat waves in the foreign exchange market abstract we examine the role that news and heterogeneous expectations play in the persistence of exchange rate volatility or so called meteor shower effects our empirical focus is on the u s trade balance news which is shown to have a significant and persisting effect on the exchange rate and its conditional variance furthermore the impact of u s trade balance news is not isolated to the u s foreign exchange market the degree to which u s trade balance news affects other geographical market locations is functionally related to heterogeneous priors

the effect of professional advice on the stability of a speculative market the paper is motivated by the apparent inconsistency of situations in which speculators rely heavily on relatively few advisers when theory and evidence indicate that market fluctuations are predominantly random and unpredictable a highly stylized model is used to show how such situations can arise if speculators choose advisers on the basis of observed track records and how block behavior and increased market instability can result it is argued that inferences based on track records may represent a confusion of luck with skill or more formally an inappropriate choice of null hypothesis to be tested other related issues are discussed

preferences for green electricity investment and regulatory incentives abstract this paper develops a theoretical model to investigate how consumers preferences for green electricity affect the incentives of a regulated firm to provide and invest in electricity from green sources optimal incentive regulation implies a trade off between providing an optimal match of consumers with green and brown electricity and efficient incentives to invest in cost reductions we show that a single price cap on green electricity is ineffective as it yields the same expected market outcome as with an unregulated firm price caps on both green and brown electricity are akin to a market share target policy which implements efficient investment but gives an inefficient ex post consumer allocation a single price cap on brown electricity weakly dominates these schemes and gives rise to three different optimal regulation regimes as a function of the underlying technology parameters

consumers willingness to pay for green electricity a meta analysis of the literature at present electricity generated from power plants using renewable sources costs more than electricity generated from power plants using conventional fuels consumers bear these expenses directly or indirectly through higher prices for renewable energy or taxes the number of studies published over the last few years focusing on people s preferences for renewables has increased steadily making it more and more difficult to identify key explanatory factors that determine people s willingness to pay wtp for renewables we present results of a meta regression on valuation of consumer preferences for a larger share of renewable energy in their electricity mix our meta regression results reveal a number of important factors that explain the differences in wtp values for renewable energy different valuation methods show widely different values with choice experiments producing the highest estimates our results further indicate that consumers wtp for green electricity differs by source with hydropower being the least valued variables that are often omitted from primary valuation studies are important in explaining differences in values these variables describe individual and household characteristics as well as information on the type of power plant that will be replaced by renewables further the marginal effect of a survey conducted in the us is pronounced we also assess the potential for using the results for out of sample value transfer and find a median error of 21 c 2015 elsevier b v all rights reserved

mandatory versus voluntary payment for green electricity summary renewable energy sources have a critical role to play in contributing to the diversity sustainability and security of energy supplies the main objective of the paper is to gain an understanding of the support mechanism of renewable energy sources most preferred by households in the united kingdom this paper analyses households preferences and willingness to pay under a mandatory scheme where all households contribute compared to a voluntary scheme where only those who wish to pay to support renewables do so such as the green tariffs offered by electricity suppliers in the uk two self designed contingent valuation method cvm surveys are used to explore whether the type of payment option has an impact on households willingness to pay wtp for increasing share of renewable energy in electricity generation the paper also investigates whether the type of payment mode affects respondents self reported certainty of paying their stated valuations the results indicate that the likelihood of paying a positive amount for supporting renewable energy is higher under a mandatory scheme compared to a voluntary payment option in the uk respondents have a higher level of certainty in paying their stated wtp under a mandatory payment scheme

concentration and dispersion in global industries remote electronic access and the location of economic activities we explore how the possibility of remote electronic access to markets resources and knowledge enabled by the new information and communication technologies icts might change the motivations of firms to locate activities internationally and in turn affect worldwide dispersion and concentration in an industry preliminary results from an exploratory analysis of the spatial distribution of firms in financial services suggest that the introduction of a business to business b2b trading network increases the global market participation of firms from peripheral countries but does not appear to reduce the importance of locational clusters a set of propositions is derived that provide guidance for more detailed research on the impact of icts on the strategy and structure of global industries

market networks and corporate behavior data on market relations between a large population of corporations and investment banks are used to study the organization market interforce the pattern of direct market ties between a firm and its banks forms of interfaces range from a long term exclusive tie the relationship interface to many short lived episodic ties the transaction interface with hybrid forms between the two poles contrary to widespread belief the article finds that strong relationships still exist transactions interfaces are rare most firms use hybrid interfaces a firm s interface is conceptualized as the intentional result of its efforts to reduce dependence and exploit power advantages observed interfaces are shown to be related systematically to various power dependence concepts including resource intensity number of transactions and dollar amounts raised criticality the availability of resource alternatives power asymmetry between a firm and its main bank organization size standardization of exchange and

speculation optimism and differential information speculative trading has for quite some time been an important question for at least two reasons firstly as a positive question of whether speculative behavior basically is caused by differences in information or by differences in aversion to risk secondly the question is related to the informational efficiency of decentralized market systems if access to information not currently available to the market makes possible a speculative profit the incentive to acquire information may be too excessive from a social point of view the aim of this paper is to clarify the relationship between information and speculation in his seminal article on information acquisition in decentralized market economies hirshleifer 12 showed that the private value of acquiring information depends critically on the speculative profits to be made from this information hirshleifer 12 distinguished between information foreknowledge which affects productive decisions and information which only has implications for exchange similarly fama and laffer 5 distinguish between operational information which improves a firms operating decisions and trading information which only affects trading decisions it is argued due to the speculative profits to be made from having access to information not available to the market that there are excessive private incentives to acquire information without any relevance for productive decisions

households willingness to pay for safeguarding security of natural gas supply in electricity generation abstract security of energy supply is a major issue for all eu member states due to europe s increasing dependence on imported fossil fuel sources and the continuous rise in energy demand the latter is of particular importance in electricity sector given the continuously increasing use of gas for electricity generation in order to properly tackle with the problem concerted actions are required by the eu member states in several levels i e legislative political etc nevertheless these actions will come at an additional cost paid by the society either through increased electricity bills or through public financing for energy security investments thus such policies should be justified on the basis of cost benefit analysis towards this direction it may be necessary to take into account non market costs and benefits i e the value that consumers place on interruptions avoided in order to explore households perceptions and willingness to pay for securing gas supply for electricity production an empirical study was conducted by means of the contingent valuation method the results indicate that consumers are willing to pay a premium on their electricity bills in order to internalize the external costs of electricity production in terms of energy security which are caused from imported fuels

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

citizen versus consumer challenges in the uk green power market abstract this paper investigates the potential advantages and disadvantages of green power products as opposed to the traditional fossil fuel levy which was the uk s chosen tax regime as a means of developing renewable energy in the uk willingness to pay for electricity generated from renewables is investigated results indicate that willingness to pay varies with social status and income however results demonstrate that there is a significant minority in full support of some sort of fiscal initiative electricity generated from renewables is a concept supported by the majority however given the stated willingness to pay it is unlikely that any new renewable capacity will result from green tariff schemes in the near term it is concluded that the green citizen must continue to co exist with the green power purchaser if the uk is to make any significant improvement in the contribution of renewable energy to electricity demand the authors would like to acknowledge the support of irene lorenzoni and jane powell of the centre for social and economic research on the global environment university of east anglia leicester energy efficiency advice centre and leicester energy agency

a new unified approach to evaluate economic acceptance towards main green technologies using the meta analysis the aim of this paper is to analyze the main determinants of the economic acceptability of four green technologies gts alternative fuel vehicles energy savings in residential buildings smart meters and renewable electricity using a meta analysis on a sample of 35 selected papers which provided 245 primary data this approach allows detecting relationships across heterogeneous studies avoiding the subjectivity of qualitative surveys we implement a new two step procedure first we compute a measure of the implicit price for a kilogram of co2 avoided pco2 homogenizing the usable information for the gts considered second we conduct a meta regression using the computed pco2 values to estimate the socio economic determinants impact in general our results show a wide degree of acceptability for gts which is stronger among european citizens in particular it emerges that on average the estimated pco2 is positive for the gts considered and additional positive effects exist when respondents are confronted with an explicit reference to quantitative targets in terms of co2 abatement a clear proposal for payment timing and a specific renewable electricity mix these results indicate that information and transparency are crucial to spur gts deployment therefore to support gts market penetration public and private institutional stakeholders have to provide ad hoc information to the end users setting a clear and suitable system of prices to increase the economic value end users place on gts

willingness to pay lip service applying a neuroscience based method to wtp for green electricity abstract consumers willingness to pay wtp represents a central question for providers of renewable energy most studies on the subject have used contingent valuation and choice experiments however all empirical designs employed to date suffer from serious biases such as strategic behavior we introduce a novel neuroscience based approach to renewable energy related wtp research neuropricing which eliminates some of these biases we tested consumers wtp for two different green electricity products and found wtp for these products to be about 15 above that for a non green electricity tariff our results suggest that neuropricing is indeed able to eliminate strategic behavior moreover this approach allows for wtp studies with much smaller sample sizes than traditional methods require the neuroscience methodology can be used by researchers and marketers alike not only for testing the effects of product attributes on wtp but also for evaluating wtp effects of specific messages in marketing communications thus it may lead to a better understanding of consumer behavior and hence facilitate more successful marketing of renewable energy

can renewable energy be financed with higher electricity prices evidence from a spanish region abstract in this paper we estimate the willingness to pay for mix of renewable sources of electric power by means of a discrete choice experiment survey conducted in spain in 2010 two main categories of power supply attributes are explored source of renewable power wind solar and biomass and the origin of such power the findings suggest that most consumers are not willing to pay a premium for increases in the shares of renewable in their electricity mix for two of the three renewable sources considered wind and biomass an increase of the renewable mix would require a discount instead we record positive willing to pay for increases in the share of both solar power and locally generated power however preferences for types of renewable solar and wind are found to be heterogeneous by classifying respondents in two groups according to the implied importance of the share of renewable sources in their power mix we identify a market segment consisting of 20 of respondents that could promote renewable energy in the absence of subsidies this is because such a segment shows willingness to pay higher than the current feed in tariffs

exchange rate speculation and chaos inducing intervention abstract we show that in a market characterized by high volatility transactions designed to have a stabilizing effect may inadvertently induce chaos in the foreign exchange market for example excessive interventions by a central bank may lead to an increase in erratic behavior rather than to the calming of exchange rate movements

the dynamics of the liability of foreignness a global study of survival in financial services we study the impact of foreignness on survival in interbank currency trading worldwide over the period 1974 93 in particular we develop hypotheses on the behavior of the liability of foreignness over time and on the consequences of evolving sources of firm level competitive advantage on this liability we test these hypotheses on the population of 2667 market making trading rooms located in 47 countries worldwide that either existed in 1974 or entered the industry between 1974 and 1993 the results show that there is a liability of foreignness and that it changes over time further strategic and organizational factors such as the adoption of technology by these firms and their mode of internal control significantly influenced survival as did location related factors such as the intensity of local and foreign competition 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

the global configuration of a speculative trading operation an empirical study of foreign exchange trading this paper proposes a theory of firm boundaries based on fore knowledge development and exploitation in speculative or informed trading foreign exchange trading provides this study s empirical context from research on information economics we suggest optimal speculative trading operations are multiunit and globally dispersed alternatively transaction cost economics suggests atomistic actors prevail in the market for fungible commodities like currencies we also develop competing hypotheses about information technology s effects on foreign exchange trading operations speculation arguments predict that the global scope of trading operations will expand after the introduction of generic information technologies transaction cost economics proposes that when atomistic actors do not prevail trading operations will contract after this introduction we test competing predictions with models of the expansion contraction and net change in a firm s global dispersion we estimate these models with data from the population of banks worldwide engaged in interbank foreign exchange currency fx trading from 1974 to 1993 our results uncover two types of firms those that approach the atomistic actor of transaction cost economics and those that resemble the globally dispersed multiunit configuration from our speculation discussion these results encourage reflection on how the theory of the firm differs when firms trade to produce versus speculate

valuing a wind farm construction a contingent valuation study in greece abstract our analysis is based on data from a double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation study implemented to elicit public attitudes towards renewable energy generation and their willingness to pay for the construction of a wind farm in the area of messanagros in the island of rhodes greece results indicate that there are significant positive values deriving from the proposed project respondents report a mean willingness to pay a premium in their bi monthly electric bills of 8 86 for the sole purpose of the construction of the wind farm the estimated economic benefits to the local population are weighed against the investment cost in a cost benefit analysis to inform policy making and implications for eu energy policy are provided

an empirical analysis of ex ante profits from forward speculation in foreign exchange markets this paper constructs a time series band for ex ante profits from forward speculation and examines the permanent component of the median of the band for six different exchange markets the unpredictability of ex ante profits is rejected using nonparametric tests deviations of ex ante profits from forward premia are attributed to deviations of nominal exchange rates from martingale processes it is shown that movements in the terms of trade are responsible for most of the variability and serial correlation properties of ex ante profits t is by now widely recognized that the forward rate is not an unbiased predictor of future spot rates and that realized nominal profits from spec ulating in the forward market are nonnegligible and highly volatile see e g hodrick 1987 frankel and meese 1987 however the nature of these profits is as of yet undetermined this paper attempts to shed light on this issue by examining the time series properties of ex ante profits from forward speculations in six foreign exchange markets i focus on three aspects of the problem first i provide a measure of the range and the variability of ex ante profits two issues with contradictory evidence in the literature see hodrick 1987 and frankel 1988 for refer ences second i relate deviations from uncov ered interest parity to risk and to deviations of nominal spot rates from martingale processes third i link the time series properties of ex ante profits to the behavior of the real exchange rate since ex ante profits are not observable the empirical analysis requires the construction of a time series for the expected future spot rate frankel and froot 1987 ito 1988 cumby 1988 and diebold and nason 1990 have all suggested ways of computing this series here i provide an alternative method for constructing a time series for expected future spot rates and for statistically assessing the properties of ex ante profits expected future spot rates are measured as a 90 confidence band obtained from the simulated recursive distribution for the linear predictor of the series i simulate the distribution of the linear predictor rather than use simple point forecasts in order to reduce the forecast error due to parameter uncertainty an addi tional measure for expected future spot rates considered is a point estimate of the permanent component of the median of the band i use nonparametric tests to examine the rela tionship between ex ante profits and other series nonparametric tests are employed here for two reasons first i am interested in the entire popu lation properties of the data existing results are derived by examining only the first and second moments of the data second efficiency tests are generally based on linear parametric functional forms pagan and ullah 1988 have pointed out problems with these tests when the conditional mean of the data is nonlinear nonparametric tests overcome these problems the results indicate that nominal and real rates do not follow martingale processes that a risk premium rarely explains the behavior of the ex ante profits and that variations in expected terms of trade account for the time series proper ties of ex ante profits

communications on energy household energy conservation abstract this study assesses the influence of attitudinal and socio economic factors on household energy conservation actions a household interview survey in regina saskatchewan found that respondents perceive an energy problem although no association with energy conservation actions was determined two attitudinal and five socio economic variables influence household energy conservation energy and monetary savings are available to households through energy conservation public awareness of household energy conservation through the media can reinforce existing energy conservation actions and encourage new actions

managerial prescriptions under the resource based view of strategy the example of motivational techniques working from the perspective of the resource based view of strategy this paper addresses whether academics consultants and other sources of general managerial prescriptions can affect firms long run rent streams the answer is affirmative to demonstrate this i discuss the use of motivational techniques as a well understood and common managerial choice that may affect a firm s chance of generating rents this paper interprets extant empirical research on goal setting and discusses the conceptualization of temporal rent patterns i build upon an empirical finding in goal setting research to compare the temporal patterns of rents for managerial choices embedded in path dependent vs path independent processes 1998 john wiley sons ltd

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

crossroads the organization of economic activity transaction costs firm capabilities and the nature of governance in a recent 1993 paper in organization science hennart discussed the underlying logic based on transaction cost and agency theory for explaining the choice between firms and markets and the reason why most transactions have both firm like and market like properties relying on williamson s comparative institutional approach which studies economic organization from a transaction cost minimizing point of view under the assumption of opportunism the argument was made that transaction cost tc logic provides a complete theory of the organization of economic activity in this paper i argue that with its purely incentive based logic governed by assumptions of opportunism tc economics is fundamentally incapable of being a complete theory of economic organization the notion of the firm as a bundle of transactions or contracts is an inadequate and shallow basis for a theory of the firm since it basically ignores the essential notion of the firm as a bundle of knowledge and the underlying processes there

the salesperson as outside agent or employee a transaction cost analysis this descriptive study explores the reasons for integration of the personal selling function i e the use of employee direct salespeople rather than manufacturers representatives reps a hypothesized model is developed based on both transaction cost analysis and the sales force management literature data from 13 electronic component manufacturers covering 159 u s sales districts are used to estimate a logistic model of the probability of going direct in a given district results are shown to be stable across specification and estimation methods and to fit the data well the transaction cost model is generally supported the principal finding is that the greater the difficulty of evaluating a salesperson s performance the more likely the firm to substitute surveillance for commission as a control mechanism i e to use a direct sales force among other findings direct sales forces are also associated with complex hard to learn product lines and with districts that demand considerable nonselling activities several factors prove unrelated including company size the amount of travel a district requires and the importance of key accounts this article was originally published in marketing science volume 4 issue 3 pages 234 254 in 1985

stuck between a roc and a hard place barriers to the take up of green energy in the uk abstract this paper examines the uk mechanisms for ensuring future investment in renewable energy through consumer adoption of green energy tariffs and the renewable obligation certificate roc system using a national survey and focus groups the stated willingness by uk customers to pay a premium for renewable or green energy and actual take up of such tariffs is assessed substantial differences between willingness to pay for and the adoption of green energy tariffs are reported this disparity is linked to a range of factors including consumer confusion lack of supply complexities of constructing green source tariffs under the roc system and a lack of customer trust it is concluded that the re definition of the green energy market in favour of green source tariffs greater direct compliance with the renewable obligation by addressing supply constraints and efforts in providing clearer information and choices for consumers via a compulsory green energy accreditation scheme are required if willing consumers are to contribute to investment in renewable energy

estimating arizona residents willingness to pay to invest in research and development in solar energy abstract we estimate arizona residents willingness to pay wtp to invest in a solar energy research and development fund using data obtained from a dichotomous choice contingent valuation mail survey we examine differences in wtp estimates using different categorizations for respondent uncertainty we also employ both commonly used maximum likelihood and less frequently applied bayesian estimation techniques we find that respondent uncertainty has an economically significant impact on wtp estimates while wtp estimates are robust to different estimation techniques our robust specification with strict uncertainty coding indicates the average arizona household is wtp approximately 17 per month to invest in research and development in solar energy

momentary exchange rate locked in a triangular mechanism of international currency this study uses two way quoted data on major and nonmajor currencies to test the exchange rate dynamics particular attention is paid to the arbitrage and the spread in triangular foreign exchange trades there is only one possible triangle when a bilateral exchange rate equals its trilateral rate otherwise any third currency would potentially create arbitrage opportunities empirical testing evidence supports that small but possibly exploitable profitable arbitrage has significantly occurred over the very short haul of uncertainty and turbulence in other words we are convinced that the bilateral exchange rate could be diverged from one common currency side of the trilateral basket rates until markets function efficiently this helps in better explaining foreign exchange rate movements in addition we find that the currency correlating decreases slightly but the volatility increases over time as we expected

the vulnerability of price stabilization schemes to speculative attack this paper examines the effects of government attempts to stabilize the prices of commodities by use of buffer stocks agricultural goods subject to supply uncertainty as well as depletable resources are considered in each case it is shown that the resulting rational expectations competitive equilibrium contains a speculative attack a situation where the entire government stock is suddenly purchased by previously inactive speculators the analysis is applied to the historical attempt to peg the gold price which caused the attack of 1968 the insights gained and the methodology developed also apply to the various international agreements to impose bans on commodity prices which have been proposed by the united nations conference on trade and development

policy v individual heterogeneity in the benefits of climate change mitigation evidence from a stated preference survey abstract we use stated preference methods to investigate the public s preferences for decarbonization policies we ask three research questions first does the willingness to pay wtp for each ton of co2 emissions reductions depend on the policies and on individual characteristics of the respondents second how extensive is the variation associated with these factors third what factors affect support for or opposition to a carbon tax based on the responses to discrete choice experiments from a sample of italians we find that the wtp per ton of co2 ranges between zero and 230 the variation associated with the policy instrument is approximately of the same order of magnitude as that associated with individual characteristics of the respondents

commercialization of the small farm sector and multidimensional poverty abstract global poverty rates have declined considerably but the number of people living in extreme poverty remains high many of the world s poor are smallholder farmers agricultural commercialization meaning a shift from subsistence to more market oriented farming can play a central role in improving smallholder welfare previous studies evaluated the impact of agricultural commercialization on income poverty but whether income gains from commercialization are really used for satisfying basic needs was hardly analyzed up till now here we evaluate the effect of commercialization on income poverty as well as on the multidimensional poverty index that looks at deprivations in terms of education nutrition health and other dimensions of living standard using data from 805 farm households in kenya we estimate average treatment effects and also analyze impact heterogeneity with quantile regressions results show that commercialization reduces both income poverty and multidimensional poverty the magnitude of the income gains is positively correlated with income level meaning that market linkage support for marginalized farms may be needed to avoid rising inequality however the effect in terms of reducing basic needs deprivations is stronger for the poorest households suggesting that agricultural commercialization contributes effectively to achieving the sustainable development goals

catching the wave alertness responsiveness and market influence in global electronic networks this paper introduces the concepts of alertness and responsiveness as key capabilities for firms in fast moving information intensive environments such as global currency trading hypotheses drawn from the resource based view of the firm from network theory and from austrian economics are tested on objective cross section and time series data for the population of 4 088 banks engaged in foreign exchange trading on the reuters dealing system results strongly support the hypotheses that banks that are alert i e use their information networks in ways that expand the range of information they are exposed to and responsive those that act quickly in volatile markets tend to exercise greater market influence in this industry

renewable electricity as a differentiated good the case of the republic of korea this paper examines the willingness for korean consumers to pay a premium for renewable electricity under a differentiated good framework by applying the contingent valuation method korean consumers have been required to pay for their use of renewable electricity as of 2012 first we find that korean consumers recognise renewable electricity as a differentiated good from traditional electricity generated from fossil fuels or nuclear energy the mean willingness to pay to use renewable electricity is usd 1 26 per month second we confirm the existence of perfect substitution relationships among variant renewable technologies which suggests that korean consumers do not perceive them as differentiated goods one reason for this perception is that korean consumers are more inclined to favour economic feasibility over sustainability or the availability of the resource stock when choosing between renewable technology types in sum we can say that korean consumers recognise renewable electricity as a differentiated good but that they do not differentiate between variant renewable technologies thus the imposition of the cost of renewable electricity on consumers in the form of increased electricity charges would be acceptable to consumers as long as any price rise properly reflects their preferences

circadian rhythms the effects of global market integration in the currency trading industry this essay assesses the impact of global market integration in the currency trading industry as the market interfaces with states with firms and with individuals and raises questions for research from a variety of disciplines issues discussed include the question of state control in global markets the impact of globalization on firm structures and processes how firms can derive competitive advantage from global circadian rhythms and the influences of the circadian rhythms of the global market on the individuals who work in this industry

a framework linking intangible resources and capabilities to sustainable competitive advantage this article is concerned with the role of intangible resources in business strategy in particular it is concerned with identifying the intangible sources of sustainable competitive advantage sustainable competitive advantage results from the possession of relevant capability differentials regulatory and positional capabilities are concerned with intangible assets functional and cultural capabilities are concerned with competencies a framework linking intangible resources to capabilities has been devised and is used as the basis of a new technique for identifying the relative contribution which the different intangible resources make to competitive advantage the results of the use of this technique in six case studies are reported

meteor showers or heat waves heteroskedastic intra daily volatility in the foreign exchange market this paper seeks to explain the causes of volatility clustering in exchange rates careful examination of intra daily exchange rates provides a test of two hypotheses heat waves and meteor showers the heat wave hypothesis is that the volatility has only country specific autocorrelation alternatively the meteor shower is a phenomenon of intra daily volatility spillovers from one market to the next using the garch model to specify the heteroskedasticity across intra daily market segments we find that the empirical evidence is generally against the null hypothesis of the heat wave using a volatility type of vector autoregression we examine the impact of news in one market on the time path of per hour volatility in other markets

imports as a major complication liberalisation of the green electricity market in the netherlands abstract liberalisation of the green electricity market in the netherlands has proceeded in a context of relatively generous fiscal incentives and in line with the position that demand is the limiting factor to dutch green electricity production the main result was a massive rise of imports partly covered by renewable energy credits and partly virtual in nature whereas the domestic expansion of green electricity production remained limited this shows the importance of a supply side focus in designing policies aimed at the expansion of domestic green electricity production in the context of a common market with different incentives in place

assessment of korean customers willingness to pay with rps abstract to increase the use of renewable energy the korean government will introduce the renewable portfolio standard rps in 2012 the rps places responsibility for extra renewable energy costs on the consumers and allows price competition among different renewable sources accordingly this study analyzes through the contingent valuation cv the willingness of korean households to pay more for electricity generated by wind photovoltaic pv and hydropower our empirical results show that although the willingness to pay or wtp was highest for wind power and lowest for hydropower the differences in wtp among the renewable sources were statistically insignificant this suggests that korean consumers prefer a renewable portfolio that minimizes power supply costs the average wtp for all three energy types was krw 1562 7 usd 1 350 per month per household which was approximately 3 7 of the average monthly electricity bill in 2010 this amount represents only 58 2 of what the korean government allocated in its budget to the new and renewable energy dissemination program in 2010 thus our results imply that the promotion of the new and renewable energy dissemination program may be difficult only with the wtp for electricity generated from renewable sources specifically the mean wtp will not support the set aside dissemination capacity for pv after 2014

models of the multinational enterprise flexibility is identified as the hallmark of recent modelling of the multinational enterprise the focus on flexibility is a response to the rationalization and restructuring of international business which has occurred since the end of the golden age of western economic growth flexibility has been south in factor markets intermediate product markets and markets for final products it has been sought by both governments and firms flexible firms are attracted to locations with flexible host governments this article contrasts the modern research agenda based on flexibility with the more traditional research agenda which predominates in the literature reviewed by caves 1996

supplier choice and wtp for electricity attributes in an emerging market the role of perceived past experience environmental concern and energy saving behavior abstract this study analyzes customers preferences and their willingness to pay wtp for certain service attributes in an electricity supplier choice context specifically a stated preference choice experiment is conducted in the canary islands residential market where limited competition exists preferences for different electricity suppliers and three level of service attributes are investigated namely supply reliability share of renewable energies and availability of a complementary energy audit service the results might be interpreted as an indication of different aspects new firms need to consider if they plan to enter in the market there is an opportunity for new companies to establish in the market though evidence of brand loyalty to the current company and or significant switching costs are also found especially in the case of older people regarding the estimated wtp several results should be highlighted first customers who have experienced more serious outages in the past tend to show a higher wtp to reduce the outage frequency second highly educated respondents those who state a great concern for the greenhouse gases ghg emissions and those who carry out energy saving actions in their homes exhibit a larger wtp for renewable energies this empirical evidence provides useful information for authorities responsible for energy policy design

willingness to pay for green power in an unreliable electricity sector part 1 the case of the lebanese residential sector abstract a willingness to pay wtp analysis for renewable based electricity is undertaken for the lebanese residential sector a survey of 600 samples was conducted based on a stratified random sampling method in which energy use and expenditures socioeconomic and demographic characteristics were collected four scenarios for wtp for green power were designed to best reflect the possibilities of integrating renewable energy re sources in lebanon s unreliable electricity sector 1 local system covering partial electricity needs 2 local system covering entire electricity needs 3 utility provided green power covering partial electricity needs and 4 utility provided green power covering entire electricity needs the results based on a tobit model highlight the importance of re options that displace completely the diesel generator sets i e options 2 and 4 other parameters such as ownership of the home age perception of trust in government institutions and awareness of re were also found significant in influencing wtp

green power voluntary purchases price elasticity and policy analysis abstract green power schemes offer electricity from renewable energy sources to customers for a higher price than ordinary electricity this study examines the demand characteristics of green power in australia and policies which could increase its sales a sample of 250 pooled time series and cross sectional observations was used to estimate a statistically significant elasticity of demand for green power with respect to price of 0 96 with a 95 confidence interval of 68 the wide variation in market penetration between jurisdictions and between countries for green power and the low awareness of green power found by surveys indicate that green power sales could be increased by appropriate marketing and government policies the most cost effective means to increase sales was found to be advertising campaigns although only one australian example was found in the state of victoria in 2005 it was also found that full tax deductibility of the green power premium to residential customers exemption from the goods and services tax and a tax rebate for green power are all probably less cost effective for promoting sales than direct government purchase of green power in terms of cost per unit of increased sales

transaction cost economics in real time this paper attempts to place the theq of the boundaries of thejirm within the context of the passage of time more precisely it resurrects and places in a modem frame some of the insights of the chsical and marshallian theories of organization the modem reinterpretation of those theories centers around the capabilities view of the jirm taken together with governance costs the capabilities ofjirm and market determine the boundaries of the jirm in the short run ovw time capabilities change as firms and markets learn which implies a kind of information or knowledge cost the cost of trandewing the firm s capability to the market w vice versa these dynamic governance costs are the costs of persuading negotiating and coordinating with and teaching others they arise in the face of change notably txchnological and organizational innovation in fit they are the costs of not having the capabilities you need when you need them dynamic transaction costs provide an explanation for vertical integration that is arguably more general than those dominant in the literature in the face of uncertainty and divwgent views ofthe future common ownership of multiple stages of production is a supwior institutional arrangement for coordinating systemic change asset specrfity is neither necessary nor suffient for this to be true dynamic governance costs may also affit internal organization it may sometimes be costly in 3 terms of persuasion negotiation and teaching to create within the firm capabilities readily available on the market indeed in cases in which systemic coordination is not 4 the issue the market may turn out to be the superior institution of coordination in e 2 genwal the capabilities view of the jirm suggests that we look atfim2 and market as alternative and sometimes overlapping institutions of learning 1 transaction costs in the long rzln and the short 9 x classical and neoclassical perspectives

social acceptance of renewable energy sources a review of contingent valuation applications abstract this paper presents a literature review addressing the public acceptance of renewable energy as a replacement for fossil fuels in electricity production this review was motivated by the global tendency for a substitution of conventional fuels by renewable energy sources res during the global financial crisis it studies research on the preferences and attitudes of local communities towards investments in renewable energy projects and their perception of the use of new energy technologies in their daily lives through various case studies worldwide an effort is made to identify the parameters that influence consumers energy behaviour together with their interest or lack thereof in the environmental impact of using fossil fuels to produce energy and their willingness to reduce it applications of contingent valuation are examined which are employed to analyse public attitudes towards the use of res for electricity production willingness to pay is observed to be correlated to socioeconomic characteristics including education interest in environmental issues and knowledge of res finally the profile of a typical green energy consumer and appropriate policy paths for the penetration of res into the energy market are outlined

non fundamental speculation we study an intertemporal asset market where insiders coexist with non fundamental speculators non fundamental speculators possess no private information on fundamental values of assets but have superior knowledge about some aspect of the market environment we show that the entry of these rational speculators can lead to reductions in market liquidity and in the information content of prices even in an efficient market also equilibrium trades display patterns of empirical interest for example speculators appear to chase trends and lose money after market overreactions while insiders trade as contrarians and profit after such overreactions

valuation for renewable energy a comparative review abstract environmental cost benefit analysis is applied for the evaluation of renewable energy projects since some benefits and costs do not have monetary values economic valuation techniques are applied to estimate them this paper reviews the literature on the valuation evaluation of renewable energy resources and summarizes the methods used in them it discerns four main streams of valuation in renewable energy the first is economic welfare oriented and comprises stated and revealed preference methods the second is the financial option analysis with a financial background the third is emergy analysis which is mostly an ecological engineering based method with capable economic links and the fourth is again economic but not welfare based the paper discusses the main directions discerned in these studies and recognizes first that proper valuation takes place only in the first method while the other methods describe only evaluation procedures and second that there is a research gap that has yet to be filled in as compared to other areas of environmental resource and energy economics

willingness to pay for green electricity in korea a contingent valuation study abstract green electricity is energy that is generated from renewable energy sources such as solar power wind power small scale hydroelectric power tidal power and biomass power these sources mostly do not produce pollutants and are considered environmentally friendly however considering the current state of technology they are more costly government should take visible actions to compensate for the increased production costs this paper attempts to apply a contingent valuation cv method to obtain at least a preliminary evaluation of the benefits that ensue from the introduction of the policy that raises the percentage of green electricity consumption from 0 2 of the total electricity supply to 7 by 2011 overall the cv survey was successful in eliciting the willingness to pay wtp for green electricity considering that the cv method operated within respondents abilities to answer and the wtp estimates were statistically significant the monthly mean wtp estimates from parametric and non parametric methods were krw 1681 usd 1 8 and krw 2072 usd 2 2 respectively the estimates of the annual benefits to relevant residents amounted to krw 150 5 billion usd 157 5 million and krw 185 6 billion usd 194 2 million respectively

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

determinants of green electricity tariff uptake in the uk a number of countries offer domestic consumers the option of buying their electricity supply through a green tariff whereby the supplier typically guarantees that all or part of the supply has been generated using renewable energy sources previous studies that have sought to identify variables predicting why consumers choose to purchase a green tariff have utilized surveys specifically about the topic this study builds on previous work by reviewing the uk market using data from the understanding society survey a general survey of households which should be free from framing or focalism concerns in addition this data includes variables that to the authors knowledge have not been tested through other work results find that individuals in the highest income quartile those with higher qualifications those supporting the green political party and those exhibiting strong environmental behaviour were all more likely to have purchased green tariffs significant to a lesser degree were strong environmental attitudes and those households with some form of renewable energy technology installed

intra day and inter market volatility in foreign exchange rates four foreign exchange spot rate series recorded on an hourly basis for a six month period in 1986 are examined a seasonal garch model is developed to describe the time dependent volatility apparent in the percentage nominal return of each currency hourly patterns in volatility are found to be remarkably similar across currencies and appear to be related to the opening and closing of the worlds major markets robust lm tests designed to deal with the extreme leptokurtosis in the data fails to uncover any evidence of misspecification or the presence of volatility spillover effects between the currencies or across markets

household willingness to pay for green electricity in slovenia abstract this paper analyses the willingness to pay for electricity generated from renewable energy sources in slovenia the results confirm that age household income education and environmental awareness play the most important role in explaining household attitudes to green electricity programmes while the willingness to participate in green electricity programmes is influenced by education and environmental awareness the willingness to pay for green electricity predominantly depends on household income the results imply that green marketing should be accompanied by awareness raising campaigns and should target younger well educated and high income households the expressed median willingness to pay is found to exceed the current level of mandatory charges for green electricity nevertheless recent increases in final electricity prices might have already exhausted the capacity for additional voluntary contributions