standardization and variety abstract in the tradeoff between standardization and variety there can be too much or too little variety the latter possibility can only happen if there are several equilibria

the new economics of agriculture agriculture in the twentieth century was characterized first and foremost by technological innovation that began in the industrialized world and spread to the developing countries as the green revolution this revolution in biological chemical and mechanical technology made it possible for agricultural production to grow faster than the demand for food despite a rapidly growing world population the result was a decline in real agricultural commodity prices throughout this era a trend that is expected by many researchers to continue at least into the early part of the twenty first century antle et al johnson 1998 rosegrant and ringer at the same time virtually all governments intervened in their agricultural sectors through a wide array of policies resulting in a pattern of net taxation of agriculture in low income countries and subsidization of agriculture in high income countries this set of events and the agricultural economics literature that was generated to explain them is what i will refer to here as the economics of agriculture in the twentieth century a stylized demand andsupply model of an agricultural market can be used to represent these relationships with output prices p income i population n factor prices w capital k technology t and government policy g

sustainable innovation business models and economic performance an overview sustainable development requires radical and systemic innovations such innovations can be more effectively created and studied when building on the concept of business models this concept provides firms with a holistic framework to envision and implement sustainable innovations for researchers the concept provides an analytical tool that allows them to assess the interplay between the different aspects that firms combine to create ecological economic and social value in addition the business model concept provides a link between the individual firm and the larger production and consumption system in which it operates this paper provides an introduction to the special issue which emerged from selected papers presented at the erscp emsu 2010 conference held in delft the netherlands papers in the special issue cover a broad range from a conceptual discussion resulting in a research agenda the assessment of diffusion of specific business models such as product service systems the introduction of new management tools for business transition management to case studies on how specific business models evolved in specific communities together these papers provide insight into the promise of the business model concept for understanding and advancing sustainable innovation

structural change in an open economy we study the importance of international trade in structural change our framework has both productivity and trade cost shocks and allows for non unitary income and substitution elasticities we calibrate our model to investigate south korea s structural change between 1971 and 2005 we nd that the shock processes propagated through the model s two main transmission mechanisms non homothetic preferences and the open economy explain virtually all of the evolution of agriculture and services labor shares and the rising part of the hump shape in manufacturing counterfactual exercises show that the role of the open economy is quantitatively important for explaining south korea s structural change

the role of transnational dimensions in emerging economy technological innovation systems for clean tech the technological innovation system tis framework and its system functions have become a popular analytical tool for the study of clean tech innovation there is increasing attention for the role of emerging economies in global clean tech innovation but the applicability of tis to emerging economies cases is not entirely straightforward a key issue is the limited geographical considerations in particular transnational dimensions in tis whereas earlier perspectives on innovation in emerging economies have stressed the role of such transnational dimensions this paper elaborates transnational tis actor networks and institutions categorizes these in relation to tis functions and describes their potential to induce or block tis development in emerging economies we draw on insights from the perspectives of national learning systems international technology transfer and global production networks for this purpose we conclude that the potential effects of these transnational dimensions may be accurately grasped by the existing list of system functions lending credence to its further application of the tis framework on emerging economy case studies policy makers in emerging economies should recognize these transnational dimensions and seek to optimize their potential effect on domestic tis development taking in to consideration a realistic assessment of its role in the global tis

can technology specific deployment policies be cost effective the case of renewable energy support schemes can technology specific deployment policies be cost effective the case of renewable energy support schemes

comparing systems approaches to innovation and technological change for sustainable and competitive economies an explorative study into conceptual commonalities differences and complementarities this paper makes a distinction between three theoretical frameworks that have been highly influential in the discourse on innovation competitiveness and sustainability sectoral systems of innovation ssi technological innovation systems tis and socio technical systems st systems these frameworks share a common systems approach to innovation but are often positioned as different bodies of literature that correspond to different epistemic communities this paper is explorative and conceptual in nature it presents a systematic comparative review of ssi tis and st systems based on the following analytical dimensions 1 system boundaries 2 actors and networks 3 institutions 4 knowledge 5 dynamics and 6 policy approach in the concluding section commonalities and differences of the three approaches are presented and suggestions for complimentarily are made c 2010 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

technological discontinuities and the challenge for incumbent firms destruction disruption or creative accumulation the creative destruction of existing industries as a consequence of discontinuous technological change is a central theme in the literature on industrial innovation and technological development established competence based and market based explanations of this phenomenon argue that incumbents are seriously challenged only by competence destroying or disruptive innovations which make their existing knowledge base or business models obsolete and leave them vulnerable to attacks from new entrants this paper challenges these arguments with detailed empirical analyses of the automotive and gas turbine industries we demonstrate that these explanations overestimate the ability of new entrants to destroy and disrupt established industries and underestimate the capacity of incumbents to perceive the potential of new technologies and integrate them with existing capabilities moreover we show how intense competition in the wake of technological discontinuities driven entirely by incumbents may instead result in late industry shakeouts we develop and extend the notion of creative accumulation as a way of conceptualizing the innovating capacity of the incumbents that appear to master such turbulence specifically we argue that creative accumulation requires firms to handle a triple challenge of simultaneously a fine tuning and evolving existing technologies at a rapid pace b acquiring and developing new technologies and resources and c integrating novel and existing knowledge into superior products and solutions

towards improved policy processes for promoting innovation in renewable electricity technologies in the uk this paper analyses recent current and potential future relations between policy processes and substantive outcomes in uk low carbon innovation policy focussing on policies relating to renewable electricity generation technologies it examines the development of policy processes relating to the adoption and implementation of the renewables obligation and how these may affect the current and likely future success of the obligation in promoting low carbon innovation it examines the new policy and institutional processes put in place in the 2003 energy white paper and argues that these are unlikely to provide the strategic long term framework needed to realise the ambitious goals for uk energy policy set out in the white paper finally it outlines some suggestions for further development of policy processes to facilitate improved delivery of these goals based on guiding principles for sustainable innovation policy processes developed by the authors and their colleagues

induced innovation evolutionary theory and path dependence sources of technical change the i960s to the i98os were very productive of new theory and empirical insights into the sources of technical change in the i96os and i970s major attention focused on the implications of changes in demand and relative factor prices on the rate and direction of technical change in the late i 970s and early i980s attention shifted to evolutionary models inspired by a revival of interest in schumpeter s insights into the process of economic development since the early i98os these have been complemented by the development of historically grounded path dependent models of technical change each of these models has contributed substantial insight into the sources of technical change this paper was motivated by a perception that each of the three research agendas is approaching a dead end the three models induced evolutionary and path dependent represent elements of a more general theory that has not yet been invented ruttan 1996 a in a closing comment i suggest some steps toward the development of a more general theory of the sources of technical change

handling financial resource mobilisation in technological innovation systems the case of chinese wind power to mitigate climate change a rapid and large scale expansion of sustainable innovations such as renewable energy technologies is crucial china s track record of wind power development shows both speed and scale that can provide valuable knowledge of how to stimulate and maintain transformation of energy systems the growth was made possible partly by ample access to financial capital however the rapid growth also led to growing pains and made the industry face increasing financial constraints while these constraints partly relate to structures and trends that are external to the wind power innovation system they were also a consequence of the particular path taken in chinese wind power development the case demonstrates that if a full fledged industry is to be developed and sustained a balanced growth is required and all innovation system functions need due attention sooner or later conceptually the article contributes by further exploring how mobilisation of financial resources affect and is affected by overall system dynamics

installed base and compatibility innovation product preannouncements and predation a good is often more valuable to any user the more others use compatible goods the authors show that this effect may inhibit innovation if an installed base exists and transition to a new standard must be gradual early adopters bear a disproportionate share of transient incompatibility costs this can produce excess inertia the installed base however is stranded if the new standard is adopted this may create excess momentum these dynamic effects have strategic implications temporary price cutting can permanently prevent entry and product preannouncements can be critical in innovation these strategic actions have ambiguous welfare effects

should renewable energy policy be renewable political flexibility brings about trade offs for policy makers aiming to support the deployment of renewable energy sources res on the one hand it allows incorporating new information on ex ante uncertain benefits and costs of res policy on the other hand it may deter res investments this paper scrutinizes how these trade offs play out economically and politically when res policy makers choose the degree of flexibility as well as the instruments to implement flexibility the analysis builds on a theoretical framework distinguishing between flexibility by design and by adjustment it is complemented by a discussion of three case studies res support schemes in germany and the united kingdom and the eu emissions trading scheme theoretical as well as empirical results suggest that the politically chosen degree of flexibility by policy design may be sub optimally low in contrast flexibility by policy adjustment is often excessively high

relative prices and investment rates abstract we construct a panel for the price of aggregate investment over consumption and report the following observations 1 relative price differences across countries are large over the entire sample period and this conclusion is not affected by excluding non tradable consumption goods 2 relative price dispersion has decreased during the sample period 3 relative price changes are not persistent across periods while average price levels are moreover the persistence in relative price levels is higher for countries at low relative prices we show that the relative price of investment is negatively correlated with investment rates in a cross section of countries the standard one sector growth model is a natural framework to study quantitatively the effects of barriers to capital accumulation since there is a very simple mapping between barriers to investment and relative prices in this environment we simulate a calibrated version of the model in which barriers follow a stochastic process common to all countries and estimated using relative price data and obtain statistics for investment rates that closely resemble what we observe in the data in particular the model accounts for 90 of the 1985 gini index of relative investment rates and the decline in investment rate dispersion over time the model has two limitations as a theory of development first it cannot account for the income disparity in the data unless we assume unmeasured capital with barriers affecting the broad measure of capital second even under these extreme assumptions the model cannot account for the evolution of income disparity over time

a coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy this paper proposes a coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy based on the coevolution of ecosystems technologies institutions business strategies and user practices within a multi level micro meso macro perspective this builds on and develops previous coevolutionary analyses of long term technological and industrial change and recent renewed interest within ecological economics on coevolutionary approaches previous work has analysed how the coevolution of technologies and institutions has led to the lock in of current high carbon energy systems and how the coevolution of physical and social technologies and business strategies has brought significant material and welfare benefits to the minority of the world s population living in industrialised countries the coevolutionary framework proposed here may be used to undertake 1 detailed empirical analyses at a micro meso level of the challenges relating to the innovation and adoption of particularly low carbon technologies 2 as a framework for analysing the multi level interaction of social and technological elements within potential transition pathways to a low carbon energy system 3 to assess the implications for economic growth and prosperity of a transition to a low carbon economy and 4 to assist in the development of more formal multi level evolutionary economic models

transforming the energy sector the evolution of technological systems in renewable energy technology this paper analyses the development and diffusion of technologies that utilize renewable energy sources in germany sweden and the netherlands the analysis enlarges the life cycle model of industry evolution to one where the focus is on the formation and evolution of new technological systems particular focus is on explaining success and failures in shifting from a formative phase into one characterized by positive feedbacks a set of challenges is identified for policy makers attempting to influence the process of transforming the energy sector

identifying barriers in the diffusion of renewable energy sources abstract rapid diffusion of renewable energy sources res in the electricity power sector is crucial if the eu wants to fulfill its 2050 co2 reduction commitments for this reason identifying and alleviating all barriers that hinder the development of res is necessary to the successful deployment of these technologies this paper discusses the main barriers in the diffusion of wind and photovoltaic pv solar power in the greek electricity sector by drawing on the literature of technological innovation systems and system functions furthermore we provide an explanation of the different diffusion rates between the two technologies inadequate financial resources low grid capacity delays in the issuance of building permits opposition from local communities to the construction of wind farms and the lack of a stable institutional framework are among the most important barriers that inhibit the diffusion of the wind and pv solar power the nature of the barriers identified in this study calls for policy intervention

capital skill complementarity sectoral labor productivity and structural transformation abstract in the postwar u s economy labor productivity has been growing faster in the goods sector versus the service sector this paper argues that this sectoral labor productivity growth gap can largely be explained by the fact that capital intensity also increases faster in the goods sector i build a two sector neoclassical growth model in which capital substitutes low skilled labor but complements high skilled labor and the goods sector is more intensive in low skilled labor relative to the service sector as observed in the data as capital becomes more abundant relative to labor along economic growth low skilled labor is substituted by capital leading to faster growth of capital intensity and hence labor productivity in the goods sector using a calibrated model i find that two thirds of the sectoral labor productivity growth gap can be explained by capital accumulation and its interaction with capital skill complementarity

opportunities barriers and issues with renewable energy development a discussion abstract energy has come to be known as a strategic commodity and any uncertainty about its supply can threaten the functioning of the economy particularly in developing economies every society requires energy to meet the basic needs a sustainable socioeconomic development needs secure energy supplies in an affordable rate which have low environmental impacts and low greenhouse gas ghg emissions however 85 of primary energy demand is met by conventional fossil fuel combustion which is responsible for 56 6 of anthropogenic ghg emissions renewable energy re forms play an important role in providing sustainable and clean energy mitigating climate change in a present scenario with technological advancements broaden understanding of renewable energy knowledge and positive support from governments with favorable promoting policies re forms are developing meeting energy demands in a cleaner way this paper focuses on the opportunities barriers and related issues with the re developments these if taken cared positively will lead to a sustainable social and economic development

remaking the uk s energy technology innovation system from the margins to the mainstream the uk energy technology innovation system etis has undergone wholesale remaking in recent years in terms of its aims funding and organisation we analyse this process and distinguish between three phases since 2000 new beginnings momentum building and urgency and review within an international trend to etis rebuilding uk experience has been distinctive from a low starting base in the early 2000s to system remaking under a strong decarbonisation policy imperative in the late 2000s to multiple and contested drivers in the early 2010s public funding levels have been erratic with a rapid increase and a more recent decline the private business sector has played a leading role in this remaking and as this influence has grown the role and style of energy innovation has shifted from long term niches to the shorter term mainstream the uk etis suffers from persistent problems fragmentation low transparency and weak links to the research evidence base

a combined measure of uk core inflation estimates this article estimates uk core inflation in a structural vector autoregression var framework while building on the work of quah and vahey 1995 we extend their two variable var model to allow for different dynamics depending on the nature of the shocks that potentially influence the process of core inflation we also construct a combined measure of core inflation estimates on the basis of their reliabilities empirical evidence shows that the new measures demonstrate marked improvement in their eligibility to serve as core inflation estimators furthermore the combined measure is shown to perform best it appears that the conventional core measures such as the retail prices excluding mortgage interest payments rpix and the harmonized index of consumer prices hicp inflation series are not successful in capturing the underlying trend of inflation casting some doubt on their current use in the making of monetary policy decisions

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

long term changes in co2 emissions in austria and czechoslovakia identifying the drivers of environmental pressures this study presents fossil fuel related co2 emissions in austria and czechoslovakia current czech republic and slovakia for 1830 2000 the drivers of co2 emissions are discussed by investigating the variables of the standard kaya identity for 1920 2000 and conducting a comparative index decomposition analysis proxy data on industrial production and household consumption are analysed to understand the role of the economic structure co2 emissions increased in both countries in the long run czechoslovakia was a stronger emitter of co2 throughout the time period but per capita emissions significantly differed only after world war i when czechoslovakia and austria became independent the difference in co2 emissions increased until the mid 1980s the period of communism in czechoslovakia explained by the energy intensity and the composition effects and higher industrial production in czechoslovakia counterbalancing factors were the income effect and household consumption after the velvet revolution in 1990 czechoslovak co2 emissions decreased and the energy composition effect and industrial production lost importance despite their different political and economic development austria and czechoslovakia reached similar levels of per capita co2 emissions in the late 20th century neither austrian eco efficiency nor czechoslovak restructuring have been effective in reducing co2 emissions to a sustainable level

the efficiency paradox bureaucratic and organizational barriers to profitable energy saving investments abstract the paradox of why profitable energy saving investments are not undertaken continues to provoke debate the underlying phenomenon might be called the efficiency paradox because it represents a case in which business firms which are often presumed or taken axiomatically to be economically efficient make decisions that do not maximize profits new data from one of the us environmental protection agency s voluntary pollution prevention programs enables this paradox to be explored statistically the data show that both the level and variation in returns to lighting upgrade investments cannot be explained by standard economic models substantial gains in energy efficiency can be achieved without sacrificing profitability both economic and organizational factors account for some of the variation in observed returns to these investments but the results suggest a need for improved and more comprehensive theories of the investment behavior of firms and other organizations

dynamic governance of clean energy markets how technical innovation could accelerate climate policies abstract this article explores the governmental means to accelerate technical progress in climate protection it is based on selected best practice cases in which the diffusion of low carbon technologies has been accelerated by ambitious policies the empirical cases involve not just renewable energies but also energy efficiency the latter being considered more difficult in terms of governance the examples are taken from advanced oecd countries as well as from emerging economies this article will explore which factors have caused this dynamic development the conclusion reached will show that the interaction of positive feedback mechanisms which has already been described as virtuous cycle provides only a plausible theoretical explanation if the policy cycle is added to the market cycle and the innovation cycle climate policy should not only define ambitious targets but also address all three feedback mechanisms

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

understanding carbon lock in abstract this paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co evolution driven by path dependent increasing returns to scale it is asserted that this condition termed carbon lock in creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages the notion of a techno institutional complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions while carbon lock in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro level barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration the question of escaping carbon lock in is left for a future paper

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

economic growth fossil fuel and non fossil consumption a pooled mean group analysis using proxies for capital this study employs a pooled mean group estimator to examine the nexus between economic growth and fossil and non fossil fuel consumption for 53 countries between 1990 and 2012 the global sample was divided into four categories developed exporters developed importers developing exporters and developing importers the purpose of these categories was to observe whether factors unique to these countries influence the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth with the exception of developing importers evidence of bi directional causality between fossil fuel consumption and real gdp across all subsamples is observed this leads to the conclusion that efforts to directly conserve fossil fuels may harm economic growth in terms of non fossil fuel use the results are more diverse bi directional causality between non fossil fuel use and real gdp is found in the long and short run for developed importers bi directional causality only in the long run for developed exporters negative long run causality from real gdp to non fossil fuels for developing exporters and long run causality from non fossil fuel use to real gdp for developing importers these results lead to the conclusion that other factors have been responsible for the progress seen in non fossil fuel use thus it is concluded that economic growth on its own is insufficient to promote clean energy development there is a need for policy makers to create an environment conducive to renewable energy investment

technological change trade and the environment abstract trade policies and environmental policies have evolved largely independently and until recently their interactions attracted little attention there is much discussion of the institutional arrangements and economic instruments needed to embody environmental concerns in trade policy but relatively little discussion of the role of technology this paper describes the long term environmentally motivated technological change involved in shifting from an end of pipe approach for capturing pollutants after they are generated to a focus on the prevention of environmental degradation the new engineering field of industrial ecology promotes design and manufacturing practices that are based on an examination of the full life cycle of a product in order to improve environmental performance industrial ecology is spreading quickly in the industrialized countries but its repercussions are transmitted widely through international trade plastics provide a good example of both the opportunities and the difficulties surrounding environmental protection technological change and trade concerns over solid waste in the rich countries may result in new market opportunities for biomass based polymers but the success of these products depends upon a complex set of factors including very different alternative ways individual countries may choose to deal with solid waste the implications for the developing countries are examined for the case of plastics and more generally

how does foreign direct investment influence energy intensity convergence in china evidence from prefecture level data abstract the huge energy intensity gaps among chinese prefectures make the overall reduction of energy intensity extremely difficult energy intensity convergence eic i e catching up of the high energy intensity prefectures with the low ones is imperative for narrowing these gaps as one of the most important channels for international technology diffusion foreign direct investment fdi has great impact on energy intensity and may be beneficial for the convergence based on pollution haven hypothesis however fdi may result in energy intensity divergence to provide an in depth understanding of the mechanisms of fdi induced convergence divergence this paper employs markov chain approach to examine the impact of fdi on eic for 256 chinese prefectures in the period from 2005 to 2014 moreover we particularly emphasis on the influences of local specific characteristics such as human capital resource endowment and environmental regulation on fdi induced convergence divergence our study on 256 chinese prefectures finds that fdi helps prefectures with higher energy intensity to catch up with lower ones which strengthens eic the impact of fdi on eic varies depending on different local characteristics among all characteristics mentioned above human capital and environmental regulation benefit the convergence driving effect of fdi while this effect is hindered by resource endowment more comprehensive and detailed policies are recommended to address energy intensity gaps in china

increasing returns path dependence and the study of politics it is increasingly common for social scientists to describe political processes as path dependent the concept however is often employed without careful elaboration this article conceptualizes path dependence as a social process grounded in a dynamic of increasing returns reviewing recent literature in economics and suggesting extensions to the world of politics the article demonstrates that increasing returns processes are likely to be prevalent and that good analytical foundations exist for exploring their causes and consequences the investigation of increasing returns can provide a more rigorous framework for developing some of the key claims of recent scholarship in historical institutionalism specific patterns of timing and sequence matter a wide range of social outcomes may be possible large consequences may result from relatively small or contingent events particular courses of action once introduced can be almost impossible to reverse and consequently political development is punctuated by critical moments or junctures that shape the basic contours of social life

critical factors for transforming creativity into sustainability abstract although creativity and sustainability have received considerable attention in the literature there is limited research considering both particularly in relation to co existing organizational factors which facilitate the transformation of creativity into sustainable products this paper explores this gap through an analysis of six case studies of commercial organizations presenting both successful and unsuccessful implementation of sustainable products services across types of firms and industries the research framework focuses on three general facets 1 leadership 2 boundaries where different aspects of internal and external firm s activities enable a diversity of opinions and stakeholder engagement and 3 economic alignment instrumentality in which the goal of wealth creation is present and supported by a firm s capabilities the main finding of the paper is that appropriate leadership along with effective boundary spanning and clear profit orientation are simultaneously necessary conditions for successful transformation of creative business ideas into successful sustainable products services by business organizations this implies a steep discounting of success prospects if any of the above factors is lacking the work contributes to the development of general theoretical frameworks and approaches for achieving organizational success based on co creating social and economic value at the same time

globalizing carbon lock in this paper extends the arguments surrounding carbon lock in elaborated in unruh energy policy 28 2000 817 30 2002 317 to countries currently undergoing industrialization it argues that for numerous reasons industrializing countries are unlikely to leapfrog carbon intensive energy development on the contrary carbon lock in may be globalizing and could further constrain climate change mitigation options it is then argued that many policy recommendations ignore carbon lock in possibly limiting their potential for successful implementation the paper then discusses four policy approaches that appear to have advantages given lock in conditions it is recognized however that relative ease of implementation does not necessarily equate with superiority instead it is merely a path dependent outcome of past development decisions pursuing policies on the basis of relative implementation ease may help address the issue of climate change but could also result in sub optimal outcomes along other dimensions of sustainable development

a simple adaptive measure of core inflation this paper proposes a new measure of core inflation and compares it with several existing measures the new measure is adaptive and is designed to track sudden and persistent movements in inflation such as those arising from changes in monetary policy regimes the adaptive measure filters out transients more effectively than existing measures and it is a superior predictor of locally mean reverting components of inflation

overcoming barriers to innovation and diffusion of cleaner technologies some features of a sustainable innovation policy regime despite a deepening understanding of systems and processes by which the innovation and diffusion of cleaner technologies occurs relatively little attention has been given to the development of policy processes that reflect this deeper understanding a set of guiding principles for improving sustainable innovation policy processes has been formulated and disseminated by the authors and colleagues in research drawing on theoretical and empirical analysis including a case study of low carbon energy innovation in the uk and interactions with policy makers and other stakeholders through a series of workshops this paper elaborates on two of the guiding principles 1 stimulating the development of a sustainable innovation policy regime bringing together innovation and environmental policy regimes 2 applying systems thinking engaging with the complexity and systemic interactions of innovation systems and policy making processes to promote a transition to sustainability

commitment versus discretion in climate and energy policy to decarbonize the power sector policy makers need to commit to long term credible rules for climate and energy policy otherwise risk of opportunistic policy making will impair investments into low carbon technologies however the future benefits and costs of decarbonization are subject to substantial uncertainties thus there may also be societal gains from allowing policy makers the discretion to adjust the policies as new information becomes available we examine how this trade off between policy commitment either unconditional or state contingent and discretion affects the optimal intertemporal design of market based instruments in the power sector using a dynamic partial equilibrium model we show that commitment to a state contingent level of ambition for the market based instrument leads to higher welfare than both unconditional commitment and discretion with benefit uncertainty the choice between the practically more feasible approaches of unconditional commitment and discretion is analytically ambiguous a basic numerical illustration suggests that policy discretion may outperform unconditional commitment in terms of welfare however this result is reversed when only a limited fraction of benefit uncertainty resolves in reasonable time when future policy makers have own agendas or when investors are risk averse with cost uncertainty policy discretion is welfare superior if the government can commit to a technology deployment target

the costs of mitigating carbon emissions a review of methods and findings from european studies abstract conventional wisdom has it that top down studies of mitigation costs are too pessimistic while bottom up studies are too optimistic in examining mitigation cost studies for western europe this paper finds this interpretation to be flawed the paper expands the analytical framework for interpreting mitigation cost studies evaluates the treatment of no regrets options and other input assumptions in the various studies and includes findings from recent integrated top down bottom up modeling assessments not covered in the ipcc report based on these new elements it is found that mitigation costs tend to be overestimated not only in top down studies but also in bottom up studies given this pervasive bias toward pessimism the body of existing mitigation cost assessments for western europe can be read as follows over the next three to four decades a combination of tax shifts market transformation instruments and policies to reform subsidies and internalize non climatic externalities could cut carbon emissions in western europe by 40 50 relative to the base year at no loss or at a gain in gdp averaged over the medium term and including a phase in period an economically optimal rate of implementing western europe s no regrets potentials is found to be in the neighborhood of 2 per year relative to base year levels

the long term impacts of air pollution control policy historical links between municipal actions and industrial energy efficiency in kawasaki city japan abstract under the pressures of rapid industrialization and urbanization many asian countries are facing the challenge of reducing air pollution and co 2 emissions simultaneously while maintaining their economic growth under such a circumstance a growing attention is focused on successful implementation of co benefit policies that are designed to reduce both air pollutants and co 2 emissions however the concept of co benefit policies must be developed further in order to identify its quantitative and qualitative validity which can be assessed using a reliable methodology for the estimation of co benefits and through clarification of the importance of this approach for stakeholders in urban environmental policy making based on a systematic review of co benefit research and air pollution control policies in japan we investigated the local air pollution control policy in kawasaki city one of the industrial centers of japan and confirmed that it has contributed both to the sharp decline of atmospheric sulfur dioxide so 2 levels and to energy efficiency improvements in local industries our results suggest that preventive actions and local scale compliance enforcement tools that are uniquely designed and act as a form of agreement between government and individual firms could contribute significantly to successful implementation of co benefit policies in the long term we conclude our paper with a discussion of linkages between low carbon technology innovations and policy designs that could further nurture co benefits

what is challenging renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries this paper cumulates the findings from a review of the challenges faced by renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries to date research that could facilitate the success of renewable energy entrepreneurs in the world s developing regions has been fragmented across two main bodies of literature management specifically entrepreneurship and renewable energy by conducting a qualitative review of the extant literature i propose that the findings from both bodies of research may be distilled to six 6 key challenges inadequate access to institutional finance the price of renewable energy technologies rets the lack of skilled labour underdeveloped physical infrastructure and logistics power dominance of incumbents inadequate government or policy support through this research i not only advance a unified conceptualisation of the challenges faced by renewable energy entrepreneurs in developing countries but also highlight a number of the revealed opportunities for future research

measuring the benefits of a large public investment the case of the u s federal aid highway system abstract this paper presents an analysis of an important component of the benefits of federal aid highway infrastructure investments in the united states specifically it focuses on the effects of those investments since 1950 on costs and productivity of firms in the u s road freight transport industry using a theoretical and statistical model of regional truck firm costs the paper documents that the rapid growth of highway infrastructure which occured between 1950 and 1973 had a strong and positive effect on productivity growth in trucking furthermore the results indicate the benefits of these investments to be substantial large enough to justify between one third and one half of the cost of the federal aid highway system over this period on the basis of benefits to trucking alone

the quantitative importance of openness in development this paper deals with a classic development question how can the process of economic development transition from stagnation in a traditional technology to industrialization and prosperity with a modern technology be accelerated lewis 1954 and rostow 1956 argue that the pace of industrialization is limited by the rate of capital formation which in turn is limited by the savings rate of workers close to subsistence we argue that access to capital goods in the world market can be quantitatively important in speeding up the transition we develop a parsimonious open economy model where traditional and modern technologies coexist a dual economy in the sense of lewis 1954 we show that a decline in the world price of capital goods in an open economy increases the rate of capital formation and speeds up the pace of industrialization relative to a closed economy that lacks access to cheaper capital goods in the long run the investment rate in the open economy is twice as high as in the closed economy and the per capita income is 23 higher jel o11 f43 o14

technology policy and global warming why new policy models are needed or why putting new wine in old bottles won t work in recent years the threat of global climate change has come to be seen as one of the most serious confronting humanity to meet this challenge will require the development of new technologies and the substantial improvement of existing ones as well as ensuring their prompt and widespread deployment some have argued that the urgency of the situation requires a manhattan project or an apollo program this paper examines why such a policy model is inappropriate arguing that the nature of the policy context for confronting climate change necessitates a different kind of technology policy than that for building an atomic bomb or for achieving a manned lunar landing instead it seeks to draw lessons from three sectors that seem to be more pertinent and where government technological development and deployment programs have been pursued with some success in the united states namely agriculture biomedical research and information technology it compares and contrasts these with the policies pursued with regard to the first two of these sectors in the united kingdom the paper concludes by drawing out the implications for the design of policies supporting technological development and innovation to address the problem of global climate change

escaping carbon lock in this article explores the climate policy implications of the arguments made in understanding carbon lock in unruh 2000 which posited that industrial countries have become locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through path dependent processes driven by increasing returns to scale carbon lock in arises through technological organizational social and institutional co evolution culminating in what was termed as techno institutional complex tic in order to resolve the climate problem an escape from the lock in condition is required however due to the self referential nature of tic escape conditions are unlikely to be generated internally and it is argued here that exogenous forces are probably required

foreign direct investment co2 emissions nexus in middle east and north african countries importance of biomass energy consumption abstract this study examines the association between foreign direct investment fdi and carbon emissions for the middle east and north african mena region in 1990 2015 including biomass energy consumption as an additional determinant of carbon emissions we apply the generalized method of moments gmm to validate the existence of the pollution haven hypothesis phh the n shaped association is also validated between fdi and carbon emissions the link between economic growth and carbon emissions is inverted u and n shaped that is it satisfies the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypotheses biomass energy use lowers carbon emissions and the causality analysis reveals that fdi causes co2 emissions clearly the results confirm the existence of a feedback effect between economic growth and carbon emissions the connection between biomass energy use and co2 emissions is also bidirectional the empirical findings suggest policy makers to design comprehensive trade and energy policies by targeting the cleaner production practices for not only to ensure environmental sustainability but also to fulfil the objectives of sustainable development goals

low carbon scenarios for russia s energy system a participative backcasting approach abstract despite the high profile of climate change in scientific and policy discourse the russian government has thus far failed to commit to an emission reduction target based on the latest science given russia is a key supplier of fossil fuels a major greenhouse gas emitter and climate impacts on its vast territory likely to have far reaching consequences this contextual research shows that the country s current policies fall woefully short of what is required to implement the paris agreement to support russia in developing informed internally consistent and scientifically literate energy policies this paper presents low carbon emission trajectories commensurate with the 2 c goal using stakeholder informed backcasting the results illustrate that even if russia s co2 emissions peak in 2017 a reduction rate of at least 9 per year between 2020 and 2030 is required to meet a 2 c budget constraint these sustained rates are in excess of anything achieved globally or indeed deemed possible within most studies such emission reductions would involve unprecedented material changes to russia s energy system including both rapidly cutting energy demand and building extensive low carbon infrastructures nevertheless failure to transform russia s existing policies will likely have global repercussions for achieving the paris agreement s goals

biodiversity conservation in a dynamic world may lead to inefficiencies due to lock in effects and path dependence abstract although biodiversity is generally diminishing in some areas its conservation is expanding however the exact path of this expansion is uncertain this can lead to problems of path dependence and lock in effects path dependence describes situations where history strongly influences present decisions and lock in effects refer to situations where an earlier decision provides strong incentives to follow a particular path even if more efficient alternatives are available later on we develop a conceptual ecological economic model to investigate which ecological and economic parameters favour the appearance of efficiency losses in biodiversity conservation due to path dependence and lock in effects in a dynamic two period two region model generally we find that efficiency losses occur if there are signals that guide the first period budget into a region that later turns out to be suboptimal if both time periods had been considered right from the beginning to illustrate the conservation relevance of our findings we present potential efficiency losses through path dependence in the hypothetical case of applying offsets to conserving the endangered maculinea teleius butterfly near the city of landau in germany

technology adoption in the presence of network externalities we analyze technology adoption in industries where network externalities are significant the pattern of adoption depends on whether technologies are sponsored a sponsor is an entity that has property rights to the technology and hence is willing to make investments to promote it key findings include the following 1 compatibility tends to be undersupplied by the market but excessive standardization can occur 2 in the absence of sponsors the technology superior today has a strategic advantage and is likely to dominate the market 3 when one of two rival technologies is sponsored that technology has a strategic advantage and may be adopted even if it is inferior 4 when two competing technologies both are sponsored the technology that will be superior tomorrow has a strategic advantage

lock in vs critical masses industrial change under network externalities abstract where increasing returns to adoption play a role in the diffusion of a new technology technological lock in is now often claimed to occur however this result and the modeling approach that produces it are problematic further innovations could never have a chance of disseminating if lock in had occurred in the diffusion process of earlier innovations yet in reality industrial change does not come to a halt the paper offers a discussion of the apparent paradox from an alternative modeling approach conditions are derived under which a newly introduced technology can successfully disseminate in the market despite existing network externalities

how well does the is lm model fit postwar u s data postwar u s time series for money interest rates prices and gnp are characterized by a multivariate process driven by four exogenous disturbances those disturbances are identified so that they can be interpreted as the four main sources of fluctuations found in the is lm phillips curve model money supply money demand is and aggregate supply shocks the dynamic properties of the estimated model are analyzed and shown to match most of the stylized predictions of the model the estimated decomposition is also used to measure the relative importance of each shock to interpret some macroeconomic episodes and to study sources of permanent shocks to nominal variables

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

spatial dispersion of retail margins evidence from turkish agricultural prices the farmer share of retail prices is shown to be about 16 percent corresponding to about 84 percent of a distribution share on average across agricultural products and regions within turkey the share of transportation costs in retail prices is only about 7 percent while the share of retail margins is about 77 percent of retail prices the dispersion of retail prices across regions is shown to be mostly due to local wages and variable markups while the contribution of traded input prices is relatively small accordingly the high dispersion of farmer prices across locations is not reflected in the dispersion of retail prices due to the high contribution of retail margins these retail margins are also shown to account for about one third of the consumer welfare dispersion across regions and more than half of the consumer welfare dispersion across products

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

the critical role of informed political direction for advancing technology the case of swedish marine energy marine energy technologies can contribute to meeting sustainability challenges but they are still immature and dependent on public support this paper employs the technological innovation systems tis framework to analyze the development and diffusion of swedish marine energy up until 2014 while there were promising device developers relevant industrial capabilities and world class research the system suffered from weaknesses in several important innovation processes finally the analysis identifies the lack of informed political direction as a critical blocking factor and highlights its connection to domestic market potential

from lagging to leading technological innovation systems in emerging economies and the case of chinese wind power there is increasing attention for the contribution of emerging economies to global innovation including innovation of renewable energy technologies the technological innovation systems tis framework presents a list of system functions for the analysis of the development of a technology it has often been applied to renewable energy technologies but with a strong focus on advanced economies in this paper we elaborate on emerging economy innovation system formation structured according to tis functions rather than analysing development of the technology we analyse the development of the chinese tis vis a vis the global forefront key to this notion is that tis especially for clean tech are transnational phenomena lagging tis depend on the global tis whereas leading tis contribute to its formation it is concluded that china has reduced its dependence on foreign knowledge and investment but the outward contribution remains limited the main challenge to foreign market expansion lies in reforming the domestic tis to focus on turbine quality rather than cost reduction demonstration projects are needed especially for large capacity and offshore turbine models in order to build up operational history and get quality certification

a low carbon industrial revolution insights and challenges from past technological and economic transformations recent efforts to promote a transition to a low carbon economy have been influenced by suggestions that a low carbon transition offers challenges and might yield economic benefits comparable to those of the previous industrial revolutions this paper examines these arguments and the challenges facing a low carbon transition by drawing on recent thinking on the technological economic and institutional factors that enabled and sustained the first british industrial revolution and the role of general purpose technologies in stimulating and sustaining this and subsequent industrial transformation processes that have contributed to significant macroeconomic gains these revolutions involved profound long drawn out changes in economy technology and society and although their energy transitions led to long run economic benefits they took many decades to develop to reap significant long run economic benefits from a low carbon transition sooner rather than later would require systemic efforts and incentives for low carbon innovation and substitution of high carbon technologies we conclude that while achieving a low carbon transition may require societal changes on a scale comparable with those of previous industrial revolutions this transition does not yet resemble previous industrial revolutions a successful low carbon transition would however amount to a different kind of industrial revolution

a simple test of exogeneity for recursively structured var models the restriction of exogeneity of certain variables in structural var models is rarely tested for consistency with the actual data the reason is obvious such a test requires estimates of the structural parameters this paper proposes a solution for models that assume long run or contemporaneous recursive structures in identification we show that in such cases the exogeneity restriction can be assessed statistically using the well known granger non causality test which is conveniently performed in the reduced form var model two empirical examples are offered to demonstrate the usefulness of this result

banning the bulb institutional evolution and the phased ban of incandescent lighting in germany much academic attention has been directed at analysing energy efficiency investments through the lens of behavioural failure these studies have challenged the neoclassical framing of regulation which emphasises the efficiency benefits of price based policy underpinned by the notion of rational individual self mastery the increasing use of a regulatory ban on electric lamps in many countries is one of the most recent and high profile flash points in this dialectic of freedom versus the state in the public policy discourse this paper interrogates this debate through a study of electric lamp diffusion in germany it is argued that neoclassical theory and equilibrium analysis is inadequate as a tool for policy analysis as it takes the formation of market institutions such as existing regulations for granted further still it may be prone to encourage idealistic debates around such grand narratives which may in practice simply serve those who benefit most from the status quo instead we argue for an evolutionary approach which we suggest offers a more pragmatic framing tool which focuses on the formation of market institutions in light of shifting social norms and political goals in our case progress towards energy efficiency and environmental goals

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

measuring core inflation in this paper we argue that measured rpi inflation is conceptually mismatched with core inflation the difference is more than just measurement error we propose a technique for measuring core inflation based on an explicit long run economic hypothesis core inflation is defined as that component of measured inflation that has no medium to long run impact on real output a notion that is consistent with the vertical long run phillips curve interpretation of the co movement in inflation and output we construct a measure of core inflation by placing dynamic restrictions on a vector autoregression var system

policy mixes for sustainability transitions an extended concept and framework for analysis reaching a better understanding of the policies and politics of transitions presents a main agenda item in the emerging field of sustainability transitions one important requirement for these transitions such as the move towards a decarbonized energy system is the redirection and acceleration of technological change for which policies play a key role in this regard several studies have argued for the need to combine different policy instruments in so called policy mixes however existing policy mix studies often fall short of reflecting the complexity and dynamics of actual policy mixes the underlying politics and the evaluation of their impacts in this paper we take a first step towards an extended interdisciplinary policy mix concept based on a review of the bodies of literature on innovation studies environmental economics and policy analysis the concept introduces a clear terminology and consists of the three building blocks elements policy processes and characteristics which can be delineated by several dimensions based on this we discuss its application as analytical framework for empirical studies analyzing the impact of the policy mix on technological change throughout the paper we illustrate the proposed concept by using the example of the policy mix for fostering the transition of the german energy system to renewable power generation technologies finally we derive policy implications and suggest avenues for future research

sustainability oriented innovation system analyses of brazil russia india china south africa turkey and singapore abstract the coherency of research development and innovation processes are vital in promoting a more resource efficient society sustainability oriented innovation systems define specific kinds of innovation systems i e those that are directed to the aims of sustainable development this paper develops an integrated method with four layers of analysis to evaluate the priorities and performances of such systems the method is applied to a sample of emerging and innovation based economies namely brazil russia india china south africa turkey and singapore the analyses consider the 6 main activities or functional dynamics of innovation systems and a set of 19 keywords the keywords relate to the thematic clusters of renewable energy technologies energy efficiency and environmental management the priorities of the countries in each main interaction of the system are classified accordingly the priorities are compared to the existing level of specialization in the keywords based on the intermediate outputs of the system the analyses cover 153 838 papers and 15 138 patents between the years 2003 and 2014 a sustainable innovation index is developed to aggregate the normalized values of country performance across all keywords singapore receives the highest value 21 17 and the average of brazil russia india china and south africa is 14 91 the results determine the ability of countries to align priorities and performance towards more mature innovation systems for sustainable development

social network effects on the extent of innovation diffusion a computer simulation of innovation diffusion no longer focus exclusively on explaining the rate at which innovations diffuse or the sequence in which they are adopted they also focus on explaining why certain innovations diffuse extensively be coming de facto standards whereas others do so partially or not at all many of these theories specify a bandwagon process a positive feedback loop in which increases in the number of adopters create stronger bandwagon pressures and stronger bandwagon pressures in turn cause increases in the number of adopters factors affecting if and how many times this feedback loop cycles explain if and how many potential adopters jump on a bandwagon we argue that one important factor has not yet been incorporated into theories explaining bandwagons extent the structure of social net works through which potential adopters of innovations find out information about these innovations which can cause them to adopt these innovations we advance a theory of how the structure of social networks affects bandwagons extent we propose that both the number of network links as well as small seemingly insignificant idiosyncracies of their structures can have very large effects on the extent of an innovation s diffusion among members of a social network

testing linear hypothesis on national account data stock adjustment models of money demand have employed either the nominal or real adjustment process but they have not been tested statistically due to their nonnested ness this paper formulates a general stock adjustment model which includes both nominal and real adjustment processes as its nested subsets each process is then tested against the general specification the paper also examines the homogeneity of money demand with respect to price level and income in the general model

examining the role of policy design and policy interaction in eu automotive emissions performance gaps in the wake of the 2015 dieselgate scandal the us and european governments publicly confronted automakers about their behaviour which raised concerns about the integrity of the current emissions legislation regimes in this article i argue that flexibilities within the eu s emissions legislative framework afforded automakers the opportunity to legally sidestep strict performance standards laid out in the law and resulted in a significant performance gap in real world driving emissions this article provides a timely examination of eu emission legislation policy design and policy interaction within the european union with the aim of explaining why the eu policy framework failed to regulate the regional automotive industry current research is mostly concerned with the typology and effectiveness of individual environmental policy instruments be it regulatory or economic incentives that aim to influence industry behaviour this article approaches the current eu policy regime in a more holistic manner and focuses on the exploitation of weaknesses in the regulatory framework by private firms which has received little academic attention in the innovation and transition literature a major contribution of this article therefore is a body of primary qualitative interview data from industry elites concerning relevant emissions policies

sprayed to death path dependence lock in and pest control strategies theoretical literature on the economics of technology has emphasized the effects on technological trajectories of positive feedbacks in a competition among technologies that all perform a similar function the presence of increasing returns to adoptions can force all but one technology from the market furthermore the victor need not be the superior technology this paper provides an empirical study of one technological competition which illuminates this theoretical work it uses theoretical results to explain why chemical control of agricultural pests remains the dominant technology in spite of many claims that it is inferior to its main competitor integrated pest management copyright 1996 by royal economic society

mobilizing private finance for low carbon innovation a systematic review of barriers and solutions this paper analyses the field of innovation studies regarding barriers to low carbon innovation and consequences for finance investment and divestment and contributes to a more holistic understanding of the underlying mechanisms a combination of technological barriers combined with economic barriers institutional and political barriers contribute to sub optimal low carbon investment all along the innovation cycle policy makers need to take a systemic approach to enable the redirection of diverse private financial sources instruments range from cutting dirty r d subsidies and support for clean technology innovation and diffusion levelling the institutional playing field and making risks of high carbon and low carbon technologies transparent to providing a consistent but adaptive long term transition strategy this would allow financiers to gradually shift their investments away from high carbon mainstream markets and scale low carbon technology niche markets however financiers also need to sharpen their competencies with regard to new clean technologies and markets

innovation enabling policy and regime transformation towards increased energy efficiency the case of the circulator pump industry in europe abstract when new energy efficient products are struggling with their commercialisation and diffusion into widespread applications you would typically expect policy makers and green lead users to guide the way this paper examines the case of the hot water circulator pump industry in europe where parts of the industry envisioned and worked for a voluntary energy label bringing technological innovation new business and energy savings of approx 85 for each new circulator pump the case study explores the complexities of innovation processes where technology market actors and policy co evolve over time to transform an existing socio technical regime the paper highlights the importance of policies to reduce barriers towards innovation and energy efficiency and shows that it is not always policy makers that establish the crucial policies that change the innovation dynamics for the benefit of the environment and the industry

inflation and monetary dynamics in the us a quantity theory approach in this article we investigate the long run link between inflation and money growth in the united states since 1960 a measure of the long run inflation trend is constructed which bears the interpreation of monetary inflation rate and is directly related to the excess nominal money growth process money growth less output growth as postulated by the quantity theory consistent with the memory characteristics of the series their fractional integration and cointegration properties are taken into account in empirical modelling the proposed measure is then compared with several existing measures of core inflation aimed at capturing long run inflation dynamics but unrelated to money growth the monetary long run inflation rate performs well in out of sample forecasting exercises especially over a 2 3 year horizon yielding valuable information to monetary policymakers

malthus to solow a unified growth theory is developed that accounts for the roughly constant living standards displayed by world economies prior to 1800 as well as the growing living standards exhibited by modern industrial economies our theory also explains the industrial revolution which is the transition from an era when per capita incomes are stagnant to one with sustained growth the authors use a standard growth model with several technologies the first denoted the malthus technology requires land labor and reproducible capital as inputs the second denoted the solow technology does not require land the authors show that in the early stages of development only the malthus technology is used and due to population growth living standards are stagnant despite technological progress eventually technological progress causes the solow technology to become profitable and both technologies are employed at this point living standards improve since population growth has less influence on per capita income growth in the limit the economy behaves like a standard solow growth model excerpt

uk innovation systems for new and renewable energy technologies drivers barriers and systems failures abstract a better understanding of the systemic processes by which innovation occurs is useful both conceptually and to inform policy making in support of innovation in more sustainable technologies this paper analyses current innovation systems in the uk for a range of new and renewable energy technologies and generates policy recommendations for improving the effectiveness of these innovation systems although incentives are in place in the uk to encourage innovation in these technologies system failures or gaps are identified in moving technologies along the innovation chain preventing their successful commercialisation sustained investment will be needed for these technologies to achieve their potential it is argued that a stable and consistent policy framework is required to help create the conditions for this in particular such a framework should be aimed at improving risk reward ratios for demonstration and pre commercial stage technologies this would enhance positive expectations stimulate learning effects leading to cost reductions and increase the likelihood of successful commercialisation