equilibrium analysis and corporate social responsibility for supply chain integration this paper evaluates the profit of coordination between manufacturers on corporate social responsibility csr under network equilibrium a three tier supply chain network with multiple manufacturers distributors and retailers is considered and several mathematical models are established to investigate behavior and profits in a decentralized supply chain network a centralized supply chain network and a supply chain network with csr the system optimal solution of a supply chain network problem is usually not achievable or stable since each member always tries to maximize its own profit in order to make such a system optimal solution in a stable state and ensure the maximization of total profits a strategy of coordination between manufacturers on csr is proposed the amount of payment in csr of each manufacturer is clearly defined a hybrid diagonalization method with a super network representation is proposed and tested with numerical examples the results show that by taking csr the total profits of the whole supply chain network can increase with or without coordination

sustainability in electrical and electronic equipment closed loop supply chains a system dynamics approach abstract in this paper we examine the impact of ecological motivation and technological innovations on the long term behavior of a closed loop supply chain with recycling activities ecological motivation manifests through legislation and green image factor whereas technological innovations manifest through design for environment we adopt system dynamics methodology applied to many environmental systems seeking long term gains the developed model is implemented to a real world supply chain of electrical equipment in greece numerical analysis illustrates the factors concerned like the delay of the legislation enforcement to achieve a sustainable future through non renewable resources and landfill preservation

environmental values and the frame of reference abstract wants may be distinguished by the extent to which they are positional positional wants are determined by one s frame of reference defined by comparison with peer group consumption and by one s own previous consumption the growth in positional wants is not uniquely related to environmental resource depletion but the two do strongly overlap several implications follow first social reductions in positional consumption may yield environmental benefits at little cost to consumers the costs are however spread over time and depend on the rate of adaptation the strength of the social reference effect determines whether individuals are subject to an isolation or an assurance problem and hence the degree to which cuts need to be centrally imposed if they are to succeed it is suggested that the negative consequences of international positioning could be ameliorated by the replacement of conventional income accounts by a welfare index that more fully incorporates environmental costs secondly the neoclassical utility function can be regarded as a special case of the reference based welfare function provided that it is restricted to positive explanations of how momentary choices are made reference based preferences have more in common with the findings of psychologists and hence open a way to consilience between economics and natural science finally the frame of reference also allows a dynamic perspective to the debate on the commensurability of wants

pricing environmental externalities in the power sector ethical limits and implications for social choice abstract during the last decade a series of valuation studies have made attempts at estimating the external environmental costs of various power generation sources the purposes of this paper are a to explore some of the ethical limits of the economic valuation of environmental impacts and b to analyze what the implications are of these limits for the social choice between different electric power sources environmental valuation based on welfare economic theory builds on restrictive behavioral foundations and can only partly model moral values although such values are an essential part of people s preference towards the environment in addition public preferences are seldom exogenously given as is commonly assumed in economic theory but are instead formed in public discourse for this reason the range of electricity externalities where economic valuation and thus cost benefit analysis should be applied is likely to be narrower than often assumed after analyzing the scope methodology and the results of the so called externe project the paper concludes that many power generation externalities are either inherently new or inherently complex in these cases the initial challenge lies not in discovering private preferences but in specifying the conditions for public discourse over common ways of understanding what the pertinent issues are about this implies that research on the environmental externalities of power generation must in addition to refining the theory and the applications of existing non market valuation techniques also address the instruments and content of political and moral debate

money growth targeting by the bundesbank abstract the recent debate over monetary strategies concludes that monetary and inflation targeting lead to very similar patterns of central bank behavior why then do central banks insist on the strategies they use in this paper we develop an answer from political economy arguing that monetary strategies are helpful in solving internal and external coordination problems for the central bank we illustrate the point by reviewing the bundesbank s experience with money growth targeting in the mid 1970s monetary targeting was a signal that the previous monetary regime had been overcome and a means to define the role of monetary policy vis a vis other players in the macroeconomic policy game and to structure the internal monetary policy debate

monetary policy and stagflation in the uk the volatile behavior of inflation output and interest rates in the united kingdom prior to the 1990s helps discriminate between rival explanations for the outbreak of stagflation we examine alternative hypotheses with a new keynesian model of aggregate demand and inflation determination estimated on quarterly uk data for 1959 2000 our model features is and phillips curves based on optimizing behavior and fully incorporates the distinction between detrended output and the output gap stressed by optimizing analysis using simulations of our model as well as information on the real time views of policymakers we test alternative explanations for the outbreak of inflation in the united kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s we find that inaccurate estimates of the degree of excess demand in the economy contributed significantly to the outbreak but we also find a major role for the failure at the time to recognize the importance of monetary policy as opposed to nonmonetary devices in controlling inflation

reprint efficient flexible long term capacity planning for optimal sustainability dimensions performance of reverse logistics social responsibility a system dynamics approach abstract product lifecycle uncertainties in closed loop supply chains clscs are costly and frequently unavoidable so the aim of this paper is to develop efficient flexible long term capacity planning policy for clscs that considers social responsibility or a supply chain with reverse logistics social responsibility rlsr this aim is to answer an important research question on how to tackle the lifecycle with its inherited uncertainty to achieve optimal sustainability dimensions performance here a single product system dynamics sd model of the supply chain with rlsr is used this sd model considers interrelated sustainability dimensions and adopts the product lifecycle with its inherited uncertainties such as the length of the product lifecycle pattern of the product lifecycle and residence index finally a mathematical model of the developed policy is constructed and a simplified non linear multi objective algorithm is proposed to solve this mathematical model in addition taguchi design is used to minimize the number of simulations needed in the numerical experiment the findings of this study show that the developed policy could be used to tackle the lifecycle with its inherited uncertainty to optimize the sustainability dimensions performance these findings have some limitations however the findings underscore this paper s contribution to the relatively limited but important academic knowledge on capacity planning development for research on social responsibility issues in clscs in practice the results will give managers a better understanding of how to tackle product lifecycle uncertainties in rlsr and will therefore lead to better capacity planning to achieve optimal sustainability dimensions performance

intergenerational discounting a new intuitive approach abstract this paper proposes a new intergenerational discounting approach for computing net benefits from the use of environmental resources the approach explicitly incorporates the perspectives of both the current and future generations as argued for by pigou pigou a c 1920 the economics of welfare 1952 4th edition london macmillan and ramsey ramsey f p 1928 a mathematical theory of saving econ j 38 543 559 and required by most national and international laws related to the use of these resources an equation for use in the calculation of net discounted benefits is developed which provides a middle position whereby both the reality of personal discounting and that of social discounting are included in a social welfare function

payments for ecosystem services as commodity fetishism abstract payments for ecosystem services pes economically reward resource managers for the provision of ecosystem services and are thus characterised by i an ecological function subject to trade ii the establishment of a standard unit of exchange iii and supply demand and intermediation flows between those who sell and buy ecosystem services this paper departs from the term commodity fetishism broadly understood as the masking of the social relationships underlying the process of production to illuminate three invisibilities in the commodification of ecosystem services firstly we argue that narrowing down the complexity of ecosystems to a single service has serious technical difficulties and ethical implications on the way we relate to and perceive nature secondly the commodification of ecosystem services denies the multiplicity of values which can be attributed to these services since it requires that a single exchange value is adopted for trading finally we suggest that the process of production exchange and consumption of ecosystem services is characterised by power asymmetries which may contribute to reproducing rather than addressing existing inequalities in the access to natural resources and services

the quest for prosperity without inflation abstract in recent years activist monetary policy rules responding to inflation and the level of economic activity have been advanced as a means of achieving effective output stabilization without inflation advocates of such policies suggest that their flexibility may yield substantial stabilization benefits while avoiding the excesses of overzealous discretionary fine tuning such as is thought to characterize the experience of the 1960s and 1970s in this study i present evidence suggesting that these conclusions are misguided using an estimated model i show that when informational limitations are properly accounted for activist policies would not have averted the great inflation but instead would have resulted in worse macroeconomic performance than the actual historical experience the problem can be attributed in large part to the counterproductive reliance of these policies on the output gap the analysis suggests that the dismal economic outcomes of the great inflation may have resulted from an unfortunate pursuit of activist policies in the face of bad measurement specifically overoptimistic assessments of the output gap associated with the productivity slowdown of the late 1960s and early 1970s

a theory of rational addiction we develop a theory of rational addiction in which rationality means a consistent plan to maximize utility over time strong addiction to a good requires a big effect of past consumption of the good on current consumption such powerful complementarities cause some steady states to be unstable they are an important part of our analysis because even small deviations from the consumption at an unstable steady state can lead to large cumulative rises over time in addictive consumption or to rapid falls in consumption to abstention our theory also implies that cold turkey is used to end strong addictions that addicts often go on binges that addicts respond more to permanent than to temporary changes in prices of addictive goods and that anxiety and tensions can precipitate an addiction

valuing nature from environmental impacts to natural capital abstract economic valuation of natural and environmental assets is now a well established practice economic analysis provides several methods for discovering the impact on social welfare associated with changes in the ability of these assets to provide different goods and services in general terms these valuation exercises have been performed in the framework of environmental impact assessment or more generally cost benefit analysis there is however an increasing demand nowadays to go beyond this framework and to value natural capital natural resource stocks land and ecosystems as such there are two main reasons for this new demand on the one hand sustainability requires that proper account should be taken of capital depreciation and therefore there is a need to value natural capital changes this valuation process nevertheless only makes sense when some kind of substitution between natural and other forms of capital is allowed on the other hand there is also an increasing tendency to demand that the stock of natural capital present in a given territory be valued either to discover one of the main components of social wealth or to help adequately plan changes in land use yet whereas conventional valuation methods are probably adequate to fulfill the first task this is less true in the case of the second while even more difficulties arise in connection with the third one even if at first sight the process appears conceptually identical these tasks are of a different order of magnitude as the experience of both the world bank and the statistics division of the united nations in this respect clearly shows

the production and consumption of the arts a view of cultural economics by most criteria the arts comprise a significant area of economic activity in 1990 american consumers spent 5 billion on admissions to theater opera galleries and other nonprofit arts events more than on admissions to spectator sports 4 1 billion on movie admissions and 17 6 billion on books because of difficulties in defining boundaries around the arts industry statistics on its contribution to gdp are problematical but available data suggest that the arts theater music opera dance visual arts crafts literature community and folk arts account for a little under one percent of the united states gdp and a little over one percent of the civilian labor force if the net is cast somewhat wider defining the cultural industries as including the arts motion pictures radio and television and printing and publishing an aggregate value of output can be measured for 1988 of about 130 billion or 2 5 percent of gdp national endowment for the arts 1992 likewise support for the arts and culture in the u s through government and voluntary contributions amounts to a significant annual commitment of funds combined federal state and local government expenditure on the arts and museums in 1987 amounted to about 0 8 billion and in 1990 6 4 percent of charitable giving was channeled to arts culture and the humanities yielding a total level of voluntary contributions in these areas of 7 9 billion in that year private markets in the arts too are of significant size looking at the international art trade for example we can note that the worldwide net sales of the two major art auction houses christie s and sotheby s amounted to 6 6 billion in 1989 90 1 yet despite the fact that production and consumption of art have been elements of human activity for longer than most of the phenomena that have en

changes in the federal reserve s inflation target causes and consequences this paper estimates a new keynesian model to draw inferences about the behavior of the federal reserve s unobserved inflation target the results indicate that the target rose from 1 1 4 percent in 1959 to over 8 percent in the mid to late 1970s before falling back below 2 1 2 percent in 2004 the results also provide some support for the hypothesis that over the entire postwar period federal reserve policy has systematically translated short run price pressures set off by supply side shocks into more persistent movements in inflation itself although considerable uncertainty remains about the true source of shifts in the inflation target jel e31 e32 e52

an ecological monetary theory abstract while money is critical to the modern world ecological economics does not have a theory of money that is applicable to its theoretical framework and policy prescriptions accordingly the field often defers to an orthodox conception of money that is historically inaccurate and ontologically inconsistent the dualized nature of western philosophy informs orthodoxy by defining money according its function as a medium of exchange this conceptualization creates logical and historical problems that can be addressed by exploring an interdisciplinary literature that defines money according to its nature as a social relation expressed in a unit of account this paper develops an ecological monetary theory that is simultaneously rooted in a socio historical understanding of money s nature and in an ontology of social and ecological embeddedness such a theory provides ecological economists and others concerned with social and ecological equity with a framework from which to address monetary systems and policy

ethics economics and environmental management individuals derive utility from their access to resources provided by the biosphere through the satisfaction of a number of needs and necessities these needs however cannot often be met simultaneously since they compete with each other this conflict is not just relevant at an individual or even intragenerational level indeed it implies a number of uncertainties and irreversibilities into the future which should not be left to oblivion from an extended anthropocentric ethical position in which only human beings have immanent value and are therefore subjects of moral consideration the identification of economic values can be of great use to allocate resources and make decisions on the environment economic analysis provides a number of decision tools than can be used to optimise efficiency and equity the purpose of this paper is to reflect on some of the ethical constraints to the ability of conventional economic valuation techniques to inform decision making processes affecting the environment it will be argued that depending on the stage of development some environmental and natural assets might well be seen as a common heritage either from a natural or a cultural viewpoint rather than just a pool of economic resources that could be used to satisfy basic needs and depleted or transformed accordingly whether directly or indirectly furthermore this boundary is not static the same environmental asset will be demanded as a resource at lower stages of development both individual and socially and as a part of the common heritage at a later stage again individual and socially in the former the use of conventional methods to value environmental goods and services will be warranted whereas this would not be the case in the latter we will also stress upon the fact that this is something quite different from the approach taken in social project appraisal where the introduction of efficiency prices and distributive factors also provides a move from individual to social welfare maximization but without breaking away from the market logic

poverty and famines an essay on entitlement and deprivation this book focuses on the causes of starvation in general and famines in particular the traditional analysis of famines is shown to be fundamentally defective and the author develops an alternative analysis

does the time consistency problem explain the behavior of inflation in the united states abstract this paper derives the restrictions imposed by barro and gordon s theory of time consistent monetary policy on a bivariate time series model for inflation and unemployment and tests those restrictions using quarterly us data from 1960 through 1997 the results show that the data are consistent with the implications of the theory for the long run behavior of the two variables indicating that the theory can explain the initial rise and subsequent fall of inflation over the past four decades the results also suggest that the theory must be extended to account more fully for the short run dynamics that appear in the data

inflation targeting in a small open economy empirical results for switzerland abstract this paper extends mccallum s 1987 nominal targeting rule to a small open economy by allowing for feedback from the exchange rate instead of setting parameters in a mccallum type targeting rule and simulating the parameters are estimated using a markov switching model we argue that a model of discrete parameter changes should be adept at capturing sudden changes in policy regime such as changes in the degree to which monetary policy admits feedback from the exchange rate we examine the legitimacy of an inflation targeting rule with occasional exchange rate feedback to describe swiss monetary policy over the past twenty years

politics and society political diversity and uniformity in households as a theoretical puzzle the authors resolve a theoretical puzzle that characterizes the political preferences of members of social groups by a demonstrating that political homogeneity is a variable to be explained b

prospects for a heterodox economics of the environment and sustainability this paper introduces a special issue on heterodox economics of the environment and sustainability at present humanity faces several challenges such as resource scarcity biodiversity loss and climate change and yet we would argue contributions from traditional heterodox schools of thought such as post keynesianism marxism and to a lesser extent institutionalism have had relatively little to say about them instead the economic analysis of environmental issues has been dominated by approaches inspired by neoclassical economics and latterly by ecological economics the special issue is part of an effort to stimulate more heterodox work on the environment and to explore connections between existing groups of scholars particularly between ecological and heterodox economists

rounding error a distorting influence on index data rounding error is an important source of measurement error that is common in index data the problem can be traced to rounding that occurs to limit the number of digits after the decimal place to be reported in rebased index data rounding error introduces distortions that affect variance properties alter the lag distributions of time series models and cause a systematic bias in estimated coefficients for instance spuriously choppy inflation rates are obtained when constructed using the official cpi rebased with 1982 84 100 fortunately the distortions can be generally avoided by using versions of data that have greater precision

the impact of capacity planning on product lifecycle for performance on sustainability dimensions in reverse logistics social responsibility abstract reverse logistics social responsibility rlsr is preferred as a social responsibility activity in the supply chain since it involves most of the supply chain actors who have an impact on social responsibility so here a single product system dynamics sd model of the supply chain with rlsr is developed the product lifecycle with its inherited uncertainties such as the length of the product lifecycle pattern of the product lifecycle and residence index is adopted by considering interrelated sustainability dimensions efficient flexible capacity planning is established as a policy option by considering a social responsibility fund from the premium price that is contributed by consumers the taguchi design of experiment is used for analysis of the numerical simulation finally the significance with its power is measured to show the power of the relationship between policy and uncertainty for the sustainability dimensions performance these features will be used to analyze the impact of capacity planning on product lifecycle for performance on sustainability dimensions in rlsr by using an sd approach the findings show that the policy parameters have an effect on any measured performances and uncertainties with some conditional exceptions these findings reveal three interesting facts regarding rlsr due to the considered model features first the economic performance is a result of a direct influence of policy second the environmental performance results from the indirect effect of the policy third the social performance is the performance that is hardest to influence by policy therefore the findings underscore this paper s contributions to the relatively limited academic knowledge on the examination of the impact of behavior in reverse logistics as a social responsibility due to capacity planning and the product lifecycle with its inherited uncertainties these contributions offer managers a better understanding of the relationship between capacity planning product lifecycle with its inherited uncertainties and sustainability performance this better understanding will lead to better capacity planning to tackle product lifecycle with its inherited uncertainties for sustainable rlsr

sustainable development in a post brundtland world not yet two decades after the publication of our common future the world s political and environmental landscape has changed significantly nonetheless we argue that the concept and practice of sustainable development sd as guiding institutional principle as concrete policy goal and as focus of political struggle remains salient in confronting the multiple challenges of this new global order yet how sd is conceptualized and practiced hinges crucially on the willingness of scholars and practitioners to embrace a plurality of epistemological and normative perspectives on sustainability the multiple interpretations and practices associated with the evolving concept of development and efforts to open up a continuum of local to global public spaces to debate and enact a politics of sustainability embracing pluralism provides a way out of the ideological and epistemological straightjackets that deter more cohesive and politically effective interpretations of sd using pluralism as a starting point for the analysis and normative construction of sustainable development we pay particular attention to how an amalgam of ideas from recent work in ecological economics political ecology and the development as freedom literature might advance the sd debate beyond its post brundtland quagmire enhanced levels of ecological degradation vast inequalities in economic opportunities both within and across societies and a fractured set of institutional arrangements for global environmental governance all represent seemingly insurmountable obstacles to a move towards sustainability while these obstacles are significant we suggest how they might be overcome through a reinvigorated set of notions and practices associated with sustainable development one that explicitly examines the linkages between sustainability policies and sustainability politics

ireland and switzerland the jagged edges of the great inflation abstract ireland and switzerland both had rising inflation during the early 1970s but their experiences diverged thereafter so that they form a rare example of two countries whose inflation rates are poorly correlated with one another over the great inflation period this paper proposes that the monetary policy neglect hypothesis can account for both countries experiences extensive archival evidence is considered for each country regarding the doctrines that guided 1970s policymaking this evidence establishes that switzerland s better record is accounted for by the competition between monetary and nonmonetary views of inflation being resolved earlier and more decisively in favor of the monetary view in ireland by contrast nonmonetary views of inflation dominated policymaking throughout the 1970s

the poverty of money marxian insights for ecological economists abstract karl marx s philosophical political and sociological analysis of the workings of capitalism provides insights regarding the character of monetary value price and the role of the market that are relevant to ecological economists ecological economists are divided over the utility of pricing components of ecological systems and the potential role of the market in achieving ecologically sustainable societies in the marxian influenced socialist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries similar issues were raised by those preoccupied with organising state policy and manipulating the market to achieve social justice for example at particular points in the russian and cuban revolutionary processes the potential and limitations of monetary pricing and market exchange were debated in a heated and detailed way in as much as ecological economists hold certain interests in common it is worth reflecting on marx s view of the human role within nature and analysing the discussions and experiences of marxian experimenters in social transformation that relate specifically to exchange

a review of theories of the firm and their contributions to corporate sustainability corporate sustainability has arisen as an alternative to traditional short term profit oriented ap proaches to managing the firm by holistically balancing economic environmental and social issues in the present generation and for future ones although a number of theories of the firm have been pro posed within recent decades their application to corporate sustainability has been limited this paper presents an overview of the most widely used theories of the firm such as the stockholder theory the aggregate theory the contractual theory the resource based view and the stakeholder theory and analyses their contributions to corporate sustainability from an interpretative perspective the discus sion highlights the point that each of the theories on its own is limited in addressing sustainability s four dimensions i e the economic environmental social and time nonetheless each theory or group of theories has a particular perspective or principles that can contribute to one or more of the four dimensions the authors of this paper propose a sustainability oriented theory of the firm which is built upon elements of those theories as they relate to corporate sustainability this new theory can be useful in providing the firm s leaders and all of its stakeholders with a more complete vision of its ob ligations opportunities relations and processes that the firm should address as it engages in helping to make societies become more equitable and sustainable in the short and long terms