european schemes for promoting renewables in liberalised markets abstract the paper describes possibilities and problems for penetration of supply systems based on renewable energy sources in liberalised markets the analysis is based on recent development in eu with different models for support of installations based on renewable energy these include feed in models with guaranteed minimum tariffs tender models for different bands of technologies and green certificates trading models with obligatory consumer quota the paper describes the market situation in selected european countries including germany the uk holland and denmark an eu directive from september 2001 has postponed the decision on a possible harmonisation of promotional models until at least 2005 in order to obtain more practical experience with the different support schemes a critical evaluation is given in this paper of the different models with proposals for a balanced development between environmental and trading concerns it is argued that too much emphasis is presently given to the side of free trade at the expense of long range planning for a sustainable energy development

r d internationalization and growth of newly listed firms european evidence the initial public offering ipo is an important stage in the life cycle of privately held and entrepreneurial firms for innovative firms eager to capitalize on their technological advances an ipo represents a springboard for a rapid international expansion of sales however there is little research on the longer term post ipo strategic evolution of newly listed companies including their internationalization we build on international entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities perspectives and examine interrelationships between r d exporting and growth of newly listed firms in the uk germany italy and france using panel data for 1110 ipos during the period 1985 2004 we found that r d intensity is an important antecedent factor for internationalization of sales both r d and export intensities have a positive effect on the sales growth of newly listed firms however r d intensity is path dependent and is determined by levels of accumulated intangible assets and debt in terms of time dynamics the growth of ipo firms is at its highest level just after the float whereas export intensity increases as ipo firms mature we conclude that managers and ipo investors need to take into account not only growth opportunities but also past innovation strategies and financial constraints on managers strategic choices

residential energy efficiency and distributed generation natural partners or competition abstract residential energy efficiency and distributed generation seem to be natural partners in our journey towards a more sustainable energy future a growing range of energy efficient consumer technologies and extraordinary declines in photovoltaics system prices has seen household electricity demand fall whilst a growing proportion of the remaining load is provided by household self generation australia is a particularly interesting example of these developments with around 15 of households now possessing a pv system while per capita household demand has also fallen markedly however existing retail electricity tariffs and regulatory arrangements can create mixed incentives for households contemplating both pv and energy efficiency options and for their network service providers this is certainly the case in australia with net metering arrangements that value self consumption of pv far more than pv exports to the grid there are also complex benefits for the electricity network created by these household energy resources that can be significant in this paper we use real household load and pv data from sydney households to model the potential implications of existing electricity tariff arrangements on the financial attractiveness of pv and energy efficiency we model these options separately and in combination for both households implementing these options and their network service providers our results highlight how inappropriate tariffs may well adversely impact on the value that the combination of energy efficiency and pv offers not only to households but also to their network service providers and suggest ways that such impacts might be ameliorated by acknowledging the benefits that these resources can offer to the electricity network

basic concepts for designing renewable electricity support aiming at a full scale transition by 2050 abstract renewable electricity supply is a crucial factor in the realization of a low carbon energy economy the understanding is growing that a full turn over of the electricity sectors by 2050 is an elementary condition for avoiding global average temperature increase beyond 2 c this article adopts such full transition as europe s target when designing renewable energy policy an immediate corollary is that phasing in unprecedented energy efficiency and renewable generation must be paralleled by phasing out non sustainable fossil fuel and nuclear power technologies the double phasing programme assigns novel meaning to nearby target settings for renewable power as share of total power consumption it requires organizing in the medium term eu wide markets for green power a highly demanding task in the present context of poorly functional markets in brown power the eu commission s 2007 2008 proposals of expanding tradable certificates markets were not based on solid analysis of past experiences and future necessities the keystone of sound policies on renewable electricity development is a detailed scientific differentiation and qualification of renewable electricity sources and technologies for measuring the huge diversity in the field we provide but structuring concepts about such qualification because implementation requires extensive research resources support for renewable electricity development is organized via feed in prices or premiums and via quota obligations connected to tradable green certificates green certificates are dependent on physical generated renewable power but separable and no joint products contrary to conventional wisdom we argue their separation in cost analysis but firm linking during trade a few graphs illustrate the importance of assigning qualities to different renewable power sources technologies feed in systems based on an acceptable qualification perform generally better than certificate markets imposing uniform approaches on a very diverse reality for a similar reason uniform and undifferentiated taxation of non sustainable energy sources cannot replace renewable energy support schemes capable of differentiation

public policies to support the development of renewable energy in romania a review abstract the aim of this study is to review the public policies used to support the development of renewable energy in romania over the past ten years romania assumed a target of 24 share of renewable energy in consumption in 2020 higher than the average target of the european union and this target has already been reached in the beginning of 2014 as a result of the public policies implemented therefore this study examines firstly the support schemes for the development of renewable energy in the european union underlining the arguments to support the renewable energy as well as the main barriers for its development secondly this study analyses the renewable energy sector in romania in terms of theoretical and economic potential production and consumption of renewable energy and legislation related to the renewable energy thirdly this study discloses the main issues of the public renewable energy policy in romania starting with an overview of the tradable green certificates system and revealing the changes of the romanian support scheme and the possible effects of the policy changes the results of the present study may be useful for further research regarding public policies for the development of renewable energy projects

will policies to promote renewable electricity generation be effective evidence from panel stationarity and unit root tests for 115 countries abstract this study examines whether policies to promote renewable electricity generation are likely to be effective by applying panel unit root and stationarity tests to time series data on renewable electricity generation for 115 countries over the period 1980 2008 we find that for the panel as a whole and almost three quarters of the individual countries renewable electricity generation is characterized by a unit root this result implies that policies to promote renewable electricity generation such as renewable portfolio standards which result in annual increases in renewable energy and as such which represent permanent positive shocks to the long run growth path of renewable electricity generation will be more effective in increasing renewable electricity generation than policies with a pre specified time horizon

economic guideline about financial utilization of flat plate solar collectors fpscs for the consumer segment in the city of eskisehir abstract solar energy systems yield energy savings relative to conventional systems by considering the ecological balance although it still has barriers the most commonly used system of this type is fpsc in turkey which produces hot water by absorbing solar energy through fpscs this study is a kind of guidance about utilization of fpscs in eskisehir that concentrates on a consumer segment the aim of the study is displaying the necessity of transition to renewable energy systems in the local free markets where the place of domestic resources the data is supplied from an original hand collected survey and turkish governmental institutions such as the central bank of the republic of turkey cbrt and the turkish statistical institute turkstat that is used for a possible scenario to show how these systems can become an extensive investment and financed in the city the most significant finding is purchasing a fpsc device which is a rational and profitable investment decision for households in the economic conditions of eskisehir this type of energy system has certain costs including installation credit and annual maintenance costs however after they have been set up fpsc systems yield many ecological advantages that more than offset the associated costs such as fuel savings over the long term and exemptions from tax payments that apply to other types of fuels these advantages benefit both the environment on a global scale and the region in which the system is constructed therefore the global and local economy can improve its structure by utilizing fpscs

network location and learning the influence of network resources and firm capabilities on alliance formation this paper presents a dynamic firm level study of the role of network resources in determining alliance formation such resources inhere not so much within the firm but reside in the interfirm networks in which firms are placed data from extensive fieldwork show that by influencing the extent to which firms have access to information about potential partners such resources are an important catalyst for new alliances especially because alliances entail considerable hazards this study also assesses the importance of firms capabilities with alliance formation and material resources as determinants of their alliance decisions i test this dynamic framework and its hypotheses about the role of time varying network resources and firm capabilities with comprehensive longitudinal multi industry data on the formation of strategic alliances by a panel of firms between 1970 and 1989 the results confirm field observations that accumulated network resources arising from firm participation in the network of accumulated prior alliances are influential in firms decisions to enter into new alliances this study highlights the importance of network resources that firms derive from their embeddedness in networks for explaining their strategic behavior copyright 1999 john wiley sons ltd

profitability analysis of grid connected photovoltaic facilities for household electricity self sufficiency abstract spain exhibits a high level of energy dependence and has significant solar energy resources these two facts have given rise to the prominence that renewable energy particularly solar photovoltaic technology has enjoyed in recent years supported by a favorable regulatory framework currently the spanish government is providing new ways in energy policy to enhance and accelerate the development of low power photovoltaic generation facilities for self consumption by introducing energy policies for feed in payments of surplus electricity such facilities are an example of distributed electrical generation with important benefits for the environment and the rest of the electrical system because when properly managed they can help improve the system s stability and reduce overall losses by analyzing household demand and solar photovoltaic energy resources the profitability of such facilities is considered in this article taking into account the technical and economic impact of storage systems and proposing models for feed in payments of surplus electricity in an attempt to assess whether this method of electricity generation versus the method of conventionally supplied power from a grid at a regulated tariff can rival each other economically in terms of parity

on empirical exchange rate models what does a rejection of the symmetry restriction on short run interest rates mean abstract the purpose of this paper is to interpret the well documented rejection of reduced form symmetry restrictions on short run interest rates and to show that such a rejection implies a rejection of rational expectations re and or uncovered interest rate parity uip the paper also shows that if this rejection is due to failure of uip it cannot be explained by the presence of a standard risk premium in order to provide for well specified alternatives the paper explores the reduced form implications of imperfect capital mobility and a recent alternative to re called the theories consistent expectations framework

does foreign exchange intervention matter the portfolio effect until recently there was an unusual degree of consensus among economists that intervention by central banks in the foreign exchange market did not offer an effective or lasting instrument for affecting the exchange rate at least not independently of monetary policy this consensus was largely shared among policymakers and participants in the financial markets as well the 1982 g 7 economic summit at versailles commissioned a study of intervention known as the jurgenson report which found that the effects were small and transitory at most we think that the time is ripe for new statistical testing of the question many policymakers and foreign exchange traders believe that the intervention operations that have taken place since the plaza agreement of september 1985 have had an effect especially when operations are coordinated moreover the theoretical case against the effectiveness of intervention is not as clear as a reading of the economics literature might suggest the academic literature is predicated on the distinction between intervention operations that are sterilized and those that are allowed to affect the money supply we study the intervention operations that actually took place between 1982 and 1988 regardless of whether they were sterilized however we do begin in section i with a review of the issues involved 2 there are two possible channels through which intervention whether sterilized or not can influence the foreign exchange rate the portfolio and the expectations channels intervention can even if sterilized influence exchange rates through the portfolio channel provided foreign and domestic bonds are considered imperfect substitutes in investors portfolios intervention operations that for example increase the current relative supply of mark to dollar assets which private investors are obliged to accept into their portfolios will force a decrease in the relative price of mark assets 3 intervention can also influence exchange rates regardless of whether foreign and domestic bonds are imperfect substitutes through the expectations channel the public information that central banks are intervening in support of a currency or are planning to intervene in the future may under certain conditions cause speculators to expect an increase in the price of that currency in the future speculators react to this information by buying the currency today bringing about the change in the exchange rate today in sections ii and iii we describe the econometric problems that arise in the standard portfolio balance estimation equation we derive an alternative portfolio balance dominguez kennedy school of government harvard university 79 j f kennedy street cambridge ma 02138 frankel department of economics university of california 787 evans hall berkeley ca 94720 we thank three anonymous referees for valuable comments and suggestions julia marsh and julia lowell for research assistance and franz scholl at the bundesbank jean pierre roth at the swiss national bank and officials at the u s treasury and the board of governors of the federal reserve system for making the daily intervention data available 1many of the econometric results finding little or no effect were reported in kenneth s rogoff 1984 and dale w henderson and stephanie sampson 1983 2for authoritative statements see henderson 1984 or maurice obstfeld 1990 3the exchange rate reaction to an increase in the relative supply of outside foreign assets may be reduced if there is an increase in their expected rate of return that induces a corresponding increase in demand

the drivers of foreign direct investment into research and development an empirical investigation this paper examines the determinants of foreign direct investment fdi in research and development laboratories by 32 multinational enterprises in the pharmaceutical and electronics industries the paper applies a dichotomous set of motives for fdi results from an econometric analysis of 136 laboratory investments show that relative market size and relative strength of a country s science base determine whether fdi in research and development is carried out in order to exploit existing firm specific advantages or in order to build up new firm specific advantages this holds true in similar form for japanese european and u s firms and across the two industries

the monetary model of the exchange rate long run relationships short run dynamics and how to beat a random walk abstract the monetary model is re examined for the sterling dollar exchange rate first it is demonstrated using a multivariate cointegration technique that an unrestricted monetary model is a valid framework for analyzing the long run exchange rate second we find once proper account has been taken of the short run data dynamics that an unrestricted monetary model outperforms the random walk and other models in an out of sample forecasting contest jel f31

economic analysis of pv systems on buildings in sicilian farms abstract the photovoltaic sector in italy in recent years has experienced a rapid growth also in the primary sector thanks to substantial incentives guaranteed by energy policies simultaneous reduction of investment costs and tax benefits in order to better understand the growth of the pv industry in italian primary sector the aim of this paper has been to evaluate the economic convenience of four pv systems on farm buildings located in four different farms of the north western coast of sicily and realized during the second and fourth italian feed in schemes for each feed in scheme it has been considered a pv plant that sells the electricity to the grid and another in which the energy generated is consumed entirely by the farm the results show a clear convenience to the realization of investments both with the current market conditions and at the variation of the feed in tariff or the investment costs

a review of research on the growth of multinational enterprises a penrosean lens abstract we provide a comprehensive review of the growth of multinational enterprises mnes based on a quarter century 25 years of scholarly international business publications we synthesize research insights on the determinants of the growth of mnes through the lens of penrose s theory of firm growth which is the most influential theoretical perspective on firm growth the review takes stock of the research findings on the facilitators constraints and the trajectory of growth of mnes and elaborates on the commonalities and differences between research on the growth of mnes that draws on penrose s theory and research that does not this comparison highlights the opportunity to build an internally coherent theory of the growth of mnes that is a theory that connects what an mne is to what determines an mne s growth it also indicates that past research placed a strong emphasis on exogenous factors e g cross country distances as key constraints on growth even though the penrosean lens suggests a close consideration of endogenous factors that drive international growth as well as endogenizing the ostensibly exogenous growth determinants the review highlights the importance of firm specific managerial knowledge and learning which shapes the direction of the growth of mnes and ensures its administrative coherence

economic analysis of investment in the rooftop photovoltaic systems a long term research in the two main markets abstract nowadays due to incentive policies the photovoltaic pv installations become an economically attractive investment the different policies aim to reduce the pv installation costs consequently to the deployment of the market in recent years a progressive price decrease of components for pv installations has occurred according their learning curve every doubling of the volume implies approximately a cost reduction of 20 in order to reduce the burden of the incentive rate on the national budget maintaining the economic margin of the investment attractive for investors a progressive tariff decline has also taken place this paper provides a technical economic analysis of investments in pv systems installed on the rooftop considering incentive policies and applies it to some significant case studies in the countries in which pv market is the most prosperous germany and italy the analysis puts into evidence the past and current economic margins of the pv investments since 2006 to 2012 four case studies from 3 kwp to 1 mwp are examined in detail the profitability indexes in terms of net present value and internal rate of return evaluated throughout incentive duration of 20 years become very interesting above all in italy higher than 100 of the installation cost and higher than 10 respectively since 2009 when an abrupt decrement in installation cost occurred in italy the best profit margins occur for large size pv plants and are poorly counterbalanced by the decline of the feed in tariff up to 2012 when a new framework has given a knock to the investments whereas in germany the best margins happen for medium size pv plants and are well adjusted by the feed in tariff however it is predictable that a cut in german feed in tariff will take place because the profit margins have been higher in last year than in the previous years

regulation profitability and diffusion of photovoltaic grid connected systems a comparative analysis of germany and spain abstract although both germany and spain were pioneers in the support and adoption of photovoltaics pv through feed in tariffs fits germany is the world s leading country in terms of installed pv capacity per capita and remains on a path of pv growth while the spanish pv market is virtually paralysed we analyse the divergent performance in both countries by reviewing the evolution of fits and by analysing the profitability of different types of installations for the period 2004 2014 while in germany the policies profitability and diffusion of pv were relatively stable over time in spain erratic policy changes and the distortionary effect of the solar orchard ownership structure caused a diffusion bubble june 2007 september 2008 and a subsequent profitability bubble 2009 2011 these bubbles led to the collapse of the support system in 2012 revealing the difficulty inherent in designing innovation and diffusion policies in the context of high uncertainty and rapid technological change

foreign exchange market intervention and expectations the yen dollar exchange rate abstract using press reports and official statistics on central bank intervention in conjunction with options market data we find that central bank intervention had no statistically significant systematic impact on the mean or higher moments of the exchange rate during 1993 2000 we also find that japanese authorities appeared to intervene mainly in response to deviations of the exchange rate from some implicit target levels and to a rise in market uncertainty u s monetary authorities intervened only in cooperation with the japanese authorities

assessing the short term revenue impacts of residential pv systems on electricity customers retailers and network service providers abstract falling costs and supportive government policies have seen remarkable growth in residential photovoltaic systems in jurisdictions around the world while there have been detailed studies of the financial attractiveness of pv for home owners under different policy and retail market arrangements there has been less consideration of the impacts of such systems on some other key industry participants in this paper we undertake an investigation of the annual short term revenue impacts of pv systems for those households installing them for their electricity retailers and network service providers nsps and for all electricity customers more in general in the australian state of nsw we use actual half hourly pv generation and electricity consumption for 80 households in sydney to estimate the real world impacts of a range of former current and possible future pv policy and retail tariff arrangements including gross and net feed in tariffs fit we found that the short term revenue impacts differ significantly for different commercial arrangements and are highly variable and largely driven by the pv performance and its match with household consumption patterns results highlight that current net metering policies in australia with low net fit rates may provide only moderate revenue incentives to households yet quite adverse revenue impacts on nsps and retailers depending on the level of pv export while nsp short term revenue losses will likely involve increasing electricity tariffs in the longer term losses for retailers may add risks to the profitability of household customers with pv the challenge for policy makers is to facilitate socially valuable pv deployment whilst appropriately managing the impacts on all key electricity industry stakeholders

economics of pooling small local electricity prosumers lcoe self consumption abstract the arrival of small scale decentralized energy installations coincides with the emergence of so called prosumers entities households that are producer and consumer of energy in one this research focuses on an electricity prosumer model in the context of the uk market levelized cost of electricity lcoe for photovoltaic pv and wind energy will be modeled for six uk sites additionally self consumption levels for two different load profiles and technologies will be estimated per site the simulations are modeled with homer software and multiple inputs will be varied including natural resource equipment cost maintenance cost equipment life expectancy cost of capital project life and load profiles the modeled self consumption levels show significant differences and varied between 31 and 72 depending on load profile itself and re technologies mixes modeled the pooling of prosumers implied by lower load profile volatility proved to be beneficial to self consumption levels in the modeled scenarios up to 17 6 lcoe showed significant ranges depending on the input parameters and their combination 10 55 p kw h for pv and 2 19 p kw h for wind the combination of these factors is decisive for the final lcoe and the negative effects of less benign factors can be compensated by other parameters when compared to current electricity retail prices of around 15 p kw h around 97 of wind sites and around 4 of pv scenarios implied lcoe reached grid parity the self consumption levels and lcoe analysis indicate the viability of electricity prosumer models

electricity consumption real gdp causality nexus evidence from a bootstrapped causality test for 30 oecd countries the goal of this paper is to examine any causal effects between electricity consumption and real gdp for 30 oecd countries we use a bootstrapped causality testing approach and unravel evidence in favour of electricity consumption causing real gdp in australia iceland italy the slovak republic the czech republic korea portugal and the uk the implication is that electricity conservation policies will negatively impact real gdp in these countries however for the rest of the 22 countries our findings suggest that electricity conversation policies will not affect real gdp

grid parity and self consumption with photovoltaic systems under the present regulatory framework in spain the case of the university of jaen campus abstract the cut off of any subsidy or feed in tariff that incentives the installation of new renewable energy systems which are close to the grid parity is a reality in most of the european countries but in the recent years the grid parity has worsened because of the global economic crisis in the case of spain in addition to the economic problems the photovoltaic sector has been dramatically damaged through a changeable regulatory framework an excessive bureaucracy and the inclusion of additional fees or possible back up tolls that are very prejudicial for the deployment of this sector nowadays the current spanish legislation mentions the possibility of self consumption totally or partially of the electricity generated by pv or any renewable energy systems but up to the date of this work the law that regulates the administrative technical and economic conditions for the net metering of the electrical energy produced within the consumer s network is still under a draft stage in this paper it is analyzed the case of the university of jaen where it has been identified and simulated several pv systems on the roofs and parking lots of the university campus and considering the current electrical tariffs hourly defined for the case of high power and high voltage consumers it has been done a cost and economic analysis as a result it has been obtained an average levelised cost of energy around 0 125 kwh 1 a discount payback time of 17 5 years or less a positive net present value and a nominal internal rate of return of 8 48 in the worst case beyond that it has been carried out a sensitivity analysis of the factors that have more influence in the profitability of these systems like the initial investment cost the pv electricity yield additional taxes and the variations in the electricity price market

a historical review of promotion strategies for electricity from renewable energy sources in eu countries abstract the core objective of this paper is to elaborate on historically implemented promotion strategies of renewable energy sources and the associated deployment within the european electricity market hence at a first glance the historic development of renewable energy sources in the electricity res e sector is addressed on member state and on sectoral level as well as consequently discussed according to available res e potentials and costs the specific focus of this paper are promotion strategies for res e options as they are the key driver of an efficient and effective res e deployment therefore the paper depicts the main types of different promotion schemes and their properties additionally several cases studies of different european member states show an in depth analysis of the different res e promotion schemes in this context special emphasises are put on the question of effective and efficient promotion scheme designs of different res e technologies generally conducted research led to the conclusion that technology specific financial support measures of res e performed much more effective and efficient than others did hence it is not all about the common question of feed in tariffs vs quota systems based on tradable green certificates but more about the design criteria of implemented res e support schemes

green electricity market development lessons from europe and the us this study compares the development and implementation of green electricity policies in germany the netherlands sweden and the united states a set of countries applying a range of policy instruments to encourage electricity from renewable energy sources a general tendency is identified that policies shift emphasis from r d stimulation towards dissemination and market application of renewable energy technologies we argue that in light of the long term nature of policy goals on energy security mitigation of climate change and environmental protection the applied range of policy instruments may be lacking in providing incentives for the long term development of new technologies clarifying policy objectives would allow careful selection of policy instruments including support for r d improved capacity building for policy implementation is also important

what prompts japan to intervene in the forex market a new approach to a reaction function abstract this paper estimates and analyzes the reaction function of japanese intervention in the foreign exchange forex markets using daily japanese intervention data from april 1 1991 to december 31 2002 a theoretical friction model is adopted to describe the intervention as cost minimizing behavior an ordered probit model consistent with the theoretical model is employed to estimate authorities reaction function a noise to signal ratio is applied in selecting the optimal cutoff point in estimated ordered probit function major findings are as follows 1 a regime change in june 1995 from small scale frequent interventions to large scale infrequent interventions is detected 2 the optimum cutoff is higher in the first half than the second half

on the economics of renewable energy sources abstract with the global expansion of renewable energy re technologies the provision of optimal re policy packages becomes an important task we review pivotal aspects regarding the economics of renewables that are relevant to the design of an optimal re policy many of which are to date unresolved we do so from three interrelated perspectives that a meaningful public policy framework for inquiry must take into account first we explore different social objectives justifying the deployment of re technologies and review model based estimates of the economic potential of re technologies i e their socially optimal deployment level second we address pivotal market failures that arise in the course of implementing the economic potential of re sources in decentralized markets third we discuss multiple policy instruments curing these market failures our framework reveals the requirements for an assessment of the relevant options for real world decision makers in the field of re policies this review makes it clear that there are remaining white areas on the knowledge map concerning consistent and socially optimal re policies

austrian and industrial organization perspectives on firm level competitive activity and performance drawing on the austrian school of economics and the structure conduct performance s c p paradigm of industrial organization the authors present and test a dynamic model of competitive activity and performance they examine the model in two stages first they explore the influence of industry level and firm level cooperative mechanisms on firm level competitive activity second they examine the effect of firm and industry level competitive activity on firm performance the authors use the dynamic model of competitive activity to examine the complex linkages between the firm s environment its actions and its performance outcomes they report a longitudinal analysis of a sample of 1 903 competitive moves undertaken in the software industry hypothesis testing supports the relationships in the model argued from the austrian perspective but provides only partial support for those derived from the s c p paradigm firm level cooperative mechanisms are found to increase the firm s competitive activity a

foreign exchange market interventions and the exchange rate in the long run this article examines whether foreign exchange market interventions conducted by the bank of japan are important for the dollar yen exchange rate in the long run we rely on a re examination of the empirical performance of a monetary exchange rate model this is basically not a new topic however we focus on two new questions first does the consideration of periods of massive interventions in the foreign exchange market uncover a potential long run relationship between the exchange rate and its fundamentals second do forex interventions support the adjustment towards a long run equilibrium value our results suggest that taking periods of interventions into account within a monetary model does improve the goodness of fit of an identified long run relationship to a significant degree furthermore forex interventions increase the speed of adjustment towards long run equilibrium in some periods particularly in periods of coordinated forex interventions our results indicate that only coordinated inter

the doping effect of italian feed in tariffs on the pv market abstract in less than six years italy has become one of the leading markets for pv power plants and one of the countries in the world with the largest number of installations and installed peak power such a quick and large growth is due to a series of feed in tariff schemes that have been uncapped until 2012 as a matter of fact any size or any number of pv power plants could be installed during a period of three years since the feed in tariffs are not paid by national taxes but are charged on the electricity bills italian energy users are now due to pay each year a surcharge of 9 billion euros on their energy bills this paper aims at discussing this development by highlighting the benefits but also some significant drawbacks that the application of uncontrolled feed in tariffs has produced

internalization and experience japanese banks international expansion 1980 1998 we use an interdisciplinary approach to investigate multinational banks foreign activities we bridge core concepts from the stages theory of internationalization to internalization theory to extend the literature on the defensive expansion hypothesis unlike the primarily aggregate levels of analysis employed in previous research on multinational banking we utilize a firm level analysis of the internationalization experiences of 21 japanese banks in the period 1980 1998 we find that banks undertake foreign direct investment to secure internalization benefits by following their existing clients and to achieve economies of scale in the application of their intangible assets in international markets the magnitude of these relationships however is contingent upon the level of a bank s experience in the host countries consistent with predictions from internationalization theory we find that the motivations for international expansion can change over time

the merit order effect a detailed analysis of the price effect of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices in germany the german feed in support of electricity generation from renewable energy sources has led to high growth rates of the supported technologies critics state that the costs for consumers are too high an important aspect to be considered in the discussion is the price effect created by renewable electricity generation this paper seeks to analyse the impact of privileged renewable electricity generation on the electricity market in germany the central aspect to be analysed is the impact of renewable electricity generation on spot market prices the results generated by an agent based simulation platform indicate that the financial volume of the price reduction is considerable in the short run this gives rise to a distributional effect which creates savings for the demand side by reducing generator profits in the case of the year 2006 the volume of the merit order effect exceeds the volume of the net support payments for renewable electricity generation which have to be paid by consumers

the cultural relativity of organizational practices and theories this paper summarizes the author s recently published findings about differences in people s work related values among 50 countries in view of these differences ethnocen tric management theories those based on the value system of one particular country have become untenable this concept is illustrated for the fields of leadership organization and motivation a key issue for organization science is the influence of national cultures on introduction management twenty or even 10 years ago the existence of a relationship be management and tween management and national cultures was far from obvious to many and it national cultures may not be obvious to everyone even now in the 1950s and 60s the dominant be lief at least in europe and the u s was that management was something univer sal there were principles of sound management which existed regardless of na tional environments if national or local practice deviated from these principles it was time to change local practice in the future the universality of sound manage ment practices would lead to societies becoming more and more alike this ap plied even to the poor countries of the third world which would become rich as well and would be managed just like the rich countries also the differences be tween management in the first and second world capitalist and socialist would disappear in fact under the surface they were thought to be a lot smaller than was officially recognized this way of thinking which dominated the 1950s and 60s is known as the convergence hypothesis during the 1970s the belief in the unavoidable convergence of management prac tices waned it was too obviously in conflict with the reality we saw around us at the same time supranational organizations like the european common market which were founded very much on the convergence belief had to recognize the stubbornness of national differences even within existing nations regional dif ferences became more rather than less accentuated the welsh the flemish the basques the bangladeshi the quebecois defended their own identity and this was difficult to reconcile with a management philosophy of convergence it slowly became clear that national and even regional cultures do matter for management the national and regional differences are not disappearing they are here to stay in fact these differences may become one of the most crucial problems for man agement in particular for the management of multinational multicultural orga nizations whether public or private

harmonization of renewable electricity feed in laws in the european union this paper focuses on the harmonization of feed in laws in the european union as a support mechanism for the promotion of renewable electricity in particular it proposes a methodology for harmonization based on a feed in law with a modular and transparent premium for renewable electricity producers this premium considers technology costs some grid services political incentives and national priorities the proposed approach includes flexibility mechanisms to update and revise premiums to avoid windfall profits for producers and to share technology innovation benefits with electricity consumers while maintaining incentives for innovation our approach is based on the review of the main features of the german and spanish feed in laws and takes into account other necessary considerations for harmonization such as grid access funding definitions and standards ownership of rights derived from renewables and exceptions for small non commercial producers and energy intensive industries

cost effectiveness of renewable electricity policies we analyze policies to promote renewable sources of electricity a portfolio standard rps raises electricity prices and primarily reduces gas fired generation a knee of the cost curve exists between 15 and 20 goals for 2020 in our central case and higher natural gas prices lower the cost of greater reliance on renewables a renewable energy production tax credit lowers electricity price at the expense of taxpayers which limits its effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions and it is less cost effective at increasing renewables than a portfolio standard neither policy is as cost effective as a cap and trade policy for achieving carbon emission reductions

on the global economic potentials and marginal costs of non renewable resources and the price of energy commodities a model is presented in this work for simulating endogenously the evolution of the marginal costs of production of energy carriers from non renewable resources their consumption depletion pathways and timescales such marginal costs can be used to simulate the long term average price formation of energy commodities drawing on previous work where a global database of energy resource economic potentials was constructed this work uses cost distributions of non renewable resources in order to evaluate global flows of energy commodities a mathematical framework is given to calculate endogenous flows of energy resources given an exogenous commodity price path this framework can be used in reverse in order to calculate an endogenous marginal cost of production of energy carriers given an exogenous carrier demand using rigid price inelastic assumptions independent of the economy these two approaches generate limiting scenarios that depict extreme use of natural resources this is useful to characterise the current state and possible uses of remaining non renewable resources such as fossil fuels and natural uranium the theory is however designed for use within economic or technology models that allow technology substitutions in this work it is implemented in the global power sector model ftt power policy implications are given

the birth of a new industry entry by start ups and the drivers of firm growth the case of encryption software the paper analyses the birth of the encryption software industry esi a new niche in the software industry using a chandlerian perspective this work reports the main facts about fir entry and growth with a particular focus on start up strategies and actions since scale economies do not play a major role in esi the paper investigates the different sources of fir competitive advantages this work shows that innovation and product differentiation along with investments in co specialised assets are variables strongly correlated to young fir probability to survive and grow in doing so we have collected highly detailed information on product introduction us patents granted worldwide alliances and biographical data of fir founders 2004 elsevier b v all rights reserved jel classificatio m13 l86 o32

intervention policy of the boj a unified approach intervening in the fx market implies a complex decision process for central banks monetary authorities have to decide whether to intervene or not and if so when and how since the successive steps of this procedure are likely to be highly interdependent we adopt a nested logit approach to capture their relationships and to characterize the prominent features of the various steps of the intervention decision process our estimations based on japanese data from 1991 to 2004 indicate that the bank of japan i mainly reacted to deviations of the exchange rate with respect to fundamentals and ii tended to favour secrecy when its credibility was low we also provide new insights on the so called secrecy puzzle by modeling explicitly the risk for a secret intervention to be detected our results have important implications in terms of exchange rate policy such as the emergence of a trade off between intervention size communication policy and secrecy our results tend to provide some explanation for the observed persistence of ineffective intervention policy during some sub periods c 2008 elsevier b v all rights reserved

competition cooperation and innovation organizational arrangements for regimes of rapid technological progress abstract discussions of the link between firm size and innovation are outmoded because the boundaries of the firm have become fuzzy in recent decades strategic alliances constellations of bilateral agreements among firms are increasingly necessary to support innovative activities such alliances can facilitate complex coordination beyond what the price system can accomplish while avoiding the dysfunctional properties sometimes associated with hierarchy antitrust law and competition policy need to recognize that these new organizational forms are often the functional antithesis of cartels though they may have certain structural similarities a more complete understanding of bilateral contracts and agreements ought to reveal when and how cooperation can support rather than impede innovation and competition

official japanese intervention in foreign exchange markets leaning against the wind abstract several recent studies have suggested that official japanese intervention in foreign exchange markets is limited to simple leaning against the wind this note provides evidence however that bank of japan intervention is systematically biased against yen appreciation

economic assessment of eucalyptus spp for biomass production as alternative crop in southern italy the increase in energy prices and the stagnation of sales prices of the main agricultural commodities required a rethinking of farm production strategies since during the last years thanks to a series of policies aimed at promoting renewable sources it has been a rapid diffusion of lignocellulosic biomass species this paper aimed at evaluating the economic feasibility of the introduction of eucalyptus eucalyptus spp as energy crop for farmers of southern italy by comparing it with traditional crop rotations in particular economic analysis has been carried out in a representative case study located in the sicilian hilly hinterland where in 2013 it has been built a biomass plant for energy production however results showed that introduction of eucalyptus for biomass production is less profitable for farmers than traditional crops considering the incompressibility of production costs and the actual market price of woodchips

the impact of wind power generation on the electricity price in germany abstract this paper investigates the relationship between intermittent wind power generation and electricity price behaviour in germany using a garch model i evaluate the effect of wind electricity generation on the level and the volatility of the electricity price in an integrated approach the results show that variable wind power reduces the price level but increases its volatility this paper s results also indicate that regulatory change has stabilised the wholesale price the electricity price volatility has decreased in germany after a modification of the marketing mechanism of renewable electricity this gives confidence that further adjustments to regulation and policy may foster a better integration of renewables into the power system

a model of currency depreciation and the debt inflation spiral abstract this paper shows how a government that cannot make credible policy commitments might manage its exchange rate and fiscal stance in a world of rational expectations the dynamic game model developed here potentially can generate diverse patterns of macroeconomic behavior patterns that differ as a result of assumed differences in government objectives under some types of government the ongoing strategic interaction between the public and private sectors leads to a disinflationary outcome other governments may push the economy into a spiral of rising debt and inflation

a design of experiments response surface methodology approach to study the economic sustainability of a 1 mwe photovoltaic plant abstract to obtain a rigorous investment analysis for photovoltaic power generation plants a dynamic business plan has been studied it allows us to determine in real time the investment parameters net present value internal rate of return return on investment etc starting from the technical economical financial and positional data the business plan provides as output the exact values of the parameters dependent variables or objective functions basing on the exact values of the input variables independent variables by suitably varying the independent variables it is possible to obtain a sensitivity analysis on the dependent variables due to which different evaluations about the investment in multiple pre set scenarios can be obtained on the other hand by using the business plan as data creator and then applying the response surface methodology techniques it has been possible to obtain mathematical functions regression meta models which are able to explain the link among dependent and independent variables in the definition range this approach allows to generate a sort of k dimensional state equation of order n for the different investigated economic parameters these equations provide in the chosen dimensional space two or three dimensional a view of the dependent variable behaviour e g net present value internal rate of return while changing one or two independent variables e g government incentives discount rate the descriptive ability of this approach has a higher level in terms of quality and reliability than a traditional sensitivity analysis in this paper a case study about a 1 mwe photovoltaic plant located in liguria north italy and a comparison with a similar plant located in sicily south italy are also presented

assets and actions firm specific factors in the internationalization of u s internet firms by providing a nearly instant connection among parties at opposite corners of the world and enabling a variety of commercial exchanges the internet emerged as the technology expected to create a truly global market space internet firms faced the challenge of capitalizing on this development in this paper we examine what firm specific factors are associated with the propensity of pure u s based internet firms to enhance their international presence on the internet by developing country specific websites despite the assertion that all internet firms are born global our findings show that the pursuit of internationalization by internet firms is related to the levels of their intangible assets and strategic activity two types of intangible assets reputation and website traffic are positively related to the degree of internationalization so are the levels of competitive and cooperative activity and the interaction effects between reputation and competitive and cooperative activity these findings suggest that ideas from both resource based theory and research on competitive dynamics can contribute to understanding the internationalization of internet firms

international entrepreneurship in internet enabled markets abstract despite the increasing numbers of businesses that are already using the internet to pursue international opportunities and the latent potential for such activity from rising internet adoption levels the international entrepreneurship literature has paid limited attention to the phenomenon to address this gap we review past research in international entrepreneurship as well as the broader fields of entrepreneurship international business marketing management and management information systems to identify firm level resources that are associated with the successful pursuit of international opportunities in internet enabled markets we identify three such internet related firm level resources online reputation online technological capabilities and online brand communities we develop a propositional inventory of the expected relationships identify measures expected to be useful to future scholars in this area and present the implications of our review for future international entrepreneurship research

solar feed in tariffs examining fair and reasonable retail rates using cost avoidance estimates abstract growing solar photovoltaic pv electricity systems in geographically diverse regions presents a complex policy problem for governments during 2013 16 the queensland government in australia examined establishing a fair and reasonable retail feed in tariff fit policy noting it regulates state retail electricity consumption prices a combined cost avoidance and stakeholder analysis was applied to show that determination of a fair and reasonable fit for all stakeholders while aspirational is difficult to achieve typically agreement on a fair tariff rate will depend on stakeholders relative position in energy supply chains service providers retailers suppliers customers advocates and interpretations of fairness that can be shaped by competition in the supply area also increases in financial benefits to pv customers might be considered unreasonable by non pv customers and retailers that experience increases in electricity prices and operating costs importantly the application of a retail fit in regional and isolated areas requires careful energy policy design taking account of network losses remote and isolated customer metering cost effective network control technologies and diesel generator operating limits the study also observed that shifting funding of fit schemes from electricity distributors to competitive retailers will likely have negative consequences for retail fit offerings and pv customer servicing

a friction model of daily bundesbank and federal reserve intervention abstract this paper takes a novel approach to derive a central bank intervention reaction function a garch model for exchange rates is amended to allow interventions to have an effect on both the mean and the variance of exchange rate returns an intervention reaction function is obtained by combining the model with a loss function for the central bank estimation results for the implied friction model reproduce the familiar leaning against the wind policy by the bundesbank and the federal reserve furthermore the central banks appear to have reacted to increases in the conditional variance of daily dm returns

financial risk reduction in photovoltaic projects through ocean atmospheric oscillations modeling abstract the impact of climate change on society has increased the interest to deploy renewable energies and to understand climate climate variability is partly predictable and is a fundamental factor in explaining financial risk in renewable energy projects current methodologies used for risk assessment do not appropriately account for climate predictability we found limited literature on risk reduction on pv projects through the modeling of predictable components of solar radiation and ocean atmospheric oscillations allowing us to present original proposals to fill these voids a new profit model for pv plants was developed capturing this predictable climate information the proposed methodology is potentially applicable to hydro wind and other renewable resources and allows leaving aside predictable climate components from the project s risk calculation the model was tailored for the risk assessment of pv investments and is applied over 10 geographical areas across chile the largest pv market in latin america where climate is strongly affected by 3 ocean atmospheric oscillations el nino southern oscillation southern annular mode and indian ocean dipole using the model in these regions allows reducing the monthly financial the risk to reduce by 60 81 compared to traditional methodology for a 100 mw pv project located in those areas this means reducing annualized risk from 4 93 to 7 88 mm usd year traditional model to 1 11 2 38 mm usd year proposed model modeling of ocean atmospheric oscillations allows achieving the greatest risk reduction between the cities of copiapo and coquimbo north central regions decreasing their influence towards the extreme latitudes their risk reduction will depend on the quality of the model and may have strong implications for both investors and financial institutions it could also impact competition in the energy sector due to possible asymmetries of information to facilitate extending the use of the model elsewhere the incorporation of subsidies is discussed

time varying parameters and the out of sample forecasting performance of structural exchange rate models varying parameter estimation techniques based on recursive application of the kalman filter are used to improve the predictive performance of a class of monetary exchange rate models i find that allowing estimated parameters to vary over time enhances the models forecasting performance for the dollar pound dollar mark and dollar yen exchange rates contrary to earlier results in the literature ex post forecasts for the dollar mark rate compare favorably with those obtained from the naive random walk forecasting rule

explaining the internationalization of ibusiness firms information and communication technologies have given rise to a new type of firm the ibusiness firm these firms offer a platform that allows users to interact with each other and generate value through user co creation of content because of this ibusiness firms face different challenges when they internationalize compared with traditional firms even those online in this article we extend existing internationalization theory to encompass this new type of organization we theorize that because ibusiness firms produce value through the creation and coordination of a network of users these firms tend to suffer greater liabilities of outsidership when expanding abroad and therefore concentrate on network and diffusion based user adoption processes as they internationalize based on a multi case investigation of a sample of ibusiness firms we develop new theory and testable hypotheses thus we make an important contribution by expanding internationalization theory to a new set of firms

the dynamics of learning alliances competition cooperation and relative scope we show how the tension between cooperation and competition affects the dynamics of learning alliances private benefits and common benefits differ in the incentives that they create for investment in learning the competitive aspects of alliances are most severe when a firm s ratio of private to common benefits is high we introduce a measure relative scope of a firm in an alliance to show that the opportunity set of each firm outside an alliance crucially impacts its behavior within the alliance finally we suggest why firms might deviate from the theoretically optimal behavior patterns 1998 john wiley sons ltd

an econometrics view of worldwide fossil fuel consumption and the role of us crude oil coal and gas known as fossil fuels play a crucial role in the global economy this paper proposes new econometrics modelling to demonstrate the trend of fossil fuels consumption the main variables affecting consumption trends are world reserves the price of fossil fuels us production and us net imports all variables have been analysed individually for more than half a century the research found that while the consumption of fossil fuels worldwide has increased trends in the us production and net imports have been dependent on the type of fossil fuels most of the us coal and gas production has been for domestic use which is why it does not have a strong influence on worldwide fossil fuel prices moreover the reserves of fossil fuels have not shown any diminution during the last couple of decades and predictions that they were about to run out are not substantiated the nominal and real price of fossil fuels was found to change depending on the type finally estimates of three econometric models for the consumption of fossil fuels from 1949 to 2006 are presented which identify the effects of significant variables

revisiting the techno economic analysis process for building mounted grid connected solar photovoltaic systems part two application part one in this two part paper identified monte carlo analysis as an improved approach over traditional deterministic techno economic methods for solar pv prosumers in deregulated markets in this

on the internationalization process of firms a critical analysis even though international marketing has been challenged because of theoretical and methodological shortcomings very few researchers have actually attempted to analyze the weaknesses based on principles of theory evaluation in this article the author examines two types of models addressing the individual firm s internationalization process a theory evaluation is performed based on the explanation and the falsification criteria in order to improve the internationalization models some measures are proposed

the public promotion of wind energy in spain from the transaction costs perspective 1986 2007 this paper analyzes the success of wind energy in spain from 1986 to 2007 certain special characteristics have emerged in spain that provide credibility to the feed in tariff fit device to promote this energy source to explain this success the analysis will focus on the intrinsic characteristics of fit using the concepts of the transaction cost theory tce nevertheless in this framework special attention is placed on the role that specific political and institutional factors have played in providing stability to this instrument thanks to an early start and an on going and generous fit device wind energy promotion for electricity has become a political success story in spain the main implication of this analysis is that this success is mainly due to the trade off between stability and flexibility in the use of spanish fit

adapting the uppsala model to a modern world macro context and microfoundations vahlne and johanson 2017 present the multinational business enterprise mbe as a new form of cross border organization that supersedes the multinational enterprise mne they offer a general model of the evolution of the mbe arguing that the mbe evolves through ongoing internationalization processes by proactively and entrepreneurially engaging in business exchange rather than production in this counterpoint we focus on two critical dimensions absent from vahlne and johanson s 2017 arguments the impact of the digital context as a defining macro level feature of our modern world and the role of the individual as a core microfoundation of the internationalization process we argue that a robust theory of the evolution of the modern firm must necessarily account for these dimensions to explicate these impacts we draw from a range of complementary research streams across international business entrepreneurship and international entrepreneurship we identify research implications for scholars seeking to further advance the uppsala model of internationalization and those who will use the revised model to study the modern multinational

the role of portuguese electricity generation regimes and industrial production abstract this paper examines how renewables special regime simultaneously interact with conventional sources ordinary regime within the portuguese electricity generation system there is also an appraisal of the relationship between these two regimes and economic activity using the industrial production index first difference var modelling was applied for monthly data for the time span of 2007 m1 to 2012 m10 the appropriateness of the var is proved the relationship between variables develops within a structure of endogeneity i e they generate feedback and may be both explained and explaining variables simultaneously the outcomes show a strong complementarity between the ordinary and special regimes economic activity causes electricity consumption but only the special regime causes economic activity moreover the non renewable component of the special regime does not cause a need for backup from either the ordinary regime or imports contributing to a reduction in energy dependency

energy and economic analysis for large scale integration of small photovoltaic systems in buildings the case of a public location in southern spain abstract the integration of grid connected pv systems into buildings or public areas is one of the most usual applications of the photovoltaic solar energy in developed countries and it is being highly promoted by several european governments in this paper it has been evaluated the photovoltaic potential of the campus of the university of jaen and it has been defined possible areas where the pv systems could be installed according to power requirements space possibilities the electrical configuration of the campus and some social integration requirements too the definition of the pv potential together with a technical analysis for the calculation of the energy generated is the previous step for carrying out an economic and cost analysis in order to certify the profitability of these systems in general particularizing the study for the case of this university located in southern spain the pv electricity cost generated has been calculated through the concept levelised cost of electricity lcoe where in our case is estimated to be around 0 13 0 14 kwh 1 the results obtained in this economic analysis recommend the implementation of pv grid connected systems pvgcs as the internal rate of return reaches a maximum value of 6 21 the net present value is positive and the discounted payback time is around 16 years an additional sensitive analysis shows the influence that some parameters have on the lcoe specially the initial investment the energy yield and the nominal discount rate

renewable energy sources in the spanish electricity market instruments and effects the implementation of directive 2001 77 ec on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable sources sets a target of 22 1 of electricity consumption in the eu in 2010 and establishes various mechanisms that member countries may adopt depending on their needs this paper analyses these mechanisms their implementation in spain by means of rd 661 2007 and the degree of fulfilment of objectives it concludes with an analysis of the effectiveness of the mechanisms adopted and recommendations on market design

asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage given incomplete factor markets appropriate time paths of flow variables must be chosen to build required stocks of assets that is critical resources are accumulated rather than acquired in strategic factor markets barney barney j 1986 strategic factor markets expectations luck and business strategy management sci october 1231 1241 sustainability of a firm s asset position hinges on how easily assets can be substituted or imitated imitability is linked to the characteristics of the asset accumulation process time compression diseconomies asset mass efficiencies inter connectedness asset erosion and causal ambiguity

prior conditions and early international commitment the mediating role of domestic mindset our study investigates why some firms engage in low international commitments such as exports in the early phases of internationalization whereas others leapfrog the internationalization process and start with high international commitments in the form of foreign direct investment fdi process models of internationalization propose that firms start with low commitment activities and gradually increase their commitments to international markets however recent empirical evidence has shown that many firms make high international commitments from the start our findings suggest that domestic resources and competitive action propensity affect early international commitments indirectly through domestic mindsets a domestic mindset refers to the knowledge structures of the top management team prior to starting international activities based on their managerial experience and learning in domestic markets our results suggest that knowledge and learning gained in domestic markets through diverse resource and competitive activities may be crucial in early international commitments

analyzing foreign market entry strategies extending the internalization approach a new fully integrated analysis of the foreign market entry decision is presented encompassing the choice between exporting licensing joint venturing and wholly owned foreign investment the choice between acquisition and greenfield investment is examined and so too are options based on subcontracting and franchising the model extends the insights of internalization theory and draws on concepts from the economics of industrial organization a special feature of the model is the distinction between investment in production facilities and investment in distribution facilities an important practical distinction that has been overlooked in much of the international business literature the strength of competition from indigenous rivals is emphasized as a determinant of entry strategy into both production and distribution

the effect of national culture on the choice of entry mode characteristics of national cultures have frequently been claimed to influence the selection of entry modes this article investigates this claim by developing a theoretical argument for why culture should influence the choice of entry two hypotheses are derived which relate culture to entry mode choice one focusing on the cultural distance between countries the other on attitudes towards uncertainty avoidance using a multinomial logit model and controlling for other effects the hypotheses are tested by analysing data on 228 entries into the united states market by acquisition wholly owned greenfield and joint venture empirical support for the effect of national culture on entry choice is found

techno economic evaluation of small hydro power plants in greece a complete sensitivity analysis abstract hydropower has by far been the most mature renewable energy resource used for electricity generation in our planet recently the investors interest was whipped up by the mass development of small hydropower shp stations as they are the most prosperous for additional hydropower penetration in developed electricity markets in greece the increasing interest for building shp stations got off the ground since 1994 ever since an enormous number of requests keep piling up in the greek regulatory authority of energy and the ministry of development with the object of creating new shp stations of total capacity over 600 mw the present work is concentrated on the systematic investigation of the techno economic viability of shp stations the study is concluded by a sensitivity analysis properly adapted for the local market financial situation in order to enlighten the decision makers on the expected profitability of the capital to be invested according to the results obtained the predicted internal rate of return irr values are greater than 18 for most shp cases analysed finally as per the sensitivity analysis carried out the installation capacity factor the local market electricity price annual escalation rate and the reduced first installation cost are found to be the parameters that mostly affect the viability of similar ventures

integration of renewable energy sources in southeast europe a review of incentive mechanisms and feasibility of investments abstract incentivizing development and deployment of renewable energy sources res but also other low carbon technologies lct has been a successful way of promoting new technologies by creating a feasible investment case and making them competitive with traditional energy sources although different incentive mechanisms exist feed in tariffs have shown to be the best model for accelerating lct development guaranteeing producers preferential prices for the produced electricity over a period of time and enabling them access to the power network to sell inject produced electricity due to these benefits feed in tariff models are the most common model for stimulating res integration in southeast europe the paper reviews the current state of preferential tariffs for res in countries of southeast europe while some countries already have significant installed res capacity others are still in the planning stage the review shows that the amount of installed capacity of a specific technology has a strong impact on the support for the future projects for same technology this comprehensive review of legislative development supporting res as well as technologies preferred in different countries of the region is supported with feasibility assessment of investing in res using the example of two different technology projects wind and photovoltaic analysing the impact of the current tariffs on the return on investment for each country of the region

internalization theory for the digital economy we study the internationalization of digital service multinational enterprises smncs focusing on how digitalization alters internalization theory s assumptions about the nature of firm specific assets fsas and the theory s predictions about governance choices in cross border transactions we invoke simon s proc am philos soc 106 6 467 482 1962 near decomposability concept to explain how digitalization enables two distinct types of fsas technology and human capital applying the ideas of modularity and skill complexity we further distinguish between core versus peripheral technology fsas and between generic versus advanced human capital fsas building on the transferability and appropriability of these strategic assets we theorize on the fsas internalization propensity in the digital age we propose that with rising digitalization the network plays a dual role as a governance mode and as a strategic resource integrating insights from network economics particularly increasing returns to scale we propose that network advantages on emerge as a distinct strategic resource that merits separate investigation from the traditional asset based oa and transaction based ot advantages

financial assessment of government subsidy policy on photovoltaic systems for industrial users a case study in taiwan due to taiwan s limited energy resources the development of solar photovoltaic pv in taiwan has become one of the most important solutions for meeting future energy supply needs and ensuring environmental protection a huge amount of researches about renewable energy sources has emerged recently in response to these issues however the amount of researches considering the effects of various influential parameters on the efficiency and performance of pv systems remains small and is still limited to some specific parts of pv systems in particular researches considering thoughtfully the influence of government subsidies on pv financial assessment are still in development this paper proposes an approach to analyze the benefit of installing a pv system under the impact of government financial subsidies focusing especially on feed in tariff fit and tax abatement policies for industrial users in taiwan in addition a method for selecting the most appropriate policies is proposed for the government through the analysis of both user demand and the government s pv installation capacity target

harmonization of renewable electricity feed in laws a comment abstract this comment aims at critically analyzing some of the economic efficiency issues that are raised in the paper by munoz et al 2007 harmonization of renewable electricity feed in laws in the european union energy policy 35 3104 3114 on the harmonization of feed in law schemes for renewable electricity in the european union we comment on the choice between green certificate systems and feed in laws but pay particular attention to the implementation and design of a harmonized feed in law scheme in the comment we argue first that the approach suggested by munoz et al tends to downplay many of the practical difficulties in assessing the real costs facing investors in renewable electricity not the least since the presence of regulatory uncertainty about the marginal costs of renewable electricity may be essential for the choice between different support systems concerning the benefit side of renewable electricity promotion the munoz et al 2007 paper builds on an interpretation of the eu renewables directive that provides plenty of room for national priorities and that therefore essentially implies that harmonized support premiums per se are of little value we argue instead that a harmonized system should primarily address the international spillover effects from renewable electricity promotion not the least those related to improved security of supply in europe there exists then a strong case for disregarding the specific national benefits of renewable electricity production in the design of harmonized support systems and for instead considering international perhaps at the start bilateral policy support coordination based on entirely uniform support levels

feed in tariff design for domestic scale grid connected pv systems using high resolution household electricity demand data abstract the advent of large samples of smart metering data allows policymakers to design feed in tariffs which are more targeted and efficient this paper presents a methodology which uses these data to design fits for domestic scale grid connected pv systems in ireland a sample of 2551 household electricity demand data collected at 1 2 hourly intervals electricity output from a 2 82 kwp pv system over the same time interval as well as pv system costs and electricity tariffs were used to determine the required fit to make it worthwhile for the households to invest in the pv system the methodology shows that it is possible to design single multiple and continuous fits continuous fits are the most efficient and result in no overcompensation to the housholder while single and multiple fits are less efficient since they result in different levels of overcompensation in the pv case study considered it was shown that the use of three fits 0 3170 0 3315 and 0 3475 kw h resulted in a 59 6 reduction in overcompensation compared to a single fit of 0 3475 kw h assuming immediate and complete uptake of the technology this would result in npv savings of over 597 m to the irish government over a 25 year lifetime

the simplicity of competitive repertoires an empirical analysis this research explores the notion of competitive simplicity a tendency of some firms to concentrate intensely on just a few central activities our focus here is the simplicity inherent in the repertoire of concrete market oriented actions used by companies to compete these actions include product introductions pricing or advertising decisions and changes in market scope the simplicity of a competitive repertoire can be assessed by its range of actions and its degree of concentration on one or a few dominant types of actions we argue that competitive simplicity is largely a function of organizational and environmental properties that attenuate managerial search or restrict knowledge of competitive alternatives these properties include good performance munificent homogeneous or certain markets a lack of breadth in competitive experiences and the complacency that may accompany age and size paradoxically although good past performance may contribute to simplicity simplicity can hurt subsequent performance especially during periods of uncertainty and growth many of these ideas were borne out in a study of the major carriers of the post deregulation domestic airline industry

global delivery models the role of talent speed and time zones in the global outsourcing industry global delivery models gdms are transforming the global it and business process outsourcing industry gdms are a new form of client specific investment promoting service integration with clients by combining client proximity with time zone spread for 24 7 service operations we investigate antecedents and contingencies of setting up gdm structures based on comprehensive data we show that providers are likely to establish gdm location configurations when clients value access to globally distributed talent and speed of service delivery in particular when services are highly commoditized findings imply that coordination across time zones increasingly affects international operations in business to business and born global industries

the economic viability of battery storage for residential solar photovoltaic systems a review and a simulation model battery storage is generally considered an effective means for reducing the intermittency of electricity generated by solar photovoltaic pv systems however currently it remains unclear when and under which conditions battery storage can be profitably operated in residential pv systems without policy support based on a review of previous studies that have examined the economics of integrated pv battery systems in this paper we devise a simulation model that investigates the economic viability of battery storage for residential pv in germany under eight different electricity price scenarios from 2013 to 2022 in contrast to previous forward looking studies we assume that no premium is paid for solar photovoltaic power and or self consumed electricity additionally we run the model with a large number of different pv and storage capacities to determine the economically optimal configuration in terms of system size we find that already in 2013 investments in storage solutions were economically viable for small pv systems given the assumptions of our model the optimal size of both residential pv systems and battery storage rises significantly in the future higher electricity retail prices lower electricity wholesale prices or limited access to the electricity wholesale market add to the profitability of storage we conclude that additional policy incentives to foster investments in battery storage for residential pv in germany will only be necessary in the short run at the same time the impending profitability of integrated pv storage systems is likely to further spur the ongoing trend toward distributed electricity generation with major implications for the electricity sector

the effect of intervention frequency on the foreign exchange market the japanese experience abstract this paper examines the effects of the frequency of foreign exchange intervention on exchange rate volatility japanese intervention is characterized by differences in the frequency of intervention there are high and low frequency intervention periods using the garch methodology this paper models the changes in the yen dollar exchange rate with the frequency of intervention from april 1991 to december 2005 as the focal explanatory variable the empirical results show that high frequency intervention stabilizes the exchange rate by reducing exchange rate volatility and that low frequency intervention is more effective

new evidence on nominal exchange rate predictability abstract the meese rogoff puzzle one of the well known puzzles in international economics concerns the weak relationship between nominal exchange rates and market fundamentals the purpose of this paper is to show that market fundamentals do in fact matter in forecasting nominal exchange rates in particular we emphasize the importance of the harrod balassa samuelson effect in modeling deviations from purchasing power parity based on the post bretton woods period we provide solid out of sample evidence that rejects the random walk forecast model at medium term and long term forecast horizons we also find mild evidence for out of sample predictability of nominal exchange rates over the short term

time of day pricing and the levelized cost of intermittent power generation abstract an important characteristic of most renewable energy sources is intermittency in their ability to generate electricity yet intermittency is usually ignored in life cycle cost calculations intended to assess the competitiveness of electric power from renewable as opposed to dispatchable energy sources such as fossil fuels this paper demonstrates that for intermittent renewable power sources a traditional life cycle cost calculation should be appended by a correction factor which we term the co variation coefficient it captures any synergies or complementarities between the time varying patterns of electricity generation and pricing we estimate the co variation coefficient for specific settings in the western united states our estimates imply that the benchmark of cost competitiveness for solar photovoltaic pv power is 10 to 15 lower than previous average life cycle cost analyses have suggested in contrast the generation pattern of wind power exhibits complementarities with electricity pricing schedules yielding a cost assessment that is higher than that suggested by traditional calculations for the specific settings we study the corresponding magnitude of the markup is 10 to 15

a critique of jacobson and delucchi s proposals for a world renewable energy supply abstract jacobson and delucchi have recently put forward a detailed case in support of the claim that renewable energy sources can meet total world energy demand the following argument is that this proposal is unsatisfactory primarily because it does not deal effectively with the problems set by the variability of renewable energy sources and also because its analysis of investment costs is inadequate

when do central bank interventions influence intra daily and longer term exchange rate movements this paper examines dollar interventions by the g3 since 1989 and the reasons that trader reactions to these interventions might differ over time and across central banks market microstructure theory provides a framework for understanding the process by which sterilized central bank interventions are observed and interpreted by traders and how this process in turn might influence exchange rates using intra daily and daily exchange rate and intervention data the paper analyzes the influence of interventions on exchange rate volatility finding evidence of both within day and daily impact effects but little evidence that interventions influence longer term volatility