rethinking ecosystem services to better address and navigate cultural values ecosystem service approaches have become a prominent basis for planning and management cultural services and non use values are included in all major typologies and present some of the most compelling reasons for conserving ecosystems though many barriers exist to their explicit characterization the values that conform least well to economic assumptions variously lumped together with as cultural services have proven elusive in part because valuation is complicated by the properties of intangibility and incommensurability which has in turn led to their exclusion from economic valuation we argue that the effectiveness of the ecosystem services framework in decision making is thwarted by i conflation of services values and benefits and ii failure to appropriately treat diverse kinds of values we address this challenge by 1 distinguishing eight dimensions of values which have implications for appropriate valuation and decision making 2 demonstrating the interconnected nature of benefits and services and so the ubiquity of intangible values 3 discussing the implications of these propositions for ecosystem services research and 4 outlining briefly a research agenda to enable decision making that is ecologically appropriate and socially just because many ecosystem services co produce cultural benefits full characterization of services must address non material values through methods from diverse social sciences

critique and transformation on the hypothetical nature of ecosystem service value and its neo marxist liberal and pragmatist criticisms abstract ecosystem service valuation esv attempts to transform the opposition of human economic necessity and ecological conservation by valuing the latter in terms of the services rendered by the former however despite a number of esv inspired sustainability initiatives since the 1990s global ecological degradation continues to accelerate this suggests that esv has fallen far short of its goals of sustainable social transformation a failure which has generated considerable criticism this paper reviews three prominent lines of esv criticism 1 the neo marxist criticism which emphasizes the fictitious character of ecosystem commodities 2 the liberal criticism through friedrich hayek s concept scientistic objectivism and 3 the pragmatist criticism of value monism although each form of criticism provides insight into the limitations of esv all share esv s inability to discern what kind of social transformation is possible unable to provide an account of their own immersion in social and historical context these approaches operate in the hypothetical in light of these shortcomings this paper advances a critical theory approach which we contend provides conceptual tools uniquely well suited to more adequately address the question of social transformation

from rational actor to efficient complexity manager exorcising the ghost of homo economicus with a unified synthesis of cognition research it is now commonplace to note that economics canonical model of humans as rational self interested utility maximizers homo economicus is both descriptively misleading and often insufficiently predictive however certain outdated assumptions tied to homo economicus persist often influencing discourse and research design even in sustainability oriented fields we argue this ghost of homo economicus endures because the diversity of findings that confound the canonical model has surfaced across multiple behavioral and cognitive sciences each with its own terminology and focus area as such a unified accessible synthesis of this new information has yet to emerge in this paper we review recent insights from across the behavioral and cognitive sciences and propose an efficient complexity manager ecm model homo efficens as the best synthesizing option the crux of this model is that our species works within biological limits to efficiently filter massive environmental complexity this is achieved largely through analogical or case based reasoning we explain this synthesized model using a series of accessible metaphors finally we speculate on how this model may enrich future sustainable development research insofar as it points to fruitful units of analysis can stimulate methodological innovation and provide a more explicit theoretical foundation for the field

the performance of internet based business models evidence from the banking industry the initial internet bank startups tended to underperform branching bank startups this suggested that internet only business models were not economically viable for banks however firms that pioneer new business models may benefit substantially from experience as they grow older and firms that use automated production technologies may benefit from scale effects as they grow larger econometric analysis of internet only bank startups finds strong evidence of the latter but not the former effect the results suggest that internet only banking success depends on attaining sufficient scale and strong management practices

the economic valuation of biodiversity as an abstract good abstract the notion of an economic valuation of biodiversity raises major philosophical and practical challenges especially due to the fact that biodiversity is an abstract good insights from political philosophy and philosophy of language can help to clarify the reliability and scope of the current economic methods that can be used for the purpose of valuing it the analogy with another abstract good justice indeed shows that thinking about abstract goods is a very specific exercise if they do not take account of this specificity applications of hedonic and contingent valuation methods can hardly claim to be relevant to value biodiversity rawls theory of justice provides for the conceptual tools to overcome this problem a reinterpretation based on the theory of counterfactuals allows generalizing this account of justice to outline a theory of thinking about abstract goods this new framework emphasizes the importance of the institutional context in determining the reliability of thinking about abstract goods it points toward substantial reforms of the methodology of economic valuation specifically it suggests reinterpreting valuation as a dynamic expressive process where initial steps aim at reinforcing the reliability of later steps through an institutional transformation and stabilization of preferences for abstract goods

the strange case of cultural services limits of the ecosystem services paradigm abstract as interest in the concept of ecosystem services es has grown so has its scope this paper considers some limitations of the es paradigm by examining one category of es cultural services including the environmental basis for esthetic spiritual and recreational experiences cultural heritage sense of place and ways of life it examines whether cultural es can be assessed in terms of purely individual benefits or if social collective considerations must be included and whether the concept of services even provides an appropriate framework for understanding such values to pursue these questions i consider the recent literature on the assessment and valuation of cultural services and assess the adequacy of this perspective against several examples from american indian communities of the pacific northwest three characteristics of these situations from indian country are problematic for an es framework the social construction of environmental experience the symbolic character of environmental knowledge and the multidimensionality of environmental value on the basis of this analysis i propose a model of culturally reflexive stewardship as potentially a more productive and theoretically consistent framework for characterizing such socially constructed environmental values and practices

integrating non monetary and monetary valuation methods softgis and hedonic pricing abstract in order to address the increasing need for improved linkages between different value perspectives we examine the possibility of integrating two valuation methods the non monetary softgis and monetary hedonic pricing we find them compatible and their output more comprehensive compared to traditional valuation based on one value perspective the public participatory softgis survey delivers information on the perception of urban green spaces which we use as a criterion for dividing green space categories in a hedonic pricing model we find that the perception expressed in the survey is generally consistent with the impact on property prices in the case of formal green spaces however it is inconsistent when it comes to informal ones places identified as lacking well maintained greenery exert a positive influence on property prices while positively evaluated informal green spaces had no impact at all we identify the latter as a typical trade off between different value perspectives informal green spaces are perceived differently following a monetary and a non monetary approach

where is the value in valuing pollination ecosystem services to agriculture abstract current national and global scale monetary valuation of pollination services do not accurately estimate the contribution of wild pollinators to agricultural production first ecosystem wild pollination services remain largely bundled with those of managed pollinators this problem is compounded by the fact that the dependency of crops on pollination a key parameter used in current valuations does not reflect variation in pollinator density crop cultivars and growing conditions that exist in practice over half of the 153 billion of estimated global pollination service value in 2005 is based on estimates of pollinator dependency from crops with fewer than three field studies that measure actual levels of pollinator activity and corresponding fruit set the resulting uncertainty may be most distorting when applied to widely planted intensive oilseed crops furthermore current valuations are underpinned by simplistic assumptions regarding the likelihood of pollinator decline and the impact on agricultural prices although efforts to motivate wild pollinator protection through their ecosystem service value remain highly circumscribed by conceptual and empirical limitations we identify the need to go beyond technical solutions and develop a critical framework that could account for why pollinator conservation has come to be predominantly justified in these terms to begin with

determinants of banks risk exposure to new account fraud evidence from germany abstract this paper studies empirically the determinants of new account fraud risk within two dimensions the probability of fraud and the expected and unexpected monetary loss per account due to fraud by fraud risk we mean the risk that a bank fails to enforce a debt because the identity of the person incurring the debt cannot be ascertained using a unique and rich data set of account applicants provided by a german internet only bank we find that fraud risk is highly sensitive to demographic and socio economic variables like nationality gender marital status age occupation and urbanisation for example foreigners are 22 25 times more likely to commit account fraud than germans and men are 2 5 times more risky than women

systemic risks and the too big to fail problem the financial crisis of 2007 9 resulted in state intervention in financial markets around the world and the state became a major shareholder in many banks while state bailouts were politically sensitive policy makers had little alternative but to supply funds to financial institutions that were viewed as too big to fail or tbtf in this paper i review the history of and the rationale for the tbtf policy i argue that from a policy perspective the most important costs of the tbtf problem are incurred ex ante in the form of distorted incentives that arise as a consequence of distortions to the capital markets and to the choice of banks scale and scope i argue that it is impossible credibly to withdraw the tbtf policy and hence that it should be managed so as to minimize the costs of these distortions in this context i discuss the role of policy in institutional design in the restriction of bank scope and in designing appropriate capital regulations

choices without prices without apologies valuing is usually regarded as a process of compressing information about attributes into a single metric armed with this reduced form of compact information the consumer can consider a particular object with a particular price attached or implied and make an informed decision but the process of valuing is less straightforward than we ordinarily suppose when environmental goods and services become the object of information compaction it is possible that important information is lost we comment on the choice problem germane to environmental goods and services and challenge the presumption that environmental choices made without explicit pricing are inferior to those in which hypothetical valuation studies are undertaken

ecology and valuation big changes needed abstract ecological economics has developed as a transdisciplinary science but it has not taken significant steps toward a truly integrated process of evaluating anthropogenic ecological change the emerging dominance within ecological economics of the movement to monetize ecological services when combined with the already well entrenched dominance of contingent pricing as a means to evaluate impacts on amenities has created a monistic approach to valuation studies it is argued that this monistic approach to evaluating anthropogenic impacts is inconsistent with a sophisticated conception of ecology as a complex science that rests on shifting metaphors an alternative pluralistic and iterative approach to valuation of anthropogenic ecological change is proposed

what matters and why ecosystem services and their bundled qualities much ecosystem service es research is structured around four often implicit assumptions about es benefits and stakeholders conceptions of these 1 es assessors can identify and characterize priority es across stakeholders without local participation 2 stakeholders derive one kind of benefit from each es in a one to one production function manner 3 most ess are amenable to market or non market economic valuation and 4 stakeholders primarily conceive of the importance of nature in terms of ecosystems production of benefits we empirically evaluated these assumptions with a map based interview protocol to characterize what can be managed es and related activities what matters benefits and why values based on interviews with residents of coastal communities in british columbia 87 of responses to cultural es interview prompts conveyed bundles of linked services benefits and values many es related values e g transformative and identity matter in ways that are not adequately expressed using market or non market valuation respondents used diverse metaphors about why the ocean is important not only the es production metaphor which assumes that values are a function of ecosystem processes our research demonstrates the utility of our interview protocol for providing a fuller representation of ecosystem related values and benefits potentially informing environmental decision making processes

how to be an ecological economist abstract to answer the question how to be an ecological economist we must start by defining the field of ecological economics mainstream economics altogether lacks the concepts required to deal adequately with nature justice and time it was the absence of these three concepts in this otherwise great social science that led to the establishment of ecological economics the interest in nature justice and time is its defining characteristic the main thesis of this paper is that our field is a fragile institution and that the professional existence of an ecological economist is no less fragile however this very fragility also represents freedom scope for free thinking conceptualising and research nevertheless to be able to really use and in turn enjoy the full scope of this freedom an ecological economist needs certain specific characteristics in particular what is termed in the german philosophical tradition urteilskraft and in english power of judgement a description of these characteristics is developed in this paper providing an answer to the question how to be an ecological economist

can pure play internet banking survive the credit crisis this paper positions the pure play internet banking model ppi as a hybrid business model that combines features of both relationship and transaction banking although in terms of customer orientation ppi banks may partly resemble relationship banks they lack their comparative advantage in generating borrower specific information instead the characteristic features of ppi banks are low costs and easy scalability while the latter may enable ppi banks to quickly capture market share it may also generate overexposure in risky markets we present a case study on ing direct one of the leading global ppi banks and address the sustainability of the ppi business model by comparing the ing direct foreign operations the findings for ing direct are validated using data for e trade bank we conclude that managing growth appears to be the prime challenge to ppi banks

financial innovation the bright and the dark sides based on data from 32 countries over the period 1996 2010 this paper is the first to assess the relationship between financial innovation on the one hand and bank growth and fragility as well as economic growth on the other hand we find that different measures of financial innovation capturing both a broad concept and specific innovations are associated with faster bank growth but also higher bank fragility and worse bank performance during the recent crisis these effects are stronger in countries with larger securities markets and more restrictive regulatory frameworks in spite of these seemingly ambiguous findings our evidence points to a positive net effect of financial innovation on economic growth financial innovation is associated with higher growth in countries and industries with better growth opportunities

anti coordination and social interactions abstract this paper studies the first model of social interactions with anti coordination agents have fixed partners with whom they play a common bilateral game of anti coordination like the chicken game partnerships are represented as links of a network the paper asks how do social interactions interplay with the incentives to anti coordinate how does the social network affect individual choices in equilibrium the analysis shows that network effects are much stronger than when partners play a coordination game the network notably affects how agents respond when a strategy becomes more advantageous in the standard benchmark of complete interactions more agents play the strategy this result does not generally hold when the network is incomplete on bipartite networks agents choices are unaffected while on core periphery networks less agents may play the strategy

the evolution of preferences why sovereign preferences may not lead to sustainable policies and what to do about it abstract the conventional economic paradigm assumes that tastes and preferences are exogenous to the economic system and that the economic problem consists of optimally satisfying those preferences tastes and preferences usually do not change rapidly and in the short term this assumption makes sense sustainability is an inherently long term problem and in the long run it does not make sense to assume tastes and preferences are fixed and given if preferences are expected to change over time and under the influence of education advertising changing cultural assumptions etc the old assumption of consumer sovereignty is not adequate different criteria of optimality are needed how preferences change how they relate to the goal of sustainability and how they can or should be actively influenced to satisfy the new criteria needs to be determined ecological economics has emphasized the three rank ordered goals of ecological sustainability fair distribution and allocative efficiency this paper examines how preferences evolve and change over time and the implications of this for developing policies that meet these three goals in democratic societies

are we consuming too much this paper articulates and applies frameworks for examining whether consumption is excessive we consider two criteria for the possible excessiveness or insufficiency of current consumption one is an intertemporal utility maximization criterion actual current consumption is deemed excessive if it is higher than the level of current consumption on the consumption path that maximizes the present discounted value of utility the other is a sustainability criterion which requires that current consumption be consistent with non declining living standards over time we extend previous theoretical approaches by offering a formula for the sustainability criterion that accounts for population growth and technological change in applying this formula we find that some poor regions of the world are failing to meet the sustainability criterion in these regions genuine wealth per capita is falling as investments in human and manufactured capital are not sufficient to offset the depletion of natural capital

environmental sustainability as the first principle of distributive justice towards an ecological communitarian normative foundation for ecological economics abstract the ecological economic concern with environmental sustainability embodies the normative orientations of the field this concern is foremost a matter of distributive justice the definition of which determines the relevance of the appropriate scale and efficient allocation criteria yet it would appear that the discipline lacks a shared internally consistent set of ethical premises by which this concern might be legitimized various authors have embraced a rawlsian conception of liberal justice as the appropriate banner for ecological economics in place of the consequentialist libertarian foundations of neoclassical economics including environmental economics it is argued here that this is insufficient in so far as it is premised on a vision of a discrete self sufficient economic actor instead it is posited that an ecological economic ethic must proceed from an understanding of the economic actor as community member a recognition implicit in recent ecological economic contributions focused on discourse ethics and deliberative democracy an ecological communitarian conception of distributive justice which views the well being of the individual as inseparable from the integrity of its implicate mutually constituting human and non human natural communities is advanced as the appropriate basis for the ecological economic world view in this light the thermodynamic foundations of ecological economics are seen to provide the necessary departure point for normative decision making oriented towards ensuring sustainability in economic organization

is the internet delivery channel changing banks performance the case of spanish banks abstract in spite of the conspicuous use of the internet as a delivery channel there is a relative dearth of empirical studies that provide a quantitative analysis of the impact of the internet on banks financial performance this paper attempts to fill this gap by identifying and estimating the impact of the adoption of a transactional web site on financial performance using a sample of 72 commercial banks operating in spain over the period 1994 2002 the impact on banks performance of transactional web adoption takes time to appear the adoption of the internet as a delivery channel involves a gradual reduction in overhead expenses particularly staff marketing and it this effect is statistically significant after one and a half years after adoption the cost reduction translates into an improvement in banks profitability which becomes significant after one and a half years in terms of roa and after three years in terms of roe the paper also concludes that the internet is being used as a complement to rather than a substitute for physical branches