preparing hydropower projects for the post paris regime an econometric analysis of the main drivers for registration in the clean development mechanism abstract the 2015 paris climate accords promises to reign in a new era in the fight against global climate change the agreement supports the establishment of new cooperative approaches including internationally transferred mitigation outcomes through which individual countries can meet their nationally determined contributions hydropower projects however are in danger of being left out in the new regime mainly due to its dubious position as a renewable energy source hydropower in the clean development mechanism cdm has been criticized for non conformance to additionality and sustainability objectives originally set out in the kyoto protocol to confirm such issues and to provide recommendations that may mitigate them this study conducted an econometric analysis of 2717 hydropower projects in the cdm pipeline leading up to 2016 specifically a logit model was constructed to identify the main drivers for registration success results of the analysis showed the capacity and expected carbon credits of hydropower projects to be the dominant factors for registration rather than their financial requirements or technological barriers most problematically large scale projects not requiring carbon credits were registered while their social and environmental impacts have not been extensively scrutinized policy recommendations to rectify the verification process are proposed so that when implemented the right hydropower projects may be included in the new market mechanisms of the post 2020 regime

corporate benefit policies and health insurance costs we tested the hypothesis that health insurance premium costs per employee are lower for employee groups where multiple health plans are offered and the employer pays a level dollar amount of the chosen premium than for employee groups where these two conditions are not met proposed national legislation relies on these conditions to create a competitive health care market data on 56 employee groups in 1981 and 66 employee groups in 1982 were collected from two surveys of large employers in minnesota regression analysis of premium data from both surveys rejected the hypothesis indemnity plans in multiplan groups were cheaper if the employer paid a level dollar contribution versus a level percent including 100 contribution however groups offered only an indemnity plan had lower premiums than groups meeting the two legislative conditions these findings apply to both individual and family coverage premiums and are not caused by systematic differences in benefit provisions employee demographics or factors influencing loading charges our findings cast doubt on attempts to achieve health care competition by legislative changes in insurance options and contribution methods

upstream vertical integration in the aluminum and tin industries a comparative study of the choice between market and intrafirm coordination abstract this paper explores whether williamson s theory of vertical integration holds for the upstream stages of the aluminum and tin industries it concludes that the structure of these industries is broadly consistent with williamson s predictions the higher degree of upstream vertical integration in aluminum can be explained by greater scale economies higher barriers to entry higher transportation costs and greater asset specificity similarly differences in vertical integration within the tin industry can be explained in terms of the same variables

vertical integration in the u s pulp and paper industry 1900 1940 a transaction cost model of vertical integration is tested based on detailed descriptions of every pulp and paper mill operating in the united states between 1900 and 1940 this study contributes to the literature on integration through the use of a large disaggregated database that allows identification of individual mills over time vertical integration of pulp and paper production is found to be positively associated with regional concentration paper mill capacity and production of standardized grades of paper over time new entrants behaved differently than established mills because few mills switched between integration and specialization once established copyright 1994 by mit press

human capital and fdi inflows to developing countries new empirical evidence abstract despite the dramatic increase in total foreign direct investment fdi flows to developing countries in the last few years the bulk of the inflows has been directed to only a limited number of countries it has been argued that developing countries might enhance their attractiveness as locations for fdi by pursuing policies that raise the level of local skills and build up human resource capabilities nevertheless the empirical evidence in the literature in support of this recommendation for a large sample of developing countries is scant this paper evaluates this argument in the light of the evolution in the structural characteristics of fdi and empirically tests the hypothesis that the level of human capital in host countries may affect the geographical distribution of fdi the empirical findings are a human capital is a statistically significant determinant of fdi inflows b human capital is one of the most important determinants and c its importance has become increasingly greater through time

the development of renewable energy power in india which policies have been effective abstract the international energy agency has identified the development of renewable energy sources as a key element to mitigate climate change at the same time it has projected india to be the second largest contributor to the increase in global energy demand to 2035 india hence faces a significant challenge to ensure its energy security by diversifying its power generation mix in the wake of the creation of a green climate fund in cancun this paper studies empirically the effect of the introduction of the electricity act 2003 and the tariff policy 2006 as well as the implementation of feed in tariffs and minimum quotas on clean electricity sourcing on the development of grid connected renewable energy power in nine indian states over the period 2001 2009 results suggest that the passing of the tariff policy 2006 state level policies quantity based instruments and a greater participation of the private sector have played a key role in promoting the development of installed capacity from renewable energy power in the nine states of the sample

digitalized service multinationals and international business theory banalieva and dhanaraj argue that digital service multinationals dsmncs possess a new category of firm specific advantage fsa the network advantage and that contrary to extant theory they use networks as a mode of governance i review the business models used by dsmncs compare them to non digital ones and explore what we can learn about them from extant ib theory i conclude that network advantages are not a new category of fsas that networks are not a mode of governance and that their use by dsmncs is well explained by extant theory

the relationships between cdm project characteristics and cer market prices this study explores the relationship between key characteristics of clean development mechanism cdm projects and certified emission reduction cer prices using multiple correspondence analysis we show that the cer credit prices are likely to have had a greater influence than regional levels of economic development on the sectors regions and sizes of cdm projects there are comparatively few cdm projects in sub saharan africa less south africa and the small scale forestation projects that are characteristic for the region mainly entered the cdm pipeline when cer credit price levels were high latin america hosts a larger number of projects and the small scale methane biofuel and hydro projects that are typical for this region generally also applied for validation under high cer price levels the large industrial gas and energy efficiency projects typical for the middle east northern africa region appear to have been largely insensitive to cer price levels the large number and variety of projects in asia have applied for registration under a broad range of cer price levels

employee choice of health insurance a new specification of health insurance plan choice is developed that uses a nonparametric functional form for the loss function used to evaluate insurance premiums and uncertain out of pocket expenditure the approach is implemented on data resulting from one firm s implementation of a new health plan with three distinct health insurance options health expenditure differences greater than 500 percent are observed indicating extremely strong biased selection plan choices are consistent with a convex loss function for small losses which suggests that consumers underweight high loss low probability outcomes relative to low loss high probability ones copyright 1989 by mit press

the effect of premiums on the small firm s decision to offer health insurance many small firms fewer than 50 employees do not offer health insurance we investigated the role of premiums in the small firm s decision to offer health insurance using data from a 1993 survey of 2 000 small firms in minnesota selectively corrected equations were estimated to predict the premiums faced by firms offering and not offering insurance the elasticity of demand for health insurance calculated at the mean of the data was 3 91 for single coverage and 5 82 for family coverage we contrast these results to the much lower responsiveness found in experimental studies and suggest that our findings are more likely to model the small firm s demand for health insurance

efficiency in employment based health insurance the potential for supra marginal cost pricing currently the majority if privately insured individuals in the u s are insured through their employers this has significant implications for competition and the ability qf a competitive insurance industry to assure marginal cost pricing the central barrier to competition arises when employers restrict their employees ability to select among insurance carriers several models 4 insurer proft maximization are explored which demonstrate that supra marginal cost pricing is likely to persist euen when the insurance market appears cornpetitiue

addressing the renewable energy financing gap in africa to promote universal energy access integrated renewable energy financing in malawi abstract the sustainable energy for all initiative is a global initiative launched by the united nations secretary general in 2012 with a goal of providing universal access to modern energy services by 2030 to achieve this goal substantial financial and technological investments will be required at a rate far exceeding historical levels sub saharan africa has a 30 5 electrification rate and policy reform issues to improve electrification have been poorly implemented thereby sprinkling doubt as to whether the region would be able to achieve 100 access to electricity for all by the year 2030 sub saharan africa faces a tough challenge in order to achieve universal access to modern energy services since the region fails to attract energy sector investments there is also a general perception that the region contributes very little to global greenhouse gas emissions hence offers few opportunities to reduce these emissions consequently missing out on attracting climate finance projects a guarantee of power purchase has been shown to attract energy sector investments however guarantees of power purchases such as feed in tariffs are experiencing slow market growth in developing countries because of a range of technical regulatory and financial barriers using malawi as a case study of a developing country this review provides a perspective from a sub saharan africa least developed country as to the various electrification renewable energy deployment and climate change management challenges that still require urgent attention this study shows that despite the perceived regulatory and financial challenges malawi can integrate and use a combination of adapted price guarantee schemes cross subsidies and environmental taxes in order to support initiatives aimed at supporting the country s development of renewable energy sources and hence indirectly support the sustainable energy for all initiative

host country reforms and fdi inflows how much difference do they make summary this study examines the effects of various policies on foreign direct investment fdi flows from the perspective of the eclectic theory of international investment and hence the advantages of foreign ownership host country location and internationalization host country policies can influence fdi flows primarily through their influence on the advantages of location in the host country pooled cross section and time series data for 49 less developed countries ldcs over 1970 95 are used to examine the effects of several different types of policy institutional variables including corporate tax rates tariff rates the degree of openness to international capital flows exchange rate distortions contract enforcement nationalization risk bureaucratic delay and corruption a multivariate analysis of the effects on fdi flows of each type of policy with and without controls for other relevant determinants is conducted two different sources of fdi data are employed as well as two different measures of capital controls although there are methodological problems in estimation and especially collinearity problems and relatively severe availability constraints for some of the relevant measures the results demonstrate the relevance and importance for fdi flows of many of the policy institutional variables under study they also indicate that the results from panel methods yield results that differ rather significantly from those obtained from pure cross section analysis because of complementarity between the various elements of a healthy investment climate the effects of some policy reforms estimated from models which do not control for changes in other policies may overstate the effectiveness of individual policy reforms

africa and the clean development mechanism what determines project investments summary african countries have hardly used the opportunity to implement cdm projects and thereby turn environmental problems into business and development opportunities this paper finds out why by identifying factors of cdm partnerships our gravity model analyzes flows of certified emission reductions cers between host and financier countries findings show that foreign direct investments official development assistance and trade have a positive influence on project attraction a distinction between project initiation and cer flow size shows that the specific shortcomings of african countries lie with the initial attraction of investors this points to an inadequacy in the initial process of project generation

governing the transition to renewable energy a review of impacts and policy issues in the small hydropower boom abstract the transition to renewable energy technologies raises new and important governance questions with small hydropower shp expanding as part of renewable energy and climate mitigation strategies this review assesses its impacts and identifies escalating policy issues to provide a comprehensive literature review of small hydropower we evaluated over 3600 articles and policy documents this review identified four major concerns 1 confusion in small hydropower definitions is convoluting scholarship and policy making 2 there is a lack of knowledge and acknowledgement of small hydropower s social environmental and cumulative impacts 3 small hydropower s promotion as a climate mitigation strategy can negatively affect local communities posing contradictions for climate change policy and 4 institutional analysis is needed to facilitate renewable energy integration with existing environmental laws to ensure sustainable energy development for readers interested in small hydropower we clarify areas of confusion in definition and explain the corresponding impacts for distinct system designs for a broader readership we situate small hydropower implementation within international trends of renewable energy development the contradictory impacts of climate change policy emerging dynamics in energy finance and reliance on market mechanisms our paper provides a timely contribution to scholarship on small hydropower and the transition to renewable energy

examining the impacts of feed in tariff and the clean development mechanism on korea s renewable energy projects through comparative investment analysis renewable energy projects in korea have two avenues that provide subsidies to increase their financial viability feed in tariffs fits offer cost based prices for renewable electricity to compete with conventional energy producers the clean development mechanism cdm issues certified emission reduction cer credits that generate additional revenues enhancing renewable projects return on investment this study investigated how these subsidies impact the financial returns on korea s cdm projects an investment analysis was performed on four cases including solar hydropower wind and landfill gas projects revenues from electricity sales fits and cers were compared using financial indicators to measure their relative contributions on profitability results indicate that cdm is partial towards large scale projects with high emission reductions moreover conflicts with fit schemes can deter small scale capital intensive projects from pursuing registration the analysis highlights cdm s bias for particular project types which is in part due to its impartiality towards carbon credit prices it also reveals that korea a key benefactor of cdm is susceptible to such biases as demonstrated by the disproportionate distribution of issued cers improving incentives for bundled small scale projects cer price differentiation and excluding domestic subsidies during additionality testing are proposed as possible reforms

the governance of clean energy in india the clean development mechanism cdm and domestic energy politics this paper explores the ways in which clean energy is being governed in india it does so in order to improve our understanding of the potential and limitations of carbon finance in supporting lower carbon energy transitions and to strengthen our appreciation of the role of politics in enabling or frustrating such endeavors in particular we emphasize the importance of politics and the nature of india s political economy in understanding the development of energy sources and technologies defined as clean both by the united nations clean development mechanism cdm and leading international actors by considering the broad range of institutions that exert formal and informal political influence over how the benefits and costs of the cdm are distributed the paper highlights shortcomings in the narrow way in which cdm governance has been conceptualized to date this approach goes beyond analysis of technocratic aspects of governance often reduced to a set of institutional design issues in order to appreciate the political nature of the trade offs that characterize debates about india s energy future and the relations of power which will determine how and on whose terms they are resolved

examining the regional pattern of renewable energy cdm power projects in india abstract india is one of the leading host countries of clean development mechanism cdm projects but these projects have been concentrated within ten states of the country while the skewed distribution of cdm projects across countries is well recognized little attention has been given to the skewed distribution of cdm projects within a country like india we examine the different factors that account for the regional distribution of renewable energy based cdm power projects in india using state specific and renewable form specific explanatory variables including natural potential economic conditions and government policies we find that state implementation of fiscal incentive measures and cdm benefit sharing were the most significant factors in locating these projects within the states apart from natural renewable potential in the top ten states controlling for the government incentives and subsidies the pre installed renewable power capacity was also a significant factor state financial incentives and cdm benefit clause were also found to be the most significant factor in the generation of certified emission reductions from cdm projects unfortunately states with relatively higher natural potential lost out on the additional product gains through cers and an important aspect of the cdm approach seems to have been missed in india that of promoting development in other regions of the country which had natural potential

managing resource dependency the united states and japan in the markets for copper iron ore and bauxite abstract this study analyses the different arrangements through which the us and japan have procured their imports of non fuel minerals and attempts to shed light on the likely implications of these arrangements for the relations between these two countries it focuses on three critical minerals copper iron ore and bauxite which after oil constitute the core of every industrial society because both the us and japan exhibit high levels of dependence on foreign supplies of these three minerals it is clear that ensuring adequate supplies at reasonable costs will be a major guiding force in their respective future policies this paper examines factors affecting the international markets for these minerals the structure of investment production and trade and the relations with the source countries from the discussion of these issues two paradoxical themes emerge 1 that japan has been able to procure much of her raw materials during the 1960s and 1970s at more favourable terms than has the us even though the latter country had tighter links to its supply sources 2 that the changing conditions in the minerals industries under study have resulted in recent years in a convergence in the procurement mechanisms of the us and japan and this convergence is likely to increase strains on us japanese relations

carbon market risks and rewards firm perceptions of cdm investment decisions in brazil and india the carbon market experiences of brazil and india represent policy success stories under several criteria a careful evaluation however reveals challenges to market development that should be addressed in order to make the rollout of a post 2012 cdm more effective we conducted firm level interviews covering 82 cdm plants in the sugar and cement sectors in brazil and india focusing on how individual managers understood the potential benefits and risks of undertaking clean development mechanism cdm investments our results indicate that the cdm operates in a far more complex way in practice than that of simply adding a marginal increment to a project s internal rate of return our results indicate the following first although anticipated revenue played a central role in most managers decisions to pursue cdm investments there was no standard practice to account for financial benefits of cdm investments second some managers identified non financial reputational factors as their primary motivation for pursuing cdm projects and third under fluctuating regulatory regimes with real immediate costs and uncertain cdm revenue managers favored projects that often did not require carbon revenue to be viable the post 2012 cdm architecture can benefit from incorporating these insights and in particular reassess goals for strict additionality and mechanisms for achieving it

learning dynamics in research alliances a panel data analysis the aim of this paper is to empirically test the determinants of research joint ventures rjvs group dynamics we develop a model based on learning and transaction cost theories which represent the benefits and costs of rjv participation respectively according to our framework firms at each period in time weigh the benefits against the costs of being an rjv member rjv dynamics can then be interpreted as a consequence of this evolving trade off over time we look at entry turbulence and exit in rjvs that have been set up under the us national cooperative research act which allows for certain antitrust exemptions in order to stimulate firms to co operate in r d accounting for unobserved project characteristics and controlling for inter rjv interactions and industry effects the tobit panel regressions show the importance of group and time features for an rjvs evolution we further identify an average rjvs long term equilibrium size and assess its determining factors ours is a first attempt to produce robust stylized facts about co operational short and long term dynamics a neglected dimension in research co operations but an important element in understanding how collaborative learning works

clean development mechanism cdm after the first commitment period assessment of the world s portfolio and the role of latin america abstract the clean development mechanism cdm represents the main effort to help developing countries develop sustainably and developed countries to reach their emission reductions targets set under the kyoto protocol with the ending of the first commitment period there is an opportunity to assess the state of the cdm portfolio 2008 2012 this article is the first effort to evaluate the cdm portfolio throughout the first commitment period as well as the first paper focused on latin america s cdm portfolio as a whole concentrating on renewable energy projects moreover a special analysis is performed for chile latin america s third most important cdm country after brazil and mexico 6th worldwide after china india korea brazil and mexico and first in cers registered among the small countries an ideal host because of its high political stability government effectiveness access to capital and regulatory quality in addition a study was performed on 180 renewable energy projects in latin america revealing that the additionality assessments performed under the cdm are too subjective hindering the validation of the projects and their transparency the main policy implication of this research is to expose the need for a radical change to the succeeding document to the kyoto protocol in order to reduce the inequality amongst host countries and ensure that cdm fulfills its sustainable development claim some of the proposed measures include establishing uniform benchmarks to be used against similar projects a thorough validation for declared barriers simplifying the registering process and providing international aid for the least developed countries that have historically lacked the ability to participate in the cdm

explaining the differential distribution of clean development mechanism projects across host countries the clean development mechanism cdm of the kyoto protocol represents an opportunity to involve all developing countries in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also promoting sustainable development to date however the majority of cdm projects have gone to emerging markets such as china india brazil and mexico while very few least developed countries have hosted projects this paper investigates the differential distribution of cdm activities across countries we develop a conceptual model for project profitability which helps to identify potential country level determinants of cdm activity these potential determinants are employed as explanatory variables in regression analysis to explain the actual distribution of projects human capital and greenhouse gas emission levels influenced which countries have hosted projects and the amount of certified emission reductions cer created countries that offered growing markets for cdm co products such as electricity were more likely to be cdm hosts while economies with higher carbon intensity levels had greater cer production these findings work against the least developed countries and help to explain their lack of cdm activity

employment based health insurance and the effectiveness of intrafirm competition between insurance providers this paper examines the effects of competition between insurers for the patronage of a firm s employees since for employment based health insurance the employee choice of health insurance plans is often limited the availability of competing plans in the market does not necessarily reflect competition within the firm we utilize data from the 1987 national medical expenditures survey nmes to examine the effect of intrafirm competition in the employment based health insurance market using switching regression models we explore the process that sets premiums and the process that sets the net premium medical cost margins we find that greater choice results in higher margins and lower premiums we also find significantly negative health maintenance organization choice effects on both premiums and margins

global foreign direct investment flows the role of governance infrastructure abstract it is widely argued that a country s economic performance over time is determined to a great extent by its political institutional and legal environment we refer to these institutions and policies as the governance infrastructure of a country we utilize newly developed indices to examine the effects of governance infrastructure on both foreign direct investment fdi inflows and outflows for a broad sample of developed and developing countries over 1995 97 in addition we examine the role of other forms of infrastructure including human capital and the environment the results clearly indicate that governance infrastructure is an important determinant of both fdi inflows and outflows investments in governance infrastructure not only attract capital but also create the conditions under which domestic multinational corporations emerge and invest abroad it would appear that investments in governance infrastructure are subject to diminishing returns so that the benefits in terms of inflows are most pronounced for smaller and developing economies

economies of integration versus bureaucracy costs does vertical integration improve performance this study tested links between vertical integration cost structure and performance at the line of business level of analysis major findings were 1 vertical integration results in economies ev