positive feedback the impact of trade liberalization on industry demands for protection contrary to widely accepted theories of interest group demand for protection industries that experience high and rising import competition after a reduction in trade barriers often become less rather than more protectionist in the long term to unravel this paradox i propose and test a theory that explains variation in domestic producer groups demand for protection over time this model of industry behavior suggests that trade liberalization has a positive feedback effect on the policy preferences and political strategies of domestic industries compelling them to adjust to more competitive market conditions and thereby reducing their future demand for protection

could tariffs be pro cyclical abstract conventional wisdom says that tariffs are counter cyclical we analyze the relationship between business cycles and applied mfn tariffs using a disaggregated product level panel dataset covering 72 countries between 2000 and 2011 strikingly and counter to conventional wisdom we find that tariffs are pro cyclical further investigation reveals that this pro cyclicality is driven by the tariff setting behavior of developing countries tariffs are acyclical in developed countries we present evidence that pro cyclical market power drives the pro cyclicality of tariffs in developing countries providing further evidence of the importance of terms of trade motivations in explaining trade policy

productivity and environmental costs from intensification of farming a panel data analysis across eu regions this paper addresses the need of finding new ways of measuring the environmental and economic consequences of farming the aim of this study is to inquire into the impacts that excessive intensification has on productivity and environmental costs in the long term and additionally to explore empirically the trend of these two indicators over time the contribution of this paper is to perform an empirical study of the trends of productivity and environmental costs of farming in the long term to this end this paper performs a panel data analysis of productivity and environmental costs on a farm accounting database across european regions over the 1989 2009 period the models proposed take i farm output per hectare as indicator of productivity and ii expenditures on energy pesticides and fertilisers per hectare as proxy indicators of environmental costs results provide empirical evidence that the regions under study have a negative trend of productivity and a positive trend of environmental costs over the time frame mentioned these results correlate negatively with both economic and environmental sustainability of farms arguably this is aggravated in the latter due to hidden environmental costs valued at zero in traditional accounting

political cleavages and changing exposure to trade combining the classical theorem of stolper and samuelson with a model of politics derived from becker leads to the conclusion that exogenous changes in the risks or costs of countries external trade will stimulate domestic conflict between owners of locally scarce and locally abundant factors a traditional three factor model then predicts quite specific coalitions and cleavages among owners of land labor and capital depending only on the given country s level of economic development and its land labor ratio a preliminary survey of historical periods of expanding and contracting trade and of such specific cases as the german marriage of iron and rye u s and latin american populism and asian socialism suggests the accuracy of this hypothesis while the importance of such other factors as cultural divisions and political inheritance cannot be denied the role of exogenous changes in the risks and costs of trade deserves further investigation

black hole tariffs and endogenous policy theory political economy in general equilibrium preface acknowledgments list of results 1 a preview of the results 2 endogenous policy theory a diagrammatic approach part i endogenous policy theory with specific factors the theory of industry tariffs in partial equilibrium 3 the probabilistic voting model of political efficiency and powerless politicians 4 endogenous lobbying theory and the contribution specialization theorem 5 endogenous tariff theory 6 the power function model of endogenous industry lobbying 7 three simple tests of the stolper samuelson theorem 8 the invisible foot and the waste of nations lawyers as negative externalities part ii endogenous policy theory in general equilibrium a long run theory of national tariff levels 9 the 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 model of endogenous redistribution theory 10 a prisoner s dilemma theory of endogenous protection the leontief model 11 the compensation effect and the multiple equilibrium trap 12 increasing returns to politics and factor endowments economic development and brazilian vitality versus the indian disease 13 endogenous protection in the united states 1900 88 14 a cobb douglas model 15 black hole tariffs 16 the endowment effect cross national evidence on endogenous tariffs part ii postscript 17 the senile industry argument for protection 18 optimal obfuscation and the theory of the second worst the politically efficient policy mathematical appendices references author index subject index

environmental management accounting in lithuania exploratory study of current practices opportunities and strategic intents abstract there is a growing consensus among the lithuanian policy makers practitioners and industrialists that environmental policy must move from a reactive stance to a more proactive sustainable development approach as a result many companies are increasingly interested in the application of economic incentives at least as supplements or reinforcements of environmental standards the institute of environmental engineering eu centre of excellence in sustainable industrial development apini sid in 1992 2003 has been involved in introduction and implementation of preventive environmental strategy in industry in lithuania and in other countries in lithuania these efforts resulted in the implementation of more than 200 cleaner production innovations in more than 150 lithuanian companies it should be stressed that effective plant maintenance is becoming a higher priority to plant managers it is important to ensure cost savings at all levels that include maximizing productivity and implementing energy saving approaches effective and efficient maintenance are not just desirable but fundamental to profitable business operations therefore central to the environmental view of sustainable development is the concept that economic and social systems are sub systems of the global environment apini s experience shows that decision makers at the company level often fail to recognize the economic values of natural resources as assets as well as the business and financial value of good environmental performance therefore there is a need to upgrade the business decision making process by including information on material flows and related costs to account for efforts of sustainable development staniskis jk stasiskiene z promotion of cleaner production investments international experience journal of cleaner production 2002 11 6 619 28 issn 0959 6526 elsevier science decisions are increasingly affected by environmental costs application of environmental management accounting ema which integrates two of the main principles of sustainable development environment and economics can help to significantly improve corporate decision making ema is becoming increasingly important not only for environmental management decisions and development of environmental management systems ems but also for all types of routine management activities such as product and process design cost allocation and control capital budgeting purchasing product pricing and performance evaluation companies which use ema as a part of integrated management system are provided with accurate and comprehensive information for the measurement and reporting of environmental performance this paper investigates the current state of ema practices in lithuanian smes that have already been or are being implementing ems and which have implemented cp innovations in this case ema is analysed as an innovative assessment and evaluation method of ems and cp innovation s environmental impacts and economic benefits it should be stressed that there are obvious differences in case studies from different industries however review of the results shows that there are many similarities in what improvements can be suggested for environmentally concerned companies both in terms of environmentally sound operation and for reporting of environmental management accounting information

comprehensive life cycle assessment by transferring of preventative costs in the supply chain of products a first draft of the oiconomy system abstract a major part of global unsustainability is embedded in consumption and the processes involved in the lifecycle of products but there is currently no comprehensive and objective method for product sustainability measurement including both environmental and social issues this requires a life cycle approach current life cycle assessment lca systems developed to compare environmental performance of products and production alternatives have many shortcomings if used to comprehensively measure product sustainability the most important shortcomings are the lack of a measuring standard the top down approach the weighting of different issues the very laborious procedures of addressing specific supply chains limitation to environmental aspects the very complex nature of impact based data and difficult database maintenance this article presents a new type of bottom up and product specific lca for the comprehensive measurement of the hidden environmental and social costs of products every supply chain actor collects the upstream supply chain hidden costs calculates and adds its own contribution and transfers the result to the next link by means of a monetary unit the eco social cost unit escu every escu allocation is the product of a quantitative factor for an issue and a price factor the uniform measurement of the quantitative factor their transfer through the supply chain and the creation of a self learning database of the price factors is achieved by means of a standard the price factor represents the marginal preventative costs for the relative impact category of sustainability issues for initial determination of the price factor this article extends the ecocost value ratio system developed by vogtlander et al to social issues discusses implications of the system its principles advantages research challenges and limitations and proposes system boundaries for application of the system and future research contributions to the project

mfca extension from a circular economy perspective model modifications and case study abstract as an innovative method of environment management accounting ema a model of material flow cost accounting mfca is widely used in the field of cost calculation in the manufacturing process industry and it has obtained a level of achievement in recent years based on the existing literature in the field this report argues that the application of the current mfca model in the process industry has defects such as content restrictions a single accounting index simple methodology and one sided conclusions among others this paper combines the current mfca model with the 3r principle of a circular economy ce and the industry characteristics of high consumption and pollution the research focuses on the iron and steel industry as a representative of a process manufacturing industry and forms a modified mfca model for an iron and steel enterprise according to the perspective of ce the modifications we make to the model occur in the fields of model content the accounting index the methodology of application and the extension of functionality finally through a specific case study this report verifies the comprehensive utility of the proposed modified model in general the modified mfca may to a certain extent be considered innovative in its approach to information and data connections extension of methods and procedures modes of disclosing information construction of evaluation analysis and management of circular decision making each of these elements is conducive to realizing a triple win situation for the conservation of resources energy providing an economic value add reducing the environmental load and enhancing the sustainable development of a resource constrained process industry

the relevance of epistemic analysis to sustainability economics and the capability approach abstract this paper considers how epistemic analyses birkin and polesie 2011 foucault 1970 foucault 1990a foucault 1990b may assist with the development of sustainability economics bartelmus 2010 baumgartner and quaas 2010a baumgartner and quaas 2010b and soderbaum 2011 and the capability approach ballet et al 2011 martins 2011 rauschmayer and lesmann 2011 scerri 2012 it was the french social theorist michel foucault 1926 1984 who coined the term episteme to refer to the possibility of knowledge that determines the development of thought and knowledge in a given period for foucault epistemes were the buried foundations of knowledge that his epistemic archaeology could unearth in 2007 foucault was identified as the most cited author of books in the humanities by thomson reuters isi web of science this paper begins with a brief definition and description of epistemic analyses a summary analysis of the modern episteme and neoclassical economics is then provided and this is followed by outline evidence for the emerging episteme finally the opportunity is considered for the emerging episteme to reinforce and enhance sustainability economics and the capability approach

endogenous protection and retaliation between canada and the united states abstract endogenous protection theory and the theory of retaliation explain movements in tariffs differently using a varma model to test for the presence of granger causality we examine the interrelationships between tariffs and political pressure in the u s and canada

tariff behavior in five european countries further evidence abstract temporary movements in the average tariff rate for a country can lead to intertemporal substitution effects a five country model of tariff movements is estimated in a generalized system the tariff formation process follows a random walk for the united kingdom denmark sweden and france which implies that tariff changes can be viewed as permanent in those countries however in switzerland the cumulative impulse responses to a tariff shock imply not only shock persistence but shock magnification

sectoral conflict and foreign economic policy 1914 1940 the period from 1914 to 1940 is one of the most crucial and enigmatic in modern world history and in the history of modern u s foreign policy world war i catapulted the united states into international economic and political leadership yet in the aftermath of the war despite grandiose wilsonian plans the united states quickly lapsed into relative disregard for events abroad it did not join the league of nations disavowed responsibility for european reconstruction would not participate openly in many international economic conferences and restored high levels of tariff protection for the domestic market only in the late 1930s and 1940s after twenty years of bitter battles over foreign policy did the united states move to center stage of world politics and economics it built the united nations and a string of regional alliances underwrote the rebuilding of western europe almost single handedly constructed a global monetary and financial system and led the world in commercial liberalization

arrested development theory and evidence of supply side speculation in the housing market this paper incorporates speculation into the standard supply and demand framework used to analyze housing booms and busts speculation reverses the common intuition that elastic housing supply attenuates housing booms housing market frictions make land a more attractive speculative investment than housing as a result undeveloped land both facilitates construction and intensies

pilot project on sustainability management accounting with the styrian automobile cluster abstract the paper is based on a project with the styrian automobile cluster in austria and selected member companies in six companies the environmental management costs as well as further costs for health and safety risk management and other social issues were assessed less tangible items and external effects are addressed starting with the efforts to assess the financial effects of the sustainability performance indicators provided by the global reporting initiative gri for sustainability reporting the un dsd united nations division for sustainable development method for environmental management accounting ema was enlarged by several other cost categories this paper describes these and the experiences from the pilot projects the two major cost drivers are the purchase costs of non product output and the costs related to lost working days because of sick leave and accidents and the overtime pay to make up for these lost working days the work of the environmental health and safety ehs department helps to reduce these costs the cost assessment scheme allows one to better understand the relationships between costs for treatment of undesired effects due to unimplemented protection measures and lost material purchase value in comparison to the prevention costs which mainly consist of the internal management departments and related external consultants the assessment of sustainability management costs is of interest for organisations which already publish a sustainability report and want to more accurately assess the financial effects of such aspects addressed via ema it is also useful for small and medium sized companies which use the assessment as a starting point to shape their ehs system the main benefits are more accurate data and better arguments for investment appraisal or performance indicators as well as improved consistency of information and management systems that should help them to improve their environmental social and economic performance

economic consequences of housing speculation by exploiting variation in state capital gains taxation as an instrument we analyze the economic consequences of housing speculation during the u s housing boom in the 2000s we find that housing speculation anchored in part on extrapolation of past housing price changes led not only to greater price appreciation economic expansions and housing construction during the boom in 2004 2006 but also to more severe economic downturns during the subsequent bust in 2007 2009 our analysis supports supply overhang and local household demand as two key channels for transmitting these adverse effects

tax subsidies to owner occupied housing an asset market approach inflation reduces the effective cost of homeownership and raises the tax subsidy to owner occupation this paper presents an asset market model of the housing market and estimates how changes in the expected inflation rate affect the real price of houses and the equilibrium size of the housing capital stock simulation results suggest that the accelerating inflation of the 1970s which substantially reduced homeowners user costs could have accounted for as much as a 30 percent increase in real house prices persistent high inflation rates could lead ultimately to a sizable increase in the stock of owner occupied housing

firms and tariff regime change explaining the demand for protection although it is commonly argued that there is a connection between tariff levels and business conditions this hypothesis has not been subjected to systematic empirical analysis or given any theoretical basis the author presents two complementary theories of the movement of tariff levels in response to changing business conditions both explain tariff changes in terms of the changing political demands of business firms and both rely on the business cycle to drive these changing demands one theory is a conventional argument about changing opportunities for entry and exit the other treats firms as satisficers the theories yield similar predictions preliminary empirical analysis while consistent with both does not differentiate between them

women and tariffs testing the gender gap hypothesis in a downs mayer political economy model i am convinced that at least two out of every three women have a grudge against the tariff and a grudge which is all too frequently increased to an indignation by the subtle suggestion on the part of importers and retailers that the tariff adds to the prices of the things they buy it is the women of the household who spend the husband s earnings she has to make them go around and anything which she is told adds to the prices of the things she buys naturally finds little excuse in her mind her attitude regardless of logic is a natural one she doesn t stop to consider the part the tariff may have played in making her husband s earnings what they are or in fact in making them possible at all nor does she stop to consider the relatively minor part the tariff plays in the retail prices of the things she buys she has never seen the tariff law and so she cannot know that with such commodities as coal coffee tea cocoa furs and shoes on the free list some explanation other than the tariff must account for the increased price of these things barbour 1928 1 the notion that women and men hold systematically differing political preferences that there is a gender gap is an old one in american politics even before the national enfranchisement of women in 1920 analysts and commentators attempted to identify issues on which such a gender gap would affect policy outcomes one such issue was the tariff with which we are concerned in this paper the above passage from the january 1928 issue of the tariff review serves as an excellent text for our sermon the logic of the argument is interesting american women prefer a low tariff because a high tariff raises the prices of the things they purchase our paper represents this hypothesis as an extension of the downs 1957 mayer 1984 political economy model and then presents a simple empirical test of the hypothesis we present our analysis in four major parts first we set the stage with a brief discussion of the political economy of the tariff during the period relevant to our analysis 18901934 this discussion provides motivation for the details of the more formal analysis in the following section next we develop the logic of the classic tariff system in the context of the downs mayer model the third section presents the testable proposition that the enfranchisement of women results in a lower equilibrium tariff as an implication of this model in the final section we present our methodology and results i the political economy of the classic tariff system it is not unreasonable to think of the period from the end of the civil war until 1934 as the era of classic tariff politics in the united states during this period the tariff was a significant partisan electoral issue republicans were the party of the protective tariff democrats were opposed to the tariff system while there was regional variation with respect to details at the level of specific products this characterization is quite accurate over the entire period with respect to overall commitment to the tariff system whether one studies political platforms or campaign speeches this split between republicans and democrats remains clear 2 furthermore there seems to be a fairly direct relationship between sectional economic interests and strength of partisan support the industrial northeast was the historical center of republicanism while the rural south and mid west was the center of democrat support another important aspect of the electoral politics during the era of classic tariff politics from the perspective of this paper was the essential one dimensionality of the tariff as an issue 3 that is partisan conflict revolved primarily around support for and opposition to the tariff system not the details of the tariff structure it is important to recall that during this period the tariff was one of the few instruments of industrial policy available to the national government and at least since the end of the civil war the tariff as an electoral issue was explicitly presented by both democrats and republicans as a system of support for american industry

on addressing the dual and embedded nature of business and the route towards corporate sustainability abstract this article argues for greater attention to be paid to the dual and embedded nature of business we propose that a more inclusive systemic perspective is needed for the challenge of speeding up the application of inclusive corporate sustainability the key question is how an on going upward dynamic of transformative learning cycles can be achieved in practice the current practice of implementing sustainability management systems identifying key performance indicators reporting on sustainability policies and outcomes has a strong focus on the physical dynamics in companies and in the good cases in their value chain in many cases the three dimensions of issues time and place are only addressed partially we argue that the academic community needs to pay greater retro and prospective attention to the social intervention dynamics introducing checks on the assumed effects of social interventions in order to achieve a more balanced and inclusive corporate sustainability we need to link levels of the achievement of corporate sustainability goals more strongly with self assessment of the social dynamics in firms and their societal system

testing the endogeneity of tariff policy in the u s abstract endogenous tariff theory suggests tariffs are created in response to self interested political pressure using a varma model covering the period 1890 1970 in the u s we show that macroeconomic variables which proxy political pressure granger cause the tariff

the partisan paradox and the u s tariff 1877 1934 whereas historical accounts of u s tariff policy from 1877 to 1934 emphasize the pivotal role of parties previous quantitative studies have failed to identify significant partisan effects a formal model of policymaking in which strong parties aggregate voters preferences provides empirical equations to test for partisan effects subsequent time series analysis shows that even after controlling for interest group demands partisan control of government did significantly affect the tariff moreover during the period under study the two political parties enacted tariff policies that benefited different sets of producer groups at the expense of others thus political institutions did play a significant role in shaping the interests that influence u s foreign economic policy

political economy of pension plans impact of institutions gender and culture abstract national pension systems are an important part of financial intermediation and worker welfare in most countries but how and why do they differ internationally controlling for important political economic and social institutions we document that international differences in pension progressivity or how pensions reflect lifetime earnings are negatively related to masculinity uncertainty avoidance individualism long term orientation employment rights average pension levels social trust and economic inequality we also find that pension progressivity is positively related to the economic and societal role of women the extent of catholicism as well as political voice and accountability these results provide important insights for both public policy and mnc managers

residential income segregation a behavioral model of the housing market abstract we represent the functioning of the housing market and study the relation between income segregation income inequality and house prices by introducing a spatial agent based model abm differently from traditional models in urban economics we explicitly specify the behavior of buyers and sellers and the price formation mechanism buyers who differ by income select among heterogeneous neighborhoods using a probabilistic model of residential choice sellers employ an aspiration level heuristic to set their reservation offer price prices are determined through a continuous double auction we first provide an approximate analytical solution of the abm shedding light on the structure of the model and on the effect of the parameters we then simulate the abm and find that i a more unequal income distribution lowers the prices globally but implies stronger segregation ii a spike in demand in one part of the city increases the prices all over the city iii subsidies are more efficient than taxes in fostering social mixing

the political economy of the tariff cycle how can protectionism and free trade succeed one another our answer focuses on the changing balance of private actors political demands these actors acquire interests in tariff policies because their assets are spatially concentrated and trade in these assets is subject to various limitations actors in regions experiencing no new investment in an established industry old regions have interests that sometimes differ from those in regions where there is new investment we show that old regions have no reason to be involved in tariff politics at business cycle peaks during troughs whether a state becomes more or less protectionist depends ceteris paribus on the relative political strength of old import competing and old exporting interests if old import competing industries outweigh the old exporters then protection will tend to increase at the trough and decrease at the peak of a business cycle the opposite result occurs when old exporters are more influential

political preferences for the pork barrel a generalization this paper provides a rational explanation for the observation of oversized coalitions often approaching unanimous size in the realm of distributive policies distributive policies are those which concentrate benefits in specific geographic areas states congressional districts while spreading costs through general taxation the explanation offered here that legislators may rationally prefer universalism to hard ball coalition politics generalizes earlier work of weingast and fiorina in particular it extends their results to pork barrel politics i e projects that are economically inefficient and demonstrates how packages of economically inefficient projects can nevertheless be politically popular the main theoretical feature that induces preferences for universalism is uncertainty over the composition of winning coalitions and consequently the desire for the political insurance that universalism provides

the political economy of nontariff barriers a cross national analysis nontariff barriers to trade are most pervasive when deteriorating macroeconomic conditions give rise to demands for protection by pressure groups when countries are sufficiently large to give policymakers incentives to impose protection and when domestic institutions enhance the ability of public officials to act on these incentives statistical results based on a sample of advanced industrial countries during the 1980s support the argument that the incidence of nontariff barriers tends to be greatest when the preferences of pressure groups and policymakers converge more attention should be devoted to the interaction between societal and statist factors in cross national studies of trade policy

a review on circular economy the expected transition to a balanced interplay of environmental and economic systems el articulo muestra un estudio en donde se proporciona una revision extensa de la literatura de las dos ultimas decadas con el proposito de captar las principales caracteristicas y perspectivas de la ce economia circular origenes principios basicos ventajas y desventajas modelado e implementacion de ce en los diferentes niveles micro meso y macro en todo el mundo los resultados demuestran que los origenes de la ce se basan principalmente en la economia ecologica y ecologia industrial

on the economic impacts of constraining second home investments abstract we investigate how political backlash against wealthy second home investors in high natural amenity places affects local residents we exploit a quasi natural experiment the swiss second home initiative which banned the construction of new second homes in desirable seasonal tourist locations consistent with our model we find that the ban substantially lowered increased the price growth of primary second homes and increased the unemployment growth rate in the affected areas our findings suggest that the negative effect on local economies dominated the positive amenity preservation effect we conclude that constraining second home construction in seasonal tourist locations where primary and second homes are not close substitutes may reinforce wealth inequality

testing tariff endogeneity in japan a comparison of pre and post war periods abstract this paper tests an endogenous tariff model for japan 1890 1970 using a vector autoregression var i find that tariff changes are endogenous in the post war period rather than being designed to promote economic activity this suggests that tariffs respond to macroeconomic disturbances

the institutional foundations of hegemony explaining the reciprocal trade agreements act of 1934 in 1930 congress approved the highly restrictive smoot hawley tariff the textbook case of pressure group politics run amok four years later congress passed the reciprocal trade agreements act rtaa surrendering much of its tariff making authority to a policy process in which internationalists had increasing influence while the united states had used reciprocity to expand exports before the stick of discriminatory treatment took precedence over the carrot of liberalizing concessions with the transfer of tariff making authority to the executive the united states could make credible commitments and thus exploit its market power to liberalize international trade despite later modifications the rtaa set the fundamental institutional framework for trade politics

misinformed speculators and mispricing in the housing market this paper examines the contribution of out of town second house buyers to mispricing in the housing market we show that demand from out of town second house buyers during the mid 2000s predicted not only house price appreciation rates but also implied to actual rent ratio appreciation rates a proxy for mispricing we then apply a novel identification strategy to address the issue of reverse causality we give supporting evidence that out of town second house buyers behaved like misinformed speculators earning lower capital gains misinformed and consuming smaller dividends speculators

environmental costs at a canadian paper mill a case study of environmental management accounting ema abstract an environmental management accounting ema framework is applied to the 2000 year end financial report for the mackenzie paper division paper mill owned and operated by abitibi consolidated inc of montreal quebec a conventional reading of the obvious environmental costs from this financial report is cdn 2 196 838 this figure is derived from an analysis of effluent treatment costs and other line item environmental costs there is no environmental account category that breaks out either costs or the mass balance of inputs and outputs for the most part environmental costs are rolled up into overhead accounts such as administration infrastructure and materials accounts application of the ema framework is based on assigning environmental costs to one of four categories for which a tentative breakdown is as follows 1 waste and emission treatment costs 3 348 902 2 prevention and environmental management costs 270 109 3 material purchase value of non product output costs 946 799 and 4 processing costs of non product output 2 92 943 there is also a category called environmental revenues of which none were reported conservative estimates thus place the total environmental costs at 4 858 753 what is significant about this result is that the environmental costs under ema are at least twice as much as would normally be reported this supports the view that environmental costs are much higher than generally considered and makes it clear that many important environmental costs as well as benefits are hidden in other accounts more studies of a similar design are required to confirm the validity of the ema methodology reported here

delegation ratification and u s trade policy why divided government causes lower tariffs recent research on executive legislative relations concludes that divided government causes higher tariffs and inhibits international cooperation i find that divided government leads to lower u s

unemployment collective bargaining and the demand for protection there is a widespread consensus among nonacademic observers that labor unions with large numbers of unemployed members have been central actors in political coalitions demanding protectionist trade policies since the mid 1970s in advanced industrial societies yet trade unions and unemployment are hardly mentioned in most theories of the politics of international trade the purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the importance of unemployment as a determinant of protectionist demands that is consistent with optimizing behavior on the part of union members and firms models of labor negotiations derived from cooperative bargaining theory are used to illustrate why the material benefits of protection received by union members and their employers in protected industries increase when union members are unemployed even when workers are risk neutral and capital is immobile

the political economy of administered protection trade restrictions are hardly ever voted directly by congress though the threat of direct congressional action is frequently present pressure for protection is usually applied through the major instruments for the administrative regulation of imports the antidumping and countervailing duty procedures and the escape clause mechanism in this paper we will examine these instruments for the administrative regulation of imports the form of the paper is not novel a theory of how these mechanisms work is developed then operational implications of this theory are deduced and tested over the record of countervailing duty antidumping and escape clause cases decided from 1975 through 1979 this is the period over which the trade act of 1974 was in force because the nature of these mechanisms is relatively unfamiliar a relatively large amount of institutional information is provided

the march of an economic idea protectionism isn t counter cyclic anymore conventional wisdom holds that protectionism is counter cyclic tariffs quotas and the like grow during recessions while that may have been a valid description of the data before the first world war it is now inaccurate since the second world war protectionism has not been counter cyclic tariffs and non tariff barriers simply do not rise systematically during downturns i document this new stylised fact with a panel of data covering over 180 countries and 40 years using over a dozen measures of protectionism and six of business cycles i test and reject a number of potential reasons why protectionism is no longer counter cyclic a diagnosis of exclusion leads me to believe that modern economics may well be responsible for the decline in protectionism s cyclic behaviour economists are more united in their disdain for protectionism than virtually any other concept this in turn leaves one optimistic that the level of protectionism will continue to decline along with its cyclicality andrew k rose

environmental management accounting as a reflexive modernization strategy in cleaner production abstract understanding the material purchase value of wastes and emissions and related processing costs is the essential contribution of an environmental management accounting methodology proposed by a united nations expert working group organised through the division for sustainable development undsd tracing costs and benefits according to this undsd methodology considered as a reflexive modernization strategy in this article sheds new light on cleaner production initiatives for corporate sustainability information on the first category of costs waste and emission treatment is generally the most accurate information on the second category prevention and environmental management costs is more difficult to determine because this category overlaps with or is confused with the first category of costs data for the two novel and innovative cost categories of the material purchase value of waste and emissions and related processing costs are even harder to obtain frequently the costs are either hidden in overhead accounts or are not recorded because they are not required in conventional accounting systems the outcome is that companies even though they may profess otherwise have very little knowledge about their full environmental costs cost saving opportunities or how best to achieve cleaner production initiatives to promote corporate sustainability a more systematic application of the undsd ema methodology would provide a better record of costs and act as a catalyst in promoting cleaner production processes this application inevitably requires reflexive institutions including reflexive corporations that is corporations with the capacity to examine the side effects of their operations as modernization rebounds upon them

toward a business cycle model of tariffs a modified interest group model links movements in tariffs to changes in the level of economic activity within nations this model is introduced and tested for tariff behavior in the 19th and early 20th centuries in three nations the united states great britain and germany empirical analysis lends strong support to the model s central thesis that tariffs are sensitive to movements within a business cycle tariff changes occurring in the three nations with the exception of british tariff increases generally conform to the expectations of the model furthermore business cycle sensitivity provides an explanation of the behavior of tariffs superior to two prominent alternatives those based on ideology and on hegemonic stability

the economics of special interest politics the case of the tariff this paper investigates the interaction of politicians and special interest lobbies the goal is to model the equilibrium levels of redistributive policies such as taxes subsidies tariffs and regulatory decisions the model is applied throughout to the setting of tariffs by contributing to political campaigns special interest lobbies generate economic returns higher tariffs generate revenue for import competing industries through higher product prices higher milk support prices raise dairy farm income and so forth the lobby invests to maximize these net economic returns in evaluating their chances of election politicians weigh the favorable effects of special interest money against the unfavorable association with the lobby and the social cost of the redistributive policy section i explores the lobby s problem it describes a formalization of mancur olson s discussion of the voluntary provision of public goods and optimal contributions by lobbies to political campaigns section ii describes determination of the equilibrium tariff positions of each politician in a political campaign

trade and the variety of democratic institutions students of comparative politics have long acknowledged the importance of such institutional factors as electoral systems parliamentary versus presidential rule and the strength of parties but they have either regarded the institutions as given or have explained them entirely in domestic terms associating proportional representation for example with the intensity of social cleavages in economically advanced democracies however these institutional aspects can be plausibly linked to dependence on trade proportional representation the parliamentary system strong parties and large electoral districts have survival value for developed democracies exposed to trade that the recently revived agitation for proportional representation in the united kingdom has been cast explicitly in terms of economic necessity and dependence on trade adds force to this argument and suggests the need for further historical research on other cases of institutional adaptation and change

u s trade policies in a changing world economy this collection of original essays focuses on issues of international trade and trade policy in a world that is undergoing structural adaptation and in the face of a serious increase in the us trade deficit they bring a new consolidation of analytical perspective to a wide variety of current trade policy issues in their overview chapter alan v deardorff and robert m stern discuss developments in trade and protectionism review the case for free trade and address the arguments in favor of trade intervention rudiger dornbusch and jeffrey frankel analyze the macroeconomic setting in which changes have been made in us tariffs and ntbs stephen p magee and leslie young develop a model of endogenous protection and use it to search for microeconomic and macroeconomic variables that may help to explain changes in tariff and nontariff protection in the us since 1900 paul krugman takes up the question of identifying strategic sectors and the extent to which international competition and national government policies may affect the returns to such sectors under conditions of imperfect competition or when externalities are present avinash dixit analyzes the responses that the us might make to other countries trade policies in terms of how these policies affect us real national income and national security he concludes that the us could use strategic advance responses to alter other countries trade policies in a mutually beneficial way richard n cooper evaluates trade policy as foreign policy by looking at changes through three periods of us history t n srinivasan scrutinizes the national defense argument for government intervention in foreign trade john h jackson in discussing alternative negotiation approaches for the conduct of us trade policies observes that the pursuit of multilateralism may be frustrating and that what may be needed instead is a minilateral approach to trade liberalization in conclusion w max corden offers a package of rules that he believes may be both desirable and possible for the international trading system to attain robert m stern is professor of economics at the university of michigan and director of the institute of public policy studies he is coauthor with allan v deardorff of the michigan model of world production and trade mit press 1985

quantitative assessment of tariff endogeneity abstract the paper provides a quantitative assessment of the tariff endogeneity hypothesis in the macro context for the interwar and postwar u s economy there is an almost unidirectional causality running from unemployment and trade deficit to the average tariff rate during the interwar period while more interactive relationships hold in the postwar period compared with the interwar era there is a decline in the dependence of tariff on unemployment and trade deficit but the individual effect of unemployment on tariff has increased and that of trade deficit has decreased furthermore unanticipated shocks exert smaller and less persistent effects of tariff

introducing the all seeing eye of business a model for understanding the nature impact and potential uses of waste abstract at current rates of disposal there are nearly 8 years of remaining landfill capacity at permitted sites in england and wales industry encouraged by financial penalties from the government faces the challenges of cleaner and more sustainable production whilst trying to remain competitive in the market place this paper proposes fit thinking as a means by which waste can be reduced from the early design stages alongside the all seeing eye of business a model to illustrate potential sources of profit and loss in a manufacturing firm s output a literature review on waste and profitability reveals the basis for the model concepts from material flow cost accounting the kanthal effect and the kano model are combined together with industry case studies to develop the model the model is explained in detail demonstrating twelve types of relationships between a company s product outputs and the profitability of each output the model and the relationships it proposes are then tested against examples from literature ultimately fit thinking is shown to help companies prevent waste where waste is unavoidable the all seeing eye of business model can be used by companies in the understanding of their non product output waste providing insights into the nature of their waste and the impact on profitability it is hoped that this understanding will encourage them to see waste as a potential profit making co product rather than as a necessary evil

the use of environmental management accounting ema for identifying environmental costs abstract the expert working group on improving the role of government in the promotion of environmental management accounting ema was set up by the united nations division for sustainable development un dsd in cooperation with a number of government agencies and non governmental experts to promote environmental management accounting ema through publications pilot projects and by establishing an international forum for discussion on the role of governments in the promotion of ema ema environmental management accounting represents a combined approach that provides for the transition of data from financial accounting cost accounting and mass balances to increase material efficiency reduce environmental impacts and risks and reduce costs of environmental protection ema is performed by private or public corporations but not by nations and has a financial as well as a physical component the core focus of environmental management accounting and of the ema un dsd methodology is assessment of total annual environmental expenditure on emission treatment disposal environmental protection and management in addition and that is new and challenging for most companies the material purchase value of all non product output and its production costs are added this total sum often provides a frightening picture of total annual costs of inefficiency and gets companies to improve their information systems and material efficiency options which is the goal in the light of cleaner production the first book published by the expert working group environmental management accounting procedures and principles jasch c united nations new york 2001 defines principles and procedures for ema with a focus on techniques for quantifying environmental expenditures or costs as a basis for better controlling and benchmarking purposes the methodology excludes costs external to the company so called externalities e g environmental and social effects that occur to the general public but focuses on comprehensive assessment of direct annual expenditure on emission treatment environmental protection and management as well as wasted material and energy input efficiency losses in production firstly total annual expenditure is assessed then improvement options savings and investment projects as well as product prices can be re calculated the method is currently applied in several case studies the following summary provides some of the core definitions and generic assessment tables

integrating information about the cost of carbon through activity based costing abstract environmental protection has been an issue of serious concern for many years it is not a trend but the responsibility of corporations this responsibility for environmental protection should be internalized into business operations prior to production in order to reflect the true cost of the final product due to the use of traditional cost accounting many organizations have not estimated their environmental costs precisely therefore environmental accounting systems such as carbon management accounting environmental management accounting and greenhouse gas accounting have attracted worldwide attention in this paper we propose an integrated concept the activity based costing approach to solve the problem of environmental and cost evaluation we include a case study of an existing pulp and paper company in taiwan to show that the activity based costing method estimates emissions of waste and the environmental costs of a final product more accurately than traditional approaches do the method can therefore provide information for use in existing environmental accounting systems and help managers incorporate environmental costs into their decision making processes

foreclosure contagion and the neighborhood spillover effects of mortgage defaults in this paper i identify shocks to interest rates resulting from two administrative details in adjustable rate mortgage contract terms the choice of financial index and the choice of lookback period i find that a 1 percentage point increase in interest rate at the time of adjustable rate mortgage arm reset results in a 2 5 percentage increase in the probability of foreclosure in the following year and that each foreclosure filing leads to an additional 0 3 to 0 6 completed foreclosures within a 0 10 mile radius in explaining this result i emphasize price effects bank supply responses and borrower responses arising from peer effects

material flow cost accounting looking back and ahead abstract material flow cost accounting mfca combines physical flows and monetary units and is located between energy and material efficiency analyses environmental management and managerial accounting procedures since the development of iso 14051 2011 research and application in industry increased but still some theoretical methodological and practical gaps exist this special volume addresses some of the existing deficits and shows the fertile contribution of mfca on resource efficiency as can been seen by the articles and case studies in this special volume mfca still is continuously spreading into further countries and the methodology is extended refined and elaborated and increasingly applied in combination with various other tools and concepts the main challenges are still the continuous implementation of the method in industry and the public dissemination of the results

improved information shock and price dispersion a natural experiment in the housing market abstract this study employs data from a natural experiment to assess the effect of an improved price information shock on subsequent real estate transaction price dispersion while transaction data in the israeli real estate market had not previously been available to the public in 2010 an israeli court ordered the israel tax authority to post all real estate transaction data on its website we employ all housing transactions in the period prior and subsequent to this event to assess its effect on housing price dispersion results provide evidence of significant decrease in the dispersion of quality adjusted prices further we find evidence that the information shock effect on price dispersion varies with household and market characteristics

what determines the value of corporate votes this paper studies the determinants of the value of voting rights in u s corporations results support the hypothesis that the price of a vote is determined by the expected additional payment vote holders will receive for their votes in case of a control contest the size of this differential payment is a function of the probability that a vote is pivotal in a control contest and the magnitude of the private benefits obtainable by controlling the company simple proxies for these two factors explain up to 30 percent of the variation of the voting premium across companies and through time my findings also suggest that the value of managerial perquisites are at least partially reflected in the price of votes

voting for protection an electoral model of tariff policy politicians want to please their constituents and will attempt to manipulate trade policy to further this goal this article elaborates a model of the electoral incidence across congressional districts of the interindustry structure of tariff protection with an application to the mckinley tariff of 1890 it may contribute to a neglected area of research on the domestic politics of tariffs to the history of a period of tariff formation in which there has been little recent work and to the debate over legislative representation of constituency interests models of the domestic political market for trade policy endogenous tariff theory can be divided into four categories with classification based on whether they are formal or empirical and on whether they focus on the demand or the supply side of the political market many of the formal models are too abstract to produce readily testable propositions 1 wolfgang mayer s model for example assumes that tariffs are set by a national popular referendum and deduces tariff structures from median voter results 2 there is no government in this type of model the demanders and suppliers of policy are the same william brock and stephen magee s model assumes a singleissue election in which politicians bid for votes by offering tariff protection up to the point at which marginal gains votes plus campaign contributions equal marginal costs lost votes plus lost contributions 3

loan originations and defaults in the mortgage crisis the role of the middle class this paper highlights the importance of middle class and high fico borrowers for the mortgage crisis contrary to popular belief which focuses on subprime and poor borrowers we show that mortgage originations increased for borrowers across all income levels and fico scores the relation between mortgage growth and income growth at the individual level remained positive throughout the pre 2007 period finally middle income high income and prime borrowers all sharply increased their share of delinquencies in the crisis these results are consistent with a demand side view where homebuyers and lenders bought into increasing house values and borrowers defaulted after prices dropped

some problems in studying the effects of resource allocation in congressional elections after analyzing 1 data aggregated to the congressional district level and 2 individual level data from the 1978 cps election survey johannes and mcadams conclude that congressional casework has no electoral impact the following commentary explains such null findings as the product of oversimplistic expectations and methodological weaknesses specifically the johannes and mcadams aggregate data analysis is misspecified on two counts first it attempts to reduce to a single regression equation a temporal sequence in which casework activity and electoral outcomes are mutually intertwined second even were such a drastic reduction possible the single equation employed would be poorly specified because of inattention to the differential productivity of cases constituents and representatives the individual level analysis also is rife with statistical problems chief among which is multicollinearity aggravated by small numbers of cases analyses that do what is possible to minimize such problems reveal a statistically and substantively significant impact of casework on electoral outcomes further analyses that go beyond the johannes and mcadams limitation of casework effects to the individuals directly helped suggest that the electoral effects of an incumbent s reputation for service may approach the effects of party identification

tariff protection in developed and developing countries a cross sectional and longitudinal analysis four political models the international system rational domestic economic policy intragovemmental politics and interest group influence may explain the cross national structure of average nominal levels of tariffs on manufactures using available data measuring or approximating the explanatory variables for the time periods 1902 and 1971 selected hypotheses were tested in regression equations the 1971 tariff levels are best predicted by rational economic policy variables while for 1902 international power variables provide the best predictions of the tariff in general the causal forces influencing the cross national pattern of tariff levels appear to have shifted in the 20th century from those indicating international power to those measuring domestic politico economic development these results provide evidence relevant to some of the general propositions about size and development suggested by the contemporary political economy literature they also lend support to those who argue that a rising level of international interdependence has resulted in long term changes in the pattern of influences on national public policies

the textile bill of 1985 the determinants of congressional voting patterns the following tables show the results of the probit analysis for the senate and the house a table including results for different combinations of the independent variables is included in an unpublished appendix available from the authors upon request the results of the probit analysis for the senate are shown in table 1 all the variables except exp had the expected signs however the results indicate that the two other employment variables and party affiliation are the only factors which we can say with confidence influenced a senator s decision to vote for or against this bill the coefficients reported and labeled der of prob measure the derivative of the probability of a yes vote evaluated at the means of the independent variables in question thus for example the coefficient for unemp in the top line of table 1 should be interpreted as indicating that a one percentage point increase in a state s unemployment rate will cause a 5 89 increase in the probability that the senator will vote for the bill the result for dr the party of the senator shows that in general democrats are more apt to vote for protectionist policies than are republicans this is consistant with president reagan s negative stand on the bill and his threat to veto it should it pass the amendment in question passed the senate on 24 october 1985 by a vote of 54 for to 42 against but the bill it was attached to has been postponed indefinitely the house bill which was passed on 10 october 1985 by a vote of 262 for to 159 against was vetoed by reagan on 17 december 1985 the results of the probit analysis for the house of representatives are shown in table 2 state employment data was used for the house as opposed to data for each voting district this was done for three reasons first employment data is usually reported by state or by county since counties are often divided by congressional district boundaries much personal judgement would be necessary to assign employment figures second the most recent county industry employment data is from 1981 while the data used in this analysis is from 1984 third we feel that in general logrolling is prevalent among a state s representatives for this bill the representatives from twenty six states voted as a block and in all but six states one third or less of that state s representatives voted contrary to the majority all of the probabilities are significant at the 05 confidence level representative s voting patterns are influenced by all of the included factors when unionization is added to the equation its coefficient is very small and negative although it is significant at the 05 confidence level one would expect more significance here since there are more degrees of freedom for the house analysis than for that of the senate when the data from the house and senate are pooled the results are similar to those of the house alone the null hypothesis that the data cannot be pooled was tested using a statistic with eight degrees of freedom 9 721 meaning that the null hypothesis is rejected as in the senate the state unemployment rate and the percent employed in textiles are important influences on the representative s vote and democrats in the house are more likely to vote for protectionist bills than republicans however unlike the senate the percent of a representative s campaign contributions that are donated by industry special interest groups has a significant effect on voting patterns although the point estimates for the magnitudes of the influence are very similar in both cases seventy four percent of the house received campaign contributions from these special interest groups while only 54 of the senate received contributions from these same sources this is probably because only one third of the senate was up for reelection during the time period considered while the entire house was in the process of campaigning for reelection exports also play a role in influencing the probability of a yes vote reducing this probability as employment in export industries increases but the magnitude of the coefficient is only 11 of that for textile employment the significance of this variable in the house is probably due to fear of retaliation expressed by both democrats and republicans this variable was not significant in the senate model most likely because the senate version excluded from the 1 import quota growth rate many countries who might have retaliated representatives appear to respond to a wider variety of constituent interests than do senators while senators voting patterns are only significantly influenced by their political affiliation their state s unemployment rate and the importance of textiles to their state the voting behavior of representatives is influenced by these factors as well as the importance of exports to their state and campaign contributions by textile special interest groups these results affirm the validity of the approach used by baldwin and coughlin they differ from baldwin who finds exports are not a significant influence on the house and from coughlin who does not include export employment as an explanitory variable or analyze the differences in voting patterns between the house and the senate

cleaner production and profitability analysis of 134 industrial pollution prevention p2 project reports abstract pollution prevention p2 can be taken as the father of modern approaches to the pro active management of industrial eco efficiency despite the radical changes and methodological developments following its introduction over the past 30 years p2 still remains a useful conceptual and procedural tool for improving the environmental performance of production systems the essential characteristic of the p2 approach is the reduction at source principle derived from the idea that the generation of pollutants can be reduced or eliminated by increasing efficiency in the use of raw materials energy water and other resources from this point of view it is also a means of raising operational efficiency and profitability the numerous success cases as well as the less satisfactory results documented in the scientific and technical literature provided the starting point for a detailed analysis of how and to what extent industrial p2 projects have been developed and realised particularly in terms of profitability to this end the information in 134 p2 project reports taken from various bibliographic sources was collected and processed the high frequency of p2 projects objectives that focused on cost efficiency demonstrates that the environmental management of production processes has changed from a compliance point of view into a strategic issue for company long range competitiveness on the other hand the scarce use of systematic techniques and tools suggests that adoption of the p2 approach by companies is still in the early stage mainly based on pilot projects empirical and is not completely integrated into the management process

domestic content legislation house voting and the economic theory of regulation house voting on domestic content legislation provides a rare opportunity to examine the political economy of protectionism with respect to a particular issue rather than by using the traditional interindustry approach the results indicate that a representative s vote in favor of the content legislation and the intensity of the legislator s preferences are positively related to the importance of the auto and steel industries in the representative s district an increasing unemployment rate campaign contributions from labor groups affiliation with democratic party and a liberal ideology despite ideology s statistical significance the results suggest this variable can be disregarded because neither the predictive accuracy nor the explanatory power of the model is improved by its inclusion the estimates also provide insights concerning the impact of changes in the independent variables upon voting patterns

import prices and the political economy of tariffs evidence from germany japan and the united states 1954 1994 abstract endogenous protection theory suggests that macroeconomic conditions affect tariffs through policy responses to political pressure however import prices affect average tariffs even in the absence of policy changes i examine the effects of import prices and macroeconomic conditions in postwar germany japan and the united states finding strong evidence for the effect of import prices but little evidence consistent with endogenous protection theory

taxation and the political economy of the tariff traditional accounts of u s tariff policy emphasize trade strategies and interest group politics this article makes a departure it opens with an observation up until world war i the tariff was the largest single source of federal government revenues it then explores the significance of tariffs as taxes theoretically and empirically in its first part the article develops a theory of taxation politics and applies it to the tariff in its second part it submits the theory to an empirical test modeling changes in u s tariff rates from 1829 to 1940 the politics of tariff revision it argues followed from two characteristics of the tariff as tax from the extent of the treasury s dependence upon it and from the distributive pattern of its burdens and benefits taken together the article concludes revenue dependence and distributive incidence account for several diverse aspects of american tariff policy including the structure of its coalitions the shifts in its objectives and the timing of its innovations

speculating on home improvements we develop a speculation based theory of home improvements housing services are produced from a mix of land and structures homeowners have an option to increase their structures i e make improvements holding xed their land speculative improvements arise because overcondent homeowners mistakenly believe they can add to structures for a lower cost than a competitive construction industry improvements are increasing and convex in home prices there is excessive home remodeling in equilibrium and the change in the recoup ratio the ratio of resale value of improvements to construction costs is negatively correlated with construction cost growth controlling for home price appreciation we provide evidence consistent with our theory using data on the costs and recoup values of remodeling projects across u s cities

debt relief and slow recovery a decade after lehman abstract we follow a representative panel of millions of consumers in the united states from 2007 to 2017 and document new facts on the long term effects of the great recession there were about six million foreclosures over this period only a quarter of foreclosed households regained homeownership taking an average four years to do so this persistent loss of homeownership accounts for most of the decline in the u s homeownership rate despite massive stimulus and debt relief policies house prices consumption and unemployment remained below precrisis levels in about half of the zip codes in the united states regions that recovered to precrisis levels took on average four to five years regional variation in the extent and speed of recovery is strongly and persistently associated with frictions affecting the pass through of lower interest rates and debt relief to households

employment in the great recession how important were household credit supply shocks i pool data from all large multimarket lenders in the united states to estimate how many of the over 7 million jobs lost in the great recession can be explained by reductions in the supply of mortgage credit i construct a mortgage credit supply instrument at the county level the weighted average by prerecession mortgage market shares of liquidity driven lender shocks during the recession the reduction in mortgage supply explains about 15 of the employment decline the job losses are concentrated in construction and finance

politics at the water s edge parties voters and the use of force abroad this article examines the effects of party politics and presidential election cycles on u s recourse to force abroad i analyze a game theoretic model to generate predictions about these effects in the unique time consistent equilibrium outcome of the one shot game policy varies across political parties in a subgame perfect equilibrium outcome of the repeated game the use of force is invariant to the partisan composition of government in neither case does policy respond to the electoral cycle an empirical analysis supports the predictions of the repeated game between 1870 and 1992 u s recourse to force abroad responds neither to partisan politics nor to the domestic political calendar it responds only to changes in u s power status and to the advent of general wars

personal experiences and expectations about aggregate outcomes using novel survey data we document that individuals extrapolate from recent personal experiences when forming expectations about aggregate economic outcomes recent locally experienced house price movements affect expectations about future u s house price changes and higher experienced house price volatility causes respondents to report a wider distribution over expected u s house price movements when we exploit within individual variation in employment status we find that individuals who personally experience unemployment become more pessimistic about future nationwide unemployment the extent of extrapolation is unrelated to how informative personal experiences are is inconsistent with risk adjustment and is more pronounced for less sophisticated individuals

expanding material flow cost accounting framework review and potentials abstract existing research argues that impressive environmental and economic benefits can be and have been achieved with material flow cost accounting mfca this paper examines the body of literature on mfca and identifies a limited application of mfca in comparison to its potential application examining the scope of mfca shows that the methodological proposals and applications are largely focused on production related decisions so far the growing but still limited body of research on mfca has not been linked with the conceptual developments in environmental management accounting ema by conducting a literature review based on the ema framework additional decision situations and decision makers are identified and the potential benefits of expanding mfca are discussed this paper provides a research agenda both for developing mfca tools and subsequently for spreading them to new areas where they can contribute to the sustainable development of organizations the economy and society practitioners could benefit from this paper by considering additional areas of applications for mfca in the specific settings of their company