motivations for promoting the consumption of green products in an emerging country exploring attitudes of brazilian consumers abstract understanding the motivations that stimulate green consumption can promote environmental thinking to increase demand especially because the current estimated market share for green products is less than 4 worldwide in this scenario emerging countries have contributed to the increasing levels of consumption and environmental effects culture and socio economic status play a significant role in environmental impacts and influences the consumption of green products the current body of literature lacks studies focused on the attitude of brazilian consumers in relation to these products this research evaluates the elements that motivate the consumption of green product a survey targeting individuals who have consumed these products was performed in the largest city in southern brazil data were analyzed using a factorial analysis and a causal structural equation model was created to evaluate the drivers that promote green consumption the elements of information and knowledge environmental attitude social context and environmental consciousness were strongly correlated with green consumption however the quality and price of green products has shown a weaker relationship with consumption these elements indicated that the individuals in the survey recognize and seek information covering environmental issues are concerned with the health effects associated with the consumption of the goods and reject a brand or company that might have demonstrated inappropriate environmental behaviours also indicate that the relation price versus quality does not play a central role in the decision of consuming green products finally information about these products and their point of sale availability were highlighted as enhancing green consumption this outcome suggests that education might increase green consumption this research contributed to understand the main drivers that support the decision about the green products option made for the surveyed sample from a managerial standpoint improvements in ethical transactions the promotion of socially responsible actions the distribution of appropriate information about green products and the structure of the green supply chain could create new businesses focused on sustainable production and consumption the findings of this research could support future policies and actions focused on providing information and knowledge about environmental and health contribution of the green products to the consumers producers companies and society

distance bank heterogeneity and entry in local banking markets we examine the determinants of entry into italian local banking markets during the period 1991 2002 and build a simple model in which the probability of branching in a new market depends on the features of both the local market and the potential entrant econometric findings show that banks are more likely to expand into those markets that are closest to their pre entry locations large banks are also more able to cope with distance related entry costs than small banks finally banks have become increasingly able to open branches in distant markets due to the advent of information and communication technologies

efficiency and equalization payments in a federal system of government a synthesis and extensions of recent results this paper investigates the rationale for a system of equalization transfers in a federal system of government the existing sources of inefficiency of resource allocation in economies with more than one level of government are synthesized in the framework of a simple decentralized multiprovince model with mobile factors of production the sources of inefficiency arise first because migrants respond at the margin to incorrect signals owing to the phenomena of rent sharing and fiscal exterality and second because of global rather than local inefficiencies the model is then extended to consider the role of the federal government in providing intergovernmental transfers in the face of such inefficiencies in addition to synthesizing the sources of inefficiency in federal models the equity arguments for equalization are briefly recounted efficacite et paiements de perequation dans un systeme federal de gouvernement synthese et extensions de certains resultats recents ce memoire examine la logique qui soustend un systeme de paiements de perequation dans un systeme fdderal de gouverement les auteurs utilisent un modele simple d un systeme multi provincial decentralise avec des facteurs de production mobiles pour definir les sources d inefficacite dans l allocation des ressources dans les dconomies qui possedent plus d un niveau de gouvernement ces inefficacites proviennent de ce que d abord ceux qui se deplacent le font en reponse a la marge a des signaux incorrects engendres par le partage de la rente sur la base de la residence et par les phenomenes d exteralites fiscales elles sont aussi le resultat d inefficacites globales plutot que locales dans le cadre de ce modele les auteurs analysent le role du gouvernement federal effectuant des transferts inter gouverementaux pour corriger ces inefficacites en plus de presenter une synthese des sources d inefficacite dans les regimes federaux les auteurs font un bref rappel en passant a l ensemble des arguments fondes sur l equite qu on utilise pour rationaliser les paiements de perequation this paper is a linear combination of two papers presented at the may 1982 meetings of the canadian economics association in halifax entitled the case for equalization payments by the authors and recent developments in the theory of regional economic policy in canada by boadway the authors are grateful for comments by the discussants jim johnson and baxter macdonald and by jack mintz brian scarfe gerard belanger david sewell tom courchene and the referees we are especially heavily indebted to dan usher for many stimulating comments and suggestions while the work was in progress some of the above persons will undoubtedly disagree with the emphasis we have chosen to put on various aspects of the analysis for policy purposes support for some of this work has been provided by the economic council of canada and is gratefully acknowledged canadian journal of economics revue canadienne d economique xv no 4 november novembre 1982 printed in canada imprimd au canada 0008 4085 82 0000 0613 01 50 1982 canadian economics association this content downloaded from 207 46 13 127 on wed 12 oct 2016 04 27 47 utc all use subject to http about jstor org terms 614 robin boadway and frank flatters

does ict adoption improve access to credit for small enterprises using data at the bank firm level collected through the 9th unicredit survey conducted in 2012 on a large sample of small businesses we investigate the extent to which a large international bank offers better credit conditions to enterprises that use ict more extensively the results which are robust to selection and endogeneity issues show that banks tend to grant increasing volumes of credit to such enterprises we interpret this evidence as the ceteris paribus effect of ict adoption by small businesses on the quality of information transmitted to banks another possible interpretation is that banks consider ict adoption as a signal of firms willingness to innovate we also discuss implications concerning the key role that technology plays in changing the arm s length versus relationship lending paradigms

pricing and green level decisions of a green supply chain with governmental interventions under fuzzy uncertainties abstract environmental issues make green manufacturing become inevitable and fuzzy uncertainty prevails in supply chain management in order to further promote the development of green supply chain according to channel leadership scenario we develop three game models of a green supply chain with governmental interventions under fuzzy uncertainties of both manufacturing cost and consumer demand we study how prices green levels and expected profits are influenced by channel leadership and governmental interventions green level sensitivity and fuzzy degree of parameters are considered analytical results indicate that manufacturer stackelberg scenario is the inferior structure than other scenarios and retailer stackelberg scenario is superior to other scenarios for all players under the strong governmental interventions then when governmental interventions increase the green level will increase but the tendency of retail price depends on channel leadership governmental interventions are not always beneficial to the green supply chain and the manufacturer further although the government s subsidy is offered to the manufacturer the retailer benefits from it ultimately and further becomes the main puller of the development of green products in addition a relatively high green level floor for subsidy results in the manufacturer s first mover disadvantage

optimal retailer investments in green operations and preservation technology for deteriorating items abstract this paper examines the impact of dynamic retailer investments in green operations while considering the reference price effect a replenishment problem based on joint pricing dynamic investment in green operations preservation technology and optimal replenishment times for deteriorating items is considered as a way to maximize retailer profit in this problem the demand rate depends on the sales and reference prices as well as green concern level optimal control theory is employed to obtain a dynamic investment rate and a simulated annealing algorithm is used to find the solution of the nonlinear constraint optimization problem which determines the price preservation technology investment and replenishment cycle time in addition computational simulations and sensitivity analyses are carried out to offer managerial insights the findings suggest that continuous investment in green operations and preservation technology can significantly improve the retailer s financial performance the consumer reference price is an important influence on the retailer s decision to invest in green operations furthermore results show that the higher price sensitivity of the market always discourages the retailer from investing in green operations the retailer needs to invest more in green operations for products with relatively high unit value

private agri food standards implications for food policy and the agri food system abstract this paper provides a brief introduction to the evolution and nature of private food safety and quality standards highlighting the resultant impacts on the structure and modus operandi of supply chains for agricultural and food products and the challenges posed for processes of agricultural development it serves as an introduction to a series of papers that provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge regarding private food safety and quality standards in both an industrialised and developing country context in so doing it aims to provide a catalyst for further research on this rapidly evolving field of inquiry

sustainable consumption and production in the food supply chain a conceptual framework abstract increased globalization and a growing world population have a great impact on the sustainability of supply chains especially within the food industry the way food is produced processed transported and consumed has a great impact on whether sustainability is achieved throughout the whole food supply chain due to the complexity that persists in coordinating the members of food supply chain food wastage has increased over the past few years to achieve sustainable consumption and production scp food industry stakeholders need to be coordinated and to have their views reflected in an optimized manner however not much research has been done concerning the influence of stakeholders and supply chain members coordination in the food industry s scp context to facilitate the theory development for scp in this work a short literature review on sustainable supply chain management and sustainable supply chains in the food industry is provided to give the reader current knowledge on how the past and current research are introduced in this work following that different theories that drive sustainable consumption and production have been identified and focused as a result theories like the institutional theory dynamic capability theory and stakeholder theory are presented additionally a conceptual framework has been developed by identifying the indicators drivers and barriers based on the stakeholder theory to achieve the scp in food supply chain finally limitations and future scope are discussed

modelling electric vehicle usage intentions an empirical study in malaysia in the new global economy carbon emission has become an important worldwide issue one key reason for this is the magnification of the transport sector as millions of gasoline based vehicles are plying on roads producing carbon emission throughout day and night in order to impede these vulnerabilities and promote a more sustainable economy one solution is to switch from gasoline based vehicles to using green technology vehicles there is growing agreement that electrification and the ability to decarbonize this sector seems to be significant as it helps to mitigate the high reliance on fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions the introduction of electric vehicles has led the automotive industry to a whole new echelon one with zero fuel dependency and increased fuel efficiency while the usage of greener and cleaner vehicles such as electric vehicles is well supported with government policies and programmes it is surprising that little information is divulged about the public acceptance of electric vehicles from the social perspective public acceptance and diffusion of this new green technology is relatively fresh and unknown in malaysia in fact public acceptance can appear as a prevailing obstacle for market diffusion and encumber the development of technology adoption the rationale of this paper is to conduct an exploration to determine the key predictors affecting the usage of electric vehicles acceptance in malaysia malaysia has been referred to here as electric vehicles are just being introduced as one of the initiatives to encourage a low fossil carbon technology within the transportation sector more specifically an empirical study using a survey questionnaire was distributed to 1000 private vehicle drivers in malaysia an electric vehicle usage model was proposed based on a literature review and a multiple regression model the results demonstrated that electric vehicles acceptance in malaysia can be explained as being significantly related to social influences performance attributes financial benefits environmental concerns demographics infrastructure readiness and government interventions in addition the study offers a valuable wealth of information on the public acceptance of automotive players planning to market electric vehicles in malaysia it also offers sensible guidelines for the formulation of marketing strategies that will address the real wants and needs of future electric vehicles users in the meanwhile policy makers should concentrate on the appropriate intervention and policy to encourage the development of electric vehicles as part of the strategy towards a transition to a low carbon society in malaysia

ex post redistribution in a federation implications for corrective policy abstract this paper analyzes whether changes in the timing of equalizing transfers to state governments necessitate an adjustment in federal corrective policy according to the existing literature assuming an ex ante choice of transfers the corrective grant is equal to the marginal damage benefit inflicted by externality generation when the federal government accommodates state finances ex post the grant differs in formula from existing prescription allocative federal policy corrects state policy incentives twofold it entails a correction for the distortion in the marginal benefit of state spending as in earlier literature and for the distortion in the marginal cost of public funds induced by the ex post provision of transfers the required grant rule is generically disproportionate to the equilibrium externality even with lump sum taxation furthermore the ex post provision of transfers is critical for the nature of the equilibrium inefficiency equalizing transfers at least partly internalize consumption spill overs but simultaneously establishes a new source of inefficiency as a final result the existing prescription for allocative federal policy continues to apply if the public good is pure

eco labeling and horizontal product differentiation this paper investigates the impact of eco labels on the abatement of emissions in a market with horizontal product differentiation a distinction is made between an end of pipe abatement method and a clean technology approach in the former case underinvestment is likely to occur even if the marginal willingness to pay for abatement of consumers is equal to the social marginal benefit of abatement the level of abatement depends on the number of firms and on the number of consumers for a large market with few firms overinvestment in abatement is also possible clean technology abatement achieves a first best level regardless of market size if all consumers have a marginal willingness to pay for abatement equal to its social benefit

distance constraints the limits of foreign lending in poor economies how far does mobility of multinational banks solve problems of financial development using a panel of 80 000 loans over 7 years i show that greater cultural and geographical distance between a foreign bank s headquarters and local branches leads it to further avoid lending to informationally difficult yet fundamentally sound firms requiring relational contracting greater distance also makes them less likely to bilaterally renegotiate and less successful at recovering defaults differences in bank size legal institutions risk preferences or unobserved borrower heterogeneity cannot explain these results these distance constraints can be large enough to permanently exclude certain sectors of the economy from financing by foreign banks

private eco brands and green market development towards new forms of sustainable governance in food retailing abstract this study seeks to analyze the role of retail eco brands in the development of markets for sustainability certified food products building on insights from the new institutional economics nie paradigm but also broader literature in the supply chain management and marketing research we suggest that private eco branding and third party certification can be explained as private institutional arrangements that motivate and enable sustainability governance by retailers both upstream and downstream in the value chain based on semi structured interviews with western european retailers this study reveals critical functions of retailers sustainability oriented brands these functions address a number of inefficiencies pertained to the third party certification making eco branding a private product policy tool to proactively set and implement sustainability in food production and consumption practices at the same time limitations associated with the development and use of private eco brands are identified based on these limitations we suggest that while retailer s eco brands are likely to play an important role in transforming food markets towards higher levels of sustainability in the future the continuous value of third party certification schemes in implementing sustainability in the food supply chain should not be underestimated the role of the latter will be to reduce transaction costs and liability risks associated with retail efforts to govern product sustainability issues upstream in the supply chain

a fiscal federalism analysis of debt policies by sovereign regional governments this paper takes a fiscal federalism approach to analyzing debt issue by subfederal regional governments households have a short run attachment to a particular region but are free to migrate between regions in the long run regional governments choose their fiscal policies independently it is shown that the nash equilibrium of regional fiscal policies is one where migration is efficient and households are insured against the idiosyncratic part of shocks occurring in the region in which they live however regional governments issue too much debt relative to the level that would be issued under a coordinated policy such as that which might be carried out by a federal government

asymmetric information and the structure of the banking industry abstract we analyze the effects of informational asymmetries on the market structure of the banking industry in a multi period model of spatial competition in the process of lending incumbent banks gather proprietary information about their clients acquiring an advantage over potential entrants we show that these informational asymmetries are important determinants of the industry structure and of banks strategic behavior contrary to traditional models of horizontal differentiation the steady state equilibrium is characterized by a finite number of banks even in the absence of exogenous fixed costs in addition less concentrated industry structures may be associated with higher interest rates

optimality free mobility and the regional authority in a federation abstract this paper examines the efficiency properties of a federation characterized by strategically competing regions and freely mobile homogeneous individuals analyses of this economy have concluded that achieving a pareto optimal will require intervention by a national authority this paper makes one basic point the nash equilibrium of regional authority behavior is pareto optimal the implication is that there is no role for a national authority in either providing interregional transfers or correcting for decentralized provision of public goods the nash equilibrium involves samuelson public goods provision and regions purchasing preferred population distributions with optimal interregional transfers

central governance or subsidiarity a property rights approach to federalism abstract we consider a model where one region in a federation can realize a public project after undertaking value increasing investments while negotiations on the federal level ensure that an efficient project size is implemented in equilibrium non contractibility of investments causes the overall outcome to differ across regimes if the region bears the entire implementation costs of its policies underinvestment prevails and subsidiarity centralized governance is superior when spillovers are weak strong conversely if linear cost sharing arrangements are feasible decentralized authority often admits a socially optimal outcome while centralized authority with majority or unanimity rule does not

too big or too small a synthetic view of the commitment problem of interregional transfers abstract there is a growing body of literature on the commitment problem of interregional transfers the problem occurs because of an ex post bailout by a central government leading to ex ante adverse incentive consequences for a local government however different models have yielded different economic consequences the local government may be too large overspending and or overborrowing or it may be too small raising less of its own revenue in the presence of interregional spillovers the equilibrium may yield a pareto efficient outcome the present paper aims to synthesize these models developing a simple decentralized leadership model a critical question concerns what decision is made ex ante by the local government namely public expenditure or tax collection with the remaining policy instrument being residual adjusted by ex post transfers we discuss how different scenarios affect the equilibrium outcome

beyond ecolabels what green marketing can learn from conventional marketing ecolabels have emerged as one of the main tools of green marketing although a great deal of effort has been invested in making them more effective and efficient the market share of ecolabelled products is still low partly because they have been addressed mainly to green consumers in a theoretical exposition of marketing theory we find that green marketing could learn from conventional marketing in discovering other means than labelling to promote green products examples include addressing a wider range of consumers working with the positioning strategies of price place and promotion and actively engaging in market creation

income redistribution in a federal system the question of the appropriate level of government to undertake income redistribution is receiving renewed attention from economists the standard argument about the issue might be summarized as follows 1 interstate migration of taxpayers and transfer recipients raises the cost to voters of income redistribution at the state level above the cost at the federal level 2 statewide redistribution confers spillover benefits to residents of other states 3 therefore as compared with a national system decentralized responsibility for income redistribution yields both less redistribution and less than the socially optimal amount of income redistribution the purpose of this paper is only to question step 1 of the above argument of course readers who accept the assumptions of the standard argument may conclude that the possible weakening of step 1 of that argument reduces the likelihood that its conclusion holds the paper argues that the cost of redistribution faced by state residents may in fact be lower at the state level than at the national level because their federal tax obligations fall as the state redistributes more income thus part of the cost of redistribution at the state level can be exported to residents of other states the state s federal tax bill falls when taxable incomes in the state are reduced by increased redistribution deductibility of state taxes enhances this result but is not necessary for it to demonstrate the proposition without adding unnecessary complication a simple model of income redistribution is described in which governments at all levels use linear tax transfer schedules to redistribute income the single government case is considered first then two levels of government are introduced and finally migration is allowed it is shown that without migration state costs are never greater than national costs of redistribution as long as redistribution reduces total money income when migration is allowed the result depends on the elasticity of migration responses compared with the elasticity of labor supply responses

pure public goods and income redistribution in a federation with decentralized leadership and imperfect labor mobility abstract we examine the non cooperative provision of a pure public good by regional governments in a federation similar to the european union where regional governments are stackelberg leaders and the central government is a stackelberg follower a federation with decentralized leadership the center makes interregional income transfers after it observes the contributions to the pure public good imperfectly mobile workers react to regional and central governments policies by establishing residence in their most preferred region despite the degree of labor mobility we show that the pure public good and interregional transfers are generally allocated efficiently in a federation with decentralized leadership

temporal aggregation of univariate and multivariate time series models a survey abstract we present a unified and up to date overview of temporal aggregation techniques for univariate and multivariate time series models explaining in detail although intuitively the technical machinery behind the results some empirical applications illustrate the main issues

examining green consumerism motivational drivers does premium price and demographics matter to green purchasing environmental deterioration caused by consumers non sustainable consumption pattern is putting a strain on the environment and is hindering sustainable development in order to impede this effect and promote a more sustainable economy one solution is to reduce or shift consumption from conventional products to green products the unfortunate reality indicates that inadequate information on how to promote consumers green behavioral intention is slowing the growth of green markets such inadequacy appears as a prevailing obstacle facing firms while developing segments and communicating strategies for effectively promoting green products the mentioned impact is more prevailing and most experienced in countries like malaysia hence consumers behavioral intentions must be better understood in order to strengthen knowledge about fostering green purchases this study aims to determine the motivational factors that influence green purchasing intention and simultaneously assess the moderator roles of the premium price and demographic characteristics given that consumers degree of greenness varies a survey was administered and a total of 405 usable questionnaires were obtained structural equation modeling sem was applied to test the hypotheses results indicate that environmental attitude eco label and cultural value man nature orientation significantly influence the green purchase intention the result also indicates that the premium price has no moderating effect denying its role as one of the main barriers for consumers to walk their talk as it has previously been reported by studies and opinion polls in addition the findings revealed that education level and gender have a significant positive moderation effect this suggests that green purchase intentions motivational factors are greater among highly educated individuals especially with female consumers in particular this study contributes to the understanding of the main factors that motivate consumers intention to purchase green products in malaysia it also offers insights and discusses implementations for manufacturers marketers and policy makers concerned with the drivers that motivate consumers green purchasing intentions which require different marketing plan and strategy than conventional products

estimation of a model of entry in the airline industry this paper considers the effect of an airline s scale of operation at an airport on the profitability of routes flown out of that airport the empirical methodology uses the entry decisions of airlines as indicators of underlying profitability the results extend the empirical literature on airport presence by providing a new set of estimates of the determinants of city pair profitability these estimates imply that city pair profits increase in airport presence and decrease rapidly in the number of entering firms the literature on empirical models of oligopoly entry is also extended via a focus on the role of differences between firms

the integration of quality and safety concerns in the wine industry the role of third party voluntary certifications abstract over the past few years public attention has focused on the quality and safety control traceability and environmental issues surrounding food products several mandatory public standards and private voluntary schemes worldwide have been developed to address these concerns using survey data this paper analyses the key factors affecting the adoption of voluntary quality standards in the wine industry and the existence of a relationship between the adoption of voluntary quality standards and economic performance measured in terms of labour productivity and marketing behaviour the survey involved 89 cellars of which 68 were non certified and 21 had one or more food quality certifications using the data collected an index based on euclidean distances was constructed to compare economic performance between certified and non certified firms the findings provide evidence that internal motivations drive entrepreneurs to adopt voluntary standards and that wineries adopting voluntary standards exhibit better economic performance than non certified wine firms from a managerial viewpoint these results suggest that although the adoption of voluntary quality certifications does not have a direct effect in terms of a labour productivity increase it entails a business management improvement for policymakers the results suggest a need to develop policies and establish more stable financial assistance for the internationalisation of wine firms thereby supporting them through this transition

leveraging factors for sustained green consumption behavior based on consumption value perceptions testing the structural model changing lifestyle and consumption pattern being the aftermath of growth and urbanization is putting a strain on environment and sustainable development the consumption value perceptions are identified in the study as the drivers of sustained green product consumption and intention to pay the green price premium using the theory of consumption values these value perceptions are certain parameters measuring consumer utilities along multiple value dimensions impacting choice behavior environmental attitude contextual factors and consumer innovativeness were included as the first order constructs data was collected through survey based method using structured questionnaires structural equation modeling was applied for testing the hypothesized model results confirmed consumers price and knowledge perceptions to be the major determinants of the behavioral outcome of sustained green consumption and behavioral intention to pay the green price premium is the outcome of sustained green consumption implications of the research were discussed

why do banks merge the banking industry is consolidating at an accelerating pace yet no conclusive results have emerged on the benefits of mergers and acquisitions in order to investigate the motives and results of each type of deal we consider separately acquisitions that is the purchase of the majority of voting shares and mergers using italian data mergers seek to improve income from services but the increase is offset by higher staff costs return on equity improves because of a decrease in capital acquisitions aim to restructure the loan portfolio of the acquired bank improved lending policies result in higher profits

the rise of risk based pricing of mortgage interest rates in italy abstract this paper assesses how much mortgage interest rates in italy are priced on credit risk as proxied by the probability of household mortgage delinquency estimated using the eu silc database owing to data availability we restrict the analysis of mortgage pricing to italian households consistent with the more widespread use of credit scoring estimates indicate that italian lenders have increasingly priced mortgage interest rates on household credit risk for mortgages granted between 2000 and 2007 we find that a 1 point increase in the probability of default is associated with a 21 basis point rise in mortgage interest rates lower than the 38 basis point premium edelberg 2006 estimated for the us at the end of the 1990s

interregional spillovers in the presence of perfect and imperfect household mobility abstract when households are immobile across regions the decentralized provision of public goods that generate interregional benefit spillovers is inefficiently low we analyze this problem in an environment of interregional household migration and obtain the following results if households are perfectly mobile across regions then the decentralized provision of public goods generating spillovers is socially efficient there is no need for central government intervention if households are attached to particular regions for cultural or nationalistic reasons however at least one of two regions undersupplies the public good central government intervention can enhance efficiency

asymmetric information and imperfect competition in lending markets we study the effects of asymmetric information and imperfect competition in the market for small business lines of credit we estimate a structural model of credit demand loan use pricing and firm default using matched firm bank data from italy we find evidence of adverse selection in the form of a positive correlation between the unobserved determinants of demand for credit and default our counterfactual experiments show that while increases in adverse selection increase prices and defaults on average reducing credit supply banks market power can mitigate these negative effects

taxation and deadweight loss in a system of intergovernmental transfers intergovernmental transfer programs in many federal systems including canada attempt to equalize differences in subnational jurisdictions tax capacities on the basis of the so called representative tax system rts it is shown that rts equalization grants effectively compensate subnational governments for a portion of the deadweight loss associated with taxes and consequently the grants may tend to increase the distortionary tax rates chosen by subnational governments this may be the case even when equalization is confined to tax bases that themselves are nondistortionary such as the taxation of pure economic rents

altruism the samaritan s dilemma and government transfer policy this paper shows that altruism provides an efficiency rationale for public provision of insurance to the poor the framework is one in which there are rich altruists and risk averse poor who face some possibility of loss the government represents the rich and makes transfers on their behalf with unconditional transfers the poor may forgo insurance and rely on private charity to bail them out in the event of loss this reliance on private charity has adverse efficiency effects these may be avoided if the government makes in kind transfers of insurance copyright 1995 by american economic association

does environmental information overcome practice compartmentalisation and change consumers behaviours this paper questions the long held paradigm of consumers rationality as well as its corresponding policy tool the supply of information theoretical considerations as well as empirical evidence from a research on residential energy consumption in belgium show that both environmental information namely on climate change and customised advice to save energy at home are neither just taken in as such by consumers nor translated into corresponding practices in consumerist societies practice compartmentalisation and moods are indeed normalised mechanisms for not adopting green lifestyles that would threaten social normality as defined in valued networks c 2007 published by elsevier ltd

the labor market impact of immigration in western germany in the 1990 s in this article we estimate the wage and employment effects of recent immigration in western germany using administrative data for the period 1987 2001 and a labor market equilibrium model we find that the substantial immigration of the 1990s had very little adverse effects on native wages and on their employment levels instead it had a sizeable adverse employment effect on previous immigrants as well as a small adverse effect on their wages these asymmetric results are partly driven by a higher degree of substitution between old and new immigrants in the labor market and in part by the rigidity of wages in less than flexible labor markets in a simple counter factual experiment we show that in a world of perfect wage flexibility and no unemployment insurance the wage bill loss of old immigrants would be much smaller

the boundaries of the firm revisited why do firms exist what is their function and what determines their scope these remain the central questions in the economics of organization they are also central questions for business executives and corporate strategists the worldwide volume of corporate mergers and acquisitions exceeded 1 6 trillion in 1997 it is hard to imagine that so much time effort and investment bankers fees would be spent on adjusting firm boundaries unless there was some underlying economic gain indeed the exceptional levels of merger and acquisition activity over the past two decades are a strong indication that economically significant forces do determine organizational boundaries the study of firm boundaries originated with the famous essay by coase 1937 who raised the question of why we observe so much economic activity inside formal organizations if as economists commonly argue markets are such powerful and effective mechanisms for allocating scarce resources coase s answer was in terms of the costs of transacting in a world of imperfect information when the transaction costs of market exchange are high it may be less costly to coordinate production through a formal organization than through a market in large part thanks to the work of williamson 1975 1985 recent decades have seen a resurgence of interest in coase s fundamental insight that firm boundaries can be explained by efficiency considerations our understanding of firm boundaries has been sharpened by identifying more precisely the nature and sources of transaction costs in different circumstances in the process the focus of

tax competition in a fiscal union with decentralized leadership this paper examines capital tax competition in the presence of an interstate transfer policy without federal commitment lack of commitment implies that local tax policy is chosen prior to federal transfers the paper s main result is that ex post federal policy neutralizes horizontal fiscal externalities insulating tax policy from capital mobility federal policy however introduces a new source of inefficiency unrelated to tax competition specifically ex post transfer payments prove to be equivalent to an interstate revenue sharing system which may render federal intervention in the presence of fiscal externalities welfare deteriorating relative to tax competition

a simple dynamic decentralized leadership model with private savings and local borrowing regulation abstract this paper considers a simple dynamic decentralized leadership model with local borrowing and regional productivity enhancing investment in this model the central government is benevolent but cannot commit to ex post intergovernmental transfer policies while local governments act strategically after accounting for the ex post motives of the central government we then investigate inefficiency in the subgame perfect equilibrium we analyze the effect of central control on local borrowing and show that central control is of no benefit because ex ante local taxation works to offset it we find the model yields different policy implications that central control is effective when extended to the case of residential mobility

sustainable and responsible supply chain governance challenges and opportunities this paper introduces the special volume on sustainable and responsible supply chain governance as globalized supply chains cross multiple regulatory borders the firms involved in these chains come under increasing pressure from consumers ngos and governments to accept responsibility for social and environmental matters beyond their immediate organizational boundaries governance arrangements for global supply chains are therefore increasingly faced with sustainability requirements of production and consumption our primary objectives for this introductory paper are to explore the governance challenges that globalized supply chains and networks face in becoming sustainable and responsible and thence to identify opportunities for promoting sustainable and responsible governance in doing so we draw on 16 articles published in this special volume of the journal of cleaner production as well as upon the broader sustainable supply chain governance literature we argue that the border crossing nature of global supply chains comes with six major challenges or gaps in sustainability governance and that firms and others attempt to address these using a range of tools including eco labels codes of conduct auditing procedures product information systems procurement guidelines and eco branding however these tools are not sufficient by themselves to bridge the geographical informational communication compliance power and legitimacy gaps that challenge sustainable global chains what else is required the articles in this special volume suggest that coalition and institution building on a broader scale is essential through for example the development of inclusive multi stakeholder coalitions flexibility to adapt global governance arrangements to local social and ecological contexts of production and consumption supplementing effective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms with education and other programs to build compliance capacity and integration of reflexive learning to improve governance arrangements over time

the prospects of zero packaging grocery stores to improve the social and environmental impacts of the food supply chain increasing consumer awareness of the environmental and social externalities of food supply chains in developed countries instigates the opening of grocery stores that renounce the use of disposable plastic packaging for their entire product range the opportunities these novel stores offer in moving to an alternative more sustainable retail system are currently not well understood semi structured interviews with representatives of seven stores across europe and six food supply chain experts were conducted in order to address this gap findings suggest that these stores may induce more resource efficient behaviour in suppliers and consumers due to the reduction of packaging and food waste social benefits range from the support of small regional farmers to higher transparency along the supply chain and better informed consumers however these benefits come at the expense of consumer convenience due to slower shopping operations and limited product variety a wider adoption of zero packaging will require influencing consumer behaviour convincing suppliers to change their packaging practices and solving the dependency of food logistics on packaging in order to achieve wide ranging significant environmental and social benefits zero packaging stores will ultimately have to offer service levels that are comparable to conventional supermarkets potential pathways illustrating how zero packaging could overcome current market limitations are presented

private voluntary standards in the food system the perspective of major food retailers in oecd countries abstract the paper examines the main economic and institutional incentives which have driven major oecd food retailers in their use of private voluntary standards and discusses their growing role in shaping the agri food system it is based on interviews with quality and safety directors of major oecd retailers and a brief survey of retailers actual buyer practices though not all retailers are included these firms account for over 70 of retail food sales in oecd countries we find that the growing voice of civil society changing legal and institutional frameworks increased market concentration and buying power as well as their integration with financial markets has provided the setting for development of private standards while food safety and quality standards are seen as key to maintaining and improving reputation as well as against legal liabilities additional standards such as labour environmental and animal welfare are also gaining ground as strategies for customer loyalty and market shares the grass roots retailer move in the harmonization of food safety standards is seen as an initial step towards a global approach to managing the food system with harmonization of other standards likely in the future given their buyer power these developments can be viewed as a way of governing the food system and will be important for both oecd and non oecd food and agricultural sector evolution in the coming years

relationship lending hierarchical distance and credit tightening evidence from the financial crisis abstract this paper examines the firms credit availability during the 2007 2009 financial crisis using a dataset of 5331 bank firm relationships provided by borrowers credit folders of three italian banks it aims to test whether a strong lender borrower relationship can produce less credit rationing for borrowing firms even during a credit crunch period the results show that exclusivity of the relationship can mitigate the firm credit rationing we also verify the influence of lending organizational structure during crisis a new measure of distance in lending technologies has been introduced the hierarchical distance calculated as the distance between the branch that originates the loan and the location of the hierarchical level responsible for financing decision our findings document a negative impact of distance on credit availability consistent with the idea that proximity facilitates the transmission of soft information

debts and deficits with fragmented fiscal policymaking abstract this paper develops a political economic model of fiscal policy one in which government resources are a common property out of which interest groups can finance expenditures on their preferred items this setup has striking macroeconomic implications transfers are higher than a benevolent planner would choose them to be fiscal deficits emerge even when there are no reasons for intertemporal smoothing and in the long run government debt tends to be excessively high peculiar time profiles for transfers can emerge with high net transfers early on giving rise to high taxes later on

the changing structure of local credit markets are small businesses special abstract in many countries consolidation in the banking industry has reduced the number of small banks and led to significant shifts in market shares deregulation has fostered entry in local credit markets and the expansion of branch networks increasing competition in local markets small businesses are believed to be more vulnerable to these changes since they are more dependent on credit from local banks in this paper we investigate the consequences of consolidation and entry for these borrowers compared with those for large firms we employ a data set for italy which provides information on volumes of loans and bad loans by size of borrower with a detailed geographical partition we find that mergers are followed by a temporary reduction in outstanding credit to all sizes of borrowers and by an increase in bad loans most likely due to the reassessment of banks portfolios entry has a relatively persistent negative impact on credit supply to small and medium sized firms our results also show that concentration branch density and the share of branches of small banks affect the volumes of credit and bad loans of small borrowers