technology and transaction cost economics a reply abstract i argue here as i have previously that technology is neither fully determinative of nor irrelevant to economic organization transaction cost economizing occupies a prominent position in any effort to assess the efficacy of alternative forms of economic organization

are electricity prices affected by the us dollar to euro exchange rate the spanish case abstract the objective of this paper is to investigate the relationships between spanish electricity spot prices and the us dollar euro usd euro exchange rate during the period 2005 2007 taking into account the study of the association between dollar and oil prices in order to better understand the evolution of the former over time the first finding in this study is that spanish electricity spots prices the usd euro exchange rate and oil prices are cointegrated therefore there is a long run equilibrium relationship between the three variables short run relationships have been detected between oil prices and spanish electricity prices and usd euro exchange rate in the sense that spanish electricity prices and usd euro exchange rate are affected by oil prices in the short run there is a transmission of volatility between usd euro exchange rate and oil prices to spanish electricity prices so although spanish electricity prices are not affected in level by the movements of usd euro exchange rate they are in volatility in this kind of scenario the conclusions confirm that for countries so dependent on external causes as spain one possible solution for guarantying the energy security would be the promotion of the renewable energies therefore we cannot ignore the impact in the internal expenses of the cost of installation and generation of green energies so there must be a balance between the increase in renewables and the reasonable market price of the electricity

strategy research governance and competence perspectives business strategy is a complex subject and is usefully examined from several perspectives this paper applies the lenses of governance and competence to the study of strategy both the governance and the competence perspectives have had the benefit of distinguished antecedents they have also had to deal with tautological reputations i begin with the governance perspective with emphasis on the six key moves through which it has been operationalized i then examine the competence perspective in these same six respects governance challenges the competence perspective to apply itself more assiduously to operationalization including the need to choose and give definition to one or more units of analysis of which the routine is a promising candidate the research challenges posed by competence to which governance can and should respond include dynamic transaction costs learning and the need to push beyond generic governance to address strategy issues faced by particular firms with their distinctive strengths and disabilities a lively research future for these two perspectives individually and in combination is projected copyright 1999 john wiley sons ltd business strategy is an expansive enterprise not only do all of the functional areas in the business school relate but strategy is by nature interdisciplinary all of the social sciences especially economics and organization theory plus contract law are implicated indeed in the high technology arena where some of the most difficult strategy issues reside engineering and the law on intellectual property rights also have a bearing of the various approaches to the study of strategy this paper focuses on the governance and competence perspectives both perspectives combine economic reasoning with organization theory as between these two the governance

a model of competition in the solar panel industry we develop a model of competition in the solar panel industry solar firms manufacture panels that are differentiated both vertically and horizontally and compete by setting quantities the equilibrium of the model is consistent with a set of stylized facts that we document including variation in prices markups and market shares across firms we calibrate the model using a new dataset data on prices costs and shipments of leading solar companies as well as solar sales in four leading markets the calibrated model is applied to evaluate the impact of a decline in the price of polysilicon a key raw material used in the manufacture of solar panels on the equilibrium price of solar panels

does opec influence crude oil prices testing for co movements and causality between regional crude oil prices using high frequency data the co movements among crude oil prices are analysed in order to address the question of regionalization of the world crude oil market time series econometrics in the form of error correction modelling is applied for daily crude oil price data covering the time period 1988 to 2004 and in this framework topics like weak and strong exogeneity among three major oil prices represented by brent opec and texas wti are addressed the empirical results are that causality is most likely bi directional among these crude oil prices and hence rejecting a regionalization hypothesis of the global oil market and also an influence from the opec oil price towards bent and wti which are usually claimed to have a benchmark role

take or pay contract robustness a three step story told by the brazil bolivia gas case abstract neo institutional economics nei has long shown that take or pay top long term contracts provide a robust framework for safeguarding the interests of both upstream and downstream parties in the gas industry the case of gas trade between brazil and bolivia presents an opportunity to re examine empirically and to review the robust nature of the top framework over time this case reveals that the positions of the contractors actually change giving rise to a veritable lifecycle of the contractual arrangement such a contract can be seen to span three successive phases the first phase of the contract cycle begins when it is signed allowing the investments to begin the second phase starts when investments have been completed and the actual trade in gas begins the third phase of the contract cycle comes when the increasing flow of gas comes close to saturating capacity and the volume levels for downstream market volume have been reached these three contract phases are thus distinguished by how robust the alignment of the parties interests is the added value of the paper is then both empirical and analytical the case study provides a brand new lifecycle analysis of the performance of top long term contracting into an nei framework

the formal structure of a gender segregated low income economy abstract based upon insights drawn from research concerning the nature of the gender based division of labor in agrarian regions of developing countries a formal model is advanced of the interactions that take place in such a setting males are characterized as seeking to maximize their income from production of an exportable cash crop by drawing women out of household social maintenance activities by dint of coercion cooperation and compensation the paper also explores repercussions on the efficiency and output of the social maintenance or subsistence sector due to the loss of female laborpower to the male controlled export sector finally the impact of an international monetary fund mandated currency devaluation on an economy of this type is considered as well

economic restructuring gender and the allocation of time abstract a significant aspect of economic life takes place in an area of production largely ignored in standard macroeconomic analysis namely the household production of nonmarketed goods and services these household produced goods and services are vital for social reproduction and human development moreover there is a dynamic interaction between their production and that of the market economy as household members especially women must allocate their time between the two sets of economic activities section 2 provides some stylized facts about the nature and scope of nonmarket activities taking place within the household unit and how they relate to the market economy methodological issues concerning the measurement of the production of nonmarketed goods and services and of time use patterns are discussed in section 3 sections 4 and 5 examine the empirical evidence regarding the intensity of time devoted to nonmarket and market work by women and the resulting consequences on their well being as well as on the development of children there are longterm serious economic and welfare consequences of these responses that make such a topic an urgent one for both academics and policy makers alike a summary of the major points raised concludes the paper

the function of authority in transaction cost economics abstract this paper questions the transaction cost characterization of observed authority relations as efficient governance structures various inadequacies in the transaction cost account of work organization and the limits of firm size are traced to its neglect of the possibility that authority may be abused opportunistically this exemplifies a more general propensity in the transaction cost literature that of explaining economic organization in functionalist terms with little attention to the causal mechanisms through which efficient governance structures might actually arise three such mechanisms are considered but none is found to provide an adequate rationale for the imputation of efficiency to observed structures

gender inequality and economic growth a cross country analysis abstract this paper investigates empirically the determinants of economic growth for a set of semi industrialized export oriented economies in which women provide the bulk of labor in the export sector the primary hypothesis tested is that gender inequality which contributes to women s relatively lower wages was a stimulus to growth via the effect on exports during 1975 95 empirical analysis shows that gdp growth is positively related to gender wage inequality in contrast to recent work which suggests that income inequality slows growth evidence also indicates that part of the impact of gender wage inequality on growth is transmitted through its positive effect on investment as a share of gdp

methodologies and perspectives in research on labour relations in global agricultural production networks a review the integration of global south actors into the global agricultural economy has attracted research on labour effects this is because global south actors are often integrated at the level of produc

serious games in livelihood analysis reflections from the case of agricultural wage labourers in andhra pradesh abstract this article presents an approach to anticipating future livelihood portfolios through sherry ortner s model of serious games the value of the model is to draw attention to the always shifting purposes and intentions that direct people s lives within a social cultural and material context that differentially constrains and enables power is central to the approach and to the understanding of processes of social reproduction and transformation i use the model of serious games to examine the proposition that agricultural labour will become less important in the diverse livelihood portfolios of the rural poor in telangana region andhra pradesh india

why did the price of solar pv si feedstock fluctuate so wildly in 2004 2009 abstract great attention has been paid to the origin of observed wild price fluctuations of solar pv si feedstock in both contract and spot markets during 2004 2009 this paper sheds light on this issue and tries to resolve it by addressing the following questions what kind of structural shock is underlying the price fluctuations of pv si feedstock how can we quantify the magnitude timing and relative importance of these shocks what are their dynamic effects on the real price of pv si feedstock by carefully studying development conditions the structural decomposition of the real price of pv si feedstock is proposed exchange rate shocks production cost shocks aggregate demand shocks and demand shocks specific to feedstock markets with a structural vector autoregression model the paper quantifies and verifies the impact of structural shocks on pv si feedstock real price changes based on national data an analysis is further taken to confirm the essential role of demand shocks specific to feedstock markets in determining sharper price fluctuations during 2004 2009 the results of this study have important implications for national solar pv development which can be better promoted and administrated if structural shocks in feedstock markets can be carefully evaluated and understood

theoretical isolation and explanatory progress transaction cost economics and the dynamics of dispute two related goals are pursued first the development of and debates around oliver williamson s version of transaction cost economics are organised in terms of an emerging metatheoretical framework it proposes looking at economic theorising and its changes in terms of rival theoretical isolations which are often responses to challenging explanatory questions as a side product williamson s strategy of theorising is portrayed second using transaction cost economics as an illustration and as a source of inspiration the paper amends and refines the earlier framework of theoretical isolation by incorporating notions of explaining and explained items notions of progress in questions as well as increased causal penetration and increased degree of unification and the notion of the dynamics of dispute copyright 2004 oxford university press

network charging and residential tariffs a case of household photovoltaics in the united kingdom abstract currently about one million households in the united kingdom uk have installed solar photovoltaic pv panels with about two thirds of them are using the panels for self generating power according to the uk department of energy climate change solar pv deployment in the uk measured in megawatt has grown considerably from 95 mw in 2010 when the feed in tariff was introduced to 11 429 mw in 2016 the popularity of the solar pv among the uk households made the government to introduce major changes to the scheme our paper focuses on the two major questions could it be that the system already favours richer consumers or certain types of network user who do not bear either the efficient or fair share of the total system distribution and transmission costs does the apportionment of charges between fixed per kw peak and per kwh use of system charges need to be changed to be more cost reflective we employ the data from the smart meters readings provided by the customer led network revolution monitoring trial conducted with the 199 households in the northern england that provides the data for the household electricity use and tariff behaviour between october 2012 and july 2014 our analysis demonstrates that similar to other studies conducted around the world the increase in the solar pv resulted in a transfer of wealth and costs between customer groups due to their own production uk solar pv consumers yield a lower share of the per kwh costs of the distribution system which leads to the increase of per unit charges as well as the changes in the distribution of their payment between different types of households

work and empowerment women and agriculture in south india this article explores the implications of women s work in agriculture in telangana a region in the state of andhra pradesh india i suggest that higher capital costs for cultivators post liberalisation increased the pressure to contain wage costs in a region where women form the majority of the agricultural wage labour force under such conditions when women perform both own cultivation as well as agricultural wage work in the fields of others they face pressure to restrict bargaining for higher wages contributing to a widening gender wage gap to the extent that wages shape intra household bargaining power the empowering effect of workforce participation for such women would thus be blunted from available nss data i provide some preliminary evidence in support of this argument

international market integration for natural gas a cointegration analysis of prices in europe north america and japan this paper investigates the degree of integration of natural gas markets in europe north america and japan in the time period between the early 1990s and 2004 the relationship between international gas market prices and their relation to the oil price are explored through principal components analysis and johansen likelihood based cointegration procedure both of them show a high level of natural gas market integration within europe between the european and japanese markets as well as within the north american market at the same time the obtained results suggest that the european respectively japanese and the north american markets were not integrated

a critical assessment of transaction cost theory and governance of public services with special reference to water and sanitation this is a pre copyedited author produced version of an article accepted for publication in cambridge journal of economics following peer review the version of record hulya dagdeviren and simon a robertson a critical assessment of transaction cost theory and governance of public services with special reference to water and sanitation cambridge journal of economics vol 40 6 1707 1724 january 2016 is available online at https doi org 10 1093 cje bev079

take or pay contracts for renewables deployment abstract renewables require support policies to deliver the european 20 target we discuss the requirements for least cost development and efficient operation and quantify how different schemes i allow for the development of a renewable energy technology portfolio ii reduce rent transfers to infra marginal technologies or better than marginal resource bases and iii minimise regulatory risk and thus capital costs for new projects long term take or pay contracts minimise regulatory uncertainty create appropriate incentives for location and operation allow for efficient system operation and seem compatible with european state aid we discuss how property rights legislation protects existing renewables investors and thus can ensure ongoing investment during a transition towards the new scheme

transaction cost economics in real time this paper attempts to place the theq of the boundaries of thejirm within the context of the passage of time more precisely it resurrects and places in a modem frame some of the insights of the chsical and marshallian theories of organization the modem reinterpretation of those theories centers around the capabilities view of the jirm taken together with governance costs the capabilities ofjirm and market determine the boundaries of the jirm in the short run ovw time capabilities change as firms and markets learn which implies a kind of information or knowledge cost the cost of trandewing the firm s capability to the market w vice versa these dynamic governance costs are the costs of persuading negotiating and coordinating with and teaching others they arise in the face of change notably txchnological and organizational innovation in fit they are the costs of not having the capabilities you need when you need them dynamic transaction costs provide an explanation for vertical integration that is arguably more general than those dominant in the literature in the face of uncertainty and divwgent views ofthe future common ownership of multiple stages of production is a supwior institutional arrangement for coordinating systemic change asset specrfity is neither necessary nor suffient for this to be true dynamic governance costs may also affit internal organization it may sometimes be costly in 3 terms of persuasion negotiation and teaching to create within the firm capabilities readily available on the market indeed in cases in which systemic coordination is not 4 the issue the market may turn out to be the superior institution of coordination in e 2 genwal the capabilities view of the jirm suggests that we look atfim2 and market as alternative and sometimes overlapping institutions of learning 1 transaction costs in the long rzln and the short 9 x classical and neoclassical perspectives

competence and contract in the theory of the firm abstract the coase williamson response to the question why do firms exist is based on the idea that transaction costs in viable firms are lower than they would be if production was coordinated through the market the explanatory focus of this argument is on the diminution of costs related to transactions between given individuals however this ignores the possibility of activities which are in principle non contractible including aspects of the process of production further the reliance on comparative statics in transaction cost theory downplays the distinctive kind and rate of human learning that takes place within firms this paper argues that work on organizational learning and cultural transmission reinforces a competence based explanation of the existence and relative efficiencies of firms and this approach can also provide answers to the original question posed by coase accordingly the development of a research program involving a conjoint evaluation of both competence based and transaction cost approaches is proposed

household strategies and rural livelihood diversification this article reviews the recent literature on diversification as a livelihood strategy of rural households in developing countries with particular reference to sub saharan africa livelihood diversification is defined as the process by which rural families construct a diverse portfolio of activities and social support capabilities in order to survive and to improve their standards of living the determinants and effects of diversification in the areas of poverty income distribution farm output and gender are examined some policy inferences are summarised the conclusion is reached that removal of constraints to and expansion of opportunities for diversification are desirable policy objectives because they give individuals and households more capabilities to improve livelihood security and to raise living standards

supply response in an agrarian economy with non symmetric gender relations abstract there is a growing recognition that gender relations matter for supply response to devaluation and other structural adjustment policies in sub saharan africa but most household models that introduce gender differentiation nevertheless preserve an essential symmetry between male and female household members and do not capture elements of subordination or coercion in male female relations this paper seeks to contribute by developing a model based on stackelberg type equations in which the husband occupies the position of firstmover reflecting his power to set the parameters for women s choices the model is contextualized with reference to tanzania

growth and distress in a south indian peasant economy during the era of economic liberalisation this article analyses the impact of agricultural liberalisation on different farming classes in the region of telangana in south india the region has been witnessing significant growth in real agricultural output over the last 15 years at the same time as nss national sample survey household survey data indicate there have been significant welfare declines not only for marginal farmers and landless labour but for other groups as well there have also been more than a thousand farmer suicides between 1998 and 2002 i argue in this article that during the liberalisation period that is post 1990 agricultural growth and increased distress have become mutually intertwined i use the terms growth inducing distress and distress inducing growth to explain this apparent paradox