crisis or opportunity economic degrowth for social equity and ecological sustainability introduction to this special issue abstract this article reviews the burgeoning emerging literature on sustainable degrowth this is defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level in the short and long term the paradigmatic propositions of degrowth are that economic growth is not sustainable and that human progress without economic growth is possible degrowth proponents come from diverse origins some are critics of market globalization new technologies or the imposition of western models of development in the rest of the world all criticize gdp accounting though they propose often different social and ecological indicators degrowth theorists and practitioners support an extension of human relations instead of market relations demand a deepening of democracy defend ecosystems and propose a more equal distribution of wealth we distinguish between depression i e unplanned degrowth within a growth regime and sustainable degrowth a voluntary smooth and equitable transition to a regime of lower production and consumption the question we ask is how positive would degrowth be if instead of being imposed by an economic crisis it would actually be a democratic collective decision a project with the ambition of getting closer to ecological sustainability and socio environmental justice worldwide most articles in this issue were originally presented at the april 2008 conference in paris on economic degrowth for ecological sustainability and social equity this conference brought the word degrowth and the concepts around it into an international academic setting articles of this special issue are summarized in this introductory article hueting d alessandro and colleagues van den bergh kerschner spangenberg and alcott discuss whether current growth patterns are un sustainable and offer different perspectives on what degrowth might mean and whether and under what conditions it might be desirable matthey and hamilton focus on social dynamics and the obstacles and opportunities for voluntary social action towards degrowth lietaert and cattaneo with gavalda offer a down to earth empirical discussion of two practical living experiments cohousing and squats highlighting the obstacles for scaling up such alternatives finally van griethuysen explains why growth is an imperative in modern market economies raising also the question whether degrowth is possible without radical institutional changes

the value of fast fashion quick response enhanced design and strategic consumer behavior a fast fashion system combines quick response production capabilities with enhanced product design capabilities to both design hot products that capture the latest consumer trends and exploit minimal production lead times to match supply with uncertain demand we develop a model of such a system and compare its performance to three alternative systems quick response only systems enhanced design only systems and traditional systems which lack both enhanced design and quick response capabilities in particular we focus on the impact of each of the four systems on strategic or forward looking consumer purchasing behavior i e the intentional delay in purchasing an item at the full price to obtain it during an end of season clearance we find that enhanced design helps to mitigate strategic behavior by offering consumers a product they value more making them less willing to risk waiting for a clearance sale and possibly experiencing a stockout quick response mitigates strategic behavior through a different mechanism by better matching supply to demand it reduces the chance of a clearance sale most importantly we find that although it is possible for quick response and enhanced design to be either complements or substitutes the complementarity effect tends to dominate hence when both quick response and enhanced design are combined in a fast fashion system the firm typically enjoys a greater incremental increase in profit than the sum of the increases resulting from employing either system in isolation furthermore complementarity is strongest when customers are very strategic we conclude that fast fashion systems can be of significant value particularly when consumers exhibit strategic behavior this paper was accepted by yossi aviv operations management

violence during democratization and the quality of democratic institutions abstract this paper investigates the impact of violent civil conflicts during the process of democratization on the institutional quality of the emerging democracies we propose a theory of endogenous regime transition in which violent conflict can arise in equilibrium peaceful transitions lead to a social contract that provides all groups with political representation and leads to better protection of civil liberties than violent transitions empirical evidence from the third wave of democratization based on a difference in difference methodology supports the theoretical predictions the findings suggest that compared to peaceful transitions violent conflicts during the democratic transition have persistent negative effects on the institutional quality of the emerging democracies

the two freedoms economic growth and development an empirical study log linear methods are applied to categorical data containing economic freedom political freedom the level of income and the rate of economic growth for a panel of about 100 countries from 1975 to 1992 the main results are given economic freedom the rate of economic growth is independent of political freedom and the level of income given the level of income political freedom is independent of economic freedom and the growth rate the analysis suggests the fundamental effects of economic freedom in fostering economic growth and a high level of income as the condition of a high degree of political freedom

circular economy at the micro level a dynamic view of incumbents struggles and challenges in the textile industry the circular economy ce has received considerable attention as an approach that promises to reconcile ecological systems and economic growth in spite of its increased popularity little is known about the implementation struggles of incumbent firms across industrial sectors furthermore although the notion of circular production systems is at the intersection of different research areas such as sustainable product design sustainable supply chains and reverse logistics knowledge on how these concepts combine to ease or impede firms transition towards circularity is scarce to shed light on these gaps i used multiple case studies from cradle to cradle certified companies in the textile industry in europe by employing qualitative research i identified a set of factors along the textile value chain from product design to take back and reprocessing that are crucial in expediting or delaying a firm s aspirations to develop a circular product the main contribution of this paper is the dynamic understanding of how certain collaborative supplier buyer innovation factors i e supply chain position power balance and a shared vision coupled with complex aspects in product design namely in basic materials architecture and functionality combine to determine the output speed and quantity of circular products to be sold taken back and ultimately regenerated

a rentier theory of subnational regimes fiscal federalism democracy and authoritarianism in the argentine provinces levels of subnational democracy vary significantly within countries around the world drawing on fiscal theories of the state the author argues that this variance is often explained by a type of rentierism that is not geographically determined by natural resources but politically created by certain fiscal federalism arrangements he posits that less democratic regimes are more likely in rentier provinces those that receive disproportionately large central government transfers and practically forgo local taxation intergovernmental revenue sharing rules that produce large vertical fiscal imbalances and favor the economically smaller districts provide their incumbents with generous fiscal federalism rents that allow them to restrict democratic contestation and weaken checks and balances statistical evidence from a panel data set of the argentine provinces strongly confirms this expectation even after controlling for standard alternative explanations such as level of development sensitivity analysis shows that this finding is extremely robust to alternative panel estimators qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that the effect of heavy public spending on the economic autonomy of political actors is the main causal mechanism at work

sufficiency or efficiency to achieve lower resource consumption and emissions the role of the rebound effect a frequent criticism of eco efficiency strategies is that an increase in efficiency can be offset by the rebound effect sufficiency is discussed as a new strategy involving self imposed restriction of consumption but can also be subject to the rebound effect we show that the range of possible secondary effects of efficiency and sufficiency strategies goes beyond the rebound effect the rebound effect can indeed also be linked to eco sufficiency strategies but there are further secondary effects of both eco efficiency and eco sufficiency strategies such as double dividend effects we develop an eco efficiency sufficiency matrix to logically order eco efficiency and sufficiency measures to attain lower resource consumption and emissions

oligarchy democracy inequality and growth abstract this paper analyses the dynamics of inequality democratization and economic development in a political economy model of growth where education is both the engine of growth and a determinant of political participation in a context with imperfect capital markets we investigate the incentives for an educated oligarchy to subsidize the poor s education and to initiate a democratic transition we characterize the equilibrium patterns of political institutions income distribution and growth as a function of the initial income and inequalities in particular we identify circumstances under which the elite promotes the endogenous emergence of a middle class for purely political economy reasons a simple linear infinite horizon framework is then presented in this setting we discuss the importance of historical dependence for long run social stratification and redistribution

on the industrial ecology potential in asian developing countries abstract this paper focuses on the current situation in the adaptation and adoption of industrial ecology in asian developing countries adcs the objective of this paper is to consider the possibilities to develop an eco industrial development eid strategy for these developing countries we review the regional indigenous resources of adcs and use the strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats swot grouping to classify the preconditions of industrial ecology in adcs the authors of this paper argue that unlike the usual way of applying industrial ecology as a technical tool or a practical instrument adcs need to adopt industrial ecology as a strategic vision and as a strategic approach to plan the economic social and ecological development of their national economies in this way it can be possible for the adcs to avoid the same problems that occurred when the developed countries experienced industrialization and rapid economic growth and move toward more sustainable development

how do scholars approach the circular economy a systematic literature review abstract circular economy ce aims to overcome the take make dispose linear pattern of production and consumption proposing a circular system in which the value of products materials and resources is maintained in the economy as long as possible in recent years there has been a proliferation of scholars publications on the topic this study presents the results of a systematic literature review exploring the state of the art of academic research on ce the paper examines the ce body of literature with a systematic approach to provide an exhaustive analysis of the phenomenon with rigorous and reproducible research criteria the revisited material consists of 565 articles collected through the web of science and scopus databases and has been evaluated using specific structural dimensions to group literature into analytical categories starting from being a concept studied in connection with industrial ecology ce has slowly acquired its independent role in academic research framed mainly into environmental sustainability related studies as a result of policies implementation academic production is mainly concentrated in china and europe employing tools and methods for modelling processes and supporting decision making for ce implementation e g life cycle assessment and material flow analysis ce studies follow three main lines of action the first aims to change the social and economic dynamics at macro and administrative level the second to support firms in circular processes implementation at micro level to spread new forms of consumption and product design the third developed at meso level discusses industrial symbiosis experiences ce is associated with a variety of concepts and waste management emerges as the most relevant sub sector ce is also strongly connected with the concept of sustainability proposing ways to operationalize its implementation at the environmental and economic level while scholars only marginally consider social and institutional implications the most explored practices are those related to cleaner production aiming at reducing environmental impact and waste production along the life cycle of a product and optimizing the performance and efficiency of processes conversely studies on ce may devote greater attention to strategies for social and institutional changes able to transform the upstream process of production and consumption considering business model strategies scholars mainly focus on studying closing material loops strategy while slowing the loops which requires a radical change of consumption and production patterns is only marginally included with respect to ce implementation this study s findings highlight ce as an evolving concept that still requires development to consolidate its definition boundaries principles and associated practices

evidencing the waste effect of product service systems psss this paper adopts a waste centric analysis of product service systems psss to demonstrate that they do not automatically contribute to a dematerialization of the economy a decoupling of production from material and energy consumption and thus a transition toward sustainability a qualitative analysis of various nordic fashion psss that uses a combination of tukker s 2004 classification of psss and the european waste hierarchy model demonstrates that the waste effect of a pss is independent of its being product oriented use oriented or result oriented rather the effect depends on how the business model of the pss organizes material flows at production distribution use and post consumption stages in relationship to prevailing waste regimes where the pss operates we suggest that if a pss is to reduce its waste effect and contribute to dematerialization its business model should design material flows that fit with the prevailing waste regimes within the area it operates and prioritize waste prevention before considering reuse recycling energy recovery and landfilling

on market integration and the development of institutions the case of international commercial arbitration abstract this paper suggests that the institutional basis necessary to support efficient international trade is provided not only by treaties among national governments but also by international coalitions of private agents international commercial arbitration is an important example of these private coalitions the paper reviews the provisions and the practice of international arbitration and presents a general equilibrium model of the relationship between the expansion of international trade and the adoption of arbitration the model shows that arbitration alters the size and composition of markets while at the same time responding to exogenous changes in trade

the coevolution of economic and political development from monarchy to democracy this article establishes a unified political economy model to analyze the democratization process from monarchy to oligarchy and to democracy in the context of dynamic economic development as the predominant source of wealth evolves from land to physical capital and finally to human capital the relative economic and hence coercive power of land owners capitalists and workers shifts accordingly inducing the transition of the political system where political power is expanded from landlords to capitalists and finally to workers a smooth transition through political compromise facilitates efficient allocation of savings in physical capital followed by efficient investment in human capital

explaining ijv survival in a transitional economy through social exchange and knowledge based perspectives in this study we combine social exchange and knowledge based perspectives to develop a general path model of ijv survival we further refine our expectations by considering the transitional economic context of our study and the somewhat unique managerial values resulting from the legacy of marxist ideology results from structural equation modeling suggest that an imbalance in the management control structure between the parents leads to parental conflict and an increased likelihood of ijv failure an imbalance in the ownership control structure however had no influence on conflict or survival in general support from the foreign parent is positively related to ijv learning and ijv survival however higher levels of technical support provided by the foreign parent to the ijv reduced the level of parental conflict whereas management support had no effect on conflict our results suggest some dilemmas for firms pursuing ijvs in transitional economies although the foreign parent often contributes critical resources to the ijv providing it with bargaining power and a high level of influence an imbalance in management control between the partners may ultimately be detrimental to ijv survival copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

intermediaries and innovation support in the design for sustainability field cases from the netherlands turkey and the united kingdom abstract companies face challenges and need support when applying specific knowledge to their innovation processes such as design for sustainability the providers of innovation support in innovation systems are intermediaries while the literature on intermediaries focuses on various roles and approaches the way in which intermediaries function in specific fields such as design for sustainability remains underexplored this paper investigates how intermediaries provide innovation support in the design for sustainability field today with a focus on the services and support they offer the approaches and drivers that shape them as well as the challenges of the intermediation process particularly concerning sustainability and design to do this 14 intermediaries from the netherlands the united kingdom and turkey were investigated through case studies the role of design in support processes especially during implementation the importance and types of collaborations among various actors of innovation systems and the emergence of a new type of intermediary that promises radical innovation in sustainability are among the findings in addition based on the empirical data we suggest a framework for describing the roles and attributes of a group of five intermediaries that meets the needs of all types of companies engaged in design for sustainability finally we offer suggestions for turkey on how to raise the capacity of its intermediaries operating in the design for sustainability field which might be applicable to other similar contexts as well this study contributes to the theory and practice of innovation support in the sustainability field from which all innovation system s actors especially intermediaries and governmental institutions might benefit in designing support programs

contractual incompleteness and the optimality of equity joint ventures firms engaged in the pooling of complementary skills often choose the equity joint venture ejv over alternative profit sharing arrangements this paper addresses the issue of how equity shares are different from profit shares it is shown that in settings of contractual incompleteness marketable equity ownership when compared to non transferable profit sharing contracts provides better ex ante incentives to the parties involved by mitigating ex post hold up problems among other things the prevalence of the 51 49 or 50 50 ejv in which one party has 51 percent or 50 percent equity shares is explained

institutional incentives in circular economy transition the case of material use in the dutch textile industry the aim of this paper is to gain insight into how requirements for transitioning to circular economy creates new organizational forms in inter firm collaborations and ultimately how they stimulate the emergence of new institutions enhancing sustainability two strands of literature one on circular economy and one on institutional analysis provide the theoretical background for this research currently a clearly formulated and unified theory on the institutions of circular economy is lacking therefore this research compares and contrasts empirical evidence from cases derived from the textile industry in the netherlands and concepts derived from institutional analysis and literature on circular economy to inductively build a cohesive conceptual framework using information from cases we identified two pathways to transition into circular economy and to manage circular material flows we define these pathways status quo arrangements sq when firms focus on optimizing up cycling technologies and infrastructure in their circular relations and collaborations and product as service arrangements pas to indicate a focus on providing products in service contracts chain coordination contracting and financial mechanisms were identified as key organizational elements for creating new pathways to transition into circular materials flows however in analyzing these elements we also highlight differences between sq and pas arrangements sq arrangements may have implications at the level of formal rules for example by creating a new industry standards for up cycled fabrics pas arrangements may have wider implications for example by reshaping ownership in service contracts and creating cascading activities moving ownership to the supply chain will result in increased responsibility for materials and will create an incentive for improving quality of products including their environmental performance this is expected to generate positive socio environmental impacts at a system level as well moreover pas arrangements may have bottom up effects at a formal institutional level resulting in alteration and creation of formal rules for example in terms of new approaches to the ownership of materials

the role of the business model in capturing value from innovation evidence from xerox corporation s technology spin off companies this paper explores the role of the business model in capturing value from early stage technology a successful business model creates a heuristic logic that connects technical potential with the realization of economic value the business model unlocks latent value from a technology but its logic constrains the subsequent search for new alternative models for other technologies later on an implicit cognitive dimension overlooked in most discourse on the topic we explore the intellectual roots of the concept offer a working definition and show how the xerox corporation arose by employing an effective business model to commercialize a technology rejected by other leading companies of the day we then show the long shadow that this model cast upon xerox s later management of selected spin off companies from xerox parc xerox evaluated the technical potential of these spin offs through its own business model while those spin offs that became successful did so through evolving business models that came to differ substantially from that of xerox the search and learning for an effective business model in failed ventures by contrast were quite limited

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

waste management policies for industrial symbiosis development case studies in european countries industrial symbiosis is emerged as a self organizing business strategy among firms that are willing to cooperate to improve their economic and environmental performance the adoption of such cooperative strategies relates to increasing costs of waste management most of which are driven by policy and legislative requirements development of is depends on an enabling context of social informational technological economical and political factors the power to influence this context varies among the agents involved such as the government businesses or coordinating entities governmental intervention as manifested through policies could influence a wider range of factors and we believe this is an area which is under researched this paper aims to critically appraise the waste policy interventions from supra national to sub national levels of government a case study methodology has been applied to four european countries i e denmark the uk portugal and switzerland in which is emerged or is being fostered the findings suggest that there are commonalities in policy instruments that may have led to an is enabling context the paper concludes with lessons learnt and recommendations on shaping the policy context for is development

towards a national circular economy indicator system in china an evaluation and critical analysis abstract it is widely acknowledged that china s economic miracle has been achieved at the expense of its natural capital and environment in order to deal with this problem the circular economy ce has been chosen as a national policy for sustainable development national laws and regulations have been enacted to facilitate the implementation of ce and national ce demonstration projects have been initiated such that national benchmarking activities could be completed china is the first country to release nationally focused ce indicators so that objective and credible information on the status of ce implementation can be recognized these ce indicators are valuable metrics for policy and decision makers and can help achieve ce goals and outcomes this unique indicator system has not been communicated to international communities this paper aims to more broadly introduce this unique national ce indicator system china s ce efforts are first detailed with various provisions of the national indicator system a critical analysis of such an indicator system is presented we show that certain benefits can be gained but substantive revision is also needed due to the lack of a comprehensive set of sustainability indicators which should include social business indicators urban industrial symbiosis absolute material energy reduction and prevention oriented indicators concerns related to barriers on implementation are also presented in this paper the knowledge gained from chinese efforts on ce indicators are valuable to both developed and developing nations seeking to implement sustainable development measures within their regulatory policies

in defence of degrowth abstract this article defends the proposal of sustainable degrowth a starting premise is that resource and co2 limits render further growth of the economy unsustainable if degrowth is inevitable the question is how it can become socially sustainable i e a prosperous and stable rather than a catastrophic descent pricing mechanisms alone are unlikely to secure smooth adaptation a full ensemble of environmental and redistributive policies is required including among others policies for a basic income reduction of working hours environmental and consumption taxes and controls on advertising policies like these that threaten to harm the economy are less and less likely to be implemented within existing market economies whose basic institutions financial property political and redistributive depend on and mandate continuous economic growth an intertwined cultural and political change is needed that will embrace degrowth as a positive social development and reform those institutions that make growth an imperative sustainable degrowth is therefore not just a structuring concept it is a radical political project that offers a new story and a rallying slogan for a social coalition built around the aspiration to construct a society that lives better with less

a dynamic theory of the transition to democracy abstract a model of the transition to democracy is presented within a dynamic general equilibrium framework we demonstrate that democratic transitions occur endogenously in the course of economic growth or with economic contraction being fundamentally driven by the economic position of the middle class democratic transitions can occur rapidly or slowly because the autocrat faces an informational asymmetry regarding the effect of his policies on the political economic environment the model shows that the primary factors affecting the speed of democratic transitions are inequality the planning horizon of the autocrat the autocrat s perceived legitimacy and the rate of economic growth

why are we growth addicted the hard way towards degrowth in the involutionary western development path abstract by questioning the origins of the inertia facing the degrowth movement this contribution identifies property as the constitutive institution of capitalism and property expansion as the dominant socioeconomic process leading world societies to economic path dependence techno institutional lock in and eco social impasse demonstrating why and how property based economic rationality subordinates ecological and social considerations to capitalist requirements this paper stresses both the need for an inversion in the hierarchy of social norms and the systemic opposition to such an inversion which emanates from the capitalist industrial expansion the text also brings to light some disregarded processes underlying the current economic crisis by pointing out the institutional and technological locked in situation into which the western development path has led our societies

revenue sharing and control rights in team production theories and evidence from joint ventures this paper presents a model of the joint venture that is grounded in the stylized facts we found from a sample of 200 joint venture contracts the model incorporates the revenue sharing contract into the incomplete contract frameworks of grossman hart moore property rights theory and the transaction cost theory of the firm and emphasizes the impact of expropriation joint control can be optimal as well as unilateral control our econometric analysis of the revenue sharing and control arrangements offers strong support to our property rights theory motivated model with self investment but rejects that with cooperative investment the transaction cost theory motivated model leaves some important empirical findings unexplained our findings also reject some of the existing theories of joint ownership

double sided moral hazard and the nature of share contracts contractual arrangements involving revenue profit sharing are often based on fairly simple often linear rules in addition in many contexts these contracts are not finely adjusted to the particular circumstances of individual agents or markets nor do they vary over time to the extent current theories based on optimal contracting suggest they should we develop a simple model of such revenue or profit sharing arrangements based on double sided moral hazard and show that this model can account for many of these stylized facts more specifically the model shows that linear contracts can be optimal and that benefits from customizing terms can in some cases be quite limited if not zero

causes of the difficulties in internationalization we study the causes of the difficulties faced by firms when they internationalize in search of new markets we build on the resource based theory to argue that the difficulties in internationalization can be separated into three main sets based on their relationship to advantage loss of advantage provided by resources transferred abroad creation of a disadvantage by resources transferred abroad and lack of complementary resources required to operate abroad in each set we further distinguish difficulties that are specific to a firm from those that are common to a set of firms we argue that only a few of the resulting types of difficulties of internationalization are exclusive to the cross border expansion and propose solutions that address the root cause of each type

eco industrial park initiatives in the usa and the netherlands first lessons abstract since the introduction of the industrial ecology concept by frosch and gallopoulos in 1989 and the apparent success of the kalundborg industrial symbiosis project attention to planned eco industrial park eip development projects has grown all over the world this article includes data from six of these eip development projects three of the projects discussed are located in the netherlands and three in the us this article compares the differences in project approach and results on a national level the approach suggested is derived from the available eip development literature initial research indicates that the dutch eip projects are more successful than their us counterparts this difference in success can be mostly attributed to the fact that the us projects are initiated by local and regional governments that see the project as a way to improve the local regional economy with access to substantial government funds because of this heavy government involvement us companies are in general not interested in the project the more successful dutch projects on the other hand are mostly initiated by the companies themselves with financial and advisory support from the local and regional government

the impact of economic development on democracy any account of the social and economic conditions of democracy must come to terms with the central finding of the cross national statistical research a sturdy though not perfect association between economic development and democracy to tackle these questions of causation we adopted a strategy of analytic induction based on comparative historical research our program of comparative historical research confirmed the conclusion of the cross national statistical analyses of the correlates of political democracy the level of economic development is causally related to the development of political democracy however the underlying reason for the connection in our view is that capitalist development transforms the class structure enlarging the working and middle classes and facilitating their self organization thus making it more difficult for elites to exclude them politically simultaneously development weakens the landed upper class democracy s most consistent opponent

determinants of democracy a panel study of over 100 countries from 1960 to 1995 finds that improvements in the standard of living predict increase in democracy as measured by a subjective indicator of electoral rights the propensity for democracy rises with per capita gdp primary schooling and a smaller gap between male and female primary attainment for a given standard of living democaracy tends to fall with urbnization and with a greater reliance on natrual resources democracy has little relation to country size but rises with the middle class share of income the apparently strong relation of democracy to colonial heritage mostly disappears when the economic variables are held constant similarly the allowance for these economic variables weakens the interplay between democracy and religious affiliation however negative effects from muslim and non religious affiliations remain intact

climate change mitigation potential of norwegian households and the rebound effect abstract an increasing number of studies show that efficiency improvements alone will not be sufficient to attain the substantial emission reductions needed to mitigate global warming to a target of 2 c consumption side changes are likely to be needed to achieve sufficient emission reductions the united nations emphasize the importance of developed countries taking the lead in lowering emissions to achieve the sustainable development goals this paper assess to what extent norwegian households can lower their carbon footprint consistent with territorial emission reductions towards the 2 c target of global warming through implementing a set of behavioral actions we evaluate the efficacy of the set of actions both initially and after considering rebound effects a multiregional environmentally extended input output database is linked with the norwegian consumer expenditure survey to analyze both average and marginal expenditure per unit of increased income further linear programming is applied to examine the changes needed by households to reach different emission reduction targets we find that households implementing the full set of actions without re spending can obtain a 58 decrease in their carbon footprint when accounting for the effect of re spending this reduction drops to 24 35 which is not within the requirements of the 2 c target the optimization analysis suggests households can achieve reductions up to 45 by restricting re spending to specific goods and services this indicates that curbing the rebound effect is key to achieving real reductions in household carbon footprints we show that changing consumption patterns can significantly contribute to lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions without compromising the level of economic activity

the history and current applications of the circular economy concept abstract the challenges of balancing industrial development environmental and human health and economic growth in china and elsewhere in the world are drivers for recent resource use and low carbon development strategies that include the application of the circular economy ce concept a central theme of the ce concept is the valuation of materials within a closed looped system with the aim to allow for natural resource use while reducing pollution or avoiding resource constraints and sustaining economic growth the objectives of this study are 1 to review the history of the ce concept to provide a context for 2 a critical examination of how it is applied currently thematic categories are used to organize the literature review results including policy instruments and approaches value chains material flows and products and technology organizational and social innovation the literature review illustrates the variability in ce project success and failure over time and by region ce successes key challenges and research gaps are identified the literature review results provide useful information for researchers as well as multi stakeholder groups who seek to define the ce concept in practical terms and to consider potential challenges and opportunities it presents when implemented

corruption and cross border investment in emerging markets firm level evidence abstract this paper studies the joint impact of corruption on the entry mode and volume of inward foreign direct investment fdi using a unique firm level data set we find that corruption not only reduces inward fdi but also shifts the ownership structure towards joint ventures the latter finding supports the view that corruption increases the value of using a local partner to cut through the bureaucratic maze however r d intensive firms are found to favor sole ownership

contracting institutions and ownership structure in international joint ventures abstract this paper examines the role of contracting institutions on a multinational firm s optimal ownership strategy we develop a model in which both a multinational firm and its local joint venture partner can ex post engage in costly rent seeking actions to increase their ex ante agreed upon revenue share we show that the host country s level of contract enforcement and level of judicial favoritism affect the parties incentives to contribute to the international joint venture the model allows us to identify testable hypotheses relating these institutional features with the performance and optimal ownership structure of international joint ventures

product services as a research field past present and future reflections from a decade of research in the last decade many researchers institutes and programs in the eu paid attention to product service systems pss given this massive effort it is time to take stock is pss research a theoretical field in its own right is the pss concept indeed the road to the factor 10 world is it the road to enhanced competitiveness what is needed to really use the potential of the concept this paper discusses these questions summarizing the analysis done in the pss review book new business for old europe various eu sponsored projects and the conceptual approach chosen in a new research network on sustainable consumption and production called score 2006 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the role of freedom growth and religion in the taste for revolution a fundamental question about the determinants of civil conflict is the relative importance of political freedoms versus economic development this paper takes a new approach to provide an answer by using micro data based on surveys of revolutionary tastes of 130 000 people living in 61 nations between 1981 and 1997 controlling for personal characteristics country and year fixed effects more freedom and economic growth both reduce revolutionary support losing one level of freedom equivalent to a shift from the us to turkey increases support for revolt by 4 percentage points to reduce support by the same amount requires adding 14 percentage points onto the gdp growth rate being muslim in a free country has no effect on the probability of supporting revolt compared to a non religious person however being muslim in a country that is not free increases it by 13 percentage points being christian in a free country decreases the chance of supporting revolt by 4 percentage points compared to a non religious person and in a not free country by 1 percentage point

national competitive advantage and the roles of economic and political freedom evidence from hong kong the equivocal interrelationships between economic performance and the institu tions of respectively economic and political freedom are examined using data from firms op erating in hong kong an economy where both an erstwhile paramount international business reputation for competitiveness and the institutional basis on which it was predicated have come into question in recent years it is hypothesized that i both economic and political freedom declines will be associated with a proxy for future economic performance competitiveness decline but that ii the correlation of economic freedom declines with competitiveness de cline will be mediated by political freedom declines hierarchical regression analyses tend to support these hypotheses although results vary by firm origin

law trade and development abstract this paper uses a ricardian model to generate predictions about the influence of institutions on trade in differentiated complex and commoditized simple products and then uses a rich international trade data set for empirical tests the model draws the distinction between the role of international transaction costs and domestic production costs in the trade of complex and simple products the effects of institutions predicted by the model are identified with a three step estimation procedure we find that when countries have low quality institutions institutional reform primarily influences production costs and has little influence on the volume of trade institutional reform however increases the diversity of exports in complex goods markets conversely in countries with more developed institutions institutional reform primarily influences transaction costs and is associated with gains in the volume and the diversity of complex exports

split management control and international joint venture performance a framework is presented to characterize four different ways in which management control is partitioned between a multinational enterprise mne and local partners within international joint ventures jvs split control management shared management mne partner dominant management and local partner dominant management the framework was tested using a sample of international jvs in korea we found that jvs following the split control management performed better than any other approach no performance differences were found among the remaining three types of management control this suggests that mnes and local partners should split control that is choose the activities to control so that those chosen activities can be matched with their respective firm specific advantages

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

a circular economy system for breaking the development dilemma of ecological fragility economic poverty vicious circle a ceeps sd analysis abstract in nowadays there are a large number of regions in the world facing with double pressures of ecological fragility and economic poverty in these regions if human choose traditional development mode to constantly exploited natural resources for developing economy the environment will be hardly destroyed or polluted and finally cause larger economic loss and make poverty more serious it formed a development dilemma of environmental fragility economic poverty vicious circle fpvc how to break fpvc has been the goal being pursued in the literature worldwide in this study we constructed a circular economy effect and policy simulation system dynamics ceeps sd model evaluated the ecological economic comprehensive effects and simulated the future development trends of the circular economy system ces which we have planned constantly tracked and improved in anding district of northwest china for 16 years that is a typical fpvc area the evaluation and simulation results notably evidenced that the ces had four ecological economic benefits livestock faeces pollution elimination water saving agricultural waste recycling as well as energy conservation and emission reduction through long term and stable operation the ces can expand its ecological economic comprehensive benefits constantly and finally eliminate the double pressures of ecological fragility and economic poverty this study could help large number similar fpvc areas in the world to scientifically build manage evaluate simulate and optimize ces for getting rid of fpvc and achieving sustainable development which has important theoretical significance and practical value

do civil and political repression really boost foreign direct investments multinational enterprises are often accused of having a preference for investing in countries in which the working populations civil and political rights are largely disregarded this article presents an empirical investigation of the popular political repression boosts fdi hypothesis and arrives at the conclusion that the hypothesis is not supported on the contrary multinational enterprises rather appear to be attracted by countries in which civil and political freedom is respected

environmental and economic gains of industrial symbiosis for chinese iron steel industry kawasaki s experience and practice in liuzhou and jinan with material and energy flow features iron steel industry has unique advantage in the industrial symbiosis is formation to realize environmental and economic benefit simultaneously the quantification of the scale and significance of is benefits is valuable for is promotion while there is much few attention to it especially in china under this circumstance this paper evaluates and compares the number scale and the related environmental economic gains of is activities in iron steel centered industrial areas in liuzhou and jinan in china and kawasaki in japan results show that in liuzhou there are three symbiosis activities between industries the annual by product waste exchange is more than 2 million ton y gaining economic revenue more than 36 55 million usd for the iron steel company in jinan seven symbiotic links are between industries and two are between urban community and iron steel plant the total by product waste exchange is over 8 million ton y and the economic gains account to 158 million usd in kawasaki iron steel industry relates to four symbiotic links the total by product waste exchange amount is about 500 kton y with the economic gains over 54 million usd the form and the complexity of the is network are different in the three cases is in liuzhou and jinan are with the features of large number and scale but single types while in kawasaki is includes not only traditional exchanges between iron steel plant and the other industries but also the innovative utilization of urban refuse by industrial area finally from the perspective of technology legislative framework and support policy circular technology inventory integrated waste management system information platform and national subsidies are needed to support the ever improvement of is promotion in china s iron steel industry c 2013 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

toward a research agenda for policy intervention and facilitation to enhance industrial symbiosis based on a comprehensive literature review the normative question what role should governmental policy play to facilitate the development of industrial symbiosis has received considerable attention of researchers however for several reasons the effects of governmental policy actions on industrial symbiosis are still not clear this article proposes a research agenda to clarify the mechanisms of policy intervention and facilitation of industrial symbiosis based on a comprehensive review of industrial symbiosis literature focusing on how policy is conceptualized and studied the results show that existing research lacks an explicit definition of policy and employs a static conceptualization of policy that is reinforced by comparative statics research methods we argue that a dynamic process perspective is crucial to reveal the actual mechanisms through which policy intervention and facilitation affect the evolution of industrial symbiosis building on this view industrial symbiosis research is connected with insights from policy sciences and the case of policy translation of circular economy and eco industrial park in china is investigated in order to illustrate that policy is at heart a dynamic process we conclude with a research agenda proposing that the key to reveal the mechanisms is to identify the sequence of events connecting policy process and industrial symbiosis practices

industrial symbiosis and the policy instruments of sustainable consumption and production abstract industrial symbioses iss and eco industrial parks eips are key concepts of industrial ecology ie the aim of iss and eips is to minimise inefficient material and energy use by utilising local by product and energy flows industrial symbioses tend to develop through spontaneous action of economic actors for gaining of economic benefit but these systems can be designed and promoted via policy instruments as well a literature review showed that national programmes for eco industrial parks can be found in different parts of the world in the action programmes and other sustainable consumption and production scp policy documents of the eu on the other hand industrial symbioses gain less recognition as a path to enhanced sustainable production in this article we consider this and also analyse how the evolution and environmental performance of an industrial symbiosis system centred on a finnish pulp and paper mill have been affected by scp policy instruments with regard to the system forming the subject of the case study and finnish industrial systems in general policy instruments have succeeded in reducing emissions but not in systematically encouraging operators toward symbiosis like activities all in all few studies exist on the overall impact of policy instruments promoting design of eco industrial parks it is not self evident that symbiosis like production systems would be sustainable in every case as the background assumptions for political promotion of eips suggest we concluded that industrial symbioses should be analysed and developed on a life cycle basis with documentation of the real environmental benefits due to efficient resource use and decreased emissions in comparison to standalone production iss can then bring eco competitiveness to companies in relation to scp tools such as environmental permits ecolabels and future product regulation based on the ecodesign directive in europe indirect encouragement of symbiosis through land use regulation and planning in such a way that material fluxes between companies are possible both in operations and in financial terms may prove effective the same holds for waste policies that encourage increased reuse of a company s waste by other enterprises

economic de growth vs steady state economy in recent years the concept of economic de growth decroissance based on the literature of nicolas georgescu roegen e g 1 3 has found a revival in france italy spain and other countries in the popular as well as in the academic literature therein authors took on board georgescu roegens categorical rejection of a steady state economy sse as proposed by herman daly 4 they argue that economic degrowth is the only viable alternative goal to the growing economy this position is challenged in this article and it is concluded that the two concepts are in fact complements economic de growth is not a goal in itself but the rich north s path towards a globally equitable sse moreover the de growth literature can benefit from the strong economic historic roots of the sse and from daly s macroeconomic concepts while in return being able to give lessons about bottom up approaches this would be particularly important for the population issue where daly proposes limited birth licences unfortunately statements on demography are inconsistent and underdeveloped in the de growth literature further it is concluded that most criticisms of the sse are due to a too narrow and technocratic interpretation of the concept instead the sse should be defined as a quasi steady state resting in a dynamic equilibrium and as an unattainable goal which can and probably should be approximated

industrial symbiosis the case for market coordination abstract despite the fact that all successful documented cases of industrial symbiosis to this day have been self organizing some authors and development officials have suggested that increased public planning might deliver better results in this respect than spontaneously evolved market coordination this paper takes an historical approach to suggest that comprehensive planning is unlikely to live up to the expectations of its proponents the essay is structured as follows the first section provides short case studies of industrial symbiosis in highly different economic and institutional settings the essentially free market regime of victorian england and communist hungary 1948 1989 the available evidence suggests that market coordination proved much more favorable to the emergence of industrial symbiosis despite the elaboration of a comprehensive policy to that effect in hungary insights derived from the so called austrian critique of central planning are then used to explain this paradox the analysis presented suggests that the hungarian planners failure was not so much the result of the bad implementation of sound policies but the logical outcome of a top down approach s shortcomings policy implications for the public planning of industrial symbiosis in a mixed economy are then derived and the case for self organization is found more compelling the creation of more innovative institutions that will force firms to internalize their externalities while leaving them the necessary freedom to innovate is viewed as an urgently needed and promising path towards increased sustainable reuse of industrial by products

a decoupling perspective on circular business model implementation illustrations from swedish apparel drawing on the concept of decoupling from institutional theory in organizational studies this paperexplains how organizations mitigate demands for circularity seven swedish apparel companies tha