mexico and the brady plan mexico has throughout the 1980s been centre stage in the debates and events shaping the sovereign debt problem caught between a sudden collapse of its terms of trade and rising world interest rates mexico suspended debt service payments in august 1982 and ushered in what has since become known as the debt crisis in the following years lending to ldcs dried up and debtor countries were increasingly forced to run high trade surpluses to effect ever growing transfers from poor back to rich countries in the face of falling growth rates and rising inflation in the high debt countries then secretary of the treasury baker proposed the baker plan in return for economic reforms high debt countries would get new access to medium term new loans in addition to rolling over of amortization of old loans new loans had to come both from commercial creditors and the official lending institutions with access to capital markets restored the economic reforms would it was hoped allow the debtors to grow out of debt but experience in the high debt countries showed that the original hopes of the proponents of the baker plan went unfulfilled net transfers out of the borrowing countries went up rather than down as

energy security in bangladesh perspective an assessment and implication energy is a key indicator of the nation s overall economic as well as social development looking at the present energy demand scenario in bangladesh electricity demand has significantly increased over the past years most of the bangladesh s power plants are heavily dependent on expensive imported fossil fuel energy resources thus the power failure has become an acute problem for the country and adversely affects the socio economic development of the country consequently the shortage and constraint in availability of fossil fuels appeal to boost up the renewable energy sector in bangladesh in order to bring down the gap between demand and supply hence decisive steps to reform the power sector with a mandate to oversee these sectors urgently need to overcome current energy crisis facing in the country in this paper efforts have been made to summarize the availability current status strategies perspectives promotion policies major achievements and future potential of energy options in bangladesh

labor unions and the adoption of new technology the paper examines whether unionization by workers discourages the adoption of labor saving techniques this is done in the context of an oligopolistic industry with a small number of firms some of which are unionized we find that unionization can actually encourage the adoption of labor saving technology provided that the technological improvement is mild and that demand is sufficiently high or demand elasticity sufficiently low if there is an effective threat of entry that causes the union to moderate its wage demands then unionization may encourage the adoption of new technology even at low levels of demand

renewable energy non renewable energy and economic growth in brazil this study employs brazil s yearly statistics from 1980 to 2010 to explore the causal relationships between the real gdp and four types of energy consumption non hydroelectric renewable energy consumption nhrec total renewable energy consumption trec non renewable energy consumption nrec and the total primary energy consumption tec the cointegration test reveals a long run equilibrium among brazil s real gdp labour capital and each of the four types of consumption the development of the brazilian economy has close ties with capital formation and labour force the influence of nhrec trec on real output is positive and significant while the impacts by nrec tec are insignificant the results from the vector error correction models reveal a unidirectional causality from nhrec to economic growth a bidirectional causality between economic growth and trec and a unidirectional causality from economic growth to nrec or tec without feedback in the long run these findings suggest that brazil is an energy independent economy and that economic growth is crucial in providing the necessary resources for sustainable development expanding renewable energy would not only enhance brazil s economic growth and curb the deterioration of the environment but also create an opportunity for a leadership role in the international system and improve brazil s competition with more developed countries

electricity supply security and the future role of renewable energy sources in brazil abstract hydropower is the backbone of the brazilian electricity generation sector even though the use of this resource is advantaged in terms of greenhouse gas emissions last years severe droughts have exposed the country s huge dependency on hydroelectricity brazil s electricity supply system has shown to be vulnerable to electricity shortages and has demanded significant overhaul in order to address its challenges the present paper provides a comprehensive review of the current status of the brazilian electricity sector and discusses diversification of electricity generation mix as a strategy to improve electricity supply security in the country an overview of the main features of the energy sources applied in brazil is also presented through a review of the latest available generation data the central section of this work is a discussion of the main causes of the current crisis and the future role of renewable energy sources in a 10 year perspective

unionisation structures and innovation incentives this paper examines how dierent unionisation structures aect rms innovation incen tives and industry employment we distinguish three modes of unionisation with increasing degree of centralisation 1 decentralisation where wages are determined independently at the rm level 2 coordination where one industry union sets individual wages for all rms and 3 centralisation where an industry union sets a uniform wage rate for all rms while rms investment incentives are largest under centralisation investment in centives are non monotone in the degree of centralisation decentralisation carries higher investment incentives than coordination labour market policy can spur innovation by decentralising unionisation structures or through non discrimination rules

more labour market flexibility for more innovation evidence from employer employee linked micro data this paper examines labour market flexibility in various definitions and its impact on innovation the results demonstrate that the relationship strongly depends on the type of innovation as well as the predominant innovation regime in which a company operates thereby labour market flexibility does not influence innovation in an entrepreneurial innovation regime characterised by high competition low market entry barriers and generally available knowledge that might explain why the silicon valley has been successful despite of having a labour market with a strong strong hire and fire mentality in contrast labour market flexibility significantly reduces the likelihood of innovation in a routinised innovation regime with leading innovators and high entry barriers similar to the us automobile industry and steel districts that did not succeed these findings emphasise that the currently discussed structural labour market reforms might hamper innovation as technological change still requires a level of security and stability

the economics of worldwide stagflation the last fifteen years have witnessed dramatic changes in economics not only in the manner in which the economics profession views economics but also in the manner in which the general public views economics and economists by the late 1960 s there had emerged more or less a consensus macroeconomic framework that is an agreed upon structure to be used to study economic problems at the aggregate level robert solow stated as quoted in leijonhufvud 1968

analysis of wage flexibility across the euro area evidence from the process of convergence of the labour income share ratio this article analyses wage flexibility as a factor in the unemployment rate across 12 euro area countries we use extensive evidence pertaining to the countercyclical behaviour of the labour income share ratio to estimate its equilibrium value in the long run this measure is calculated using a hybrid new keynesian phillips curve additionally by using spatial econometrics we can incorporate into the study the interdependence in the inflation among the countries as a result we identify countries that might see an improvement in their employment rates by improving their wage flexibility we also identify countries with high unemployment that is not a consequence of a lack of wage flexibility

union structure and firms incentives for cooperative r d investments we examine how different unionisation structures and the spillovers of r d activities affect r d investments and fi rms incentives to form ar esearch joint venture we find that whenever firms invest non cooperatively an industry union increases r d investments if industry specific spillovers are low in case of a research joint venture investments are always higher under firm level unions we also find that firms incentives to form a research joint venture are stronger when they face an industry union if spillovers are low rigidities in the labour market such as high unemployment benefits or and a central union have negative effects on employment output and profits and hinder the diffusion of the efficiency created by a rjv to consumers and employees integrated labour market and r d policies are also discussed

centralisation employment and wage dispersion this paper is about bargaining institutions and their influence on wage dispersion and employment using novel statistical measures it compares labor market performance in seventeen oecd countries since 1973 it concludes that countries with highly centralized wage bargaining have generally achieved the best performance combining high employment with low wage dispersion thereby avoiding certain major inequalities prevalent elsewhere the paper also presents a formal model of bargaining based on the work of l calmfors and j driffill 1988 simulations are used to illustrate how this model generates the kind of outcomes described in the empirical part of the paper copyright 1992 by royal economic society

the creation and capture of rents wages and innovation in a panel of u k companies this paper examines the impact of technological innovation on wages using a panel of british firms a head count measure of major innovations between 1945 and 1983 is combined with share price and accounting information innovating firms are found to have higher average wages but rival innovation tends to depress own wages this appears consistent with a model where wages are partly determined by a sharing in the rents generated by innovation in other words innovation may be a good instrument for proxies for rents such as profitability quasi rents or tobin s average q instrumental variable estimates of the elasticity between wages and quasi rents are about 0 29

unionised labour market and strategic production decision of a multinational i show that a foreign firm may sell the same product through both foreign direct investment fdi and export and this decision depends on the size of the product market it happens irrespective of whether the labour market in the domestic country or in the foreign country is unionised unlike the existing works focusing on risk diversification in presence of demand or cost uncertainty i explain the co existence of fdi and export in a world with certainty the endogenous determination of the wage rate plays an important role for my results my analysis shows the effects of the fixed cost of fdi and competition in the product market on the production strategy of the foreign firm

wage dispersion and productive efficiency evidence for sweden the swedish record of enormous compression of relative wages under centralized solidarity bargaining followed by substantial decompression of wages after central bargaining broke down supplies observations well suited to empirical evaluation of arguments about the response of productive efficiency to shifts in wage distribution we obtain no results supporting fairness morale and cohesiveness theories implying that wage leveling within workplaces and industries may enhance productivity reduction of interindustry wage differentials evidently did however contribute positively to aggregate output and productivity growth most likely for the structural reasons first emphasized by swedish trade union economists almost a half century ago

real wages over the business cycle evidence from panel data one topic on which keynes did not disagree with classical economists was the cyclical behavior of real wages keynes 1936 as well as various classical writers predicted that real wages should move countercyclically quoting the general theory p 17 in general an increase in employment can only occur through the accompaniment of a decline in real wages thus i am not disputing this vital fact which the classical economists have rightly asserted as indefeasible this prediction is based on the premise of competition and a given short run capital stock increases in employment then correspond to more intensive use of capital and through diminishing product lower real wages for this reason evidence by dunlop 1938 and tarshis 1939 that real wages move procyclically was viewed as paradoxical both dunlop and tarshis based their findings on an observed positive correlation between real and money wages which given the procyclical movement of money wages implies a positive correlation between

photovoltaic electricity production in brazil a stochastic economic viability analysis for small systems in the face of net metering and tax incentives abstract currently in addition to the search for sustainable development there is increased pressure for a change in consumption and production of energy patterns in brazil in this scenario net metering is an important mechanism fostering dissemination of small photovoltaic pv solar systems as complementary support to net metering a tax exemption is currently being offered in some brazilian states thus the objective of the present study is to analyze the impact of tax exemption on the circulation of goods and services and the returns and risks of the pv microgeneration project in four cities located in different regions of brazil belem petrolina uberaba and uruguaiana the analysis is performed using the monte carlo simulation mcs wherein uncertainties related to the financial and environmental variables are considered the results of the stochastic economic viability analysis allowed us to conclude that the exemption of tax on circulation of goods and services icms is fundamental to make pv microgeneration viable in brazil in the cities analyzed pv microgeneration presented economic unfeasibility to the investor when the icms is charged when considering the icms exemption policy the cities of petrolina and belem obtained high probabilities of viability in relation to the risk analysis pv microgeneration obtained the best results in petrolina both in terms of the condition of collection and exemption of icms there is high potential for harness solar throughout the brazilian territory however due to the current evolution stage and the productive chain of the brazilian pv industry high costs limit the expansion of this clean energy generation technology the findings of this study could assist policymakers in evaluating this incentive program highlighting that this tax exemption directly meets one of the objectives for which the icms was created which is to encourage the development of productive sectors such as pv industry

pay and employment determination in britain what are labour contracts really like the recent growth of unemployment in western economies has prompted new research on the workings of the labour market there has been much interest in particular in the questions what determines the level of real pay and why is it apparently so insensitive to changes in aggregate demand and unemployment european economists now find it hard to take seriously the notion still taught to many undergraduate that wages are determined by the intersection of demand and supply curves roughly half of all british employees belong to trade unions a much higher percentage have their pay fixed by some kind of collective bargain in this country it is negotiations not impersonal com petitive markets which decide what most of us will be paid the difficult problem is that of how to understand this process or to put it differently of how to think up the right model of the world

observable and non observable data a reply my survey article wibe 1984a considered only the engineering production functions themselves the analysis would have been richer had i also included some uses of these studies notably the many modern pseudo data analyses referred to by professor smith however to the benefit of the readers professor smith has now removed this shortcoming with his penetrating note i agree with professor smith that the pseudo data studies have increased our understanding of the relations between economic and engineering models of production however there are two important problems associated with the pseudo data method the first is the statistical problem pointed out by maddala and roberts 1980 pseudo data are generated with an engineering plant or process model accordingly these data cannot be assumed to have the same properties as observable real world data when using pseudo data for a statistical adaptation with a specific function there is only one source of error the form of the chosen function a good statistical fit is therefore no guarantee of a true representation of the underlying technology on the contrary the deviations could be great incidently this was exactly what i found when i compared the engineering models with the corresponding statistical adaptations wibe 1984a pp 406 7 the second problem is perhaps more serious pseudo data are based on a collection of known processes this collection is carried out at prevailing prices from this collection conclusions are drawn regarding the choice of technology in case of price changes however a change in real world prices leads to responses in all parts of the economy in particular latent innovations known but not interesting technologies are brought on to the market if the change in prices is more than marginal it is highly unlikely that these changes are even approximately foreseen by an investigation of known techniques taking the steel plant model used by smith and kopp russel and cochrane 1976a russell and vaughan 1976b as an example one iron making technology the blast furnace is identified however my own investigation identified around 30 different iron making techniques most of them practised only on a laboratory scale wibe 1984b p 83 in the case of drastic price changes some of them would be less costly than the blast furnace empirical economics is about actual behaviour and the only reliable expression of this is observable real world data it is not at all clear to what extent actual behaviour can be predicted by pseudo data my own research regarding the correlation between actual industrial behaviour and the behaviour assumed by leif johansen s non parametric production functions suggests that non observable data are a poor guide to real behaviour wibe 1983 it is important to know the exact nature of the information we are given in empirical studies the relation between the engineering and the statistical

macroeconomic performance and collective bargaining an international perspective this paper critically reviews the research on how collective bargaining systems influence macroeconomic performance in industrialized countries the review considers effects of bargaining level coordination and corporatist institutional arrangements key empirical results turn out to be quite fragile and much of the paper explores issues of measurement and specification that account for the fragility the paper concludes that complementarities between key institutions and between institutions and the economic environment may be more important for macroeconomic performance than the effects of individual institutions and it suggests research strategies

labour union entry and consumer welfare abstract it is usually believed that the presence of a labour union makes firms as well as consumers worse off by increasing wages compared to the situation with no labour union we show that the presence of a labour union may increase the incentive for entry and may also make consumers better off compared to the situation with no labour union if the labour productivity of the entrant is sufficiently higher to that of the incumbent

competitive auction mechanisms for the promotion renewable energy technologies the case of the 50 mw photovoltaics projects in cyprus abstract there are a range of policy frameworks and support mechanisms to promote the penetration of renewable energy technologies into the energy mix assembled by the governments and regulatory bodies around the world the three dominant and most common support schemes that have also been implemented within the eu and proven successful in the past include the competitive auctions the feed in tariff scheme fit and tradable green certificates tgcs this study reviews the use of the competitive auction mechanism for the promotion of power generation from renewable energy technologies the process of the specific policy instrument as well as its pros and cons are introduced successful and failed case studies from countries that have already incorporated this mechanism into their renewable energy technologies development policies are also presented among these cases is the cyprus auction procurement for the licensing of 50 mw of photovoltaic power plants conducted in january 2013 which is thoroughly elaborated in this paper the timeline of the bids is presented and the auction winner strategy is tracked and examined a discussion is also presented on the feasibility of the awarded projects eventually the entire auction procurement procedure is evaluated to expose the defects of the mechanism and to offer some recommendations for the viability of the process

a study of existing solar power policy framework in india for viability of the solar projects perspective a decade before conversion of solar energy into electricity was quite expensive compare with other renewable energy or conventional fossil fired generated power for making solar energy as a main stream source of power generation indian government has taken several initiatives in last 5 6 years presently the deployment of the solar power project in india is governed by both central and state government under the various schemes these schemes are mainly includes feed in tariff fit renewable purchase obligation rpo long term power purchase agreements ppas renewable energy certificates rec accelerated depreciation ad benefit and reverse bidding auctions etc as an effect of this competitive market environment the tariff of solar power has come down from inr 17 or us 0 271 year 2010 to less than inr 6 or us 0 0922 year 2015 this decremented solar tariff may achieve grid parity soon but also has raised the question of sustainability of the solar power project as well additionally this multi policy environment of both central and state government has created lots of confusion among the solar power project developers to select scheme and make their investment viable as per other power generation business this paper summarizes various schemes under the current policy framework in terms of viability of the solar power projects in india it also includes issues related with the sustainability of the solar power project taken under the competitive bidding process with remarkable lowered tariff than benchmarked tariff ceiling price in india i e inr 7 or us 0 107 this study will help project developers and other stakeholders to understand the issues related with viability of the project in current multi policy environment for better planning before investing in the field of solar power business

trade unions investment and employment the implications of long term wage contracts and investment in capital on non cooperative wage bargaining between a firm and a union are analysed the union maximises a utilitarian utility function and the firm faces a neoclassical investment problem with internal adjustment costs the monopoly union outcomes with binding contracts is time inconsistent because the union has an incentive to renege on announced low wage strategies once the capital stock has been accumulated the monopoly union outcome without binding contracts leads to credible strategies which correspond to higher wages and lower levels of employment investment and the capital stock efficient contracts give rise to higher employment than monopoly union outcomes whether with or without long term wage contracts the results are illustrated with a numerical example finally when the game between the union and firm is repeated reputational equilibira provide a solution to the problem of time inconsistency

transforming the nigerian power sector for sustainable development abstract nigeria has been plagued with acute power shortages due to poor performance of its power sector several policies and reforms have been implemented by the government to address the poor performance of the power generation transmission and distribution sectors of the electricity industry also various strategies were employed by the government which includes encouraging private sector participation diversification of the energy generation sources and promoting energy efficiency for sustainable development in addition the government has spent billions of dollars since 2001 in the construction of new power generation facilities transmission lines and distribution centers to boost the power supply it has deregulated the generation and distribution sectors to encourage private sector participation and empowers the energy commission of nigeria to embark on programs and strategies that can boost energy generation from renewable sources this paper examined the country s energy sources and the power sector reforms adopted by the government the paper also outlined some recommendations based on reforms implemented by other countries with similar resources to nigeria which yielded positive results

labour market institutions and economic performance labour markets richard freeman do particular types of labour market institution hold the key to economic success should other countries try to emulate the flexibility of the american labour market or the centralization of swedish style corporatism since 1970 within the oecd there has been a sharp divergence both of economic performance and of indicators of labour market structure the paper uses union density and the degree of wage dispersion across industries to proxy a country s underlying labour market institutions in assessing economic performance it is argued that cross country differences in output growth were much smaller than differences in employment growth for given output growth there is a clear negative relationship between employment growth and real wage growth across countries why do different countries find themselves at different points on this trade off the final part of the paper examines the correlation between indicators of labour market structure and the position on the wage employment trade off it concludes that the degree of wage dispersion across industries is the most important indicator of market structure and that countries with very high or very low dispersion typically the countries with highly centralized or highly decentralized bargaining in the labour market have better employment performance than countries with intermediate degrees of centralization and wage dispersion

information and the hold up problem we examine situations in which a party must make a sunk investment prior to contracting with a second party to purchase an essential complementary input we study how the resulting hold up problem is affected by the seller s information about the investing party s likely returns from its investment our principal focus is on the effects of the investment s being observable by the non investing party contrary to popular intuition we find that an improvement in the seller s information e g the investment s being observable rather than not can benefit the buyer and harm the seller we also find that other popular intuitions about this problem are either false incomplete or require strong assumptions to be valid

are shocks to renewable energy consumption permanent or transitory an empirical investigation for brazil china and india abstract this paper investigates whether there is a unit root in renewable energy consumption in three large developing economies brazil china and india over the period 1971 2014 to do so it uses four unit root tests assuming one structural break two structural breaks and more than two structural breaks it observes that renewable energy consumption is a unit root process in brazil but it is found as stationary in china and india the paper also tackles issues and challenges in the unit root test methodology in energy economics literature and provides implications for renewable energy consumption in three economies

centralization of bargaining and wage inequality a correction of wallerstein wage inequality is a subject of intense political and substantive concern and di erencesin the extent of wage inequality between the anglo american economies and those of con tinental europe animate public and scholarly discussion the wide earnings di erentialsobserved in the united states and the united kingdom are commonly justi ed as the properand necessary incentives for a mature growth oriented economy the narrower income dif ferentials encountered in continental europe are rationalized as necessary for the protectionof the less well paid and the integrity of the social fabric the upward secular trend in wageinequality in the us since the 1970s which is a stark reversal of the pattern observed duringthe preceding 40 years is also a topic attracting wide public and scholarly attention despite the importance of the subject and the amount of attention that it has received the extensive literature on the economic impact of wage bargaining institutions in advanceddemocratic societies contains only a few widely accepted ndings one of these is that morecentralized bargaining institutions strongly encourage wage equality no less an authoritativeorgan than the oecd notes for instance that there is a fairly robust relation betweencross country di erences in earnings inequality and bargaining structures oecd 1997 p 64 several well designed country speci c studies support the claim that the system ofcollective bargaining is a major determinant of variations in the extent of wage inequality hibbs and locking 1996 2000 erickson and ichino 1995 yet even the most careful andwell executed country level results may be a ected by idiosyncratic country speci c factors evidence at the cross national level is required the most careful and convincing cross national empirical documentation of the link between centralized bargaining institutionsand wage inequality appears in wallerstein 1999 published in this journal

wind energy in brazil from the power sector s expansion crisis model to the favorable environment since the 1970s demands arising from the impacts of the power sector on the natural environment were added to studies regarding the strategic power sector and its impact on the economic and financial crises thus the development of alternative technologies reflected the new institutional guidelines and overcame the technological paradigms that were based on increasing installed capacities consequently multiple debates that consider the energy use potential of each region and its contributions to sustainable development occurred this paper presents the information that is necessary for understanding the relationships of the development model that was founded based on waste and the expanding technologies that exploit natural resources actions that are aimed at developing renewable energy resources are structured based on the instability of the technological maintenance paradigm and are guaranteed by expanding technologies that were used prior to 1970 in addition we evaluated the current institutional arrangements that are used to promote wind energy in this case greater attention was given to the european experience because europe provides multiple examples of successful legal frameworks that promote wind energy in addition europe is a benchmark for emerging market countries such as brazil

an overview of incentive policies for the expansion of renewable energy generation in electricity power systems and the brazilian experience abstract energy production from renewable sources is already a reality in many countries and with that different strategies for incentivizing investments in renewable energy generation have been proposed and used over the years in this study long term policies that have been applied in several countries such as feed in tariffs shares with commercialization of certificates auctions and net metering are overviewed and discussed the main advantages and disadvantages of these incentive strategies are emphasized focusing on applications some of these strategies that have already been applied in brazil are analyzed in greater depth emphasizing the potentialities and fragilities of these mechanisms observed within the country even though it is a country that stands out in relation to other latin american countries regarding electricity generation from non hydro renewable sources brazil still faces barriers that prevent a utilization compatible with its potential moreover the trend for renewable sources such as wind and solar power is to represent an energy capacity reserve to cover hydrological risks and also to contribute to a distributed generation spread through electricity distribution networks

the incentives for cost reduction in a differentiated industry abstract this paper investigates how the incentives for cost reduction in a differentiated industry depend upon the degree of product substitutability when goods are imperfect substitutes both cournot and bertrand competition result in underinvestment in the sense that a social planner would be willing to pay more for a given cost reduction than a profit maximizing firm overinvestment may occur when the goods are sufficiently close substitutes similarly cournot competition provides a stronger incentive to innovate than bertrand competition if the degree of substitutability is low and a weaker incentive if this degree is high

employment protection and industry innovation we examine the impact of the strictness of employment protection legislation epl on innovation intensity to this purpose we use a panel of annual data from organisation for economic co operation and development countries and analyze the variation of innovation intensity within country between industries our estimates indicate that stricter epl led to significantly lower innovation intensity in industries with higher job layoff propensity our findings are robust to additional industry covariates and other labor market institutions that may affect innovation performance and industry job layoff propensity

the renewable energy market in brazil current status and potential abstract renewable energy offers a range of options with which to meet the growing demand for energy particularly in the context of the pursuit especially in developing countries of economic development which takes into account social and environmental issues brazil has abundant natural sources of renewable energy such as wind and solar power hydraulic energy small hydroelectric plants ethanol and bio diesel these sources form part of the brazilian strategy aimed at satisfying the demand for 6300 mw of fresh capacity per year arising out of projected economic growth of 5 1 per year over the next 10 years renewable energy sources currently provide 47 2 of the internal supply of primary energy in brazil brazil has been pursuing a strategy of maintaining its renewable energy matrix and developing and providing incentives for further low carbon initiatives in this study we set out an overview of the renewable energy options available in brazil their current status the main positive results obtained to date and future potential we describe the market for renewable energy in brazil and examine specific public policies aimed at overcoming barriers to this market thereby promoting its consolidation and expansion

work arrangements and firm innovation is there any relationship this study investigates the relationship between labour market flexibility proxied by the proportion of workers with different contractual arrangements and other indicators of flexible work relations and firms innovative ability as measured by the percentage of new products in total sales on the one hand more flexibility e g a higher labour turnover might be favourable to a firm s innovation potential aside from having potential wage savings a larger inflow of new personnel may enrich the pool of firm innovative ideas on the other hand higher work flexibility may also have some drawbacks a permanently high turnover rate may diminish social cohesion and trust and increase the probability of opportunistic behaviour results suggest that internal flexibility is positively associated with innovation for both high tech and low tech firms especially for high tech firms however greater external flexibility might hinder innovation copyright oxford university press

development of renewable energy sector in bangladesh current status and future potentials abstract bangladesh is a hugely populated country in south asia the country produces its electricity mainly from natural gas followed by liquid fuels although the installed electricity generation capacity of the country has been increased to 12 261 mw there is scarcity of electricity in the hot summer season which is a barrier to industrial development as well as socio economic development combustion of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases ghgs into the atmosphere which causes global warming bangladesh can be badly affected by greenhouse effect and global warming these problems can be mitigated by incorporating renewable energy sources e g solar wind hydro biomass etc to the country s electricity generation renewable energy resources are considered as clean and can serve the electricity demand in the remote areas where grid connection is not possible the potential of solar energy and biomass is enormous in bangladesh and people have already started to harness energy from these sources the government and the policy makers should come forward to encourage the people of rural areas as well as urban areas to use renewable based electricity the government of bangladesh has set up a plan to generate 5 of the country s total electricity from renewable sources within 2015 and 10 within 2020 however within 2015 the country has been able to generate only 3 5 of the total electricity from renewable sources this paper presents a thorough review of the current status and future potentials of renewable energy sector in bangladesh in this paper the updated information is provided for the overall renewable energy sector of the country

union rent seeking intangible capital and market value of the firm abstract this study considers the effect of unions on intangi ble capital investment and profitability within the context of a market value rather than a more traditional accounting based approach theory is provided suggesting unions are able to affect profitability by sharing in the economic returns to firm specific intangible capital in support of this hypothesis we find unionization reduces the returns to r d and produces a corresponding limiting influence on r d investment at the firm level i introduction a n extensive literature in economics has ex amined the determinants of profitability with much of the focus centering on the role of market structure only recently however have the effects of labor unions on profitability been analyzed ths is surprising since labor economists long have emphasized union influences on wages and productivity that in turn may affect profitabil ity in recent studies freeman 1983 and karier 1985 report a significant limiting influence of unions on price cost margins in high concentra tion manufacturing industries using firm level data and the market based tobin s

government incentives when pollution permits are durable goods this paper analyzes the incentive effects of pollution taxes versus pollution permits for a budget oriented government pollution permits are analyzed as durable goods and a pollution tax is seen as being equivalent to leasing out pollution permits first a general model is developed and then four stylized types of government are discussed a benevolent dictator a pure leviathan a green and a business friendly government we show that all types of government prefer a pollution tax system but this regime is not necessarily the best in social welfare terms the intuition is that a tax or leasing system makes it easier for the government to credibly commit to the budget maximizing level of pollution permits which is good for government revenues but not necessarily for social welfare

the decentralization of collective bargaining a literature review and comparative analysis the author reviews evidence that the bargaining structure is becoming more decentralized in sweden australia the former west germany italy the united kingdom and the united states although in

rural electrification and energy poverty empirical evidences from brazil the aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on the reduction of energy poverty in brazil through the analysis of 23 000 rural domiciles or rural properties between the years 2000 and 2004 the results indicate a fast change in the profile of energy consumption and a reduction of energy poverty this new approach works as a complement among other variables to analyze and quantify the real economic social and energy impacts in rural electrification programs generally applied in developing countries

employment adjustment in uk manufacturing this analysis differs from previous studies of labor demand in its explicit inclusion of the costs to the firm of adju sting its workforce these costs include institutional factors such a s employment protection legislation and unions and market factors su ch as the degree of slack in the labor market two questions are addr essed what is the quantitative impact of these forces and does their inclusion improve the fit of a labor demand function the results sh owed these factors to have a strong influence on the rate of hiring f iring and to improve significantly on conventional labor demand funct ions copyright 1988 by royal economic society

aggregate supply and demand factors in oecd unemployment an update unemployment in the oecd countries has continued to rise to unprecedented levels the eec countries which on average ended the turbulent 1970s with an unemployment rate of close to 7 per cent are now in the mid 1980s approaching an 11 per cent level the united states is virtually the only country for which the changes in unemployment during the 1970s have not been systematically upward and for which the 1984 rate was more or less back to where it had been both ten years and five years earlier see figure 1 the reasons for the sustained increase in unemployment during the 1970s as well as the possible reasons for differences in patterns across industrial countries have been studied but question marks undoubtedly remain our own emphasis in an earlier study has been on the combination of the great supply shocks of the previous decade and the contractionary macro policy response of most oecd countries to these shocks as well as on the more recent policy coordination problem between the united states and europe with a few more years that have elapsed and quite a few percentage points of additional unemployment there is obviously room for both an update and a reappraisal starting from a fairly conventional aggregate supply as and aggregate demand ad macro framework an increase in unemployment may come

wage setting institutions and pay inequality in advanced industrial societies the distribution of pay differs significantly across countries and over time among advanced industrial societies in this paper institutional and political determinants of pay inequality are studied in sixteen countries from 1980 to 1992 the most important factor in explaining pay dispersion is the level of wage setting i e whether wages are set at the level of the individual the plant the industry or the entire private sector the impact of centralization is the same whether centralization occurs via collective bargaining or via government involvement in private sector wage setting the concentration of unions and the share of the labor force covered by collective bargaining agreements also matter after controlling for wage setting institutions other variables such as the governing coalition the size of government international openness and the supply of highly educated workers have little impact economic political and norm based explanations for the association of centralization with egalitarian outcomes are discussed

the determination of r d empirical evidence on the role of unions abstract this paper examines the empirical evidence of the role of union bargaining on innovation we review the existing empirical evidence and emphasis some of the problems with the theoretical assumptions we outline a simple model of strategic rd b the union bargains only over wages

labour markets and innovation ex post bargaining abstract there is considerable interest in how labour market conditions affect innovation lying behind much of the existing work on this question is a simple model of a single union bargaining with a single firm in which in the absence of binding contracts the union reduces the returns to innovation without bearing any of the costs this misses an important feature of some rd with efficient contracts there are cases where being faced with a stronger union will help a firm to win a patent race it would otherwise have lost

employment determination in british industry investigations using micro data this paper derives and then estimates a model of employment where unions and firms bargain over wages and possibly employment and efficiency wage considerations may be important it illustrates the difficulties associated in interpreting many existing attempts to discriminate between alternative models the results based on over 200 u k firms suggest that employment is negatively related to the firm s own wage and the change in the own wage relative to outside opportunities the latter may be an efficiency wage effect various financial factors are also seen to have a significant effect on employment

wind power generation an impact analysis of incentive strategies for cleaner energy provision in brazil brazil has adopted various strategies to encourage alternative renewable energy sources in pursuit of cleaner and sustainable energy production to this end strategies should support the reduction of the financial risk for potential investors in the renewable energy market therefore this study aims to analyze the impact of incentive strategies on the financial risk of wind power generation projects in brazil in different marketing environments from a quantitative approach using monte carlo simulation in three scenarios we evaluate the impact of funding from the national development bank and participation in the clean development mechanism in the financial returns of the investor in a regulated contracting environment and free contracting environment measured by the net present value we conduct a statistical analysis to find out if there were statistically significant differences in investor risk in each scenario the main results of the study are as follows the wind speed the selling price of energy and disbursement for the investment have the most significant impact on the financial return the project viability probability is greater than 85 in all scenarios regardless of the marketing environment the regulated market is less risky for the producer than the free market since there is a statistically significant difference in net present value variances for all scenarios in the regulated contracting environment funding is critical to reducing risk and carbon credit trading is not a suitable policy for providing financial security to renewable energy producers thus we conclude that in brazil the contracting of projects from auctions in the regulated contracting environment with the support of the national development bank has been important for neutralizing the producer s financial risks

unionization incomplete contracting and capital investment this article examines empirically the hypothesis that incomplete contracts and resulting opportunistic behavior over the return to sunk assets reduces investment union firm contracts are incomplete because they 1 do not prevent all actions aimed at changing the existing contract 2 cover a relatively short time period and 3 do not extend to union members yet to be hired the primary response of firms is to reduce investment in specific durable assets and also to reduce employment growth and increase debt the authors find fairly strong evidence of these effects in a sample of large publicly traded firms using firm specific measures of unionization copyright 1993 by university of chicago press

is labour market flexibility harmful to innovation in a neoclassical framework one can argue that unemployment can be reduced by means of institutional changes that allow for a better working of the labour market and notably by achieving downward wage flexibility i argue that although various policy recommendations about removing labour market rigidities are indeed advantageous in the short trun they are detrimental from a schumpeterian perspective since they discourage product and process innovation reduced innovation efforts will in turn weaken the supply side strength of an economy the paper explores the implications of schumpeter s notion of creative destruction and of schmookler s hypothesis of demand pulled innovations borrowing from recent empirical innovation research

unions employers associations and wage setting institutions in northern and central europe 1950 1992 the eight countries examined in this study austria belgium denmark finland germany the netherlands norway and sweden have long been viewed as exemplifying corporatist industrial relations

union effects on productivity profits and growth has the long run arrived this article interprets literature examining union effects on economic performance production function studies indicate small overall union impacts on productivity positive effects where they exist appear to result from management response to decreased profit expectations and from a natural selection process lower profitability among unionized firms is well established more interesting is the possibility that unions appropriate quasi rents deriving from long lived tangible and intangible capital the connection between unions investment behavior and productivity growth emerges as a particularly fruitful line of empirical inquiry although it does not encourage a sanguine view of unionism s long run impact

labour markets bargaining and innovation much of the recent empirical work on the impact of unions on rd ii under some circumstances an increase in union strength can make both firms and unions worse off we survey a more recent theoretical literature which takes account of the fact that r d is often undertaken for strategic reasons by firms that are in competition with one another we show that in this framework the prevailing theoretical paradigm may be overturned thus when firms and unions can enter into long term bargains then an increase in union strength will increase decrease r d spending if successful innovation causes employment to rise respectively fall however when r d falls then this increase in union strength can cause both firms and unions to be better off when firms and unions engage in short term bargaining then an increase in union bargaining strength will cause r d to fall when bargaining is over wages alone however when bargaining takes place over wages and employment then if unions care a lot about employment the relationship between union strength and r d is inverse u shaped

unionization structure licensing and innovation we show the effects of the unionization structure viz decentralized and centralized unions on a firm s incentive for technology licensing and innovation the incentive for technology licensing is stronger under decentralized unions we identify circumstances under which the benefit from licensing creates a stronger incentive for innovation under decentralized unions if the union s preference for employment is high the benefit from licensing may create higher incentive for innovation under decentralized unions however if the union s preference for wage is high enough the incentive for innovation is higher under a centralized union irrespective of licensing ex post innovation if the centralized union decides whether or not to supply workers to all firms the possibility of higher innovation under decentralized unions increases we further show that perfectly substitutable workers can be better off under decentralized unions if the labor productivity depends on the unionization structure which occurs in our analysis when e g licensing after innovation occurs only under decentralized unions or innovation with no licensing occurs only under a centralized union

on the benefits from rigid labour markets norms market failures and social insurance the common view that far reaching labour market deregulation is the only remedy for high european unemployment is too simplistic first the evidence suggests that deeply rooted social customs are

networks of knowledge among unionized firms we develop a model of strategic networks in order to analyze how trade unions will affect the stability of r d networks through which knowledge is transmitted in an oligopolistic industry whenever firms settle wages the partially connected network is likely to emerge in the long run if and only if knowledge spillovers are large enough however when unions settle wages the complete network is the unique stable network in other words the stronger the union bargaining power is the more symmetric stable r d networks will be in terms of network efficiency the partially connected network when firms settle wages does not pareto dominate the complete network when unions settle wages and vice versa