Green consumption or sustainable lifestyles? Identifying the sustainable consumer

This paper examines green consumption in the context of an increasing focus on sustainable lifestyles. The authors argue that green buying must be seen in the context of wider debates surrounding the development of sustainable ways of living that incorporate other environmental actions in an holistic conceptualisation of sustainable lifestyles. This framework is operationalised in a study of environmental action in and around the home, in which 1600 households in Devon were asked questions concerning their everyday environmental actions. These results were manipulated so as to investigate how the different behaviours related to each other and also whether different groups of individuals could be identified, conforming to different lifestyles. The results suggest that conventional forms of green consumption can indeed be related to other forms of environmental action and that at least four different types of environmentalist can be identified. The implications of these results for policy makers are discussed at the end of the paper.     

Do Newly Listed Derivatives Affect the Market Risk Premium in a Thin Stock Market?

This study examines the effects on the stock market unitary risk premium and volatility associated with the listing of stock and stock index derivatives in Switzerland. Based on a univariate GARCH (1,1) specification of the stock index variance and a time-varying unitary risk premium representation, we can reject the hypothesis that stock and stock index derivatives listings do not affect the total risk premium. Contrarily to previous empirical evidence, we find that derivatives listings affect both the conditional market returns' variance and the unitary risk premium through structural shocks. The gradual market completion hypothesis is further corroborated in that, cumulatively, the three stock and stock index options futures derivatives listings reduced the unitary risk premium while the marginal impact of each successive listing decayed.     

Impact of Contract Farming on Income: Linking Small Farmers, Packers, and Supermarkets in China

This study compares contract and non-contract growers of apples and green onions in Shandong Province, China in order to explore the constraints on participation and the impact of contract farming on income. We find little evidence that firms prefer to work with larger farms, though all farms in the area are quite small. Using a Heckman selection–correction model, we find that contract farming raises income even after controlling for observable and unobservable household characteristics. These results suggest that contract farming can help raise small-farm income, though questions remain regarding the number of farmers that can be brought into such schemes.     

A discrete event simulation to model the cost-utility of fingolimod and natalizumab in rapidly evolving severe relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in the UK

Objective: Two disease-modifying therapies are licensed in the EU for use in rapidly-evolving severe (RES) relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), fingolimod and natalizumab. Here a discrete event simulation (DES) model to analyze the cost-effectiveness of natalizumab and fingolimod in the RES population, from the perspective of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, is reported.

Methods: A DES model was developed to track individual RES patients, based on Expanded Disability Status Scale scores. Individual patient characteristics were taken from the RES sub-groups of the pivotal trials for fingolimod. Utility data were in line with previous models. Published costs were inflated to NHS cost year 2015. Owing to the confidential patient access scheme (PAS) discount applied to fingolimod in the UK, a range of discount levels were applied to the fingolimod list price, to capture the likelihood of natalizumab being cost-effective in a real-world setting.

Results: At the lower National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) threshold of £20,000/quality-adjusted life year (QALY), fingolimod only required a discount greater than 0.8% of list price to be cost-effective. At the upper threshold of £30,000/QALY employed by the NICE, fingolimod was cost-effective if the confidential discount is greater than 2.5%. Sensitivity analyses conducted using fingolimod list-price showed the model to be most sensitive to changes in the cost of each drug, particularly fingolimod.

Conclusions: The DES model shows that only a modest discount to the UK fingolimod list-price is required to make fingolimod a more cost-effective option than natalizumab in RES RRMS.     

Using a distance measure to operationalise patent originality

We introduce a distance measure to operationalise Trajtenberg, Henderson, and Jaffe’s [1997. “University Versus Corporate Patents: A Window on the Basicness of Invention.” Economics of Innovation and New Technology 5: 19–50] originality construct (an ex-ante indicator of firms’ technological capabilities). Our measure captures (1) technological diversity, (2) technology distance from patent antecedents, and (3) degree of novelty per each patented innovation. The V-score measure uses the Derwent World Patent Index system to classify technologies hierarchically – making similarities and differences pronounced. Power is gained by using all of the technology-classification codes describing a focal patent’s claims when calculating whether its technology space was incrementally different or radical from those of its antecedent patents (and identifying whether its technology-class code combinations were commonplace at the time when the patent application was made). Our V-score’s prediction of firms’ performance is contrasted with Hall, Jaffe, and Trajtenberg’s [2001. Hall, B. H., A. B. Jaffe, and M. Trajtenberg. 2001. The NBER Patent Citations Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools. NBER Working Paper No. 8498] Herfindahl measure of the same originality construct. Results indicate that the distance measure of technological content produces differently signed results when evaluating patents’ performance effects or predicting a firm’s trajectory.     

Optimal Management of Environmental Externalities with Time Lags and Uncertainty

Many environmental externalities occur with time lags that can range from a few days to several centuries in length, and many of these externalities are also subject to uncertainty. In this paper, we examine the key features of an optimal policy to manage environmental externalities that are both lagged and stochastic. We develop a two-period, two-polluter model and obtain closed-form solutions for optimal emissions levels under different combinations of damage functions and stochastic processes. These solutions show that it is not obvious whether greater control should be exerted on polluters that generate externalities with longer lags or on polluters that generate externalities with shorter lags. We find that the optimal ranking of polluters with respect to the length of the time lag associated with their externality will depend on (a) the discount rate, (b) conditional expectations of future states of the polluted resource, (c) persistence of the pollutant, and (d) initial conditions.     

Exploring the relationship between institutional factors and FDI attractiveness: A meta-analytic review

This meta-analysis attempts to synthesize and review decades of research on the relationship between institutional factors and host country foreign direct investment (FDI) attractiveness. Using prior tests derived from 97 primary studies, we find support for prior theoretical predictions that institutional factors such as political stability, democracy, and rule of law attract FDI, while others such as corruption, tax rates and cultural distance deter it. Further evidence suggests a need for exploration of moderating factors that may influence previous key findings. Specifically, environmental effects such as level of development, region of destination, and competitive industry environment have varying influence on the strength and significance of the relationship. We also explore a number of methodological and economic moderating variables, providing additional interesting insights into previous empirical analyses. We conclude with suggestions for future research that stress a call for further contextualization of the relationship.     

Convergence in Income Inequality: Further Evidence from the Club Clustering Methodology across States in the U.S.

This paper contributes to the sparse literature on inequality convergence by empirically testing convergence across states in the U.S. This sample period encompasses a series of different periods that the existing literature discusses -- the Great Depression (1929–1944), the Great Compression (1945–1979), the Great Divergence (1980-present), the Great Moderation (1982–2007), and the Great Recession (2007–2009). This paper implements the relatively new method of panel convergence testing, recommended by Phillips and Sul (2007). This method examines the club convergence hypothesis, which argues that certain countries, states, sectors, or regions belong to a club that moves from disequilibrium positions to their club-specific steady-state positions. We find strong support for convergence through the late 1970s and early 1980s, and then evidence of divergence. The divergence, however, moves the dispersion of inequality measures across states only a fraction of the way back to their levels in the early part of the twentieth century.