Using the budget constraint to monetarise impact assessment results

Recent developments in Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) provide a basis for reducing the uncertainty in monetarisation of environmental impacts. The LCIA method “Ecoindicator99” provides impact pathways ending in a physical score for each of the three safeguard subjects humans, ecosystems, and resources. We redefine these damage categories so that they can be measured in terms of Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) for impacts on human well-being, Biodiversity Adjusted Hectare Years (BAHYs) for impacts on ecosystems, and monetary units for impacts on resource productivity.The monetary value of a QALY can be derived from the budget constraint, i.e. the fact that the average annual income is the maximum that an average person can pay for an additional life year. Since a QALY by definition is a life-year lived at full well-being, the budget constraint can be determined as the potential annual economic production per capita at full well-being. We determine this to be 74,000 EUR with an uncertainty estimate of 62,000 to 84,000 EUR. This corresponds well to the 74,627 EUR willingness-to-pay estimate of the ExternE project. Differences to other estimates can be explained by inherent biases in the valuation approaches used to derive these estimates.The value of ecosystems can be expressed in monetary terms or in terms of QALYs, as the share of our well-being that we are willing to sacrifice to protect the ecosystems. While this trade-off should preferably be done by choice modelling, only one such study was found at the level of abstraction that allows us to relate BAHYs to QALYs or monetary units. Stressing the necessity for such studies, we resort to suggest a temporary proxy value of 1400 EUR/BAHY (or 52 BAHY/QALY), with an uncertainty range of 350 to 3500 EUR/BAHY.The practical consequences of the above-described monetarisation values has been investigated by combining them with the midpoint impact categories of two recent LCIA methods, thus providing a new LCIA method with the option of expressing results in both midpoints and an optional choice between QALY and monetary units as endpoint. From our application of the new method to different case studies, it is noteworthy that resource impacts obtain less emphasis than in previous LCIA methods, while impacts on ecosystems obtain more importance. This shows the significance of being able to express impacts on resources and ecosystems in the same units as impacts on human well-being.     

Can NN-algorithms and macroeconomic data improve OLS industry returns forecasts?∗

Using an extensive range of macroeconomic indicators and a number of two-stage models mixing OLS and a non-parametric approach known as the nearest neighbour algorithm, the authors analyse the potential for improving forecasts of US industry returns over those built by OLS on industry-specific variables only. Basic performance is measured by the average cross-sectional correlation over time between the 55 forecasted returns and the realized returns across industries. Since investors and asset managers typically want a steady performance over time, the volatility of this cross-sectional correlation is further taken into account in an adaptation of the Sharpe Ratio. Strong evidence is found in favour of certain macroeconomic factors as dominant industry return predictors, and some two-stage models based either purely on OLS or a mix between OLS and the non-linear model can lift both cross-sectional forecasting correlation and Sharpe Ratio. However, viewed overall in relation to the benchmark OLS model, performance is not consistently improved by any particular model.     

An environmental performance index for products reflecting damage costs

Several studies have demonstrated how to use DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) based techniques to estimate environmental performance indices. None of these studies, however, are taking information on the environmental damage costs of the pressure types considered into account. This study is bridging a gap between environmental indices founded in physical pressures and damage costs founded in welfare economics. The aim of the paper is twofold: first, to demonstrate how to implement the information on environmental damage costs within a DEA based environmental performance index, and second, to estimate these indices at product level by using Danish input-output data and environmental data from 1997.     

Voluntary Environmental Agreements: Taking Up Positions And Meeting Pressure

This paper portrays voluntary agreements as a Nash-bargaining game between the authorities and the polluting industry. Before bargaining starts, the authorities threaten to introduce emission licences if the negotiations come to nothing, while industry, by the use of lobbying campaigns, can make it politically costly to regulate by law. The most likely game of the ones considered is characterized by the authorities first announcing a level of licensing, whereupon industry will adjust its lobbying activity. This game results in a relatively defensive industry and authorities than other games under consideration.     

Why economic sanctions always fail — the case of Rhodesia

Demands for the imposition of economic sanctions under UN auspices on South Africa have been voiced for quite some time. Rhodesia was the first country ever to be subjected to a full obligatory embargo by the UN Security Council. An analysis of the embargo against Rhodesia will therefore help to answer the question whether an embargo on South Africa stands a chance of success.     

Moving resources across permeable project boundaries in open network contexts

This paper discusses how firms develop and use resources across a permeable project boundary and conceptualizes how a project can create value for a focal parent organization. Inspired by ideas on interaction and open innovation, we suggest a framework for analyzing the flow of resources based on the two dimensions; direction, whether the resource starts inside or outside the project, and mode, whether the resources cross the boundary once (uni-directionally) or twice (bi-directionally). The dimensions lead to four situations: Inside-out, Outside-in, Boomerang and Passing on. The framework is based on a single case study of an inter-organizational research project in plant biotechnology in a Swedish context. Through these four situations, the results show that a focal parent organization can create direct, indirect, relational potential and transactional potential value. The complex pattern of value creation in an open network context, raises the challenging question of how to capture the value created.     

Time series momentum

We document significant “time series momentum” in equity index, currency, commodity, and bond futures for each of the 58 liquid instruments we consider. We find persistence in returns for one to 12 months that partially reverses over longer horizons, consistent with sentiment theories of initial under-reaction and delayed over-reaction. A diversified portfolio of time series momentum strategies across all asset classes delivers substantial abnormal returns with little exposure to standard asset pricing factors and performs best during extreme markets. Examining the trading activities of speculators and hedgers, we find that speculators profit from time series momentum at the expense of hedgers.     

Globally networked: Intraorganizational boundary spanning in the global organization

Multinational corporations (MNCs) need to sense, source, and mobilize knowledge when and where it arises, whether at home, or elsewhere in the world. For this reason, MNCs benefit from employee networks of relationships that span across intraorganizational barriers, allowing for the efficient mobilization of knowledge across boundaries. Yet, which organizational members are more likely to be able to develop these boundary spanning networks? We leverage a unique data set from a large multinational corporation to empirically test a comprehensive model that captures the effect of an employee’s mandate, expertise, and behavioral orientations on her likelihood to span intraorganizational boundaries that manifest themselves in the form of hierarchies, intra-functional domains, and geographic territories. We find that the employees that are more likely to be boundary spanners are those having mandates with a global impact, high levels of expertise, and a collaborative orientation in their networking behaviors. In addition, we find that these effects are stronger for those employees that have large formal workflow networks.     

Carry

We apply the concept of carry, which has been studied almost exclusively in currency markets, to any asset. A security’s expected return is decomposed into its “carry,” an ex-ante and model-free characteristic, and its expected price appreciation. Carry predicts returns cross-sectionally and in time series for a host of different asset classes, including global equities, global bonds, commodities, US Treasuries, credit, and options. Carry is not explained by known predictors of returns from these asset classes, and it captures many of these predictors, providing a unifying framework for return predictability. We reject a generalized version of Uncovered Interest Parity and the Expectations Hypothesis in favor of models with varying risk premia, in which carry strategies are commonly exposed to global recession, liquidity, and volatility risks, though none fully explains carry’s premium.