Valuation of Landmass Degradation Using Fuzzy Hedonic Method: A Case Study of National Capital Region

A Hedonic model to determine the revealed willingness to pay for landmass of different suitability classes, based on landmass functional characteristics obtained through subjective assessments, is developed for the National Capital Region in India. The inherent non-specificity involved in subjective evaluation is minimized using fuzzy logic based regression technique. The proposed fuzzy regression involves regression using central values of triangular fuzzy number and minimization of non-specificity using linear programming. The revealed willingness-to-pay for landmass of different suitability classes is used for valuation of disbenefits due to urban expansion on landmass of different agricultural suitability classes in National Capital Territory of Delhi. Appropriate pricing policies to prevent the future inappropriate landuse practices are developed using the landmass valuation.     

Why has Europe Become Environmentally Cleaner? Decomposing the Roles of Fiscal,Trade and Environmental Policies

This paper examines the role of fiscal policy, trade and energy taxes on environmental quality in Europe using disaggregated data at the monitoring station level for the 12 richest European countries spanning the period from 1995 to 2008. Our estimations show that fiscal policies and energy taxes are important determinants of pollution through various mechanisms. We find that increasing the share of fiscal spending in GDP and shifting the emphasis towards spending in public goods and against non-social subsidies significantly lower the concentrations of sulfur dioxide and ozone but not nitrogen dioxide. At the same time, energy taxes reduce nitrogen dioxide concentrations but have no effect on ozone and sulfur dioxide. Finally trade openness has a direct effect on sulfur dioxide but no effect on nitrogen dioxide or ozone. Our estimates account for time-varying unobserved heterogeneity.     

An empirical analysis of national and local advertising effect on price elasticity

This paper investigates the interaction effect of advertising and price on the market share of a consumer nondurable product. We postulate a model in which local advertising is thought to primarily affect the consumers' purchase by making the demand more price sensitive, and national advertising to affect the consumers' preference, thus making the demand less price sensitive. Moreover, we hypothesize that local advertising interaction will have more immediate effect, while national advertising interaction will have longer term interaction effects. We apply these ideas empirically, and find support for our hypotheses. Thus, the interaction effect of advertising and price can be characterized by both increased and decreased price sensitivity, depending on the type of advertising. Moreover, these effects may be present simultaneously for the same product.     

Coping with regional inequality in Sweden: structural change,migrations, and policy, 1860–2000

In many countries, regional income inequality has followed an inverted U‐shaped curve, growing during industrialization and market integration and declining thereafter. By contrast, Sweden's regional inequality dropped from 1860 to 1980 and did not exhibit this U‐shaped pattern. Accordingly, today's regional income inequality in Sweden is lower than in other European countries. We note that the prime mover behind the long‐run reduction in regional income differentials was structural change, whereas neoclassical and technological forces played a relatively less important role. However, this process of regional income convergence can be divided into three major periods. During the first period (1860–1940), the unrestricted action of market forces, particularly the expansion of markets and high rates of internal and international migration, led to the compression of regional income differentials. During the next period (1940–80), regional convergence was even more intense. In this period, institutional arrangements favoured the reduction of productivity differentials across industries and successive governments aided the reallocation of the workforce from declining to thriving regions and economic sectors. During the last period (1980–2000), when regional incomes diverged, internal migration and structural change slowed. Furthermore, the development of knowledge‐intensive service industries favoured economic growth in the main metropolitan areas.     

Mixed Market Competition in a Quality Differentiated Duopoly Model An Approach to Banking Sector

This paper attempts to develop a theoretical framework to investigate the competitive implications of quality choices of financial institutions whereby they charge prices to consumers based on their willingness to pay for the service qualities in the mixed market scenario under vertical product differentiation model. Initially, it analyzes benchmark equilibrium solutions of monopoly and duopoly to establish the degree of quality differentiation between two private banks in an uncover market configuration. Further, it estimates the quality differentiation between private and public banks, and examines the interaction between two market structures keeping public bank as both leader and follower, and then measures the social welfare from different prospectives. The explicit operation of two stages Nash equilibrium game forecasted that public banks＇ monopoly seems to be still better than a private banking, and it is socially optimal. The outcome demonstrates a significant importance of vertical quality differentiation for policy implication in banking industry and provides an insight on the reasons of particular co-existence of public and private banking services in the specified location. In this context, it is concluded that the presence of public banks in banking industries is a crucial condition for obtaining the higher range of social welfare.     

Bridging the Gap between Interest Rates and Investments

The links between interest rates, cost of capital, hurdle rates, and capital allocation have been remarkably weak during the last few years. For instance, whereas the current yield on the World Government Bond Index is a paltry 1.2%, survey evidence suggests that the median reported investment hurdle rate of S&P 100 companies is as high as 18%. In this report, members of J.P Morgan's corporate finance advisory group explain why the cost of capital for most companies is unlikely to increase materially even if interest rates rise as projected. This suggests that companies have room to lower their hurdle rates. Moreover, as the authors argue, a reduction in hurdle rates is likely to be beneficial since excessively high hurdle rates can have the effect of reducing value by sacrificing profitable growth opportunities and increasing the firm's risk profile. The report concludes with a framework for corporate hurdle rates and capital allocation strategies designed to help companies make better investment decisions.     

The Herning-Ikast textile industry: an industrial district in West Jutland

Notions of social inclusion and the need to combat social exclusion have become popular areas of attention in academic and policy circles. The importance of small firms and entrepreneurship as a means to raising inclusion has been emphasized in these new agendas. A priori, there are a number of reasons why small businesses may be regarded as providing opportunities for social inclusion. However, in this paper we argue that the recent expectations of the role of small firms and entrepreneurship in combating social exclusion are over optimistic. Some of the assumptions on which these expectations are based are questioned. Instead, we suggest that attention should start by a clearer understanding of the concept of social exclusion. Individual economic strategies, in the form of small business activity, can make some contribution but because of the complex multidimensional nature of social exclusion, over-inflated claims should be avoided. When these claims are not achieved there may be a danger of a policy backlash against the promotion of business ownership and disaffection amongst those who fail to realize their goals. This paper draws on secondary evidence and concludes with implications for policy and suggestions for further research.     

Advantageous Semi-Collusion

The textbook view that cartels increase industry profits and lower consumer welfare ignores the effects of competition in other activities. A revisionist view shows that when cartel members compete in other activities, i.e. when they semi-collude, the cartel members may be worse off and consumers better off. Using a two-stage model in which the non-production activity is R&D and is subject to technological spillovers, we show that both the traditional and revisionist views can be wrong, that consumers and producers can both be made worse off, or both better off, by a semi-collusive production cartel.     

Competency Training for Managing International Cooperation Engineering Projects

Organizations are becoming more and more aware of how important it is to strengthen the competences of their project managers. This fact acquires greater relevance in the development and international cooperation sector because of the need to have qualified professionals who can take up the challenges and address the specific demands of an ever more demanding and constantly evolving sector. This article provides the results of research that more than 100 experts in project management and administration participated in to detect which competences are the most relevant in this context.