Standards in transitions: Catalyzing infrastructure change

Infrastructures are difficult to change in response to new societal demands. They are entrenched, materially and socio-institutionally, and seem to be ‘locked-in’. Scholars have addressed this problem by, for example, devising strategies for de-entrenchment, alternative path creation and transition management that focus on the process of change (emphasis on ‘how’). In this paper, we take a novel and counterintuitive approach, and focus on standards as a starting point for change (emphasis on ‘what’). We analyze in what manner standards can play a catalyzing role in infrastructure transitions and which standards characteristics facilitate in doing so.Central to our framework are the concepts of gateway technology and compatibility. We analyze three cases, i.e., the modal shift in freight container transport; the transition from barcode to Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID); and the possibility of a Dutch energy transition from natural gas to hydrogen.The article concludes that standards can catalyze infrastructure transitions if, first, their content well-reflects relevant stakeholder interests; and, second, if standard specifications are simple and performance-oriented. Their impact is highest in stable markets and for expanding infrastructures. Under these conditions standards can exploit the forces of entrenchment and socio-technical lock-in to bring about change.     

Performance, Promotion and Information

If a firm provides incentives by promoting those who have performed well in a job, it may transfer them to a job to which they are not well suited and agents are promoted to their levels of incompetence. Tournaments are an alternative to reputation as a means of ensuring that firms reward good performance when performance is unverifiable.     

LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY COMPARISON BETWEEN CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND FRANCE

This paper reports on the results of the bilateral study of the comparison of levels of labor productivity in industry between Czechoslovakia and France in 28 branches of industry. Because of the importance of common studies of the questions of productivity of labor and its international comparison, the Economic Commission for Europe of the U.N. decided several years ago to introduce a concrete programme of work in this sphere. This study was made jointly by Czechoslovakia and France. The present paper reports on the first stage of the study, giving results based on physical unit methods. The second stage of the work includes comparisons for branches of industry not covered in this paper, on the basis of value indicator methods; detailed results will be published in respective U.N. series to the end of 1969 (Series Conf. Eur. Stats.).     

Examining macroeconomic models through the lens of asset pricing

We develop new methods for representing the asset-pricing implications of stochastic general equilibrium models. We provide asset-pricing counterparts to impulse response functions and the resulting dynamic value decompositions (DVDs). These methods quantify the exposures of macroeconomic cash flows to shocks over alternative investment horizons and the corresponding prices or investors’ compensations. We extend the continuous-time methods developed in Hansen and Scheinkman (2012) and Borovi?ka et al. (2011) by constructing discrete-time, state-dependent, shock-exposure and shock-price elasticities as functions of the investment horizon. Our methods are applicable to economic models that are nonlinear, including models with stochastic volatility.     

Two Approaches to Business Ethics

Following an historical survey of ethical perspectives, the author focuses on an emerging "market ethics" dictating economic, cultural and legal principles and practices. He is especially concerned with the subsequent loss of human and social capital, and suggests the need for reviving those vital ethical considerations, especially during this time of transition for The Czech Republic and other Eastern European nations.     

The Yugoslav economy viewed through the theory of labor management

In the days of Marx, the major problem was the liberation of the working man from the capitalist. The contribution of Yugoslavia to socialism is the liberation of the working man from the state. But socialist labor-management cannot assume the position of the leading world system, which belongs to it, until it liberates the working man from himself as a collective capitalist.     

Who are Advisory Services Leaving Out? A Critical Reflection on ‘Hard to Reach’ Farmers

Although the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union has broadened its objectives to integrate social issues, several hard-to-reach groups of farmers and workers continue to be ignored by advisory services and associated policies. Connecting with these groups has a strong potential to increase the economic and social cohesion of European agricultures. We interviewed over 1,000 farmers across Europe and identified features of these groups that are often overlooked by advisory services. We critically reflected on the social cohorts omitted from advisory services and how they could be better reached; they include farm labourers, new entrants or ‘career changers’, and later adopters. We clarify the different types of advisors in the advisory landscape, distinguishing between those who are linked to or independent from sales of inputs or technologies. We make concrete recommendations about how to engage advisors with hard-to-reach groups, with approaches suited to different national contexts of Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS); thus contributing to the ‘AKIS dimension of National Strategic Plans of the next Common Agricultural Policy, 2023–2027. We argue for the more effective use of advances in the social sciences through a better understanding of advice as social interaction which can bolster the inclusiveness of public policies.     

Toward the system theory of dependence: Further general theoretical remarks

This paper forms another part of a more extensive study inspired by the authors' aims to contribute to the elaboration of the social systems theory of dependence and to better understand the behavior of the global system of human beings and of its subsystems. The theory of dependence, by elaborating an abstract theoretical model of the dependence space, aims at a better understanding of social change (or resistance to change) on the micro, medium and macro-levels of the social systems. In this paper some features of a crude model have been presented at a high level of abstraction. A minimum set of concepts, such as dependence relation, dependence coupling, dependence boundary, dependence capacity, entropy of behavior, systems need relations and possibilities, etc., have been defined and formalized. Some propositions have been formulated. We hope that, in spite of the high level of abstraction and of an insufficient amount of data supporting our propositions which are based mainly on the general systems taxonomy and on the hypothetical-deductive method, the conclusions will have some heuristic value for further inquiries into the theory of modelling the guidance systems of social processes.