Experts against adverse selection: A note on the existence of equilibrium with costly appropriable information

The existence of competitive equilibrium in Laffont's (J. Econ. Theory10 (1975)) model of adverse selection with costly information is studied. The existence of an equilibrium with finite prices is demonstrated without unusual restrictions on preferences or the technology of information production. This is made possible by changing the way in which the behaviour of information producing agents is modelled, and allowing for some public information.     

Making the energy transition in rural east Africa: Is leapfrogging an alternative?

There is renewed optimism about the potential for leapfrogging in the rural energy sector of East Africa. By adopting highly efficient and renewable technologies many believe the region can rapidly bypass the conventional path of energy development and skip directly into the use of more efficient and environmentally friendly technologies. This study explores the potential for energy leapfrogging by examining three technological approaches targeted at rural households in East Africa: conventional grid expansion, renewable energy technologies supplying electricity, and improved cookstoves. The study identifies economic, social, political, and cultural factors limiting the ability of rural people to rapidly switch into using and/or supplying these technologies. The potential for leapfrogging may be overstated by planners and experts who focus on the technical and economic viability of the technologies while insufficiently considering the social conditions and economic realities of daily life in the region. Moreover, energy leapfrogging itself is considered a misconception. Energy transitions in rural areas are incremental processes—not leaps—dependent upon household and regional accumulations of technological capabilities. These capabilities have technical, organizational, and institutional components and are manifest in individuals' capacity to adapt to new technologies, their ability to take economic risks, and in their desire to modify their behavior. In designing technology dissemination or energy supply projects, planners must thoroughly account for the capabilities existing in rural areas.     

Disruptive technologies: a business model perspective on cloud computing

A viable business model is crucial for the successful commercialisation of disruptive technologies. The cloud computing industry provides an ideal example for exploring how various elements of a business model contribute to a product's success (or failure). We examine how Amazon.com, Salesforce.com and Siebel responded to the disruptive power of the cloud computing technology. Our findings suggest disruptive technology per se is not the reason for the collapse of large corporations, but rather the failure to adapt or create new business models to incorporate novel technology. Our findings have direct implications for strategic managers and entrepreneurs seeking to leverage disruptive technologies through the right business model.     

Limited knowledge of demand and oligopoly equilibria

In a standard model of oligopoly with differentiated products, the existence of an equilibrium at which the first-order conditions for profit maximisation are simultaneously satisfied for all firms is proved and this is done without imposing any restrictions on the demand functions. This is an equilibrium in the following sense: although some firms may not necessarily be maximising their profits, nevertheless if each firm's knowledge of demand is limited to the linear approximation of its own demand curve, then it will believe that it is indeed maximising its profits.     

Socioeconomic dimensions of mercury pollution abatement: Engaging artisanal mining communities in Sub-Saharan Africa

In recent years, strategies to tackle mercury pollution from artisanal gold mining have mainly included restrictions — banning mercury trade internationally, prescribing alternate technologies and tightening regulations on mining (e.g. banning mercury use). However, artisanal mining communities in Africa are often trapped in cycles of poverty that make it difficult for workers to improve technologies and reduce mercury pollution. This article assesses problems with narrow pollution abatement discourses and top-down regulations, examining the need for integrated approaches to address pollution and socioeconomic challenges in low income mining communities. It advances the hypothesis that pollution abatement strategies fail if they do not explicitly address local socioeconomic capacities for improving environmental management, informed by an adaptive understanding of labor dynamics. Case studies in Mozambique and Tanzania are examined where United Nations pilot projects sought to address local challenges. These combined training on improved technologies and environmental risk mitigation with efforts to empower miners by enhancing access to microfinance services and fairer gold marketing arrangements. These case studies demonstrate adaptive ways of engaging local concerns in mining areas, highlighting lessons that are especially urgent now that recent policy commitments from Europe and the United States to ban mercury exports have specifically sought to make mercury more expensive for African mining communities. Ultimately, the analysis suggests how regionally focused ecological economics research has a vital role to play in (a) revealing how narrowly conceived responses to pollution can yield counterproductive results as well as exacerbate exploitative labor conditions in low income contexts; and (b) stimulating analytic focus on innovative ways of integrating pollution reduction strategy with grassroots socioeconomic empowerment strategies.     

An adjustment to the likelihood ratio statistic when testing hypotheses in the multivariate linear model using large samples: A note

Leamer's (1978) criterion for testing restrictions in the single equation linear model in which the level of significance decreases with sample size is generalized to the case of common, within equation linear restrictions in the multivariate linear model.     

The convergence of economic systems and the M-form

This paper draws together two areas of economic theory: Williamson's transactional analysis of the capitalist corporation, and the role of technology in comparative economic systems. It considers the M-form as an organizational innovation under capitalism, central planning and self-management, and comes to the conclusion that this new technology does not seem to have promoted the convergence of economic systems. Rather, the M-form's experience suggests that new technology has an impact consistent with Ambivalence theory, which sees new technologies as being adapted to suit the status quo.     

Observable preferences for public goods

This paper discusses the circumstances under which it is possible to use the market or aggregate demand functions generated from individual utility maximization to obtain consumers' preferences for certain classes of public goods, and thus obtain the information needed to satisfy the Samuelsonian efficiency conditions for these public goods. The restrictions on the preferences of all consumers which are sufficient to use the aggregate demand function are: (i) there exists a price vector such that the level of public good provisiion is valueless, and (ii) the marginal rate of substitution of the private good price for the level of public good provision is independent of income.     

Reaggregation and firm-level inference in multiplant technologies

We examine conditions under which plant-level data can be used to make firm-level inferences about technology, supply, and demand. Global conditions for such reaggregation involve nonjointness restrictions in both the plant and product dimensions. In the neighborhood of the firm’s fixed overheads, however, restrictions may be eased by appealing to a multiplant generalization of Kohli’s notion of almost nonjointness, which we term “almost reaggregation.” While global conditions for almost reaggregation are the same as for full reaggregation, the local conditions outlined are more easily satisfied. Analysts thus are less likely to commit reaggregation bias when firm-level overheads are constant, and can take advantage of this conclusion through judicious model design.      

Identification of technological threats and opportunities by firms

A number of models and approaches are being developed in attempts to anticipate the nature and direction of technological change and its impact on the firm. Under what conditions might we expect firms to use one or more of these models in an organized way and under what conditions might we expect the resulting information to be used in the firm's planning process? The basic hypothesis of this paper is that effective use by firms of models for anticipating technological change can be explained based upon: the nature and extent of uncertainty in the firm's environment,the firm's strategy for growth, and the degree of definition of communication networks (both formal and informal) within the firm and between the firm and its environment. Technology planners and managers of 29 firms in a variety of industries have been interviewed concerning the ways in which technological threats and opportunities are identified and analyzed and the ways in which this information is integrated into the firm's normal planning cycle. A follow-up questionnaire is being designed to be sent to a larger number of respondents.     

Risk and decentralization in the theory of economic policy

In this note, uncertainty is incorporated into Tinbergen's model of economic policy. If the Central Planning Authority's preferences amomg subjective probability distributions can be described by a von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function, and if certain restrictions are imposed on these probability distributions, then the Authority can delegate control over partitions of the instrument vector to its Agencies and so decentralize its decision process.     

Forecasting MBT technologies using DEA and LR

First, this paper explores Main Battle Tank (MBT) data set with different statistical methods in order to decide the most appropriate variables as reliable yardsticks in applying technology forecasting (TF) using data envelopment analysis (TFDEA) technique. It then applies TF using DEA method to forecast MBT technologies. This article attempts to predict technology development year of MBT commercialised from 1941 to 1994. This article presents the processes of TFDEA in detail and identifies some issues to search for appropriate input and output variables to forecast MBT technologies. The purpose of this study is to address some issues and identify an appropriate data to predict future trends of MBT technologies when using TFDEA and multiple linear regression tools. Finally, the study provides an understanding of the technological advances being sought in MBT technologies and information for use in making decisions regarding development strategy.     

On the theory of aggregation

Kenneth Arrow's famous General Possibility Theorem, which describes logical restrictions on the possible ways of aggregating individuals' preference orderings into a social preference ordering, is extended and proved in general for aggregation procedures on arbitrary domains.     

Technology and social change: William Fielding Ogburn revisited

This paper reviews William Fielding Ogburn's work on technology and social change. An overview of his basic theory is presented, as well as later refinements found in such works as Recent Social Trends in the United States, Technological Trends and National Policy, The Social Effects of Aviation, and other books and articles. It is suggested that while Ogburn is most widely remembered for his thesis of cultural lag, some of his later work on technology and social change is actually more important and deserves reconsideration and extension. One kind of extension might follow the lines of a systems approach rather than continuing the technological primacy strategy that Ogburn is normally considered to have used. The paper also surveys Ogburn's important work in the areas of technology, planning, and social policy, including materials on technology assessment. Ogburn's nontechnocratic approach to these questions, as well as his insistence that social scientists have a great deal to offer to the formulation of technological and social policies, are some of his most important contributions. Questions of technology and social change remain important contemporary issues, yet there is a surprising paucity of social science work on these crucial topics. Further study, extension, and reformulation of Ogburn's pioneering ideas offer fruitful means of embarking on new social science analyses of technology and society.     

Energy in America's future

Energy in America's Future, the book reported on in this article, assembled facts and performed analyses required for making informed energy choices. It reached broad conclusions on supply and demand prospects and on the environmental and other social aspects of policy choices. Although near-term constraints are severely binding, the nation's natural resource position is favorable for long-run supply expansion. Future technologies are also promising in cost terms. Although costs are bound to rise, a ceiling on long-run supply costs looks to be possible at real levels surprisingly close to current prices. Energy consumption in relationship to overall national output (GNP) will be growing at a slower rate than in recent decades. Consumers will use relatively less energy as a result of higher energy prices, conservation incentives, and new energy-using technology. Even so, overall energy use will grow. Major energy demand policy issues concern not just the likely rate of growth of consumption, but also the possible problems connected with optimizing energy efficiency at the expense of economic efficiency (i.e., output in relation to all inputs, particularly those of labor and capital). Environmental impacts and concerns about questions of human health and safety will continue to affect public acceptance of particular energy technologies. The public will need to be adequately informed on the comparative risks of energy supply technologies, and the technical and institutional means available for reducing these risks. The price system must be permitted to function to the maximum feasible extent. In addition, the task for political leadership is to forge a public consensus in support of achievable energy goals. This has been difficult because of conflicting public perceptions of the facts and clashes in social values among different groups. The future prospects for achieving a national energy consensus should be enhanced by the outlook for slower energy demand growth and favorable supply prospects along with potential improvements in the environmental side effects associated with new and improved supply technologies. As knowledge of these changing circumstances becomes more broadly disseminated, the ability to achieve broad public support of energy goals should grow stronger.     

Income instability,terms of trade,and the choice of exchange rate regime

In this article terms of trade fluctuations, which constitute an important source of income instability in many LDC's, are decomposed into three principal components: (a) shifts in world market conditions, (b) shifts in home market conditions and (c) changes in exchange rates. The appropriateness of a ‘basket peg’ is then analyzed in terms of a country's net export-side market power and a weighting formula is derived which would offset variations in third countries' exchange rates on the home country's terms of trade. Initial empirical results tend to support the hypothesis that basket pegs are usually adopted by countries with net export-side market power.     

An exceptional development pattern

This paper investigates India's exceptional development pattern, specifically the major importance of information technology services (ITS), and compares it with China's development pattern. Both countries want to develop capabilities for carrying out the innovation of technologies that compete at the state-of-the-art in the world market. The paper posits that technological/economic success in the contemporary world market requires the ability to innovate complex technologies and complex technology-related services. The share of trade represented by complex technologies is compared with the “high-tech” share. The trading patterns of the two countries are compared using United Nations data. Two case studies of Indian ITS companies are then compared with two case studies of Chinese manufacturing companies. Historical and cultural differences appear to explain some of the differences in the development patterns of the companies located in the two countries.     

Forecasting emerging technologies with the aid of science and technology databases

Short term forecasting was applied to 20 emerging technologies under the “Machine and Materials” category based on the Vision 2023 foresight study previously conducted for Turkey. This scientometric approach uses the most suitable keywords linked to the technology in question and determines the number of publications and patents in those fields for a given year. Database analysis of publications and patents in the previous 11 years indicates that while the majority of the top 20 technologies identified by the experts are indeed emerging (i.e. the number of research and/or patenting in these technologies is increasing), some of them have not actually attracted too much interest in the science and technology (S&T) community. Forecasts based on S-curves indicate steady growth in some of the selected technologies. There is a high correlation between the number of scientific publications and patents in most of the technologies investigated. The method is proposed as a simple and efficient tool to link national foresight efforts to international S&T activities and to obtain quantitative information for prioritized technologies that could be used for technology management and decision making for research funding and technology investment.     

Two estimators for the apt model when factors are measured

Non-linear SUR and ITSUR techniques are proposed for the estimation of the APT and the CAPM when the factors are observed. These techniques estimate all of the parameters of the model simultaneously and directly impose the model's non-linear parameter restrictions.     

Tailoring CTA for emerging technologies

Technology assessment (TA) has developed into a method that puts a strong emphasis on facilitating interfaces between supply of science and technology and the demand for useful applications. Recently, we also see that TA becomes an integral part of science and technology programs, for instance in nanotechnology. The basic aim of the latter is to articulate the needs, wishes, and constraints, for example from professional users, already in the emerging stage of technological development. TA methods come in many different forms, although they are often different versions of a limited set of ‘basic approaches’ adapted to specific conditions with the overall aim to improve societal embedding. The thrust of this paper lies in the development and results of a variant of constructive TA (CTA), addressing technological development in an early phase in order to bypass the Collingridge dilemma by developing and testing scenarios including options for the further development of emerging technologies.How to support a broad selection of relevant actors effectively with CTA in such a way that they are enabled to play their role in innovation processes of emerging technologies? This is the main research question taken up in this paper. To take on this challenge we develop, apply, and evaluate an intervention we named the 3-step constructive technology assessment (CTA) approach. We will apply the approach to a nanotechnology related topic, Lab-on-a-chip technology. By assessing the effects and evaluating the proposed approach, we also want to contribute to the development of new methodological insights relevant for the TA community.