Sustainability‐oriented capabilities for eco‐innovation: Meeting the regulatory,technology, and market demands

Despite consensus in the literature that regulation, technology push, and market pull drive eco‐innovation (EI), evidence remains limited on the diverse firm capabilities needed to boost EI. Building on the natural‐resource‐based view of the firm and the EI literature, this paper posits that firms need to renew and realign their capabilities, and ultimately develop distinctive sustainability‐oriented capabilities, in order to meet the rapidly changing regulatory, technology, and market demands. Results of the analysis, based on a survey of U.K. firms, reveal that EIs are more likely to arise when firms (a) build capabilities on voluntary self‐regulation (i.e., executive driven environmental management system and corporate social responsibility) because such organizational capabilities allow them to address increasing regulatory pressures; (b) invest in environmental research and development (i.e., eco‐R&D)—instead of generic research and development—because it provides them with the relevant and specific technological capabilities to tackle technology shifts towards sustainability; and (c) develop capabilities in green market sensing as such capabilities allow them to address green consumption needs.     

China's Emergent City‐Region Governance: A New Form of State Spatial Selectivity through State‐orchestrated Rescaling

This article examines the emergence of city‐region governance as a specific state spatial selectivity in post‐reform China. The process has been driven by the state in response to the crisis of economic decentralization, and to vicious inter‐city competition and uncoordinated development. As part of the recentralization of state power, the development of urban clusters (chengshiqun) as interconnected city‐regions is now a salient feature of ‘new urbanization' policy. I argue in this article that the Chinese city‐region corresponds to specific logics of scale production. Economic globalization has led to the development of local economies and further created the need to foster ‘regional competitiveness'. To cope with regulatory deficit at the regional level, three mechanisms have been orchestrated by the state: administrative annexation, spatial plan preparation and regional institution building, which reflect recent upscaling in post‐reform governance.     

Coastal Urban Planning in The ‘Green Republic’: Tourism Development and the Nature–Infrastructure Paradox in Costa Rica

This article examines coastal urban planning in Costa Rica vis‐à‐vis the country's values in the areas of sustainable tourism and community development, focusing on the city of Jacó. I argue that an anti‐urban tourism development strategy, swift coastal urban development and weak planning have nurtured a nature–infrastructure paradox: when people are brought closer to nature without proper urban and governmental infrastructure, this causes social and environmental damage. To assess this paradox and understand local perceptions of development, I analyzed lengthy semi‐structured interviews and survey responses in San José and Jacó in this study. Research methods also encompassed analysis of current tourism planning institutions and regulations, tourism media coverage and reports, real estate data, participant observation of planning and community meetings and activities, and observations of the built and natural environmental conditions in Jacó and its surroundings. The findings show jurisdictional fragmentation, regulatory weaknesses, complexity, poor coordination, slow action, and incoherent planning and development, leading to environmental degradation and socio‐spatial inequities. A more balanced approach to planning and development would seek to improve environmental health and socio‐spatial equity in tandem, by nurturing and advancing both nature and infrastructure development. Lessons from Jacó have global resonance, given the expansion of the worldwide tourism and second‐home/retirement‐housing industries, their recent concentration in urban coastal destinations of developing countries, and the fragility of these socio‐ecological systems.     

On Testing Conditional Sigma – Convergence*

In a cross‐section where the initial distribution of observations differs from the steady‐state distribution and initial values matter, convergence is best measured in terms of σ‐convergence over a fixed time period. For this setting, we propose a new simple Wald test for conditional σ‐convergence. According to our Monte Carlo simulations, this test performs well and its power is comparable with the available tests of unconditional convergence. We apply two versions of the test to conditional convergence in the size of European manufacturing firms. The null hypothesis of no convergence is rejected for all country groups, most single economies, and for younger firms of our sample of 49,646 firms.     

Low‐paid women: the impact of regulatory change in Australia

How is low‐paid work experienced and understood by women at a time of marked regulatory change? Using a qualitative methodology, we examine women's experiences under Work Choices to assess the impact of the new laws. As in other neoliberal environments, we find that labour standards can have marked effects on low‐paid workers; that heightened managerial prerogative leads to fear and insecurity; and that, in spite of all this, low‐paid women have significant pride in their work. Furthermore, the results of regulatory change go beyond the workplace to affect women as carers, citizens and community members.     

When (not) to indulge in ‘puffery’: the role of consumer expectations and brand goodwill in determining advertised and actual product quality

We analyze why some firms advertise product quality at a level different from the actual quality of a product. By considering the interacting effects of product quality and advertising, we develop a dynamic model of consumer expectations about product quality and the development of brand goodwill to determine the optimal values for the decision variables. The model parameters are determined based on prior literature and we use numerical techniques to arrive at the solution. We then derive conditions under which a firm will find it optimal to overstate or understate product quality. The results suggest that quality may be overstated in markets characterized by high price sensitivity, low quality sensitivity, low brand loyalty, and high source credibility, suggesting the need for vigilance on the part of consumers, upper level managers and regulatory authorities in such market conditions. This is important because current regulatory resources are insufficient to reduce deceptive advertising practices (Davis JJ. 1994. Ethics in advertising decision‐making: implications for reducing the incidence of deceptive advertising. Journal of Consumer Affairs 28 : 380–402). Further, the law of deceptive advertising prohibits some advertising claims on the ground that they are likely to harm consumers or competitors (Preston IL, Richards JI. 1993. A role for consumer belief in FTC and Lanham Act deceptive advertising cases. American Business Law Journal 31 : 1–29). Also, Nagler (1993. Rather bait than switch: deceptive advertising with bounded consumer rationality. Journal of Public Economics 51 : 359–378) shows that deceptive advertising causes a net social welfare loss and a public policy effectively preventing deception will improve social welfare. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE INTERSECTION OF THE FIELDS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS: A REVIEW TOWARDS A NEW VIEW

Despite the popularity of promoting entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for economic development, there is little scientific basis on which policy makers can lean. The scholarly fields of entrepreneurship economics and development economics have been elaborated in isolation and only recently started to intersect. This growing intersection is, however, still fragmented, ad hoc, not based on a unifying theoretical approach and suffering from lack of proper measurement. Better policy making will hence benefit from the extension and deepening of the intersection of these fields. We contribute in this regard by providing a conceptual basis for the eventual elaboration of such a unified theoretical approach. We do so by providing an up‐to‐date review of the intersection of the two fields by noting the progress and gaps; by delineating the externalities associated with entrepreneurship in development and by proposing a synthesis definition of entrepreneurship.     

Development Rights and the Differential Assessment of Agricultural Land: Fractional Valuation of Farmland is Ineffective for Preserving Open Space and Subsidizes Speculation

Abstract . The relative fiscal efficacy of using differential assessment as a means of preserving agricultural land is examined. A simple model of land use and land rent determination is developed and tested. An implication is that differential assessment merely delays or retards, but does not prevent, the conversion of land to developed uses. Differential assessment is viewed as a tax expenditure, or special tax reduction, that in essence leases development rights, Landowners are also shown to be overcompensated for the development rights implicitly acquired by the public sector. The fee simple purchase of development rights or regulatory control over the use of development rights can be employed to preserve farm land at a lower fiscal cost.     

Privileged Accumulation Spaces and Restrictions on Development of State‐Business Relations in Argentina (1966–1989)

The aim of this work is to explain how the state‐business relation has influenced economic development in Argentina. I will make a historical and systemic analysis of the Argentinian case to illustrate how and why state‐business relations supporting privileged accumulation spaces (PAS) increased development restrictions from 1966 to 1989. During this period, successive governments shared a common view about the central role the state had to perform for industrialization, especially by supporting the growth of big domestic industrial companies. This view would only radically change in 1989, when neoliberal structural reforms were implemented. To support this hypothesis, I suggest a methodological strategy that combines several techniques and sources in order to analyze the evolution of three complex variables and their multiple relations: state economic intervention, business behavior, and performance by large corporations.     

Regulatory risk, market uncertainties, and firm financing choices: Evidence from U.S. Electricity Market Restructuring

Based on the universe of rate-regulated electric utilities in the U.S., we examine why firms alter their financing decisions when transitioning from a regulated to a competitive market regime. We find that the significant increase in regulatory risk after the passage of the Energy Policy Act, state-level restructuring legislations, and divestiture policies have reduced leverage by 15 percent. Policies that encouraged competition, and hence increased market uncertainty, lowered leverage by another 13 percent on average. The ability to exercise market power allowed some firms to counter this competitive threat. In aggregate, regulatory risk and market uncertainty variables reduce leverage between 24.6 and 26.7 percent. We also confirm findings in the literature that firms with higher profitability and higher asset growth have lower leverage, and those with more tangible assets are more levered. Firms with greater access to internal capital markets and those with a footloose customer segment use less debt, while those actively involved in trading power in the wholesale market use more debt.     

Mitigating climate change: A role for regulations and risk‐taking

Why do some firms engage in actions to reduce climate change? We propose two counterintuitive mechanisms: high levels of regulation and a firm's increased tolerance for risk. Drawing from insights on how institutional contexts constrain, and enable, prosocial firm behavior, we argue that external pressures, amplified internally by a firm's higher tolerance for risk, increase the likelihood that a greenhouse gas (GHG)‐intensive firm will engage in climate change actions that exceed regulatory requirements. An analysis based on 7,101 observations of U.S. publicly traded firms during the 2013 to 2015 period supports our hypotheses. Our models show high overall prediction accuracy (88.6%) using an out‐of‐time holdout sample from 2016. Moreover, we find that firms that have exhibited environmental wrongdoing are also more likely to engage in beyond‐compliance activities, which may be a form of greenwashing. Thus, more formal and informal regulatory oversight has the potential to spur positive environmental actions. This has implications for a firm's corporate social responsibility actions as well as for climate change regulatory policy.     

Diversification by Urbanization: Tracing the Property‐Finance Nexus in Dubai and the Gulf

This article explores the role of liberalized real estate markets in shaping financial‐sector development in the Arab Gulf region. Since 2001, record oil revenues and the inflow of repatriated wealth into the region have generated immense demand for new, productive destinations for surplus capital. Gulf Cooperation Council states have subsequently undergone rapid growth that is intimately tied to the regulatory transformation of urban real estate markets and the circulation of surplus capital from oil rents to the ‘secondary circuit’ of the built environment. With an emphasis on the city of Dubai, we employ the notion of diversification by urbanization to trace the re‐regulation of real estate markets and highlight how these strategies have subsequently shaped Gulf financial markets. Through an examination of the impacts of real estate mega‐project development on local banking credit, equities and Islamic financial markets, we reframe recent urbanization in the region as a process of financial re‐engineering, and identify the emergence of capital groups whose accumulation activities are tightly connected to both the real estate and financial circuit.     

A note on the length,measured along fixed orientations,of a path connecting any two points relative to their straight line distance

Let D be an invertible matrix and L₁ (x) denote the well‐known 1‐norm of x∈Rⁿ. In this note we analyse the kth moment of the ratio L₁ (D^?1z) and its asymptotics in special cases, where z is uniformly distributed over the unit hypersphere. Conceptually, L₁ (D^?1z) can be seen as the (weighted) length, measured along fixed orientations, of a path connecting any two points relative to their straight line distance.     

Free collective bargaining and incomes policy: learning from Barbara Wootton and Hugh Clegg on post‐war British Industrial Relations and wage inequality

Growing income inequality has returned as a major political issue in affluent, advanced economies, often associated directly with the decline of trade unions and collective bargaining. In policy terms, this has been reflected in the British campaign for a ‘Living Wage’ and the new German minimum wage. Yet on the broader front, Industrial Relations (IR) struggles to find a credible regulatory strategy to address inequality—one that combines state and civil society initiatives and can be legitimised in political philosophy. This History and Policy article argues that there is much to learn from the IR past, before neo‐liberalism. My focus is the writing of Barbara Wootton and Hugh Clegg on ‘Incomes Policy’, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, when this was a central intellectual and policy issue in British IR. I explore the differing justifications for Incomes Policy, from corporatist macro‐economic management to social equality, comparing and contrasting the democratic socialist political principles of Wootton with Clegg's social democratic pluralism. The conclusion relates this historical debate between state pattern and civil society process to current concerns about how social democratic ideas and IR policy can address the problem of labour market inequality.     

“But we can't go back”

In 2004, a provincial cancer agency in Canada developed and implemented a provincewide Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) to enhance organizational leadership and relationships. Research using a quasi‐experimental survey design determined whether LDI implementation influenced the emotional health and leadership practices of LDI participants. An ethnographic approach (18 focus groups and 13 individual interviews) explored participants' perceptions of the LDI. This article presents qualitative findings that contribute to understanding the statistically significant findings of increasing levels of cynicism, emotional exhaustion, and burnout for most LDI participants. The LDI was regarded as a critical strategy for helping leaders grow and cope with change and help in changing organizational leadership culture to be more collaborative and inclusive. However, an organizational history of short‐lived, flavor‐of‐the‐month development initiatives and growing skepticism and disengagement by leaders represented in the themes of Catch‐22 and “there is no going back” contributes to understanding why these quantitative measures increased. Few studies have explored the hypothesis that real organizational development happens through a series of planned stages. In this study, leaders experienced escalating frustration because change was not seen to occur fast enough in “others” and reported that this was necessary before they would alter their own behavior. Leadership development programs in general need to reflect the reality that it takes considerable time, patience, and effort to effect fundamental change in leadership culture.     

Determinants and Valuation Implications of Compulsory Stock Option Disclosures in a Weak Regulatory Setting—The Case of France

Using a sample of listed French firms in 2005, the year of mandatory IFRS adoption in the European Union (EU), we investigate the determinants of disclosure compliance of stock option expenses under IFRS 2, Share‐based Payment. Stock options are a popular means of executive compensation in France relative to other EU countries. Prior to 2005, French accounting standards and corporate governance regulations did not require recognition of option expense amounts and required minimal supplementary disclosures. There was also a perception that enforcement was imperfect, in particular with respect to IFRS 2. Given this setting, we explore what factors influence the willingness of firms to follow compulsory IFRS requirements in a weak regulatory setting. We find that overall compliance with IFRS 2 disclosure requirements increases with U.S. and U.K. institutional ownership, U.S. cross‐listing, provision of English language statements, and decreases with CEO and family ownership of the firm. We also investigate how stock market prices are affected by the recognition and disclosure of stock option expenses according to IFRS 2 in this regulatory setting and find that investors value option expenses positively, particularly when accompanied by high‐disclosure compliance. Our findings have implications for other jurisdictions in the process of adopting or converging to IFRS.     

IMPROVING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: A LONG‐RUN VIEW

Abstract The pessimistic flavour of the Human Development Reports appears to be in contradiction with their own numbers as developing countries fare comparatively better in human development than in per capita GDP terms. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by providing a new, ‘improved’ human development index (IHDI), informed by welfare economics. The IHDI is presented here alongside the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) HDI for the world and its main regions since the late 19th century. Social dimensions in the IHDI are derived, following Kakwani (Journal of Development Economics 41 (1993), pp. 307–336), with a convex achievement function, whereas a geometric average is employed to combine its dimensions (longevity, knowledge and income). Thus, the IHDI does not conceal the gap between rich and poor countries and casts a much less optimistic view than the conventional UNDP index, while it fits with the UNDP concern for international differences. The paper's findings highlight main weaknesses in human development dimensions of present‐day developing countries.     

Multivariate L1 mean

The center of a univariate data set {x ₁,…,x _n} can be defined as the point μ that minimizes the norm of the vector of distances y′=(|x ₁−μ|,…,|x _n−μ|). As the median and the mean are the minimizers of respectively the L ₁- and the L ₂-norm of y, they are two alternatives to describe the center of a univariate data set. The center μ of a multivariate data set {x ₁,…,x _n} can also be defined as minimizer of the norm of a vector of distances. In multivariate situations however, there are several kinds of distances. In this note, we consider the vector of L ₁-distances y′₁=(∥x ₁- μ∥₁,…,∥x _n- μ∥₁) and the vector of L ₂-distances y′₂=(∥x ₁- μ∥₂,…,∥x _n-μ∥₂). We define the L ₁-median and the L ₁-mean as the minimizers of respectively the L ₁- and the L ₂-norm of y ₁; and then the L ₂-median and the L ₂-mean as the minimizers of respectively the L ₁- and the L ₂-norm of y ₂. In doing so, we obtain four alternatives to describe the center of a multivariate data set. While three of them have been already investigated in the statistical literature, the L ₁-mean appears to be a new concept. Received January 1999     

How does FinTech affect the development of the digital economy? Evidence from China

Financial Technology (FinTech) is key to the global ascendency of China's finance, and the digital economy is a new driving force in the sustainable development and high-quality growth of China's economy. So, what is the nature of the relationship between FinTech and the digital economy. Based on the CRITIC method, this study calculates the China's 31 provinces’ (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) FinTech indices from 2008 to 2018 and the digital economy development indices from 2012 to 2018, and analyzes the impact of FinTech on the digital economy and its underlying mechanism. The results show that FinTech stimulates the development of the digital economy in China by promoting technological innovation and weakening the financial decentralization of local governments. Further research indicates that local financial regulatory resources have a positive moderating effect on the impact of FinTech in promoting the development of the digital economy. Increased local financial regulatory resources will enable FinTech to promote the development of the digital economy, but this regulatory role is only significant in financially developed areas. The approach of the study is relatively novel.     

US state-level economic freedom during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic led to extensive new government regulations and lockdown policies that significantly reduced economic freedom across US states. Many of these new pandemic-related regulatory restrictions on economic freedom varied significantly from state to state but are largely missed by the existing Economic Freedom of North America Report (EFNA). This paper adjusts the Our World in Data COVID-19 Stringency Index into a state-level measure of lockdown regulatory freedom and then merges it into the EFNA index to better measure relative economic freedom across US states in 2020. We find significant differences in the relative ranking of economic freedom between states once we adjust for lockdown regulatory restrictions.