Cluster analysis of cross impact model scenarios

Analysis of outputs of cross impact models often focuses on counts of frequency of occurence of events, and frequency of co-occurence of events, to estimate the probabilities of these events. This paper describes an additional analysis which can be performed on the output of a cross impact model. Individual output scenarios are clustered together on the basis of similarity, utilizing standard techniques of cluster analysis. The resulting clusters of similar scenarios can be viewed as “typical” scenarios and analyzed in terms of how much they differ from the overall average for the complete set of output scenarios. Analysis of the reasons for these differences helps identify critical events and significant relationships among events. The paper discusses the clustering algorithm used and the type of output to be expected.     

Ecological macroeconomics: An application to climate change

Ecological economics has not paid sufficient attention to the macroeconomic level both in terms of theory and modeling. Yet, key topics debated in the field of ecological economics such as sustainable consumption, reduction in working time, the degrowth debate, the energy–exergy link, and the rebound effect require a holistic and macro perspective. While this deficiency has been identified before and Keynesian economics has been generally suggested as a potent vehicle to establish economic systemic thinking, very little concrete theorizing and practical suggestions have been put forward. We give further credence to this suggestion and demonstrate the value of tackling key concerns of ecological economics within a Keynesian growth framework. Contextualized by an application to climate change we suggest that policy relevant recommendations need to be based on a consistent view of the macroeconomy. We end with laying out key building blocks for a Keynesian model framework for an ecological macroeconomics.     

Climate change as a threat to biodiversity: An application of the DPSIR approach

Climate change and its consequences present one of the most important threats to biodiversity and the functions of ecosystems. The stress on biodiversity is far beyond the levels imposed by the natural global climatic changes occurring in the recent evolutionary past. It includes temperature increases, shifts of climate zones, melting of snow and ice, sea level rise, droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events. Natural systems are vulnerable to such changes due to their limited adaptive capacity. Based on an analysis using the DPSIR framework, this paper discusses some of the important socio-economic driving forces of climate change, with a focus on energy use and transportation. The paper also analyses observed and potential changes of climate and the pressures they exert on biodiversity, the changes in biodiversity, the resulting impacts on ecosystem functions, and possible policy responses. The latter can be divided into mitigation and adaptation measures. Both strategies are needed, mitigation in order to stabilise the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and adaptation in order to adjust to changes that have already occurred or cannot be avoided. One mitigation option, increased biofuel production, which is also a response to oil depletion, would change land use patterns and increase human appropriation of net primary production of biomass, thereby threatening biodiversity. By considering the first order and second order impacts of climate change on biodiversity when developing policy measures, it will be possible to integrate ecosystem and biodiversity protection into decision-making processes.     

A change in market responses to the environmental management ranking in Japan

This article investigates stock price reactions to the release of the environmental management ranking issued by Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei newspaper) from 1998 to 2005, by using a standard event study methodology. An examination of stock price movements of the top 100 manufacturing companies reveals that stock prices during the sample period did not respond significantly to the release of the ranking within a 3-day event window. However, market responses became significantly positive after 2003, while they were significantly negative in 1999 and 2000. The stock prices of upgraded companies in particular reacted negatively before 2000, but positively after 2002. These results indicate that market reactions were changed between 2001 and 2002, when the Japanese government showed its strong commitment to environmental policies by establishing the Ministry of the Environment and signing the Kyoto Protocol, following a number of legislations.     

Expectations,uncertainty and institutions. An application to the analysis of social security reforms

The aging process that many developed economies will face in the medium-term is leading to reforms in the public pensions systems in order to solve the potential financial unsustainability generated by the foreseeable increase in the expenditure in pension benefits (assuming that the current social security contributions and the eligibility conditions will remain unchanged). Neoclassical economics defends a radical reform of these systems, substituting the current pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) systems by funded systems. In this paper, using the Post-Keynesian theory as a theoretical framework, we provide an alternative reflection to that proposed by the neoclassical economics about the choice between the alternative pension systems. The focus of the paper is the advantages of the PAYGO pension systems to stabilize the expectations of future income.     

Modelling economic circuit flows in a social accounting matrix framework. An application to Portugal

Aggregated Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) will be built for the Portuguese economy in 1997, 1998 and 1999, based on the country's national accounts statistics. The SAMs will be shown as a working instrument for quantifying the flows in the economic circuit and for simulating the effects resulting from changes in such flows. The economic flows associated with the government subsectors will be emphasized, whilst accounting and fixed-price multipliers will be calculated to facilitate the study of the effects resulting from changes in the government's expenditure, which will also be subjected to a test on their veracity.     

The welfare impact of migration with endogenous cross-border movement: An application to the European Union

In this paper, I examine the welfare impact of migration in a general equilibrium model with endogenous worker location choice. My framework incorporates labor productivity differences across countries, worker heterogeneity in productivity across skill and nativity types, as well as country-pair specific costs of migration. In a series of experiments, I predict the migration response of workers to an expansion or contraction in the number of European Union (EU) member countries. For the case of the United Kingdom (U.K.) leaving the EU, commonly referred to as Brexit, low skilled native-born U.K. workers suffer a drop-in income, whereas high skilled workers experience an increase. This result is driven, in part, by an increase in high skilled immigration to the U.K. from outside the EU, which helps to dampen the loss in income of low skilled workers.     

日本企业IT应用面面观

90年代以来迅速发展的IT革命,在人类历史上第一次形成了全球性的信息通讯网络,这不仅有力地促进了信息化社会的发展,也给企业经营战略带来了很大的影响。日本企业在IT应用方面亦有了很大的进展并形成了自己的特点,在增加信息化投资、实现企业信息化的同时,从新产品开发、零部件     

Welfare distribution of collective in-kind transfers in education: an application to the extended schools programme

In this study, we employ the distributional characteristics approach to analyse the welfare distribution of the Extended Schools Programme, a social programme that fights inequality in Northern Ireland’s public schools. Our main result is that increasing funding to schools as their size increases penalizes the most deprived students. This is because the school size, although related to the educational supply, does not reflect the distribution of deprivation within schools. Thus, although in the Northern Irish context the largest welfare gains are possible if funds are redistributed among middle-size schools, our general result indicates an excessive support of small-size schools at the expenses of large-size schools.     

The impact of regulation on productivity growth: An application to the transmission sector of the interstate natural gas industry

We estimate a regulated cost function to examine the contributions of technical change, scale economies, and regulatory bias to productivity growth in an eleven-year, twenty-firm panel of interstate natural gas pipeline companies. We derive the unregulated cost function from the regulated cost function to produce estimates of movements in the unconstrained production technology. We find that the regulation constraint is binding in most years and that scale economies explain 38 percent more growth in the unconstrained production space than they do in the regulation-constrained production space.We are grateful to Gary Biglaiser, David Guilkey, C. A. Knox Lovell, and Helen Tauchen for their suggestions, and to Karen Bauer, Philip Budzik, Ronald Colter, and Mary Streitwieser for their assistance in compiling the data sample. We are also grateful to the participants at the Georgia Productivity Workshop and two anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions.     

Understanding economic change: the impact of emotion

In this paper we aim to conceptualize the involvement of emotion in the processes of institutional emergence and change. The starting point of our proposal is the theory of change that has been developed by Douglass North since the 1990s and has recently culminated in the publication of “Understanding the process of economic change” (2005). We agree with North in considering change as an endogenous process which starts in the individual mind through a modification of mental models and beliefs. However, notwithstanding the value that North attributes to the cognitive components of change, his approach assigns no specific role to emotion. Based on recent findings on emotions and their contribution to the process of thought, we will suggest how North’s approach may be extended in order to explore some basic mechanisms of the interaction between institutions and feelings.     

博弈论原理在社会有关领域中的应用

文章利用博弈论的原理、理论工具将其应用在社会中的公安战线、经济领域、环境冶理、家庭关系等方面进行了论述,同时指出博弈论应用范围很广,深入掌握和运用它对于提高效益具有十分重要的意义。     

Current validity of the Delphi method in social sciences

The Delphi method is a popular technique for forecasting and an aid in decision-making based on the opinions of experts, which has been in existence for over half a century. This work evaluates its methodology and reviews its validity in the present day, especially in the area of Social Sciences. Three recent applications in this field are also explained, professional in nature, which have some characteristics that are not frequent with respect to other Delphi studies published. The main aim of two of these studies was to provide input for economic or statistical quantitative models, using the judgement of expert groups, while the third study aimed to analyse a complex social reality by means of a Policy Delphi in order to obtain reliable information before taking a policy decision. These applications highlight how this technique may be adapted to different social realities and requirements, making a positive contribution to social progress, provided it is applied with the necessary methodological rigour and with a good knowledge of the social medium in which it is being applied. Finally, there is an explanation of a number of lessons learned from the theory and aforementioned experiences, which may contribute to the successful outcome of a Delphi exercise.     

Substitution in consumption: An application to the allocation of time

In this article, we have constructed a model, where the commodity-price effect and the good- price effect in a Becker-Lancaster model are related, and the relevance of factor substitution in consumption technology can be verified. A first application is made to the allocation of time for Belgian data.     

An analysis of the process generating de facto standards in the PC spreadsheet software market

This paper develops a model to analyze the emergence of de facto or market defined compatibility standards in the market for PC spreadsheet software over the period 1982–1988. The model is capable of integrating diverse fragments of empirical evidence and a number of important theoretical building blocks, in particular the analysis of gateways between different versions of the same package, product preannouncements, and diverse consumer tastes towards intrinsic quality and network externalities. The model also explores the implications of different functional forms for the relationship between installed base and the value of network externalities. The paper finds that at least some enhancements to the basic model of standards have to be incorporated to offer a reasonable approximation to developments in the PC spreadsheet software market. The simplest model of de facto standards is not able to describe developments in this market.     

Assessment of social implications of nanotechnologies in Japan: Application of problem structuring method based on interview surveys and cognitive maps

This paper aims at developing a problem structuring method based on interview surveys of key stakeholders and a well-known visualizing technique, called a “cognitive map.” We found that this new method, based on an interactive process with key stakeholders, was able to draw broader and more detailed issues than was previously anticipated. We also found that the proposed method was useful for the analysis of the societal implications of emerging technologies, such as nanotechnologies, which are not easily defined. It is confirmed that the proposed method can clarify common and diversified issues based on the perception of key stakeholders and identify additional stakeholders to be interviewed.     

The impact of technical change on the aggregate production function

This study endeavours to look at both disembodied technical progress and embodied technical progress in the capital stock and in the labour force in the United States over the period 1947–80. The results suggest that disembodied technical progress has been about 3% per year, embodied technical progress in the capital stock is approximately 3–4% per year and educational attainment significantly enhances labour productivity. Finally, when the issue of structural stability of the underlying production relationship is addressed, the period 1971–80 gives rise to some inconsistency.     

The Innovation impact model: a tool t0 study the impact of technological change

This article shows that the builders of interorganizational information systems (IOSs) struggle most with the problem of whether to build them alone or in an alliance mode. It is suggested that the situation should be studied in the light of the transaction costs involved in the application ofthe IOS. The nature of the application to be handled through the IOS should be the main detemrlnant of IOS design. According to the study, as derived from the transaction cost approach, applications with low transaction

costs are suitable for alliance networks whereas those with high transaction costs should be constructed from an organization's own resources. A market-hierarchy/decision-maker model for determining the righi way to participate in IOSs is introduced. There is a visible trend leading to a proportionally greater use of markets. Information technology lowers transaction costs, and more and more products and services become suitable for marketing through IOSs. A case example is dmwn from the Finnish Insurance Industry, where direct writing is the dominant governance structure. The transaction costs in motor vehicle insurance are studied.